Glamorous Only in Retrospect: 12 January

12 January

51 Miles

Mazabuka – Kafue

Erik:

Today was a good day.

It started steep though. There was a good 16 miles to get out of where we were. At about 20 miles, we hit a massive downhill (after a pretty long uphill) into a valley. We went pretty fast for a while. It was hot and sunny until around 11am. So we pulled over at "Aunt Lilly's Rest Stop" for a coke and some samosas. While we were in there, another customer told us he saw a cyclist coming our way. So we relaxed for a while and then headed out. One km down the road we ran into Jeremy from France. He has been going since the beginning of September. He went through West Africa (Morocco to Senegal) and then took a plane to Lusaka. He's been here in Zambia for 2 days and already ran into 4 other cyclists. Us and a dutch couple who seem to be going our exact route and are about 2 days ahead of us. Now he's headed down to Jo-Burg.

After we talked to him, we made our climb out of the valley. We also started playing with the video camera. Stephanie's ipod also has a recording feature and it's pretty good. After the hill another long down hill. Really long actually, with some beautiful views. We headed straight into some super pelting rain (steph doesn't think this qualifies as a sentence). Super pelting rain. We were only about 3 miles from Kafue. Haha! So we were soaked, but the town was perfectly dry.

We walked around, got a sim card and found some food. Now we need to stretch. We're falling apart. Cycling is fine but everything hurts after only 5 minutes of walking.

Steph:

Today was beautiful! I love it! A lot of hills but the views are breath-taking.

I think the highlight of the day was buying some incredibly delicious bananas on the side of the road. Ten bananas for a dollar. What a deal. We inhaled them in less than 5 minutes. We finally got some sleep after two rather rough nights. The little hotel we're in is clean and pretty. Tomorrow we arrive in Lusaka at Gigi and Yuyu's house! I'm really quite excited about it.