21 February

21 February

Mchiji – Lilongwe

68 Miles

Erik:

Today was a good day. We got breakfast in bed for 1USD. Super win.

Started out at around 8am. The weather was really nice. On our way out of town there were no cars but tons of bicycles and people walking. A whole new kind of rush hour traffic. All the kids run after us and scream "MIZUNGU!!!". Sometimes they sing it, like a chant. Haha. We saw a church choir singing by the road. That was cool.

At one point we saw some people selling bananas on the side of the road so we stopped for a snack. I wanted 4 and thought it was 50KW (15 cents) per banana, so I gave him 200KW. It ended up being 3 bananas for 50KW. The guys started loading our bags with 12 huge bananas. We were both confused. It was hilarious. He seemed pretty happy though. We ended up eating a third of them and gave away the rest to an old man hanging out by a mosque.

Everyone is super friendly. This is Africa. What I thought it would be. The colors, the singing, the sniles. There are crops everywhere. People people people. It's nice.

One of my favorite moments of the day was this little girl, about 3 or 4, who just stood, mouth open, on the side of the road and pointed at steph the whole time as we rode by. With a completely baffled look on her face. MIZUNGU!!! A white girl on her bike!

It was a great day. Long but great. Just as we were about to enter Lilongwe (the captial), it started raining cats and dogs. We got soaked. We came into Mabuya camp around 3pm. I was putting the bikes away and, lo and behold, two more bikes!!! I enquired about who the riders were and found them. Jorge and Benjamin de Chile. They had actually heard of us in Namibia, from Martin, the Argentine motorcyclist we ran into in Botswana! They also met Johan, the german cyclist we met in Namibia. Small world! They have been doing the same route as us and are now heading south into Mozambique. It would have been cool to continue riding with them for a bit. But oh well. We hung out with them the rest of the night swapping stories. It turns out they hated Garies, in South Africa, just as much as we did. Haha!

MIZUNGU!!!! MIIIIIZUNGU!!!!!!

These ladies were all smiles until I said, "three!" Then it was all business. They were so nice