The Great East Road

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Trip Start Feb 01, 2007 Previous
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  Lusaka, Zambia
Monday, March 26, 2007

"The Great East Road" is what the locals call the 600+km highway we just rolled and bumped our way up.  I know, I keep saying that our whole trip is biking up, but it really does feel that way.  (Of course, all that work gives me a great excuse to eat those chocolate coconut cookies we've found in Zambia.  Hands down the best sandwich cookie we've found in Africa so far.)  It's called the "East" road because it's the artery of the eastern half of Zambia which is uniquely shaped like a dumbbell, thanks to Congo hanging down. 
The views from the bicycle were good.  The first half being gently rolling hills with fun to look at rock outcroppings sticking up occasionally (having just read Bill Brysons, "A Short History of Nearly Everything", I spent a bit of time trying to figure out how that worked, not glacier drops, it's too random, not plates pushing on each other, again too random... bubbling gas?)  The second being more aggressive rolling hills, but more interesting to watch go by

01-Zambian sunrise

.  At this point we're north of Zimbabwe and the Lower Zambezi National Park.
The population has dropped again, still a lot of people and cute kids, just not as many as we found in Malawi.  We seem to scare the little kids, riding up on our bikes to take a break.  Not infrequently someone around 18months bursts into tears and runs for Mom when we pull up.  Sorry little guy!  The older kids laugh and try to explain that the "Mazungu" (white man) isn't too scary.
On the subject of how we get water, we fill up our bottles at the hotel or campsite before heading out in the morning then purify it with either a little highly concentrated chlorine bottle we got in the states or the less concentrated chlorine they sold almost everywhere in Malawi that was provided by USAid.  While in route, we have found the easiest way to get water is at the village wells.  Most of those wells are also provided by donations of some sort, so thanks to all of you who have donated to an "African help" type organizations, we're probably benefiting from that.  Getting water from the well is fun because we can interact with the people who are washing their laundry or getting cooking/drinking water.  As one of the pictures shows, sometimes we gather quite a crowd while looking for where that village hid their well.  It starts with us asking a person near the road "Do you have a well?"  Then them asking around to see if anyone understands what we're saying.  That usually takes a while to flush out the local English speaker who comes over and after a few introductions, what's your name, where are you biking from, where did you start, what nationality are you..., gets around to walking us to the well.  As you can imagine by this time there are quite a few people who have come over to see why the two bicyclists have stopped.  It's fun!
Continuing to head Southwest, heading towards Livingstone and Victoria Falls.

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02-Me on the Luangwa bridge	03-Women running erronds	04-A Zambian village	05-Matt's bike at the pump
06-Biking down the Great East Road	07-Getting water

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