My trip to Cape Town: Istanbul to Lusaka (via Nairobi, Arusha, Dodoma, Iringa, Mbeya, Tunduma, Mpika, Kabwe)

The flight from Istanbul was in the night and took about seven hours to Nairobi.

In the morning I could see Mt Kenya.

At the airport I was helped to call my warmshower host and we decided to meet downtown outside a hotel

Obviously this was a well known meeting point, because many Kenyan people waited like me for several hours.I learned that time does not count in Africa.

Finally my host Stephen came and he suggested that we should take a local bus to his house. To take my bike and all my panniers on the roof of the bus was not a problem.

Stephen lived in a little flat in this house. He was very proud that he was the only one in his neighborhood who owned a car. He had imported it by himself from Japan. His wife made us a typical African meal.

In the evening he brought me with his car to his brothers apartment, which was quite modern.

There I told them about my experiences as a touring bicyclist.

Next morning I started early and rode through Nairobi in rush hours. Stephen lived about 30 km north-east and I was going south, so I biked through the center. There was a bicycle lane but it was impossible to bike on it because there were people walking everywhere! And the buses were stuck in the traffic jam...

Finally I passed the town and everything was much calmer.

I saw my first termite mounds and other interesting animals.

The traffic soon was not so dense and the road was good.

In the evening I came to a school where I was invited to stay for the night.

I slept in my tent in a class room and early next morning the kids came.

Officially the school started at 7 am but the teacher came around 7:30.

I had a short talk about my trip for class 7.

Then I left the school and bought some food and water in a typical African shop in the village.

During the day I passed many more schools,

Here they seem to have outdoor education

I also saw a grey Cacatoo.

The outfit of the inhabitants was very colorful.

The tribe living in the area always has red clothes.

Here some more birds

and an impressive bull

Soon I came to the border to Tanzania.

As I came further south I sometimes could guess the shape on Mt Kilimanjaro but mostly it was hidden behind the clouds. The neighbor mountain Mt Meru was clearly visible.

There were many grazing donkeys around

Livestock was watched by shepherds.

Although I only had a 14 days visa for Tanzania I decided in Makuyuni to visit Ngorogoo Crater. I thought that if I took a minibus to it I could ride back next day.

There were already three sheep inside the trunk, but that was not a problem.

When there were about seventeen people in the bus (and their luggage and three sheep and my bike) we started. But that was not a reason for the driver to not pick up more people along the road. At most we were 25 people in the bus,

Finally (after a lot of African bureaucracy) I was able to enter the national park in another car. (It was not possible to enter with a bike).

At the entrance there were a lot of monkeys

The view over the crater edge was terrific. You could see herds of animals among the lakes in the 20 km wide caldera.

After a picnic we drove along the crater edge and soon we saw buffaloes very close to the road.

They were really cute!

Near a lodge we saw a big elephant.

He came very close to the house

and was really gigantic!

We also saw some antelopes behind the lodge.

Then I left the national park and continued my trip South.

Along the road it was easy to find food,

But soon the road became very bad. There were many steep hills, big stones, deep sand and corrugations...

But even interesting lizards

and interested kids.

One evening I knocked at a door to ask if it was ok to camp outside the house I was invited to come in and pitch my tent in their yard. What I learned to know later was that it was a muslim family (grandparents, two daughters, with their husbands and three kids each) who were not allowed to eat before it was dark. And then they had a feast all night long, so I could not sleep!

Next morning I said good bye to the grand parents and realized that I could not make to the border before my visa expired. The road was so bad that I could make hardly 100 km the day before. And 100 or more was necessary. So I decided to ride to the next town Kondoa to take a bus to Meia Meia, which is about 115 km

I was told that the bus should go at noon and that it should take 2,5 hours. Actually it took about 4 hours...

In the evening I passed Dodoma and next day I continued on a good road

Although I thought the weather was warm the people around thought I was crazy. They often had several layers of coats because it was winter for them.

One evening I came to a big dam called Mtera Reservoir. I asked a guard at the power station if I could take a swim in the lake but he said that there were a lot of crocodiles in it. Despite his warnings I found a very nice camping spot close to the power station.

While the sun was going down I washed my laundry in the lake,

Next morning my tent was surrounded by curious monkeys!

When I went down to the lake to shave my face I suddenly saw two crocodiles swimming towards me

The smaller one of them disappeared close to the place where I had washed my laundry the evening before. I decided to shave my face close to my tent and use my drinking water. The slope between the shore and the tent was to steep and to rocky for a crocodile...

The following days I found out that it was very easy and cheap to eat at restaurants.

Sometimes I paid only about one or two dollars for a complete meal, so there was no idea to make it by myself.

I passed many beautiful mountains

and even blue(!) water lilys.

Short after Iringa I visited Isimila stone age site, a place I really liked

It is a little like Grand Canyon but very local. The sand stone was once covered by harder volcanic rock which prevented it from erosion.

Now you can find huge pillars, some of them hollow. Can you see me?

At the sight I even met two danish families. The girl below is inside the same pillar as me.

It was really a place worth seeing.

I also met a lot of bicyclists because a bicycle is an important vehicle for transportation in Africa. Sometimes they load more than 100 kg on a bike!

Everything is sold along the road. Here you can see beans in different colors.

I told the girls that I did not want to buy their beans, I just wanted to take a picture of them because they had so nice colors.

When I offered them a coin each I was allowed to take a picture of them as well.

In Tunduma I passed the order to Zambia.

When I took my map to fold it in a different way. immediately there was a crowd

Probably many of them never had seen a road map of Africa...

But crowds gathered everywhere I stopped.

The strange thing was that often you could not see any houses and still the road was full of walking people.

Sometimes it was difficult to find a good places to use as a toilet. And in the evenings it could be very difficult to find a place for my tent. Everything was dark besides my torch, so people discovered me when I was looking for a sleeping place...

One thing that astonished me was that I did not see any touring bicyclist. Actually I did not see any white people (besides tome tourist at Ngorongoro and Isimili) for more than two weeks!

My bicycle had no problems since Sweden. I had a new front tire when I left and a worn out back tire (a Schwalbe Marathon Plus which already had made more than 10000 km). Now (after another 7000 km) you could see the blue Kevlar which seems to be stronger than the black rubber. Finally (the day before yesterday) I got my first puncture since may 2013, I discovered that the tube had got a hole because of friction. When I found my repair kit I realized that the rubber solution, (after ten weeks in hot black panniers) had evaporated completely. There was only air in the tube!

Some guys insisted to help me to change to my spare tube.

Somehow in the end I had to use a tool to get the tire over the rim (which I believe would not have happened if I had done it alone), The guys got all my biscuits and I continued. It was only 15 km to Kabwe, the next town but already after 2 km I realized that the tire was loosing pressure. And now i had no rubber solution and no more tube! And it was already 5 pm! I pumped my tire every second kilometer and hurried to Kabwe. But I did not think about that it was a Sunday and most shops were closed. Finally I found a guy in a car who was willing to guide me to a shop where I possibly could find a new tube. When we arrived there it was closed and the owner had just taken his bike to ride home. We stopped him in the very last second and he was willing til open the shop again so I could buy a new tube AND rubber solution!