The Zanzibar Tour Days 16, 17, and 18

June 11, 2023 – Day 16 of the Old Legs Zanzibar Tour – from Nova Madeira, Mozambique to a bush camp 30 kilometers into Tanzania.

Distance – 102 kilometers
Time – 8 hours 54 minutes
Total ascent – 783 m
Av heart rate – 108 bpm
Max heart rate – 180 bpm

Deep sand traversed – much more than the Sahara desert. Today was all about the 4-letter word, sand.

We spent our last night in Mozambique camped at a safari camp near a town called Nova Madeira. Christopher the overlander arrived fashionably late and well after dark after getting stuck in deep sand.

I say camping, but I have done Nova Madeira a huge disservice. At very short notice, they were able to put us up in a mixture of luxury 4-poster beds and mattresses on the floor, plus hot showers, plus WiFi, plus the best French fries ever. After another very tough, very long day in the saddle and in trucks, Nova Madeira was heaven sent. Thank you Gary, Emily, Geraldo and Joao.

It was fitting that we spent our last night in the remote vastness that is the Niassa Province in a town that Google Maps has absolutely no knowledge of. The girl on Google Maps really needs to get out more.

The bush and the indigenous forests around Nova Madeira hunting area were stunning, among the best I have ever seen. The sand was also right up there. We got off to a less than auspicious start in the sand.

We bumped into a professional guide and a large group of students obviously on a field trip, almost literally. The guide and his students were on their haunches, very excited about some very fresh lion spoor in the road.

Kim rode up to the group to find out what all the fuss was about, but rather than dismount, she fell off her bike in sand, and on top of Zack who was riding next to her. Kim landed next to lion pug marks in the sand that were huge, big like her riding helmet.

The only road to Zanzibar out of Nova Madeira was the road the lions were patrolling, so we had no choice but to follow them. We deployed Jenny and Gary out front in the black Isuzu to spot, and rode in a tight bunch with the other Isuzu tucked in close behind, for just in case.

Riding through the most beautiful woodland in the crisp early morning fresh, on top of equally fresh lion spoor with heightened senses, it doesn’t get much better than that. The lion spoor veered off the road after a few kilometers and seemingly forever, but I am sure he was a magnificent specimen.

The lion spoor was soon replaced by more lion spoor, then leopard spoor, then hyena tracks, then lion again, then buffalo, then eland and then a whole bunch of other spoor that we couldn’t identify. And some it was very fresh. Angus and Alastair saw lion spoor on top of the tyre tracks of a truck that had passed us minutes earlier. Animal traffic on the road was clearly busy, busy, busy, but alas, we never saw a single animal.

But the bicycles are not the best game viewing vehicles, especially in thick bush and even thicker sand. You are forced to focus all your attention on your front wheel. Bicycles also allow you to feel quite edible, so I was mindful to ride next to Rafe, who has more meat on him.

Despite all the focus and close attention, we were able to fall off our bikes innumerable times. I watched Kim fishtail violently half a dozen times and at speed in thick sand before veering off the road to crash in the bush instead.

I came around a corner and found Clem making sand angels with his arms, lying on his back vulnerable like a tortoise, still cleated and trapped with his bicycle above him. And because that looked such fun, Rafe tried exactly the same dismount around the next corner.

And then to break the monotony of falling off our bikes in the sand, every tsetse fly in creation popped in to feed on the peloton for lunch. Tsetse flies especially like feasting on people wearing blue, yellow and black, coincidentally the colour of our ride kit. Fortunately we had packed khaki kit to ride in for when the tsetse flies decided to feast, but unfortunately our khaki kit was in the truck. Rafe boasts 56 bites on his back. Pete has fewer bites but his are more like welts and are more impressive. Oh what fun we had.

Before moving on, I have to make mention again of the bush we rode through. Thousands of square kilometers of absolutely pristine Miombo woodland, with not a bag of charcoal in sight. Riding through it is the highlight of my Tour thus far, despite the sand and despite the tsetse flies.

And then there was the Matchedje border post. Obscure is a word that comes to mind. As we approached the border, from about 10 kilometers out, our dirt road deteriorated into little more than a heavily rutted track, complete with deep mud, puddles and heavily laden trucks and motorbikes coming the other way that we had to dodge. There was not a single sign to tell us that we were approaching an international border. My spider senses were shouting to me that we were on the wrong road. But because my Portuguese still doesn’t extend much beyond good morning, how are you and Christiano Ronaldo, I couldn’t double check with the locals.

The border town of Matchedje itself was two dozen tatty houses and huts, and no stores that I could see. There was a historical monument though. The ruling party Frelimo a.k.a the Front for the Liberation of Mozambique, held their II Congress a.k.a. the Congress of Victory in 1968 in the liberated town of Matchedje and sowed the fruits of freedom with a constitution brimful of noble stuff about power to the people, and establishing political, social and economic structures free from exploitation of men by men, blah, blah, blah. I was interested to read they wanted to hold their Congress in the province of Cabo Delgado next door, but couldn’t, because of the war raging there. Fast forward 55 years and the fruits of freedom have yet to be harvested. Cabo Delgado remains a no-go zone because of war, and the poor people of Matchedje don’t look too liberated.

The Mozambique Department of Immigration made the most of their opportunity to confound us one last time before we exited on our transit visas by taking mug shot photos and finger prints. My finger prints don’t finger print for some reason and 5 failed attempts later, they told me I was cleared to leave. They didn’t ask me for any more details on my late mom and dad.

But there was one last hoop to jump through. Before we crossed the boom, we had to report to the police so they could capture all our personal details in a big book by hand. And all the while we watched local Tanzanians and Mozambiqueans seemingly coming and going as they pleased, with not a passport in sight. To tell the truth, I felt discriminated against.

Once we were through the hoops, we rode across the Rovuma river and into Tanzania. It was flowing strongly with dirty mud red water. I couldn’t see any crocodiles.

As much as I enjoyed Mozambique, I am very happy to be in Tanzania. It is organized, albeit chaotically, and my Swahili is more fluent than my Portuguese. I am able to greet people in 2 different ways, Mambo and Jambo. Already my favourite word in Swahili is pole pole, which means slowly. Which is how things work in Tanzania. But at least they work.

Which is more than can be said about Zimbabwe. In 1980 Julius Nyerere told Bob that he’d inherited a jewel and not to cock it up. But alas, Bob never listened. Fast forward 43 years and Zimbabwe is all cocked up. It now takes 120 of our largest denomination bank notes to buy a single loaf of bread because surprise, surprise, our piece of shit Zim dollar is in free fall once again. For the second time in ten years, we are suffering hyperinflation i.e. where prices increase by more than 50% in a month. Please forgive my profanities, but I am so pissed off. When we left home, the black market rate was 3600 to the US. Just over 2 weeks later, the rate is nudging 14000 to 1.

I have pensioners whose pensions were worth the equivalent of USD $18 in the good old days, 2 weeks ago. Their pensions are now worth just USD$ 6.84. I am also told 1.3 kg chickens were priced on the supermarket shelf at USD 28.00. To flog this horse to death, my old guy has to save every cent he earns for 4 months to buy a single chicken. Alas.

We are riding to Zanzibar to raise money and awareness for Zimbabwe’s pensioners. Our Old Legs Medical Fund is now officially overwhelmed. Please help us by following the donate prompts below.

In closing a big shout out to Sasha, Romeo, Sienna and Charlotte Henon from Clem a.k.a. Papa. He misses you guys big lots and can’t wait to see you.

Until my next blog from Songea, Tanzania, have fun, do good and do epic if you can – Eric Chicken Legs de Jong.

* Names and images may have been changed for privacy reasons

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June 12, 2023 – Day 17 of the Old Legs Zanzibar Tour – from a bush camp in Tanzania to Songea, also in Tanzania.

Distance – 105 kilometers
Time – 8 hours 27 minutes
Total ascent – 1218 m
Av heart rate – 130 bpm
Max heart rate – 183 bpm.

You know when you’ve arrived in Tanzania from Mozambique because straight away God gives you a whole extra hour for free, or he takes it away, I can’t remember which. And all because Tanzania runs on East Africa Time while Mozambique, also on the east coast of Africa, runs on Central African Time.

It is all very confusing, not just for me but also for the sun itself. In Tanzania the sun is very slow to get out of bed in the morning and only rises at 06.30. Which means we get to start riding when it is still almost dark. Which is what we used to do in Mozambique anyway, so I don’t get the point.

Tanzania is also more in your face affluent than Mozambique. They don’t do scraggly huts with see-through thatching, and aspire to complex and incredibly steeply pitched corrugated iron roofs instead. And all the houses are strictly numbered, I think for tax purposes. People in Tanzania use their roofs as status symbols, and the steeper and more complex the better.

I think the steep roofs are a hand-me-down from the German colonial days and are specially designed to minimize snow build up. We saw zero snow so they clearly do the job.

The motorbikes in Tanzania are also more pimped up. And hardly anyone transports cargo by bicycle. And Tanzania is peaceful with Muslims and Christians living alongside each other no problem, even though the Muslim mullah guy wakes everyone up twice before it gets light. I think if I was a poor Mozambican, I would sneak into Tanzania on a dinghy.

We were met at the Tanzanian border by Ryan Wienand. Ryan and his wife Lise have adopted the Old Legs Tour as a cause, and will help us all the way through to Zanzibar.

Without Ryan’s help, we would most probably still be stuck at the border waiting on Pete Brodie to clear. NB If there is going to be a hold up at an African border post, you can bet an Australian will be at the bottom of it. I think it is because they look so smug after winning the World Cup for test cricket. NB That is the first bit of world news I have heard since leaving Harare.

Ryan camped with us on our first night and scooped the Tall Green Hero’s Hat for his efforts and despite Vicky Bowen nominating him for Dick of the Day. Vicky ended up in pink instead for her efforts.

Ryan also organized lots of hills for us on our first day of riding in Tanzania, some of which he said would be fun. Halfway up the very steepest one, I thought Vicky might have had a point about Ryan being D.O.D.

We climbed non-stop all day. Apart from a few 15% gradient shockers towards lunchtime, Ryan’s fun climbs, it was just a slow and steady up hill grind, unless you were riding a green bike. I can confirm that green bikes are far much faster than blue bikes and silver bikes. I fairly flew up the hills on my borrowed Scott spare bike, mostly because my bottom was in such a hurry to get off the skinny-arsed racing saddle.

We rode into the crazy busy town of Songea. It is a riot of colour and a cacophony of street noise with blaring street music and tuk-tuks honking hooters as they take non-existent gaps in wall-to- wall traffic. It was very cool to get caught up in all of that.

We have decided to swap out our rest day in 4 days time for an extra day in Songea to get re-organized, which is not to say we were ever organized in the first place. We all came out of the Niassa Province rather stinky and badly in need of some laundry, ditto the support vehicles, especially the Isuzu that Vicky turned into a guacamole storage unit.

Which means we have 8 days of riding in front of us before our next rest day, by which time we will all be stinky again. We will ride east towards the coast and then cut inland towards the Selous Game Reserve where tsetse flies and other animals live.

We are riding to Zanzibar to raise money and awareness for Zimbabwe’s pensioners. The generation that built our country have been left with nothing after 30 years of ongoing economic stupid. I received an appeal yesterday from an elderly lady who was rushed to hospital with a severe chest infection and needed assisted breathing following.

Because government hospitals in Zimbabwe don’t work, her ambulance driver rushed her to a swanky private hospital. NB I wouldn’t be surprised if the swanky hospital doesn’t give the ambulance drivers a kick back. Alas. Her entire life savings totaling £5000 have been wiped out as in obliterated by a 5 day stay in the hospital’s ICU, leaving her penniless and still sick.

Please help us help her and countless others by following the donate prompts below.

In closing a big shout out to Kai, Harper and Harry from Pops. He misses you guys big time. And much love and hugs from Eric and Nana to Jocelyn, Cailyn, Colton and Teagan.

Until my next blog from out next bush camp +/- 130 km and some hills east of Songea, have fun, do good and do epic – Eric Chicken Legs de Jong

June 14 2023 – Day 18 of the Old Legs Zanzibar Tour – from Songea to a bush camp on the edge of the Selous Niassa Wildlife Corridor

Distance – 126 kilometers
Total time elapsed- 8 hours 34 minutes
Total ascent – 1345 m
Av heart rate – 137 bpm
Max heart rate – 188 bpm

I enjoyed my Eureka Day today. My mojo has been missing in action, lost in my kitbag since the beginning of Tour, but I came right today. Which is not to say I still didn’t come into camp stone bone last, but I so enjoyed my day on the bike. There is nowhere else in the world I’d rather be, nothing else I’d rather be doing, and no one else I’d rather be doing it with, apart from maybe Stinky Watermeyer who threw me on the head with an empty can at the breakfast stop. Luckily I was still wearing my helmet.

You will remember we swopped our next rest day due on the 15th for a reorganization day in Songea. My sock drawer at home is testimony to my challenges with reorganization, but yesterday was bliss. I was reunited with my clean underwear last seen in Malawi. But best of all I was reunited with my bike. Angus worked his magic and replaced my derailleur and repaired as best he could, my frayed derailleur cable and my bike is like new. It is still slow as compared to the spare Scott bike but it is comfortable like an old pair of slippers.

Our huge thanks to Oscar and Graeme at Revélo Bike Barn for facilitating our big bag of bike spares.

We ventured into Songea for lunch. We had to hire 6 tuk-tuks to ferry the team, 3 up per tuk-tuk.

Pete, Jenny and I quickly chose the green one, the same colour as my very fast spare bike. Our tuk-tuk was piloted by Mr Frank wearing aviator sunglasses, even though his vision was completely obscured by a huge sticker of Che Guevara on the windscreen. It was easily the coolest tuk-tuk in the fleet.

Unfortunately it was also completely knackered and couldn’t make it up the hills without Pete and I de-bussing and walking them. Mr Frank did his best to play catch up in the hectic traffic that is Songea. Non-existent gaps become even less existent in a tuk-tuk with a top speed of 15 k.p.h.max.

Our trip into town was hair raising, even though I am bald. Shame, I felt sorry for Mr Frank. Despite being hugely distracted during the trip by Jenny’s loud and constant calls to both Jesus and God for help, he delivered us to the restaurant safe and sound, albeit a bit late, and then we go and dump him in favour of a blue tuk-tuk for the trip back to our accommodations.

After a hard few days in a borrowed saddle, today’s ride of 125 kilometers complete with 1350 meters of up, loomed large and threatening like a big thunder cloud for my wounded bottom. So I decided to go with triple-padding.

Triple padding can be a high-risk strategy. You sit taller in the saddle than when you stand, and in 30 plus degree heat, there is the risk of severe global warming in your nether regions. But the gamble paid off and me and my cosseted bottom enjoyed our big day out hugely.

We luxuriated glorious wide tar with a generous yellow line all day, courtesy of pre-Trump American taxpayers. It was glorious and took the heat off the fact that we were sharing the road with a steady stream of coal trucks heading to the port of Mtwara.

We had been pre-warned about the coal trucks and were dreading a Chirundu highway type experience, but the truck drivers were all well- mannered and courteous, and all was good on the road.

Even more glorious than the tar were the views we enjoyed. The horizons in Tanzania are vast, especially when seen from the top of big, bloody hills, and we were able to look down upon thousands of square kilometers of pristine woodland and bush, stretching away as far as the eye can see. After the charcoal carnage in Malawi and Mozambique, I wanted to hug each and every tree.

I was also quite keen to hug it up with the people we met along the road. I like Tanzanians. They are gentle and polite and less in your face than Mozambicans and Malawians. I shared a fist pump with the one very enthusiastic little guy that almost went horribly wrong. He had fists of granite and packed a punch like Mike Tyson.

We are bush camping on the side of the road in a veritable forest of beautiful trees. There is not a single mopane tree in sight, but we have been overwhelmed by every mopane fly in creation, looking to feast upon our sweat and tears, and also Brian’s earwax.

Brian celebrated our campsite by getting Christopher in deep sand. He and George were excited like kids on Christmas Day when they got to extract Christopher using the snatch strap. It made for jolly exciting watching.

We are getting the hang of this bush camping and should have it taped by the time we get to Zanzibar. Zack was a camping rookie when we left Harare but is now a seasoned veteran. At 71 years young, Zack is the second senior man on Tour. If I am half as spunky as Zack at his age, I will be very happy.

The only fly in my ointment were the 2 poacher snares we found in the bush around camp. I hate poachers more than I hate charcoal lumberjacks.

I also hate the people who have destroyed Zimbabwe. Back home I am told that 18 rolls of toilet paper in the supermarket will now cost you $132980. Alas.