THE SPONSOR OF MY BICYCLE SPARE PARTS IS COMPANY PRODUCING FINE BICYCLE SADDLES
www.abi.com.pl I had a bit of a false start on my way north because I first went on the road to Mulubezi which was too sandy to continue on with any reasonable progress so I had to back-track to the main road.
I finally started moving north once again, first to Shesheke then further on a "gravel" road up the Zambezi to Senanga and after some time I started to experience what it is like in Zambia on a secondary road. Sand, up and down hills with no signs, only small villages that look very similar and built of local materials. All of them pure and all of them remote. Women carrying water in 20 L gerry cans, men working in the fields and kids screaming "Mukula, mukula, mukula" when they saw me.
Daily I could do an average of 70-80 km, if I was lucky. Almost every day I got 5 or more flat tyres, the sun was beating down on me and the sweat was draining my body but the kind people everywhere I went was a nice surprise, all very helpful.
On the second day when I was staying in a small compound, I accidentally drank water from the Zambezi River and this was the main cause of "Mezi Mamba"
The next day diorrhea and fever knocked me down hard. I did only 12 km cycling and was lucky enough to find a rural clinic where I got to take a malaria test to make sure that it was not malaria and I also got some pills from a doctor although I was laying in the stinky hall of a clinic trying to cope.
Finally I got a bit better and some other good people I met took care of me by giving me food and offerring me a place to pitch my tent.
The next day I felt well enough to continue on.
I finished this 200 km passage with a 20 km trip up the river in a motor boat in the light of a full moon with the Zambezi in full flood.
In Senanga I got my dinner and enjoyed fresh fruits from the market, reluctantly leaving to Mongu in the late morning to complete another 105 km along a fairly pleasant tar road.