8 July, Monday: and INTO Zimbabwe

Throughout the night we heard this loud chopping sound as if a helicopter was flying just above our heads. We pretended the sound was just a fan spinning in our tent and eventually got to sleep, only to be woken up at 4 am again by the same noise. We then discovered that the sound comes from Kapenta fishing boats the locals use which has an enormous flat net that's dropped into the water with a big spot light luring the fish in.

We were up at first light eager to start our new adventure in Zim. I am the only one who hasnt been into Zim before and having heard so much about the country and so many friends from there, I really have been so excited about seeing and exploring Zim. Just Dad and I on the bikes again and Mom and Chris making an excellent support team, although Chris is feeling a bit of FOMO, it's best he fully recovers from his fall. We only cycled 5 km down the hill before getting to the border post. We stamped our passports on the Zambian side and cycled over the magnificent Kariba Dam Wall. The water level is so low at the moment, enhancing the magnitude of the wall. It was phenomenal, looking over the wall and down into the Zambezi gorge. And just like that, we crossed the bridge and into Zim we were.

Cycling over Kariba Dam Wall

Looking over the wall into the Zambezi

We were the only ones at the border post and went in and out there quickly with a nice long 70 km escarpment waiting for us to climb. With slighly pap legs, and a tender bottom and a very hot day already (28 degrees) we aimed for the climb. Just as we got going we bumped into a lone sub-adult ellie, relaxing under a shady tree. It did'nt seem to mind us being there, until dad and I nervously hurried past, disturbing him. Luckily we had a descent, giving us a chance to speed up a bit.

Then the ascent really began. Just a long narrow, bumpy tar road climbing up the mountain ahead of us. We peddled...and peddled, continuing up the hill for 32 km all we did was climb. It was stunning in the valley, with rolling hills of dry mopani trees. Some patches we passed were just mopani thicket, some still having their browny-orange leaves.

We finally reached the top of one of the hills with a lovely long downhill where we had a bit of time to relax our legs and as we got to the bottom, there was our support team who had prepared a nice lunch for us. We unfortunately had run out of time as we still needed to get to Nyamepi Camp in Mana Pools and the gate closes at 15:00. At our relief, we loaded the bikes and headed up the rest of the escarpment. Two hours later, we were in Mana Pools, on a very corregated gravel road at a very slow speed. The bushveld was dusty and dry mopani veld, some of the mopani's the sizes of leadwoods as well as gorgeous baobabs with the most bizarre shapes of twisted branches. It took us an hour and a half to finally get to the camp without seeing a thing, except 4 ellies, but as we neared the Zambezi, we saw impala, zebbies and baboons and the bush started livening up. We set up our camp at dusk, right on the mighty Zambezi river, the sun creating a beautiful setting over the African bush listening to the sounds of the hippos snorting. Once we had our fire going, we made our way to the ablution blocks for a shower and a hyena casually strolled past and an ellie was munching a tree right next to our camp. After we had a braai, a hippo came out the water right by our fire greeting us. While washing dishes, the same hyena was still wondering around, waiting for leftovers. We then quickly jumped into our tents and went to sleep listening to the hippo's grunting.

As we captured the sunset we set up our camp

Spotted Hyena caught trying to steal some leftovers

Cycled: 41.80 km

Time: 2:25 hrs

Ave speed: 16.8 km/hr

Ascent: 569 m