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As we approached Victoria Falls, we could see a massive white plume of water vapor rising up in the distance that resulted from the explosion of millions of gallons of water hitting the pools at the bottom of the falls all at once. We’d blazed across Zimbabwe and headed quickly for the falls, which are listed as the seventh wonder of natural world for their beauty and sheer immensity.  Wondrous they were indeed.

Victoria falls, called in the indigenous tongue Mosi-oa-Tunya (The Smoke that Thunders) is a huge step in the torrent of the Zambeizi River that runs right along the border between Zambia and Zimbabwe.  They aren’t the tallest falls in the world, but based on their width, they are classed as the largest. The falls are formed by the plummet of the river into a transverse chasm that formed in a fracture zone of the basalt plateau that underlies the river and adjacent area for hundreds of kilometers in either direction. The Scottish explorer David Livingstone is believed to be the first European to view the falls in 1855.

We crossed the Zambezi river just upstream of the falls exiting from Zimbabwe and entering Zambia and had long miles to ride through Zambia to get to the other side.  We’d had our fill of charismatic animals in Botswana and the best national park in Zambia was all the way at the east end of the country.  So we rode and we camped.

And rode and camped.

We rode ten hours one day.  While I’d done this daily mileage often on my own, with Mike on the small bike and Jamie and I two up, it was about the most we could manage. The team was all tuckered out.

Tempers frayed on the road.

Even the Chinese Dream was letting the days of long miles wear her down.  Her chain hopped off of the sprocket, mangling part of the swingarm, but thankfully the chain and everything else was still in tact.  Mike couldn’t seem to get the chain to tension properly and we spent some hours at a gas  station until we sorted it out.  In any case, his chain was as cheap as they come and now had 4000 miles on it.  It was stretching as it wore out and he was nearly out of adjustment on the swingarm.  We had a 400 mile stretch of Zambia to cross with only very small villages that appeared very infrequently.  We spent a day in Lusaka trying to find a chain that would fit Mike’s bike but failed, so there was nothing to do but ride on and hope for the best.

We didn’t make in through the first long, remote stretch through Zambia with the gas in our tanks, but found some gas for sale in bottles in one of the villages. One night as we set up tents, we could hear the hyena’s high shrill laugh in carrying from across the valley. It was such a whimsical, benign-sounding call for such a fearsome beast.

We didn’t make our camp spot near South Luango Park until after dark and we had to ride 30 miles at a snails pace as the road turned to dirt and then became absolutely filled with villagers walking and riding bicycles.  In the dark, all of the people on the road were nearly invisible until you were nearly upon them.  There were too many bugs to ride with our visors up, but with our vision obscured by dirty visors, the danger of not seeing someone or an animal on the road in the dark was much greater.

We made our camp at a lodge on the bank the Luangwa River as it wound through Crocodile Valley.  On the opposite bank, crocodiles and hippos were plain to see baking themselves in the sun and floating just above the surface in the water.  The low rumbling calls of the hippos kept us on our toes all night long.  Hippos are the most dangerous animals in Africa, accounting for more deaths every year than any other animal. At one stage we could swear that they were right outside of our tent munching away on the grass.  When we asked the staff at the lodge, they told us that the hippos do sometimes come right up the bank where we were camped to graze.    He said to just stay inside our tents.  We had no trouble following his advice.

A couple hours before sunset we left in an open air truck for an animal spotting safari that would take us into the night.  Just before dark our guide stopped the truck in front of a flat grassy floodplain filled with grazing Impala. Lying flat in a shallow elongate depression there was a Leopard lurking stealthily where he had quietly sidled up near the impala. The impala were milling about less than 20 feet from the big cat. It was near impossible to see him as we held our breaths and peered through binoculars. And then, bang! In a flash, he sprung up and bolted for the adjacent hills.  His cover had been blown! Leopards rely on surprise when hunting and having been detected by the impala, he had to flee his hiding place.

As darkness fell, our guide switched on a spotlight and rhythmically scanned the brush for critters.  We saw loads of different mongooses, other small furry things and a porcupine. As we bounced towards a sandy wash a thick-necked brown-orange creature with white spots slowly crept right across the front of the truck.  Close-up and illuminated by the spotlight, the spotted hyena was more intimidating than in my imagination.  Half of this beast was jaws, neck and shoulders, and looked like it was built for tearing throats out and crunching bones. When they are alone, they are primarily scavengers, so there was no danger to us.  It’s when they travel in their pack that they are a true danger to man and beast alike.  After a brief look at us in the truck he moved silently out of sight into the brush and we remained sitting in the dark with our hearts thumping a bit faster.

From the northeast of Zambia we crossed into Malawi, headed for a beautiful spot on Lake Malawi that we’d heard about called N’kata Bay.  Lake Malawi sits at the southern end of the East-African Rift Zone, where continental crust is tearing itself apart as the African tectonic plate is actively diverging into two separate plates.  The split started about 25 million years ago and has been chugging away ever since at a rate of about 6-7 mm/yr. The result of all this fantastic tectonic action is some of the most dramatic and diverse geography in all of Africa.  In the highlands above the lake, rock domes of granitic and metamorphic rock towered above us and long steep valley stretched below.

As we descended towards the lake baboons covered the roads, fixing us in their unwavering steely gazes and puffing their chests out, daring us to ride closer.  We decided that they were in charge and the baboons usually won the staring contests

All of the millions of years of rifting have created a massive depression filled with a gorgeous lake of crystal clue water to jump into and snorkel around.  All about the shoreline, local kids did the same thing that we were doing – jumping off of rocks and looking for fish.

The people of Malawi are well known for their incredible friendliness, earning the country the moniker of ‘the warm heart of Africa’.  A local guy we met at the place we were camping named Kingston took us in a boat to the beach that fronts his home village where all of the men are fishermen that use canoes dugout from the trees.  Kingston said that it takes about 3 days to make one of these boats, but since they don’t have anything to seal the wood, they only last about a year before they are waterlogged and rotting.  On Kingston’s beach, the kids immediately came over to see the foreigners.  A little girl grabbed Jamie’s hand and a little boy did the same to Mike and I don’t think that either of them let go until we were ready to leave.  We shared a lunch of the local dish called sima and a seasoned mix of these tiny little fish that they catch in nets. Sima is a local staple that was cooked up right there on the beach from  a root that is kind of like a sweet potato. All of the kids ate together when the same woman served up lunch for them who had shared some with us.

We traveled north from N’kata bay towards the historic Scottish missionary site at Livingstonia.  Around the turn of the 19^th century, Scottish missionaries were trying to establish a colony down by the lake, but too many people were dying from Malaria, so they picked up and moved straight up the mountain.  The mountains here rise abruptly from the lake and the road up was 10 miles of tight switchbacks with a loose rocky surface.  Jamie and I proceeded gingerly up the steep grade in first gear most of the way. Every once in awhile we’d have a moment of excitement when my front wheel would hit a big rock or the rear would spin a bit trying to gain traction rounding one of the switchbacks.  What we found at the top made the journey more than worthwhile: an expat haven called The Mushroom Farm hung right on the edge of the cliff providing a stunning view of Lake Malawi and the terrain below.

We got to installing Mike’s new chain that he’d bought in Zambia from an Indian bike shop.   He was nearly out of adjustment on the swingarm and had dropped it 4 times on the way up to the Mushroom Farm. We removed the old chain and set about installing the new one, only to find that the chain was about a centimeter too short.  So close, but no matter, it just wouldn’t make it.  We’d have to steal a couple links from his old chain but we didn’t have a grinder to cut off the flared ends of the pins. It didn’t feel like a very good idea simply reinstalling the old one, but that’s what we did anyway.  At least he wouldn’t need the throttle much bouncing back down the rocky slope.

Lake Malawi is enormous.  Even at our perch high above the lake, we couldn’t see Tanzania on the other side.  Looking down at the perfectly tapered sandy points jutting out into the crystal blue water, I couldn’t help but imagine a nice lefthand wave peeling along it.  It just looked like it should be there.   All I ever got to see though were a few whitecaps and messy tiny shoaling waves one day when a storm ripped across the lake.  I swear that I would have tried to surf whatever there was if I’d had a craft on hand. I’m having surf withdrawals.

Further up the mountain, some local kids showed us a curtain of waterfall to duck behind.

In between hammock lounging sessions that is.

The  ride down from the Mushroom Farm was easier than the ride up, except that with Jamie bouncing forward into me on the rough steep slope, I felt like I was doing push-ups on the handlebars nearly the entire way.  We rode north along the lake shore towards the Tanzania border greeted by the friendly waves all along.

We had another fairly painless border crossing and rode into the southern highlands of Tanzania where the entire landscape was covered with crops of all kinds.  The whole place seemed to be one massive bountiful garden growing everything from cabbages to onions to wheat. We’d climbed so high that we actually got cold again after sweating through our jackets at the border crossing just an hour before. We stopped to put on some layers to guard from the chill wind whipping across the high plateau and rode on towards our first wild camp in Tanzania.

Mike’s chain was barely hanging on and would now drop from the chain ring at the slightest perturbation.

We ripped across the highlands all day and finally descended into the Valley of the Baobabs at dusk. We’ve got lots of ground to cover in Tanzania, but I’m hoping that the prize on the other side will be some waves to ride on the island of Zanzibar offshore of the capital city of Dar Es Salaam. We slept with the gnarled, thick trunked Baobabs clawing at the sky above us.