Monday, 2nd April 2007

To: Rhumpi

Let the adventure begin! Looking on a map, and wanting to generally head southwardly, it seemed the next reasonable destination would be Rhumpi. Great, I thought, I've never been there before. So, I started talking with some locals last night who informed me that the "only" way to get to Rhumpi was to go back down to Chitimba Beach and take the main road. "Oh, no, no, no, no," I said. (Annett hates it when I do that - argue with locals. She always says, "Leigh Anne, I think they know more than you do." Anyway, on with the story...) I told them that I saw on the map another road that goes direct from Livinstonia to Rhumpi, without going back down. They said, "No, no, there is no other road." I said, "I CAN'T go back that way! Do you know how long it took me to get my butt up here?" I went to get my map out of my bag. I came back with it and opened it. I named for them the 2 or 3 villages that appeared to be along the "direct" route.

Finally, one of them said, "Ahhh, yes, there is a road that way. But no car goes that way. It's impassable."

But the other argued with the first, saying, "She's on a bike, though. I think she can do it."

The first said, "Well, it will take 2 or 3 days."

I said, "2 or 3 days!!!??" I looked at my map again. It didn't look very far. Maybe 70-80 km.

He said, "But the road is rough, I'm telling you. And very mountainous."

Then the other (Mr. Optimistic) said, "I think you could do it in one day, if you start early." Those words were magic to my ear, so I latched onto them and decided to agree with them, even though I hadn't a clue.

The first one was still unsure, still trying to convince me to go back down to Chitimba Beach and go from there and said, "It'll be an adventure, I hope that's o.k." I don't think he knew who he was talking to.

So, the next morning (today), I got going at 6:45 a.m. The first 8 km or so were stunning beauty Here is a photo with an example of the hillsides I was going through. The road was dirt and a bit "hilly", but rideable and not too bad. I was singing the, "Aren't I a brilliant genius and don't I know everything in the world?" song because it was so beautiful and the riding was fine.

But then I came to the first soggy part. Mud - everywhere! In my gears, in the wheels. I couldn't turn the peddles because there was mud everywhere. As soon as I'd spend 5 minutes cleaning out the mud and go about 3 inches, it would be caked again and I couldn't move. So, I walked for a while, though even that was very difficult and slippery. But then the road got semi-dryish, and I came to a minor downhill, so I sat in the saddle again. Road down the hill, then slipped and fell. Didn't get hurt, but now my jersey, whole left side, and gloves were completely and totally mudfilled. The only nice part is that I happened to be on a bridge, so I took advantage of the fall to stop and look over the bridge at the nice creek below.

A nice gentleman, walking by, saw the fall and came to my aid. "Here," he said, "let me help you." And he started pushing my bike up the hill. Being a stouch non-independent, I was very grateful for this help and started following him up the hill. I could barely keep up with him, even though he was the one pushing the bike. Eventually, we came to a dry part again, but he continued pushing, all the way to the top.

When we got to the top, he handed me back the bike. He said, "You go. I'm taking this short cut, but you must take the road. If you go fast enough, I'll see you at the bottom." That gave me something to work for: Go Fast Enough. But the hill was long, with lots of turns and bends and by the time I finally got to the bottom, I never saw him again.

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Things went on like that for several hours. Lots of muddy slippery parts. Oh, I fell again - this time on the right side, which made a nice match because now I was one entire muddy mess, from top to bottom. The muddy parts were very, very slow going, but they were mixed with dry parts in which I could ride semi-normally.

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I finally came to a town called Lula. That took the entire morning. It was now about 12:00, the day was half over, and it turns out that Lula is only about 30 km from Livingstonia. But guess what? Monday is ... MARKET DAY in Lula! You should have seen all the hussle and bussle in Lula! And, more importantly, a few pick up trucks had come to bring vendors from Rhumpi! As you can well imagine, that gave me an idea.

It didn't take long before me and my bike were on a pick-up truck, headed to Rhumpi. We drove for about another hour and a half until we finally came to a ... ta da! ... tarmac road! But, alas, a few minutes later, the engine went, "chug ... chug chug ... alug ... stop." I sat there as people and things started being off-loaded from the pick up. "What's going on?" I asked. "Out of petrol," a passenger informed me. Here is a picture of a few of the off-loading passengers and a man with a jerrican, about to go off looking for petrol. If you look closely, you can see the grey pannier bags of my bike on the back of the truck.

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Some passengers were trying to catch lifts with other passing vehicles. I was in the camp of those who were just going to hang out and wait for the man to return with some petrol. So, a few of us stood around and waited. Ho dee ho. But then I came up with another brilliant plan. I'd been full of them today. I asked, "How far are we from Rhumpi?" "Oh, maybe 20 km," they guessed. Well, hey, that seems like an easy decision. I off-loaded my bike, said my farewells, and started riding. Later tonight, I ran into 2 of my fellow passengers who had been stranded with me, waiting for petrol. They said, "You made it!" I thought, "Ahhh, that reminds me of my tour d'afrique friends." They always said that to me, every night, when I made it to camp (as though it were somehow a miracle that I'd made it - once again!).

Rode the rest of the way to Rhumpi. The paved road felt like such a breeze after the events of the last 2 days (up to Livingstonia, and then this morning). I was whistling away and feeling chipper. The caked mud had dried so that, while dirty, I didn't feel too bad. I rode the last 8 km or so with a Rhumpian. As we were approaching the bridge shown in this picture, he informed me that we were about to cross a very famous bridge. The name of the bridge is, "I crossed and my wife died." Come to find out, according to ancestral tradition, if you dare to cross that bridge without tossing a coin in the river for the spirits, then either you or your wife will soon die. In fact, this happened to a man one time. He crossed and then his wife died. Ergo, the name. It happened several generations ago, but it doesn't matter.

Tonight, when I was playing pool in Rhumpi, I asked some other people about that bridge. They all confirmed. Yes, you must throw a coin to the spirits. One guy, a Mzuzuan who was just there in Rhumpi on duty, said he didn't believe it. I asked him if he threw in a coin and he said, "No." The next day, as I was leaving Rhumpi, I had to cross the bridge again, and that's when I took the picture. I also thought to myself that this seems like a tradition for men. After all, how could my wife die? As for myself, I'm pretty much a known risk taker, so I crossed it without throwing in a coin, just to see what would happen. So far, so good. Actually, as you will read in a few days, I soon came down with serious malaria and almost DID die (or at least, I felt like it), but I'm not sure if that's related to my testing the bridge.

------------------- TODAY ----------------- TOTAL

Cycled ------------ 47 km (30 mi) ----------- 4,259 km (2,670 mi)

Lift ---------------- 25 km (16 mi) ----------- 2,417 km (1,617 mi)

Total --------------72 km (46 mi) ------------ 6,666 km (4,080 mi)

In Saddle ---------- 4 hours 50 min ---------- 277 hours 37 min

Ascended ---------- 1,900 feet --------------- 73,895 feet