Blantyre to Beira: Through the furnace, over the bridge
So here i am in Beira, the town where i was born. In fact, i´ve been here for five days already but unable to write this update for reasons which will soon be made known.
Distance: 408miles Days: 12days in total
The route i´ve taken to cross from Malawi to Mozambique, as with some of the ones in Tanzania, is a little odd. It arose from a combination of wanting to get to Beira, and seeing ´Longest railway bridge in Africa´and ´Shire Valley´(sounded like where the hobbits stay in the Tolkien books) on my Michelin map. Suffice to say that other than the very beautiful Elephant Marsh - which i did manage to get onto early one morning after haggling the previous day with the boat owners in the shade of a broken-down little house next to where the fishermen go out from, and which itself had taken a good half-hour´s ride to reach on small paths through a sprawling village - the Shire Valley region is nothing like the Shire area in the Hobbit. As you descend into it from the relatively cool, lush tea and coffee estates that stretch south and east from Blantyre towards the Mulanje Massif, the heat hits you very much as if you had opened the door to a furnace.
The ride to Thyolo, where the road forks to either Mulanje (tar) or Bangula (dirt) was fantastic: rolling green hills and river courses, incredibly smooth tar road and cool, overcast conditions. Spot the mistake. This is supposed to be the beginning of the part of Malawi hardest hit by the food crisis. Even after Thyolo down to Bangula and finally Nsanje, the land was not noticeably very parched - to the untrained eye at least - but there was the incongruous sight of long queues for maize at the Admarc distribution centres whilst right next door women were selling plentiful quantities of mangoes, tomatoes and bananas. I was told however in Nsanje that the price of maize is currently three times the normal one for this time of year (you won´t have any trouble finding any at a market so presumably the problem is affordability), and that apparently 23people had died the previous week in the local hospital of problems related to lack of food. I did see a corpse being wheeled-up the hill in a cart, covered in a white sheet, in the midday heat from the hospital in the village of Muona towards Thekerani (half-way between Thyolo and Bangula) but whether that was unusual or not i can´t say. The long and the short of it is that this is not one of those Somalia-like famines where it's all there for the world to see on their TV screens, but one can only take the local medical workers (who unlike the NGOs don't really have vested interests) at their word.
On Saddle Sores
In order to avoid this turning into one boring, long tale of agony, let me just note at this point that since just before Blantyre i had been having some more problems with these particular things than usual, to the extent that it was uncomfortable to sit down never mind ride a bike. So i went to see a doctor at Blantyre's finest private hospital who prescribed some mild anti-inflammatories and told me i could carry-on immediately. Showing uncharacteristic faith in the medical profession i did just that. Suffice to say he was more than a little wrong, and the problem worsened to the extent that i was forced to rest in Nsanje for 3days before i carried-on, due more to budget concerns than improved comfort, and despite having been resting for 5days now and on antibiotics for three it is still painful to sit and write this update. To have a fully accurate idea of what this last leg was like you may want to keep that in the back of your mind.
Into Mozambique
One advantage of taking such an obscure route is that there are no long queues at the border post, which in both cases was just a collection of small buildings and a couple of shops otherwise in the middle of nowhere in particular. After buying my last Sprite in Malawi, as much to get info from the shopkeeper on accomodation and money-changing on the other side of the border as to finish-off my small change, i crossed into Mozambique without any trouble. I was however immediately struck by two things: the fluttering flags at the border post (the national one and the blood-red Frelimo one) and the fact that all the buildings on the Mozambican side were pretty much just shells of buildings, some occupied and some not.
By early afternoon i reached Mutarara after having cycled largely on my own for most parts of the ride, ocassionally going through smallish villages which seemed more spread-out than the ones in Malawi. Needless to say it was boiling hot and a cold Coke (supplemented with salt) was always the first thing on my mind. From my guidebook i had expected that accomodation would be both unpleasant and expensive and was therefore surprised to get a room with fan and (basic) toilet for about $5 (100,000meticais) at a place overlooking the magnificent Dona Anna bridge straddling the River Zambeze. It seemed to be the only significant structure other than the school still standing, but on going-up to the bridge i discovered that the main part of the town was on the other side.
The tricky issue from Mutarara was whether to take the new tar road or the old dirt road to Beira, with my having heard that the latter might be very sandy (aargh!) but that the former is much longer. Fortunately i stayed at camp owned by a South African operating a forestry concession in the area and managed to get enough info to persuade me to take the dirt road. It was three days of beautiful, rough cycling through fairly intact woodland - which also meant a decent amount of shade. The birdwatching was great and it would have been an ideal stretch other than the serious lack of accomodation and now constant acute pain. The second night i stayed in the most basic resthouse so far; a 2x3.5m mud thatch cell with a corrugated iron roof with the washing facilities being two thatch conical structures without roofs where i could stand on some stones and pour water over myself in full view (well, the top third of me) of passers-by who very politely pretended not to see and managed to order a chicken and chips (often the only thing available here supper).
Distance: 408miles Days: 12days in total
The route i´ve taken to cross from Malawi to Mozambique, as with some of the ones in Tanzania, is a little odd. It arose from a combination of wanting to get to Beira, and seeing ´Longest railway bridge in Africa´and ´Shire Valley´(sounded like where the hobbits stay in the Tolkien books) on my Michelin map. Suffice to say that other than the very beautiful Elephant Marsh - which i did manage to get onto early one morning after haggling the previous day with the boat owners in the shade of a broken-down little house next to where the fishermen go out from, and which itself had taken a good half-hour´s ride to reach on small paths through a sprawling village - the Shire Valley region is nothing like the Shire area in the Hobbit. As you descend into it from the relatively cool, lush tea and coffee estates that stretch south and east from Blantyre towards the Mulanje Massif, the heat hits you very much as if you had opened the door to a furnace.
The ride to Thyolo, where the road forks to either Mulanje (tar) or Bangula (dirt) was fantastic: rolling green hills and river courses, incredibly smooth tar road and cool, overcast conditions. Spot the mistake. This is supposed to be the beginning of the part of Malawi hardest hit by the food crisis. Even after Thyolo down to Bangula and finally Nsanje, the land was not noticeably very parched - to the untrained eye at least - but there was the incongruous sight of long queues for maize at the Admarc distribution centres whilst right next door women were selling plentiful quantities of mangoes, tomatoes and bananas. I was told however in Nsanje that the price of maize is currently three times the normal one for this time of year (you won´t have any trouble finding any at a market so presumably the problem is affordability), and that apparently 23people had died the previous week in the local hospital of problems related to lack of food. I did see a corpse being wheeled-up the hill in a cart, covered in a white sheet, in the midday heat from the hospital in the village of Muona towards Thekerani (half-way between Thyolo and Bangula) but whether that was unusual or not i can´t say. The long and the short of it is that this is not one of those Somalia-like famines where it's all there for the world to see on their TV screens, but one can only take the local medical workers (who unlike the NGOs don't really have vested interests) at their word.
On Saddle Sores
In order to avoid this turning into one boring, long tale of agony, let me just note at this point that since just before Blantyre i had been having some more problems with these particular things than usual, to the extent that it was uncomfortable to sit down never mind ride a bike. So i went to see a doctor at Blantyre's finest private hospital who prescribed some mild anti-inflammatories and told me i could carry-on immediately. Showing uncharacteristic faith in the medical profession i did just that. Suffice to say he was more than a little wrong, and the problem worsened to the extent that i was forced to rest in Nsanje for 3days before i carried-on, due more to budget concerns than improved comfort, and despite having been resting for 5days now and on antibiotics for three it is still painful to sit and write this update. To have a fully accurate idea of what this last leg was like you may want to keep that in the back of your mind.
Into Mozambique
One advantage of taking such an obscure route is that there are no long queues at the border post, which in both cases was just a collection of small buildings and a couple of shops otherwise in the middle of nowhere in particular. After buying my last Sprite in Malawi, as much to get info from the shopkeeper on accomodation and money-changing on the other side of the border as to finish-off my small change, i crossed into Mozambique without any trouble. I was however immediately struck by two things: the fluttering flags at the border post (the national one and the blood-red Frelimo one) and the fact that all the buildings on the Mozambican side were pretty much just shells of buildings, some occupied and some not.
By early afternoon i reached Mutarara after having cycled largely on my own for most parts of the ride, ocassionally going through smallish villages which seemed more spread-out than the ones in Malawi. Needless to say it was boiling hot and a cold Coke (supplemented with salt) was always the first thing on my mind. From my guidebook i had expected that accomodation would be both unpleasant and expensive and was therefore surprised to get a room with fan and (basic) toilet for about $5 (100,000meticais) at a place overlooking the magnificent Dona Anna bridge straddling the River Zambeze. It seemed to be the only significant structure other than the school still standing, but on going-up to the bridge i discovered that the main part of the town was on the other side.
The tricky issue from Mutarara was whether to take the new tar road or the old dirt road to Beira, with my having heard that the latter might be very sandy (aargh!) but that the former is much longer. Fortunately i stayed at camp owned by a South African operating a forestry concession in the area and managed to get enough info to persuade me to take the dirt road. It was three days of beautiful, rough cycling through fairly intact woodland - which also meant a decent amount of shade. The birdwatching was great and it would have been an ideal stretch other than the serious lack of accomodation and now constant acute pain. The second night i stayed in the most basic resthouse so far; a 2x3.5m mud thatch cell with a corrugated iron roof with the washing facilities being two thatch conical structures without roofs where i could stand on some stones and pour water over myself in full view (well, the top third of me) of passers-by who very politely pretended not to see and managed to order a chicken and chips (often the only thing available here supper).
Black and white
As far as i`m concerned, Mozambique is a country that can only really be seen in black and white, and the innumerable gradations of grey in-between. Bombed-out, broken-down, abandoned houses and buildings; some reoccupied by people who daily live in the shadows of the past. Rusted, twisted railway tracks nd their many derailed engines, carriages and wagons, wheels in the air like dead steel insects. The people lean and proud, different shades, many shades, more often than not gleaming with sweat from the heat or exertion - often both.
Ocassionally one must add a splash of colour. A blood-red Frelimo flag fluttering in front of a house or dusty village; a little girl in a bright pink dress picking her way through some rubble with friends; the rich orange flesh of a mango as it`s sucked by eager lips; and in the cities of course, the somewhat incongruously gaudy advertising hoardings selling everything from airtime to soap.
But in all, i would disagree with the author of my guidebook who suggests that it`s almost impossibe to see the signs of the war. Coming down to Beira that was all i saw. Nevertheless, this does feel like a country òn the up` and that`s saying something.
Beira: life`s displacement zero
Getting to Beira was great, but the previous day when i eventually met the tar road just outside of Dondo, i had what i've come to call a 'Forest Gump moment'. It's in the movie when he's been running around the USA for a long time for no apparent reason (the suggestion is it may be to do with a broken heart but it's not clear), and he suddenly turns around and says to his 'running disciples', "I'm tired. I wanna go home". Well, i wasn`t only tired after a very long day`s ride on corrugated dirt road, but covered in tsetse fly bites (oh, did i forget to mention that there were thousands of these things in the woodland?), with something on my butt like a hot, painful half-ostrich egg, staying in dodgy over-priced accomodation.
Since arriving here and doing an internet search on my condition (and seeing a doctor friend of a family friend who confirmed my self-diagnosis and treatment) i've been popping antibiotics like sweets for the last 4days and my condition has not improved markedly.
I really like Beira - the cafes, the street sellers, the open suburbs and breezy sea air - and it is great to have an opportunity to explore my 'home town'. Furthermore, to be here is of course special too because it means that to this point, for all intents and purposes, my life`s displacement (as opposed to distance travelled) is effectively zero. However, there is only so much you can do if you can only sit down at the cost of great pain.
End of the Road?
So is this the end of the road? I think it may be.
Every hour i spend here eats away at my willpower to carry-on; the route via Beira and Maputo was only ever one of necessity rather than attraction; from what i've seen so far the tar road is pretty heartless; and from what i've heard there are apparently very few facilities of any sort between the tourist spots (which themselves are reputed to be very nice). I really wanted to live that dream of cycling up the hill to our family house in Joburg, but there is no point in being stupid about this and five weeks (minimum, excluding at least a week here to recover) of punishing myself is not what i need.
By my next update you'll know, one way or another.
End of the Road?
So is this the end of the road? I think it may be.
Every hour i spend here eats away at my willpower to carry-on; the route via Beira and Maputo was only ever one of necessity rather than attraction; from what i've seen so far the tar road is pretty heartless; and from what i've heard there are apparently very few facilities of any sort between the tourist spots (which themselves are reputed to be very nice). I really wanted to live that dream of cycling up the hill to our family house in Joburg, but there is no point in being stupid about this and five weeks (minimum, excluding at least a week here to recover) of punishing myself is not what i need.
By my next update you'll know, one way or another.
Labels: TRIP
posted by Mfundza @ 7:32 pm
