Hurrah, at last i have uploaded a collection of photos for you to look at with the help of Paul porter who kindly compressed the files for me. The photos in the first post are mainly from tanzania and the second is from malawi and tanzania. Aswell you can see the results of my ant attack in the second post where my sleeping mat is covered in biting ants also the cheesey photo of me at lake malawi :)
The last 5 days have been super tough, well they seemed to get progressively harder day after day. Our border crossing day from Lilongwe to Chipata in Zambia was amazing, the race finished at lunch which was at 80kms (50miles) so i 'raced' and managed to pull of a top ten result by coming in 6th with 2 hours 27minutes so i was extremely happy about that. Crossing the border was easy but we were met instantly with the 'rollers' that would be the main feature of the next few riding days. When we got into camp at chipata we learned at the rider meeting that the next riding day had been bumped form 178kms to 200kms (120miles) making it the second longest day in the tour. I have to say it was an easier day than expected. It was long, dont get me wrong but the terrain was easy and it was just alot of kilometeres - we had plenty of coke stops and took it easy. I think i did it in just over 7 hours so not too bad of a day.
However that evening was pretty eventful, halfway through the night i wake up to an itch which somehow keeps moving across my body. I flick on my head torch and look down. My floor is literally moving. several hundred ants have knawed their way through my groundsheet into my tent. I run around outside jumping up and down to clear the ants of. I promptly moved my tent and insect sprayed it all over. It was like in a horror film or something - some of those ants are pretty big :P
Anyways after my lack of sleep the next felt alot harder even though it was only 120kms. Also we dropped alot of altitude to 500meters above see level so the campsite was extremely humid and there were loads of bugs around and all we could do was sit around and sweat. Altough there was a water pump which you could use to wash with so needless to say i paid a few trips down there. The problem with descending whne riding a bike is that more often than not on the next day you will have to regain that descent. Therefore we had a 1700meter climb on the next day, it was mostly slow uphills with the infamous rollers which just kill your rhythm. I literally do the last 50ks on autopilot, just turning my legs and counting down the kilometers...
That night i was blessed with some more uninvited guests, however alot less than last time. Also on the brightside, it was not only me that was attacked by ants this time! there was at least 8 people who all jumped out of their tents at the same time trying to swat the ants off of them...So needless to say i am absolutely terrified of any pinch or noise when i am trying to sleep in my tent.
Time to wrap things up before the time runs out. We are in the rich end of lusaka at a really nice modern mall, there is a subway and a cinema and a hardware store where i have to by a new hammer for my tent pegs (i am sorry emma i have lost yours sorry sorry sorry) I slept for so long last night which helped me catch up with the lack of it for the last few nights. We have three riding days until vic falls and i cannot wait.
Hopefully i will write again soon
All the best and lots of love
Jacob
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