Day 301 / 66

Date: 7 February 2023
Sleeping location: Abandoned quarry 16.9909S 32.8791E, Zimbabwe
Distance (km today/total/total Part 2): 82 / 18589 / 3752
Estimated climb (m today/total/total Part 2): 700 / 159100 / 41100
Camping considerations: hidden spot, level pitch, prevalence of landmines
Day in three words: It’s a Zim

After a storm-interrupted and sweaty night’s sleep I was tired in the morning. I made some coffee and had a strange breakfast of bread and bananas dipped in a can of condensed milk which, despite being me, with this appetite, I couldn’t actually finish as it was so aggressively rich*. Once back on the road it was more very hot, very boring, very quiet savannah punctuated by the occasional village and the occasional truck clanking past. Mid-morning stopped in a cafe one of these villages to hide from the sun, filter some more water, make some more coffee (they didn’t serve it) and use their surprisingly nice toilet. 

After this I turned off the main north/south Moz road onto the road to Zimbabwe (or “Zim” if I’m feeling lazy) and began a gradual climb up to the border. Most of the traffic had gone the other way so it was even quieter than before, with even fewer villages. In one tiny village they had assembled hundreds of small piles of stones, but nobody was around to ask exactly why they had done this. With the lack of villages I had to take lunch under the shade of a tree by the side of the road, with nobody except a lot of flies for company. Señor Puff survived a second round here, he’s a real fighter. The road was a bit juddery and the quietness allowed me to concentrate on the annoying squeaking noises my front panniers were making because of where they were positioned on the rack. Because I’d climbed it was a bit less hot, but still very hot, and a surprise rain shower was short but very welcome refreshment.

A little short of the border I had my first taste of Zimbabwean hospitality. A pickup truck with a mountain bike in the back went past, before honking and stopping at the next layby. Two older guys called Craig and Al got out and asked all kinds of questions; they were both cyclists who’d done their own trips around Africa. Al and Craig live in Harare and Durban respectively and both insisted that I could come and stay with them when I passed through. Al gave me his number and also said he’d get in touch with some contacts around Zim who could potentially help along my way. This bodes well.

The border process was quite easy, although one guy on the Moz side appeared to be asking for my bike tyres - I’m not sure how he expected me to continue without those. My time in Mozambique was short and uneventful but pleasant enough; I know I went through a pretty dull part of the country, but Mozambicans seemed nice. Once into Zim I sat down to use up the rest of my Moz phone data and got approached by a few different people asking questions, including one lady who didn't seem to believe that I'd cycled here and kept asking questions like “how do you bathe” (A: irregularly at present) and “what will you do if you see a lion” (A: panic). 

I picked up a Zim Card (wahey!) then immediately after the border turned off onto a good quality dirt road that will take me the next 100km or so. Welcoming me onto this road was a sign saying “beware of landmines”. Excuse me? Some swift internet research shows that apparently Zim is one of the most landmined countries in the world**, and they're all along the eastern border that I'm roughly following. Careful wild camping is required. A short way along the road a guy on a bike appeared and started cycling alongside me and asking questions. This was not what I wanted as I needed to pay attention to the surface and I was looking for a camp spot (marked on ioverlander) that I wanted to access undetected. As a result I was quite terse with him and he stopped talking after a bit, so at the marked location I stopped, pretended to look at my phone until he was out of sight then ducked down the track. This led to an ex-quarry dead end that nobody would ever come into, a perfect place to spend the night.

There were thunderstorms in the distance again but again I chose to pitch the tent without the outer and see what happened. I cooked quickly to make the most of the remaining light, noodles with soya chunks and this pickled/spicy veg thing called atachar, which was a winning combination. Whilst cooking I had another nibble on Señor Puff but he defeated me for the third time. This time the tent gamble worked and I stayed dry all through the night, both in terms of rain and sweat/melt. 

*After looking at the can I realised that it contained 1200 calories before I even added the bread and bananas, which probably explains it

**These were laid in the 70s during the civil war between Ian Smith’s regime and Robert Mugabe’s guerrillas; the latter were supported by both Zambia and Mozambique, so the regime mined the borders with those countries