Malawian Push Bike Tour

We have biked over 260 miles since we left Lilongwe on Wednesday. We are still in Malawi bee-bopping our way down the country staying with Peace Corps volunteers all along the way. The ride has been beautiful, and all of our hosts have been overwhelmingly gracious. Staying with Peace Corps volunteers is the way to go. Everybody has wanted to cook elaborate meals for us and share their goodies from home and booze... It’s great!

Our first day was a late start, which meant that we were stuck riding after sun down on the M1. It was more than a little bit sketchy with the traffic, but we decided to continue on because it was a bright full moon. We were held up even more by a flat tire, so we got to Jason Colvin’s house sometime after 9:00pm. Jason had a visitor and they were kind enough to cook a Polynesian Pork stew that was wonderfully reviving after our rough start. We learned our lesson and certainly will not be riding again after dark.

The next morning we set out after a quick stop at Jason’s favorite tea house. On the road we met a small convoy of travelers that saw our saddle bags and pulled over to talk to us. It was a couple on motorcyclists being trailed by two Australians in a little car. One of the motorcyclists was a Swiss man who had been traveling on his bike for the past 22 months, and had already crossed Australia, and brought his bike by Ferry to South East Asia. He traveled all through Asia, including East Timor, which he said was a very welcoming country where people were just happy to see travelers in their country. It was great chatting, and sharing traveling advice with them. We gave them the phone number for some Peace Corps volunteers in Liwonde, whom they stayed with that night.

Most of the riding trough Dedza was uphill and slow going, but the payoff came when we got to ride down the Escarpment from Dedza to Ntcheu. The view from the top was mind-blowing, you could see all the way to the lake in the North, and to the south was a perfectly flat landscape with scatterings of mountains that really stick out of nowhere reminding me that I’m still biking down the Great Rift Valley. We started down the steep road slow, stopping often to take pictures and enjoy the view, but as we got more comfortable with the idea of controlled falling, we let gravity take over, and enjoyed the ride. It was an awesome sensation flying around hairpin turns, with nothing except the sound of the wind rushing by you. That’s one of my favorite things about traveling by bike; it’s a silent mode of transport. There is something very exhilarating about flying down a hill at forty miles an hour, and not having a motor drowning out the world around you. I still hear the bird’s call above me, the water flowing over the waterfall below, even the sound of the air rushing by. It feels very natural. The closer we got to the bottom the more comfortable we felt letting momentum take control and stopped braking. I guess it felt safer because we didn’t have as far to fall. The fastest I noticed my bikes computer get up to was 48 mph, but I felt like I was going much faster.

After finishing our rollercoaster ride down the escarpment we felt the temperature heat up about ten degrees and moved pretty slow over the long flat stretch to Jenny Keller’s house in Bwange. Jenny is hosting a new Trainee named Jake who will be an environment volunteer in Salima, but this week he is doing a shadow visit at Jenny’s house to see what day to day Peace Corps life is like. They cooked us another great meal, egg and Potatoe soup, as well as some Macaroni and cheese Jenny had gotten from home. As it turned out the night we stayed there was the first night of a drumming festival for the church of Zion (possibly to celebrate Easter but we didn’t really get a straight answer from anybody). It started around 7:00pm and went off and on until about 5:00am. We thought it was pretty cool at first and went to watch a couple times, but it was literally 10 feet from her front door, so it became less cool and more annoying as the night went on. I wanted to go out and ask them, “Aren’t your hands getting tired?” but my Chichewa isn’t good enough.

The next morning we had a short ride to Balaka with the drum beat still in our heads. We had a bit of a crosswind so riding was slow. In Balaka we stayed with Erin who is a Peace Corps Response volunteer (they are people who have already served as regular Peace Corps for two years and do a shorter contract where they have a more specific job). Erin is working with the District Assembly in Balaka to do HIV and AIDS coordination. We had a great leisurely afternoon with gin and tonics along with a late lunch. (Interesting fact I learned from Erin, gin and tonics were invented by British colonialists, because Tonic water contains quinine an anti-malarial, so they just added the gin and lemon to make it more palatable…So I’m even more protected from Malaria then I thought.) We rode our bikes to meet Erin’s friends for happy hour at the four way bar. I was really surprised to see how many foreign nationals are in Balaka. There is an Italian mission in town so Balaka has a lot of Italians, but also an assortment of American and British Professors and Graduate Students doing research in everything from public health to anthropology. We went back to Erin’s house early to cook dinner and bake a cake for Wiz’s birthday the next day.

We got a full day of riding in the following day, with a brief stop off in Liwonde to meet Sarah Swenson and Bryan Payne (Peace Corps volunteers working with the game reserve) for lunch. As we rode across the long bridge over the Shire River Wiz got a great birthday surprise. A car full of women we met the night before in Balaka rode along side us as they all sang him happy birthday. Wiz is sure to be the only guy on his block who can say that he was serenaded by a choir of beautiful women over the Shire River. After lunch it was mostly uphill to the Zomba Plateau where we stayed with D’Lynn a health volunteer in the Boma. We celebrated Wiz’s birthday with D’Lynn, her roommate, Erin Clark (Peace Corps/Nurse), a box of red wine, and left over cake from Balaka.

The next morning I had a bit of a wine headache, but we still got an early start and had a great day of riding. The road leaving Zomba is a long gentle downhill that is lined on both sides by massive Eucalyptus trees. The weather was perfect and it was a fantastic sensation just coasting down the empty streets. There were very few cars on the main roads because it was Easter Sunday. I loved seeing everybody we passed wearing their Sunday best as they walked to church with their families. It was the first day I used my I-pod while riding since there was no traffic. I listened to Guy Clark, Greg Brown, JJ Cale and Robert Earl Keen, all of which seemed fitting for riding on this quiet country rode.

It may sound corny, but I can’t think of any better way to spend Easter Sunday than appreciating God’s creation, and that’s just what we did. The holiday gave me an excuse to notice things a bit more. I feel like I was more grateful than usual for everything around me; the giant granite cliffs and rock outcroppings that surround Zomba, The smell of Eucalyptus leaves under my tires, the green pastures along the road, the sensation of riding with no hands, and every smiling women or child that waved to me as I rode by. I’ll never forget the high I felt as I sang along with Robert Earl Keen “The road goes on forever and the party never ends”, with a grin on my face as I looked across a beautiful landscape that seemed to have no end.