19/03/30, stage 51, Soccer Field Camp to Kasungu

It’s funny how we cycle through 10 different countries, without us bearly having any notion of what these countries are going to be like. Despite all the reading i did on the countries, despite all the maps and satelite images i looked at, despite all the blogs i read and despite all the accompanying photos i saw, each and every country has been a surprise so far.

We descended from the cool and lush Tanzanian highlands through banana plantations and tea plantation towards hot and humit and tropical lake Malawi. When crossing the border we saw people change from warm and open and welcoming to more cautious and shy. After reaching lake Malawi we climbed out of the rift valley and followed a river to higher cooler pastures. The day after we cycled through an area with steep hills and big volcanic granite bouldery rocks. Today the road was gradually downhill through mainly agricultural area, with mais and tabaco plantations.

I had no clue that Malawi had such a diverse landscape. I had no clue what to expect. And that’s the great thing about this trip, it’s full of surprises and no book, map or blog can prepare you for what you are actually going to experience 🙂 The best thing though is that my expectations of Africa were pretty high and untill now it hasn’t disappointed one bit…

Surprises of our ride today included a great cokestop with a big group of riders, drinking tea and coffee and eating local donuts in the morning 🙂 a great cokestop in the afternoon together with Vik and Ingela in an unannounced town which was really nice to just stop for a minute 🙂 a great camp in a nice town with a supermarket with high carb junk food 🙂 an unexpected nice climate to cycle through 🙂 a very nice gradual downhill after the incredulously undulating landscape yesterday 🙂

It was a nice and easy today!

Started the day with an amazing unexpected vista!