Anybody following our progress very carefully via the tracker recently will probably have had a good old laugh. It’s been a frustrating couple of days but some fantastic people have made it good fun.

We spent a few days relaxing in Victoria Falls chatting to Paul, another cyclist who’s been on the road fifteen years, and Anders, a Danish ski instructor who’s doing the sensible thing and travelling across Africa using modes of transport with engines. He’s already in Malawi. The bastard.

From Vic Falls we cycled to Hwange and then cut in towards Lake Kariba. We enjoyed a gorgeous morning ride with incredible views and a few deadly hazards that we were able to survive. It’s amazing how many deadly hazards don’t actually kill you…

Then we got lost. Fortunately my sister was at a loose end and, with the help of the tracker and satellites, was able to direct us the right way. We ended up in Msuna Mouth where we’d been assured we could find a boat to take us along the lake.

Despite meeting the lovely couple Judy and Larry who owned the fishing resort, no boat materialised. They kindly gave us a lift back up to main-ish road and we headed to Mlibizi where we could definitely find a boat. Except we couldn’t. Thankfully we found another nice chap called Roy who again gave us a lift back up to the main road.

We’ve been experiencing a bit of a cash flow problem since Vic Falls, a lack of forward planning/intelligence meant we left a place with lots of ATMs without any cash. Smart. Surely though, finding an ATM shouldn’t be too much of a challenge. Msuna? No. Mlibizi? Nope. Binga? No, Sir. Any chance of anyone accepting card in any of these places? Not a hope.

Eventually, after three hours of logistical fun times in Binga, we worked out a way of getting Internet on our phones, getting an EcoCash account (like a bank account for your phone) and discovered a way of using our debit cards to send our phones money. Amazingly finding an EcoCash agent to withdraw money from went rather smoothly and we were finally solvent again.

Third time lucky for boats in Binga though. Or so we thought. Still no boats…apparently. It seems finding a boat on Lake Kariba is about as tricky as finding an ATM in Zimbabwe. We did, however, spend a great evening drinking beer and being fed by Joe, Charlene, Dudley and Ronan from Bulawayo who explained how awful the road we were about to take was. How nice.

All was going well until we started looking for somewhere to sleep. We had a stroke of dubious genius and chose to sleep on a moored boat that was nearby. Shortly after nodding off we woke to the sound of someone saying “hello” quite a lot and wandering around the boat. Somehow he decided not to open the door to the sleeping quarters and evidently thought two heavily laden bikes had made their way on board unaided.

When we finally got up we had to explain to the very cross/incompetent security guard that we’d slept there because we were scared of the crocodiles. He bought it for the cost of three bucks.

I’m writing this from Binga bus station as we wait for a bus towards Karoi which should help us catch up a bit of time and get to Kampala in about five weeks time. We’ll see about that. Either way I’m willing to bet the tracker will provide some good entertainment…