Cycling The Globe

A Cycle Touring Expedition Around The World

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Day 1986, Victoria Falls – Livingstone, Zambia!

Posted by Thomas Andersen Posted on Mar - 27 - 2016

Distance: 14.6 km
Ride time: 00:52:25
Average: 19.0 km/h
Max speed: 16.7 km/h
Total: 46632 km

Simon and I were up early. Walking through town we could hear the thunder and see the cloud from the Victoria Falls long before we actually arrived. It is really not often that I pay to enter tourist attractions, but I thought today would be a good chance to make an exception to my rule.

March is very much the top of the rainy season in this part of Africa, and that means that the Zambezi river has a lot of water in it! Good if you want to see a water fall you would think. Yes, you could certainly hear and feel the incredible power, but for a while we couldn’t actually see much because the cloud generated by the fall was simply too big.

Instead we got completely drenched, and it was a challenge to avoid getting too much water into the camera.

Now, as good explorers Simon and I didn’t give up, as we walked around to the different lookout points.

“Oh, the clouds are parting a bit, lets hope for a good shot here”.

There is water, and it’s falling… 🙂

David Livingstone himself, the Scottish explorer who also started his own expedition from Cape Town and was the first European to venture this deep into Africa. My ride has been more simple with roads, stores, and guest houses now enabling a bike ride, but only 150 years ago this was truly the “dark continent”. Fascinating!

Later in the day I was having lunch at this spectacular spot overlooking the iconic Zambezi River. Zimbabwe is on the left side and Zambia on the right side of the river. After a cup of coffee I cycled over the bridge, very excited to find out what Zambia, country number 43 by bike, would be like.

It was a bit of a milestone cycling over the bridge. I’m now no longer in southern but in central Africa. When I look at a map I have actually made a lot of progress since Cape Town. People had told me that things would change quite a bit in Zambia compared to the more developed countries to the south.

My hostel in Livingstone was fancy enough with bar, swimming pool and wifi, but tomorrow when I head into the country side I’m not really sure what to expect. Lets see 🙂

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2 Responses so far.

  1. What an amazing sight! I’m not overly big on tourist attractions, myself, these days – though, I do make exceptions for anything railway-related!

    Btw, how do you keep your Garmin charged? Portable battery charger?

  2. Hey Stephen! Yeah, rules are good but so are exceptions 🙂 I have a new laptop computer with very good battery life – like 9 hours, so I just use that to charge the Garmin.