Cycling The Globe

A Cycle Touring Expedition Around The World

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Day 1996, Nyimba – Sinda: Outta Nowhere

Posted by Thomas Andersen Posted on Apr - 12 - 2016

Distance: 115.6 km
Ride time: 6:55:45
Average: 16.7 km/h
Max speed: 36.4 km/h
Total: 47576 km

Ever since I made a right turn in Namibia some weeks ago I have been moving east rather than north. I’m starting to look forward to enter Malawi in a couple of days as that means I will start moving north again. After all that is where I’m going 🙂

A couple of years ago this road would have been a remote dirt track. Today I was very much in the construction zone where road workers were upgrading the track. Sometimes I could ride in a new part of the road that was not yet open to cars, other times I would ride the old dirt – following what the local cyclists would do.

My map didn’t show any towns in this remote part of Zambia, so I was preparing for a night in my tent. That was when Sinda showed up, kind of out of nowhere – at least it didn’t look like a town on my map. In real life Sinda was certainly a town with restaurants, guest houses and everything.

With the power cuts, Zambian towns get very dark at night. There is an advantage though: I liked that I could walk around without attracting all the attention that I normally do. I almost felt like a local 🙂

Categories: Zambia
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2 Responses so far.

  1. Is it quite common for small towns/villages not to appear on maps?

  2. Google Maps isn’t always the most precise in Africa, but usually you will be able to tell if there is a town or not 🙂