Lilongwe, the capital of Malawi, doesn’t offer much in terms of sightseeing or tourist attractions. That was good news for us—without any pressure to make good use of the time, we’ve had yet another relaxing rest day. I went to Koko Bean (a top-rated coffee shop cum restaurant) with E.A. in the morning for...
Day 78: Fame is the price of success
I’m over it, over the constant attention, the give-me-money shouting kids, the I-love-you shouting teenagers, and the young men calling me baby. However, it’s not only the boys. While cycling, also the girls and women, in fact everyone up to mid age, seems to be constantly shouting into my ear. Mostly, I don’t know...
Day 77: If you want to go fast, go alone. If you want to go far, go together.
Tonight, we’ve had another round of tip collection for our crew. Last time, we all chipped in money for our sweep riders Brad, Helen, Leo and Max; today, for all the other crew members. The tipping ceremony is usually organized by Paul, our master of ceremony. He asks us questions by nationality groups. If we don’t...
Day 76: Human body temperature control can be trained
Today was another mando day, and a truly bloody tough day—in the morning definitely one of our hardest days so far. We (i.e. the minority of us who went all the way) climbed over 1,200 meters before we reached the lunch truck, and 1,900m in total. It wasn’t the climb itself that made it...
Day 75: Take every opportunity—there are no second chances
We’ve had quite a lot of climbing today—about 1,600 meters of altitude gain. Most of the climbing was said to be before lunch, where we also had our first time trial on this tour. “16km —> start of time trial and climbing . . . 36km —> end of time trial”, the whiteboard read....
Day 73–74: Relaxing at Chitimba Beach (Lake Malawi)
We’ve had two relaxing rest days at Chitimba beach at Lake Malawi—time mostly spent eating, drinking and chilling. A few of us visited the surrounding hills for great views down to the lake. Muzz organized a trip for us to visit the Manchewe Falls (125m heigh waterfall) . . . . . . as...
Day 72: Donations might do more harm than good
Malawi is one of the world’s least developed countries. Relatively small and hence, supposedly, easy to fix, Malawi received substantial foreign aid over the past years (around USD 1bn p.a.!). However, progress has been limited, and a series of corruption scandals led international donors to freeze their funds. Consequently, Malawi has become something like a...
