From Kazungula

It is a Sunday afternoon and the rain is pattering gently on the umbrella above me. I am sitting on a wooden veranda overlooking the Zambezi. On the far bank the sky is almost black and bolts of lightening split the clouds across the river. I am writing, smoking a Chesterfield and drinking tea. Guy is facing the river, with his eyes closed, meditating. We have bicycled 620 km over the past five days since leaving Maun, and are now in the far north east of Botswana, at the Zimbabwean border, which we will cross tomorrow morning.

Leaving Maun on Wednesday we ride due east towards Nata. The first day is hot, but the road is flat and we ride quickly. Late in the afternoon we turn off the highway and wheel our bikes into the sand and short trees off the road. We collect dead wood and dry grasses and make a small fire to cook on. As we eat, we hear elephant crashing around in the bush not far from our tents. We wake early and ride along the edge of the Nxai salt pans, which are concealed from view beneath pools of water. In every direction the land is completely flat. The only markers on the barren horizon are lonely leafless trees. We camp at Gweta , where we run into Hans, a German pilot who I met in Maun. He has been bitten by a spitting cobra here two nights ago and shows us the puncture wounds on the small of his back. He tells us how the poison spread throughout his body, giving him fevers and pain all over.

To reach Nata we bicycle 110 km on Friday, through torrential rain. Guy is far ahead and thunder rolls across the sky. I remember a story Thomas, the German cyclist in Maun, told me at the Old Bridge. He saw lightening strike a tree and a heard of goats beneath die instantly. He said their heads dropped a split second after the bolt struck the branches above. I pedal hard and hope each flash in front of me is the last. Nata is made up of a cluster of motels and gas stations, at the crossroads of the major routes linking Francistown, Maun, and Kasane. The road north, which we must take towards Kazungula, is desolate. It cuts across constant bush and the first settlement from Nata, Pandamatenga, is 200 km away. We must reach it by nightfall as we have been warned that leopard and lion make wild camping dangerous here.

Large swathes of the road are being re-tarred and our bicycles rattle across the uneven surface as we try to maintain a decent pace. Noisy trucks ferrying sand, rumble past, whipping up clouds of dust which sting our eyes and cover our filthy clothes. We press on, but we must stop each time there is an elephant standing by the roadside. The first we encounter is an enormous lone bull, with one tusk missing. We pedal gingerly nearer, hugging the far side of the road. He looks up at us and Guy brakes suddenly. I pedal straight into the back of him and our bicycles clatter to the floor. The elephant turns and runs powerfully into the bush and we pick ourselves up, laughing. After nine hours riding we reach Pandamatenaga rest camp. It is run by an old Tanzanian guy, who has travelled all over East Africa on his motorcycle. He gets up early the next morning before we set off for Kazungula, giving us some worn maps and wishing us a safe journey, with a jealous glint in his eye.