Resting day 7 at Bets + Wikus’ home, Lusaka
Distance 7836
Total from Amsterdam  13236

Peter was up at sparrows watching his team, Chiefs bt Brumbies while I had fuzzgut under the blankets for a last lie in and cuddle. We asked Ros if she’d mind doing a load of washing, mainly bedding and towels and a few bits of our measly wardrobe. After collecting the clean stuff, it started drizzling so we had to be creative in hanging over metal chairs, a few lines under the back veranda and draped over bikes. Ros came to say goodbye as she’s  spending a few days with friends. Matthew and Judith, her amazing chief cook, bottle washer and general handyman, and his wife, will feed the dogs and take good care of things while she’s away. Ros has been amazing during our stay in the complex where her home is a stone’s throw from Bets and Wikus’ place.

I still haven’t cleaned my bike, just not in the mood, I’ll rather blame the cold wind outside. I’ll do the chain later today and promise Muffin I’ll wash her when we reach Livingstone, there’s plenty of water there I can use. Just need to take my bike near the falls and the spray alone will be enough to give her a shower. Felt guilty after eight days of R+R so got stuck in and cleaned my whole bike. Cooked onions, tomatoes and brinjal for supper tomorrow night, will just need to boil spaghetti. A short ride of only 40 odd km tomorrow so we’ll leave around 9 or 10. Stormers beat Sharks 27-16. England beat Sweden and Croatia bt Russia in a penalty shoot out. Night xx

– A fond farewell to Ros Baillie … and the marmalade cat, Tsotsie. I think Fluff-Puff is a better name for this lovable pudditat. Going to miss both of these girls

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Resting day 6 at Bets + Wikus’ home, Lusaka
Distance 13 + 7823 = 7836
Total from Amsterdam  13236

All three of us were still in bed at 09h16. It was very cold so made the most of warm comfy beds, 11h00 and still under the blankets. The electricity went off around 09h30 for power shedding and at 11h30 we received a messague from Dutch couple, Wilchard and Wendy, that they’d arrived at the Cosmo Mall. We got ourselves ready to ride there but had to use bottled water to brush our teeth as with no electricity water could not be pumped from the borehole. Also it was very overcast, it started drizzling and a head wind but with only 6.5 km there, we arrived at the Hippo + Keg pub very sweaty. Changed into long sleeve Icebreaker tops and dried wet ones draped over panniers. Willhard and Wendy are 53 and 46 respectively, sold his IT company, cars, house and contents, in fact everything except for one suitcase each of clothing that’s being stored with a family member. They started cycling in Kazakhstan, or one of the ‘Stans’ in April 2017 and have only been back to Holland for two weeks before flying to CT to ride to PE then back to CT via Route 62, up through Namibia, Botswana, Zambia and going as far as Cairo, also riding in Rwanda and Uganda. Distance to date 22000 km. They have to be home by December for a family wedding.

Made our way to Pizza Hut and treated ourselves to large pizzas on special, two for K120, then Shoprite for a few basics. Bought a few  sachets of food for Tsotsie, K10 each and K100 for electricity giving 240 units. We missed part of the France Uruguay game but happy France won 2-0 and through to the semi finals. Re Wimbledon Venus is out and Serena is in but it’s still early days. Next is Belgium Brazil and we’re routing for Belgium. Watched a bit of Federer vs Struff (whoever he is) with Federer  going through.  Full time score Belgium 2 Brazil 1. Two more sleeps with our kitty. Her history … owners moved out, said they’d collect her and did not bother so Bets and Wikus adopted her, had her spayed and now their daughter, Anita and hubby will take Tsotsie when they move to their own house. Anita got married three weeks ago. They also have two dogs so hope this girl gets on with the dogs. I could very easily adopt this Fluff-Puff. She’s the most affectionate and feisty cat I’ve ever known. Going to miss her so much, she reminds me of Coco, both were homeless, both affectionate. Enough for today. ?? ?? xx

– Wilchard and Wendy from the Netherlands

– See the K5 box of kiddies soft toys. I wanted to buy one as a mascot for my bike but I got outvoted ??

– Our girl in Lusaka, Tsotsie ??????

Resting day 5 at Bets + Wikus’ home, Lusaka
Distance 7823
Total from Amsterdam  13223

Forgot to mention yesterday that the main reason for going to the city was to extend our Zambian visas. Peter was in and out of the Immigration offices in a flash so now we have an extra month. Ants are a major problem here at Bets and Wikus’ house but think it’s a  problem all over as its extremely dry … on the end of the kitchen tap mixer, inside the kettle and the sugar bowl, even around the toilet bowl and the loo brush holder. I must ask Ros if she also has this problem. We both polished off our 80 g slabs of chocolate last night while watching NCSI on tv. Peter had cashew and coconut, mine was plain white chocolate, yum. Our adopted child meows but not for some of our food, she just wants attention and to lie with us, a precious girl, though have discovered she loves cheese. While watching tv last night we suddenly heard odd sounds coming from the kitchen … the washing machine started itself with an error message on the dials, not good.

When Gladwell arrived this morning we told him and switching the machine on again at the plug the error message reappeared. He got a guy over to help carry the machine outside and it looks like a  mouse or rat could be the cause of the problem. There were droppings on the floor behind the machine and he said it looked as though mouse pee could be the cause. The machine is still under warranty so he didn’t want to fiddle with it further. We have been invited by Ros and Tessi for a supper of roast beef tonight. It will be nice to catch up with them again before we start riding on Sunday. There will also be ‘snot en trane’ having to say goodbye to our foster cat, Tsotsie. Peter cleaned his bike and changed the front brake pads. I’ll clean my bike tomorrow, maybe on Saturday. Supper at Ros and Tessalyn was divine, our last roast until who knows when. Our girl was waiting for us, full of complaints about leaving her alone, but now lying in my arm so presume she has forgiven us ?????? Night all xx

– Tsotsie checking to see if she could fit into one of my clothing zip up bags

– Supper with Ros and Tessalyn

– Ants in the sugar container

Madam ginger fluff-puff slept with us again. Temperature today in Lusaka 10 + 22 and I’m staying in bed till it warms up. I received a photo of snow on Sir Lowry’s Pass road late last night from Garth, have never seen this before. Ceres is under snow with tourists flocking there, causing chaos in this sleepy  town.

All three of us are in bed with toast, coffee and Milo, yum. I have forgotten that this was how we spent our Sunday mornings in winter, back home. Washed almost all our clothing and I then rode to the Cosmopolitan Shopping centre to Vodacom to see about an address list for emailing. Truly hope it solves the problem of the long list of recipients I mail my diary to daily.

I walked around the centre coming across many stores in The Foschini Group … Sterns, American Swiss, Foschini, Markham, Total Sports, Sports Scene, @Home and Exact. The centre should just have been named TFG Mall!! I chatted to the manageress of Exact for a short while. I spent about two hours at Vodacom with only one staff member on duty with clients coming in disrupting the guy trying to set up an address book. He got it set up but it only accepted gmail addresses. He then tried doing it through Outlook but after two hours of interruptions I decided to give up and possibly go in on Thursday when he’ll be on duty again. Sweden bt Switzerland this afternoon and at the moment England and Columbia are playing. Thats it guys. Night xx

PS  Our kitty here has decided to go ‘walkabout’ and been gone since 19h30. We are so worried but owners Bets and Wikus say she does it from time to time, naughty girl ?? UPDATE … SHE’S HOME

– Ros, me, daughter, Tessa and Lena
– The gorgeous ginger Fluff-puff. She loves draping herself

Can’t make a habit of sleeping in as we’ll get lazy, like in Zanzibar. With the temp outside on the windy and chilly side it was great having an affectionate kitty, toast and tea in bed. Gladwell, the domestic house cleaner arrived so we moved our panniers to our room while he cleaned. He told us where to find a street ‘bike mechanic’ other than the one in town, Cycle Mart, 10 km from here. He also showed us how to use the washing machine so our clothing will get more than a lick and promise wash. We rode to the Makeni Mall where they have Pick n Pay, Food Lovers Market, a dentist, an Indian restaurant and a real hairdresser where we will both get haircuts, K70 each some time this week. Made our way over to Cosmopolitan Mall where we bought groceries and ingredients for Bev’s Indian curry which we took over to Ros’ house for supper with her daughter, Tessi and German friend, Lena. Dessert was pineapple jelly, mixed fruit salad of apple, orange and banana with berry yoghurt. On returning to Bets’ house, saw that Belgium beat Japan 3-2, earlier Mexico losing to Brazil.

Both Peter and I had Tsotsie for company last night. She took turns sleeping with us hopping from one bed to the other. We surfaced at 06h30, went back to sleep, woke again and slept some more. I eventually woke up at 11h30 which is most unusual for me to sleep so late. A day of doing nothing, reading or watching soccer. Supper was mince bought yesterday ZK33.94 for 500g, very lean. The quality of the meat at Shoprite is excellent with a good selection of cuts. Watched both the Russia Spain and Croatia Denmark games with Russia and Croatia going through. Didn’t go out so no pictures.

05h00 and Peter’s just returned from the loo and its freezing outside. We hope to reach Lusaka this afternoon in time for rugby !! Said good bye to Phillip and Emma Tembo who live in the Shishengula area. With only a thin windbreaker on I was freezing but knew it warm up fairly quickly, Peter wore both his jackets. I said goodbye to all the hoenders (chickens) and OO’d and AA’d at the chicks, now four days old, and mother hen. When she saw me she started gathering her babies and hid them under her wings and body, very protective she was.

Left at 07h10 and I put small thin plastic bags over my short fingered cycling gloves to try and defrost my finger tips. By 08h30 I eventually warmed up going up a hill and with the sun on my back. Bumpy gravel but for the entire ride we had a good breeze mostly from behind. The hills were easy but there was much more traffic with little to no shoulder to ride on. A huge T sign indicating a toll road at 33 km got us excited that the road may improve but no such luck, same same bumpy and rough tar.

We followed two local cyclists, Patrick and Gift, and took a gravel detour around the toll plaza. On the outskirts of Lusaka every second business we saw were companies advertising drilling and boreholes or cement building blocks and paving. I realised we were nearing the city when we saw plenty of security guards and electric fences. It was nice to see a few road stalls selling seedlings compared with the usual tomatoes and onions,  and was excited to see a shopping centre with Pick ‘n Pay and a Food Lovers Market. Many petrol stations had convenience stores. We also stopped to take a photo of the house Oliver Tambo must have lived in while in exile. Great seeing more SA naval oranges and pink lady apples so loaded our panniers with a supply. Back on smooth tar again and double carriage was a bonus.

While riding over a bridge in bumper to bumper two laned traffic, we squeezed our bikes between the two lanes and while all vehicles sat gridlocked we pedaled and reached the traffic lights in no time, we just love riding in heavy, slow moving, traffic. On seeing a Builders Warehouse store Peter went in and as they had benzine in stock he bought 3 x 750 ml bottles. We need to look for plumbing tape as this may help if wrapped around the pocket rocket burner screw that’s stripped. Other SA stores seen were Ackermans, Markham, Total Sports, Exact, Woolworths, Nando’s, Shoprite, Spar, Truworths, Pizza Hut and Debonairs.

The blue light brigade were similar to those in SA, a bunch of AHs. We arrived at the Cosmopolitan Mall and while I shopped for a few basics, Peter kept watch over our bikes … didn’t want anyone stealing our oranges and apples !!  I saw a lady and her daughter a number of times while in Shoprite and asked her a few times where to find certain products, she was also at the till next to mine and got chatting about our ride. When I joined Peter outside they walked past so I introduced Peter to Natasha Zebron and her daughter. I asked her if she knew of a dentist other than the one at the complex so she rummaged in her bag and produced a business card, she’s a dentist but 20 km from where we’d be staying, a bit too far but she drew a map of where we’d find the Adventist Eye and Dentil Clinic, nearer to where we’re staying. Peter chatted to Chongo from Pizza Hut and was about to buy pizzas but I’d already bought eggs for supper (scrambled). Peter’s half watching the Stormers Jaguars rugby as well as the Uruguay Portugal soccer match with Tsotsie, the cat going from his lap to mine for love and cuddles … reminds us of our girls, Coco and Soph giving cuddles and kisses to friends, Renton and Irene who are their foster parents for a few more months, thanks guys. Night folks xx

– Mrs hoender and her 4 day old cute chicks
– Oliver Tambo’s house in Lusaka
– We rode about 500 metres between these two lanes of stuck traffic, magic
– Tsotsie the super friendly cat at Bets and Wikus’ home in Lusaka