Long days, the great scavenger hunt and a good nights rest

I have a new purpose as I pedal my way through Zambia - finding objects for The Great Zambian Scavenger Hunt. It's lots of fun and I feel kind of like I'm doing the amazing race! The hunt is all over at 5pm tomorrow and my partner in crime - the wonderful Jolyane and I still have a few more things to find. There is a list of 20 things on the list we need to find and so far we have scavenged:
- a broken discarded shoe
- a piece of amalesa (which we had to firstly find out what it was - charcoal!)
- a ngwe - which is an old Zambian coin no longer used
- a seed from a baobab tree
- a mozi (brand of beer) bottle cap
- a rusty nail
- and many more equally random objects.

We also needed a picture of me on a local bicycle - I chose one with a 3 year old kid on the back, and the frame was really huge and it was a really hard bike to ride, not to mention how worried I was that the kid would fall off the back!!! We have a picture of a Zambian person doing the TDA pose (holding their bicycle above their head).

Today we thought we might have had a lead for the "snake stone" which I think is apparently a special black stone that you rub on a snake bite thats supposed to fix you up. We need to find a Witch Doctor to get one of these. We saw a sign to the "Black Doctor" though 400m off the main road, which we followed into a little village which obviously (although only 50km from Lusaka) saw very few white people. They were very accommodating of us and although the doctor did not have a snake stone one of his 5 wives made us tea, and gave us bread and beans and we had a good chat... it was one of those great moments you get when you're travelling. The doctor himself was 79 years old and looking good. He said he had 62 children, who had 9 different mothers (but only 5 wives). He had some very cute kids (or maybe they were grandkids- I'm not sure!). Anyhow, Jolyane, Miranda, Nate, Dave & I (who were all with me in the village) managed to get behind the sweep rider so everyone was wondering where we were at lunchtime! And then Eric who was the afternoon sweep rider caught me finding my rusty nail in the afternoon. It was only the 2nd time I'd been caught by the sweep - I'm usually up near the front of the pack!

Anyhow, I'm in Lusaka now, the capital of Zambia. And thankful that tomorrow is a rest day because I am feeling tired - the last 5 days have been long - 145km, 175km, 141km, 151km, and today only 105km. But the rolling hills are never ending and there have been some big climbs. Thankfully however I have a new thermarest, kindly donated to a needy rider by Werner who had to go home early in Tanzania after he was hit by a truck and broke his elbow. Werner's thermarest is thick - at least half as thick as mine when it used to inflate, and it has a built in pillow. At night time even though I'm still on the ground in my tent, I feel like I'm back in my bed at home!!!

Mitch the Rockhopper is now feeling like new after Dr Mark operated on him recently and gave him an operation - a Total Drivetrain, casette and chainwheel Replacement he had. He's shifting again like he did when he was new!