My day started with a monster breakfast. I double checked my poxy map and it seemed that I had a bit of a marathon on my hands if I wanted to get to Choma by the end of the day. I had agreed to meet Jo there and I was kindly offered a place to stay by a lady that Jo was staying with called Jenny.
I messaged Jo yesterday morning saying I would see her in two days so didn't want to keep them waiting as we had planned to go out for a Chinese and there was no way I missing out on that!
Despite my ominously long day ahead, I still wanted to take things slowly to savour every minute. This also coincided with breaking in the new chain, so for the first hour or so I pussy footed the pedals. My leg muscles had been so used to tensing without applying alot of pressure on the pedals I couldn't shake that out of my system.
The road was good and so eventually I got confident in pushing hard and putting my handy work through its paces. This had nothing to do with the fact I had picked up two riders who were slipstreaming behind me and I wanted to beat them in yet another made up Tour de Afrique!
I stopped for a big lunch. I love being able to eat copious amounts of food and not worry about it at all. I had cycled around 50 miles and I still had at least another 50 left. Today was going to be over 100 so two huge meals were definitely warranted. After lunch, I got quickly back in the zone and it appeared the chain change was a huge success. For the first time since I can remember, Nigel wasn't making any daunting noises at all and the terrain allowed me to go faster and use gears that for the last week or so have been like skating on ice.
I had one more break just before arriving in Choma and managed to find my destination with the first time of asking. I got to Chodort Training Centre in high spirits but unfortunately Jo had gone! Jo is currently volunteering at the Centre for a few weeks and Jenny is the principal. The Centre works with the locals to give them a range of different skills that will help them with finding jobs in the future. Thankfully one of the lecturers was able to ring Jo who was at Jenny's just around the corner. They hadn't expected me as they thought when I said two days on Monday that would mean I would arrive on Wednesday! I dunno! Must've been the language barrier!
Jenny had actually cooked for two friends (Dragona and Michelle) but she was kind enough to make me up a plate as I gate crashed a very nice three course meal with 4 very diverse women. Jenny, an Irish School Principle based in Zambia, Jo, an English TV producer i met just 3 days ago with a heart of gold who's volunteering in Zambia, Michelle, a Canadian who has signed a religious contract of some sort and is extremely reserved and Dragona, a Serbian live wire in leopard skin tights who doesn't mind talking about anything (and I mean anything) at the dinner table...oh and me. If this was an episode of "come dine with me" I'm sure there wouldn't of been too many people changing channel put it that way.
I was very grateful for Jenny's amazing generosity in providing me with a shower, a nice bed and a beautiful meal which I embarrassingly had fourths and fifths of as the others kept filling my plate. (I couldn't resist!) I was even offered an extra night's stay so we could go for Chinese tomorrow which I accepted as my legs were feeling pretty shot and the thought of getting up tomorrow and doing it all over again was a bit too much for me!
Jo was even going to help with making a quick video of me riding around town and be my tour guide of the market so it was really a no brainer! It was an impromptu stop but after getting on so well on Saturday it was not like I was meeting a stranger when I met up with Jo again. Jenny is great too and doing great things as Principal for the people of Choma so I was happy to have put the effort in such a long day and give myself an opportunity to spend more time with them both.
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