Our battered suitcases were piled on the sidewalk again; we had longer ways to go. But no matter, the road is life. - Jack Kerouac

27 June 2019, N’zeto to Soyo outskirts, 146.58km
Hospedaria Castelo-Lambranças 10,000Kz (R445)

The longest distance Charl and I have ever cycled in a day is 150.2km. That was almost 20 years ago in June 2000. We were riding South Africa, Beit Bridge to Cape Point, raising money for the Nelson Mandela Children’s Fund. My parents were seconding us, so we carried no panniers, making riding considerably easier than it is fully-laden. On a long, flattish day through the Karoo, we achieved the 150km. Today, almost 20 years older and without support, we nearly equalled our record by doing just over 146km.
We had not intended riding so far, planning to camp at a police station half way to Soyo. In no hurry, we pottered south a couple of kms to the Puma garage for breakfast and supplies, then turned north toward Soyo on the Congo river. After a short stretch of roadworks, we crossed the Mbridge river on a double-carriage bridge and found ourselves on a double-carriage highway, with a wide shoulder and virtually no traffic. Just beyond the bridge, near a stand of stunning white-barked trees, we saw a sign reading “Soyo 130km”. Charl challenged me to do the distance, so I did…
Although the road is an absolute pleasure to ride, given the fact that it is virtually new, in perfect condition, well-sign-posted and graded, with a shoulder and no traffic, I was extremely disturbed by it. I could not decide if it was an expression of vast optimism or arrogant cynicism. We spent all day doing that 130km and if we saw one car per km, it was a lot. We believe the road used to be awful, and know that road infrastructure spend changes people’s lives for the better, but a double-carriage highway was clearly overkill / overspend. [We later heard that this section of road is part of a fantasy west coast Africa highway, like the Pan-American, intended to link Morocco and South Africa. Good grief…]
Although too far, we coped fairly well with Charl’s challenge, lunching on fish and sweet potatoes at a roadside market, and cycling past numerous fires, some close enough that we could hear the burning bush crackle.
52km outside Soyo, I saw a police vehicle pass us by, headed south, and was conscious that they were conscious of us. A little later they caught up with us, having made a U-turn somewhere. There were five men in the vehicle, two in the cab, three in the open bed, all armed. They were polite and friendly, inspected our passports, then took our photo. The boss man indicated the photo was for official purposes, but the other four posed behind us in their reflective sunglasses, guns across their chests. Unfortunately they would not allow me a reciprocal photo! They showed that they would escort us to Soyo, but first turned south again, presumably to complete the business which had brought them out in the first place.
At the 44km mark, they were back with us and stayed with us, more or less, until we called it a day. On the fast portions of road, they pottered along behind us at a reasonable distance from us. On the first hill, however, they were suddenly much closer to me, unintentionally pressurising me to pedal harder, to expend more energy than I wanted to or could. After awhile, I waved for them to overtake us. They hung back for a minute, presumably discussing my request, then moved past to await us at the top of the climb. When we reached them, we found that the boss man was using the waiting time to pluck his dinner, a guinea fowl. And so the pattern was set for the next few hours…
Much to our dismay, we discovered late in the day that the 130km was to the very outskirts of Soyo, the centre being another 15km or so. Luckily, we spotted a hospedaria just when we could not contemplate another hour or two on the bikes, and stopped. The police escort had gone ahead of us at that point, but came back to find us and to request us to proceed. Charl told them we were too tired. They had some sort of discussion with the owner, who turned out to be a military man, and between them they agreed we could call it quits.
The hospedaria and the dinner they provided was overpriced, but in truth we did not care particularly.

For today's route see below photos
For overview route, click on ROUTE tab above…