From Soweto to Cairo on bicycles... for love

When Vusumuzi Mkandla, 27, sent Thando Tshuma, 30, a direct message on social media in 2023, he had one proposal: to enrich Ms Thando’s social media content creation experience by adding background music that he had created to her videos and, therefore, make them more interesting. It is what you’d call sliding into the DMs.

Thando is a social media content creator and a vlogger, while Vusumuzi is a musician and music producer. Both are Zimbabwean nationals who lived in different cities in South Africa.

“Vusumuzi travelled from Cape Town to Johannesburg for our first meeting. This meeting was purely professional and meant to set the stage for the collaborative work we had agreed on.”

They were barking up the wrong tree, as they would later learn. Unknown to them, they both love to travel and going across the continent has been on their minds, albeit separately, for a long time. Music was just a good trigger to start their shared passion.

The two are bicycle travellers. They have covered about 9,300 kilometre on their journey across 11 countries. They started cycling up the continent on April 10, 2024, from the Soweto Township of Johannesburg, South Africa.

Thando was inspired to travel by Kenyan travel vloggers Miss Trudy and D. Mwango, while Vusumuzi’s dalliance with travel dates back to when he was a child.

“My mother shared stories from the novel Around The World In 80 Days. This triggered my curiosity. I wanted to know what it would be like to be outside my country,” says Vusumuzi, who lived in Zimbabwe until he was 17.

Unlocking each other’s romantic feelings, however, was the true genesis of their adventure. “We met on June 10, 2023, for the first time. From there, Vusumuzi, played his musical and cupid cards right. One thing led to the other. Our shared love for travelling kept us talking and connecting even more. The rest is history,” says a giggly Thando.

They talked openly about their shared passion, analysed their chances of success, fixed their minds on taking on the challenge, and promised each other that only death would stop their resolve.

In about seven months, they transitioned from sharing zip files of music tunes to piecing together a continental travel project that will end in years of being on the road.

Their planning involved acquiring camping gear, visiting embassies for transit visas, and moving out of their house in Johannesburg.

Cycling is not what Thando had imagined her first continental travel would entail. “I wanted to fly. But we had no budget for that. We had no budget at all. Our options bent strongly towards cost reduction, and cycling was the most affordable. I adjusted quickly to this reality and planned accordingly.” With all set, they picked April 3, 2024, as their day of departure. A night before this day, their two bicycles were stolen.

“We woke up to an empty rack. We panicked a bit because our journey was now under a serious challenge. We reported this to the police, but they were not very helpful. We recovered one of the bicycles through our networks. With only one bicycle, we were still grounded.

"During the planning season of our journey, I did a lot of publicity for the project on my Facebook page, a process my community had been following keenly. I did a Facebook Live about this development, and luckily, some people offered to help get us a new bicycle, with this crowdfunding and some savings we had, we bought a new bicycle.

“We lived right outside what used to be our apartment because we didn’t have a tenancy in the house we rented before. Our neighbours saw our predicament and offered us accommodation for the few days of our travel delay. A week after this incident, we left South Africa.”

They first cycled southwards to Lesotho before journeying back north and crossing the border to Eswatini, then to Mozambique and Zimbabwe, where they took their first long break.

“We had a lot of activities in Zimbabwe, including spending time with family. We stayed there for one and a half months. The break was longer than we had anticipated. This overstay pushed our itinerary by close to two months,” says Vusumuzi.

They later crossed to Zambia, where they sold their bicycles and bought new ones. “Our stay in Zimbabwe bore great fruit. We spent time with family and got donations from our friends and community on social media.” Thando adds.

They are minimalist travellers. Not just in the luggage they carry but also in their travelling budget. “Not having a budget for this travel determined many things, including what to carry while on the road. We carry the food we cook on the move; we have two pots, two plates, two spoons, and a single-burner butane stove. For accommodation, we have a tent and sleeping bags. We pitch our tents anywhere we meet darkness,” says Thando.

Vusumuzi adds: “We try to limit our expenditure to $5 every day save for when we are forced to use hotel accommodation, in which case, we cap the expenditure at $15.”

When not sleeping in a tent or a hotel room, they are in cozy beds in people’s homes. They have made connections and friendships while travelling in all the countries they have been to.

“Africa has extremely kind people. Sometimes, we are offered accommodation long before we arrive in a country. Our hosts in Kenya, for example, met us on social media and opened their home to us for about two months.” Thando adds.

The BD Lifestyle visited them in Ngong Town, where they have been accommodated by James and Cynthia Odiambo.

How did they find the Odhiambos?

Kenya is their second long break. Ordinarily, they cover between 80-100 kilometres daily and take one or two-day breaks. While in Kenya, they have started planning for their next move.

They are considering either cycling to Ethiopia and then flying to Tunisia or flying directly to Tunis and cycling westwards to embark on the rest of their journey back to South Africa via West Africa.

“We planned to cycle through Ethiopia to Egypt. With the ongoing conflict in Ethiopia, we decided to change our plans,” says Vusumuzi.

The second part of their journey will take them a year to complete. “We expect to be back in South Africa in 2026 if all goes according to plan,” says Thando.

They will be relying heavily on the goodwill from people they meet both online and offline to make it back to South Africa. “We wouldn’t say we have a source of income right now. I just monetised my Facebook recently. Every day, we have people asking us how they can support us. We have faith that this will continue,” she adds.

Travelling with each other has taught them key lessons and fortified their young relationship more. "I have realised that Thando is caring and open-minded. As long as we are together, she is ready to jump on anything we agree on,” says Vusumuzi.

“I have learned calmness from him. He is calm even in situations that trigger panic. At this time, we were almost attacked by villagers in a town in Tanzania. They found us in our tent and called other villagers, who came at us with weapons and dogs. Luckily, we talked ourselves out of the situation. Vusumizi was very calm in the whole situation.” She adds.

What does their future hold? “Well, he must make it official when we get back home—he needs to put a ring on it,” Thando chuckles. “We hope to keep travelling. We are thinking of Asia, Europe, then the Americas.” Vusumuzi says.

“We cycle for charity. We run a charity called Lifesong Kenya, to help boys coming from prison or who have been abused integrate back into society. Cycling is one of our fundraising platforms,” says James Odhiambo.

“We Vusumuzi and Thando on social media. I am part of a cyclist community and when I saw this, I offered to accommodate them when they got to Kenya. This is the second time we are accommodating cyclists. As cyclists, we understand how free accommodation is handy for travelling cyclists like Vusumuzi & Thando.”

→ [email protected]