April 29

The change from Botswana to Namibia has been dramatically contrasted now by our entrance into the Namib desert. We turned out of Winhoek and immediately onto dirt rough roads. We climbed out for a long while onto hills and some spectacular views. Just to have hills to climb diversifies your day so that time flies quickly. Luckily the roads were fairly good so that we weren’t destroyed by the corrugations but there is still a noticeable wear on our bodies after a long day.

Our rest day has been in Sesriem, a small tourist junction which contains a lodge, a cam sight, and a gas station. We went to the dunes to watch the sun rise and spent a few hours climbing and rolling down those sandy slopes, staring at views which I had only previously looked at in National Geographic articles.

In our minds these last five days are going to be the last big challenge keeping us away from Cape Town. There are going to be some very hard, and very long days which in combination will be draining,but with the finish line in sight we have the fuel to carry on.

Windhoek- April 25

As is quite apparent I did not write that last eloquent article posted by my support crew, but it truly does describe the mental challenge of the last 5 days. We covered a total of 825km in five days, breaking my personal record for my longest day of riding (distance) and completing the tours longest section. My personal record has been set at 207km which we completed the day that we crossed into Namibia. These days have truly been a mental struggle far more than a physical challenge. To look at your day in the big picture is a bad idea, so instead you focus litterally on every 10km. If you say ‘okay, it’s 75km to lunch then another 75km km to the refresh stop, then another 60km to camp’ you easily make the day miserable and much much slower.

My bike lasted a total of one day before the bike mechanics had me off again. The bearings in my rear hub were absolutely destroyed beyond repair so onto bike number 9-10. In Windhoek I managed to bike my way into the industrial centre of the city and purchase some bearings which are now in my bike and ready for the up and coming off road section. Eight days of off road, which are to be split up by a rest day after three days.

Desert riding starts with very cold mornings (around 5*) forcing us to pull on layers in the morning which we rapidly shed as the day moves back to 27*. We are hoping that further into Namibia we will get to see some of the phenomenal dunes that we have heard about, but really we know little of what is coming up- a little adventure to keep us hooked

What 825km of riding looked like

Just You And The Road – A blog entry from the TdA web-site

http://tourdafrique.com/2013/04/botswana-the-elephant-highway/

It’s hot, it’s dry, it’s windy, it’s barren and every day it’s 150kms or more of dead straight, dead flat riding. The landscape is like riding through a cartoon with a 10 second illustration on repeat.  Grass, shrubs, bramble, grass, tree, small tree, grass, shrubs and repeat. The mystery of what lies ahead is taken down to a crawling pace of anticipation as every slight curve in the road opens the view to the next 10kms of your day; shrubs, grass, trees, small tree, grass, shrubs. No villages, no market stands, no stalls, no children, no turns, no forks, no school yards, no mountains, no cafes, no households, no farms, nothing. Take away all the noise and activity, take away everything that was once a challenge and we are faced now with an even bigger one; emptiness.

Completing 800kms in 5 days of riding is more of a meditation. With some riders spending upwards of 10 hours on the bike there is more time to think than the brain would like to deal with. Whether it’s a conversation aloud with your riding partner or a conversation with yourself  during the hours upon hours on the road, all the basics have long been covered. What to do after the tour, what you’ll miss about life here, how you feel about cycling at this point, what you’re really missing about life at home, what your next bike tour will be, next bike, past adventures, what new job you hope to get, new career move, new city, all about your family, your friends, you favorite beer, the food you miss and tales of your misspent youth are all topics long expired in the first few 100 kms in this 1,000+km traverse of the flat lands.

So where does the mind go now? With headwinds blasting in your face on day 3 of 170kms, no end in sight and no water left, you dig. You dig down past the point of giving up. Why? Because there is no option. It’s a place where many of us never go when we are at home with creature comforts at our beck and call. It’s a place that even if most of us never visit again, we know is there, deep inside us, that little voice that just says “keep on moving, just keep moving forward”.

Travelling 12,000kms by bike sounds fantastic and intriguing but the reality is far too abstract a number for any non-cyclist to really imagine. It is at this point in the tour where that number feels all too real and is accounted for more closely than at any other point. An expedition of this caliber is not for the faint of heart nor is it reserved for the ultra-athletes amongst us. Those who choose to join us for this mad adventure have simply had a serious conversation with themselves.  A conversation about pushing beyond the point of reason and beyond what you ever thought was possible and discovering that if you just keep moving, and keep moving forward, one day…you’ll get there.

 

April 19

In our last day into Maun we battled heavy headwinds all the way into the city and a well earned rest day. On my way to camp I stopped by the local DHL shop in the hopes that my parcel from home of bike parts would be there. Amazingly it was there waiting for me, no hassle, just hand over the package and my bike has life! It was good timing because my lower back couldn’t take much more time on the Cineli, which was a road bike design but a size too small for me. I am looking at booking a late flight over top of the Okavango Delta but if that doesn’t work out then today will have been a good solid rest.

We have been recognised more frequently as we move our way down towards south Africa. People who are bussing up from SA or are on holiday hail us, congratulating us and fuelling us onward. You can feel everyone relaxing as the last three weeks draw close. Only 21 days till the end! Absolutely crazy to think about!

April 16

After having the smoothest border crossing so far we made our way by river ferry across the mighty Zambezi into Botswana, the land of flat straight roads, headwinds, and elephants. We were told when beginning the tour that an average day is about 120km if we take the number of days and average out the distance, but since Ethiopia was so mountainous distances were massively cut down to around the 100km mark. This leaves us with a large amount of ground to be made up and the long flat roads in Botswana offer great opportunities to gain back ground. This last week has had a 120km ride followed by a 170km, 140km, 185km. Very little breaks the scenery of sparsely scattered trees and grassland. There are no towns, no people, and very little traffic-monotonous grinding when combined with a headwind. Luckily this section is named the elephant highway due to the abundance of the gigantic  animals, and if we are lucky we spot them as well as other wildlife as we ride. We are not riding in a game park so this makes the experience all the more real and unique. So far we have spotted nine elephants, three giraffe, a few zebra, and a rhino. Our next rest day is in Maun, Botswana where my bike parts should be waiting at the local DHL office for me to pick them up and replace my broken bits. I cannot wait to be back on my bike after riding on a plethora of others, and although there are many great things about each different bike- just like coming back from a holiday, there is nothing better than the comfort of what you know and are used to.

April 7

The crossing into the Zambia was quick and as trouble free as an African border crossing can be. We started a section of five days where we covered a total distance of about 700km with two 170km days back to back. These are the longest rides we have done to date and to have two of them back to back was a challenge for sure. It is easy to become demoralized when you have been riding for hours on end and have covered the distance of a normal day, yet you know you still have another 50km to cover. The first day had some excitement when we had an emergency stop at lunch where we had all been held back because of a riot/demonstration that had been developing over the last few weeks in the town a few kilometers from lunch. We sat for a long while (all dependent of when you arrived at lunch) until we had clearance by the national guard to slowly pass through in a convoy. As we slowly rode through the town behind a truck full of heavily armed soldiers we watched as police chased groups of people, some being arrested, amongst the fields and lingering smoke of burning car tire. The soldiers would alternately fire rounds into the air over our heads to keep villagers wary, but also succeeded in scaring a good few of the cyclists in the convoy. The iron fist of the military was fully apparent the whole while and kept my heart rate at a good exited rate through the whole convoy. I won’t say that I carried on as if nothing was happening because that would have been ignorant to the point of criminal, but I was not scared of the people or the soldiers as we rode. Once and a while you could see a person watching us from their homes and you would watch them give a smile as we passed giving me the impression that things couldn’t be so serious that the people were unable to smile or watch for fear of repercussion. This more than anything assuaged my potential anxiety and before we knew it we were back on the road to finish the ride. I managed to once again dehydrate myself on the first long ride, setting myself up for a rather miserable night and a less than enjoyable ride the next day.

            I wish I could say that my bike managed to experience these interesting days with me but alas it has decided to take a medical brake due to some serious issues with my rear axel/hub/spoke/derailler (or just rear half of my bike). The bike mechanics informed me the first morning that it wouldn’t be safe to be riding my bike and that for the sake of not making things worse that I ride someone elses bike until I can get the necessary parts in to salvage my poor bike. With quick action on the part of my amazing pit crew at home the parts are now on their way to Maun, Botswana which is about a week away, so until then I am on a cineli bike until the ‘surgery’ can take place.

            We are resting in Lusaka right now and now more than ever it has become apparent how far we have come through Africa. The influences of wealthy ex-pats and other possibly South African input has transformed what would have been local eating back a month ago into fine dining at top end restaurants. Shopping centers have replaced local markets, and although it is possible to find the Africa from before you need to hunt harder and harder to reclaim it. I find it almost sad to think back to where it was a luxury to find a chocolate bar or a bar of soap and how it was an accomplishment to have hunted such objects down. Today I walked along isles of foods in what would have been a large shopping center back home in bewilderment at all the different options available to me. It has almost been exactly three months since I arrived in Cairo but it seems like an age ago. We still have a month to go, and there are still challenges ahead but I can’t help but feel the shadow of the end creeping across the horizon, and I’m not sure whether I really want it to come or not. 

Food April 1

On an average day on tour food is a fairly common topic amongst cyclists. Whether we are sitting around after a days ride, or chatting while riding you have a very high probability of hearing a conversation which started with an opening sentence like: ‘So what’s your first meal going to be when you get home’, or ‘what is your favorite fast food restaurant’. It seems strange to be having deep discusions over which food is better or greasier, but when food becomes an extremely necessary fuel source to get you through the day- you think about little else.

My meals will go something like this on an average day: have two huge bowls of porridge mixed with granola. This breakfast will last me for an average 60km of riding and can get me to 75km before I hit the wall. Lunch is the major pit stop which depending on the day can last from 20 minutes to an hour. Sandwiches are lunch and with the fruit of the day need to source me all the way till camp so an average lunch will be 5-8 sandwiches. If you are really run down you wait for about half an hour or so for your body to start absorbing the food otherwise your legs haven’t powered back up. When you get into camp the cooks have usually gotten a pot of soup ready for you and the tea/coffee table is set and ready so that we can replenish our salts and other nutrients etc. Dinner is usually an amazing affair with meals like pastas with good solid sauces, various grilled animals on a good day, and always a hefty filler like rice or potatoes. I take seconds almost every night. This routine happens every single day, and luckily with TDA quantity is not an issue. There is always a lot to go round and although you may not have enjoyed the meal you will not go away hungry.

This is great when you are riding, but right now I am in Lilongwe on a rest day where it is my responsibility to find and buy my own food. Unfortunately restaurants don’t understand the quantity that is necessary for the average rider so at smaller hotels it isn’t uncommon for the restaurant staff to be completely overwhelmed with us ordering multiple plates of food per person. Today I have been eating constantly as if I had just come through a famine (hence this post) and am preparing for the next riding day when we will cross into Zambia.

Zambia is going to hold some very long rides for us ranging around the 180km mark in a few instances. I assume this means that the terrain is flattening out but one can never assume anything when cycling in Africa.

March 29

 

The crossing into Malawi went without a hitch, and we were soon riding in country number six. We camped along side lake Malawi for a few nights which was absolutely stunning. The lake itself is so warm to swim in that my swim in the lake was warmer than my shower afterwards. We had a rest day along the edge where we took on a beach atmosphere with a very laid back attitude towards everything from chores to leaving the beach chairs to eat. It is so easy to just sit and watch as thunderstorms hammer on the opposite side both night and day, or at night watch the full moon glimmer across the vast surface. At midnight  thunderstorms would consistently hit us (it is now coming to the end of the Malawian rainy season) and one night on the rest day I was forced to scramble all my gear into the bar where I slept on the floor because my tent was sitting in a big puddle. After our amazingly lazy rest day we crossed the mountain pass that supplies mass amounts of runoff to the lake, and we are now on our way towards Lilongwe-the capital of Malawi.

            The people of Malawi are very friendly but also very poor. They love to come and chat with us but unlike most of the other countries we have passed through they don’t hassle you to buy things, and let you have your distance if you ask for it. The geography is extremely influenced by the lake which makes up probably over a quarter of the countries surface. Near the lake the humidity is tremendously high so when biking your sweat doesn’t evaporate like usual. This leads to wet everything. Tents don’t lose the condensation of the night, any laundry you wear needs a good half day to dry out. As we crossed the mountains there has been a considerable difference as we move higher and away from the lake but temperatures still sit at a warm 35* when it isn’t raining. We have two days rest in Llongwe so I hope that I will actually have access to internet to finally post something. I ran into a completely African situation in Tanzania where the entire internet of the entire country was down. Literally the only access to internet was through cell phones which I do not have. So fingers crossed- if you are reading this then I was successful somewhere on this trip 🙂

March 22

Coming out of Arusha we were thrown straight into a off road section of mud. The rainy season is just starting so some days we actually had no rain, but when it rained, it really rained. The first day of mud was uncomfortable but that was about all, the second day we hit a couple of kilometers of mud so deep and thick that we had to walk our bikes for a majority. Three derailleurs were broken right off in that little section due to too much stress because mud would cake absolutely everything, clogging anything that moved and jamming chains, wheels, and brakes. My chain was twisted in the middle of this but luckily someone who knew how to use a chain break was able to take out the necessary links so that I could make it too the end of the day. I wish that this could’ve been my worst mechanical issue but it seems when I hit off road everything falls apart. To summarize the current situation I can’t remove my rear wheel so when I get rear tire flats I have to patch the tube while still on the bike, which in mud and rain doesn’t work. The middle day we had torrential rain and with a combination of another flat I ended up on someone elses bike. The bike was a style called cyclo-cross which basically means it looks and rides like a road bike but with some tweaks that allow it to ride offroad.

It is in the mud that you really get to see the generous side of riders. People come together to help each other out. When you see peoples bikes falling apart , others step up to help fix the problem. Two of the riders who had derailleurs snap still had EFI (riding the whole way without having to get in the truck) so other people who don’t have that title gave their own bikes so that they could carry on, or in the other  case our amazing bike mechanics disassembled three bike in a Frankenstein fasion in the mud and rain to reassemble a workable bike. Through these last five days you have seen people come together to help and give spare parts. Although there are many who struggled I think that there were so many more who have helped get people like me through this rough patch. So tomorrow we have one more difficult day until a rest day, and no more dirt roads until Namibia. Hopefully we can figure out the problem with my wheel to set my mind at ease, but as it stands I’m still riding strong, my body is working well and I still have a lot of Africa to see yet.

March 13

Made it safely without issue across the Kenyan/Tanzanian border into what can only be described as the most stereotypical Africa you can imagine. It would seem that every country that we have passed through so far has border that are purely based off geography because as we have passed through each border there have been almost immediate changes, possibly with the exception of Egypt to Sudan.

            Tanzania so far has been straight roads with long rolling hills along what is a lush version of the savanna. Around us mighty hills seem to spring up from nothing, towering as we slowly creep by. Most of the people are dressed in traditional garb- that of the Masai people. Earlobes are stretched into big dangling loops, and clothing is big sheets of red and black checkered cloth which they drape over themselves in an almost Greek toga fashion. The women are covered in beadery wearing layer upon layer of colorful necklaces and with multiple ornate earrings dangling from their already stretched lobes. Sometimes the earrings hang so long as to pass their shoulders. Unfortunately, yet in a way thankfully the Masai people have become rather unfavorable towards tourists taking pictures of them in their traditional garb. This is too bad because it makes it difficult for me to get any photos, but I also feel that it is right that they make a stand against us. Any one of us back home wouldn’t like it if busloads of jabbering foreigners jumped out their bus shoved cameras in our faces, took photos, and then drove away. It is very dehumanizing in my opinion and unless you take steps to help the locals or to develop friendships with them, you have no rights to just snap away.

            We are currently in Arusha on a scheduled 3 day rest period, which would have been extremely welcome and necessary if it had not been for the election issue in Kenya and our extra week of rest just a few days ago. I have managed to squeak into a cheap tenting safari for the next couple days so that I can see all the animals that I really don’t want to see when I am on my bicycle. Lions are nice when seen from a distance in a landrover, but possibly less so when on their level moving slower than any of their prey. Even with the adrenaline I doubt I can beat an impala at top speed.

            After these few days we will be finally back on track and starting up with an eight day section of mostly offroad. Six of the days have been reported as being dirt, which when dry are almost like pavement, but with the rainy season upon us they can turn into nasty, muddy treks. So far the rains have come regularily at around three in the afternoon. And ending at around six so as long as they aren’t too tremendous I don’t think it will be too bad.