jonnywhite

Yours truly in the Sahara, thanks Theresa (TDA's South African PR guru), who is always sneaking around with the camera, for the shot.

A big thanks for comments posted - I have a hard time replying because the net connections here seem to have particular trouble with certain things, among them letting me administer the site - but I always get them eventually and very much appreciate them.

Ethiopia is truly beautiful. We’ve ridden through the highlands, are now beside lake Tana, and are on our way to the capital, Addis Ababa. While certainly numerous, the people are generally friendly and helpful and love having tourists around to play with, kids especially. Although they often come up to you with a really fake sad face and hands out, but if you smile, or pull their hood over their eyes, or pick them up and carry them around, they have a blast and think it's just great that the aliens are playing with them - and forget all about their act. Not to trivialize the poverty but handouts are by no means a solution - kids get beaten up if others see them getting things, so it's better just to make them smile.

I’ll start on a proud note. I had by far my best finish (2nd place) yesterday on a few lucky coincidences. I sometimes ride hard from the race start to set up a video shot of the riders coming along in a pelaton if there is nice scenery. I can generally hammer ahead off the start for 20 minutes, before my legs wear out, and I get the shot but it costs my legs dearly later in the day. Given the awesome scenery and climbs in the Ethiopian highlands on the previous 2 days, I wanted to get a good lead and then set up to film a big snaking climb up a mountain… but there were no mountains and no really notable scenery. I was feeling good and was riding with Big Urs, a fun Swiss guy who was pushing ahead for the win that day, so I just carried on pushing it and came in about 10 minutes behind him. The man’s an absolute machine and I can’t keep up with him on the hills…yet. Urs and I had actually taken such a fast lead that another rider thought he had won as he passed all the regular top finishers (who were luckily taking it easy that day) until he got to the finish to find Urs and I having a well-earned juice. He blew his top. Since this is the first I’m mentioning about finishing places, I should probably share that I normally come in between 10th and 20th, much later if I’m having a bad day, and I’m really not here to race. I don’t expect many repeats of top finishes and my legs are killing me, but I did have fun pushing myself and thought I’d share it with anyone who cares to read.

On another topic, life on the road can be a little lonely. Most of us don’t have our loved ones here to share Valentines day with… but we do have each other – for better or for worse. Christo, one of the African Routes crew, mixed Staminade (a South African version of Gatorde that we drink about 100 litres of per day) into the oatmeal so that we woke up on Valentines day to pink oatmeal. The only trouble with the cute gesture was that the taste was absolutely appalling. It was compared by numerous riders in texture appearance and other properties to, well, vomit. The thought was there but it made for a number of cranky riders with complaints that were awfully funny in retrospect, when they couldn’t stomach their breakfast before a 120km day.

All's well and we're off to Ethiopia's capital, Addis Ababa over the next 5 days and 580km.