jonnywhite

The Globe says it better than I did, perhaps.

2010-05-31T06:57:00.001-07:00

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/life/travel/across-africa-by-bike/article1552488/

Cape Town

2006-05-27T20:27:00.000-07:00

It has taken me a while to write this final entry. It’s a little intimidating to try to sum up 4 months in which a nutty dream became an intense reality. That reality hit extremes of hopelessness and euphoria, and just about every stop in between.

We rolled into South Africa and then Cape Town in good spirits. I had thought through the finish line ceremonies and goodbyes, and despite (and due to) warnings that it would get emotional, I was nonchalantly videotaping all the way in. I stood at the line filming riders meeting their families and loved ones when someone tapped me on the shoulder. Was it someone asking for change? It seemed unlikely but not impossible. Maybe press? Probably. Interviewers and video cameras were swarming the riders. I turned to face my girlfriend Melanie.

But she was in Toronto. Or at least I had been looking forward, since the trip began, to flying to Toronto to see her at the end of the trip. But she was here. And so not in Toronto. It took me about 4 hours to get over the shock, confusion, and excitement. Mel had spent two weeks touring Cape Town and Namibia, hitting a few of the same spots as the tour only days before or afterwards, but had waited until the finish to surprise me. Once I became conscious of reality again we traveled South Africa together. I have never been more surprised in my life than I was at the finish and I have never been happier in my life than in the past two weeks. How’s that for a nice ending?

And so it’s over. The riders return to their homes all over the world sure that no one else will understand what it was like riding through the sand and corrugation in Sudan, the hills in Ethiopia, or the desert in northern Kenya. No friends or family will relate entirely when you tell them about camping for four months in ten countries with 50 strangers-become-siblings of all ages. The hard-core racers have their results, and to me these befit the people who earned them. A few of us have special pride and a bond of suffering in having ridden every f’n inch of the way. We covered 11,900km in 96 riding days, also climbing more meters on the bicycle in elevation than I will on my four connecting flights home.

And so what was it all about? What did I learn? Well, for starters, the nice thing about taking chances is that the outcomes are unknown (redundant, I know but I’m going somewhere with this). I came to Africa very uncertain about the tour, the countries I was crossing, my riding ability, and my odds of finishing. Although I thought it would be rewarding to do the trip I had no idea why or how. In the end, the lessons I learned are the last things I expected.

1. Making a decision to do something is the hardest part. Once you have made a decision and thrown out all your excuses, other options, and insecurities, you find a way. In the end, no matter how hard it was, you will say “that wasn’t so hard afterall” and will be ready for new challenges, with more opportunities for growth, in the future.

2. Seeing life from a fatalist perspective it is depressing. If you think you “have to” deal with things you don’t want to (e.g. riding a bike through mud for a week) you will not be very pleasant to be around. If you instead see life as a series of decisions in which you can either challenge yourself to grow or back down and stagnate, things that used to be “have to’s” become “get to’s”. You become thankful for whatever you are facing, no matter how tough, because it is your chance to grow.

3. Conquering something alone is satisfying, but does not compare to sharing something with someone you care about. We are hardwired, as a social species, to be happiest when we are loved, loving, and sharing, rather than when we are accomplishing things for ourselves. It took me a long, long time to learn this and it is the lesson from this trip that I am most grateful for. Best of all, I know who to thank.

This is the end. Thank you so much for reading. I have learned that I have more readers than I anticipated (this was supposed to be a time-saving device). Thank you for giving me the opportunity to share a part of my life with you and I genuinely hope that you will be so kind as to tell me about yours.

Until then.

Jonny White

www.jonnywhite.ca
jonnywhite@gmail.com

Namibia

2006-05-27T19:55:00.000-07:00

Winhoek is a distant memory. Once we left, the road got slightly hillier and people started talking about the finish. The eight riders who joined us in the last month, and were just starting their own adventure, bit their tongues to put up with 50 cyclists who spoke of little other than the end. We were putting in long days of riding when mentally we were already there. With a set routine and the end in sight (so to speak, we still had a couple thousand km’s), we became antsy for distractions from the agony of waiting for the finish line. We came up with a few. The evenings were now peppered with events. Prophet-run blindfolded tent-erection contests, tire-changing races, trivia, and singing and playing music about the trip entertained our big family. Throw in a naked kilometer in Namibia (that was extended to 15km to the amusement/utter confusion of the locals), some funky riding tricks (see Superman pic), a great crash (riding 50km/h downhill into a dam with unseen knee-deep water while blaring rock’n’roll on the headphones), and preparations for the finish, and I had enough to keep me laughing all the way to Cape Town. On that note I’ll add a little story about my friend Tom Baxter.

Tom joined us at Victoria Falls, and despite being a ‘new fish’ he integrated into the group quite comfortably, to the point of being one of the few to participate in the much-anticipated naked kilometer. This is a legacy performed on many bike tours, not just a perverted gag, so on a sunny day in Namibia five of us decided our tour deserved the honor as well and stripped down. With our biking clothes in our packs and tied around our handlebars, and lots of giggling, we began our bold trek. Having been in biking gear for 14 weeks the change was actually quite comfortable and welcome, to the point of out-weighing any shyness, so we decided to keep going. Plus there wasn’t much traffic. After six or seven kilometers we noticed Tom was missing. He was having fun when we last saw him, and standing around naked is much more awkward than riding naked (I don’t know exactly why, but can tell you it is), so we kept going. We would later learn that Tom, in his eagerness or anxiety, had left his clothes on the side of the road. This meant doubling back naked to get them, which would not be a big deal except that there was a significant contingent of 30 or so slower (and generally older/more mature) riders behind us that he would have to pass, naked, on his way back to look for his shorts in the desert. Our plan, when we discovered this eventuality, was to deny the existence of any ‘naked kilometer’ event to the rest of the group, singling Tom out as a rogue unaccompanied backwards-riding nudist. Tom, however, revealed his plight to another rider who happened to have been wearing two pairs of biking shorts (to alleviate saddle-sores) and got away with the blunder to everyone else’s chagrin.

At this point I must honor Lyle, a fellow Canadian and good friend throughout the trip, who heard about the naked kilometer while passing other riders on the road. Not wanting to be left out, Lyle stripped bare and rode, otherwise as usual, with his (clothed) wife Krista, to the bewilderment of riders passed and passing, not to mention traffic, who knew nothing about the naked kilometer.

We are fast approaching Cape Town. Just a matter of carrying out the routine and keeping the legs moving for another couple weeks.

Windhoek

2006-04-30T08:58:00.000-07:00

Believe it or not, riders are getting bored. Even though we’re in a new country nearly every week these days, the routine stays the same: up at 5, oatmeal, on the bike for 7 hours, sit around at camp, mass dinner, bed. We joke about it as just another day at the office. And the office, for the last 2 countries, has been flat flat flat. Entertainment of late has consisted of watching Tom change continuously popping tires, ordering full legs of strange animals at restaurants for dinner (Oryx, Springbok, Zebra), and hoisting a sleeping frenchman’s bike up a flagpole. I also raced a few days lately and managed to get my stage win, so with that monkey off my shoulder I’m going to take it pretty easy from here to Cape Town.

The stage I managed to win (actually tied for 1st with 3 other riders) was made interesting by a rider notorious for his ‘race tactics’. In bike racing, drafting behind other bikes is incredibly important to conserve energy, but if the whole pack always tries to draft each other they don’t get anywhere. Instead, each rider ‘pulls’ (leads) the pack for a few minutes at a time and then switches to the back to draft. This racer, a.k.a. everyone’s nemesis, tried to drop me by taking the pack on a sprint after the first three times I pulled (which is generally when your legs are the most tired and therefore a sprint might leave you behind). When that didn’t work, he told me I wasn’t pulling fast enough and that our mutual friend was going to lose the stage if I didn’t put my head down and give it all I had on my next pull (which would make me really tired and easy to drop). I told him to eat crap, which was phrased more politely as: “If I’m not going fast enough you should try to drop me”. We rolled in together with the two others in the pack in an agreed-upon tie, we do have to live together after all.

After the race, of course, we’re all friends, or at least bitter enemies pretending to be friends for the sake of peace. As I haven’t been racing much and am generally easy going you can take this example x 1000 to characterize the relationships between some of the other racers. We occasionally catch them sneaking around at night with daggers. This trip could really be made into a TV show, something like: “Tour de France meets Survivor meets Lost meets Desperate Housewives…”.

In other news, we sighted some wild dogs, which are an endangered species, last week. Given their rarity, one of our leisure riders in his 60’s, Jimmy, stopped to snap a few pictures. The dogs decided to make it interesting for him by attacking so Jim swung his bike at them to fend them off and took off in the direction he had come, to roll with the wind. Other riders behind him wondered why he was going twice his normal speed in the wrong direction, but strange things happen in Africa.

While these events break the routine and give us something to talk about, many of us (original riders) are finding, to our surprise, that we have used up all of the ‘awe’ that we had stored for use over the next 10 years. We have seen so much in such a short span that now when we see an elephant, a fist-sized cricket, a family of baboons, or a spectacular vista, we just smile, shrug, and roll on. It’s a little sad perhaps but it’s also a sign that things are wrapping up on time. We’re still having a blast but we reminisce about the start and talk about the end much more often. Two weeks to go in the trip of a lifetime. A measly 2,000km and it’s all over – it’s the same bittersweet feeling as a graduation or a friend moving away. All we can do is make the most of it.

Maun

2006-04-23T06:24:00.000-07:00

You can feel that we are moving toward more a more ‘westernized’ culture as we travel west across Zambia and Botswana, toward the Kalahari desert. Although the distances have been long (generally 150-200km/day) we have been on paved roads in our crossing and have been stopping for fast food and ice cream at gas stations. We feel like we have reached the promised land, but even so, we continuously emphasize to the ‘new fish’ (new riders) how hard we had it prior to this.

A new group of riders joined us in Livingston for the ‘Khoisan Challenge’, known to the rest of us simply as the last quarter of the trip. Among these is Tom Baxter (tomcatbaxter.blogspot.com), an old friend of mine. Having lived with the tour group for the past 3 months, 24/7, I feel like I have 50 siblings whose ways I am accustomed to, for better and for worse, so seeing the group and the tour through his ‘fresh’ eyes has been an interesting experience.

Livingston is also the home of Victoria Falls, one of the world’s ‘natural wonders’, and the ‘adventure capital’ of Africa. I whitewater rafted the Zambezi river, which leads to the falls, got to spend a little time in a play kayak on the river, and visited the falls like a true tourist. Well, sort of like a true tourist. When you are a very conspicuous white guy on a bicycle in Africa, people are continuously yelling at you to say hello, for attention, to impress their friends, and to sell you things. You sort of learn to block them out. Anyways, I was in a rush to see the falls before sundown and rode through the somewhat disorganized ticket booth and security gate. After I was done riding along the paths along the falls, which included an awesome bridge paralleling the cliff where the water runs off and crossing over the boiling point of the falls (on which you get completely drenched) a security guard caught up to me and informed me that I had ‘run’ the gate and that bicycles were not allowed inside the park area. Satiated, and with the sun going down, I happily conceded to leave.

Since Livingston we have ridden about 710km, 620 of them in the past 4 days, and all in a head or cross-wind. As if this wasn’t enough, the lads decided we should do a team time trial just for a laugh. And a great laugh it was. I found myself on a 4-man team known as the ‘Cookie Monsters’ with current race leader Matt Caretti, ‘prophet doom’ Cory Heitz, and our chef Miles ‘cookie’ (we were the monsters), who actually used to be a world champion time trial cyclist, but took up smoking and drinking instead ten years ago. We came in 2nd, beaten by a bunch of South Africans, but beating Tom’s team by 15 seconds, which was infinitely more important to me as I had a couple drinks on the line. Tom’s team had the fastest 19 year-old cyclist in Canada and our time-trial champ (and a good buddy of mine) Sam Bail, my friend Monty ‘prophet love’, and our hungover mechanic Todd, so they were definitely a threat. The finish time is the third man on your team so the key is to keep your third strongest man strong while the two strongest pull and the fouth generally shells (exhausts) himself early by ‘pulling’ (breaking the wind) for the team until he can’t keep pace any more. Toward the end, on our team, Cory was tiring (being 6’7” he has a harder time drafting, or staying out of the wind, behind another rider) and reverted to his US AirForce Special Ops former self. He began yelling at himself and then told Matt and I to yell at him and berate him to keep him moving. Matt and I basically said ‘uh, OK’ and spent the last 10 minutes yelling everything we could think of at him as we flew toward the finish, neck and neck with the South Africans. This was great entertainment afterwards as we really didn’t know what to yell and were completely exhasted so not erveything that came out made any sense. In fact, none of it did.

On the same leg, another rider was attacked by a pack of wild dogs (endangered species, see pic) and swung his bicycle at them and then rode away, in the wrong direction, but didn't care at the time. He didn't turn around to go back past the wild dogs until he met up with another rider coming the other direction who was slower than he is.

From here we roll to Windhoek. Sand dunes, desert winds (hopefully from the back), and even longer days are ahead, but we are counting down now. We move on a little sadly as we have lost one rider, who has been with us from the start, to a broken arm from a pothole crash. But she’s got spirit. She’s planning to be at the party at the end.

Bush Surgery

2006-04-17T03:56:00.000-07:00

I just got my hands on a bunch pictures from a friend and thought I'd share a story. One thing that was fairly well-documented in the pics is George (a friend from South Africa and the 2nd place racer)having roadside surgery on a fall wound. George is a real character and an EFI rider. He was awfully displeased with himself for the fall ("well, this is really going to slow down my afternoon"). He had to walk back to the lunch truck for 22 stitches that put a dent of 2-3 hours into his race time. He didn't even consider riding the truck. A few laughs were had at his expense as nurse John and doctor Toby put him back together, while in their cycling gear, with him laid out in the dirt on camp stools covered in flies. These guys are good and you would never know what a wound it was, the way it has healed. The same goes for 7 or 8 other riders who have had stitches thus far. It's amazing what can be done when you have no other options and also the resilience of the riders who have had the misfotune of accidents (not to mention illness and bike problems). I recorded the surgery with some unease and am keeping my fingers crossed not to be added to the patient list anytime soon.

Livingston

2006-04-17T02:03:00.000-07:00

Lilongwe 2

2006-04-06T14:35:00.000-07:00

We recently had an interesting rest day in Chitumba beach on lake Malawi. We had a beautiful beach, swimming, and a little competition culminating 'Mustache March'. One of our riders, Cory Heitz (fittingly, he is 6"7') organized a morale booster wherein we had the month of March to grow mustaches that were judged on the last day, with some rules attached. The ruling committee was a group known as 'the prophets', who have been growing their beards since day 1 and we simply had to name and model our mustaches for the crowd, who voted by applause. I reluctantly grew my first attempt at facial hair for a month. The mustache came in completely blonde so I darkened it with a friend's eyeliner and won 2nd prize (a humor vote, but that was the idea). My good kiwi friend Duncan took 1st place with a 'Black Sabbath' mustache and runners up included riders sporting mustaches named 'The 17-year-old Mexican' and 'The Uncle You're Not Supposed to Hug'. The following morning Cory's dad, 'Big Mike' Heitz (7"0', I kid you not) organized a big breakfast, fresh-cooked by his committee of riders, that was a welcome treat given the limited food available at the beach 'restaurant' (A prime example of how things work in Africa: mostly they don't). This 'restaurant', which regularly hosts large overland groups, consisted of a guy with a pan who cooked only fries one day and only nachos the next, one order at a time, for 50 hungry riders. Given our complete dissatisfaction with the food they offered to do a pig roast and buffet the evening of our rest day with a vegetarian option. This sounded splendid. What we got was a pig we had to cut ourselves, some potatoes, rice, noodles, and a can of beans for the vegetarians. To complicate matters, we were just given a knife and no fork to cut the pig, so everyone lined angrily up and hacked at the little fatty thing competitively with lots of swearing. If I wasn't so hungry I would have been highly entertained.

Lilongwe

2006-04-05T07:57:00.000-07:00

I have officially switched from a ‘racer’ to a ‘leisure rider’. I raced the first 3 or 4 countries quite intently, slacked off a bit in the last 2, and have now seen the light, along with many others who shared my approach. I came here to experience Africa and to think. While the competitiveness of racing is entertaining, the problem is that bicycle racing always involves riding in a pelaton, or tight group of riders, wherein you are inches off other riders’ tires and have to watch your speed and your competitors intently and continuously. This makes it very hard to check out the scenery, talk to the locals, or think during the 7 hours of daily riding. Now, riding mostly on my own, I take everything in, stop when I see something interesting, and often enough stop for an additional snack along the road with other (former racer) leisure riders and generally take a little longer to get to camp. This does nothing to change my EFI status (having ridden Every F’n Inch – which is becoming more and more exclusive), it just means my times aren’t ranked. I will stay EFI, this is just a recent act of straightening out my priorities that I am happy with and thought I would share.

It has rained every day and every night since Arusha, which is almost 2 weeks now, and it will likely continue to do so for another week. It’s not continuous, like Noah’s flood or anything, but being the rainy season, the skies break open every few hours in between sun and clouds. Now that I’m not racing I can actually stop to put my rain jacket on (although I have a system to do it while riding as of yesterday). Malawi has been great riding, probably my favorite thus far (paved roads and great scenery). The people are pretty much on par with previous unremarkable country cultures (they stare, say hello, beg, and will sell you things if you ask).

One thing about the people has gotten me down of late, actually (this is where this episode turns to social commentary - just warning you now). I made an earlier comment about how women do all the work (perhaps) due to the evolution of the culture from slavery as the stronger people (men in rural culture) idealize the slave-driver and make the weaker (women in rural culture) do the work. Another historical difference between Africa and Western culture is that Western culture evolved from tribes in slow steps – tribes to communities, communities to fiefdoms, to kingdoms, to countries. Africa was forced from tribes to countries in one fell swoop by outside interference. The result is that equitable leadership and organization of a large and diverse group isn’t understood. When someone is put in power in Africa, they use whatever benefits they have to benefit their tribe - their family and friends - everyone else be damned. We’ve seen this endlessly in government, but it also seems to happen in charity.

A couple on out trip are sponsoring a child through a help organization that works with 27,000 kids in Malawi. They wanted to see where their money was going. Three representatives from the organization showed up in a brand new land cruiser to collect the money, but when it came to meeting the family it was more difficult. They did, in the end, arrange to meet the child and the family they had a heart-warming experience, particularly to do with the kids and the women who take care of them. The father, who does nothing all day while his three wives work the fields, asked for more money to fix the roof of the hut so that the child wouldn’t get wet. While the experience was unique and genuine, the donating couple wasn’t convinced that the money does any good in the end. The organization (whose representatives rock up to tiny villages in fully loaded brand new land cruisers) was unable to show any tangible improvements that the sponsored children experience, to do with life expectancy, time spent in school, or anything else. They claim that the problems the children face are complicated, which they certainly are. 75% of the population of Malawi is under 15. Life expectancy is 27 years. The men do not do any work. Children are raped and infected because it is believed that you can get rid of aids by having sex with a virgin. Money that is brought in to help is siphoned off by people helping themselves and their friends, but not the people who are supposed to be helped.

While this might sound like a call to action to do something for Malawi, it may be true that the exact opposite approach would be better. I have been learning that after 50 years of foreign aid in Africa the situation is no better. Ethiopia is the country that received the most food and aid money and now citizens seem to do nothing but beg and hang around food distribution centers. Kenya and Tanzania had millions of trees planted by NGOs that grew twice as fast and reaped better lumber, but these killed all the local foliage and animals and caused forest fires previously unheard of. If the harvest is really bad one year in Malawi, rather than the men having to work the fields too, foreign aid steps in with an answer. It may be that I am disgruntled by the thousand or so people I pass on the road every day wanting something from me, but I’m not convinced that giving it to them is the answer anymore. The problems are, well, complicated.

But the trip has been enjoyable lately when that’s not on my mind. We’re going to try to have more and more fun events and the more leisurely approach to riding is much healthier and allows for much more reflection and enjoyment. I am looking forward to being joined by my friend Tom 'Danger' Baxter in Victoria falls for the last quarter and we have now completed over 2/3 of the riding days. We will fly across flat desert in Zambia and Botswana and as we get further south the culture allegedly gets more and more South African (mmm… chocolate milk at rest stops), which comes with interesting social and cultural issues. I’m pretty well ready for a change and looking forward to getting home, so on we go.

Iringa

2006-03-26T06:01:00.000-08:00

When last I wrote I was looking forward to a Safari in the Serengeti and the Ngorongoro crater. We spent our 3 days off hanging out of the roof of a jeep and saw every animal you could want to see in Africa. Particularly incredible were lions slumbering on huge rocks jutting up from the plains (think Lion King for the scenery), a leopard sleeping in a tree, giraffes, hippos, elephants, cheetahs, a rhino, and wildebeests, hyenas, zebras, and impalas 20 feet away. The animal highlight, however, was a bush pig that did a midnight raid for a KitKat bar wrapper in the tent of one of our riders - a kindly, quiet British lady. The pig ripped and broke the tent but was no match for Judy, who screamed and punched the pig in the face repeatedly until it ran away. This lead naturally to delightful fun for the remainder of the trip in sneaking around making pig noises outside tents at night.

And after a lovely rest, complete with a feeling of guilty pleasure for not riding for 3 days, we’re back on the road. We just spent a wonderful seven days riding through Tanzania on dirt and mud roads with an absolutely incredible number of thorns, and thus an incredible number of punctures (I think the record was 7 in a day). We also had rain most days and nights. Changing tires and running out of spare tubes (and so repeatedly patching old ones in the mud and rain) had some of us a little flustered, however the group’s (and my) spirits are now high. We’re going to hit pavement tomorrow and there are only 2 days of off-road riding left in the whole trip.

I had a realization whilst riding in a particularly bad mood after 2 flats and a crash exacerbating my hand injury in the rain on the morning of my birthday. I was questioning (again) what the heck I was doing here and concluded that I could see the trip as a circumstance I was caight in or as a decision that I'd made. If you see life as a series of circumstances you are caught in (work to make money, make money to pay the bills, pay the bills to keep working), then taking hard earned time and money to suffer riding everyday and sleep in the dirt at night makes no sense, when you ask yourself what you are doing it for. BUT, if you see life as a series of decisions, and in each one you can choose to expand your horizons and challenge yourself or to stagnate and shrink away, then all of a sudden there is a great reason to be on this trip. I think that this type of thinking is one thing that has made the company on the trip, a bunch of wierdoes choosing to ride 7 hours a day and camp without even water for washing some nights for 4 months, so interesting and has allowed us to help each other and keep on.

So with our good spirits, a bunch of us hit up a local pub last night (conveniently the day following my 25th) for some silliness, which has been rare because we’re normally too tired and normally sleeping along the roadside. The evening had lots of laughs and ended back at camp with us zip-tying some of our slumbering comrades’ tents closed and pulling out the poles, which leaves the sleeper basically confused and swimming in a nylon sack. The evening then really ended with some tackling between sleepers and trouble-makers, but we’re friends again this morning.

And so on we go. We’re 4 days from the Malawi border. Tanzania has been quite rustic, with hardly a paved road, even in the cities. there have been locals all along the road and at our camps mostly living as they have for a few thousand years, herding and hunting animals while dressed in cloth and carrying bows, spears, and swords. Four nights ago a few of our group were lucky enough to wake up and very very warily, initially, join a tribal celebration in the middle of the night a few hundred meters from our camp. They danced and sang and drummed in the pitch dark without being able to see the faces of the hundred or so children and adults dancing, singing, and drumming with them. They could hardly put the experience into words (or walk) in the morning and were a little freaked out by some parts of the celebration (seizures, chanting, everyone talking over each other in prayerful tones at once) but didn’t regret the experience at all. I wish I had been there but I was, as usual, passed out in my tent by 8pm and sleeping like a log. Somebody will wake me if such a chance comes up again.

Nairobi

2006-03-13T02:14:00.000-08:00

(pronounced Nai-robbery by people who find themselves funny and don't tire of telling the same joke... yes, they're everywhere)

So we've been in rural Africa and the Dida-Galgalu desert for a few weeks and I haven't been in a modern city in a while. Now that I am in one, something is a little odd, I can't quite put my finger on it... the traffic is normal, big buildings, everyone rushing, oh wait...that's it! I'm the only white person! As I travel alone through Nairobi it's a very interesting and unusual sensation for me, being a minority in a big city. Little kids point, I'm harrased by salesmen, and I'm aware that everyone is conscious of me although most react no differently.

Despite my uniqueness, I'm greatly enjoying Nairobi. I gorged myself on Italian last night and had an omelet, toast, juice, a medium pizza, and a milkshake for breakfast. If you could see how much weight I've lost you'd understand. It's quite impossible to consume the number of calories we are burning, although I do enjoy trying - except for how it feels on the bike when you eat like that and then drink 10 litres of fluids a day.

As I must document a few major highs and lows since Addis, I'll begin with the lows. I have had two major crashes, both involving locals. The first came in Ethiopia just a few days out of Addis, flying through a town in a pelaton (group of riders drafting each other to cut down on wind resistance). These 'towns' consist of huts that are shops and houses all lining the one road. The entire population of the town is usually out on the road in between these places and vehicles passing through honk like mad to clear the people out. Cyclists shout like mad. The trouble with this is that we draw the reaction that aliens driving down Spring Garden Road in spaceships, shouting like mad, would in Halifax. Locals generally see you and leave a line but many come running out to push and see what's happening. Some like to stand in front of you until the last second, pretend to hit you, spit at you, or throw things. As I do not have time to beat up every person who does this in Ethiopia I generally ride through, dodging as necessary. For a pelaton, the locals generally give a little more room, but on this occasion one curious cyclist coming the other direction got too close. Our leading cyclist hit the brakes and we all swerved and hit the brakes in sequence, but I wound up swerving to get away from the rider in front of me into the local cyclist at about 40kmph. We crashed and flew, bits everwhere. A huge crowd gathered, then got pushed back as we lied in the road. The local on the bike was half-pulled, half-dragged into the crowd, presumably for fear of what we might do to him. I got away with a few scrapes, a bloody imprint of a bar-end in my shoulder, and what we now think is a fractured index finger and a bend in my bike, easily repaired. While no one was very impressed with the local rider (who we didn't see again) I maintain that the accident was my fault for riding too close and fast through a town. In Canada he would be at fault (wrong side of the road, swerving at us...) but here we are in their land which operates their way and can't expect clear roads or people to behave as we would like.

The next accident was slightly more humorous but requires some background information. With the fractured finger I had to put thick pads on my handle-bar grip for the rough roads and can only use one hand to shift and brake - the other stays on the padding for the 'smooth' parts and has to be lifted for rough stuff. There has been a major drought in Kenya (meaning no water-bottle showers for a few days...pee-ew!) and there were a bunch of local kids hanging around the only puddle we would see in three days of riding through the Dida-Galgalu desert. When the kids saw the rider in front of me coming, they came together, yelled, gestured, danced, and them split at the last second to let him through. I was 50m behind and they turned to put on (presumably) the same show for me. Things went well until the 'split' part. All the children ran to one side or the other save one pea-brained 13 year old. He decided to run forward. All I saw was legs and arms in front of me as I careened into him and slammed on the brake. And therein lies the problem. With two brakes the wheels lock and skid and one can swerve and stop quicky. With one brake, the one on the front wheel, the bicycle front flips and the rider gets tossed, in this case, swearing, over a confused pea-brained child, into the puddle. The kids ran for their lives and the riders behind me where kind anough to take pictures and then help me up upon finding me laughing at myself sitting in the only puddle in Kenya. Palms and knees got scratched but nothing too serious, I refused to comment on the accident upon arriving at the finish line covered in wet mud and simply told people I had gone for a swim.

The high points have been this awesome country. We camped in Marsibit at a campsite overrun by very 'interactive' baboons in the trees (very keen on us and our food) and I woke up to people running by my tent to see the elephants in the trees nearby. Elephants actually move very gently and quietly and were incredible to watch tiptoeing through the forest on their huge pads, picking at leaves and moving away at any sound we made. We saw the limited town of friendly rural Kenyans, bought togas for the equator party, and had a bar-b-que that night. The equator party was a few nights ago and featured awards for the loudest snorer, biggest porridge eater, and most awesome farter among other things, as well as dancing at the hotel-ish campsite we were parked at. I actually stayed up until 9:30 for the party but had to make up for the sleep deficit later.

The trip is getting more 'civilised' as we get South and the riding should be getting easier. We have actually had pools at our campsites 2 nights this week and took over a bar for the equator party. We can get milk products and cold drinks in the big towns and fruit on the roadsides. We have 3 days off coming up in Arusha, Tanzania (2 days ride) for which I am going on a (hopefully restful) Safari through the Serengetti and the Ngorongoro Crater with other riders. The toughest section of riding (northern Kenya) is behind us and we will be mostly on pavement from here on out. Personally I am grateful for the change given that my health has been less than perfect lately, causing some agnoizing rides, and I hope to recover and speed it up on the road again. I actually came in dead-last, behind 63 year-old leisure riders, yesterday because of low energy levels and the state of my stomach, but am feeling stronger already today and plan to recover fully in Arusha.

Tour D'Afrique also did it's first bicycle donation yesterday to Nairobi women and youth groups, a ceremony I attended with great interest. In Africa people are incredibly resourceful with what they have. We have seen people riding bicycles with crates of bananas and sugar cane piled high on the front and three children on the back to get to the market, or with 2 or 3 full grown adults on the back, or carrying more produce or goods that I could fit in a car. The women explained how previously donated bicycles are used to bring medicine and food to AIDS-infected women in the slums, as ambulances to bring people from rural areas to medical care, and how they are shared and constantly available for groups of hundreds of women volunteering to help health in their community.

One shocking thing in Africa that I have commented on in my own notes but not on the blog is how much of the work women do, particularly in less-developed areas. There will be almost entirely women carrying huge loads of wood on hunched backs, passing concrete up construction sites, and laying brick or digging holes and any other hard labor you can imagine. Men sit and supervise, drinking cokes and smoking cigarettes. When you consider Africa's history it makes sense in a sick sort of way. In North America we have an ideal notion of someone who is happy in their work contributing something valuable to society and making good money doing it. The men used to be thought of as more capable and the primary breadwinners, although this is appropriately evening out. Here in Africa, the 'ideal' evolved from slavery, which is to sit and do nothing and make others work. Since the men are more powerful, this is the role they aspire to. While the women bear the loads they reap the benefits. Imagine watching your mother or sister carry 80 pounds of sticks 8 miles to a construction site. There is a realization going on here that women should not be working for men but for themselves and there are people doing incredible things all over Africa to achieve that end. In most major cities you will see initiatives for women helping women, microbusiness efforts, education efforts, health efforts.

It's amazing to see these efforts in action and to hear about their successes, as we did yesterday. It's also amazing to see the intimidation and abuse of power by male officials. During the ceremony, each woman that spoke told her story and how the bicycles had helped her small group to make a difference and thanked Tour D'Afrique and did not ask for anything from the (relatively) rich foreigners ('Mzungus' here). Each woman also (seemnigly reluctantly) paid respect to an attending 'official' before speaking. This official got up and hounded the Mzungus to attend the expensive tourist parks in and around Nairobi without even acknowledging the women's groups for who the ceremony was being held. There are alot of changes coming around here and I am grateful to see some of Africa as it is now, and very eagerly await seeing changes take place in the future.

Thanks for reading, I'm hoping to post many many pics very very soon (internet works in Nairobi) and would love to hear from you. All the best.

Addis Ababa

2006-02-22T08:49:00.000-08:00

I feel justified in making this a long one as it may be a couple weeks before I can connect again.

The road goes ever on. I now find myself in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia’s capital. It’s a busy city with the largest market in Africa, where you can buy absolutely anything. An AK47 costs $50USD or ($430 Birr), a camel costs slightly more. A friend and I discussed buying both and a few kilograms of bananas and taking over Ethiopia, but decided to stick to the bike.

Following 310km in two days on paved road leaving Bahir Dar since the last post, we descended and climbed the Blue Nile Gorge, which is allegedly the grand canyon’s equal (as claimed by a proud rider so don’t quote me on that). The gravel downhill (a little under 1.5km in altitude lost) was intense but gleefully accompanied by shouts of exhilaration while passing cars and transports, and the gravel uphill (a little over 1.5km in altitude gained) was grueling and did a number on the legs, but both were quite beautiful. Two more days of hills brought us to Addis Ababa. A Dutch rider with more electronic gear than most spaceships informed me that we climbed over 7km in those 5 days and although I am wiped, it was a pleasure. I will emphasize again what a green and varied landscape Ethiopia boasts, contrary to my previous conceptions which were based on 1980’s Sally Struthers infomercials with kids in desert mud huts covered in flies. There are, in fact, lush hills covered in crops, plains covered herds of goats and cows, more exotic and predatory birds than you can imagine, and breath-taking scenery at every second turn; to go with the kids and flies.

Speaking of the Ethiopian kids, they have gained the focus of many of the riders, though not in the way Sally Struthers might like. There are so many children that we have to put up a string fence around our campsite and lunch stops to keep them at a reasonable distance. They come from nowhere and line up in rows (behind the string fence when it is there, surrounding you when it is not) to stare at us. Some call the occasional ‘hello’ and sometimes we’ll play with them or take their pictures and show them, to their fascination (they were flabbergasted by the video camera and I had half a village chasing me to get on screen and see the viewfinder), but mostly we have our business to go about and they just stand and stare and stare and stare. Last night the ones in the back were pushing the ones in the front into the ‘fence’ and we had to hire local ‘security’ to keep the kids back, which they did by chasing them with sticks.

On the rides we are chased continuously, mostly by kids but also by adults, and asked ‘Where are you go?!’ about 100 times a day, which if you answer, they ask again. They do not speak a word of English but delight in making you react, like a child poking a trapped animal with a stick to see what it will do. The one thing they do understand concerning white people is how to beg for money aggressively. More common than ‘Where are you go?!’ is “You! Gimme money! One Birr! You! You!” (repeat 1000 times). And those are the good kids. The bad ones throw rocks.

When they do, the best thing we can do, allegedly, is chase them to their parents and explain (charades) what they’ve done so their parents can discourage them from throwing rocks at later riders. I have done this with success previously, chasing kids down on the bicycle and making the parents understand what happened. The parent apologizes and berates the kid and I ride off. After being hit by a decent size rock today I tried to chase down a group of kids on foot. You may know that many of the fastest Olympic runners area and have been Ethiopians… these kids absolutely fly. I’m a full grown lad and a semi-athlete (I actually thought of myself as an athlete before the following incident). Upon being hit I threw the bike down and took off across a field after the group of what looked to be 6th to 9th graders who had thrown the rocks. I was left panting in the dust before I’d finished my string of what would have sounded like very creative, emphatic, and accented gibberish to them. While I am hit very rarely, some of the riders who come through, after most of the group has passed without giving them any money which the locals seem to expect from traveling white people (even those going by at 30kmph on a bike), are hit much more often. We are struggling to ride theses distances as it is day after day while camping, as well as to keep our composure at having the same things yelled at us and requested from us by everyone we pass. The rocks have pushed a few people over the edge and minor flip-outs are not uncommon now. The road goes on.

Something else interesting is happening to add to the challenge of the trip on top of the toughness of the last several rides, the kids and their rocks, and the fact that we are climbing all the time now to reach our highest altitude of the trip tomorrow (3100m and thankfully a rest day). As I write this for future posting, we are camped in Ethiopia one day’s ride from Addis Ababa. Until tonight we had not seen a drop of rain since arriving in Cairo. No one puts their fly over their tent or takes any preparations the occasion of rain, it is fairly unheard of this time of year. We are, by now, very comfortable in out tents and most do not look for a room nearby even if they are cheap and available. Tonight there is a rain and hail storm the likes and fury of which I have not seen before, even in Halifax. There is one rider who set up his tent on top of one of the expedition trucks for lack of space on the ground and we are sincerely concerned that he may be washed off. I happen to be one of 5 lucky riders tonight who snagged a room near the campsite. The room for the night cost 12 Birr, about 1.75 Canadian, and is a concrete cave with a tin door, not much more spacious than my tent, but the reading light and the plug to charge my electronics made it worth the expenditure in my mind. My mind has not changed since. I anticipate an interesting and cranky morning, if not an interesting night sheltering refugees, as the remaining 45 of our crew are camped on a nearby lawn. While I must pack up and wait to see what happens, I will follow up in the next paragraph for you, so read on.

Well they are a hardy bunch. I did not receive any refugees. The tour director said that the first thing he did when it started hailing was make a snowball and the guy who set up his tent on top of the truck climbed down to a local dining hall where he found some beers and some fellow riders and they waited out the storm. It was all jokes this morning and the ones who did get wet, true to our typical form for anyone who is suffering, did not complain so as not to bring down the group or seem like a whiner.

So all’s well and I’m in the groove most of the time now. Audiobooks make the bad days bearable and music pumps me up when those fail. Most of the time, however, I appreciate how lucky I am to be here. Take care my few and dear readers and I’ll post next time in Kenya, probably in a couple weeks.

Bahir dar

2006-02-16T09:31:00.000-08:00

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.

Gondar

2006-02-13T04:11:00.000-08:00

"That's the way things work in Africa, mostly they don't" - Eddie from African Routes

We got into Gondar, Ethiopia, where we are perched on a mountain on the lawn of a hotel, just before dark last night. The ride was over 100km on dirt and gravel and we gained over 2km in altitude (that's a lot of climbing on a bike). It was also the last day of a 7 day stretch of riding. On rest days (today) we usually wash, do laundry, eat, charge our machines, and email, however the power was out in the town so we could do none of the above. No one here but us is bothered - for them, sometimes things work, somtimes they don't.

Finishing Sudan was much of the same, sand and dirt and desert, great people, dirty camping, and even a little pavement now and then. The border crossing into Ethiopia is a bridge overrun with donkeys, goats and people at all times who are free to cross whenever they want but are supposed to be on the appropriate side, depending upon their citizenship and visas, at night. The Ethiopian border station was a mud hut with one desk and a bunch of kids running around outside wanting to change your money. We had a crazy Sudanee guy follow us for 4 nights and try to sneak in with us, he would tell officials he was with us, we would tell him to go away, and he would freak out and say it was his land, we weren't welcome, and many more offensive things, while trying to follow us. Upon corssing the border at the end of a day's ride, we stayed at a farm of sorts, with bulls and goats roaming through our tents, but the farm was also a brothel. We were supposed to be allowed to shower at the brothel but couldn't. Our tour director was up half the night trying to keep cows from running over his tent, while local kids hit them with sticks to try to scare them into the tents. Welcome to Ethiopia.

Anytime we stop we are surrounded by 100 kids who just stare at you. On the road they yell 'youyouyouyou' and chase you, some throw rocks. Allegedly when we get further south we have to put a perimeter up around our campsite and there will be 6 rows of people just watching on all sides until dark. The kids can throw rocks quite hard and can run quite fast. It's a really tough blow to the ol' self-esteem at the end of a day like yesterday when your legs are shot and you are trying to climb a huge hill and a seven year old without pants on is running beside you yelling "youyouyou gimme money gimme money". Your response "Get away from me! I'm a serious adventure athlete and need to concentrate on this hill!" does little but make him laugh and more of his half-naked, malnourished friends decide this is the greatest thing they've seen since the day the white people came on bicyclies last year and join the train and try to unzip your bag while you ride. Add to that dodging trucks, goats, bulls, and donkeys, and you've got a heck of a ride. The front line view of the living conditions provide a lot of insight as well. I have a lot of social comments to make but will just say for now that enducation to limit the number of kids families are having is much needed, as well as to allow women to reap the benefits of the work they do.

Jokes aside and political comments aside, it is beautiful and breathtaking here. Ethiopia allegedly has some of the oldest geography and hills in the world and I will get some pics up soon. The ride is going well, I had my toughest day last week but am able to say that it is good for me when I get a chance to catch my breath and am regularly mind-boggled by life in Africa. The layers of the cyclists and staff are peeling back and the tour is getting interesting on a lot of dimentions. Although I'll be beat again tomorrow, I'm feeling good today and can appreciate what I've got and what I'm gaining in doing this. Thanks for reading, I hope you are well, and I'll post again soon.

Khartoum

2006-02-04T22:15:00.000-08:00

This is my Irish friend Paul, chilling in his red box after a ride. We keep everything we have access to for 5-8 days at a time in these boxes and live out of them (tent, sleeping bag, mat, clothes, food, biking gear). It is a good way to stay organized with 42 riders and the only way for gear to keep stuff intact on the rough roads. It takes some getting used to though.

I spoke earlier about how quickly people adapt. I have adapted since writing the last segment but decided to post it anyways for dramatic tension (Will he make it? Will he quit and go home?). Now writing from Khartoum on a rest day, we have but 5 cycling days left in the Sudan. While I found the first few Sudanese desert days very trying, I am now accustomed to the inconsistent roads, 40-45 degree afternoons, and dirty living. My mom thinks that music is the ultimate drug, and although our tastes differ more than slightly, cranking the tunes while cycling has definitely helped me push myself a little more, which has helped me get into and enjoy the riding. Abetting my frustration with the riding in those first few days were the facts that I had traveler's illness of the unpleasant variety for seven days as well as a cold, and the fact that I had my first decent crash of the trip (we fall over in the sand all the time but this was a pretty good one on a gravelly downhill). My bike and I made it through with just a few repairs and bandages and it has not kept me from riding.

We hit some pavement in the past few days as we approached Khartoum and had a fun cheered-on convoy ride into the city this afternoon with police escorts as well as appointed 'big ugly riders' (guess who) blocking traffic at intersections. Khartoum is a sprawling city, not very clean or organized by western standards, but is the mecca of this area. We had a dinner courtesy of the Sudanese 'cycling association', which is apparently made up of generals escorted by pickups full of riot troops, and the function of which is to boost the generals' egos by having them applauded by tourists. It's a strange way to promote cycling but is perhaps an apt example of the political problems in this area.

We have found the Sudanese common people fantastic. Friendly, hospitable, interested, and willing to go out of their way for you. We are constantly asked to stop and go to their houses, wherein if you go in you are brought whatever food they can muster, told stories, your hair is braided, and they are disappointed when you tell them you cannot stay the night. The communication is a roundabout process similar to a never-ending game of charades with lots of questioning smiles and uncertainty about what, if anything, has been understood. The Sudanese government, however, is more like the former example. Or the following: We had a rest day in Dongola six days ago, a tiny town with very limited facilities, but when the 'officials' heard we were coming they came up with an 'entry tax' just for us, which gets bargained and argued over and causes all kinds of discomfort and I have a hard time believing that the citizens ever see a Dinar of it. More important concerns aside, we did, however, manage to find yogurt in Dongola, which was a major highlight (I ate 3 liters). The first liter was paid for by one fo the regular incredibly firndly locals, who spoke a little English, as I didn't have the currency and couldn't access an exchange. He wouldn't accept my American dollars, even knowing what they were and where he could change them. He simply said "you are tourist, you are welcome" and shook my hand. Great people, poor political organization.

And so the trip goes on. Nothing about our regular day is really shocking as we progress, we have hit a routine. Up in the dark, pack tents, oatmeal or gruel for breakfast, ride to the lunch truck for sardine, tuna, or peanut butter sandwiches; fruit; and energy bars; and then ride to camp, set up tents, hang out or have private time, a rider meeting going over plans for the next day, dinner, and then bed. Exhaustion, sun, dehydration, sand, no toilets, no showers, and most interactions, are all by now standardized. The funniest thing about it is that I the power of the group. Nobody complains because everyone else is going along. The dishwater is filthy but no-one complains, we are hungry after riding but no one complains, we all have our cranky moments but very few people complain… the internal mental reaction is that: "if no one is complaining then this must be acceptable, I am just a wuss and should suck it up".

Also, despite the dicomfort, we are all here for an adventure and I don't know that we would want it any easier way given the option. If it was easy everyone would be doing it. This of course raises the question of what the heck is wrong with all of us (I'm not even jesting) and it is one that I am puzzling over. If you don't know, I have been filming, which is coming along really well, and will have a documentary of the trip and some particularly interesting characters on it at the end to share with anyone interested. The question of what is wrong with us is a definite theme and there will be more to come on that later…

Nubian desert

2006-02-04T22:11:00.000-08:00

A pretty good road in the Sudan. There are no pictures I can upload of the bad ones as we are all to hot and sandy to take them, and when there is a dust storm the camera has to stay away. I have some great video to share later on.

I'm sitting in my tent after the second day in the Sudan, writing this down to send later. I have decided that the name 'Tour D'Afrique' is deceptive. It should be changed to something more descriptively accurate like 'Tour de Suffering'. While we do see 'Afrique', you hardly notice it because you are suffering so much. Sudan so far is hell – actually more literally like Mordor (for LOTR aficionados). There is nothing but sand, rock, and dust. The rocks are lava rock formations and broken pieces of them, which have their own beauty when backed just by desolation, for a little while… but then it's just hot, dry, and sandy and you get thirsty, sandy, and angry. The roads we are on are not roads. About 3 trucks have passed us in two days, 2 of which I later passed when they were broken down. The sand and rocks that make up the paths take on a washboard texture at from the wind. So we either get jackhammered on the washboard or ride in sand all day (90km today) or both. Some parts are smooth and the sand is somehow better packed but these make up about 1% of the ride. When I say the roads are not roads I mean it – there are actually frequent side roads where a truck decided that the main path (whom we call 'Mr. Lumpy') wasn't good enough and just drives alongside it through the desert wherever they think the ground might be firmer or less corrugated. Oftentimes these secondary paths are better for us, sometimes they are much worse. You will often see cyclists ahead or behind just walking across the desert because they were on a path that turned out to be crap, only to find that the new path they took instead is also crap.

Typical desert camp in the Sudan. You can see our two support vehicles that lug our tents and food, traveling slower than the bikes over the sand and rough stuff, and the tents.

The desert camping is OK. I sleep more than I ever have and could use more. I am out like a light at 8:30pm for all the night until 6:30am except for 3 or 4 bathroom breaks. The food is getting better with our cook working now instead of the Egyptian goons. While I am exhausted and often disgruntled on the rides I am sure I will make it because I did it yesterday and today and barring any (more) major health issues, I should be able to keep it up.

Aswan

2006-01-22T08:54:00.000-08:00

Egypt: check.

With a few 'directional difficulties' I pulled into Aswan where we are pitched in an old sort of run down garden after a nice easy 6 hour ride today. Tomorrow we board a boat to cross a river (visible on a larger map) and enter Sudan. Allegedly the roads are very bad and also there is limited net access - however the Sudanese are supposed to be the nicest people in Africa and I am pumped to see the country.

The riding has become a routine that we are very used to and if I can keep well I am confident at this point about pushing through. We hit 1,000km today and have 11,000 left to go. It really is a great way to see a continent - lots of time to think on the bike while passing slowly enough to see everything but quickly enough that most of the kids have trouble hitting you with rocks. When a kid does throw them, spit, or jump in the way, we sometimes try to discourage the behavior, as more riders will be behind us, by chasing the kid down and yelling at him (they don't understand english but they get the message), never touching him though. Two days ago our tour leader and another rider got a handful of gravel in the face and the tour leader chased the kid through the village and rode his bicycle though the front door the kids 'house' and yelled at the kid and told his mom what he did. The vast majority (99.9%) wave and yell and smile and you feel quite welcome, or yell 'moneymoneymoney', which has gotten irritating to the point of screaming, as everyone in Egypt (as mentioned in my last post) thinks white people carry money in their spandex and are going to through it as you go past.

Anyways it'll be a while before another one - hope all's well.

Luxor

2006-01-20T08:47:00.000-08:00

Pic yoinked from Catherine Corne's (a fellow rider) blog - This is the start line one fine morning in the desert.

http://catavelo.monblogue.com/

Up until yesterday, the trip could be broken down into two sections, riding and camping. The riding is long, sometimes bloody long (2 days ago began with a 40km climb and then 100km over sandstone plateaus) especially just getting used to it, but also great exercise, good fun, and good comeraderie if you opt to slow down and talk to another rider. The scenery goes from fascinating to sandy. Mostly sandy so far. The camping has been best described by fellow rider deb in a concise spontaneous sentence that bewildered me with the amount of truth and insight it contained. She said "If I wasn't so hungry I'd be asleep". We have been eating 'bread' and 'cheese' with boiled eggs for breakfast and the same with 'salami' and fruit for lunch. Dinner is a feeding frenzy for 50 similar to an aquarium of piranhas, prepared like only our Egyptian travel crew (because they won't let the desired crew into Egypt) can. To my amazement, today in Luxor I discovered that there actually is more food in Egypt than the five things we've been eating and will bring this to the attention of the cooks if I can find a translator. I have been probably averaging 10 or 11 hours of sleep a night and could use more. The entire camp is out like a light immediately after dinner from exhaustion, but it still amazes me what our bodies have dealt with.

We had our first rest day in Luxor. Luxor is a filthy and sandy combination of ancient history, markets, tourists, hagglers, militia, and pollution. You cannot walk down a sidewalk for 10 feet without running into rubble from a torn down wall that looks 50 years old and was never cleaned up, a tree that the sidewalk was built around but you can not get around staying on the sidewalk, or a table trying to sell you the same thing you've seen the whole way there (statuettes, scarves, papyrus). The city was clearly designed by the same people who thought of giving the sixteen year olds on every street corner machine guns. You have to swat away merchants and keep your eyes open for vehicles or animals or combinations of the two. The honking is endless and the language is loud and aggressive. The redeeming quality of the city, however, is an important one. They have ice cream. I don't normally eat ice cream but I haven't had milk since leaving and have eaten mostly desert mush or stale bread for a week while averaging 130km/day so a little food selection was almost a euphoric experience.

People are starting to feel the effects of the pace, foreign environment, and lifestyle. Travelers illnesses (use your imagination) and cycling-related issues (again...) are not uncommon. I have been quite healthy but found myself in a headached stupor with aching muscles and shivering one evening and morning - a couple friends helped me pack and John the nurse gave me a couple ibuprofin if needed and I made it through just fine. I think this will be a common theme of the trip and I feel completely safe with the people and support staff we have here, caring, smart, effective, and competent.

I began on a few negative notes to communicate that it is not sunshine and lollipops biking in Egypt. I have asked myself more than once on the road at the 90km mark with 50km to go or in my tent at night having to get out to relieve myself for the 4th time (we drink a lot of water to not die): What I am doing here, what possible reason is there to do this? After a rest day I have a couple answers: We learn through experience, the more you experience, the more you learn. I don't know what I can do and I won't unless I try.

Safaga

2006-01-17T04:39:00.000-08:00

Camping on the beach at Safaga - This shot was taken to make it look nice.

Safaga is a small town along the red sea 540km from Cairo. We have biked that distance in the past 4 days and all is quite well. I am keeping pace much better than I expected given my, some would argue, lax training regiment of biking recreational in the summer, biking indoors while watching movies in the fall, and eating as much cheese and chocolate as possible over Christmas.

Tonight we are camped on a beach, covered in garbage, on the red sea. Previous nights have been in the desert, which is also covered in the garbage along the side of the road. The desert is quite peaceful and somewhat interesting, but also irritating for one reason. The desert is flat. This means there is no where to go to the bathroom out of sight from camp. Needless to say, we are getting to know each other quite well. It is difficult to summarize the experiences we have had but I will try.

The desert we have been riding across is just what it looks like in the movies, sand. It's pretty cold at night and pretty hot during the day. We found a camel skeleton on a piss break yesterday. There is an interesting sense of awe you get now and then, passing sandstone mountains or arriving at the red sea. There are wild dogs that live, I suspect, of the garbage scattered in the desert, especially along the side of the road. They like shoes, and one cyclist lost 3 at night to the dogs, which he later recovered. I was missing a cycling shoe (very difficult to cross Africa without) one morning before the start and chased down a couple dogs, who, confirming their response to the accusations, were innocent. Our nurse, John, found my shoe tucked into the bus about which I was embarrassed, particularly since we are all just getting to know each other so we hang on anything we can remember about each other to start copyrightable. Needless to say, "Where was your shoe?" has started most of mine since. I got bored with the truth and have switched to accusing Martians.

The locals are friendly and at times interesting. They want to know where we are from and our names, and every passing car honks at us. Oftentimes they are trying to sell us something and as often, they are just plain friendly. I can share an example that will communicate the reasons for the latter. Five of us sat around the campfire last night with 8 Egyptian army guards, who are protecting us in Egypt and are not seen without their AK's and shotguns. One of our guards, Ali, who doesn't speak any English was having such a great time with us around the fire that he decided to show us a martial arts form (like a kata) for our entertainment and sing us a song. When he finished the song, the tough looking young man cried and the one guard who spoke a little English explained "he is happy". To put this in perspective, consider the life of an Egyptian army officer. They are posted regularly in sandstone huts without bathrooms along the highway, if not just on the side of the road, and always wave when we pass. What are they doing? Watching for enemies maybe, or just waiting to be posted, day after day and year after year perhaps, in the empty desert. It's no wonder that the young man was so empassioned to be interacting with a few unusual foreigners. He took a liking to Lyle, who speaks a few words of Arabic, and told him "I love you" and asked him to sing him 'Michael Jackson' after his song and tears. Needless to say there were a few uncomfortable moments when Lyle could only crank out 6 words of 'Billy Jean' in return as the guards looked on eagerly with their machine guns on their laps.

The riding has been beautiful to make up for the heavy distances covered in this week which I consider to be training. We have mostly had a tailwind for the past 3 days, after getting out of Cairo along an insane highway. There has been one crash at about 40km/h, but the tough young lady is back on a bike (hers was totalled) this afternoon and I suspect will continue riding to the end. There is a lot of esteem placed on a titled called EFI and many people are trying to achieve it. EFI means you powered yourself the whole way, even when camp in 10km through the sand off the road. What does EFI stand for? "Every Inch" I am going for it and feel good for now. There have been some saddle sores and pains that have slowed people down but everyone seems to be coping well, myself among them. I am exhausted and sore today, and we have our toughest day of riding in Egypt tomorrow so I must get back to camp, get clean in the sea, check up on my bike, and stretch again.

Thanks for following and please feel free to post anything you like, as I am just now forwarding this blog out to the masses (I wanted you to have something to read before sending the email).

Cairo 2 - The day before the start

2006-01-13T00:48:00.000-08:00

And that start is going to be a sight worth writing about: 40 riders from all over the world in full racing regalia, in the sand, below the behemoth pyramids - surrounded by desert extending a 2 week camel ride to Libya in one direction and with Cairo's clay huts and skyscapers further off in the other direction. There will be camels, horses, press, cameras, cars, donkeys, kids asking for money, beggars selling headdresses and beads, tour guides selling information, and sweaty, stinking, filthy cyclists in the middle of it all. I can't wait.

I visited the pyramids yesterday by camel, known as Mr. Hiccups to me. These beasts, though perfectly adapted to the desert, have forcefully uncooperative personalities. They lumber over horses, gurgle what looks like half chewed grass mixed with mud and sand and saliva, and spit at you. To exacerbate the conflict based on our personality differences, Mr. Hiccups was, to my great dismay when riding 8 feet in the air, clumsy. He tripped over rocks and ledges that the other camels had no problems with. I was on a horse for the first five minutes of the ride while they pulled Mr. Hiccups either from retirement or from a school for delinquent camels; In the spirit of adventure, and having been on the horse which was easy enough to control, I told the guide I wanted to control the camel myself. We had our differences at first, but by the end of the ride I was able to make him run, stop, kneel, turn 360's, and to our great amusement run him into other camels that were lead-tied to each other, when the guides weren't looking. I say 'to our great amusement' because I am assuming that Mr. Huccups was laughing when he turned around and gurgled at me bearing his teeth, but then again I'm not a zoologist, I suppose he could have been trying to tell me he was hungry or that he liked me or something else for that matter.

I have met about half our riders. Great people. Outgoing, open mided, generous, and there is a great sense of camaraderie, even just in meeting someone for the first time who is taking on the same journey when you both have the same knowing smile that says "what the hell have we gotten ourselves into?" just as much as "nice to meet you". You might think that there would be little other than biking for strangers from all over the world to discuss but we have entertained ourselves greatly with insults, feigned infighting, nationalism, stereotypes, and similarities. One fun and frequent conversation has been talking about how everyone reacts at home when we told them about the trip... endless amusement. Everyone thinks we're crazy, taking on 10 countries and 11,900 countries, and we think they're crazy, staying at home in the 9 to 5. I suspect that neither side is really correct or that both are, but if nothing else it is a common bond we share. Whether these conversations will solve the mystery of life or not remains to be seen, there will be a lot of spare time in the evenings once the tents are up and the bikes are clean.

I put the bike together yesterday and replaced parts that were damaged in shipping. It felt great to ride today and any intimidation has drained away or transformed into excitement. I have much to be thankful for and much to look forward to.

Cairo

2006-01-11T03:04:00.000-08:00

Tom Baxter (left) and I (guess).

A couple of tossers showing off for the camera in Point Pleasant.

The beginning always seems like a good place to start. Three years ago a good friend (Cosmo) and I sat around my university apartment talking about what we would do with our futures if we could do anything. We said we would adventure, travel, and do some good by it. We also wanted to film whatever we did in order to inspire others to take a chance on themselves and try something outside of the daily grind that life will prescribe for you if you let it. The idea evolved from biking from Ireland to China playing practical jokes on people in different countries, to biking across Africa, raising awareness for type 1 diabetes. Cosmo is in the Airforce having he own great adventures (but wishes he could be here) and others have become involved since.

Friends (Tom, Christine, Andrew Gough) and I were planning on cycling Africa using a support vehicle, but it turned to be trickier than we thought for a small band of Canadians to cross Africa independently. We have joined Tour D'Afrique (www.tourdafrique.com) and I am writing from Cairo, the departure point of a 4 month, 10 countrybike race that covers 11,900km, the length of Africa. Forty of us, on average, will ride an average of 120km/day and camp at night , taking every 6th day to rest. Tour D'Afrique is described as "the most grueling race on earth", I will record what I can on video. Tom plans to join me later on the journey, Andrew has stayed in law school, and Christine is in Halifax at school and helping us with PR and communications. I have presented here two revisions of the bike trip plan since its conception, but there were many more. The lesson here is perhaps that if you strive to do something, no matter how ridiculous, idealistic, or impossible your plan, you can usually achieve what you set out to do - one way or another.

I arrived in Cairo, a bustling city with the same population as where I'm from (Canada, that is), only yesterday. The traffic moves like bubbles in a stream, interlacing and weaving unpredictably with no rules. Donkeys, horses, people, and mostly cars all move over dusty roads at their own top speeds. Cairo is where construction, writing, sailing, and civilisation began - I am revising my grade 6 history lessons on the Nile, papyrus, the pyramids, the gods, and aincient history in general, live. But it's not that glamorous. I have just used the filthiest bathroom I have ever used in this internet cafe but I think it will get worse, in Africa you shake hands and eat with your right hand because you (not me yet) use your left hand and water to clean yourself when you use the bathroom. Everyone here slaughtered an animal yesterday morning (mostly cows, but also sheep or goats, hopefully not tourists) to kick off a 4 day feast. Cairo is a city in the desert, none of the trees and grass (that we are so used to that we do not even notice) in North America, just sand covered roads and sand colored buildings, with occasional crops and trees of the desert variety. People are friendly and fairly honest except the ones with machine guns guarding various buildings and fences - but then again, I haven't tried talking to them so you never know. I already know that everyone with a shop sees fashing dollar signs above my head, which is to be expected when you are a supidly-lost-looking white kid meandering the streets.

I do not yet know what will happen or how I will feel when this little bike ride sets off on Saturday from the Pyramids, and that is my favorite part.