Tour d'Afrique - Cairo to Cape Town by Bike

Stunning mountain view from my tent door. The picture just doesn't do it justice


The girl who tried to jump on my bike so I could bike her back to Canada, and she wasn't the only one. I honestly tried, but my mountain bike is really only designed for one (Photo: Rémy Benois)


Typical lunch scene. The locals love staring at us so we put up orange ropes around the site so we are not mobbed. I can only imagine what we look like to them.

I can't believe how much has happened and changed since my last update. Where to begin?! Firstly, happy Valentine's Day! This is good for some more point form I think.

• Had a good rest day in Khartoum. It is a special city because it has the amenities of a bigger city, but because of the amazing nature of the Sudanese it has a small town feel. Cycling through traffic and over the Nile to the market, camping beside the well-defined line showing the confluence of the Blue and White Nile (of note: apparently Ethiopia has been dry lately and Uganda a little wetter and as such the confluence of the rivers has moved eastward), sitting enjoying my felafel watching the life of the city pass by, being treated to an evening out by the Sudanese Cycling Federation a the curiously fancy "Police Home" were some highlights here.
• The three days leaving Khartoum saw me catch a bug that has been making its way around the riders (typically happens every year around this time) and just completing the distance every day was challenging.
• The scenery slowly changed from the desert that we had become accustomed to toward more greenery and light hills in the terrain.
• Since we turned eastward, our tail winds became cross winds. One morning an extremely strong gust blew a half dozen riders in the lead peleton (including myself due to my location at the time) completely off the road. I wanted to take the picture of a pack of riders all leaning about ten degrees to the left to offset the wind, but I really didn't want to take a paw off my handlebar.
• Being in a different tribe's region, the housing turned from the mud-packed huts and homes toward grass huts. Very picturesque!
• With more greenery around, we actually began to see wildlife! Until now we have only seen domestic animals, but now the air is alive with sounds of wild animals.
• With more moisture around, the evenings have been significantly warmer and the days have felt far hotter due to the humidity. I had ridden the vast majority of the tour in tights and long sleeves, but now I have broken down and regularly wear shorts and short sleeves (complimented by plenty of 30spf sunscreen of course!).
• Roads were paved all the way from Khartoum to about 10km before the Ethiopian border at Metema.
• I understood that the last day in the Sudan was to be paved with little to see along the side of the road and since my health had returned, I went for a race day. The short story is that two riders broke away at 5km and myself and two other riders hung on. After another 45km of high pace riding, the two tour leaders broke going down a hill and my mountain gears struggled to keep up with the 70km/h pace they set, but I hung on. The three of us worked together until 140km when a few attacks started. I held on until about 2km to go when the anaerobic nature of the now unpaved roads dropped me back. I came in 1 minute behind the first two riders who had to sprint through a heard of cattle that was in the process of immigrating into Ethiopia.
• The first two days in Ethiopia were tough, but absolutely amazing! The first day was 95km of gravel roads that ended with what I would have called a long climb up to our camp. We climbed to an elevation of about 2300m and the views of the mountains were beautiful!
• Most riders found the day pretty tough and more and more riders were catching the bug going around so unfortunately many elected to ride the truck the following 114km day over the same roads with far more climbing. Though it was a challenging day with a cumulative elevation gain of about 2400m, the views and the feeling of accomplishment was fantastic! Highlights of the day were the fun descents to start the day, the 18km long climb where I used my granny gear for the first time and occasionally dropped below 5km/h, seeing huge amounts of locals walking up the mountain to the village of Aykel carrying the fruits of their labour (produce, lumber, whatever else they could sell) over huge distances (I estimate up to 8km) up massive elevations, stopping in a village to purchase some bananas and instantly having a crowd of ~30-40 curious people around, having one local girl try to set me up with her friend only to turn jealous and wanted me to take her to Canada on my bicycle (she tried to get on my seat until she realized that it almost reached her shoulder, then she got on my top tube. I tried to pedal away, but...well it just wasn't going to work), climbing up to our mountain top hotel (no exaggeration) in Gonder to conclude the amazing day were just some of the highlights. I took it easy over the day but didn't doddle and still didn't make it to camp until 5:00pm. Incredible!
• Two rest days in Gonder. Our Ethiopian contact tried to organize a flight to Lalibela, but didn't have success so offered a hiking trip to the Simian mountains, but there were not enough takers so we stayed around Gonder.
• I didn't send and update from Gonder because the internet was just not going to work for me...sorry!
• Did some errands, saw the town, had a blast having the locals make fun of us, recovered from some residual sickness, some food poisoning (a little too much local water in the amazing avocado juice I had...it was worth it!), and the previous days of riding.
• We only had two days of riding from Gonder to here in Bahr Dar where we get another rest day. Many people are still recovering from some sickness, so this is a welcome rest. Though the roads have been paved, the views and the climbing have still been awesome!

Well, this has raged on pretty long. I'll try to post again soon with some fun stories about the locals, me riding three mountainous days with only one brake working and some details about the day-to-day routine of the tour.

Tonight: the P-party! We are to come dressed as anything that starts with P. Tonight I will be the Patriotic Peddler with all of my Canadian garb and tattoos. Mission: make an a** out of myself!

...well more than usual!