Tour d'Afrique - Cairo to Cape Town by Bike

The following morning we boarded our seven seat Toyota Land Cruiser on the first of our three rest days salivating for our taste of an African safari. Safari is actually a Swahili word for "journey" but us westerners tend to associate it with game viewing in this beautiful continent. We left the rat-race that is touristy Arusha bound for some rougher roads. Still on the main highway we were greeted by some zebra and giraffes snacking on some foliage. Just beautiful how they move!

We finally got away from the mandatory curio stops where our vehicle windows were ransacked by sales of bananas, bead work, paintings, tissues and whatever else the locals thought that us "mzungus" wanted to spend money on. Our vehicle climbed away from the plain below and onto the volcanic escarpment where the famous Ngorongoro crater is situated. We finally arrived at the gates of the Ngorongoro Conservation area where the pavement ended and the entertaining driving on the rough roads began. We continued past the crater toward Serengeti National Park. Similar to our last couple of days of riding, we were in the thick of Masai land and were were constantly passing Masai with very decorated ears, beautifully coloured dress and welcoming smiles. The Masai are the only ones allowed to live in the Conservation area since they only feed on their Masai cattle and do not harm the wild animals or the terrain.

We arrived at the gate of the park and learned that Serengeti is actually a Masai word for "endless plain" which is extremely appropriate for the area. About 80% of the horizon was completely flat and the remaining 20% was extremely distant mountain ranges. Along the road we were stopping to photograph numerous types of gazelles (I love the extremely cute and active Thompson's Gazelles!), zebra, giraffes, wildebeast, and a cornucopia of unique birds. The park office is situated on one of the only hills in the area which offered an incredible view of the plain. We continued on toward our campsite as the clouds prematurely darkened the sky. We were able to watch the storm brew from kilometres away and occasionally see the sun setting behind it. We finally entered it and our vehicle was pelted with hail and surrounded by crashing thunder and lightening. We arrived at our campsite and set up camp in the relenting rain and enjoyed a delicious dinner cooked by our guide. We duly noted the sign in the middle of our unprotected campsite "CAUTION: DO NOT GET OUT OF THE CAMPSITE. ANIMAL MAY ATTACT HUMAN BEING." Needless to say we got the message and didn't stray far from our tents during our nocturnal pee breaks. During the night we heard a bunch of wild sounds not far from our tents. The idea of camping in the middle of the Serengeti was certainly invigorating.

We awoke early the following morning and set out in our Land Cruisers and our guide opened up the roof for better game viewing. We saw a few more of "the big five" along the way. These five animals (elephant, leopard, lion, buffalo, and rhinoceros) though not the most dangerous around are noted for their potential danger to humans. Sighting highlights included hippos fighting in a shallow creek, jackals slinking about, wort hogs charging away, female lions strolling about, and many others, but most notably a leopard sleeping on a high tree branch.

After lunch we drove around looking at more and more amazing animals, each time dropping my jaw as I couldn't believe I was laying my naked eyes on these unique creatures, then made our way back toward the Ngorongoro crater. We later laughed that at home none of us could picture ourselves standing in a Land Cruiser with our waist and up sticking out of the roof whilst screaming down a rough gravel road at 80km/h, but here we didn't really question it.

We camped on the rim of the crater and nature treated us to an amazing show of another colourful sunset as another thunderstorm rolled around the rim onto our site.

Early the next morning we descended into the crater that was then covered in a thin blanket of low-lying cloud. Even the guides said that they had never seen it like this. Once under the cloud the visibility plummeted, however the keen eye of our guide did not slow our game sightings. We were constantly surrounded by grazing gazelles, wildebeest, zebras, and buffalo. My highlight of the trip was seeing a male and female of my favourite species, the cheetah. They were lying in the grass watching the approach of some spotted hyenas slinking by to see if the cheetahs had any food. The hyenas kept their distance, then loped away disappointed by the lack of easy food.

We continued around the crater floor as the fog lifted and we saw a male lion, some elephants, some monkeys, some hippos both in and out of the water, and some rhinos among many others. Just amazing!

Our vehicle climbed out of the crater on the steep access road and we finally sat back down in our seats after having our heads out of the roof for the majority of the past three days.

Back on the bike the following morning was refreshing since I had been missing it while "on vacation from my vacation." During the day's race, I stopped for a long while and checked out the nearby Snake Park. I sauntered through the Masai Museum where a bunch of questions I had accrued over the previous week or so of travelling through Masai country. I then toured around the snakes where I got to come face-to-face (okay, through a pane of glass) with a cornucopia of Africa's famous venomous and non-venomous snakes. One of the cobras and the black mamba went into attack position as soon as they laid eyes on us. My fight or flight reaction was oblivious to the glass; what an experience!

The following day the pavement ended and the fun began for the trail riders of the crew. Now in the rainy season the roads had turned into a brown soupy mess and motorized vehicle became slower than bicycle. At one point a river had washed away a 100m section of road, but was easily passable to our cycling crew. The finish line was shortly after a section of extremely deep and sticky mud that had grabbed two trucks, blocking the road. We cycled back to that location and set up camp there since there was no way any vehicle was going to get through before morning.

The next day the fun continued and though the roads were drying we still passed a couple of trucks that blocked the way for our support trucks. I had my own share of mechanical trouble that day. My borrowed rear tire (without SpinSkins unfortunately) pinch flatted once again, then about 6km before our lunch stop the side wall blew with the sound of a gunshot. Needless to say that local that I was play racing with at the time got quite the shock. Instead of playing around trying to fix it, I ran the remaining distance to lunch. Instead of playing with my tire, a staff member lent me his bike for the remaining distance. Unfortunately, 100m into the afternoon's ride, the front derailleur cable housing frayed so I rigged it to stay in the middle ring. about 10km later I got a flat that I had to patch since he had already had a flat that morning. The valve failed so I patched the spare and was on my way. Another 15km later I flatted again and each patch opened up another hole in this faulty tube until the tube exploded with a 10cm hole. I then put my inappropriately sized tube in the tire and it seemed to hold. Fun stuff in the heat!

With all of that, the highlight of the day came about 5km later when about 10m in front of me I saw a ~2m long black snake sunning himself upon the narrow road. Once he felt I was too close, he raised his head to about 1m off of the ground, then decided that he didn't want to bother with me and darted off into the Tanzanian bush. Noting the markings in the seconds in which this all transpired as well as his behaviour, I am fairly certain it was a black mamba; one of Africa's most aggressive venomous snakes. Wow!

Our support trucks managed to make it through the slop and to the village where we stopped by 9:30pm which was an incredible feat! The African Routes staff performed some incredible work that day freeing the trucks from impossible fixes and avoiding other certain jams. Just amazing!

The next day was a non-race day and had some beautiful scenery along the road that lead us into the capital Dodoma. Unfortunately, due to a late arrival and the large amount of maintenance that had to be done I didn't get a chance to see the city that much except as we were cycling through.

The following days wound us through the now dry roads toward Iringa. I had realized that I had fallen into "two-speed mode" where my only two speeds are moving and stopped. I decided that to break out of this I needed to try for a stage win. On our second last day of dirt, I managed to stay with the lead group for the first 25km of the 95km stage until I noticed that I was more comfortable descending on these "adventure race style" roads. At 25km I broke away on a winding descent where I exceeded 50km/h. I managed to stay in front until our lunch break at 60km. We had a relaxed lunch, then left together, but the others decided that they weren't going to catch me and I rode to my second stage win!

That same day, we crossed the 6000km mark at lunch. It was a funny experience since we all feel like we are drawing toward the end even though half of the kilometres remain in front of us. This is a good feeling because it acted as a reminder to continue to enjoy and take advantage of this incredible opportunity of traversing this beautiful continent by bike.

The next day showed us some stunning scenery as we climbed up the mountain range bordering the rolling valley through which we had just travelled. Shortly before Iringa we hit the tarred roads again which was an odd sensation after a week of fun and rough roads. To complete the Snows of Kilimanjaro section, in a mock sprint for n-th place, I broke my chain. I was going to change my chain the next day anyway so I scootered the final 5km to camp.

The last couple of days have been back on the "black silk" (a.k.a. tarred roads). I was really enjoying the rough roads, but reaching road speeds with relatively little effort is a pretty strange experience!

Now in Mbeya, we cross the border into our 6th country Malawi; the poorest country in Africa. It is for this reason that I am very excited that through my donors, the Tour d'Afrique Foundation will be able to donate 24 bicycles in the capital Lilongwe! I am extremely excited for this presentation ceremony. I will certainly post more about this as the time approaches.

Bring on the higher mileage and green bushy scenery of Malawi!