Tour d'Afrique - Cairo to Cape Town by Bike

We left Livingstone, Zambia with a 15km warm-up before our third time trial of the tour. This one was a little more conventional since it was a 40km paved time trial with some rolling hills. Though not feeling 100% due to some questionable meat that myself and another rider picked up for dinner the day before (we are responsible for our own food on rest days) I managed to finish in a time of 1h 6min for 4th place. We cruised the rest of the day to the border where we took a short ferry across the Zambezi into country 8: Botswana.

After splashing through foot and mouth disease control we rolled into our campsite adjacent to a town where I saw a nearly waist-high wort hog trotting through the streets. We pitched our tents in our prescribed area near the electric fence to keep the animals out. The camp manager came by and suggested that we should move our tents away from the water. Apparently two weeks ago a crocodile got by the disabled electric fence (due to the Luiana river's swelled size) and tore a tent apart. Needless to say, we obliged.

We rode south to cover over 300km in two days down the elephant highway. I rode alone or with one other rider to keep our eyes peeled for good elephant sightings. Nature obliged and I stood and watched a herd of about ten elephants on the side of the road. They say that you should always keep a distance of 50m away from elephants because they are known to charge. Considering the size difference between them and me I can understand. One female began to take interest in me and slowly advanced closer and closer to me. Once she got within 10m of me, I decided that nature observation time was over and it was now "get the heck out of here" time! What an experience though!

Once we hit Nata, we turned west and the winds turned to our backs. We had another elephant sighting just before lunch one day; a massive bull! He decided he didn't want us there anymore and began to mock-charge a fellow Canadian rider. She was well away from us so we had a safe view of not only how fast these massive beasts can move, but also how fast a small French-Canadian girl can accelerate on a bicycle!

We had a couple of days of long, hot mileage. We broke the monotony the day into Maun by having our first team time trial. "Team Maple Syrup" came 4th, but was only 14 seconds away from 2nd place. Notably we tried to throw "Team Crap" off of their game by mooning them at the finish line, but we were one-upped by a toilet paper clad rider crossing the finish line with his spandex shorts on his head. Too funny!

I have arrived safely here in Maun with a bit of a cold and a little devoid of energy, but otherwise fine. We took a game flight over the Okavango Delta where we saw a plethora of wildlife! Though a little motion sick, it was a great experience.

We have some big mileage to cover now: over 800km in five days. We then get two rest days in Windhoek, Namibia.

Many riders have started speaking of then end now which is understandable with only 17 riding days remaining. I am trying not to think about it as there are so many great experiences to have between here and there. With that said we seem to have all switched into "band-aid" mode now by patching any problems we have rather than really fixing them. I'm trying to break away from that by going on a fixing spree this afternoon; we'll see how far I get with that.

Bring on the Kalahari desert!