Tour d'Afrique - Cairo to Cape Town by Bike

• The area dominated by the highly decorated Samburu tribe
• Begging highly accepted and sales people very aggressive.  Few tourists travel along this slow and potentially dangerous road due to banditry.  Those that do all stop at the few towns along the way where they are hounded by the locals selling necklaces, water, tissues and anything else they can think of.  Around these areas, begging is quite accepted.
• Between these towns, the population is quite sparse and the few people seen there are quite friendly.

• Once again, beautiful!
• It really felt like a hidden jewel.  The difficulty of travel made the stunning views that much more breathtaking.
• The extinct volcanic activity in the area has really dried up some areas and created lush greenery in others making this area very interesting to travel through.

• I later learned what a controversy the condition of this road is.  In a fully loaded truck, travelling more than 10km/h is likely to break leaf springs which is a timely repair job.  Even a nimble 4x4 is limited to roughly 25km/h.  These slow speeds encourage banditry since it is near impossible to get timely help to the area and slow moving vehicles are easy targets.
• The above inhibits trade in the area since supplies cannot be moved into or out of the area as well as keeping tourists away.  It seems that the Samburu people have loudly protested the state of the road, but their voices do not seem to carry to the government where their tribe does not have good representation.  I will not try to comment on this further as I am on second hand information, but I can understand how this road affects the area.

• Crossing the line from rutted gravel road to hard pavement was a stunning contrast.  Clearly this pavement has made Isiolo the northernmost extent of common tourism in Kenya.  The people in this band evidently see many tourists and all have their sly tactics to try to get us to purchase their trinkets or elaborate begging schemes.

• Money in the area!  Nairobi in particular was a shock to see with park lands of mowed lawns, fountains in the centre of traffic circles, shiny buildings laced with marble, etc.  Prices went up through this band seemingly to catch the tourists that come into Nairobi and scoot straight through to tourist central: Arusha.  Arusha itself is a mecca of expensive vehicles ushering sun-deprived tourists (funny how you can pick out the new tourists by lack of evidence of sun exposure) out to the sites.
• Resources are abundant.

• Is worthy of the above mentioned development.  Cycling around Mt. Kenya, rolling amongst the foothills of Mt. Kilimanjaro and the incredible wildlife that lives in amongst the scenery completely overwhelms the foreign eyes.  I enjoyed playing non-cycling tourist for a couple of days in this area, though I felt guilty pumping more money into a richer area fully knowing that I was bookended by poorer areas.
• So many scenes straight out of National Geographic: the landscape, the picture book animals, the colourful Masai locals, the diverse vegetation, incredible!

• Very friendly!  Once the pavement stopped so did the tourist presence and we fell back into our usual place of the locals thinking "What the heck are Mzungus doing in here and what are they wearing?"
• People never begged, only waved with enthusiasm.  Whenever our support trucks became stuck, any passer-bys instantly started digging with their own shovels to help.  Many smiles and enthusiasm toward our presence there.

• As we have moved farther south along the continent, the bicycle has become more and more popular.  Through the unpaved stretch of road where the rainy season turns the road into a brown soup, the bicycle proved to be a powerful tool since it was the only vehicle that could make it through the roads no matter what the conditions.
• Our group used to have the impression that our expensive bicycles are essential to travel along such rough roads, but the locals do it just fine on their extremely experienced cruiser-style bikes!  Great to see!

• I have a soft spot for this type of landscape: high rolling hills blanketed in lush greenery.  Travelling through it on bright red African clay roads added to the romance.
• Even once the pavement started again south of Iringa, the scenery was again very beautiful as the mountains increased in height.

Next: One of Africa's poorest countries, Malawi

# posted by Andrew @ 4/10/2007 08:46:00 a.m.