Tour d'Afrique - Cairo to Cape Town by Bike

The flavour of what we have been rolling by has certainly changed.  We had become accustomed to the Africa that involved an incredible number of people walking, cycling, donkey carting, etc. along the roads with large loads of goods in tow smiling and waving, small communities dotting the countrysides with thatch or corrugated roofs, simple town centres with limited resources that were acquired in informal markets and light motor traffic along the rutted roads beside which we would set-up our remote camp sights.  We have now moved into a far more westernized Africa where the population density has hit rock bottom (Namibia is the lowest in Africa), the towns are 300km apart and contain one curiously modern gas station and a few other modern amenities, the traffic is now all motorized, in good repair and is comparatively indifferent to our presence.  The larger towns contain shopping malls, marble banks, grocery stores and any other western comforts imaginable (except for high end bike stores of course :).  Our camps are now most of the time at formal camp grounds with swimming pools, bars, showers (arriving in Windhoek I showered four times in four days...how strange!), and unfortunately lacking the stunning stars, the allure of camping in wild Africa or the fun of camping in simple African villages.

 

However, what the recent riding may lack in cultural stimulus and variety of scenery it has made up for in wildlife sightings.  The scenery from Maun to Windhoek though attractive does not vary much.  It has however been dotted with kudu, oryx, springbok, black-backed jackals, wort hogs, and ostriches among others.

 

Luckily, we moved through the uniform terrain rather quickly covering over 800km in five days including one day over 200km.  I varied my riding style to keep things interesting by racing some of the time and riding on my own other times.  I thoroughly enjoyed riding 110km of the 208km day on my own even though it meant battling the wind on my own.  On a 162km day, I decided to try for a stage win on the tar.  The wind really picked up as the day went on and turned into our faces for the last 50km.  I rotated through pulling as per normal patiently waiting my moment.  With about 5km to go I had decided that I didn't have a chance sprinting against the other four in our small peleton so I broke away.  I managed to get away and started hoping for the finish flag to be a little early (we are never certain as to exactly where the flag will be).  I dug pretty deep and kept glued to my aerobars only coming off to stand and accelerate up the remaining hills and managed to hold off the others for my third stage win.  Two on the dirt and one on the tar; sounds good to me!

 

We arrived in Windhoek and many riders were pretty cooked from our big week, but four of us organized a rental car for the two days we had off here.  We drove down to Soussusvlei to see the coveted red sand dunes.  It was pretty strange and felt extremely fast being in a car again as we made our way down through (apparently) the largest network of gravel roads in the world.  Our VW CitiGolf handled the roads surprisingly well considering it contained four heavy guys and a trunk full of tents and food.  We arrived just in time to see a pretty stunning sunset over the dunes.  The dunes glow a bright red, the sky was at times red, deep purple, and even almost green.  What a backdrop for the grazing ostriches that were near.  We camped just outside the park and awoke early the following morning and were waiting at the gates for the 5:20am opening time.  I found it rather comical that the speed limit on the road out there (the only tarred road in the area) was 60km/h, but even the park rangers were driving over 140km/h to try to get to the parking lot 63km away before the public arrived where the overland trucks were over 130km/h and some vehicles over 150km/h.

 

No matter, we parked at the 2WD lot and hopped on our 4WD shuttle out to a dune above a dried lake bed of 1000 years.  We watched the end of the sunrise ~130m above the valley floor standing atop a red sand dune as the howling wind blasted us with the tiny building blocks that created the dunes: sand.  After standing and walking around in awe, we ran down the 33° slope with many fun spills and toured around some of the other areas around the dunes.  We eventually made our way back to our car and took the scenic route back to Windhoek.  The whole weekend the scenery was absolutely stunning.  I think it seemed even more so considering that the mountains we were driving through were the first hills we saw since Maun.

 

Tomorrow we are back on the bikes where we will go south out of hilly Windhoek and take five days to get to Ai-Ais, the last of which is back on dirt where we will have our last time trial.  After that we are on dirt for two more days, than five days on tar will bring us to Cape Town...strange!

 

As previously mentioned I have been avoiding thinking of the end but with only 1650km and twelve riding days remaining, others have started to reflect aloud.  I had previously thought a bit about what I have to do once I am home, what I am going to do in Cape Town, what my summer will be like, etc., but only today started realizing how my every day existence will change.  How I will lose the "Hakuna Matata" no worries nature of African existence, I will lose the concept of "African time", I will lose the camaraderie of having 40 siblings to say "good morning" to in the morning, share stories of the previous day or the day's ride with, etc. 

 

Or will I?  There is no doubt I will take a little while integrating back into a Canadian way of life where I shower more often than once per rest day, have to deal with deadlines and watches exact to the minute and have to accomplish more than cycle for 6 hours per day.  However, the question to be answered is what we can learn from this way of life.  How can us westerners learn to consume less and be happy with less. 

 

Entire countries drive their economy by bicycle transport here; surely we can use it more in ours.