Hello from Cape Town!!!
After 120 days and 12000 kilometres, we are writing from Cape Town, South Africa. We have finished the 2009 Tour d'Afrique. We will send a "last update" when we get back home to Canada and have had time to really put it all into perspective, but we just wanted to let everyone know that we are safe and sound and quite ready to not get on a bicycle for a while. The tour ended with a 30km convoy to the waterfront area of Cape Town. We were accompanied by the Acting Executive Mayor of the city who is quite a cycling enthusiast. Upon our arrival, there was a marching band parade, a whole medal ceremony with national flags and bottles of champagne and even a VIP tent with as much food and champagne as we could fill ourselves with. We were not expecting such a huge welcome, but it certainly added to the feeling of accomplishment. Even the Consul Generals from all our contries were there! The city of Cape Town has a population that is very active and into sports, especially cycling, so they really made a big deal out of it.
We will be flying back home to Edmonton on the 13th/14th and will get back to our "regular life" pretty much right away. Again, you can expect a more full update of the last section and the tour as a whole when we get back (hopefully with lots of pictures).
See you soon!
Judy & Andrew
Sunday, May 10, 2009
Friday, April 24, 2009
Windhoek, Namibia - 10 000km
Hello everyone!
We have concluded a very long section of the tour from Livingstone, Zambia to Windhoek, Namibia. In just 10 riding days, we covered approx. 1500km so if you do the math, that is an average of 150km per day which is a long time to spend on a bicycle seat, especially day after day and with uncooperative winds. This section also included the longest day of the tour, a whopping 207km. They told us that in the past there is most surely a tailwind for this day...there was not. The last riders got into camp JUST before sunset. BUT, we made it safe and sound to Windhoek and are enjoying what is essentially the "first world" again.
On our last update, we told the story of how our cameras were stolen and our adventure with going to the police, etc. so we just thought we would update further on this. The morning that we got all the police report sorted out, we had been planning on going to Victoria Falls in the afternoon and to do so without a camera would have been a bit of a downer, and we could not find a camera to buy in town either. Luckily, a fellow rider, Allen, lent us his camera so that we could go take many beautiful shots of the falls and ourselves there, which was very kind of him. If that wasn't generous enough, a different rider, Peter happend to bring two cameras on the trip so he lent us one of them indefinately until we can find another one. This has turned out to be an absolutely invaluable act of kindness considering all the things there were to take pictures of along this section.
On the day we left Livingstone, we crossed the border (by ferry) into Botswana. Interestingly, because the countries of Botswana, Zambia, Namibia and Zimbabwe all converge at this one spot, we actually crossed into Zimbabwe while on the ferry. We were not expecting to go to that country, but we can now say we did. We are even bringing home a 100 Trillion Zimbabwean dollar bill which is worth essentially nothing. In fact, the Zimbabwe government redenominated the ZWD again on February 2, 2009 at a rate of 1,000,000,000,000 old ZWD to 1 new ZWD and the rate is still 279 ZWD to 1 USD. Crazy. On the night we got into Botswana, we went on a river safari on the Chobe River. It was a very incredible experience. In just 2 short hours, we saw an elephant bathing in the water, two familes of 10 and 2o hippos respectively, a crocodile and many beautiful birds and ungulates. It ended with a spectacular African sunset which we probably took about 20 pictures of. The next day, we saw about 6 elephants on the side of the road while riding and sadly, a little further on, we saw a dead elephant that had been poached (its leg had been snared and the whole face had been cut away). You do not want me to try and describe the smell of that experience...Judy almost vomited. The NEXT day, we saw 3 giraffes crossing the road but they were very timid and ran incredibly fast into the forest. And don't worry, we are coming home with pictures of all of this (thanks to the generosity previously mentioned). So, as you can see, Botswana offered us all the sites of animals that we could have wanted and one of the reasons is because there are almost NO people. It was an incredible contrast from most of the trip so far, as ever since Ethiopia (which was the worst) we have been going through heavily populated countires. It was a nice break to never see any people, anywhere...just animals.
Near the end of our time in Botswana, we both (again) developed a bit of a sickness. This time, it was nothing that affected our GI tract, which was nice because that is what has been happening off and on since Eithiopia. We just had some high fevers and aches, but nothing that Tylenol couldn't fix. Judy had it a bit worse, so they did a Malaria test on her, but it was negative...phew. At the same time we developed this feverish sickness, Judy also happened to pick up a worm infestation in her belly. Yes, worms. Actually, a few of the people on our trip had worm troubles throughout Botswana, some in their bellies, some just under the surface of their skin. Judy affectionatly named hers Harold and Josephine and then took "Worm Stop 500" and killed them and their offspring off. The effects of taking the worm medication were incredibly swift and as soon as she had, the aching belly went away. These sicknesses did keep us from riding a few days, the most dissapointing of which was the 207km day, but that is just how it goes sometimes.
Since getting into Namibia, we have spent most of the days crossing the Kalahari Desert. I am not sure what it is with our group and getting bad luck with rain and deserts, but two nights ago, we had an incredibly rain and wind storm overnight while camping in Witvlei. We ended up tying our tent to a tree in the middle of the night so that it didn't collaps/blow away. This was very effective, and luckily, even after 102 days of camping, we and all our stuff were 100% dry inside. Seriously, we think this tent is magic. If anyone is looking into buying a tent right now, buy a Kelty. Yesterday, while riding into Windhoek, we saw more animals! Just after passing the international airport, we saw about 30 monkies sitting on the fence along the side of the road and not long after that, 3 warthogs (or as we call them, "Pumba"s) crossed in front of us. We sang "Hakuna Matata" for about a half hour after that. It then rained AGAIN on the last few km into the city and we got a little wet. The terrain in the Kalahari desert and around Windhoek looks a lot like interior BC near Kamloops and the rolling hills as we went into the city, really brought us back to Canada.
Well, after 10 000km, we are getting ready for the last section of our tour: Windhoek to Cape Town. We leave here tomorrow (April 25) and ride over to the Namib desert and then south to South Africa and should arrive in Cape Town on May 9th. We can't believe it is almost coming to a close but after four and a half months travelling, we are pretty excited and quite ready to get home. We look forward to seeing you all when we do!
Lastly, you can read a newspaper article about us that was in the local Canmore newspaper here: http://www.albertalocalnews.com/rockymountainoutlook/news/42760627.html
We have concluded a very long section of the tour from Livingstone, Zambia to Windhoek, Namibia. In just 10 riding days, we covered approx. 1500km so if you do the math, that is an average of 150km per day which is a long time to spend on a bicycle seat, especially day after day and with uncooperative winds. This section also included the longest day of the tour, a whopping 207km. They told us that in the past there is most surely a tailwind for this day...there was not. The last riders got into camp JUST before sunset. BUT, we made it safe and sound to Windhoek and are enjoying what is essentially the "first world" again.
On our last update, we told the story of how our cameras were stolen and our adventure with going to the police, etc. so we just thought we would update further on this. The morning that we got all the police report sorted out, we had been planning on going to Victoria Falls in the afternoon and to do so without a camera would have been a bit of a downer, and we could not find a camera to buy in town either. Luckily, a fellow rider, Allen, lent us his camera so that we could go take many beautiful shots of the falls and ourselves there, which was very kind of him. If that wasn't generous enough, a different rider, Peter happend to bring two cameras on the trip so he lent us one of them indefinately until we can find another one. This has turned out to be an absolutely invaluable act of kindness considering all the things there were to take pictures of along this section.
On the day we left Livingstone, we crossed the border (by ferry) into Botswana. Interestingly, because the countries of Botswana, Zambia, Namibia and Zimbabwe all converge at this one spot, we actually crossed into Zimbabwe while on the ferry. We were not expecting to go to that country, but we can now say we did. We are even bringing home a 100 Trillion Zimbabwean dollar bill which is worth essentially nothing. In fact, the Zimbabwe government redenominated the ZWD again on February 2, 2009 at a rate of 1,000,000,000,000 old ZWD to 1 new ZWD and the rate is still 279 ZWD to 1 USD. Crazy. On the night we got into Botswana, we went on a river safari on the Chobe River. It was a very incredible experience. In just 2 short hours, we saw an elephant bathing in the water, two familes of 10 and 2o hippos respectively, a crocodile and many beautiful birds and ungulates. It ended with a spectacular African sunset which we probably took about 20 pictures of. The next day, we saw about 6 elephants on the side of the road while riding and sadly, a little further on, we saw a dead elephant that had been poached (its leg had been snared and the whole face had been cut away). You do not want me to try and describe the smell of that experience...Judy almost vomited. The NEXT day, we saw 3 giraffes crossing the road but they were very timid and ran incredibly fast into the forest. And don't worry, we are coming home with pictures of all of this (thanks to the generosity previously mentioned). So, as you can see, Botswana offered us all the sites of animals that we could have wanted and one of the reasons is because there are almost NO people. It was an incredible contrast from most of the trip so far, as ever since Ethiopia (which was the worst) we have been going through heavily populated countires. It was a nice break to never see any people, anywhere...just animals.
Near the end of our time in Botswana, we both (again) developed a bit of a sickness. This time, it was nothing that affected our GI tract, which was nice because that is what has been happening off and on since Eithiopia. We just had some high fevers and aches, but nothing that Tylenol couldn't fix. Judy had it a bit worse, so they did a Malaria test on her, but it was negative...phew. At the same time we developed this feverish sickness, Judy also happened to pick up a worm infestation in her belly. Yes, worms. Actually, a few of the people on our trip had worm troubles throughout Botswana, some in their bellies, some just under the surface of their skin. Judy affectionatly named hers Harold and Josephine and then took "Worm Stop 500" and killed them and their offspring off. The effects of taking the worm medication were incredibly swift and as soon as she had, the aching belly went away. These sicknesses did keep us from riding a few days, the most dissapointing of which was the 207km day, but that is just how it goes sometimes.
Since getting into Namibia, we have spent most of the days crossing the Kalahari Desert. I am not sure what it is with our group and getting bad luck with rain and deserts, but two nights ago, we had an incredibly rain and wind storm overnight while camping in Witvlei. We ended up tying our tent to a tree in the middle of the night so that it didn't collaps/blow away. This was very effective, and luckily, even after 102 days of camping, we and all our stuff were 100% dry inside. Seriously, we think this tent is magic. If anyone is looking into buying a tent right now, buy a Kelty. Yesterday, while riding into Windhoek, we saw more animals! Just after passing the international airport, we saw about 30 monkies sitting on the fence along the side of the road and not long after that, 3 warthogs (or as we call them, "Pumba"s) crossed in front of us. We sang "Hakuna Matata" for about a half hour after that. It then rained AGAIN on the last few km into the city and we got a little wet. The terrain in the Kalahari desert and around Windhoek looks a lot like interior BC near Kamloops and the rolling hills as we went into the city, really brought us back to Canada.
Well, after 10 000km, we are getting ready for the last section of our tour: Windhoek to Cape Town. We leave here tomorrow (April 25) and ride over to the Namib desert and then south to South Africa and should arrive in Cape Town on May 9th. We can't believe it is almost coming to a close but after four and a half months travelling, we are pretty excited and quite ready to get home. We look forward to seeing you all when we do!
Lastly, you can read a newspaper article about us that was in the local Canmore newspaper here: http://www.albertalocalnews.com/rockymountainoutlook/news/42760627.html
Sunday, April 12, 2009
Victoria Falls - The Good, The Bad & The Ugly
Well, more days of travelling across Africa, and many more interesting stories. Last week we had a rest day in Lusaka, Zambia and spent the days there enjoying a lot of western amenities. We even went to the cinema and saw a movie ("Slumdog Millionaire", which I would deffinately recomend as a must see for everyone. After having spent some time in India this year, it really hit home.) We enjoyed some great western foods and went out to celebrate our friend Mark's birthday. All in all it was a great few days of pampering and relaxation. Andrew & decided (for our sanity & so our butts could have a break) to not ride our bikes for the three days between Lusaka and Victoria Falls. Turns out it was a wonderful 3 days of relaxation and book reading, which is good, because early yesterday morning (April 11th, the first of our two rest days in Vi Falls) our cameras were stolen out of our tent while we were eating breakfast. Quite unlucky really, but also our luck was that we had decided to inventory our money & charge my iPod, so those were not in the tent at the time. Could have been much worse, so we have spent all of yesterday and most of this morning sorting out our insurance claim, trying to get ahold of new cameras (unfortunately to no avail). We also went to the village which is a stones throw from our Lodge with one of the local security guys to plan a 'sting' opperation. He posed as our guide, and we bought a few locals some beers (and by beer I mean the local fermented corn mulch, which smells and tastes awful, kind of like a mix between bad beer and the early fermenting stages of rye). And found a guy in the village who sold cameras. Unfortunately, he did not have ours, but knew a guy who had a few and would meet us later. I think he caught wind of what we were doing however, because he didn't show up at the designated time. Today we spent all morning with the Zambian police, which really was an adventure all unto itself. We went to the police station, only to find out that police reports are only written up on Tuesdays, typical Africa. But after pleading with the guy behind the desk (who did not at all look like a police officer in his boardshorts and hawaii print shirt, except for the army boots he was wearing), he consented to call his boss, who sometimes came in on Sundays anyways, so the boss shows up, looking even less like a cop in a blue jumpsuit and sandals and they chat and so they call in the guy (who's name is Kelvin) that writes the police reports. So he interviews us, calls his partner (named Andrew) and they tell us that they can write a report for us today, but its going to cost 50,000 kwacha (about $10) to write the report, plus the costs of the internet cafe and printing because their police station doesn't own a computor. So off we go with them to the "crime scene" and they interview the security guards at the Livingstone Safari Lodge and nothing surfaces except what we already know, that often cameras and cell phones are stolen from tourists & then sold on the black market. (Infact just outside our internet cafe a guy approached us asking if we wanted to buy a camera, so we questioned him about the brand, but alas they were not our cameras. But I digress.) After that we spend some time with the police officers getting our story straight and they write up a report. Next we hop in a cab to the nearest internet cafe and there Andrew & I type up our own police report (only on account that Kelvin started typing it up, but I anticipated that it would take about an hour for him to do as his keyboard skills were slightly lacking). So we typed our report, correcting the spelling mistakes and making it look a little more eloquent in english, printed it they stamped it with their Zambian Police Service stamp, signed it, we handed over the K50,000 and then we were on our way. We stopped at a few placed and tried to buy cameras (from a store so as not to support tourist camera thieving) but couldn't find anything, so we've resorted to borrowing one from our friend Allan on the tour so we can (finally!) go to the falls this afternoon & enjoy the last few hours of our rest days (which were not so restfull). All in all, it could have been worse, we still have our money and passports and credit cards, and we've contacted our travel insurance company (hence needing police reports), which should cover the cost of our cameras. The sad part is that we lost the last 2 weeks worth of our pictures, which really is the part we are missing the most. Fortunately however, we are travelling with 50 other people who all have taken pictures over the last 2 weeks, so we can always get those. Also quite fortunately we changed out our memory cards 2 weeks ago, so we're lucky we didn't lose more. All in all, we both agree that we still love Africa, and have vowed not to let a few bad experiences ruin our trip. (think back to our days of stone throwing, stick wielding children in Ethiopia, it now seems almost a cute distant memory. *almost*) We're planning on taking a picnic to the falls this afternoon & enjoying the day. Other than that, we're less than a month from Cape Town & will be back on Canadian soil in 31 days. Quite exciting as we are starting to miss home a bit (we've been on the road for exactly 4 months today) and can't wait to see everyone.
Tuesday, March 31, 2009
Malawi!!
Hello Everyone!
We are now in Lilongwe, Malawi and enjoying the beautiful scenery. Our first day into Malawi was an explosion of humidity and heat as well as immense beauty! We learned a few days ago that Malawi is sometimes called the "Warm Heart of Africa", because of the kindness of the people. All along the roads kids are waving and smiling, shouting "Azungu" (which literally translated from Chichewa is "white person") trying to get our attention. We were a little bit disapointed when kids started shouting what we thought was 'money', turns out the Chichewa greeting for 'hello' is 'moni'. That lifted our spirits! To further exemplify how kindhearted people here are I'll tell a little story of what happened to us yesterday (although I'm sure my mom will kill me for this!) While riding yesterday into a strong headwind in the hot, sticky afternoon Andrew & I decided that we were sick of riding out bikes. We have two support trucks that come with us, but one was gone ahead to scout the campsite, and we knew the other was still at the lunch stop and wouldn't be along for another 2 hours or so, our end result was that we decided to hitchhike. Neither of us having done this before, we were a little short of knowledge about how to hail down a vehicle, and secondly we needed one that would accomoade not only us, but both of our bikes. Fortunately for us, around the next corner was one of many police checkpoints. Just our luck as well, a huge flatbed truck was stopped there. We promptly rolled up, knocked on the drivers window and asked if we could hop in the back. The driver spoke very little english, but quite kindly the police officer offered to be our translator. So here we are in the middle of a Malawian highway asking a cop to translate for us so that we can hitch a ride. Once the driver caught on to what we were doing he immediately smiled and gestured that we should throw our bikes up to one of the other people hitching a ride in the back & then hop up. We told him where we were headed & he promised to drop us off as close as he could to our destination. Half an hour later the truck pulled into a gas station and they helped us unload our bikes & asked us what the heck we were doing riding our bikes across Africa (it is a bit of a crazy endeavour!) so we told them about the TDA & our fundraising & where we were from, what we did back home and so on. It was at this point that the drivers assistant spoke up and in immaculate english started asking us about Canadian unversities. He expressed his desire to us that he one day wanted to go to Canada and go to school. We swapped e-mail adressess and promised to send him whatever info we could about schools back home once we got there. Then we said goodbye and were on our merry way to camp. - Now for my mothers sake (and Andrew's too) let me elaborate on how safe it is to hitch a ride in Africa and how it differs from Canada. Here, very few people can afford vehicles but still need to get places further than walking or biking distance. Most people who have vehicles drive trucks of one sort or another, so the natural thing to do is pull over an offer anyone (& often their multitudes of stuff) a lift, I mean you're going in the same direction anyways. Everyone here hithes rides, mothers with tiny babies slung on their backs, old men with canes, children on their way to and from school...the list goes on. Now, back in Canada, I would likely never hitchhike, because no one in their right mind does it at home, and no one in their right mind picks up a stranger wandering down the side of the road, but the culture here is different, and I really like it. Everyone is your brother or your sister, and it seems that although in extreme poverty (especially here in Malawi) someone would give you the shirt off their back if you needed it. Anyhow, this long meanering ramble is to express the kind hearts of people here.
On to the trip; we spent as beautiful day relaxing on Chitimba Beach, on Laka Malawi and were supposed to spend the next 4 days riding along Lake Malawi into Lilongwe, however plans change. The rains have been excessive here this year, and as a result the road we were supposed to take had been partially washed away and a bridge was destroyed, so we stayed inland & got to Lilongwe a day early, so now we get two rest days here instead of one.
In other 'exciting' news, Madonna is here in Lilongwe. We had some greasy paparazzi guy staying at our campsite last night. I've never seen camera lenses so big! I guess she's here to "adopt" another baby, clearly at a great personal cost. I guess money can buy anything these days. So far we haven't seen her, (that being said, we're not really looking to either, we have much better things to do, like wash laundry and oil our bikes).
We're off to Zambia next, and will be back on Canadian soil in 6 weeks; which brings the point that if you are still interested in donating, you still have time! We are continuing to fundraise until we get back home. The easiest way to donate (since you are reading this you are already at a computor) is online at www.tourdafrique.com/donate - please put "In support of Judy Garnier & Andrew McLellan's Fundrasing" in the comments box. Every penny helps and we've been to a couple of bike donation ceremonies and its amazing to hear the stories from local hospitals and aid organizations of the bikes help and what it really means for them! We just passed day 80 of the tour, and despite torrential rains our little tent has managed to stay intact. We had an ant invation of it this morning, it seems overnight a colony of sugar ants (the teeny tiny ones) decided to build a next under our tent, and so this morning we found they had chewed holes through the floor and were invading. We wiped them out with about half a bottle of mosquito spray and patched the holes in true Canadian fashion with seam-sealewr and duct-tape. Mission accomplised!
Judy & Andrew
We are now in Lilongwe, Malawi and enjoying the beautiful scenery. Our first day into Malawi was an explosion of humidity and heat as well as immense beauty! We learned a few days ago that Malawi is sometimes called the "Warm Heart of Africa", because of the kindness of the people. All along the roads kids are waving and smiling, shouting "Azungu" (which literally translated from Chichewa is "white person") trying to get our attention. We were a little bit disapointed when kids started shouting what we thought was 'money', turns out the Chichewa greeting for 'hello' is 'moni'. That lifted our spirits! To further exemplify how kindhearted people here are I'll tell a little story of what happened to us yesterday (although I'm sure my mom will kill me for this!) While riding yesterday into a strong headwind in the hot, sticky afternoon Andrew & I decided that we were sick of riding out bikes. We have two support trucks that come with us, but one was gone ahead to scout the campsite, and we knew the other was still at the lunch stop and wouldn't be along for another 2 hours or so, our end result was that we decided to hitchhike. Neither of us having done this before, we were a little short of knowledge about how to hail down a vehicle, and secondly we needed one that would accomoade not only us, but both of our bikes. Fortunately for us, around the next corner was one of many police checkpoints. Just our luck as well, a huge flatbed truck was stopped there. We promptly rolled up, knocked on the drivers window and asked if we could hop in the back. The driver spoke very little english, but quite kindly the police officer offered to be our translator. So here we are in the middle of a Malawian highway asking a cop to translate for us so that we can hitch a ride. Once the driver caught on to what we were doing he immediately smiled and gestured that we should throw our bikes up to one of the other people hitching a ride in the back & then hop up. We told him where we were headed & he promised to drop us off as close as he could to our destination. Half an hour later the truck pulled into a gas station and they helped us unload our bikes & asked us what the heck we were doing riding our bikes across Africa (it is a bit of a crazy endeavour!) so we told them about the TDA & our fundraising & where we were from, what we did back home and so on. It was at this point that the drivers assistant spoke up and in immaculate english started asking us about Canadian unversities. He expressed his desire to us that he one day wanted to go to Canada and go to school. We swapped e-mail adressess and promised to send him whatever info we could about schools back home once we got there. Then we said goodbye and were on our merry way to camp. - Now for my mothers sake (and Andrew's too) let me elaborate on how safe it is to hitch a ride in Africa and how it differs from Canada. Here, very few people can afford vehicles but still need to get places further than walking or biking distance. Most people who have vehicles drive trucks of one sort or another, so the natural thing to do is pull over an offer anyone (& often their multitudes of stuff) a lift, I mean you're going in the same direction anyways. Everyone here hithes rides, mothers with tiny babies slung on their backs, old men with canes, children on their way to and from school...the list goes on. Now, back in Canada, I would likely never hitchhike, because no one in their right mind does it at home, and no one in their right mind picks up a stranger wandering down the side of the road, but the culture here is different, and I really like it. Everyone is your brother or your sister, and it seems that although in extreme poverty (especially here in Malawi) someone would give you the shirt off their back if you needed it. Anyhow, this long meanering ramble is to express the kind hearts of people here.
On to the trip; we spent as beautiful day relaxing on Chitimba Beach, on Laka Malawi and were supposed to spend the next 4 days riding along Lake Malawi into Lilongwe, however plans change. The rains have been excessive here this year, and as a result the road we were supposed to take had been partially washed away and a bridge was destroyed, so we stayed inland & got to Lilongwe a day early, so now we get two rest days here instead of one.
In other 'exciting' news, Madonna is here in Lilongwe. We had some greasy paparazzi guy staying at our campsite last night. I've never seen camera lenses so big! I guess she's here to "adopt" another baby, clearly at a great personal cost. I guess money can buy anything these days. So far we haven't seen her, (that being said, we're not really looking to either, we have much better things to do, like wash laundry and oil our bikes).
We're off to Zambia next, and will be back on Canadian soil in 6 weeks; which brings the point that if you are still interested in donating, you still have time! We are continuing to fundraise until we get back home. The easiest way to donate (since you are reading this you are already at a computor) is online at www.tourdafrique.com/donate - please put "In support of Judy Garnier & Andrew McLellan's Fundrasing" in the comments box. Every penny helps and we've been to a couple of bike donation ceremonies and its amazing to hear the stories from local hospitals and aid organizations of the bikes help and what it really means for them! We just passed day 80 of the tour, and despite torrential rains our little tent has managed to stay intact. We had an ant invation of it this morning, it seems overnight a colony of sugar ants (the teeny tiny ones) decided to build a next under our tent, and so this morning we found they had chewed holes through the floor and were invading. We wiped them out with about half a bottle of mosquito spray and patched the holes in true Canadian fashion with seam-sealewr and duct-tape. Mission accomplised!
Judy & Andrew
Friday, March 20, 2009
Iringa, Tanzania - 6000km
Hello!
Well, what a week we just had! There were ups and downs (perhaps more downs for some people). For starters, some good stuff: We passed the halfway point in terms of distance of the trip a few days ago (On St. Patrick’s Day) and right now in Iringa, Tanzania, we have come approx. 6000km. We looked it up on Google maps and that is about the equivalent of going from Vancouver to Halifax! Crazy! These last seven days of cycling has probably been the most consistently enjoyable days of riding that the two of us have had this trip. Only 1 of the 7 days was pavement and the rest was a combination of dirt, gravel and sand. We didn’t really mind though because that is what our bikes are built for and we have fun doing it. The other thing that made it very enjoyable is that we often only rode half days meaning we took the truck in the morning and read and then cycled the afternoon. We have found that we have a lot more fun this way because (especially on the rough terrain) a 50-60km ride is just the right amount for us, as oppose to a 90-110km ride. There has been a bit of rain recently, but it is quite predictable (late afternoon storms) so it hasn’t caused too many problems. Now for a bit of the negative side…one of the trucks has been consistently breaking down and has been limping through Tanzania getting make-shift repairs along the way. This has led to a few delays on meals and people getting their equipment at camp. Luckily, all our stuff is on the truck that is working fine so we have not felt the brunt of this too badly. The worst part about the week was that one of our fellow riders (a really good guy) had a pretty bad fall on some of the rocky gravel and ended up severely breaking his ulna and also clipping a vein. This was two days ago, and he had to get rushed to Iringa where he had some surgery to clean and repair the vein. Unfortunately, his tour is done and he left to go back home to the United States yesterday for more surgery to repair the break. Up to this point, he had cycled EFI for the whole trip and was an incredibly strong racer. It was a bit of a shock, and we all feel very, very bad for him.
We thought we would take some time to do something a little different on this update and that is to give everyone a bit of a “day in the life of TDA” sort of thing. So, if you are interested, keep reading and you’ll find out about some of our routines and how we are living on the trip.
First of all, here is a typical daily schedule for a riding day:
0600hrs: Wake up
0600hrs-0610hrs: Snooze Time
0610hrs-0645hrs: Dress, pack, put away tent, etc.
0645hrs-0705hrs: Breakfast
0705hrs-0715hrs: Put packs in truck, brush teeth, wash dishes
0715hrs: Start riding
Approx. 1100hrs: Lunch
1145hrs-1500hrs (Approx): Afternoon riding
1500hrs-1600hrs: Set up camp, change, wash
1600hrs-1800hrs: Relax, read, eat soup, socialize, bike maintenance
1800hrs: Rider meeting (briefing on the next day of riding)
1830hrs-1900hrs: Dinner
1900hrs-2000hrs: Get ready for bed
2000hrs: Go to sleep
So, there is a typical day for us! The times vary a bit depending on whether we are riding a full day or half day and what the distances are and road conditions, etc.
Another thing we thought people might be interested in is water usage. Between the two trucks, they can carry 2000L of purified water that we use for drinking and cooking and (sometimes) washing. As a whole group, we go through about 900L a day, which means that they pretty much have to find a water source every two days, which in some of the places we have been, is very difficult. As a result, we are always on some sort of water ration. Either water is ONLY for drinking (and cooking) or we are allowed one 750ml bottle of water to clean with in addition to drinking. We tend to use a lot less than this though because of the great expandable cloths that our good friend gave us. Besides, in our mind, we are always on the highest water restriction because the more water we use, the less there is for the people that actually live here and there isn’t much to go around.
Okay, that is all we are going to update everyone on for the time being. We have 5 days of riding ahead of us before our next rest day in Chitemba Beach, Malawi and it is all paved!
Well, what a week we just had! There were ups and downs (perhaps more downs for some people). For starters, some good stuff: We passed the halfway point in terms of distance of the trip a few days ago (On St. Patrick’s Day) and right now in Iringa, Tanzania, we have come approx. 6000km. We looked it up on Google maps and that is about the equivalent of going from Vancouver to Halifax! Crazy! These last seven days of cycling has probably been the most consistently enjoyable days of riding that the two of us have had this trip. Only 1 of the 7 days was pavement and the rest was a combination of dirt, gravel and sand. We didn’t really mind though because that is what our bikes are built for and we have fun doing it. The other thing that made it very enjoyable is that we often only rode half days meaning we took the truck in the morning and read and then cycled the afternoon. We have found that we have a lot more fun this way because (especially on the rough terrain) a 50-60km ride is just the right amount for us, as oppose to a 90-110km ride. There has been a bit of rain recently, but it is quite predictable (late afternoon storms) so it hasn’t caused too many problems. Now for a bit of the negative side…one of the trucks has been consistently breaking down and has been limping through Tanzania getting make-shift repairs along the way. This has led to a few delays on meals and people getting their equipment at camp. Luckily, all our stuff is on the truck that is working fine so we have not felt the brunt of this too badly. The worst part about the week was that one of our fellow riders (a really good guy) had a pretty bad fall on some of the rocky gravel and ended up severely breaking his ulna and also clipping a vein. This was two days ago, and he had to get rushed to Iringa where he had some surgery to clean and repair the vein. Unfortunately, his tour is done and he left to go back home to the United States yesterday for more surgery to repair the break. Up to this point, he had cycled EFI for the whole trip and was an incredibly strong racer. It was a bit of a shock, and we all feel very, very bad for him.
We thought we would take some time to do something a little different on this update and that is to give everyone a bit of a “day in the life of TDA” sort of thing. So, if you are interested, keep reading and you’ll find out about some of our routines and how we are living on the trip.
First of all, here is a typical daily schedule for a riding day:
0600hrs: Wake up
0600hrs-0610hrs: Snooze Time
0610hrs-0645hrs: Dress, pack, put away tent, etc.
0645hrs-0705hrs: Breakfast
0705hrs-0715hrs: Put packs in truck, brush teeth, wash dishes
0715hrs: Start riding
Approx. 1100hrs: Lunch
1145hrs-1500hrs (Approx): Afternoon riding
1500hrs-1600hrs: Set up camp, change, wash
1600hrs-1800hrs: Relax, read, eat soup, socialize, bike maintenance
1800hrs: Rider meeting (briefing on the next day of riding)
1830hrs-1900hrs: Dinner
1900hrs-2000hrs: Get ready for bed
2000hrs: Go to sleep
So, there is a typical day for us! The times vary a bit depending on whether we are riding a full day or half day and what the distances are and road conditions, etc.
Another thing we thought people might be interested in is water usage. Between the two trucks, they can carry 2000L of purified water that we use for drinking and cooking and (sometimes) washing. As a whole group, we go through about 900L a day, which means that they pretty much have to find a water source every two days, which in some of the places we have been, is very difficult. As a result, we are always on some sort of water ration. Either water is ONLY for drinking (and cooking) or we are allowed one 750ml bottle of water to clean with in addition to drinking. We tend to use a lot less than this though because of the great expandable cloths that our good friend gave us. Besides, in our mind, we are always on the highest water restriction because the more water we use, the less there is for the people that actually live here and there isn’t much to go around.
Okay, that is all we are going to update everyone on for the time being. We have 5 days of riding ahead of us before our next rest day in Chitemba Beach, Malawi and it is all paved!
Thursday, March 12, 2009
Pictures
We want to share some more pictures with everyone instead of just a few that we can get on the blog. So, we have created a facebook album which you can click on the link to below. You do not have to be a member of facebook to view it, so it is available to anyone. We are adding a few pictures every once and a while as we are able with the internet connections we encounter. Enjoy!
http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2147871&id=120402081&l=36cfb
http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2147871&id=120402081&l=36cfb
Wednesday, March 11, 2009
Arusha, Tanzania - Three Days Off the Bike
Greetings!
We are now in Arusha, Tanzania only 2 days riding from Nairobi. We have reached our offical halfway mark...in days anyways. We have 59 days to go out of 120, so yesterday was the actual halfway. We are currently enjoying three whole days off from riding, which is a special treat as normally we only get one day off every week or so. To update since our last post, we crossed into Tanzania and it is every bit as beautiful as we thought. We are now getting to the part of Africa that looks like the stereotypical "Africa" one might see in a National Geographic. Endless plains filled with grazing herds of zebra (yes we have seen those) as well as a few giraffe off in the distance. I also had a race with an ostrich, he of course won. (actually, there just happened to be an ostrich running in the same direction as me so I tried to keep up...it failed). When we first crossed into Tanzania we could also see the outline of Kilimanjaro in the distance, although we've been told that its a bad season to see it from afar as the air is too moist. What that means is that we've hit the rainy season, so we're keeping our raincoats on standby.
Arusha, the town we are staying in is a huge tourist capital. This is the place where everyone comes to start safaris, so there are what I call tourist shops everywhere, and if can manage to avoid them, hundereds of people on the streets selling anything you could ever want from sunglasses, to wood carvings, handmade sandals, gloabl newspapers and cellphone accessories. They are pretty respectful if you politely say no thank-you though. Every country is a little different. That being said there are a lot of similarities between Kenya and Tanzania, one of the obvious is that the language is the same - Swahili, which very conveniently Andrew took as his second language at university so he has a basic understanding and I am slowly learning a few words. English however is incredibly prominent here, but we will see how it is in some smaller villages as continue south on our journey. As we get further south we have noticed that things have become a lot more westernized. In Nairobi we found a fantastic pizza place (oh how good it was to eat some 'normal' food) and plenty of shopping centres. As well its becoming easier to find access to internet, banks and for the first time since we left, we were actually able to use a credit card to buy groceries! Its the little things in life!
Thats all for now, hopefully internet will continue to be a comodity for the second half of the trip!
Judy & Andrew
We are now in Arusha, Tanzania only 2 days riding from Nairobi. We have reached our offical halfway mark...in days anyways. We have 59 days to go out of 120, so yesterday was the actual halfway. We are currently enjoying three whole days off from riding, which is a special treat as normally we only get one day off every week or so. To update since our last post, we crossed into Tanzania and it is every bit as beautiful as we thought. We are now getting to the part of Africa that looks like the stereotypical "Africa" one might see in a National Geographic. Endless plains filled with grazing herds of zebra (yes we have seen those) as well as a few giraffe off in the distance. I also had a race with an ostrich, he of course won. (actually, there just happened to be an ostrich running in the same direction as me so I tried to keep up...it failed). When we first crossed into Tanzania we could also see the outline of Kilimanjaro in the distance, although we've been told that its a bad season to see it from afar as the air is too moist. What that means is that we've hit the rainy season, so we're keeping our raincoats on standby.
Arusha, the town we are staying in is a huge tourist capital. This is the place where everyone comes to start safaris, so there are what I call tourist shops everywhere, and if can manage to avoid them, hundereds of people on the streets selling anything you could ever want from sunglasses, to wood carvings, handmade sandals, gloabl newspapers and cellphone accessories. They are pretty respectful if you politely say no thank-you though. Every country is a little different. That being said there are a lot of similarities between Kenya and Tanzania, one of the obvious is that the language is the same - Swahili, which very conveniently Andrew took as his second language at university so he has a basic understanding and I am slowly learning a few words. English however is incredibly prominent here, but we will see how it is in some smaller villages as continue south on our journey. As we get further south we have noticed that things have become a lot more westernized. In Nairobi we found a fantastic pizza place (oh how good it was to eat some 'normal' food) and plenty of shopping centres. As well its becoming easier to find access to internet, banks and for the first time since we left, we were actually able to use a credit card to buy groceries! Its the little things in life!
Thats all for now, hopefully internet will continue to be a comodity for the second half of the trip!
Judy & Andrew
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