The convoy into Cape Town was a pretty anticlimactic affair. Enjoying the city is always hard to do as you're trying to both maintain a conversation with your neighbour and maintain a safe distance from the rider in front of you. It was short by TDA convoy standards, just an hour to get to the V&A Waterfront where we would be staying (and a large crowd would be present to welcome us). As we rolled thirty kilometres over smooth dual carriageways, past construction (the World Cup is almost here!) with a view of the sea that constantly faded in and out, motorbikes carrying cameras screamed past us multiple times. On many occasions we'd pass cameramen crouching to the ground over a video camera - I presume these were all the same crew (or South Africa has a LOT of television channels interested in filming us...) who had been brought forwards by motorcycles.

Before the convoy and after, upon arriving in Cape Town, I was amused that one or two observers (friends and family of other riders) found it hard to believe I was a rider (who would have thought? A brown person on a bicycle? Gosh. (I jest.)). As we rolled into the V&A Waterfront, a crowd of perhaps a thousand people were there. A lot of these were passers-by who must have been curious what the growing crowd was gathered for but the rest were friends and family of most of the riders. After a frenzied scene of what looked like copious hugging and tears being shed, we assembled behind country flags and marched densely onto a stage in some kind of amphitheatre.

Presented with medals by the Cape Town Deputy Mayor (who looked every bit like the atypical 'Mayor' and very similar to Mayor Quimby from the Simpsons), we received medals for signing up to the tour and paying a few thousand Euros (ok, more for riding the Tour but it's funny that people were rewarded for this) and medals for EFI. Following this there was a presentation of medals to the top three finishers in both races.

A quick shop later (smart jeans were a necessity for the evening's festivities) and I went to check in at the hotel. This was an almost-amusing-but-not-quite mess where we had to tag and check in each bicycle individually with the Protea's security staff. Not accustomed to handling bikes and trying to squeeze them into a room that was only just about big enough, they had stacked the bikes up in a fairly wasteful way and I arrived at a time when they realised at this rate they wouldn't all fit. It took about half an hour of helping them remove bikes and cardboard boxes before there was space for my bike.

Skip forward a couple of hours, a shower and a shave later, and we were all sitting around round banquet room tables and gorging ourselves on a three course meal. Several of the riders who had been carefully nurturing their facial hair for four months had shaven and it was astonishing the difference it made to their appearance. Some faces looked like they now fit perfectly with the voice and personality we had come to know (Rod for one) while others were almost unrecognisable (Dave, James) - it took a long time to get used to hear a familiar voice coming out of an unfamiliar face.

That dinner was the end of the TDA 2010 - if it could really end. I've made some superb friends and experienced collectively what must equate to years worth of two week holidays. When I'm sitting in an air conditioned office tower in a few months time, I'll most likely be thinking of that day in Malawi when it was too hot to move but staying still made you an attractive target for every fly within a 5 metre radius. My bike will be with me for a long while though and like a reliable old car, it'll ride on without a mention of the various hardships of its long and well travelled life.

(All the posts I've made on this blog and this blog itself will stay online for as long as possible. If they ever go offline, I'll have either gone bankrupt or Skynet has sent a Terminator from the future to destroy the world.)

(A long overdue post for reasons previously explained.)

As it approaches the enc of the tour, many of the riders question their ability to transition back into their everyday lives in the real world. German woman's race leader Gisi suggests that she could ride her bike everyday and live in a tent everynight forever. I like to think that this doesn't apply to me (looking back over the last few weeks, this showed itself to be true). I look forward to being connected 24/7, having easy access to clean, running water and sleeping in a bed. No doubt I'll grow to miss the adventures and experiences of travelling through Africa with time but the generational gap probably accounts for difference in opinion (or perhaps even just the vast difference in age). We are the internet generation - being surrounded in technology is the norm for us.

Our last week of riding contained shorter riding days - around 130 kilometres per day. The road was beautifully paved (a phrase that seems to have been overused on this blog) but the flat days of Botswana were clearly far behind us as we tackled roller after roller into prevailing head/crosswinds. After freezing our way from the border to camp, a caravan park in the town of Springbok, we were greeted by most winterly temperatures for the first time since I left England in January. As it approached zero degrees Celsius, most riders donned their heaviest jackets, hats and gloves. Crawling into my sleeping bag, I left my jumper, hat and gloves on until emerging into the chilly morning sleet (personally I swear it was snow but my meterology skills are apparently suspect).

The next day, riding south to a town called Garies, the cyclist Gods of Africa through yet another perilous danger and EFI threat towards me - my crank fell off. Fortunately, it wasn't a serious mechanical failure, merely caused by loose screws (quite how those screws worked themself out is a mystery) and was easily remedied. Unfortunately my rusty Park Tools multitool couldn't supply enough torque to tighten the screws enough and it fell off twice again. Regardless, I made it to camp and Paul (initially grudgingly and then) willingly helped me tighten them up, using a spare screw to replace one of the screws that had stripped. In other news, rider Erin (who was 4th in the women's race) received her first stage win - a superb effort and brilliantly timed with just two race days left.

Dinner that night was a gourmet event - tacos, burritos with refried beans and a thick, chocolatey dessert. Henry Gold (founder of TDA and visiting staff member for the last section) donated a few boxes of white wine. Remembering that I needed to take my malaria prophylactis and not having water to hand, I washed it down with wine - a severe error in judgement.

All I recall when I woke up was a vague image of trying to escape from my tent. According to Paddy, my campground neighbour, he woke up, alarmed at the sound of what appeared to be someone in danger. As he went to assist me (I was struggling to open my tent door - all he could hear was the continuous sound of a zipper), he heard me laugh and realised it must have been some sort of sleep-escape. Bizarre.

On the last day of the race, we had a surprise. More dirt! Our route to Cape Town in South Africa started off on a main highway (the N7) but at Garies we took a turn towards the coast before following it into the city. A good 70km of the day was dirt - we had breakfast at Wimpy's before making the fateful turn onto rough dirt for which we were not prepared. My skinny tyres sunk deeply into the sand and the first part before lunch was hard work trying to keep the bike from slipping out under me. The heavy wind and drizzle made it a miserable experience.

After lunch though, things improved considerably. It was much quicker and I must have averaged well above 30kmph. Once the dirt ended though, we hit the pavement and turned right into had been a considerable crosswind and was now a considerable headwind. This lasted for a few kilometres and we eventually ended up on another private road that followed the coast. A combination of the salt water spray and dirt being kicked up from the ground made it hard to see and I road a fair chunk of that part of the day with my eyes shut (or open and watering profusely). Towards the end of the dirt road, I stopped to take a photo and when on my bike and accelerating again, my shorts (three pairs, to offset the effects of a lack of suspension) caught on my saddle, causing me to veer left (while trying to disentangle myself) and stop dead in the sand. Thrown off my bike onto my recently healed knee, the wound opened up again and gushed blood onto my damp and sandy leg.

This was our first sight of the sea since Egypt and it reminded me wholeheartedly of why the British public who frequent the seaside are so terrible misguided. The campsite was dire and about 80% of the riders deserted to the hotel next door after arriving in pouring rain. The campsite was part of the beach and hence sandy - a lot of riders who did stay were flooded out of their camps overnight. I managed to stay dry in my tent and slept beautifully to the roar of the sea. It frustrated me that they held two riders meetings - one at the hotel and one at the campsite (why should they cater to the wusses?)., especially when Dave and I were trying to announce the results of the Decathlon: won by Gert of Indaba. (In other news, like Erin, Rick also went for it and won the stage. Unlike Erin though, he isn't 4th in the women's race.)

The day into Yves Fontein, the last campsite of the tour was a fairly bleak day (what's new) and I tried (on a non-race day, it must be said) to be the first rider into both lunch and into camp. This, I managed and I was proud to overtake all riders who rode from lunch too. That evening, we had a few celebrations - a prolonged rider meeting and another rider's birthday. I celebrated with a bottle of Amarula (the leftovers were donated to the hot drinks table the following morning - in such cold, even a cup of Milo needed some help).

The final day we woke up with damp and cold kit but it didn't matter. We rode, leisurely, to lunch at the beach, pausing only to fix the puncture that threatened Jason's EFI. At lunch we took photos - Table Mountain in the background and the Atlantic ocean behind us and we gorged - James had laid out a beautiful buffet of cheese, crackers and BISCUITS! After changing into my tuxedo (four months of continuous cycling requires a stylish arrival), and a few more photos, the convoy began.

Lake Magadi, Kenya
(View in high res)

It might be useful for anyone considering this race seriously to know what kind of bicycles the top ten riders took. Here's a brief overview - if you want any more information, please feel free to drop me a message.

First place-
29er mountain Bike with (wide) drop handlebars + suspension. Tubeless tyres for most of the part. Wired disc brakes.

Second place-
26" mountain bike with a Rohloff hub. HEAVY. V-brakes.

Third place-
26" mountain bike with V-brakes and aerobars.

Fourth place-
Cyclocross bike, no suspension. Alu frame.

Fifth place-
Touring bike, no suspension. Steel frame.

Sixth place-
29" mountain bike steel frame with rigid forks, Cane Creek ST seatpost and drop handlebars. Cantilever brakes.

Seventh place-
See sixth place.

Eighth place-
26" mountain bike with hydraulic disc brakes.

Ninth place-
That's me, a tonne of detail about my bike on the equipment page.

Tenth place-
26" mountain bike with V-brakes and aero bars.

Not quite as binding as Newton's Laws, these are my own observations of unfortunate truisms of the last four months.

1) Punctures usually come two at a time, close together.

2) If you think a day is going to be tough, somehow it will become tougher.

3) If there's oatmeal for breakfast, the day will be tough.

4) If ever there is a buffet on offer, consider no other place to eat.

5) A clean piece of clothing will always be soiled embarassingly (spilling food on your crotch) within a few hours of wearing it.

6) Any promised animal sightings will probably not happen. (Conversely, any animals never mentioned will most likely be seen.)

7) The sun will come out just long enough for your tent to dry completely before it gets completely soaked again.

8) The only days on which you can't find your fork are those when spaghetti is served.

9) The day you skip lunch will be a day when lunch is especially good.

10) The days you decide not to put your rain fly on are when it will rain.

Sorry for being incredibly lax and not updating for a while. As a result of rampant photo sharing, my laptop has become sick with a variety of fairly nasty viruses. All my photos and blog posts are safe but I've been trying to fix it for the last few days so that I can complete and post the final few entries (of which there are many - both about the last week and regarding tips for future riders).

In any case, we arrived in Cape Town safe and sound. I managed to survive EFI until the end and finished 9th in the overall race (7th in the men's race). The finish ceremony was wonderfully done.

Unfortunately I managed to lose my memory card containing most of my photos for the last week and all of the photos from the last day but I will try and scavenge some photos from other riders.

If you have any questions about the Tour, my experience of the Tour or any queries about riding it in the future please send me a message or leave a comment on this post and I will gladly answer.

Our final stage on dirt into our final rest day of the Tour. An almost terrifying milestone but one that has come at a timely moment. Riding up and down through the rollercoaster-like hills of Namibia, away from Fish River Canyon, it was a hot and sweaty morning. The climbs were taxing and occasionally a moment of lapsed concentration would result in my bike veering and then abruptly slowing as it met loose sand.

At one point, spinning as fast as I could to keep up with Jethro, I hit a patch of deep and hard corrugation at 40kmph. Jumping into my technical offroad descent pose (elbows and knees wide, off the saddle, weight back on the bike) I managed to hold onto whatever notion of control I had entering the section. My bottles didn't survive though and with a quick crack/crack they both ejected from their cages and hit the ground. One bottle survived intact but the other exploded, the lid separating from the body and expelling the red energy 'juice' all over the ground.

I stopped, grabbed the bottles and made a composed effort to regain my speed as I climbed the hill. It was a long day though (175km) and I'd had a thirsty start, drinking a fair quantity of my 2 litre Camelbak within the first 15 km out of camp. With 55km until lunch and about a 1.5 litres left, my mind was beginning to panic. Luckily, about 20km out of lunch, just as I was about to run out of water, the green machine (another support vehicle) was driving back in the other direction. I gave it the thumbs down and Tour Director Paul pulled over, seemingly shocked that I'd have to flag it down so early in the day. They were carrying water and filled up my sand-covered mess of an empty water bottle. Saved.

On the way into lunch was a beautiful downhill - long, straight and smooth. Curious to see the speed at which rider and bike was reaching on this descent, I looked down at my sideways mounted cycle computer (my stem mount which makes it the right way round was cut off somewhere in Northern Kenya). Trying to work out the speed, I finally figured out it read 71kmph and quickly looked up, certain that I shouldn't be riding at that sort of speed without my eyes firmly on the road.

After lunch there was slow, painful uphill where the flies that always amaze me with their aerial agility tagged onto my draft and proceed to fly around my face for at least an hour. A couple of times I went to swat them and ended up knocking the visor off my helmet and then had to stop to put it back on. The uphill continued for a good 40 kilometres before changing into a speedy descent with a tailwind where my speed was a good 40kmph average. Soon after this, we hit the pavement and the refresh stop at a T-junction.

We turned right at T-junction and the wind continued to blow in the same direction. This was a strong sidewind - so much so that after twenty minutes, the muscles on the right side of my spine hurt from having to counteract the extra force. As we climbed uphill for ten kilometres, the road kept going in the same direction but soon after the slow, gradual descent began, the road also began to turn into the wind. As we neared the turn and petrol station at 166km it was a full on headwind and speeds rarely went above 25kmph.

The petrol station was a beautiful relief - an ATM, a Wimpy restaurant at which to spend any newly withdrawn money (serving excellent milkshakes and passable vegetarian burgers) and a small shop where I bought some goodies for the rest day ahead (a loaf of bread and some Marmite, amongst other items).

The last 7 kilometres into camp were hard work, a tough rollercoaster of hills into the wind, weighed down by the assortment of shopping strapped to my back. Camp arrived and it was heaven. Looking over the river to the other bank we could see South Africa, the bar and restaurant look down the river and falling asleep was easy with the relaxing whoosh of the wind. Lastly, and possibly the most influential asset of the campsite, was the availability of a washing machine to wash our clothes. Admittedly, with cycles that lasted an entire hour, it was a long four hour wait but the payoff was that the white parts of my jersey are now white again.

Milling around until dinner, we ate our main course and eventually came to dessert. Normally I prefer avoiding restaurant desserts in lieu of cheaper and better alternatives but we're effectively surrounded by nothing. The choice of dessert was limited to ice cream and to just chocolate and vanilla flavours at that. When the waitress came to deliver our ice cream bowls, she also delivered some bad news: they had run out of all other flavours of icecream. Out of the two flavours they initially offered us, it turned out that the only flavour they had left was rum and raisin. On hearing this, our table cracked up with laughter. (For some brief background information, of all the flavours we get PVM bars in, the most unpopular and worst tasting flavour is Rum & Raisin.) Regardless, ice cream is ice cream and we accepted their offering.

Feeling cheated from our false dessert (the portion size was also lacking in generousity), we asked the slightly intoxicated Tour Director Sharita if we could borrow the bucky (the support Land Cruiser). She replied that we could, the keys were on the seat if we could get it started - apparently she tried earlier and failed to start it. Taking this as a challenge, American Dan and I went and fiddled with the car and eventually, after 15 minutes, managed to get it to spring to life. We were almost dissuaded from borrowing it when Tour D'Afrique kingpin and owner Henry Gold looked like he was walking towards us - he switched direction though and walked away so we took this as a sign and left.

As we rolled down the rollercoaster road towards the gas station/Wimpy, Dan explained that he hasn't driven a car for nearly four years. Nervous and buzzing from the adrenalin, we rushed into Wimpy to order six milkshakes (one for myself, one for Sharita and one for each of the others sitting at our dinner table) and a veggie burger (Dan was hungry). The milkshakes came soon enough but the veggie burger took some time as they waited for the deep fryer to come back to life. Dan hadn't actually wanted or ordered fries but they were insistent on delivering some with his burger. Meanwhile, another five Africans who were clearly very hungry (and for some reason in a rush at 8:30pm on a Saturday night on the border with South Africa) started raising a fuss and argueing with the cashier. Another motorist came in at least five times to check if the fries he had ordered were ready. About twenty minutes later, when it became clear that the fries were still just a few minutes away, Dan requested his veggie burger unaccompanied by fries.

I took over from Dan and he sat in the passenger seat, lap full of burger (no fries) and five milkshakes (I had drunk mine in the restaurant). Driving the Land Cruiser was like driving a tank and it took a many-point turn to reverse out of our parking bay - much to the alarm of the drivers in the tiny cars to the side of and below us. As we rolled out on the main road, trying to turn the indicator on accidentally resulted in the windscreen wipers turning on (American style indicator stalks) and I had to check with Dan a few times to see if I was too close to the curb. The Land Cruiser was probably twice the size of the Yaris I normally drive back home.

When we returned to the campsite, it seemed initially like noone had noticed. When we arrived at the bar to distribute milkshakes, I stood waiting outside (no beverages bought outside the bar are to be consumed in the bar). As Dan told our dining associates that we had something for them, there was a big rush of riders that came out and the first thing I remember is Sharita angrily twisting my nipples and asking where the keys were. We explained that the keys were on the seat, exactly where they'd been left and she stormed off to the bucky. Simultaneously, mlikshakes were being snatched from all over the place and I think only two of the milkshakes made it to their intended recipients.

Paul came outside after the crowd had subsided, looking very serious with a stone cold face, a cigarette in his mouth and a beer in his right hand. He started talking to me and asked me, 'Sunil, what were you thinking to jeopardise your E.F.I. with just one week left to go?' . As I stuttered in response, he eventually broke into a smile and told me he was just giving me a hard time - making some hints towards revenge at the awards ceremony in Cape Town. I will be wearing my extra strong belt that day.

There's no doubt that being a vegetarian on a tour through Africa is going to be tough. Indeed, it's tough even if you go anywhere in continental Europe (to French chefs: true vegetarianism does not include fish). The strange thing is that most Africans tend to be vegetarian, purely because of the high cost of meat. As soon as you head out to a restaurant, they usually lack much in the way of truly vegetarian options. African waiters usually are unwilling or lack the lateral thinking ability to possibly ask the chef to prepare a meal without meat.

Most of the riders who started the tour as vegetarians have started eating meat again - some of them are mainly vegetarian but will eat meat when there is slim picking. There is one vegan on the tour who has remained solid throughough. I've managed to avoid meat but have had to adjust my diet to compensate - both for the lack of options and the heavy strain we're putting on our body. Regarding the latter, I don't feel as if we receive enough protein on the Tour - the kitchen goes to some effort to make sure we get some protein (beans or chickpeas most of the time, tofu a couple of times!) but occasionally the dish is entirely vegetable based. At lunch too, there is often no vegetarian option that includes protein while meat eaters usually get some form of meat. (Understandably it's hard to find meat substitute at a lot of places but lately when the supermarkets have been well stocked, I fear that us vegetarians have been forgotten.)

I've developed a few tips for helping anyone who intends on staying vegetarian for the duration of the tour.
1) Don't be fussy.
It's hard enough finding vegetarian food sometimes that you can't insist on strict separation from meat products. At one place in Sudan that served burgers - the eggs were cooked next to meat burgers and often on top of them. They were perfectly happy to serve fried egg burgers but you had to take what you could get.

2) Find your supplements.
In order to recover at all (your body starts burning muscle on the longer days on the bike - protein is a must) you'll need to supplement your meals with food that is protein heavy. Almonds/peanuts are quite good for this, as are eggs. True vegetarians would argue that eggs are cheating but you'll really suffer if you won't / can't eat these. Many of the TDA dinners include eggs, and most African restaurants that can cook vegetarian dishes will usually cook eggs.
Protein powder is quite useful and many of the racers use recovery drink. I've been using whey powder since Nairobi where it was available in the malls. I would recommend developing some scheme for stocking up with protein powder (at least if you're trying to race or be somewhat quick) or just buy it when you can (Nairobi onwards) and ration it carefully. Care packages which you could get sent to each major city (with mild difficulty) would be perfect for this - if you have the budget of course.

3) Eat well on rest days.
Rest days are when your body is trying to rebuild all the weary muscle tissue from the previous riding week - you need to fuel it appropriately. I've felt a lot better when I've had several good meals on rest days. Unfortunately this isn't always possible so you need to remember to keep food spare. In Sesriem in Namibia where we are now, the restaurant at the campsite doesn't offer anything vegetarian and is unwilling to cook anything vegetarian (with the exception of fries). Consequently I've had to make my own arrangements and luckily had some quick cook noodles to hand.

4) Bring a big dish.
At dinner every rider will be served before open kitchen is called and anyone can come and grab how ever much food they like. This means that non vegetarians are welcome to help themselves to the vegetarian option (which they usually do). If you don't get enough food on the first round, there is a not insignificant chance that you won't get any the second time round (depending on what the non-veg option is - i.e. fish). Bring a big plate and you'll get more than enough the first time around.

I'll go through the countries and just briefly summarise the food available on rest days when we have to feed ourselves.
Egypt-
Chicken is quite a popular meat dish but so are falafels and koshary (a strange spaghetti/rice/curry blend which is delicious). Vegetarians will have no problem here.

Sudan-
Falafels are still quite easily found. Eggs are quite popular too. In most restaurants though, you'll struggle to find a good vegetarian selection.

Ethiopia-
Nearly every restaurant will offer a 'fasting' version of food which is meat free. The bread (known as injera) and curry combination doesn't sit well in most peoples' stomachs though so you may find yourself resorting to Western food. Usually this will be pizza or pasta and they'll usually offer a fasting version of this. Egg dishes (sandwiches and omelettes) are available at most cafés (as well as superb fruit juices). Not an issue for vegetarians.

Kenya-
The Kenyan staple, ugali, is often served with beans and spinach at local joints. At more upmarket restaurants though, it's usually served with meat and you'll have to ask to have it without meat (literally in Swahili: bila choma). Meat in general is big in restaurants. Eggs are easily found, as are chapatis.

Tanzania-
Catering on the safari was acceptable although the vegetarian option was fairly plain compared to the meat option. There's an excellent cafe in Iringa (the Hasty Tasty Too) which offers a huge menu and lots of vegetarian dishes. It's far from the campsite the TDA uses but well worth the visit.

Malawi-
I ate well at the Western chain restaurants and the campsite. We didn't eat any local food so I can't compare.

Zambia-
The campsites in Zambia are very touristy and we spent most of our rest day at a mall - vegetarian food was easier to come by. On the cruise down the Zambezi river though, the vegetarian option was terrible - a plain pasta dish. There's an (apparently) excellent vegetarian restaurant in Livingstone - the waitress never brought my order though so I will reserve judgement. The local food is meat based (at least at the fairly touristy restaurant we visited) so vegetarians will have an easy time ordering the single option available.

Namibia-
In Windhoek, the pricier restaurants will have a good vegetarian selection although the focus is on game meat which is specially available here. At the more cost effective fast food chains, there are few vegetarian dishes on offer - they will usually be out of stock too.

South Africa-
We'll see but I'm hopeful.

As for cost, I'm usually offended by how much vegetarian dishes cost compared to meat dishes. We pay the same price for buffets and on one occasion, the TDA organised a dinner on a rest day where I was forced to pay $5 for a single fried egg. At Western restaurants the price difference is slight - vegetarian dishes usually cost just a little less. Sometimes though, restaurants will exhibit logic and a vegetarian meal will work out much cheaper.

Finally, these are all my own observations and I may probably have overlooked something. It is possible to survive without meat with some slight added pain.

Riding out of Betta was a mando-day, a 153 kilometre day that was just brutally long. After the first thirty kilometres the terrain improved considerably, was generally much smoother and was better packed. I struggled though, for reasons that I'm not sure about. Perhaps it was a night of bad sleep (there was a rooster that decided to wake us up multiple times from 4am onwards) or overconsumption of PVM bars (three before lunch alone) - I started feeling sleepy at my handlebars at 8am.

I reached lunch at 10:30am and decided to take a nap, eventually leaving at about 11:30am. The nap helped considerably and my speed returned that afternoon. About 9 kilometres out from lunch I had another puncture in my rear wheel and resigned myself to a slow day. A bit further on the dirt road suddenly turned into smooth, new tarmac. Just after this was a Coke stop marked on our riding directions for the day - the Coke stop was actually a supermarket stocking all sorts of delights from biscuits (already a winner) to Cornettos to ice cold soft drinks to a whole variety of European chocolates. Amazing.

The dream had to end though and less than a hundred metres down the road there was another new road side that showed two roads meeting - a paved road and a dirt road. Sigh. Still, the tailwind from the previous day prevailed and it was easy rolling until camp at Konkiep Lapa. Dave and I held the Mystery Event that afternoon since everybody was tired from the day (for me it was a nine hour day at least). The Mystery Event was one suggested by Race Director Kelsey - each team selected one competitor and they were told that from the word 'Go' they'd have to fetch both their headlamp and their malaria medication. TDA Tour Director Sharita won this with her mobile phone (also her headlamp) and no malaria medicine (she doesn't take any!).

For a short while at the beginning of the tour riders experimented with the notion of eating PVM bars as dessert. James, our cook, doesn't prepare dessert for us and besides the generally insatiable cyclist's appetite, we also have an innate need for something sweet from time to time (where this time to time period may range from minutes for a rider like myself to days for other riders). Throughout the trip we've had different strategies for coping - some riders stock up heavily on sweets and other goodies at rest day supermarkets and there has usually been a shortage of Snickers bars in most towns after we've passed through. As we get further south though, it's become easier and at the Konkiep Lapa campsite the matron of the establishment had prepared a beautiful milk tart dessert.

I'm told by sectional rider and South African Nicola that this is a true South African dessert and that the version they prepared was one of the best she's ever tasted. The dessert itself consists of a biscuit base (like that of a cheese cake) and is topped with something similar to custard but not as thick or as yellow. The topping is lightly sweetened and similar to lightly whipped cream that seemingly disappears when it hits your tongue. The whole dish resembles a pie and I was in dessert heaven after devouring my slice of paradise.

The next day was a shorter 126 kilometres to Seeheim Hotel which consisted of roughly 90 kilometres of pavement. I haven't looked at a map yet but it seems odd that there would be only 90 kilometres of tarmac (the next day was also dirt). This was a fairly rapid day and after the previous day my legs had returned to their usual form. I raced to the tarmac, keeping my speed above 30kmph on the smooth dirt, but was caught by Adam and Paul soon after I reached the tarmac. After the smooth dirt, the tarmac definitely seemed more uncomfortable despite being much faster to ride on. We rode as a group until lunch where Adam, trying to win the stage, went ahead, swapping his empty water bottles for my filled bottle to save time.

I took the afternoon slowly after a beautiful lunch (french toast!) and enjoyed the scenery. The paved road passed through some windy roads that cut through some huge rock outcrops - some fantastic climbing and descending which eventually took us over Fish River (what a terribly unoriginal name for a river) and to Seeheim Hotel. The hotel clearly had some heritage to it, looking more like a castle than any other hotel I've ever had the privilege to visit. Their camping space was fairly mediocre and we were faced with the challenge of accommodating forty tents on two tiny areas of grass. Trying to navigate a path to the bathrooms was a challenge that involved dodging tent guylines, shrubbery and avoiding falling off the edge of the ledge that the 'lawn' was upon.

We held the eighth event of the decathlon that night, a foot down competition. This ia a competition that is apparently popular at most messenger meets and appropriately suggested by Dave. The basic goal is to be the last competitor riding your bike. Each competitor rides their bike around a circle fenced by spectators that is constantly shrinking. As soon as you place a foot on the ground, you're out of the competition and have to clear the ring. Obvious dangers aside, it was a fun event for all spectating and was won by Indaba's Gert, a consistently high ranking team in the decathlon and also a non cyclist.

Today's ride to the Fish River Canyon Lodge was another shorter day of only 108 kilometres on dirt. There was a wonderful roadhouse on the way that served an excellent cheesecake. I had another puncture shortly before lunch bringing my total up to three within the last four riding days. Hopefully it'll be better once we hit pavement again and my Schwalbe Marathon Racers go back on. Tomorrow is going to be a harder day as we cycle into our last rest day of the trip - a campsite called Felix Unite near the border with South Africa. Time has flown past.

To finish, here is my revised country ranking with one country left to go:
1) Namibia, Sudan, Kenya
2) Tanzania, Zambia, Botswana
3) Egypt
4) Malawi, Ethiopia

Everyday I struggle to place myself within the riding group. I'm something of an inconsistent racer - on days I'll be far ahead of the pack, at lunch first and at camp early. Other days I'll be right near the back, riding slowly and being one of the last third of riders to make it to camp. This riding week and day previous to the rest day (since the last post) has been much like that.

On our way to Sesriem for our rest day near the dunes of Sossusvlei I managed to ride pretty quickly, feeling fairly fast and comfortable in the knowledge that it was a short day. Having two working earphones does wonders for your motivation too - before Windhoek I'd been riding with just one working earphone (which sounded terrible too). Looking around would have been beneficial in hindsight since most other riders saw a lot of wildlife that day - oryxes, giraffe, springbok. Arriving to lunch early, I left early and reached our campsite in Sesriem with plenty of time for the rest of the day. Racer Dan S. won the day's race, completing the list of stage winners so that now all top twelve racers have won stage plates.

In Sesriem, we signed up to a tour departing to Sossuvlei the next day at 4:30am and sat around doing nothing much. Sesriem consists of a few lodges, a well stocked gas station and our campsite. There was a series of dunes near to camp which a lady at the tourist desk of the lodge next door suggested we climb for a good view of the sunset. From the campsite, it didn't seem like the dune was too far away but having left a little too close to sunset, we decided to cycle there through the bush.

Unfortunately, the skinny tyres I borrowed from Eric were no good in the thick sand and coupled with tired legs, it was hard work keeping up with Dave, Sam and Jacob (Jacob was also trying to drink cider as he pedalled - he quickly relinquished that notion). We left the campsite just after 4:15pm and it was nearly 5 by the time we finally reached the base of the dune. Sam and Dave had run on up ahead, eager not to miss the sunset - Jacob and I tried to catch up, struggling to keep them in sight. The top of the dune seemed like it was constantly moving - as soon as we reached what outwardly appeared to be a summit, we saw another ridge down the line, rising up higher.

Eventually we reached the sunset and not a moment too soon. The sun was going down and the view from that dune was probably one of the best sunsets I've witnessed in Africa (African sunsets are generally superb too). Going down was good fun and involved sliding down using a similar motion to skiing. At the bottom I took my cycling cleats off and removed a good few hundred grams of sand from each shoe. We discovered a road that was far smoother and much better packed than the offroad route we had taken - following this back in the dark, we made it back to the gas station to buy a chocolate bar or two to temporarily silence our rumbling stomachs.

That evening eating at our campsite was a harrowing ordeal - their restaurant is unable to cater for vegetarians other than to provide a soggy and much delayed plate of french fries. Luckily I had some instant noodles in my bag to prevent total hunger that evening.

The next morning we woke up at 4:30 and foolishly I decided against taking a jumper, reasoning that we'd be in a warm enclosed vehicle. Unfortunately, the 4x4 we were loaded on was an open air safari vehicle. Our hosts were kind enough to equip us with fleece lined ponchos but the lack of total coverage and the giant breeze coming in through the windows made it a chilly experience.

We got to Dead Vlai (another site of interest near to Sossuvlai) just before sunset and hiked up one of the dunes to catch the sunrise. Other, more energetic riders hiked up a much larger dune but didn't managed to summit in time to catch sunrise. From there we slid down into a dead forest - a collection of trees that had dried out. As the sun came up it quickly warmed up - our guide said that by lunch time it'd be too hot to walk on the sand.

From there, stomachs rumbling (as the stereotypical touring cyclists that we are), we were treated to a fairly substantial breakfast. I'm not sure if the guys in charge were expecting us to clear them out of food but we finished *everything*. Returning to camp it was an extremely relaxed rest day - I ate a bowl of cereal for lunch and sorted out my bags and had time to watch The Pianist.

That evening we went to have a buffet dinner at the fancy lodge next door ($300 for a room per night!). This was the most expensive salad buffet I have ever attended - the dinner cost nearly $30 and was based around an impressive selection of game meat (springbok and various other Namibian wildlife). Still, the dessert was good and I had to stumble back to my tent via a shortcut that ran through a precarious wire fence and several thorn bushes.

When I reached my tent it took me a few seconds of shock to realise that it had been visited by a wild creature of some sort, most probably a jackal (judging by the dog like footprints). The broken zipper on my tent door means that the only thing keeping my tent sealed is a mosquito net which is flimsily clothes pegged to the edges of the doorway. The jackal had managed to break in via the side of the net and had ravaged an entire bag of protein powder, one of my protein bars and a bag of dried fruit (which I had been saving for four days!). This is the second time that an animal has stolen my food - the first being the dog that ran off with my loaf of bread in Maun, Botswana.

Leaving Sossuvlei the next morning (and enjoying the extra thirty minutes we were able to sleep in), it was a slow start but I soon sped up once I realised that my seat was a bit too low. That was a hard stage, the usually well packed dirt roads were loose and sandy. There was a lot of wildlife on the road and the roads had some amusing 'Caution' signs - silhouettes of zebra, springbok and giraffes were all present. At one point a herd of about thirty zebra crossed the road in front of me, speeding up as they sensed me speeding towards them.

Shortly after I passed Tim, a springbok ran up alongside and almost made contact. I didn't realise this at first (wondering what that strange metallic sound nearby was) but Tim explained what had happened at lunch. Second into lunch after Marcel, I left fairly quickly but sprung a puncture not more than 4 kilometres out. All the racers passed me and I elected then to take the remaining sixty kilometres slower. The tailwind made it a faster day and the hamlet of Betta came fairly quickly.

That afternoon Dave and I held the locker packing event of the decathlon and gathered enough bags that we were sure not everything would fit inside the locker. Our perception of volume is presumably flawed because the first competitor, American Sam, maanaged to fit it all in the locker and packed everything within three minutes. Most passers by had to double take at the pile of bags, amazed that all of it could fit in a locker. Besides several large duffel bags, there was also a pannier rack, hard shelled laptop case, tin of Milo and backpack. We thought we had picked an unused locker but one of the riders, Jeff, went to access his locker and was quite shocked to find it jammed full of assorted bags!

It was a cold night - the prevailing wind that had been at our tails for the entire day kept blowing late into the night (and also powered the electricity at the campsite via several miniature turbines). I camped inside a brick floored and walled picnic area so didn't put my outer fly on the tent. When I woke up in the morning, it was the coldest I have been in the entire trip and even with arm warmers and a gilet on, I was shivering.

I just realised that we've reached May - astounding how fast time has flown. Like a friend mentioned, time is passing far too quickly nowadays. The last two days have been the first two out of seven on the Namibian dirt road which takes us to Sossusvlei - a touristy town on the edge of a desert.

This dirt is remarkably smooth - often more comfortable than some of the pavement we've ridden. Occasionally there are deep, sandy patches (not fun on skinny tyres) and some corrugation. On the whole though, not nearly as bad as the Sudanese/Kenyan/Tanzanian dirt we've ridden so far. Today, there were a few giant puddles crossing the road and I took the opportunity to ensure my clothes became suitably filthy by rolling through all of them at speed. (The knobbly tyres I'm using are great for kicking up muck.)

The rain cloud that has followed us since we left Cairo is seemingly intent on accompanying us all the way to Cape Town. It's rained the last two days - yesterday we were saved from damp cycling but the thunderstorm started making noise shortly before dinner. Today we rode towards grey clouds for much of the stretch before lunch - not being rained upon but battling against a solid headwind. At lunch it started raining and after we climbed the Spreadshootge Pass (odd place names are all the rage in this Afrikaans speaking part of the world) the rain started. Apparently it hasn't rained in this part of Namibia for three months making us both unlucky and lucky(?). As Tour Director Paul commented, 'Someone up there must really hate these people.' We've had more rainy days than any other TDA past (I think).

I'm running out of ways to describe the rain so I'll just mention that it was heavy and lasted for what seemed like an hour. Shockingly my cycle computer continued working throughout the entire experience. When the rain decided to leave me alone, my speed had halved - an effect of the headwind which was thrown in free with the rain. A strange thing happened to me around 100km in and 20km from the end. I felt extremely dozy on the bike - almost as if I was about to fall asleep. I checked my heart rate monitor and I was only at about 130BPM, 65% of my maximum. For a short while I put some effort down to try and wake myself up by travelling at a faster speed - these seemed to work temporarily but my tired legs soon brought me back down to a slow speed.

Yesterday we ran event number five of the Decathlon, the rock throwing contest. This event stems from the practice riders have had at returning missiles thrown at them in Ethiopia. Besides a cardboard cutout (carefully prepared by Jacob) of a child hoisted on a pole, we also had a map of Africa which Dave staked out using a rope and some tent pegs. I marked the countries out using flagging tape and competitors were given points for every country (that we visited) in which they managed to land a stone. The cardboard cutout was amusing and rider Dan S. managed to rip off the cutout's arm with a rock half the size of my helmet. By the end of it, we had to tape its head up because it had lost all rigidity from being pelted with such force.

Another miscellaneous facts - my locker door has broken off for the third time this trip. This is due to a combination of my poor upper body strength (trying to load my heavy permanent bag containing spares and less often used clothing usually results in a fair amount of weight on the door+hinge) and some lack of care. It is annoying though because my packing system relies on being able to fit loose items at the front of my locker - I've found some of my possessions floating loosely about the truck twice in two days now.

Tomorrow we ride into another rest day although apparently there is no internet access until we hit South Africa which is not for another eight days at least. I'll try using my mobile internet connection but seeing as there hasn't been any cellular coverage for a couple of days, this is not too promising.

Lots of sand.
(View in high res)

It's been an absolutely exhausting week and I apologise for not writing with my usual frequency. We've now left Botswana and entered Namibia - the second last country on our epic voyage across Africa. The riding has been tough, it's been long (we've covered approximately 827km (517 miles)) in five days. The longest day of the tour was this week - a 207km day which took us across the border.

NYC bike messenger Dave and I have been coordinating the first few events of the TDA decathlon. The first day this week was damp 160km day out of Maun, I rode slowly, riding the morning with Dave and the afternoon with Jacob. It was at our last bush camp that evening that we held our first event, in the midst of a perpetual thunderstorm that seemed to follow us all the way out of Botswana. Worried that decathlon spirits may be dampened (no pun intended) by the heavy rain, we pressed on regardless. The first event was to be the hole digging contest - a key skill for any aspiring bush camper.

I'll leave the full description of the event to the post I wrote for the TDA blog. In any case, our twelve teams put on a good show and a lot of clothes became fairly muddy. The ground behind the trucks which was just about walkable became a muddy mess full of puddles that would instantly soak you up to mid-shin. After dinner, I sheltered in my (thankfully) dry tent and treated myself to a cup full of custard. Not wanting to wash the cup in the pouring rain, I put it upright in my dish kit ziploc bag. Predictably, I forgot it was there and held my bag upside down, resulting in a yellow mess in the corners of the my once fairly clean ziploc bag.

The next morning, we were treated to a hot breakfast by the kitchen and not just warm oatmeal either. Scrambled eggs and baked beans went down a treat but the change in the consistency of breakfast interrupted my usual morning routine. I decided to go use the shovel whilst people were getting ready to leave - as I returned the fastest (and as a result, latest leaving) group of racers was leaving - I was pretty much last. I rode hard for the morning, caught up with Dave and we planned the afternoon's obstacle course.

On the way into camp, my attention drifted off the road and I managed to fall off my bike on a flat, slow road - hitting a cat eye in the road while holding my handlebars too softly. I managed to graze a fairly large area of my knee and it was swollen for a bit. At time of writing, it still hurts to bend it (although not an issue when cycling).

A lot depended on what the campsite had to offer but we managed to make a fairly reasonable course. I'll list the course below:
- Start at lunch truck
- Run through eight parallel tyres placed on the grond (penalty for missing a tyre)
- Take a picture of the whiteboard
- Roll tyre down the road to your bike
- Pick up your bike and follow the flagging tape to the bar
- Ride over the bridge and then walk your bike through the bar
- Turn left out of the bar compound and follow the flagging tape
- Pass through the Coke bottle slalom course
- Turn right and follow the road onto a dirt track
- Pick up any loose objects in the grass for extra points (including water bottles, track pumps and a camping stool).
- Follow the road through another slalom course.
- Sprint up to the ramp and jump your bike.
- Finish at the lunch truck.

The riders enjoyed it - we worried initially the lap might take too long (near ten minutes) but the quickest competitors were around it in just under three minutes. Mountain biker Simon won this event - the offroad, jumping on and off a bike and general bike handling skills necessary suited him perfectly.

The next morning we woke up to another thunderstorm. Aside from a handful of other occasions, the rain has usually stopped before the majority of camp wakes up. This didn't though and it was a case of packing up our tents while getting wet. This was also the longest day of the Tour - a 207km day that took us across the border to Namibia. If you're think you're having a bad day on the Tour, fate nearly always seems to do something to make it worse. As I went to load my bottles onto my bike, I noticed the rear tyre was flat. Changing the tube, I ended up leaving with Jethro, Marcel, Stuart and Gisi (the latter two are both race leaders).

At this point it was still pouring with rain and the road was saturated. I tried riding with Jethro and Marcel but Jethro's tyres kicked up a fair amount of grit into my eyes - seeing ahead (difficult in the rain as it was) became painful and I had to drop out. Sometime later Stuart and Gisi came by and I rode with them. Gisi, assuming Jen was ahead of her and not wanting to secede a mando-day, asked us to skip lunch. Pumping up my tyre in a rush (they stopped for a minute to grab a banana), we rode on until the refresh stop at 150km where I left them, feeling exhausted and unable to maintain that speed.

At this point the day had dried up and our clothes were pretty much dry. I rode on alone from the rest stop, taking it easy and enjoying the last of the Botswanian scenery. As mentioned before, fate dislikes us having too easy a ride and about ten kilometres from the border, I cycled into a thunderstorm parked on the highway. From a distance you could see it - the misty grey stretching from several kilometres above right down to the road. The road looked like it was turning away from the cloud but soon leaned back towards it. Anticipating some light rain, I wasn't surprised when it started drizzling lightly. As the drizzle got heavier, I pedalled on, eager to be free from the demoralising shower.

It was when the lightning struck that I was reminded of the wrath of Africa's weather. The thunder exploded at a decibel level which I'm sure caused me temporary tinnitus. It was absolutely splendiferous and as the rain plummeted down onto my bike, the wind stepped in and pushed me from side to side. I kept my head down, amazed that my MP3 player was still working in its not-entirely-waterproof fake Ziploc bag. The rain was coming down off my bike and creating miniature waterfalls and pseudo-streamers, coming off at an acute angle from my handlebars as it was bullied by the brute force of the wind.

Within a few kilometres, it was over. Rod, Juliana, Jen and Lynne caught up with me as I reached the border post, absolutely soaked and as incredulous as I was. We crossed the border and got our tents up in the mud long enough for them to dry slightly before the storm caught up with us again and undid the sun's efforts.

I started the next day with a low tyre, a probably slow puncture. Trying to pump it up using the worst of the two track pumps the Tour has, pressure was going in but when I removed the head of the pump, the valve came with it - ripped clean from the tube. By the time I had changed my tube and pumped up my tyre, the sweep rider had already left into the morning fog. This start was partially remediated by the two milkshakes I was able to consume at Wimpy, a South African fast food chain. This was probably one milkshake too many and the last fifty kilometres were painfully slow. In any case,we made it into camp at about 2pm and once Dave was in, we planned the next two events - the Coke chugging competition (postponed the previous day because of the long distance) and the PVM bar eating competition. These are both fairly explanatory - it was interesting to see the variety of methods riders had for consuming a PVM bar (which is essentially edible plastic) at speed. The photos I've uploaded tell more of the story.

There was no rain that night and the next day was dry but windy as we rolled towards Windhoek. We began with a team trial - the teams arbitrarily chosen by Race Director Kelsey. Our team was strong, including Jason (a non-racer but still EFI) and Jethro. Some of the slower riders on our team decided against participating and although we started as a team of six, we became a team of just three. The time trial went well but I could feel the previous four days in my legs. Jethro would pull us along at 35-36kmph, Jason would managed 34kmph and when I was in front we'd drop down to 32kmph. We were close to winning - about a minute off.

After lunch, the headwind picked up and it was a sluggish 80km as we climbed approximately 800 metres up into the city. As the rolling hills began, Ruben, who I was riding with, began swearing. He soon left me behind and I ploughed on alone, the headwind preventing me from breaching the 20kmph speed barrier. At some point a huge convoy came past, at least four motorcycles, a pickup truck filled with gun-toting military men, four police cars and three armoured Mercedes. I'm curious to find out who was in that convoy.

Stuart and Gisi caught up and I tagged on just as the downhills begans. Suddenly my speed doubled with the draft and the effects of gravity - a welcome relief. We stopped at a large bicycle shop, probably one of the biggest and best shops I've seen to date (including those at home!) and I stocked on accessories, buying yet another bottle cage (the sixth so far) and a pair of tubes. Riding into camp along Robert Mugabe Avenue (an unnecessary tribute to a terrible man), it almost took as long to reach the campsite from the reception building of the Arrebusch Travel Lodge where we are staying.

At the end of a week like this, when you are pretty much completely physically exhausted, it's hard to get your act together and set up your tent. I began the rest day by looking for my spare tyre bundle (containing my two sets of spare tyres, my spare rim and pannier rack). These are all kept together on the roof of the dinner truck and dropped down every rest day for riders to access. I couldn't find my bundle and none of the Indaba drivers had any idea about where it might be. I can only surmise that it was either forgotten at one of many rest days we've had since Iringa (when I last used it) or that someone walked off with it at some point on one of the rest days. Immensely frustrating - both for the financial cost and for the inconvenience of having to borrow tyres from another rider. Luckily Eric Dufour lent me a set of pretty neat looking Maxxis Cyclocross tyres which I hope will work well on the dirt.

Setting my tent, the week didn't seem like it could get any worse. It could though and my zip stopped working. Earlier I had fixed it with a pair of pliers - squeezing each side to help the zipper grip the zip better - a common camping trick. I tried the same today - the effect of doing this several times was that this time the zipper simply snapped in two. I had another zipper though, at the top and equally non functional. I tried the same trick and this time gave it too much force, causing it to jam and bind to the zip.

Feeling broken (saddle sores being the worst they've been on the entire trip and leg aching), exhausted (I've not felt this tired since I stayed up for 40 hours straight to finish my dissertation draft) and cheated (£150 worth of cycling equipment, gone!), I was apprehensive about dinner at Joe's Beerhouse, a popular tourist destination in Windhoek. Most of the tour went along that night as a leaving party for sectional (but almost full tour) riders Jerry and Viv - fellow Britons. The gastropub is a fantastic assortment of German (I assume) memorabilia and general tat - the food was excellent and the atmosphere is lively. I struggled to finish my main course (unusual on this trip) but the cannelloni I did manage to eat was great.

Just two weeks left and the end is in clear sight. A lot of riders lost EFI at this stage last year but they've amended the route so that it is actually possible. Let's see what happens tomorrow.

After one hundred and sixty kilometres, we set up our tents and waited for 3pm to roll around. Today, the first day of the riding week out of Maun in Botswana, was to be the first day of our rider organised TDA Decathlon. Consisting of ten events to do with our daily life on the tour, it was yet another way to fill the empty hours between drinking soup when we arrive and rider meeting just before dinner. The events range from eating a PVM (energy) bar as fast as possible to packing a locker to riding a bike around an obstacle course. Each team consists of three riders, except for the Indaba Crew and TDA Staff teams.

The first event today was a hole digging contest - an important skill for any bush camper (incidentally, today was also our last bush camp of the tour). Contestants were required to start at the dinner truck, grab the (yellow) shovel, and sprint to a location twenty metres away to dig a hole. Once the hole was dug, they'd sprint back, deposit the shovel and wash their hands before the clock stopped. The size of the hole was judged by using half of a yellow oil container borrowed from the truck.

The rain that has been following us since we left Cairo decided to strike again shortly after 1pm rolled around. Determined to continue regardless, we made plans to meet at 3pm. In the interim two hours a thunderstorm approached and settled above us, lighting up the clouds with marvelous luminosity, thundering like the footsteps of a giant and pouring dense, heavy droplets of rain into the earth below us.

The first team to try their hand was 'The Good, The Bad & The Ugly', selecting rider Jacob to undertake this task. After bashing the shovel into the ground in four or five different places, he finally settled on a location on the rim of the nearby pond. It became clear that we had possibly selected a difficult location - rocks in the mud made it difficult to dig quickly.

Next up was Gert, Indaba's contestant. With a vigour that is clearly the result of years of practice, he attacked the soil, forcing most observers to step back to prevent getting sprayed with dirt. Sprinting back, he slipped in the vortex of mud that the ground surface near the truck had become and collided with the bumper of the truck.

Dan, the next contestant, picked a location even closer to the pond and was rewarded by having beautifully soft mud to shovel and a nice quick time. Stuart contending for 'The Three Bears', current race leader, was a particularly quick shoveller and sprinted into the arena (literally). On his sprint back, he also slipped in the mud and was covered from head to toe. Sam, part of the team with the lowest average age 'Two And A Half Men', was a frantic shoveller, managing full 360 degree coverage of the ground around him with shovelled dirt - also managing to accidentally cover several observers. Racer Jethro, part of the 'Conflict Of Interest' team (which includes both Dave and I, competition organisers), managed the fastest time with a consistent shovelling motion and not wasting any time searching for ideal ground.

The women contestents, Jen, Viv, Andra and TDA nurse Michelle (for the staff team) also made excellent efforts whilst also exposing thei audiences to previously unheard (and amusing) levels of foul language. Andra's digging technique was unusual and whilst most other competitors dug holes that were rectangular shaped, her atttempt turned out somewhat elliptoid. Paddy was the last digger and ended the exciting afternoon with a valiant effort.

Covered in mud and soaked, it was an enjoyable afternoon dropping the plastic oil container into the holes and I look forward to tomorrow's event - a bicycle obstacle course.

(View in high res)

While studying, I experienced many different forms of exhaustion - lack of sleep, physical exhaustion, mental exhaustion. The last week has been tiring, and it's the accumulation of so many weeks of hard exercise whilst sleeping in a tent. It's more of a complete exhaustion than anything singularly identifiable. It's getting harder to get out of my sleeping bag in the morning and my legs actively ache. Yesterday, cycling into Maun, I was able to keep up with the faster groups for the morning but coming out of lunch with them became hard work. After a few kilometres, I dropped off and struggled to maintain a decent speed.

The long, straight and relatively flat road here is getting boring now. When you're fresh it's fine but soon into the day it becomes a mental slog of merely counting down the kilometres. Yesterday was one of those days and the final twenty to thirty kilometres into Maun added a beefy headwind. Still, there were a few moments which rescued the day - a red car drove past with the windows rolled down - I counted four pairs of hands clapping.

Maun is a touristy town and not the capital of Botswana (in fact, this is the first country we're travelling through where we won't pass through the capital). It's quite pleasant though, the taxis are cheap and there's a few things to do around town. I've discovered that there's free wi-fi at the airport and so I've been here for the last three hours uploading photos, planning my summer of cross country racing and just generally gleaning information from the internet.

It took a while this morning but Jason and I eventually found a third person (Jeff) to accompany us on a hour long scenic flight over the Okavango Delta. It was awesome fun going up in a light aircraft again - slightly unsettling on the stomach but well worth the expense. The landscape is as flat over the Delta as the roads have been and it was intriguing trying to spot game - elephants are well disguised as bushes (and vice versa) while giraffes are often unmistakeable trees.

Not much else has happened this rest day - in a bid to avoid having to pay an extortionate price for breakfast, I prebought cereal and long-life milk. When I woke up this morning, it was raining heavily outside, so for the first time I took my bowl out and ate breakfast inside my tent (normally my tent is packed away in the truck by the time breakfast is out). Luckily no milk was spilt and it was a wonderful new experience. When I eventually left my tent, I discovered that the hotel continental breakfast was the same price as my cereal and milk and for an unlimited buffet of bread and cereal. Oops.

Now it's time to get some food, pick up my laundry and clean my bike. Oh how I'm sure I'll easily forget these rest days.

We're at our second last bush camp of the trip. This is almost ground breaking (no shovel pun intended) and I am already nostalgic. I remember the first night we camped in Egypt at a desert camp on the side of the road - the excitement at finally being out in the wild, confined to just what we had brought with us and remote from any hint of civilisation. The sky in Africa is wonderful - endless and beautifully patterned, littered with clouds both soft and hard, colourful and stark against the varying terrain. It's usually in the bush camps that the sky is prettiest - unobstructed by buildings and fences. At night there are no lights to dampen the brightness of the stars.

As for this bush camp, it's hot and damp (it rained several times earlier - a storm was headed for us but the wind pushed it around). There are ants everywhere in the soft sandy ground - this makes it easy to dig a hole but harder to find a place suitable for digging (you don't want ants climbing up your trousers!). It is a genuine bush camp - there are many bushs - and amongst the bushes are many thorn bushes. Walking into camp earlier I had to stop to pull thorns out of my socks.

The last couple of days have been long (155km yesterday, 182km today) and I've taken it slowly. Yesterday I accidentally left camp late when a call of nature resulted in returning to the truck just after the rest of the riders had already left. Resigned to cycling solo, I got going with a new saddle (borrowed from fellow British rider Jerry) which wasn't correctly adjusted. I didn't realise this was sucking my speed down much until today when I raised it slightly and consequently found the whole day rather slow. This was probably helpful though - my saddle sores have resurfaced on the rougher tarmac to a painful degree - riding slower seems to stop them getting much worse.

After about forty painful kilometres on damp tarmac (it had rained heavily the night previously - unusual for Botswana and probably evidence for climate change), I caught up to Dave and rode with him until lunch. We discussed our plans for a competition between the riders - the Tour D'Afrique Decathlon. I'll describe the competition in more detail in another blog post but the basic idea is for 3-person teams of riders to complete tasks over the course of ten riding days - these include eating a PVM bar as fast as possible (these are the extremely chewy energy bars given to riders) and drinking a soft drink as fast as possible. That afternoon, I rode with Jacob into camp, nice and slowly.

Today was similar slow and I rode with the fast peloton for about 20km at some point in the morning. Riding in a group usually pushes you to go faster than you're comfortable and I was definitely uncomfortable. I dropped off and rode the remaining distance into lunch solo. After lunch (which was next to a GIANT baobab tree), I rode the afternoon with Ruben, Jason, Paddy and Erin and it was great fun. Riding with the right people seems to make these long, flat and straight days roll by easier.

We stopped a couple of times to take photos with a giant model of an aardvark next to the side of the road and to eat the most delicious Rolo icecream. The currency here is roughly 10 to 1 with the British pound which makes conversion amazingly easy. At the same time though, I've been astonished at how expensive the drinks are, nearly a pound for a can - comparable with our prices back home.

The Tour Cook is away on vacation this week and coincidentally the meals have been excellent - although this is more down to the increased availability of good food. A quick listing-
Sunday - Spaghetti Bolognaise WITH GENUINE CHEESE
Monday - Mushroom Stroganoff + Mash (Memories of the Fitzwilliam stroganoff came to mind)
Tuesday - Tofu + Veggie Burgers + Pumpkin filled with feta
Wednesday - Curry
Today we were extra lucky because they made dessert - a mix o biscuits, custard, caramel and dessicated coconut. Through some delightful turn of fate, I found myself in the kitchen twice (and armed with a spoon) when they were about to throw away cans or wash bowls used to make the dessert. Hopefully I made it slightly easier to clean their cooking apparatus :-).

The first of the last stretch that will take us into Cape Town began today - a long day but this is going to be the normal distance from now, 162km. We were given an explicit warning this morning about how we should act if we encounter elephants. In the past, according to Tour Director Paul, riders have been chased or charged by elephants.

I rode fast with Paul, Lynne, and Tim (we also picked up a sectional rider, Andrew) across the flat Botswanian road. It is fairly straight and pretty monotonous, occasionally switching between smoother and rougher tarmac. It was advantageous having the draft but I suffered in the larger group, having fewew opportunities to stand up and relieve my discomfort.

There was a delicious smell coming into lunch and the staff had made burgers for us - a first for lunch! Wanting a burger, I stopped and ate. The others, racing the day, carried on and skipped what was one of the top three lunches so far (the other two were when French toast was served and when they fried eggs for us).

I rode the afternoon by myself but will probably reconsider riding in a group based on a conversation I had with a passing motorist. A white pick up truck pulled up next to me and the driver rolled down the window, 'You're crazy! You left your group way back there.'. I laughed and shrugged. He asked how much further I had to go today and where we were ultimately going, fairly standard questions. Then he continued, 'You're crazy! Everytime I've driven on this road I've seen lions. Last time there was a male on the left and two females on the right - I think he was chasing the females.' My plan is to ride with a group of slower riders so that if such an encounter happens, the lions will be occupied with the riders who are left behind whilst I can get away (just kidding).

We camped at another bush camp, when I arrived the camp air was full of butterflies, bees and general flying insects. Luckily there was no attack by the ants and my tent remained a safe zone. Certainly, when it started to rain lightly, I was happy for the dry refuge.

It was meant to be a fairly short (82km) and hence a fairly fast day into Botswana but fate obviously had other intentions. As we raced out of camp on the dirt driveway for over a kilometre, we made our way towards town and looked out for the left turn that would take us to the border. Unfortunately there were many left turns and ours was not flagged (as they usually are). Four kilometres past where the turn should have been, we stopped and asked for directions and were send spinning back towards town - adding an extra eight to the day and voiding any purpose to riding fast.

Further down the road, I heard a strange noise and all of the sudden the road became very rough. Looking back, i noticed my back tyre was flat and dropped off the fast group of three we had. Normally the first step in fixing punctures is replacing the tube - were we at home, I would have had a nice new tube to swap out. Unluckily most of my new tubes have now been spent and my spare tube was patched. The valve on the patched tube was also bent and this was my undoing - when unscrewing the pump from the valve, the mangled core came out too. Moving back to my original tube, I spent some time patching then pumping it up. By this time, Michelle, the sweep rider for the day had caught up and I was probably delayed by about forty minutes (including time for the detour).

Pushing on, I blew straight through lunch, stopping only to fill my water bottle and pump up my tyre fully. At 72km (or 80km with the detour) I reached the border and scanned out. Spending my remaining kwacha, I bought lunch (two mandazi - the fried bread / donuts that are common in Africa) and two ice cold (literally frozen) Fantas. After this, it was a quick exit stamp at the border and then a short ferry ride into Botswana.

As soon as we entered Botswana there was a clear smell of elephants, none of which we could actually see. The smell was likely coming from the turgid piles of dung which are littered across the road. Our campsite, just a few kilometres from the border, was dusty - a complete change to the grassy Zambian and Malawian campsites. I wondered where the grass had gone and could only conclude it had something to do with Botswana's large elephant population.

Our first priority in any new country is to get some local currency - Dave, Dan, Jacob and I cycled down to the local town to use the ATM. After managing to withdraw some money (others weren't so lucky), Dan and I looked for local sim cards. After asking around at a few shops at the mall, the only place that actually stocked and sold sim cards was a clothing chain called CP (something similar to an African version of Gap) - bizarre but useful.

I swapped bikes with Dan on the way back to camp - his bike is heavier but SO MUCH more comfortable. The saddle was a sofa-like experience and I advise any future riders to seriously trial out as many saddles as possible.

That afternoon about half of the riders took a river safari cruise down the Chobe River. Scrambling for a 'window' seat (a misnomer because there were no windows - the entire boat was open), I picked the wrong side. Apparently boats here also drive on the left hand drive - don't sit on the right hand side! We were promised lots of game, mainly by other riders/staff who have been on the cruise before. We saw a fair few elephants, lion, some buffalo and a tonne of hippos. Something about the higher water level here meant that there were fewer animals on the waterfront because they're able to find water further inland. In any case, the river was beautiful and it was an enjoyable, if muggy, afternoon.

(View in high res)

We're in Livingstone for three nights, or two rest days. I'm happy the TDA has organised the rest days like this - it's a beautiful place, touristy but pleasant and there's a lot to do. The campsite we have as a base isn't the best available so most of the riders have evacuated and either gone to some fancy hotels on the Zimbabwe side of the river or have come to the Waterfront campsite where I'm now writing from.

This campsite is lush, has a great view down the Zambezi river and we can even see the spray from the falls off in the distance, like a unusually low cloud resting on the surface of the water. It has a swimming pool, warm showers with decent pressure and a well stocked bar. It's also very quiet and I've had two nights of sound sleep.

A good proportion of the tour came on the unashamedly named 'booze cruise' down the Zambezi. This two hour cruise takes us up the river, away from the waterfall (unfortunately but probably for our safety!), up to a beautiful sunset before turning around and taking us back. It includes unlimited food and drink but unfortunately they didn't appear to cater for the limitless appetite of the touring cyclist. The vegetarian selection was as meagre as expected, an uninspiring pasta dish. The drinks weren't too bad though and I knocked back four double vodkas/whiskies with Sprite and orange cordial.

Returning to the campsite, I decided to make up for the lack of Amarula in the previous month, served ice cold in a round glass from the Waterfront bar. Several of the Canadian sectional riders who are part of a charity working in Zambia decided to take us out to some of the best Livingstone nightclubs and we took a heavily overloaded bucky (pick-up truck) out to the town centre. This was crazily dangerous - just 5 people sitting in the front two rows and 13 of us crammed into the bed of the short wheelbase truck. I was one of the later passengers to arrive so was standing up along with Jethro. The bumps were pretty painful, trying our hardest not to lose our footing or inadvertantly step on other people's feet. It was the corners that took the most dangerous award though, since our narrow stance in the limited floor space there was, coupled with the loose grip on the rollcage of the truck, made it difficult to hold on and predisposing us to the very genuine danger of falling out of the truck.

We made it though and after skipping past one club that was playing polka music, we found a warehouse-esque bar-club which was pumping Zambian dance music (whilst also showing a football match that most other patrons were glued to). Leanne requested they change to more Western music and the group was happily dancing for a while. I left early, falling asleep from a few days worth of poor rest.
The next morning, we booked the bungie jump, swing and zip line package as a group and then head into town to hunt down an ATM that would give us cash to pay for the package.

Heading to a homely vegetarian restaurant for lunch about an hour before we were supposed to meet everyone for the jump, we were panicking when the food hadn't arrived 5 minutes before we were supposed to be back at the campsite (especially since I had the booking voucher for all eight of us). A dose of karma was delivered to me when I didn't receive my meal with everyone else. When we asked the waitress if they'd started making my meal yet, apparently she had forgotten. Unhappily hungry and pressured with the lack of time, I chowed down on a packet of custard creams as we made our way to the falls.

I wasn't especially worried about throwing myself off the bridge into the Zambezi river at all until after we had registered and made our way onto the bridge. It was only then, looking down, that I realised what a ridiculous endeavour this was. Watching the other riders jump off the bridge, plummet towards the water and then bounce around made me quite nervous and when my turn finally came, at least 45 minutes later, I was dead silent.

When they called my name, I stepped on the platform all harnessed up. Various checks were done, they clip you first to the edge of the bridge and then transfer you to the bungie cord after strapping the leg harness on tightly. When it comes to it, you jump forwards off the edge of the platform and fall like a rock until the cord tightens. Then you rebound up and down a few times, and if you're anything like me, you'll feel slightly ill. I lost count of the number of times I bounced up and the lack of control and visible direction was frustrating and mildly terrifying. At one point, I was spinning around and had a clear view of the circular rainbow caused by the mist from the waterfall - I started laughing at the ridiculous act just committed. My legs were quite sore after the jump - it hurts to bend my right leg and there's a bruise on my left shin. This is probably from the harness being too tight but I'd rather it was too tight than too loose...

After the jump was the swing and this looks rather more tame since you're harnessed and suspended in a mainly upright position. It is, however, the most terrifying. There's something absolutely unnatural about falling with your feet dangling below you and the acceleration is unworldly. My legs were tingling as I fell and I screamed 'NOOOOO' (but quietly so that, luckily, none of the other riders heard me). Once you're caught by the rope, it becomes much less terrifying and you're just swinging around, enjoying the amazing view.

The final of the three, the zipline, was the least worrying and terrifying and involved a gentle saunter across the river whilst harnessed to a slider on top of a rope from side of the Gorge to the bridge. If you're planning on doing the trio, I'd recommend doing the bungie jump before the swing - you'll enjoy it more.

After all was done, it was time for recovery in the bungie company's lounge - a plate of chips and a Fanta restored me to partial life. Finally, we watched the videos of our jumps - pretty amusing. My attempt to negotiate a lower price for each of our DVDs failed (possibly because one of the riders had already paid the full $45 for his DVD) and lacking cash, I didn't buy it. You'll all have to imagine what it looked like!

Dinner was at a traditional restaurant and was amazing - nchima (like the maize based ugali dough) and six different vegetables. Dessert was equally good, a vanilla milkshake from Steers. Zambia has eroded my bank balance and supply of dollars to unprecedented levels - it's unfortunate because I think it's a fairly cash rich country (as far as African countries go anyway). The taxi drivers here charge a surprising amount each trip and having had to go solo by myself a few times, I've been stung with the full near $10 fare. Trying to haggle fails because they operate some kind of price cartel - although walking along the road and flagging a taxi down yielded a lower fare than catching it from any of the main tourist hotspots.

This morning, Dan, Caroline, Tim and I took a short fifteen minute helicopter flight over the Falls. This was amazing because it offered a clear and holistic view of the entire Falls. The experience itself felt slightly rushed (the helicopter company clearly tries to minimise the turnaround time of their flights. I also wasn't lucky enough to have a window seat which meant that the majority of my photos have other people with cameras in them (or just the window pane of the helicopter). I won't bother describing it more since the photos will speak for themselves (see the photo section).

After the flight, we head to the bridge and the others went across to the Zimbabwean side. Not wanting to take the monetary hit, I stuck to the cheaper Zambian side, for which I already had a visa. Unfortunately, I asked after the Zambian immigration lady had given me an exit stamp. She wrote the words 'cancelled' over it with a blue biro, so my departure into Botswana tomorrow may be troublesome.

The spray from the Falls is unbelievable and I was glad to have worn waterproofs - being soaked within seconds. It's really something that has to be experienced and I'd recommend it to all.

It was a short and pleasant day into Lusaka, 104km and there wasn't a huge amount of pressure to race with most riders taking it easy. I took quite a few photos, enjoyed the cooler temperatures and generally chilled out.

Lusaka was much revered before we arrived for its two shopping malls which include a multiplex cinema, a Subway fast food restaurant and a huge Walmart-esque supermarket, a SuperSpar. With the thought of ice cream and Subway sandwiches on our minds, soon after we set up camp at the Chainama Hotel where we were staying, a group of riders journeyed to the Arcades Mall. My findings - well it was the Subway I know from home, in some form. There was no choice of bread (it was white or brown) and I was bemused to see a sticker on the counter 'Introducing Our Newest Vegetable: CUCUMBER!', besides the newly discovered elongate green vegetable they only had onions, tomatos and peppers. A pretty sparse sandwich but still pleasing to the palate.

After our sandwiches, we went for ice cream next door at a restaurant called Food Fayre, an astonishingly warm place - in fact, so warms that some of their stock was melting. Luckily the soft ice cream we had from the machine was still cold and dipped in caramel sauce, still delicious. After this, we milled about online for some time and then went to see Clash of the Titans (others also went to see Blindside). Some hilariously Hollywood moments but it was relaxing to sit in a comfortable chair and let my brain switch off.

That evening we went for drinks at a South African chain bar called Rhapsodys and I found one of my favourite cocktails - a chocolate martini! While alcohol or cocktail afficionados may denounce the purity of a martini with chocolate in it, I would heartily recommend it to anyone who is a fan of chocolate, milkshakes or even chocolate milkshakes. After that we took a ride to the other mall and had dinner at a Zambian Irish Pub - also part of a chain.

The next morning we did a repeat of the buffet breakfast trick and visited the Lusaka Golfview Hotel, a fancier business class hotel neighbouring ours. It cost nearly as much and perhaps was about 70% of the breakfast at the Sheraton in Addis - not a bad effort and I certainly filled up, eating four courses consisting of:
- Plate of fruit, yoghurt.
- 3 egg omelette, 2 boiled eggs, baked beans, potatos.
- Plate of pastries
- Bowl of cereal
Plus lots of juice and hot chocolate.

After some bike maintenance (my grand plan to swap my chains every two weeks so they would wear evenly failed because my spare chain rusted in my bag!), I travelled into town alone on a mission. It was refreshing to leave the false luxury of the malls and experience the genuine Lusaka city centre. Full of office buildings and lots of small shops, there are also two large markets - the town centre market and the Lusaka city market.

On a mission to find an item, details of which I can't divulge now into order to maintain the surprise, I visited both markets and spent a good couple of hours walking around and haggling. The final result was that of success - a relatively rare item which I didn't think most Africans would have need for. The markets were great fun - if you're milling around Lusaka, go visit them.

Running some other errands around town, I noticed that all the pharmacies smelt absolutely terrible in addition to being extremely busy. Medicine is a hot commodity in Zambia it seems and it was interesting to notice that the few pharmacies I visited were run by Indians. Asking for directions was also mildly confusing because they refer to traffic lights here (and I'm told in South Africa too) as 'robots'. I despair for the future where the best form factor for robots we can come up with resembles a stacked set of coloured light bulbs.

I stumbled across the ultimate in modern convenience (at least for the rugged adventurer-traveller), an internet cafe-barbershop. After getting my rest day shave, I made my way down the staircase to the internet cafe and plugged in my laptop with no time wasted. After stocking up on toilet paper and snacks for the next week, I walked up to the main road to take a bus back to the hotel. Having managed my time poorly, it was now 5:30pm and right in the middle of rush hour.

Luckily I found a seat on a fairly large minibus. The seats inside were arranged such that there were five seats across and an aisle running down where the fourth seat in each row would sit. In order to reach any of the rows, the person in that seat would have to stand up, fold up the seat and disembark. At first I started off in the frontmost of these folding seats and as people disembarked, had to move to the back of the bus to fill those seats. Eventually, while we were close to my stop, I had to fill a seat at the back. All was well until the man of average build next to me got off and was replaced by a woman of a much larger build. Only one word is apt to describe this - squished. Aside from the lack of space and the stagnant smell of body odour, the ride was fairly pleasant and I was happy that I disembarked at the correct spot to make it back to camp.

The bridge between Zambia and Zimbabwe, over the Zambezi River.
(View in high res)

My legs are hurting - we've done a lot of mileage this week and the rolling hills haven't helped. Yesterday was a shorter 124km and today was 148km. I tried tailing Jethro out of camp yesterday, with his permission but we were both passed by Dan, Stuart and Gisi at about ten kilometres, whilst climbing a hill.

Unable to keep up, I dropped off and tried to catch them again once I'd hit the top of the hill. Soon after, I caught Gisi who had also been dropped and together we both tried to get back into the fastest group. This was impossibly difficult. I pulled Gisi for most of 15 kilometres, with my head down and arms outstretched on my aerobars, pumping as hard as my legs would go and pushing my fatigued heart up to 90% of maximum and holding it there. Gisi, the mountain goat, was faster up the hills and would pull me up the last few hills as we got within fifty metres of the group.

When we were finally close enough, Gisi went all out. In an annoying deja vu moment, we were climbing again and I was dropped by Gisi. She made it to the group and I gave up on trying to catch them. Instead, I rode solo until I caught Rod and Juliana doing a more reasonable pace. Riding with them until lunch and for a short while after, I took the opportunity to take some much overdue photographs and take in the beautiful greenery that surrounds the road.

Camp last night was at something near 500 metres above sea level, a descent from the previous night. It was WARM, worsened by the humidity. For most of the afternoon, riders were sitting around in the shade, slumped on earth green camping chairs. I woke up several times overnight with water that condensed on the inside of my tent dripping on my skin.

Today's ride was a return back to the above average daily distance which we are now committed to cycle. A far 148km was coupled with a 1700m (but actually 1900m) climb over rolling hills and made for a near 8 hour day, a similar time to the 198km from a couple of days ago.

I struggled today and it was a case of survival. My legs didn't have what was necessary in them and I was not fast at all - leaving late but failing to catch up to anyone significantly fast. I found the morning quite tough, being surrounded by other riders and struggling to keep up with them. After lunch was superb though, cycling solo and not seeing another rider for literally hours at a time. I took in the scenery, rode at my own pace and enjoyed myself thoroughly.

Camp life today was eventful, consisting of a runny chocolate pudding for dessert, left over from the wonderful Nymo (spelling?) bars that Rod and Juliana made for Juliana's birthday. There was a bike donation ceremony to a local group of aid workers involving speeches and the locals singing and dancing.

After this, I joined Simon and Dave for the second of their night rides. Changing the batteries in my head torch helped immensely (it's like a floodlight now!) and we cycled a few kilometres up the road before turning around and going past camp to a small Coke stop where we met Erin and Ruben. Unfortunately they were out of drinks because of some strangely tight supply chain logistics.

The campsite we're at tonight is in the grounds of a Jehovah Witnesses' Kingdom Hall (whatever that entails) and luckily only one person received a copy of their leaflet. Normally I don't comment on toilet facilities but they've has become a large part of each rider's life. At most bush camps we have the shovel situation where we walk far into the distance, dig a hole, use the hole and then fill it back up. This has worked well apart from places where either there is little cover, or the ground is hard and impossible to dig and in places like Zambia where most of the country is covered in overgrown stomach-high grass.

In school camps similar to this, there are often primitive squat toilets. These are usually surprisingly clean but require fairly respectable aim. More advanced squat toilets are found at more organised campsites which have a porcelain baisin and sometimes even a flush. Finally, the Western style seated toilets have been present occasionally - often usable but sometimes worse than squatters, especially if the flush breaks.

In this camp, we have squatters which aren't so great - trying to use one at night was a dangerous affair, risking getting attacked by a million bugs attracted to my newly enbrightened headtorch. In addition, the walls aren't so well thought out, making balance and aim both quite difficult.

Human waste disposal aside, we'll be entering Lusaka tomorrow and most probably spending most of our time in an airconditioned mall eating fast food, ice cream and watching Hollywood movies. Hopefully they have clean and decent toilets!

The Tour D'Afrique is officially the world's longest bicycle race (this can be verified in the Guiness Book of World Records) and I'd like to offer some tips to anyone who is thinking of racing it in the years to come. These are based on my experiences and observations of the last 3 months and are based entirely on the current race format. At the beginning of the race there were 35 racers (IIRC) and at the time of writing less than 25 remain.

A brief explanation of how the race works in 2010
The Tour is split up into 96 individual stages (although this is 95 because of the extra rest day we had when the truck broke down) and each stage is raced individually. In addition to individual stages, there are a number of sections comprised of many stages - usually but not always from one capital city to the next. There are separate results for each stage, for each section and for the overall race.

Each day every racer, equipped with a timing button, will clock in and out upon leaving and arriving at camp respectively. Timing is to the nearest minute and stored for each stage. The riders are ranked by time, the winner being the rider with the shortest time. This gives rankings for individual stages, sections and the overall race. If not participating in the entire race, any Tour rider can choose to race particular sections and will appear in results for that section but not the overall race.

The race may not always taken the entire length of a stage and the Tour Race Director may choose to end the race earlier on days where for some reason or another it would be logistically implausible or even dangerous to race - i.e. border crossing days, or entering big cities. Occasionally for similar reasons entire stages are not raced and everyone is given the same time for that stage.

If a racer does not finish a stage for any reason, they are given a 12 hour time for that day. In addition, when calculating the overall results, each racer is given three grace days which cancel out their longest three stage times. Finally, there are several mandatory stages which are particularly difficult or long. These 'mando-days' are not considered when applying grace days. The winner of each mando-day is also given a 30 minute time bonus. In addition, any racer who finishes with EFI status intact is given a 6 hour time bonus.

Racing the Tour differs from merely riding it in many ways which I'll identify below.

1. Take Fewer Photos
Usually you'll need to slow down to take any decent photos, or even stop entirely. That's not generally an option if you're concerned about your time for the day or especially if you're riding with other people (see 3.). The racer's mentality is such that nothing may impede progress.

2. Eat Short Lunches
There is no mechanism for clocking out at lunch - this seems more of a technical failing on part of Tour D'Afrique rather than any deliberate race addition. However long you choose to stop and eat for counts as part of your overall time. This means that on days you are trying to rank well, you won't want to waste time eating. Some racers don't even stop for lunch, others will check in, grab some water and hit the road again. It's not fair but crucial when minutes matter.

3. Work Together
It's necessary and extremely beneficial to ride with other riders. On some stages (hills and dirt) this isn't always possible but on the longer road days it'll be the difference between ranking well and merely surviving the day. You'll save a lot of energy when drafting and in a 120 day long race, you'll hit the wall often - the more you can minimise energy loss, the better.

4. Pick Your Days
It's a long race - illness and exhaustion will probably strike at some point. No racer can race everyday without burning out and the best strategy seems to be to pick the days which you want to rank well. On the other days, it's still necessary to be fast (to maintain your overall standing) but you don't need to work at 90% in order to save an hour and rank high. On some days it's a case of survival - just trying to reach the end of the day.

Jethro, one of the fastest riders here, picks his days - on hilly days, where he is particularly fast, he'll go hard and blitz the competition. In between, he'll ride slower and recover. As for consistency, Rod and Juliana are consistently quick and will be as quick as the fastest racers on some day. They'll ride at a pace that is comfortable for them and as a result can maintain it day in and day out.

5. Choose Your Equipment Wisely
Mechanical failure is something that can be easily avoided by the right choice of equipment and a suitable array of spares. One of the fastest racers here was plauged by punctures because of his insistence of riding on extremely skinny tyres, even on the thorn littered dirt days.

In addition, cater to your strengths. If you're not so great on dirt, pick a bike that will make your job easier. It helps to have interchangeable parts - a Thudbuster seatpost for the dirt sections and a rigid seatpost for the paved sections. If you can, bring a suspension fork - you won't regret it. Most riders are on cyclocross bikes, or at least ride with drop bars - bring inline brake levers which can mount on the top of the bars as well as drop levers. Bring fat tyres for the dirt sections, they'll give you extra confidence which will make you faster.

6. Ride Safely
Crashing will probably end badly, resulting in lost days and 12 hour times or even having to leave the Tour. It's easy when racing to get carried away in the competitive spirit of it all and take unnecessary risks. I was extremely lucky when I crashed not to have to take time off but several other riders have been less fortunate.

7. Leave Late
A favourite tactic of racers is to leave (as a group) late from camp in the morning. In a group, it's easier to set a faster pace and catch slower racers - once you've caught someone who you left after, you've effectively beat them for the day. If you leave early and are able to maintain a fast enough pace, you won't get caught but there's a very real danger that you will get caught.

8. Don't Get Ill
This is easier said than done but illness will drag your race time up and make it much harder to finish the stage. Stomach issues may destroy your appetite and not being able to eat enough is a recipe for disaster. Likewise, having to stop regularly because of diarhoea will make it harder to be competitive. Nearly all of the racers have been ill at one time or another.

Given the option, I'd probably choose not to race the Tour if signing up again. While the race has been fun and if I finish, I can say that I've raced the longest bicycle race in the world, I'm not competitive enough of a racer to make it fully worth the sacrifice. I'm going to try and take more photos over the remaining five weeks while trying to maintain my number 10 rank. That said, racing, as well as EFI, is a great motivation on the harder stages.

If you think you can win the race, or even win a section, sign up to race. If you're more concerned with experiencing the African continent then stay as an expedition rider and perhaps race individual sections - it doesn't mean you have to cycle slower, just that you're not always in such a rush.

Yesterday afternoon, after 122km of cycling (only 80km of which was a race), we entered the country of Zambia. The ride until lunch was the race - Simon, Jacob and I rode fairly together. The shorter race stages are quite tense because everyone is so close together, any slip in effort and you're overtaken quickly. We slowed the pace slightly towards the end and Jethro came past in a hurry, less than three kilometres from the end of the race at lunch.

Entering Zambia was pretty straightforward (for everyone apart from Adam, who forgot his passport!) and the change of government has reduced the visa price for British citizens from $150 (last year) to the more reasonable $50. After crossing the border we rode another 20km to the town of Chipata where we exchanged money and I hunted for headphones to replace the broken pair I borrowed from Rick. It took a while but I hunted down some cheap Chinese headphones in the local market, plasticky and they sound like good headphones with the addition of someone scratching your eardrum with a pencil. For the 8,000 Kwacha price though ($1.76), I have no right to complain.

At camp, watching the rider board being written, it seemed like some kind of latent April Fool's prank when Tour Director Paul wrote the next day's distance of 197km up. Incredulous, it was confirmed at rider meeting that they had extended the stage so that we'd reach a village where some number of riders would get the chance to live in homestays with genuine Zambian families, sleeping and eating dinner with them.

Fearful of the unknown and with the song 'Fear of the Dark' by Iron Maiden stuck in my head, I went to bed contemplating the feasibility of cycling the furthest single distance of my life. Waking up this morning I was surprised to feel excited, perhaps having reawakened the adventurer within. Taking my time to leave, I left late and went hard for the first 15km, overtaking quite a few riders. Realising that this pace was unsustainable for the day, I slowed down quite considerably. A couple of groups passed by - Jethro, Frans and Tony (who was making extra effort for his 50th birthday, today) and Simon drafting Tim. Unwilling to catch them, I spun on and was eventually caught by Paul.

We reached lunch via a Coke (or Fanta) stop, paused for sandwiches and continued on. Lunch was at 85km today, less than halfway - an overbearing fact which probably helped make the day seem more intense. I chose to interpret the distance remaining (112km) as a separate stage, which worked well apart from the preexisting 3h 30m worth of riding fatigue in my legs. The next 65 kilometres were fairly unremarkable aside from a blue coloured butterfly flying into my jersey via the zip. Itmanaged to fly out apparently unharmed, shocking me in the process.

The children here are unrelentless and constantly ask 'How are you?'. At first we replied but it quickly became clear that most kids will continue to parrot out the question regardless. Even if they stop, one of the dozens of surrounding children will continue to ask. According to a woman who works for the Peace Corps here, this is a cultural artifact - when greeting here, it is natural to greet every single person in a group individually - hence replying to one child is not enough, you need to reply to every child. Later on in the ride, we simply started replying 'tired' to the question and apparently riders who came past later were asked if they were tired.

At about 130km, my legs started getting tired, probably from a lack of energy. We were supposed to have a refresh stop (more water and energy bars) at 150km but we accidentally cycled past it - the 4x4 that we were expecting wasn't there and we missed the staff member sitting in the bushes. Stopping at 155km, Paul and I had a couple of warm cokes and continued on. The last 10 kilometres into camp were the most painful, and our speed dropped from about 27kmph to 22kmph. The finish flag was standing, waiting on the road, at 197km as promised and turning off the road, we were home for the night. The second hardest day of riding so far to our day through Dinder and it was wonderful. I haven't felt this exhausted for quite some time and it feels good.

0510: Yawn. I'm packing my sleeping bag into its sack. The ground is damp outside. There's no running water at the hotel/campsite and the toilets we have available to use are a horrific mess. I'm taking my inhaler and overclocking my body for the ninth day in a row, trying to compensate for my lifelong mild asthma.

15km: It's early in the morning, Adam and I are riding together, fast. With only this day to finish before the section is complete, we're both eager to maintain our sectional rank of 4th (me) and 6th (Adam) overall. We're trying not to gain any extra riders as we overtake group after group by sprinting as hard as we can each time we pass. After the third sprint we need to slow down - pushing so hard has left us breathless and weary. With no more groups in sight, we draft each other, each leading for five minute intervals before switching with the other.

35km: Adam decides he's unable to maintain the pace we've been doing. We cut back to about 70% of our previous speed. The wind has picked up and is doing it's Malawian trick of rotating between head-on and side-on. Occasionally the grey clouds shower us with drizzle, the spray from the road slowly soaking my jersey. I'm glad that my MP3 player and camera are well wrapped in own-brand Ziploc (tm) bags.

40km: One of the many children standing by the side of the road yells out 'give me money!'. I ask him, 'why?'. There was no audible response (but we were travelling at some speed above 25kmph).

50km: 20km until lunch. It's PVM bar time. Caramel nut. With a quarter of the bar left to go, it's my turn to lead and I'm struggling to breathe as I speed up to overtake Adam. It only takes another thirty seconds to chew the remainder of the bar.

73km: Lunch arrives, we've just overtaken Rod and Juliana and been overtaken by Stuart and Gisi. There are quite a few riders at lunch, we purposefully left quite late in the morning. It doesn't seem like many riders are racing hard today but there's no sign of Jethro or Tim who cleared lunch earlier. Nothing too amazing for lunch today, although there's an appreciated reappearance of wholewheat bread which Jen dutifully slices for the other riders. Adam doesn't want to leave in a hurry so I go on alone and wait for Stuart and Gisi to catch up.

80km: It's hard work in the wind. I'm struggling to get anywhere near 25kmph on some sections of road. My stomach is rumbling. The single sandwich I ate doesn't appear to have satisfied my appetite, understandably.

83km: Stuart and Gisi catch up. Stuart suggests we each pull for 5 minutes and leads us on. It still feels windy but with the draft we're easily going 5kmph faster.

95km: Gisi finishes her pull after ten minutes and Stuart comments 'guess we'll pull for 10 minutes now'. She rotates round and I'm at the front now.

110km: We're getting closer to the capital city of Malawi. Every so often there are eight flags lining a twenty metre section of road, four on each side. The traffic is heavier and we're sometimes pushed onto the side of the road.

121.5km: We hit our first roundabout of the day and the beginning of the only real navigation we need to do. It's straight over this one and soon after there is heavy traffic blocking the road. We slow down considerably and cautiously filter through the traffic (the truck incident leaving Arusha still memorable).

124km: We're stuck in traffic behind a bread van with the slogan 'Choices Bakery - Where success is always one step ahead of us.'

1105/133km: The finish flag is in sight. It's a quick sprint to the dinner truck's trailor which is home to the timing device. It takes a couple of button presses but my finish time is eventually registered. Stuart signs in but Gisi waits a few minutes, trying to give him second for the section (having made up time by winning the earlier mando-day and hence receiving a 30 minute time bonus).

1350: My tent has been set up, I've showered, eaten an egg club sandwich and finished watching yet another terrible (romantic?) comedy movie. My head is weary from the last sleepless night (Easter in this country is also celebrated as some kind of harvest festival with genuine discotheques, one of which was held in our hotel/campsite) and it's time for a nap. Pitching up my tent under a tree was a wise move and despite the overwarmth outside, it's pleasant enough to sleep. I fall asleep quickly.

1500: I wake up in a daze from a heavy, deep slumber. It's warmer now than earlier, the sun has come out. I grab a PVM bar (lemon & lime) and walk to the bar, trying not to trip. While eating the bar I accidentally bite my tongue.

1530: A group of riders were heading into town looking for Nandos and I hopped in, riding shotgun in the back of a local's Toyota pickup truck. After visiting an ATM, I spend half of my newly acquired cash on a veggie burger and peri peri chips. We're in Malawi, and eating at Nandos. Frickin' amazing.

1610: Jason and I are searching for ice cream in the Metro Cash & Carry. It's like some kind of wholesaler and there are fridges full of drinks and food littered around the supermarket. None of them seem to be particularly cold inside though. Perhaps this is a new selling tactic. The ice cream doesn't look appetising but I walk out with six packets of biscuits and a 100g bar of Cadbury's chocolate to last me through the next section.

1720: The section results are out, I'm third for the men's race. A hard couple of weeks racing and it's come to some sort of fruitful conclusion written in black marker on a drywipe whiteboard.

1750: It's time for the fifth meal of the day, campsite dinner. A pleasant Thai green curry served with a plateful of rice goes down quickly.

2030: After discussing the milkshakes available at Steers, a South African (I think) fast food chain, we finally snap and get in the taxi that is conveniently already at camp. Stomachs all rumbling a bit, Dan orders a pizza, Jason a burger and I have fries. Many delicious pseudo-milkshakes (lacking genuine milk) are consumed.

The Tour experienced (collectively) a strange feeling last night, something we haven't felt for quite some time - we were cold. After the last few muggy weeks in Malawi, Tanzania and Kenya, sleeping bags were given a purpose again and the night's sleep was pleasantly sweatless. We climbed yesterday, only a couple of thousand metres (not as much as our first mando-day in Ethiopia) but over steep rolling hills and it was demarked as another mando-day.

I'm not much of a climber, in fact, on every ride (ever) I'm always left behind on each hill. Hopefully, since the trip began, I've become better/faster - the ascents in Ethiopia were not to be taken lightly. Yesterday, ranking well for this section so far (4th overall, 3rd for the men and 1h 16m ahead of Jethro, the next highest ranking racer after me), I gave the climbs all my energy. It was problematic, I had drivetrain problems when using the small chainring and any of the middle 8 gears (out of the 10 total) on my cassette. This meant that for the most part I had to use the bigger chainring and then tactically shift into the smallest chainring only when I had reached the largest (or easiest) gear on the cassette. Not insurmountable but it made my legs work hard.

Going hard in the morning, I heard the truck beep behind me. It wasn't directly behind but some distance - it was beeping at another rider. Looking back, I saw a red blur and tried to guess who it was. Soon enough, Jethro came past, not much faster than I was but enough to disappear out of sight within a good minute. A minute later the grey clouds that had been hovering above opened fire, gently spraying us with misty rain. Naturally, my el-cheapo Cateye Velo 8 cycling computer (£13 from Chain Reaction Cycles) gave up the ghost and at 36km, I was the cycling tour equivalent of blind. When the only information you have for the day is a distance, losing your odometer renders you to nothing but a brute force cyclist, forced to merely pedal on in the hope of sometime reaching camp.

I powered on, the rain stopped and Frans overtook me on a climb, shouting 'REMEMBER SUNIL! HIGH CADENCE! HIGH CADENCE!' as always. I yelled back 'I'm trying but no more gears!', cursing my choice of a narrow road racing cassette. Further along the road, lunch arrived. A quick sandwich (tomato and lettuce but NO CHEESE!) and water refill later and I was back tackling the stage, legs feeling like jelly.

The majority of the climbing was over before lunch and the afternoon was composed of some beautiful descents. At one point the road descended into an open plain where there was no shelter from the wind. The crosswind that had been playfully pushing us all day was now unobstructed and it was a fight to keep the bike on the correct side of the road - at one point I was shoved all the way to the right hand side.

Many annoying rumble strips later (Simon commented some time ago, 'whoever invented these rumble strips should be tied to the bottom of a car and driven over them'), camp at a primary school arrived. An astounding African sunset gave way to an equally astounding night sky and it was intriguing to observe the stars from the southern hemisphere in such clear detail.

Today's day was considerably easier, considerably quicker and considerably more downhill. An overall descent of 1039m and ascent of 555m, it was much less taxing and a lot of people were out to race this (either that or they wanted a room at the Inn we're staying at - usually first come first serve). I tried riding alone this morning but soon was unable to overtake some of the sectional riders (who aren't racing but like to antagonise us racers trying to overtake regardless). Ten minutes after overtaking Gerald and Jos, I saw the shadow of a rider approaching on my right - they'd caught up again! Greeting them, Gerald was completely out of breath and they quickly disappeared again.

Just before lunch came round, Paul and new Jos caught up, we rode the last 15km to lunch together, my legs feeling pretty sore from the previous couple of hard days riding alone. Celebrating Easter (or perhaps just a happy coincidence), lunch involved fried eggs and I had to have the mandated two sandwiches. As we ate, Jen came in, looking like she was about to explode again (a sign that she was going for the stage again).

Jen, Paul and I rode the remaining 52km together, taking it as fast as we dared. With less thn 25km to go, we reached a fairly long but gentle climb and tried to maintain a decent speed (~27kmph) up it. My muscles were burning and the geniuses who programmed the shuffle function on my Sandisk Sansa somehow managed to get R.E.M. - Everybody Hurts to play, apt indeed.

With 20km to go, Jen, a hobbyist spin class instructor and often Ms. Motivator, pushed us forwards with a 'lets go boys!'. At 10km, she pushed us on again 'let's go! only 10k!'. At 5k, sprinting distance, 'go for it!'. It worked and we rode into camp nice and early, arriving just before 10am, with the whole of Easter sunday free.

On the assumption that the shops in town would be shut, I'm staying around camp, having drunk three Fantas, napped for an hour on the lawn and finished watching a movie I started last night. The ants here are huge and move extremely quickly - one was trapped in my tent earlier and trying to set it free was an entertaining game in itself. With fifteen minutes until rider meeting followed by dinner, I think it's time for another cold soda.

It's amazing how quickly time goes. It seems like a lot less than two weeks ago that we were in Arusha but there we go. We've only got six weeks left and that's pretty much the time we had between terms at Easter when at Cambridge - our shortest vacation. In fact, until Lilongwe, there are only three riding days left (one down today) and until the first rest day in Zambia, another five riding days. From here to our duo of rest days at Victoria Falls, only another three riding days. After Zambia we'll hit Botswana and there are some tough days coming - five 160km days, a rest day and then a five day week beginning with a 207km stage! Another three days, a couple of five day sections and then we're in Cape Town.

Whenever anything is so obviously compartmentalised, it becomes seemingly trivial - while I don't doubt the intensity of some of the upcoming stages, there is a clear, bright light at the end of the tunnel. Irrespective of what happens in the next 1.5 months, the end is going to get here quickly and my thoughts are straying to the long summer of 2010. If anyone is planning on entering any team 24 hour mountain bike races and needs a rider, drop me a line!

The ride out of Chitimba was tough and for the first time in a while my quads are surprisingly sore (a call to action for the tube of fake Deep Heat lying in my bag). The morning started with a half kilometre walk through the sandy lane out to the road and a flattish 16km to THE CLIMB. The climb was a 10km ascent of 650m, not as bad as the Blue Nile Gorge but not to be underestimated either. Riding out from camp with Paul, we picked up Jethro, Tim and Kelsey. As we hit the climb, Jethro and Tim moved into their superhuman hill climbing mode and I tried to hold their rear wheels. This worked for about a kilometre before my cardiovascular system blew up as I shifted gears to keep up. My chain disliked gears 3 and 4 on my cassette (where 1 is the easiest / biggest) and I lost some ground. Trying to catch up the twenty metres I lost pushed my heart rate up into the unsustainable 90-95% range and I dropped back when my stomach started feeling like it was on fire and full of ice at the same time. Maybe next time.

To my relief, no one caught me on the rest of the climb and it was soon a case of upwardly rolling hills with a tailwind. My stomach started rumbling at 60km and I had my eyes peeled for lunch. Evidently I wasn't looking hard enough because it got to 75km and I hadn't seen it yet. At 80km I looked at my camera to double check I hadn't missed a turn and was doubly confirmed by the underexposed image taken the previous night and by Eric Dufour overtaking me. At 86km, out of water (timed to run out at 75km) and feeling ravenously hungry, I stopped at a roadside shop and bought three Fantas and a Sprite, filling up both my bottles (insides now stained purple for some reason). The headwind picked up and a PVM bar, I rolled into another roadside shop (well skidded, forgetting that my brakes are now adjusted to work) and bought five more icy cold Fantas, putting four in my bottles and drinking the fifth with such vigor that I suffered brain freeze.

Hitting the road again, it was a 25km slog through rolling hills that only seemed to go upwards. As the day's distance approached, I was on edge, looking for the documented turns with wider eyes than when I skipped past lunch. Less than a kilometre from camp, Stuart caught up and we rode into the Mzuzu Lodge together. A hard day was over and the only side effect of drinking nine sodas appeared to be a mild headache which quickly dispersed.

A batch update because I've been busy planning April's Fools and going around the remaining riders to get their responses to our survey. After the first quick day into the Forest Camp (where results confirm Paul and I were ranked second and third with the same time), we rode the next 130km day together.

It was a long day but the tailwind and gentle descent (over several rolling hills) made it much easier. We were going hard, at the same pace as the previous day, but it appears everyone else decided to race the day too and soon after we reached lunch Jen arrived, red faced and looking as if she wasn't going to stay long. I learnt my lesson from the previous day's lunch and only took one sandwich (although managed to consume nearly five glucose sweets). The Indaba crew mentioned that Ruben had gone through quite some time earlier and hadn't even stopped for lunch - merely yelling out his rider number as he cycled past. We left pretty swiftly and rode at the same pace all afternoon.

About 5k before camp, Jen caught up with us, looking like she was about to explode. Not wanting any assistance (admirable) she powered on ahead and beeped in minutes before we did. Ruben was already sitting at camp with an air of fatigue, later we found out that both he and Jen had won the stage. Another new stage winner and for Ruben, another yellow plate to hang on his wall. This bush camp was pretty amusing, being situated near the grazing ground for local herds of cattle. While we were pitching our tents, one medium sized herd came out running. Several riders watched on in horror as cows weighing several hundred kilos came within milimetres of their bikes and tents.

We were at altitude and the weather was gorgeously cool. Compared to the heat of Tanzania, it was a welcome relief and made sleeping just a little bit easier. By the early hours of morning, it gave my sleeping bag reason for existence again and I found myself covering up. My Thermarest has been slowly leaking for several weeks now and it didn't help that the ground was rocky that night. My natural instinct is to roll over and sleep on my side, letting my arm take the strain of the uneven surface. This works well apart from causing my shoulders to ache for most of the next day.

The next day we rolled towards Mbeya, the closest large Tanzanian town to the Malawian border. The problem with being fast on a day with a headwind is that people soon pick up this fact and tag along. Within twenty kilometres of leaving camp, Paul and I had picked up a paceline seven riders long. One of the new additions to our riding group was Michael, another young British rider, who was surprisingly quick when leading at the front of the group. We rode quickly until lunch, being the second group to pass through.

It's a shame everyone was rushing that day because lunch was excellent - french toast and bacon - but not quite ready. We managed to grab a scrambled egg sandwich in time to see several other riders ride past lunch (Marcel, Stuart and Gisi and Rick!). Jumping back on our bikes, the paceline continued for another 15 kilometres until we hit the climb st 75 kilometres. A 1200 metre climb over the remaining twenty kilometres, it quickly broke up the group. Simon powered on ahead and the rest of us leapfrogged each other for a while.

Arriving into Mbeya, we camped out at Stockholm hotel, a pleasant African hotel about 9km from the centre of the town. It was nice and early, before noon, and in the afternoon, several of us took a matatu into town to find food, icecream and internet access. A pretty unremarkable town, aside from the odd fact that some how all the TDA riders managed to converge on the same internet cafe despite there being at least five or six internet cafes in the centre of town.

On our return to camp, we had our staple dinner of spaghetti bolognaise and the most genius-like icecream vendor I have ever seen pedalled up to the hotel courtyard just as people were finishing their plates. Although he only had two varieties of icecream (plain ol' ice lollies or some kind of fruit flavoured Magnum lookalike) riders went crazy. When I checked that night, Jason had only reached five icecreams, failing to beat his previous day best of six, set in Dodoma.

This was our last night in Tanzania and the day crossing the border was not a race day - a fact I am very thankful to the TDA staff about. It was a beautiful day of cycling, possibly the best day of cycling yet on the tour and just beautiful. It wasn't short, nor easy - the stage was 120km long (106km in Tanzania and the remainder in Malawi), starting off with a large climb, rolling down some and then climbing again. The last half of the day was pretty much a gradual descent. Overall the day was approximately 1,000 metres of climbing and 2,000 metres of descending - the largest descent yet (perhaps another reason why it wasn't a race day).

We woke up and it was cloudy - or foggy even. At that altitude we were pretty much inside a cloud and the first climb took us several hundred metres above the cloud layer, making for a beautiful view and some great photos (although not mine: this little Samsung camera sucks). The descent into lunch was smooth, rapid and only marred by the ridiculous mini speed bumps (grouped in fives) that are littered metres before big speed bumps and after them. The hills were rolling but the descent made it easy to roll over them, I don't remember my speed dropping below 25kmph on many of the inclines.

After lunch, I rode with Jason, Paddy and Ruben for some distance. We all have aero bars on our bike and on one of the descents we all put our heads down and tucked in, freewheeling for many kilometres. The only way to describe this would to be to aliken it to soaring, in the same way that birds seem to. We held perfect formation as we rolled around gradual corners, listening only to the hum of the road and the whoosh of the wind. Magical and one of my top moments of the trip so far.

The border crossing was easy, we passed a famous British television star, Paul , apparently the voice of Bob the Builder, who was also crossing into Malawi. Malawi is a pretty typical tropical country and apparently nearly every tropical disease you can imagine is alive and well in this country. It's also warm and humid, worse than many of the previous countries because of the increased humidity. We're also at a lower altitude which has upped the temperature. They don't speak Swahili here anymore, so my slight competitive advantage when ordering drinks (or perceived competitive advantage) has been whittled away to the mere sign language level.

Our first night we stayed at a bush camp next to a local village. Just like Ethiopia we were surrounded by lots of locals - Malawi is apparently one of the poorest countries in Africa, with a GNP per capita close to $800. Every so often we'd hear a wave of screams as the local children would run away from the stick-wielding guards we'd employed for the night. I had set up my tent with the rain fly on, anxious of the rain. As soon as I climbed into my tent though, I climbed out and removed the fly - it was unbearably hot inside. That night I slept without my sleeping bag, shirtless and skin damp with sweat.

At 11pm there was a huge crash. Lightning lit up the sticky night sky and a few seconds later there were loud bangs. Suddenly the camp became of flurry of activity as riders hurried to put their rain flies on. Sometime later (I'm unsure of the exact period since I was in a half state of slumber) the rain started and it was heavy. The drops were the size of grapes, making a loud hammering sound as they hit the roof of my tent in turn.

That morning I ventured out to find a well shielded and peaceful spot to use the toilet. I found the perfect place, undiscovered by any of the other riders and safely hidden from view. On the way back to camp, I stepped in a large, seemingly fresh, pile of cow dung. Returning after breakfast, with a new set of shoes, I was conscious of the perilous surface and had my eyes wide open. Obviously I wasn't properly aware because I managed to step into the same inviting pile, with the same foot but a different pair of shoes. On this trip I only have the two pairs of shoes and they are both now soiled. Superb.

That day we rode to Chitimba beach along the Malawian highway that runs parallel to the 800km Lake Malawi. We stopped in the morning to raid a supermarket - sixty riders each bought several days' supply of biscuits and snack food (apples, for the first time in a while, were readily available and hence popular). This easy thirty kilometres discounted, the remaining ninety kilometres into camp was a slog through a heavy headwind. It appeared that the local vegetation was immune to the wind since they barely moved.

I rode with Paul until 15 km after lunch when we caught Rod and Juliana. I rode with them until about 10 kilometres before the camp and then rode in alone. It was very helpful to have the draught available and luckily the headwind died down nearer to camp. The sandy track into camp was especially challenging, seeming to be populated with traps under the surface that would grab your front wheel and throw you from your bike. I fell off a couple of times, convinced that I'd be able to ride it and eventually giving up. Several other riders also went over their handlebars or were flung off sideways.

Reaching camp though, a protein shake, chocolate bar, cold Fanta and cold shower later, I was ready to begin planning the night's activities. April 1st is my favourite day of the year - my mother used to play pranks on my sister and I as a child and throughout university we engineered some pretty epic pranks on our corridor-mates. Brainstorming with Sam and Dave (American riders), we decided to wake up at 2:30am and mount some of the riders' bikes on trees. This worked almost flawlessly except for the fact that Sam, the experienced tree climber of our group, was not in a state to climb trees when we woke him up. He instead gave Dave and I moral support as we lifted Paddy's, Rick's, Steph's, Paul's and Steve's bike frames and wedged them in between branches.

The second part of my April's Fools onslaught was to play the call to prayer song (sung by all Mosques in Africa at 5am) over the truck's stereo system. When I woke up at 5am, it was raining heavily, and some line of logic decided to overpower the sense of humour in my brain - I stayed in bed and woke up two hours later when it was much too late. Next year I guess!

(Addendum, I was caught yesterday and forced to pay for the wi-fi after acquiring the password from someone else. Today they changed the password from 'chitemba1' to 'chitemba2'. Intuition saved me from having to pay the extortionate price twice.)

Camp is in disarray, the Tour has divided. Something catastrophic has happened. The socio-dynamics of the entire group have finally erupted in an explosion of malice and anthropological diaster that threaten our very existence. It all started yesterday evening when dinner was served. This section, we've had 11 new riders (just for the section to Lilongwe) and many of the riders who defected to Zanzibar for some time have returned.

Dinner is usually some form of carb (rice, or pasta), a main course (meat of some variety or a vegetarian alternative) and a side of vegetables. With the increased group size, tour resources have been strained and it was unfortunate that James, our cook, was unable to provide us each with enough main course - freshly butchered chicken (or cashew nuts with green beans for the vegetarians).

At the rider meeting, the Indaba crew announced a round of changes to our venerable locker system, including but not limited to a 10 litre reduction in the amount of space in each locker because of the new strengthened two inch thick locker doors - still made out of wood but hopefully less susceptible to breakage.

The outrage spread amongst the riders but we dutifully accepted our meagre fate, with only six weeks of the tour remaining and the prospect of flushing toilets and genuine beds just around the corner. When you've been on the road for nearly three months, six weeks seems like an acceptable fate.

This morning, unable to fit their belongings back into the lockers, a group of riders were inconsolably frustrated. The Indaba crew stuck to their decision and insisted that any possessions unable to fit into a riders' locker must be left behind. Angry at having to leave their expensive chocolate supplies and portable showers behind, a plot was hatched.

The trucks never arrived at camp this afternoon. Neither did forty riders. We're stuck here with whatever possessions we carried on our bike. We have only two jerry cans of water between thirty of us and the staff. There is no food except for two boxes of twenty PVM bars each and a half empty bag of orange glucose sweets. The sky is dark with water saturated clouds and it is only a matter of time before the Malawian rain attacks.

Already the hierarchy of control is shifting. Paul, the calm but controlled Tour director, is struggling to control his staff. The nurses are guarding their first aid box. There have been reports that the missing members of staff (those riding sweep and helping with lunch) are stranded on the side of the road. Those riders who stashed extra PVM bars are smugly confident, while others who have no food are sitting, dishevelled and hungry, strained from a energy deficit of several thousand calories whilst cycling the two hundred kilometres mandated for the day's stage.

There is no word on the trucks, we have no idea what the other riders are doing. Word has it that they may be driving ahead to the next 5* hotel in Lilongwe.

As far as we know the tour can't continue. We have no support, all of our money and possessions remain on the trucks. The immediate priority is to ride to the next village and find food and water. We don't have the energy for that. The road we're taking is a quiet side road and the only vehicles we've seen are agricultural vehicles and rarely at that. There is no shelter either. My lifelong spree of vegetarianism may be prematurely ended by the struggle to survive in this group of alpha personalities - fiercely competitive and stubborn human beings.

It's like every survival television show you've ever seen but worse. This is real. We're in Africa. And we're stuck. This may be my last blog. To my family, please keep my servers running.

Yours truly, EFI until the bitter, premature end,

Sunil

Soft sand and gentle heat.
(View in high res)

James, our tour cook, does an excellent food profile of every country that we pass through. Two of the token East African dishes which I wanted to try but hadn't yet are ugali and chips mayai. On our last evening in Iringa, we went to a popular local bar, the Miami Bar, for dinner. The bar was in itself an advertisement for Kilimanjaro beer - the walls, table clothes, doors and bar stools were all massive logos. We ordered food with a mixture of Swahili straight out of the Lonely Planet African Phrase Book and English, coveting help from our seated local neighbour.

The ugali was as I expected, perhaps a little disappointing but only because of sheer familiarity. The chips mayai however was superb in the same way that peanut butter is. Imagine an omelette and a bowl of fries. Now imagine the chips inside the omelette. A fairly heavy meal but well received regardless. This brought my sum total of egg consumption over two days to fourteen eggs.(Digression: the best part of this trip is our ability to eat whatever we like without thought for the consequences. I will begin to detox a fortnight before Cape Town.)

Starting the next section on Saturday morning with a brisk helping of Weetabix, I soon found myself cycling with Paul Porter, a rider from last year's TDA. We ride at a similar pace and rapidly made our way to lunch and then to camp, being the third and fourth riders to arrive into camp. I'm not sure where we rank. It's amazing how much this helped - when I was riding in the front my heart rate would be pushing 160 BPM, and when I was riding in the back, my heart rate would drop down to 140 BPM - a good opportunity to rest. I've also noticed lately that my heart is recovering much quicker, dropping back to resting heart rate when we free wheel down hills within a matter of seconds and ramping up pretty quickly too.

At lunch, we rushed out as soon as some of the other riders started to arrive. Normally I average 2 sandwiches per day and Paul motioned that we should leave as I was just about to start eating my second sandwich. Not wanting to waste a good sandwich, I tried my best to eat it quickly but managed to destroy the pure structure of it whilst doing so. As I started pedalling on my bike, the sandwich fell apart completely and the bushes 50 metres from our lunch stop are now littered with sandwich crusts. A saddening reality of the tour.

The scenery in Tanzania is pretty stunning, we're at some altitude (approximately 2,000 metres) and for brief stretches of road, it looked like we were floating in the sky - clouds seemed to be at ground level. This road is filled with large trucks and similar so we've been banned from listening to iPods (I don't own an iPod but a Sandisk Fuze - took their warning to mean don't listen to music). This meant it wasn't possible to listen to any suitable soundtrack to the scenery.

That evening we camped in our second forest camp, in a forest that appeared to be heavily logged down a dirt track (and we thought we'd left it behind!). The grass was long, up to a metre in height, and several riders reported seeing snakes. As I was setting up my camp in the grass, I was bitten twice and observed another rider's tent being covered in crawling insects. Promptly I decided to move my tent to the dirt track which let off the main dirt track - slightly inconvenient and not as soft but you can't put a price on peace of mind.

The rain came in patches. It usually came just when I pulled over to deal with my consistent tyre inflation issues. As the afternoon sun beat down and the rain drizzled, I'd be fighting off a swarm of flies whilst sweating furiously trying to pump up my wheel. I had a new tube this time, so I just swapped it over pretty quickly. Assuming it was just a slow leak, I failed to notice the various thorns in the tyre and within a kilometre, the brand new tube was also flat. Pulling over, I patched it twice, not able to find any other obvious holes and removed all the thorns (about 6). Another kilometre and it was flat again. With no other choice, I grabbed an energy bar and looked for another hole, finding one and patching it.

Luckily this patch held up and I made it to the final climb into our hilltop camp, where we were treated to tall grass, plenty of bees (probably dangerous too, since they're African) and a great view across the countryside. It was at this point that the generously donated biscuits were finished - 6,000 biscuits consumed by the entire tour in approximately 11 days. My time for the day was terrible, I took it slow and stopped a few times at various soda stops - total moving time 5:46, total time 8:00! Sinfully wasteful.

The next day was our last day on dirt, our last day of the riding week and our ride into our next rest day at Iringa. In typical TDA race fashion, we were treated to our third time trial, another hill climb. This time though, it had rained heavily for nearly three hours from 4am to 7am. The dusty roads became muddy roads and the lack of an obvious line made it difficult to climb up the hill. I struggled for the first half an hour, barely riding at a pace slightly faster than the slower riders to leave camp. I pulled over and realised that my saddle adjustments of the previous night (moving it back to hopefully reduce chafing) had in effect lowered my riding position. Putting the seat higher and I was up to my usual pace, grinding slowly up the hill.

Once the twenty kilometre time trial ended, the race for the day was over and it was only fifty kilometres to our rest day, and out of that fifty, twenty were paved. We reached lunch, ate many many sandwiches and then continued on. I tried standing as often as possible, to give my saddle sores some temporary relief but on the juddering dirt, this was difficult. When we eventually reached the pavement, we stopped, took photos and celebrated the end of this stretch of pain (this pain was mainly located in those load bearing parts of our body which interface with the bike - hands and backside).

Getting to Iringa nice and early, I barely managed to set up my tent again when it started raining again. Our campsite is at a secondary school, on one of their fields and was until yesterday, tall grass. A quick pass over by three gardeners wielding machetes on sticks and the grass was cut. There are some curious creatures roaming around in the remains of the tall grass, and several people found frogs invading their territory as they tried to pitch their tents. This morning when I woke up, I looked up to see a frog crawling over the roof of my tent, amazed that it had made its way under the rain fly and onto the inner part of the tent. Likewise, there is a spiders web on the roof of my tent and strange stick insects that look like twigs roam the grass.

In the afternoon, hungry (as we usually are), we searched hard for a taxi but had to settle on a matatu to take us to town. The matatu was empty when we got in, but quickly became crowded, straining up most hills. In town, we attempted to eat at the restaurant of the M&R Hotel, a foolish choice. They were overwhelmed by 7 of us ordering in quick succession and in the two hours it took to get our food, three of us went for haircuts, some people went to the bank, others went shopping and explored the local market. Jason even found it necessary to go buy snacks to contain his hunger and the look on Paddy's face when he finally received his miniscule portion of beef would have been amusing if he wasn't so dejected.

After lunch-cum-dinner, we walked to Shooters bar to meet the rest of the tour. On the way we ate half a litre of icecream each (sickeningly good) and tried to browse the internet. We passed a bike shop and I managed to buy a plastic bottle cage, apparently the only one they stocked. At Shooters bar, we struggled to place drinks orders (two barmen were also the only waiters) and at one point, Tim stepped in to help them serve us. When the owners of the bar showed up later, order was partially restored - an Indian man with a stressed expression and a cigarette dangling out of his mouth flouting an air of efficiency. We met some new volunteers for the Peace Corps, a charitable project I had never heard of before (apparently limited to US citizens) - they had been here for six months and had signed up for three years - an unimaginable commitment for me personally, especially to go live in rural Africa.

This morning we went for breakfast at an awesome cafe called Hasty Tasty Too, run by an extremely friendly Ismaeli man who reminds me a lot of my grandfather, the same build (a large stomach) and round bald head. I arrived a bit late and most of the Tour appeared to have visited already - their kitchen was struggling to fulfill our orders. Anyway, I'm about to return for a hearty lunch before heading back to camp to finish off my rest day chores and duct tape my broken bottle cage to the frame.

(Or The Day Everybody Got Flats)

After a fast stretch to Dodoma yesterday, the capital city of Tanzania, and a brief taste of beautiful pavement, I vowed to take today's stage slowly in order to let my body recover. My saddle sores have resurged with a vengeance, not that painful but if they get any worse, I may be back to a situation similar to Egypt.

Having been passed by most of the fast people and sweating heavily in the swampy morning humidity, I was already irritable when I hit a piece of corrugation that gave the final blow necessary to snap my bottle cage damaged in the truck collision. It's held on with two (red) allen bolts and snapped just below the top bolt. Hopefully this means it should be repairable with Duck tape but an annoyance until then anyhow. At the same time, my camera flipped around and pulled down on the earphone cable, yanking the left earphone down and out. Consequently, I'm now back to mono (probably better for road safety).

The day got better though, I caught up with Dave and Adam and rode with Adam down some singletrack running alongside the road. (For non cyclists - singletrack is the holy grail of mountain biking, a smooth, flowing path wide enough for just a single bike.) I've been dreaming of singletrack since we started cycling in January and increasingly as both the road sections bored me slightly and as the dirt sections seemed to lack genuine enjoyment. This singletrack was sublime, flowing, sandy and lacking corrugation like the road. On my fat but skinny tyres, I struggled a bit to avoid washing out around corners (where either wheel loses traction and the bike slides sideways).

At one point there was a rock in the way, up which it was necessary to ride in order to continue down the singletrack. From one angle the rock was rideable, from another it was a sheer vertical face. The rock was hidden behind shrubbery and although I noticed Adam suddenly climb up nearly a metre, it still came as a shock to me and there was a sickening creak as my front wheel hit the part of the rock inbetween the rideable part and the vertical wall. Somehow, my bike made it up the rock and once again I wished for front suspension.

We got to lunch at 10:30, earlier than the last few days. Carrying on from lunch, we passed Steve, the youngest rider on the tour, dealing with a flat tyre. As we continued down the road, we pulled over to let a tractor pass and as it came nearer, it was clear that there was a bike skewered on the front of its fork. It all made sense when we could see Steve inside the cabin, squashed in with another five Tanzanians.

After a lengthy (warm) sode stop, a pleasant descent began, not too technical and not too steep either. Unfortunately, it was here where I got my first flat while riding on dirt (all previous have happened at camp) - I hit a sharp rock and it gouged my front tyre and tube. The front tube was my one surviving Slime filled tube and started spraying out green liquid all over my right shin. Slime is a brand of sealant that is meant to seal punctures once they happen. In this case though, either because of the location (Gerald reported a similar issue) or because of the size of the puncture, the tube didn't seal and I had to swap the tube.

By this time, I thought Adam would have continued on but when I reached the bottom, he was patching up a tube. Apparently he had a flat too and in the process of pumping up his patched tube, the valve fell apart. His spare tube had three punctures in it which he was busy patching. As further riders came past, they mentioned that quite a few others had punctures. Once we had sorted it all out, we headed down the road and managed to get to a beautiful section of singletrack.

Unfortunately, Adam's tube went flat again on this section. He repaired the fourth hole on the tube but the valve self destructed as he pumped it up. I left him behind here and went ahead. Unfortunately the singletrack didn't appear to rejoin the road and at one point when it was clearly going in the wrong direction, I cut right across several fields.

It worked and the road was under my tyres. However, both my tyres were covered in circular seeds with sharp 'teeth'. Pulling these out, I heard a hissing sound from the front tube but it seemed to be holding its air. I went on a few kilometres to find about ten riders sitting drinking soft drinks. Joining them, I was about to leave when I realised my rear tyre was completely flat. Pulling it out, I searched for a hole but couldn't find one. Putting it back in, I pumped it up and hoped that the pressure would last until camp, only 13 km away (apparently).

It didn't last. Every kilometre, I'd have to stop and pump it up and with 5 km (apparently) left to go, I decided to patch the tube since it was taking so long to pump it up each time. Once I'd dealt with the tyre, I checked the front and found that it was now also flat. Removing the tube, I patched it too and put it back together.

My patch job on the rear tyre wasn't great and it was losing its air. I managed to cycle another couple of kilometres before it was flat again. Giving up on patching it again (riding on tube with insufficient pressure had stressed the valve to the point of failure) I started walking the remaining three kilometres to camp. Shortly afterwards, the green Land Cruiser that has been supporting us came past with Adam inside, his bike was also irrepairably punctured. I gave them my bike and continued walking, although they mentioned that the distance was actually approximately eight kilometres.

By this time it was pushing 4pm and so I was already resigned to a ridiculously long stage time. Walking in the mid afternoon Tanzanian heat, it was refreshing not too attract too much attention from the locals (apparently they ignore pedestrians). A while later, I saw a local cyclist who I managed to convince (with a few Swahili words and lots of gesturing) to let me ride his bicycle. He sat on the back of the bike and I pedalled the remaining few kilometres to camp on his single speed bike with 20" wheels.

When I finally reached camp, after a ten hour day, the soup was cold and the light slowly fading. After Martin (our awesome Kenyan bike mechanic) trued my wheel, and dinner was served, I set about patching my tubes. The rear tube was wrecked but the front tube was salvageable with five more patches. I think these singletrack dreams will have to wait until my return home.

Today was more of the same unpaved roads as yesterday and overall more descent than ascent. For the manyth time on this trip, I caught myself desiring those brake levers which lie inline with the normal drop brake levers but are placed on the top of the handlebar. It is quite tiring to have to use the drop position for prolonged periods and my advice to future riders on a cyclocross bike would be to definitely bring those. (Paul, a returning rider who wasn't able to complete the tour last year, has added such levers to his bike in the interim year.)

There were a few moments going down the descent where I lost control. This was usually when my speed picked up over terrain rough enough to mean I couldn't process the road ahead fast enough and I realise that the road is approaching faster than I can react to it. In all of these cases I was able to gain control quickly, mainly by braking. A couple of times while in this mode my hands flew off the bars as my bike hit protruding rocks and I had to struggle to regain my grip. This is a recipe for danger and my brakes are usually partially enabled whilst descending most hills on dirt.

My once pristine bottle, new in Nairobi, is now a mess - scraped and blackened, having been ejected from its home in my bike's bottle cage as my bike and I ride over rough terrain. These ejections are quite an exciting sight, the bottle usually bounces just once before settling with a resounding THWACK. As it settles, the lid usually pops off, flying several metres off across the road. The contents of the bottle, usually red energy drink, empty themselves onto the road in the shape of a flame from the mouth of the bottle. Normally I notice fairly quickly but when this happened for the third time today, I noticed after a 50 metre (vertical) descent and was preparing to walk back up the hill when another rider, Paul, appeared at the top. Pausing to pick up my bottle, he delivered it to me at the bottom = much appreciated!

It was cloudy this morning which meant breaking out the yellow sunglass lenses (increased definition of the road in lower light). The clouds usually mean increased humidity and I was definitely sweating intensely, drinking 7.5 litres of water the entire day (similar to our days in Sudan). There was nearly as much climbing as yesterday - another sweat inducing way to spend the day.

The northern Kenyan road is meant to be the toughest unpaved road of the trip but I'd like to contend that observation. Whilst most of the last couple of days have been relatively straightforward rocky double track, the Tanzanian road today had several severely sandy sections. The road in Kenya was tough but rideable and occasionally fun. This road was not fun, did not cause any adrenalin release and it was extremely hard work. At times, the sand was multiple inches thick, swallowing your tyre. At some points, forward motion was almost impossible and most riders had to dismount (having been forced to by the sand stopping their bikes) and walk for a few metres to find somewhere more steady to push off on.

The worst part of it was that it was at the end of the day. Usually you can push through sand but it requires a lot of energy. At the end of the third day, the day after a mando-day (which was actually easier than today's ride), there was no energy left. Camp was a welcome relief today and I genuinely fear for my EFI status if the road tomorrow is similarly sandy.

(You should note that the road hasn't always been so sandy, it was merely corrugated in the past and had sand dumped on it to make it smoother for vehicles. Hmph.)

When we were on school ski trips, our teachers used to always say in our safety briefing that most accidents happen on either the first or last day of a trip because people are overconfident. Certainly this truth seemed to exhibit itself yesterday when on our first day of the second half I was hit by a truck.

The journey out of Arusha was at the peak of the Tanzanian rush hour on a Friday morning. For under ten kilometres we were riding through heavy traffic and riding the wave of adrenalin, I filtered through lines of cars, jeeps, buses and trucks with several other riders. As we approached a junction where a sideroad was joining our road, a truck was emerging slowly. It stopped, edged forwards a bit and then stopped again. Foolishly, assuming the truck had now stopped, I continued forward on our road, with right of way. The truck edged forwards again, pushing me+bike sideways onto the ground. Luckily it didn't advance any further and there was no real damage apart from a couple of bent (possibly fractured) bottle cages.

The driver of the truck came out and apologised profusely. I assume he simply didn't take notice of me. Lesson learnt and I'll yield more often to the African traffic. I took the rest of the day slowly, riding with Erin and Ruben. The paved road was to end at 80 kilometres but the TDA notes must be out of date since we happily rolled all the way to camp (105km) on some variety of pavement.

That afternoon I fixed the remaining issues with my bike, replacing the rear brake cable (oh does it feel good to have full control over the bike again) and redid my handlebar tape which has failed to cover about 20% of my handlebar since our first section of dirt in Sudan. Realising that we would have a significant amount of free time, with the help of some of the other riders, I devised a survey which we're going to ask every rider on the tour. Questions range from useful information for future riders to plain ol' information which is probably not so useful. Keep your eyes peeled for the results.

I slept for nearly 9 hours which seems to have helped my legs regain their speed. Today was a fast day and we hit the dirt road at 4.4km from camp. Thankfully it wasn't as hardcore as the Northern Kenya 'road' and my bike liked it. My body too was relatively happy with the amount of jarring through the handlebars (although I may be swapping gloves tomorrow to prevent a hole being worn into my palms). I started off early and was overtaken about 30km in by Frans (today's stage winner), Simon and Jethro. Just before lunch Gisi and Stuart overtook me.

After lunch, I was overtaken by noone, which was a welcome relief. Maintaining my pace to camp, the only annoyances of the day was the enormous dust clouds that the lorries and buses kicked up as they overtook us. Normally the clouds fade quickly but the sand or dust here is much finer than that we've seen previously. As a result, the air stays a sort of cloudy emulsion for tens of seconds, making it impossible to see (and irritating your eyes) and hard to breath. This is worsened on uneven downhills which require eyesight to navigate safely at any speed.

The second annoyance was being called a 'mzungu', Swahili for white person. I understand that the children here may not be well educated but surely they're able to distinguish between skin colour. (Perhaps mzungu is a general byword for foreigner but I'm a pedant for accuracy.)

The day was quite hilly, involving a fair climb on dirt - this counted as a mando-day, our fouth of the Tour so far. At on point the climb reached a 15% gradient and on that ascent I stood up to try and get enough power to move forwards. I slipped into a sandy rut at this point and my rear wheel lost traction. It wouldn't stop spinning enough for me to roll out of the rut and I had to unclip from my pedals quickly in order to avoid falling.

Looking at the actual ascent, it was under 1200 metres. Supposedly the ascent combined with the dirt made this stage difficult enough to be considered a mando-day. Personally, I don't find there is much difference between ascending on tarmac and on dirt - the speed difference might be a single kmph or so but proportionally this is much less. E.g., on a flat road on tarmac you could be travelling at 30kmph, versus 20kmph on dirt, a 50% speed difference. Climbing a hill, you (or I, because I suck at hills) could be doing 12kmph, versus 10kmph on dirt, a 20% speed difference.

Faith by Limp Bizkit shuffled around as I was grinding up the biggest single climb of 600 metres today, inadvertantly gifting me with a new climbing motto - 'get the f*** up'.

P.S. Happy Belated Birthday to Chirag, sorry for not sending a message sooner!

The mosquitos are unusually fierce here in and around Arusha. Within the last three days, I've accumulated at least twenty mosquito bites. We've been off the bikes for three days, resting in the official half way stop of the TDA. Previously I've commented about how rest days seem to go annoyingly quickly, filled with chores and other menial errands. This time, although we had much more time, about half the group elected to go on safari - I was part of a smaller group of 11 that went on a three day camping safari (although three day is a stretch, it was more like two and a half day). We left at 9am on the first day rest day and returned today on the third rest day at about 3pm.

I'm not going to go into huge detail since it's late and the photos will say far more about the safari better than I can! We visited three separate areas over the three days-
Lake Manyara National Park
The safari here was great - unlike anywhere I've been before. We saw lots of elephants and most of the big game (no lions, rhinos or cheetahs). Vegetation is very dense here so it's harder to spot animals. The area isn't huge.

Ngorongoro Crater Conservation Area
Unbelievable views. We camped on the rim of the crater and took a game drive through the crater itself. The park is pretty busy (I can imagine it getting a bit too crowded in high season) but there are plenty of animals to see. In our single game drive we saw:
- Flamingos
- Rhinos
- Hippos
- Elephants
- Giraffes
- Impalas
- Lions
- Hyenas
- Stalks
- Warthogs
- Baboons
- Meercats
- Mongoose
- Zebras
- Wildebeast
- Buffalo
In addition, I tried a new challenge - to rate limit myself to eating a biscuit every twelve minutes. This wasn't as easy as I thought and I had to stop after 18 biscuits because my stomach was uncomfortable. (Eating them in one go is very easy though - today I managed 20 biscuits without a pause.)
We spent most of the afternoon lying down in the shade under a big tree in our campsite. Awesome.

Tarangire National Park
A pretty big park but we didn't have time to explore it fully. Did almost get charged by an elephant and quite a few bites from the tsetse fly.

Overall the safari was excellent fun. The tents were hilariously old school and heavy but you could at least stand up fully in them. We didn't do much besides sitting around and getting bitten by insects so it was a good way to rest. Onwards now for the second half and the remaining 55% of the continent.

It just happened, sorry.
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Sorry for the lack of updates, the days preceding Nairobi and the two days afterwards were just busy! The ride out of Nanyuki to Sagana was beautiful - no rain and it was mainly a descent all the way into camp - nice and fast. The campsite (the Mike Savage camp) was very lush, peaceful (save for the persistent lawnmower that we could hear but not see) and to top it off, was a base for white water rafting down the River Tana.

Having never rafted before, and eager to use the full coverage of my travel insurance policy, I signed up (paying possibly slightly too much) for the three hour afternoon trip. I spent about two hours prior to the trip trying and failing to fix a puncture that I managed to get on the way into the camp. At first I was certain the patch was not on properly, took the tube out and repatched it. As I was pumping that up, air appeared to be leaking from the valve. The pump was on the truck and it took several hard trips up the short but steep incline to get to it each time. Finally, Jerry (one of the new British riders) stepped in and we discovered a hole about half a centimetre across. Observing my frustration, Jerry went ahead and put a new rear tube in for me - legend.

The rafting wasn't as death defying as I had hoped, nor as controlled. It seemed like the raft pretty much was constantly spinning and we gave it little direction. Sure there were a few situations where we fell out of the raft and were washed into relatively sharp rocks, but nothing that would have made me fear for my life. There weren't too many rapids either (maybe two or three good sections) so we spent a few times riding the first big rapid. At first I didn't want to fall out but once the raft flipped for the first time and we all flew overboard, it wasn't so bad. There are a few seconds where you're disoriented under the water and are desperately trying to figure out which way is the surface. The buoyancy aid kicks in though and you quickly surface and are dragged out of the way by the fast underwater current. It got a bit cold later in the trip because the sun was on its way West, the only disadvantage of the late afternoon trip. All-in-all it was good fun and I'm just happy my shoulder stayed in.

The next day was complicated, made more complicated by the fact we had missed the rider meeting explaining the extent of the complication. Our trip into Nairobi was to take a partial convoy on the part of the road with the heaviest traffic. To avoid doing a convoy the entire way, the route was extended to take us around the central areas, making the day 137km in total. In addition to the distance, there was also a fair amount of climbing (total ascent was 1550m).

Our route into Nairobi took us down the main highway, passing Thika. 25km into the highway, we stopped for lunch and the convoy began. In order to keep the group moving, we had three smaller convoys - I was lucky to make it into the first convoy. It was mayhem, as expected. Matatus (unofficial public transport in the form of overloaded minibuses) would swerve across our lane, or even try and pull out into the middle of the convoy. Once a 4x4 driver pulled across the front of the convoy and then stopped - his window was open and he received his fair share of verbal abuse from the riders! Soon enough though, we made it into town and down some beautiful roads, one of which contained many embassies. We passed close to my aunt's house and then rode through the city to a suburb called Karen where the campsite was located, reaching just before 2pm.

After my uncle picked me up, we went in search of the much acclaimed proper bike shop. Surprisingly it was a proper bike shop - full of high end bicycle supplies. Their stock wasn't amazing (apparently there had recently been a big event) but I managed to pick up a new (narrower) saddle and a new bottle cage. After this we went to Diamond Plaza where I had intended to get a shave. One thing led to another and I ended up with a haircut, the style of which is known as a 'tucco' - courtesy of my uncle. That evening my uncle, aunt, cousin and I feasted at their home - genuine home cooked Indian food and about 8 scoops of icecream. Beautiful.

The next day I had a massage (wonderful) and sorted out everything - cleaning my tent, bags, clothes, and bike. We went shopping, picked up a bottle of Amarula for safari, and fixed my watch! I also got to open the bag full of spare parts and goodies sent from London with my parents, with the effect that I now have the following:
- 10 Dairy Milk Crunch
- 2 Twix
- 5 Snickers
- 27 Nine Bars
- 17 Protein Bars
- 1 pack of Chocolate Digestives
- TicTacs
- 5lbs of Whey Protein
That afternoon I packed all this away (worrying all the time that it wouldn't fit in my locker - surprisingly it fits very well), met with some friends and feasted again on egg chapatis. Courtesy of my relatives at Mjengo Ltd (Anuj and Raj), we also took delivery of about 6,000 biscuits which were donated to the tour. Feedback so far has been positive - people love the biscuits. The time in Nairobi was too short (or at least too busy). I'll be back in May though!

The next day was a long (157km) day to Namanga, the Kenyan border town with Tanzania. All was going well until sometime after lunch where the newly constructed road we were unofficially using suddenly became wet tar. In retrospect we should have stopped instantly and moved off the road but we kept going. Luckily we didn't fall (as quite a few riders did) but our bikes and limbs quickly became covered in sticky, wet, tar. I could barely hold my handlebars, drink water, or eat an energy bar since my hands were so sticky and it felt unpleasant. Crucially, the brand new drive train I had just installed was now covered in sticky, wet, tar. Mentally it felt like a bit like riding into a wall - having spent the entire day previously cleaning my bike and clothes, only to have that veneer of cleanliness destroyed within half a day.

This slowed me down a lot and I was glad to reach camp. The only way to remove tar from yourself and bike is to use some kind of fuel - there was a jerry can of petrol which people were using to wipe themselves down. Something, either the massive petrol exposure or perhaps the egg chapatis the night before, made me feel quite ill - exhausted, unable to move and nauseous. When dinner rolled round, I wasn't able to eat much at all, and as usually happens on the worst days of the tour, I had dish duty. I managed to clean some of the tar from my bike but they quickly ran out of petrol.

Waking up the next day, compounding the effects of my unpleasant day previous, I had a puncture. Taking the tube out, it had a puncture near the valve - irrepairable. I was the last rider out of camp but managed to catch the group up at the border post to Tanzania. Rolling out of the border post, I forgot to scan my iButton (our timing device) and 2 kilometres later, had to turn around and go back. Great!

The rest of the day was as dreary and I severely lacked speed - either as an effect of not eating enough or because of the layer of tar on my drive train. Reaching Arusha at 3pm was a relief (EFI for another day) requiring five energy bars throughout the day just to sustain me. Arusha is a pretty built up place and Tanzania is much like Kenya. The scenery is beautifully green and we were treated to a great view of Mount Kilomanjaro on the way. Now we stop in Arusha for 3 days before we reach the official half way point of the tour. By my own statistics, we've only covered 45% of the distance (this was, presumably, because of the harder climbing and offroad days in Ethiopia and Kenya) so there is a bit of catching up to do. (Sneak preview: one of the weeks later on is at least 160km *every* day.)

I can never hold these steadily.
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Rain
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When it rains in Africa, it RAINS. There is no messing about, it'll be heavy but short. Frequent but never prolonged. When we reached Laisamis, the TDA staffer on site mentioned that the dried up river bed looked like a nice place to pitch our tents, soft and dry (it looked like it hadn't rained in a while) so about half the tour set up there.

People started packing up unusually early the next morning. Awakened by the flurry of activity, I was up and in action earlier than normal. Having packed up my tent and carried it to the truck, the heavens broke open. Lightning and thunder which was previously seen and heard respectively far in the distance came closer and closer until it became a murderous symphony directly above our heads.

The rain was already there but at the flick of a supernatural conductor's wrist, it doubled, or even tripled in volume. The drops were fat and heavy, bursting and soaking all in their path.

There was no shelter. It had been a dry and relatively clear evening and the tarps on top of the trucks were not put out. Riders stood with their backs flat against the truck. Those filling their lockers did so slowly in an attempt to avoid the rain. Breakfast was a meagre attempt at catering against adversity - a pot of baked beans slowly became more and more diluted as it filled with rain water. The ground around the truck was littered with the discarded shells of boiled eggs.

The river bed which had housed many tents quickly became a gushing river.

Riding onwards, the rain didn't stop. The sandy, gravelly, corrugated roads had turned into mush. The corrugations were still there but masked under their wet surface. Tyre tracks were several inches deep - there was no good line today. You'd be slightly quicker if you rode down the rocky ruts that had now become fast moving shallow channels for water and really, everything was wet anyway.

The rain died down though, to a pale shadow of its former self. We continued to crank our pedals and about 10 kilometres before lunch the beginnings of a nicer road began. A construction project that is supposed to create a paved road between Isiolo and Marsabit had just about reached that far - beginning by first creating a smooth dirt road and then adding a tar surface. At this point, they had only created the smooth dirt road.

The run off from the storm covered the low sections of the dirt road and created huge puddles. These were great fun to cycle through and luckily there were no unexpected potholes which could necessitate a swim! As my bike travelled through the puddle, every now and then a small green frog would jump across the front wheel.

For a while, this dirt road disappeared. In my state of mild exhaustion, I neglected to observe this road beginning again until just before camp. I kept waiting for the riders who were definitely close behind to overtake but they never did. Arriving at camp, they were all already there - and had apparently cycled past on the smoother road under construction.

As I wheeled my bike into camp, I caught my first offroad puncture of the tour, a thorn about an inch and a half long which required a pair of pliers to remove from my tyre.

The next morning I woke up and as I was about to leave, realised my attempt at patching my tube had failed. Thinking that the pre-glued patch had failed, I stuck another patch on the edge and put the wheel back together. Within a few kilometres, my tyre was down to low pressure again.

Giving up on the pre-glued patches, I elected to use a genuine patch. Unfortunately, my pump was with Jason (I had lent it to him the previous day) - fortunately the sweep rider (and Tour Director) Paul caught up and with an audience of construction workers, I patched the tube and pumped it up with his pump.

Air was still leaking out of the tyre though and I could feel myself getting slower and slower. Paul was riding along at a pretty brisk pace and after a while was a good way in front of me. It took a lot of effort to catch him up (only possible when he slowed to take an energy bar) - it could have been a painful day if my bike had punctured behind the sweep rider, especially without a pump!

The road soon turned to proper tarmac which was a welcome relief. At lunch I caught up with the main pack of the tour, took a brief lunch (just two sandwiches!) and continued on after pumping up my wheel again. I made it to camp but it took an unsurprising amount of effort.

The afternoon was a busy afternoon and I was pretty much busy from when I arrived (about noon) until sometime after dinner. To save on prose, I shall bullet point:
- Showered, nice and warm but tap gave an electric shock when turning water on and off.
- Changed dirt tyres to road tyres.
- Paddy arrived with my new crankset. Chris and I changed over the crankset but the old bottom bracket wouldn't fit the new crankset because of the adaptor that was installed previously. Removing this adaptor caused the bearings to come out of the bottom bracket and we ended up just borrowing a spare Shimano Hollowtech BB from another rider. In addition, replaced the chain and the cassette.
- Changed the seatpost from suspension to rigid. Dropped the nut from the suspension seatpost into the muddy ground and spent 10 minutes trying to find it.
- Drank my first 500ml soft drink (normally they are 300ml).
- Reinstalled my aerobars.
- Found the cause of the slow puncture - the thorn had gone through both sides of the tube and I had only patched one side.
Meanwhile, quite a few other riders drank a lot of alcohol in the dry warmth of the bar. Out under the truckside tarp we were subjected to the heasvy African rain several times each hour and the ground softened to a muddy mess. By the end of the day, all the conmfort food my parents had sent with the spare parts had been consumed.

Today was lovely and short. It started raining just as I woke up and in my fear of the outside, I lay in for about 25 minutes (not a good idea when the morning is so busy as it is). Luckily the rain stopped as we began the day's ride and within an hour it was dry. About twenty minutes in I had to pull over and remove my waterproof jacket because I was overheating.

The first 30 kilometres was a 1,200 metre climb and we had a view of Mount Kenya as we neared lunch. A pleasant tailwind and smooth roads made for easy cycling - although it was still hard on my fatigued legs. The only noticeable difference (apart from massively increased smoothness) of the new drivetrain was that there was no twisting motion as I pedalled which made my right leg ache less.

Lunch today was possibly *the* *best* *lunch* *yet* - French toast, made freshly by the Indaba crew. It was phenomenal and I managed to eat 7 slices of bread (and probably could have eaten more). The afternoon was ridiculously insignificant, and it took less than two hours to reach home for the night, the Sportsman Arms Hotel in Nanyuki.

Originally posted on the TDA Blog.

Greetings from your African dirt correspondant, exactly a month on from our first taste of dirt in Sudan. I'm writing from a small settlement called Laisamis, 95 kilometres from a dusty town called Marsabit, en route to Nairobi.

As we left Ethiopia, the heavy rain that had plagued the tour eased up and we were generously treated to several days of dryness. The weather changes quickly though and at 4:30 am on our rest day in Marsabit riders were busily putting their rain flies on their tents. The roads in Marsabit quickly turned to mushy mud and vehicles (including our own bucky, the 'Drama Queen') were getting stuck every few hundred metres. We've not had to ride over any serious mud so far on this tour so this was shaping up to be an interesting riding challenge.

There was no real rain overnight and as the riding week began, we were told of the muddy sections that awaited us on the road. After a pretty serious downhill, I settled down for a morning of gradual descent to lunch. Soon enough the first mud arrived, vehicle tracks were carved half a foot in and any clear cut path soon vanished.

Riding over the mud was slippery and I was very glad of my previously ill-thought out decision to use fairly skinny dirt tyres. The mud attaches to your wheels quickly and within minutes it's rubbing against the inner edges of your frame and fork and collecting on top of your brake callipers, making no sound but slowing you down noticeably.

For one of the early sections, there were a hardened section on the sides of the road which was much quicker to ride along. I was riding along merily at somewhere between 15 and 20 kmph when I caught sight of a local. He shouted and pointed straight across the road to something just metres in front of me. Slamming on my brakes and almost vaulting over my handlebars, the object he was pointing to was immediately apparent - a deep and wide crack in the earth.

Saved from this possible end to my riding day, I continued on to lunch, passing through water logged section after water logged section. The clear rain water turns brown as soon as it touches the soil and the standing water covering the depressed sections of road leaves a layer of fine grit on your skin, clothes and bicycle as you pedal through it. Bicycles were creaking for much of the day as the water washed off lube.

Visible from lunch was another water logged section of road where a truck had got stuck in a seemingly deep pothole. The cab of the truck was arched at 20 degrees to the surface of the water and it seemed that it was submerged about a metre. Normally the puddles aren't that deep, or at the very least, their surface maintains the same consistency as the road immediate before and immediately after it. Another rider Jason was standing on the other side of the puddle scraping his shoes but I took little notice of this. Feeling confident at my ability to ride such puddles, I cycled straight into this puddle, picking a line that followed the ruts on the road leading to it.

The first small puddle was fine but less than two metres into the second puddle I felt my front wheel disappear into some mysterious underwater chasm and I actually went over my handlebars this time. Luckily there was no hard impact, unluckily I was now soaked from neck down. The crew and passengers of the stuck truck broke into laughter and Jason, who hadn't see me cycle in, was shocked to see just my head floating above the water. We stood and watched as three more riders crossed, somehow picking a line where they stayed relatively dry. One of the TDA trucks tried the same and was wedged underwater within seconds.

The afternoon featured the much promised 'extreme corrugation' and arriving to camp was a timely relief. As riders came into camp, it was pleasant to see some of the chronic complainers extoling their enjoyment of the day.

My arms are quite sore. How, you might ask, is that possible on a cycling expedition? Well, our campsite in Marsabit is quite some distance from town and getting lifts is a time-saving necessity since taxis are almost non-existent (and surprisingly expensive). On our way back from dinner, we got a lift from one of the support vehicles for the tour - a huge green 4x4. The only hindrance was the lack of space inside the vehicle (it was filled with food supplies for the upcoming riding week), so Steve, Sam and I were standing on the footplate and holding onto the roof rack. Luckily the trip took less than 15 minutes, else my arms would have given up.

Marsabit is a small, dusty town - the main stop between Moyale and general civilisation (Nairobi, or even Isiolo where the road suddenly becomes paved). It almost reminds me of what an advanced wild west town would have looked like - small general stores and wholesalers down a muddy dirt street, fruit and vegetable shacks line the road and you get the occasional electronics store. There's a baker (it seems Tour D'Afrique has bought them out of fairy cakes, only bread is left - woe is me), a barber (I'm saving my beard for Nairobi) and several internet cafes. There's a couple of restaurants, I've only eaten at one but we've visited three times already. In all my visits, I've consumed approximately six eggs (or exactly six eggs if you want to be pedantic) and eight fairy cakes.

We're also having fun experimenting with the varieties of different carbonated drinks sold in Kenya. In Ethiopia we had only the standard Coke/Pepsi, Sprite/7up, Fanta/Mirinda drinks but here at least there appear to be four different types of Fanta, something akin to ginger ale and another bottle that looks like beer but is another fruit based drink (much to the surprise of those riders who ordered it, expecting a beer).

The campsite is some kind of collection of dormitories and is run by nuns. There's a big statue of the Virgin Mary near the dorms and some kind of chapel too. I've yet to figure out what this place is called but there is some kind of meteorological station nearby and two huge silos (basically warehouses) on an adjacent field. Terrorist scientist nuns? A distinct possibility.

Speaking of the weather, at about 4:30am, I woke up with a wet face. Swearing vociferously, I slid out of my sleeping bag (an easy task because of its pre-existing broken-zip condition) and stumbled out of my tent to put the rain fly on. Just about every other rider was doing the same. It continued to rain well into the morning and when I had gathered the courage to leave my tent at 9am, everything outside was soaked. The roads were an incredible mess of mud and jeeps were getting stuck every few hundred metres. We were unable to find a lift to town this early and walked in the rain, sliding across the inclined path into precarious proximity to the muddy ruts.

Returning to camp by a combination of foot power and a lift on the back of someone's motorcycle, the laundry dilemma resurfaced and I resolved to hope for the sky to clear later in the day. I washed my clothes using rain water that had been collected in a big black tank - it struck me that if this was home, the rain water probably wouldn't have been safe to use! Chris trued my front wheel, with the advice that perhaps I should 'regulate' a bit more, which I took to mean 'ride carefully'.

Since there was no point in washing my bike before another three days of unpaved road, I had the afternoon to myself and with a steady electricity supply, it was now possible to read one of the many ebooks I brought on my laptop. I'm about a sixth of the way through 'Coders at Work', a superb and inspiring collection of interviews with prolific programmers. I've also finished a short story by Cory Doctorow, 'I, Robot'. In an attempt to restart my brain I've also been blitzing through Sudoku puzzles.

If the rain returns tonight, there's a distinct possibility that we'll be stuck in Marsabit for a second rest day since any more mud would make it hard for the trucks to travel. Hopefully this won't happen though and we'll be able to attempt the 600 metre descent that awaits us out of camp.

Slightly cleaner than when it started
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(or This Is Africa)

Today was a long day. Some days are long, purely because of the distance, but today the distance was relatively short (87km). The ground was unusually rough and upwardly inclined. It was the second of the three hardest days of the tour - the first was the Blue Nile Gorge climb and the third will be somewhere further south where we cycle 200km in one day (the longest single stage).

As I may have remarked previously, it is days like this when you wish you had thought about your bike choice better. They throw a lot of advice out to us - about tyres, bringing suspension and all the rest. Somehow, in the bike choosing process, I settled on a cyclocross bike and in the days before today, I began to wonder if I would be able to actually ride the road (based on a photo of the lava rock fields I had seen). Luckily the road is slightly clearer than the fields, there are ruts where vehicles have driven and as such, there is a way forward.

Often these ruts will be gravelly and hence incredibly slippery - if you slow down enough you eventually lose balance. This is fine when you're fresh and full of energy but as they day goes on, it becomes increasingly hard to keep your speed up. Dropping down some gears lets you pedal easier but you tend to slip more as more torque runs through your wheel.

Every now and then you'll notice that the other rut is smoother, or less gravelly or better packed (i.e. flat) and you'll consider switching. Sometimes, it's worth switching - if you don't, you'll lose a silly amount of time. Sometimes, it's not worth switching - since 15 metres down the road it will become just as bad as your side. Sometimes they alternate and you can either switch constantly (again, requiring lots of energy) or just stick it out in your rut.

Switching almost always mandates a high chance of falling. The middle section between the two ruts is thick gravel and usually the ruts are recessed by half a foot or so, with a slight slope on the sides of the middle section. It's possible, if you have enough speed and the right angle, to ride straight up and over the middle. Not enough energy, or just mistiming things and you'll slide straight over - the cause of many riders' grazes and cuts.

I've got a few cuts to the leg, nothing serious. The skin on my index finger where I grip the hoods of my brake levers has worn down since my glove is ripped and I need to put a plaster on it to stop it rubbing down further. It hurts to grip things - I can feel it in my fingers most, presumably from holding onto the handlebars tightly for 6-7 hours. I also have some nice callouses forming on my palms from the repeated small impacts which are passed up through the fork. Saddle sores are back in fashion - presumably for several riders. Hopefully with the upcoming rest day in Nairobi and three rest days in Arusha, they'll go away quickly enough.

Riding aside, the heat in Kenya is stifling and almost as bad as that of the Sudanese desert. Normally we'll arrive to camp as the heat is about to reach its peak, although today took much longer and most of the heat was experienced while out on the bike. The beauty of these roads being so bad is that we are, for vast stretches of time, completely alone. I pulled over several times, took my headphones out and just listened to the wind, the birds and some surprisingly noisy insects. The country is very flat and you can see the bush for miles (or kilometres...) around. This is the Africa I imagined when I signed up.

Supposedly Kenya's in my blood since both my parents are Kenyan. With that disclaimer, I'll state the following: Kenya is awesome! The country is pleasant to travel through and the sky is pretty phenomenal. We've seen lots of camels today, some baboons and the occasional person too. A small bar opposite our campsite serves some superb chapatis (I wasn't aware that these were so common in Kenya).

The riding today was harder on the joints - being corrugated dirt road with a sandy surface. Foolishly, I tried to adjust my brakes myself last night which, given the large, rocky descent straight out of camp, was not a good idea. I took the descent slowly and stopped often to fiddle with my brakes (to no avail). Luckily the rest of the day didn't require as much braking and it was over relatively quickly, I arrived into camp well before noon.

The road tomorrow is similar for the first 60km before we hit the lava rock. I'm quite apprehensive about this surface, it's been hyped up ever since we started thinking about what bike to bring. This is the meanest, hardest and roughest road we'll meet during the tour. Talking to the other riders, it is rideable on a cyclocross bike and will probably need an even higher level of determination to finish. With any luck, my rear wheel will hold together.

Paul (the tour director) helped me adjust my brakes today - he's incredibly handy and they work beautifully now. I'm usually loath to complain but I find it odd how little time Chris (our bike mechanic) seems to have for actually repairing bikes. He has two pre-arranged sessions a week of an hour long and some time on our rest days. People's bikes are beginning to need a fair amount of work as we get deeper into the tour - especially as we hit the rougher terrain. Sub-optimal.

The mosquitos are biting harder now and I've picked up three new bites in the last day alone. It's also getting warmer - I barely cover myself with my sleeping bag at night now, finding it a bit on the sticky side.

We're in Kenya. A dreary 80 kilometres of questionable quality pavement and a fairly unremarkable border crossing and we're in the motherland, or at least my motherland. Crossing the border, the fact that we're in a country is unmistakeable. Aside from driving (or riding) on the left hand side of the road, the people are friendlier here and more of them speak English. The kids don't hassle you, they merely stare (which is still not ideal but always better than a barrage of rocks).

I've spent about £20 worth of mobile phone credit already just catching up with family and friends. I've managed to organise via my father a new crankset, rim, set of pedals and a helmet - with any luck these will make it to Kenya with Paddy, another rider who is in London for an interview.

Talking to my aunt in Nairobi about what I'd like to do there, I mentioned the hierarchy of desirable snack food. That is, biscuits are at the bottom - easy to buy in every city, these are a staple snack item for every rider. Chocolate bars fall above biscuits - these are considerably harder to find in less well trafficked areas of Africa and are usually expensive (not an option on my post-student budget). At the top of the hierarchy is ice cream. When I used to weigh a metric ton, I used to eat a bowl of ice cream everyday. So far in the trip I've not had a single scoop of ice cream (although some riders found some at the (amazing) Sheraton in Addis) Ice cream is on the agenda for certain.

The rough terrain is worrying me, which is annoying because I usually love riding offroad. The next few days will be concerned mainly with preserving my bicycle in its now delicate state.

I'm not sure what else to say really. I was so stoked (and hence distracted) to be entering Kenya that I cycled into a pedestrian on the almost euphoric ride out of Ethiopia through the border town Moyale. Luckily it didn't break me or my bicycle further than it has already been damanged.

Oh, and the bugs are getting bigger and uglier. Every night I battle against some dastardly insect which has had the misfortune to find its way into my tent. Some of them can fly or jump pretty high, and in a small two person tent, this is a recipe for disaster.

The rain is heavy, it's been raining every night (and often during the day too) and *everything* is wet. Luckily it was dry enough this afternoon to let my sopping wet (but clean) clothes dry. We also have the dinner truck back which means there is one less bag to find space for inside the tent.

(Or Ethiopian Roads, A Survival Story)

Friday, or stage 34 was another wet start. The roads were dry when we started riding and it was our last day of riding before our rest day here in Yabello. I started by myself, with the thought that I'd have slow legs - the previous day was slow and we hadn't had exactly had time to recover much. Luckily (or so I thought), the day involved an overall descent and I found my legs spinning up to speed quite nicely.

The road was bad pavement as before but we had a new challenge - large potholes. At first they came only every so often but with each passing tenth of a kilometre, they spread over more and more of the road before disappearing for a short while, only to return in stronger numbers further down. Feeling quick and overconfident in my technical ability, I was flying over the potholed downhills at 50 kmph, barely braking and steering through the obstacles like a commuter in London traffic.

Barely eight kilometres in the road got substantially worse. Unknowingly, I approached that downhill section of road with the same callous disregard that I had the previous eight thousand metres. I lost control. The potholes came fast and faster. I didn't brake, they came too fast. I cleared one, cleared two, cleared three, and then on the fourth the back wheel came down with a sickening 'crack'. On the fifth, the largest yet, my front wheel got 'stuck'. The hole was deeper than my wheel wanted to roll over and so all that forward momentum (at this point it felt about 60 kmph) that my body was carrying threw me over the handlebars and I rolled straight over, landing on my back.

Moments later, I stood up, shocked, slightly grazed but conscious and with a full memory of the reckless idiocy that had just preceded. Hardy, one of the German cyclists, was behind me when I fell and stopped immediately to help me. He described the accident as 'just horrible'. He took me by the shoulder and told me to take a seat. The locals started to gather. I looked around, my right shoe was missing, my glasses were on the ground, the bike was lying on its side several metres from the pothole and my drinks bottles were scattered around it. My MP3 player was still playing music. Shockingly, my shoulder was still in its socket.

Hardy brought my bike, glasses and shoe over. My wheels were severely buckled - we spent a good 15-20 minutes trying to get the bike to turn without the brakes rubbing on the rim. The crowd of locals grew stronger. Several other riders passed, some stopped but we motioned for them to continue and they did. The TDA truck stopped but again, we gave them the thumbs up and they continued. Once the wheels were spinning and everything looked like it was in working condition, I tried cycling again.

The right hand side crank is bent. This is supposedly almost impossible and for a while we suspected it was just he pedal but swapping it with another pedal didn't fix the feeling of lopsided pedalling. Now, when pedalling, the right hand side ellipse is smaller than the left hand side ellipse. My right hand side brake lever was completely loose - presumably as a result of bearing the full impact of the ground. The rear wheel is irreparably bent (Chris tried straightening it but there are clear signs of stress on the rim).

Riding for the rest of the morning, I paused a couple of times to check my injuries. I have some grazes on my leg, but nothing too deep. My ankle is grazed, presumably as a result of losing the shoe. The back of my right shoulder is also grazed. The worst injury appears to be a swelling just below my stomach where I made contact with the topcap of the fork assembly. My shorts were ripped. At first I thought this was just on the side but was informed at lunch that a small amount of my backside was also now visible - I guess that explains the giggles as I cycled up hills. My face was scraped around my right eye where the goggles cut into my face. My helmet is largely intact but about of half of the front half is scratched where it made contact with the ground.

The rest of the day was another stark change in scenery. The hills are omnipresent but the crowds subsided to give relatively peaceful, almost desert-like red soil. Termite mounds were scattered along the side of the road, some in early stages of construction while others towered above the road like nature's skyscrapers. My camera was broken by the crash, so I have no pictures of these strangely beautiful creations.

General consensus is that I got off lucky. At that speed, on that road, it could have been much worse. Calamity Jane took the brunt of the impact and while I might be pedalling lopsided this week until my spare parts come through, at least I'll be pedalling and still EFI.

We're in Yabello now and about to leave tomorrow. It's a really boring town and there's no internet cafe. It could be yet another week before anyone reads this. Kenya approaches in just two days and I'll be able to talk to relatives again. It's been an intense week. And with that, February is over.

So we finally had our first experience of rain whilst riding. Not only was it there while we were riding, it was there while we packed up ou tents. Dan doesn't consider it 'rain' but 'spitting', but then again he's Australian. In England it would be considered rain - much like what we get about 60% of the year. Just about everything is now unclean - my tent has splodges of dirt on the side (the inner part of the tent is white, the rain fly is green - it shows up very clearly on the inside). My Thermarest, bags, bike, cycling clothes, casual clothes are all splashed with muddy water.

Today was our second mando-day, and we didn't receive much description in advance. They're trying to maintain the number of mando-days
year to year, except we're taking a different, slightly shorter route to Kenya to make up for the extra rest day. It was pretty difficult, similar to the previous mando-day (about 2,000 metres of climbing this time) and I definitely suffered. In addition, my legs are tired from the three days I've ridden hard and the stomach issues of that last couple of days have made it hard to eat enough. So it was a slow day snd my race position will be pretty poor.

The roads weren't too bad but coupled with the rain, quite an adventure to cycle down - reminding me of some of the mountain biking trips we've had to Wales and the Peak District. A couple of guys crashed on the downhills and I suspect rain was a factor in one out of the two. The rain cleared after lunch and it became more pleasant as everything dried off. My logic behind buying a cheap cycle computer was that it would be more reliable. This logic was thwarted by the rain and for the first 71 kilometres (confirmed by my GPS unit which sits in my Camelbak), the cycle computer didn't work.

Once it started working again, and I had managed to find one of the few spots over 100km that are private and hence suitable for taking a 'comfort break' the ride started feeling a lot better. The children were out in force today, there were houses pretty much constantly along the road. No rocks were thrown but lacking my MP3 player (for fear of water damage), I was forced to listen to approximately 2,000 'YouYouYouYou's along the way. There were a few interesting variations though, including one man who asked if I spoke Hindi, and a few 'Good Marning's. I also figured out that a good way to get a few moments of peace and quiet was to tell the kids to 'shh' and put your finger to your lips - it appears this transcends cultural and linguistic boundaries.

Finally, before my laptop battery runs out, the timing Gods have spoken and I did win yesterday's stage. Superb.

I don't know where to place the cause for the events of today. It was unexpected, a first in my life and yet for every second of it I had the sweet mesmorizing thought of victory in my head. For the not inconsiderable period from 73 kilometres (lunch) until 128 kilometres, I was leading the race for stage 32 of the Tour D'Afrique.

Yesterday I was with the lead group, one of the late starters (which meant my day's time would have been less than anyone in that group who had started before me) and trying my hardest to stay with them. This is something that would have unfathomable at the beginning of the tour but which was made achievable by nearly 6 weeks of cycling. Early on in the day we had a crash. We were riding in a group and it was my turn to pull (so I was at the front).

As we entered one of the first of a number of villages, we widened our group, slowed down a bit and prepared to dodge pedestrian, vehicular and animal traffic. It was a group of unruly youths whose alpha male swagger led them to touch shoulder with Dan that caused three quarters of the peloton (i.e. the three people after me) to go down. Besides Dan, Stuart and Marcel went over their handlebars into each other. I managed to glance back quickly enough to see them just as they all collided with each other. The group of youths scattered, presumably suspecting they'd caused an accident and not wanting to get in trouble.

The aftermath of the accident was mainly centered on Marcel - his rear derailleur had bent into an unnatural angle and his wrist was damaged. After an x-ray today, it seems he won't be riding for a few days because it is strained - luckily not broken.

Now, I hate to sound so conceited (?) but this meant that the next few stages were open. Marcel is a fantanstic cyclist, both on road and off-road. I don't think I might be able to beat him, at least not for the foreseeable future. Having ridden the last two days hard, most riders (and therefore racers) were slower today. In addition, stage 32 was the longest stage of our five day week, at 133km. From the morning, it was obvious in my mind that today would be a day to push the boat out a little and try for a good ranking.

In the morning I tried riding by myself but was soon caught by Dan and Gisi who are usually part of the fastest group. I joined them since they were going at a reasonable pace and it seems that this pace was faster than most of the field as we were quickly overtaking other riders. It was useful riding in a group as there was a heavy headwind in the morning and drafting provided some protection (although I gather that I should have drafted less). When we arrived at lunch there were just three riders ahead of us, Rod, Juliana and Tim, all of whom who had left earlier than us.

I stayed ahead of the group (now Dan, Gisi and Stuart) as we returned to the road after lunch and waited for them to overtake me as usually happened. For some reason, it didn't. The first climb was long, straight and on a narrow road which was being refurbished. I went at a pace that seemed workable to me and just kept pedalling. Soon, ten kilometres had passed and there was no sign of the trio. I had overtaken Rod and Juliana and Tim had left after us at lunch - I was at the front of the pack.

I kept going at a pcae that seemed comfortable to me, pushing myself every now and then to up the speed a little bit. The road got worse and worse, at some points being rough and pot holed, at others being smooth but with bumpy patches of tarmac which would throw your bike all over the road. The children were as annoying as usual but I was in the zone and concentrating enough to ignore them.

Every minute I would think to myself that I'd be overtaken any minute soon - that I should just prepare myself for the possibility. My brain fixated on the chance that I might just win the stage, winning something truly meaningful for the first time in my life. With each passing kilometre the chance that I'd be overtaken seemed to reduce in my mind.

At 120 kilometres I ran out of energy. This happened at 100 kilometres the previous day, about 10 kilometres from the finish (I wonder if this is a mental issue) and I continued to consume an energy bar in chunks. At 128 kilometres I was finishing this off and from the corner of my vision came Stuart on his bright yellow (or 'golden') bicycle. The probably of winning the stage shrunk considerably in my head and I put everything I had left (not much at all at this point) into trying to catch him.

He had gained about 250 metres in the overtake (I was going slowly as I ate) and we raced through a village and down the road. I lost sight of him as a considerable 'valley' approached (a downhill followed by an uphill).I cranked up my speed to 60 kmph on the downhill whilst realising that the orange finish flag lay at the bottom of the hill on the right. Coming in hot, I braked as hard as I could near to the flag, locking my rear wheel for several metres and then pelted down the grassy embankment, veering into the side of the water trailer at the back of the dinner truck. Touching my i-Button against the reader attached to the truck, the day was over.

The time difference between us has yet to be determined. We both left in the morning at virtually the same time and so the overall result depends on how the afternoon reading was processed. My guess is that the best result (for me) would be a draw. Alternatively, Stuart will have won by a minute. I'm looking forward to finding out from Kelsey, the race secretary, tomorrow.

Post race, my stomach has been acting up a bit. Not wanting to be another statistic, it has of course happened - I have become ill in Ethiopia. Luckily I think I've avoided the bug going around camp still and my problem is related to acid reflux, a problem I've had for several years and most certainly caused by the buffet breakfast at the Sheraton. I'm certain the buffet is also one of the reasons behind my racing energy over the last three days.

Our convoy out of Addis Abeba was as unofficial as the convoy entering it. The only difference was this time we were riding on a Tuesday morning and not a Sunday evening - this brought the added challenge of heavy traffic. The traffic brought with it the pollution I remarked upon yesterday - a putrid layer of black smog that we had no choice but to breathe in. Our new sectional riders found it difficult to breathe with the combination of poor air and altitude.

The smog didn't ease up as the convoy came to a halt (nearly 20 kilometres out of our campground) and with a brief gathering of riders, we were given the all clear to take off. The rest day (incorporatimng the Sheraton buffet) has had a positive effect on my speed and I was able to push it quite hard, keeping up with Marcel, Jerry (a new sectional rider) and a group of Ethiopian racers from Addis Abeba. This was going terrifically well until we got to a railway crossing and my bottle decided to jump out off my bike in its usual fashion. One of the Ethiopian riders waited for me, we managed a good 10-15 kilometres before I stopped to pee.

Just as I was getting back onto Calamity Jane, the second fastest convoy passed by, I was unable to catch them, lacking the drafting advantage. A couple of riders dropped out though (Viv, another new sectional and Tony - both British) and I rode with them to lunch.

When we arrived at the lunch bus, lunch was only just being laid out and this eroded any time advantage the group in front had. I managed to leave with the first group out of lunch and kept up with them for the relatively short 40 kilometres to camp. My heart rate was pushing a good 170/180BPM, on the extremely high side - I highly doubt this will be achievable tomorrow!

Riding in a peloton was useful today since we had a strong head/cross wind and it shows in the average speed of 30.7 kmph for the day (bearing in mind that the convoy was pretty slow for the first fifth of the day). As we got closer to camp, it was clear that no one was going to overtake us and that we were the fastest group. It came to my turn to pull the group, about 5 kilometres from camp and after a short while I was puzzled to see some of the riders overtake and sprint past into the distance. Soon though, it became clear that we had reached the trucks, although for some reason they had sprinted some distance down the road (apparently looking for a Finish flag).

Because of the short day, the flag hadn't reached camp yet and Stuart, Dan and I were first to the scanner on the side of the truck (this is what records our race times and determines the race winner). Conceivably I could have tagged in first and 'won' the stage but seeing as Stuart and Dan had done the majority of the pulling in the group, they tagged in first and Stuart was our new stage winner! My highest ranking yet - third.

We had the whole afternoon to ourselves, we played a game of Settlers of Katan (a board game of conquest similar to Risk), I took a nap, read more of 'The Life of Pi' and photographed the large number of storks nearby. At dinner, I contemplating trying some of the meat. Today it was less processed that normal (chicken wings versus some sort of curried meat) and I couldn't bring myself to eat something that looks so close to an actual animal part. I remain vegetarian.

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Fear of height.
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Just before a crash.
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Plural.
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Gigantic.
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Addis Abeba is a surprisingly modern city and the internet speed here is definitely quicker than elsewhere in Ethiopia. It is also home to a fair few Italian restaurants - the place we ate dinner at was excellent (in service and in food). Our wanderings around the Piazza area last night was a rememberable taste of the slightly seedy, very energetic capital city night life. Bars were at most 20 metres apart and overamplified music pumped out of their neon lit doorways. Peering into their darkened quarters, it was easy to tell which were popular and which were still waiting on a crowd. The music ranged from a mixture of American Popular to local Ethiopian music, of varying quality (static was a common audible artifact). This was all on a Sunday evening too.

This morning we ventured to the Sheraton, the most exquisite hotel in Addis Abeba. Several riders who are feeling deprived of their luxury so far have checked in (evidently the credit crunch is over - apparently last year about 95% of the riders camped out, far fewer are camping this year). For the cash strapped of us however, breakfast was our brief taste of opulence - $25 for a typically 5* breakfast buffet. We took our time there, about two hours, and I figure I must have consumed about 2,000 calories at least. I stopped at the point where I felt any speed bumps would have caused my body to expel food.

The journey to the hotel was in a typical blue and white local taxi, where the doors usually need two people to open them and whistling and whining noises are commonplace. The windows didn't quite roll all the way up and we received a good whiff of the Addis air. It was terrible. I thought Delhi was badly polluted but for some reason Addis Abeba tops it at rush hour - most likely because many of the vehicles are much older (there was a layer of black fumes contained in the closest 4 feet of air to the ground). On our way back we managed to take a hotel cab which was an E-Class Mercedes - true luxury and the climate control sheltered our defeated lungs from the onslaught of vehicular exhaust.

We're saying goodbye to two sectional riders today, a nice couple (Mark and Georgie) who became engaged on this trip! Mark apparently proposed at some point on the Blue Nile Gorge stage - this was a pretty inspired move, respect to the man. Several new riders have joined and the camp looks nice and busy again.

Aside from eating a ridiculous quantity of food for breakfast, the rest of the day has been consumed with mundane restday tasks like laundry, cleaning my bike, fixing my bike (no more creaks thanks to Chris, our bike mechanic, and a tube of bike grease) and sorting out my luggage. The hills should mostly be over now and the cycling plainer until we reach Northern Kenya and the offroad pain begins again.

It's been a busy week, not unusually difficult (at least not like our last week in Sudan anyway) but still tough. We've covered a good distance through Ethiopia and climbed to our highest point on the tour (3108m according to Mr. Garmin). Apologies for not writing more but a combination of a lack of motivation and a lack of energy effected themselves.

The day after I last wrote we had one of the most difficult climbs of the tour - the Blue Nile Gorge. This is a 1200m descent and ascent from 2500 metres down to 1300 metres, to a bridge which crosses the Blue Nile. The descent took approximately 25 minutes (I am ashamed to say that I had to use my brakes on a number of occasions, to avoid rocks, trucks and substantial potholes whilst also trying to prevent my bottles from jumping out of my bottle cages), whilst the ascent took me 2 hours and 38 minutes. (The fastest rider took about an hour less.)

Climbing isn't my forte - I normally grind up a hill, I think in this case, a slightly wider cassette would have been desirable (my lowest gear is 34-25). I started the climb after 11am and the day only became hotter as I ascended. Luckily with the increase in altitude, the temperature dropped, which offset the heat beating down from the sky. The sorry expression on my face (a look of exhaustion and inability to speak/breathe) handily stopped the roadside locals from trying to converse with me too much. I found also that choosing relaxing music was better to help my concentration - anything too heavy and my heart rate would climb through the roof whilst resulting in no additional forward velocity.

The climb passed unusually quickly, as I just kept 'mashing' the pedals forward, looking down at my odometer periodically to discover that the total number of kilometres was actually rising, albeit slowly. I wasn't overtaken by many riders which was pleasant - I despise being overtaken when I'm working as hard as physically possible.

As the top approached, the nature of the climb just conquered was belittled in my mind - previously it had seemed like a near impossible feat. My impression of climbing? With some pain, sweat, lots of zigzags and some slight sunburn, it is not so impossible. Some beautiful views and this was probably the second real 'Holy S**t I'm Cycling Through Africa' moment of the trip (the first being in the deserts of Sudan).

Relieved to have reached the orange Finish flag, I kept cycling and actually went a few kilometres past the campsite. Realising my error, I decided to grab a cold drink before heading back home. An outwardly friendly gentleman who spoke semi-decent English helped direct me to a drink seller and as I went to pay, he took the money in and came out with my 2 Bir change (approximately ten pence). Before I knew what had happened, he ran off down the street and the man selling drinks explained that I had just been robbed. There we go.

The next day of riding was easier and shorter. In the morning, conscious of the everpresent threat of rock throwing children, I quickly braked to a halt (endo-ing my bike, with the back wheel two feet above the ground). I turned around and chased down the boy in the red t-shirt, down the side of the road into a gated building which I assume was his home. It was here where (I assume, again) his mother came out, with the most terrified expression I have ever seen on a woman on her face. She was almost hysterical, speaking Amharic fast (not that this helped my lack of understanding). I tried to explain to her that rock throwing was unacceptable and she seemed genuinely apologetic. Hopefully the kids learnt their lesson - the rock they threw hit my crank and scratched the glossy black paint with some depth.

Later on in the day, I received a brick sized rock to my left shin as I was cycling downhill at 50kmph. I immediately stopped and tried to chase down the kids who ran into the field adjacent. Unfortunately their rock had also knocked my chain off and my attempt to pedal further resulted in a bizarre knot in the chain. A truck stopped at this point and the driver was ready to help. Unfortunately there was nothing that could be done but I'm glad to see that at least the adults are somewhat compassionate. Later on I was a moving target for another gang of children and yet another lorry stopped. This time he yelled at the kids and followed me for some distance to make sure I wasn't bothered again - very grateful for his help.

I'm not sure what twisted joy the kids receive out of throwing rocks at us and I've been relatively lucky (one child managed to hit a rider in the groin with a rock - true pain). It's sad to see how this has changed the perception of all of the riders. Some comment on how amazed they are at their feelings towards these kids who assault them with rocks - one rider who is raising money for a charity which does some work in Ethiopia says it is very disheartening that these people he is trying to help are obliviously hurting him and other riders. I'm a firm believer in karma - I won't throw a rock back at these kids, remembering the quote from Ghandi - 'An eye for an eye will make the whole world blind.'

Rocks aside, it was refreshing as we arrived in camp to notice that the kids had switched to saying 'Hello'. Supposedly a local lecturer at a university made posters telling people to say 'Hello' instead of 'Youyouyouyou'.

The altitude is definately affecting riders' physical ability. Marcel commented on how he was finding it hard to breath, shortly before he smoked half a pack of cigarettes. I'm finding the load on my respiratory system more significant too and I've been using my inhalers more (and not smoking at all before anyone gets worried).

The final day of the week was a non-race day which was a beautiful way to finish the section. The morning prayers were even earlier than normal (4am, what on earth are they thinking?) although apparently this was coming from the nearby Christian monastery now. I took it very easy and we ate a very long lunch. The sharp climb to the beginning of the convoy wasn't as difficult as the drawing appeared and the convoy was pretty much entirely downhill into Addis Abeba.

The convoy was a hilariously African affair, having no police support what so ever. A group of riders took off before the vehicle that was meant to be at the front of the convoy and it was quite a few kilometres before they managed to rejoin the actual convoy! Marcel didn't have working brakes so he'd pull over every so often and wait for the convoy to pass before joining it at speed and reaching the front in a matter of seconds. Our convoy vehicles were the local support's minibus and the Drama Queen (TDA's 4x4) and they took traffic law into their own hands, skipping red lights and blocking roundabouts.

For all those people who haven't seen Star Trek before (can't rmeember what series exactly), there is a race of aliens called the 'Ferengi'. In Ethiopia, the word ferengi refers to us: foreigners. I'd to describe what I call the ferengi switch, a phenomenon that seems to occur daily as we ride through the country.

I had the privilege yesterday of riding at the front of the tour for nearly the first 50 kilometres before I was overtaken by Jethro and Marcel, two fast riders. During this time I didn't hear a single 'you' (or multiple 'you's for that matter) nor was I the target for any stony airborn missiles. However, as soon as they had overtaken me, there was an instantaneous change in the attitude of the average pedestrian alongside the road. Suddenly everyone wanted to grab my attention ('hey, you') and the kids were back in their groove.

I can only surmise this occurred because there had now been enough time for the realisation that ferengi had just passed by to come to fruition. Alternatively, they were previously ignoring me because I am darker skinned and less likely to be considered a fully fledged ferengi. Indeed a lot of students (on their way home from school) asked me 'havashah' or something similar. Confused at this statement, I checked with our Ethiopian host who explained that it refers to the local people, they were asking if I was local.

What is certain though is that my skin colour makes zero difference once the first guys have gone past, whether it be because they are white or not. I've stopped acknowledging the hundreds of children we see daily who try to get my attention - they don't know what they are saying or why and I didn't decide to cycle through Africa with the intention of having a fly-by conversation with thousands of Ethiopian children! Luckily with the spare pair of headphones someone has lent me, this is now entirely feasible since I genuinely don't hear them. Once in a while they will get frustrated and throw a rock or two but this strategy seems to suffice.

There has been a bout of illness spreading through the camp - some kind of gastroenteritis (or stomach bug). It involves intense diarrhoea and stomach pain. So far about 60-70% of the tour has had or is having it and it seems like only a matter of time before it enters my body. I've been trying hard to stay away from those infected but when we're all living in such close proximity, sometimes it is almost impossible. Some brave riders have ridden entire days whilst ill but most have just ridden the trucks. If I contract the bug, I will have to ride in order to remain EFI. Another interesting challenge.

Non race day, so we're all chillin'
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Some crazy beings crawling around in the grass.
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Mmm, protein.
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Trees
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We're in Bahir Dar, yet another rest day - the third within five days and one of the originally scheduled rest days. This town is like a relaxed version of Gondar, with fewer people trying to hassle us as we walk down the street and a generally more laid back atmosphere. The internet speed seems marginally quicker than Gondar in any case.

The big attraction here is Lake Tana, supposedly the third biggest lake in Africa. It is quite pretty and quite undeveloped compared to most lakes in the Western world. There a few hotels/resorts which line the shores but for the most part there is nothing but green bush. Accessible via the lake is a peninsula which contains a population of 15,000 who work mainly farming a vast area of coffee being grown. On this peninsula sits a Christian monastery and on two islands in the middle of the lake sit another two monasterys, one of which is only open to men.

Most of my friends will know that I often struggle to understand religion, and Christianity sits high up on the list of religions I do not understand. Like copyright, it strikes me as an antiquated set of rules based on a fallible set of logic. In any case, this isn't a religious blog so I'll leave it at that. The monastery was less impressive than the Buddhist monasteries we visited in Nepal and the Jain dharamsalas we visited in India.

I was expecting a small but noticeable population of religiously dressed types walking around and performing their daily duties, a clean, sparse but peaceful enclave in which they could lead a life of piousness and study. Instead, all we saw was a circular building in which there was a rectangular structure covered in tapestries. Like another rider commented, it looked like a giant comic strip. On the outside of the building was some noisy construction work (so much for the peace) and the whole place just smelt slightly odd. There were a few shacks around this main building where I assume people slept. As for actual monks, we saw just two. A waning population or what? We saw a similar number in the men only monastery we visited and I think the third monastery was similar. Aside from these drawings then, there was nothing outwardly impressive about these places.

Last night we had a Mardi Gras themed party - a tradition for when the tour reaches Bahir Dar. People made varying efforts to dress up and many enterprising riders acquired plenty of tinsel and masks to complete their costumes. The most terrifying of these attempts was that by Stuart and Dave - both of whom decided to dress as women. Hardy had an interesting take on his costume, choosing to wear a vegetable sack, while Paul - tour director - went for a different sort of terrifying, dressing as a local priest. My own costume was rather lacklustre, not wanting to waste either money or tinsel, opting only for a smarter-than-normal short sleeve shirt.

We've been gorging ourselves in a local cafe called 'Starbacks', which bears little resemblence to the Starbacks we all love and hate. In addition to the cafe (which serves probably the best hot chocolate I've had so far in Africa), there is a reasonably priced restaurant which serves a pretty decent spaghetti napolitana. We've been to eat there three times now and dinner is fast rising up the list of immediate priorities. The waitresses are getting better now but initially it was a shock to them that for a table of 6 people, we were attempting to order 11 main courses. After the first meal and observing Ruben's stack of four plates, it has become slightly less outlandish in their eyes and hopefully our dinner order will go much smoother.

As I walked down the street yesterday, there was a man with a weighing scale on the sidewalk. Seizing the opportunity to see what effect burning over 90,000 calories since we began riding has had, I jumped on the scale and watched the needle settle. Disappointingly, it appears I am near enough the same weight I was when I left home in January. Perhaps I've lost half a kilogram or so but I had thought more would come off.

Anyway, we ride on tomorrow morning to reach Addis Abeba in five days time. I'm looking forward to reaching Kenya soon after. For those who don't know my geneology well, both my parents and hence most of my immediate family are Kenyan - they were born and grew up there. I have some relatives left there who hopefully I'll get a chance to meet - if not in March then in May when I return from Cape Town. (Some of my grandparents are Indian but we have only a few distance relatives who I do not know living there now.) In addition, Kenyans are quite friendly generally and as far as I am aware, you don't get rocks thrown at you.

Campsite is a bit compact today. When we started the tour, tents would be spread out over a huge area as riders tried to grasp onto whatever limited notion of privacy they could realise. In Ethiopia however, more so than Sudan and Egypt so far at least, there is seemingly an unlimited supply of local children (in fact that majority of the population appears to be sub-20 in age) who will quickly form an audience wherever tourists tend to go. As I mentioned previously, they tend to arrive out of nowhere and within seconds. They stand silently and stare, at least at first. The age range of our typical audience varies from toddlers to wizened teenagers who walk with a slight air of experience.

The children here are quite quick to scavenge whatever they can and in past tours they've stolen cycle computers, bottles, shoes and most things that aren't fastened away. Luckily we don't have to bolt our tents to the ground (although I'm wondering if my tent pegs which attach my tent to the ground are secure enough or if they'll be pulled out and taken). In the last couple of camps, the staff have erected a border which surrounds camp, This is literally thin rope (some of which I donated when I accidentally bought 10 metres too much of washing line) attached to iron stakes but works well enough to keep out the riff raff. This afternoon, bored by observing these lazy foreigners, who after a hard day of cycling were sitting placidly in their green chairs, the stick wielding children (i.e. all of them) engaged in some serious boughts of faux sword fighting.

As someone mentioned at dinner, if someone had asked him a couple of years ago what he thought he'd be doing on Valentines Day 2010, he probably wouldn't have answered 'sitting in an Ethiopian field surrounded by local children wielding wooden sticks'. Definitely a sentiment I agree with.

Riding this morning (literally, I arrived in camp before noon) was both painful and much easier than most of the last week. We were on road, and overall descended more than we ascended (i.e. more downhill than uphill). Plus, gifted with two days to recover, my legs had a bit of oomph in them, as did my lungs which for the first time in what seems like a long time, let me push my heart rate up to the magic 85% of maximum. Normally as I tire, it becomes harder and harder to push my cardiovascular-self up, and by the end of the last week, 140bpm, or about 70%, was a real struggle.

Our rest days in Gondar were kept busy, my bike is now nearly back to day zero shinyness, albeit with several unsightly scuffs gained from a month of hard use. Our local Ethiopian contact who liases with Tour D'Afrique has attained some kind of beer sponsorship and we were lucky to be able to visit the company's brewery in Gondar and drink free beer. Free, as in free beer! Any acquaintances who have ever drunk alcohol with me know that I usually despise beer - unfortunately (?) I found this beer palatable - perhaps this is a mark of my increasing age or an unusual beer. As another rider suggested, 'perhaps that's the reason the drinking age in America is 21'.

In addition to recovering physically, I also managed to wash properly for the first time in a couple of weeks at least. Although this in itself is a fairly newsworthy event, I was amused when Paddy, an Irish rider, commented - 'Sunil, nice haircut you got there'. Of course, I hadn't actually cut my hair but merely washed it.

We said goodbye to Adrian in Gondar as he travelled ahead to the medical facilities in Addis Ababa - he had a particularly nasty crash on the downhill stretch of one of the busy sections of road just before the rest day. Unfortunately it seems he won't be joining us for a while and may not even return this tour. This was quite depressing news - he is one of the most helpful riders on the tour, a good laugh, a superb cyclist and one of the first people I met when I arrived in Cairo. I wish him all the best in his recovery and hopefully we'll meet soon.

As I was cycling today, I had grand visions of drawing a Visio diagram detailing the typical dialogue with the Ethiopian kids as we cycled past. Unfortunately, my lack of foresight means that Visio is not installed on this laptop so you'll have to suffice with text (which should be easier on the bandwidth here).
Kid- 'Youyouyouyouyouyouyouyouyou' (or in Regex syntax '(you)+')
Me- 'Salaam' (= Hello in Amharic)
We have a split at this point:
Option 1)
Kid - 'Moneymoneymoneymoneymoney' (Regex '(money)+')
*I glare at them*
Option 2)
Kid - 'Where are you go'
Me - 'Addis Ababa'
*Kid is silent, making it clear that they didn't really know what they were asking'
Option 3)
*Kid throws a rock*
*I brake to a near-halt and yell at them*
Option 4)
*Kid holds out a woooden stick as I approach*
*I steer around them, slow down and do a 180*
*Kid scatters*
Option 5)
*Kid stands in the middle of the road, in my path*
*I steer towards them*
*They hold their ground*
*I speed up*
*They hold their ground*
*I keep going*
*Kid scatters*

Sort of. We're in Gondar, Ethiopia now, finding it slightly eery that there are other white people who aren't part of our group around. It'z supposedly on the tourist trail because of the existence of a castle (I'm not planning on seeing it today but may tomorrow). We're camped in the grounds of one of the highest hotels in the town (by altitude) and the campsite isn't exactly flat. My grand plan to sleep in this morning was thwarted by this fact - sleeping on an incline isn't the most comfortable experience.

The dinner truck has had a bit of SNAFU, the perfect way to end a seriously hard week on both the riders and the staff. The brake apparently failed as they were descending one of the moderately steep slopes we've encountered on our way through Ethiopia so far. Ferdi, one of the South African drivers who was driving at time, stuck the engine in a low gear to slow the truck down (the truck was full of bags, bikes and people). They finally came to a stop on a gravelly section of road near the bottom but this had blown a hole in the side of the engine as one of the rods blew. (That's as technical as I'll attempt to go...) Supposedly that engine is now a write-off and the staff are in contingency planning mode. This may mean another rest day (which my legs will most certainly appreciate) in Gondar.

The food and drink here is divine, compared to the fairly similar fool (kidney beans) and falafels we've been feasting on previously. Ethiopian food is almost curry-like and spicy too. A lot of riders apparently get ill at this time and I can definitely feel my plumbing shifting a little (hopefully not in an illness-inducing way). Last night we went to a fairly popular restaurant called the Golden Gate restaurant (IIRC) and I managed to find my favourite liquor - Amarula!

The weather is nice and cool here too, it's past noon here and I'm in no danger of overheating as I have been on the previous few rest days. There are tonnes of people everywhere in Ethiopia - I'm fairly safe when walking by myself but when I'm with any of the other riders (who are white and therefore look more touristy), we are surrounded by local teenagers within seconds. Even when you're out in the 'countryside', kids will appear out of nowhere from fields and trees surrounding the road.

Anyway, it's time now to get a shave and buy some energy loaded food for the next riding week!

It wasn't meant to be this long in between posts but it has been an exhausting few days. Seven days of hard riding wasn't going to be easy and it hasn't been. In fact, it's been the hardest thing I've ever done in my life. I'm just exhausted, I have no energy reserves left. Every time I eat an energy bar whilst riding, my speed visibly increases. Some time later, it drops off again.

The first day off road was hard - bumpy and slow but not unreasonable. The second day was riding through Dinder National Park as I previously mentioned. The first 50 kilometres were similar to the prior day but the road inside the park was just a whole new level of pain. What was good (and bad) was that for our own safety, we were put into convoys. Luckily, I managed to catch the fastest group of riders, arriving just as their convoy was about to leave.

What followed was nothing short of (probable) hilarity. As we bundled down the path at a steady 10-15kmph, Marcel, one of the fastest riders in the tour and a pretty serious racer, had about a million punctures. In his race strong attitude he had bought some lightweight off road 'cross tyres - these seemed to puncture as soon as anyone gave them so much as a sharp look, let alone the thousands of thorns lining the side of the track. (My Marathon Extremes held up well, can't comment on their comfort yet though).

When we finally reached lunch just after noon (lunch at lunchtime, who would have thought), we shoved down a load of pitta bread and talked to Caroline, one of the nurses who was supervising lunch and explained that crossing the park was taking too long in convoys. Being in the middle of a national park, there was no mobile reception and she was unable to reach the tour leaders. Each time we tried to leave, we were stopped by the Sudanese park guards who wanted us to leave in a convoy with a vehicle leading the way. Before we could leave though, we had to take part in some strange ceremony where they awarded us each a laminated badge bearing the National Park logo and shook our hands while we were videotaped. After this, one of the officials gave a speech to a video and then interviewed each of us in turn to get our impressions of the park.

When we finally left, over an hour later, I was feeling the exhaustion and struggled to keep up with the group. As usually happens when I get tired, my balance disappeared and I fell over repeatedly on a sandy stretch of track (the tyre ruts were filled with sand enough to suck your wheels in, the side of the track was hard, dry earth). My legs are now marked with several scratches which make it painfully fun when I try to kneel inside my tent. The group eventually separated and we cycled at our own pace for the remainder of the distance (the day was 130 kilometres of off road approx).

The afternoon sun was beating down and we were running out of energy and water. Many of the riders behind us had given up at lunch, finding the morning terrain tough, and were riding in 'buckies' (or pick-up trucks, as I've always heard them called). Just after I had run out of water, one of these vehicles passed and I gladly took as much water and energy drink as they could provide. The terrain just wasn't easing up and the vibration was making it extremely painful to just hold the handlebars. Easing up on my grip wasn't an option either because that would mean more weight on my legs and my balance was precarious as it was.

I shuffled along at a steady 11-12 kmph and it soon got to the point where the sun was setting. Gisi, a German rider who is one of the fastest women on the tour, had a flat about 15km from the end of the park and I stopped to help her. Soon after, Stuart, one of the strong Australian riders, came back to check if we were ok and we realised that we'd need to pick our speed up to reach camp before it became dark. Stuart and Gisi left me behind (they both have suspension and my arms were pretty much destroyed) and I powered on through the last part of the park, the road eased up just before the park ended.

Leaving the park, thr roads improved considerably (much, much smoother) but I was too tired to appreciate it fully. There was a wonderful section through a village, a small single carriageway which looked just about wide enough for a car, weaving in an out of houses. Every now and then there would be a slightly raised drain crossing the path with a ramp on either side - I managed to get a small amount of air going over a couple of these but would have tried harder if I had a bit more energy). As I rode into the village, my eyes grew hungry for the finish flag since we'd been told at lunch that it'd be 118km. Instead, I pedalled on into the growing darkness for another 10km, looking out wearily every second for any sign of riders. When I finally reached to the sound of applause (customary for every rider who comes in late in the day), most of the riders were still missing, being held in transit from whereever they were picked up on the rough park roads.

Rod and Juliana, a husband and wife duo who are some of the most prepared riders I have met, made it in a short while after I did. As soon as they arrived, Rod curled up in a ball and just lay on the ground - both were extremely dehydrated. Michella, the other Tour nurse was kept busy dressing wounds (mine included). Everything that night ran late, by the time I had my tent set up it was pushing 8:30pm. It also happened that it was my turn on the washing up crew (we have an alphabetical rota) but this was postponed given the hard day.

A lot of riders didn't make it that day - I think less than 20 EFI riders remain. There were a lot of angry faces at lunch and the expection of how difficult the ride would be was much lower than it actually was. The National Park was also incredibly disappointing in terms of wildlife (on par with the terribad safari in Ranthambhore, India) - we saw a couple of warthog and baboons. Regardless, the Tour rolls on. The next day was more dirt and was equally hard. Fazed by the ride through Dinder, the trucks were packed with riders who had chosen only to ride half of the day (by getting a lift to lunch) or not at all. The terrain was a mixture of difficult and was at times almost unrideable.

One section of road consisted of broken earth but the cracks inbetween pieces were large enough to swallow a wheel. One of the Australian riders, Dan, caught a wheel and stacked it quite badly. Several other riders chose to walk that section. Adrian, another of the fastest riders, lost control further down the road and hit a sandy embankment to graze a lot of his right arm. The afternoon eased up slightly and at 110km we hit road again. The sun was burning down again at this point and a Coke stop at the intersection was kept busy by TDA riders.

By the time I reached Matema, the Sudan-Ethiopia border town, it was quite late in the evening, almost 6pm. There was a lot to do (change tyres back to road tyres, get the Sudanese exit stamp, eat, shower) although I ended up sleeping early from ehaustion, waking up early to change my tyres. Human error decided to step in when I was putting in the tube (must have done it wrong somehow) and despite pumping it up to 100psi (maximum for my tyres), it was flat by the time we reached the border (0.5km away). This was no real issue at first because we were standing around waiting for our passports to be stamped by the Ethiopian immigration office. After changing the tube, it turned out that my spare tube was also punctured (annoying) and I ended up trying to patch both. One of the patches failed and the valve on the other tube disintegrated. Just as this happened, they announced we could all go and most of the riders left. Jethro, a South African rider, stayed and helped me sort out my tyre - luckily Paul had a spare tube that fit and I was able to get my bike going again.

The landscape in Ethiopia is wonderful, green and mountainous. That's probably the most amazing thing about the trip so far that makes it so different to most other trips I've been on. The whole country is not very flat so I think I'm going to suffer (but this will probably help my piss-poor climbing ability (as anyone who has ever cycled uphill with me will know)). I've shed most of the excess weight off my bike (rack is in storage, as is the rackbag, may changed the suspension seatpost for a rigid one). Tomorrow is our first mando-day, 2500 metres of climbing. This will be painful.

The mood amongst the riders and staff has soured slightly. Many of the riders who couldn't handle the last few days have decided to go on ahead via private transport to our next rest day in Gonder (where we're heading tomorrow). It's obvious that the staff are being stretched and the Indaba crew (who operate our support vehicles) weren't happy with us today because of the mess on their trucks. The annoying thing (at least from my perspective) is that the mess was likely caused by the people who were riding the trucks - most of the riders still left at the meeting today were those who weren't riding the trucks. Erin, an American rider on the tour who has run a marathon on every continent, says that the last few days have been tougher than when she ran a marathon on Antarctica. Enough said.

Originally posted on the official Tour D'Afrique blog.

Yesterday afternoon there was a flurry of activity in our first 'bush camp' as riders either swapped tyres on their bikes or helped other riders swap tyres on their bikes. The sound of tents flapping in the wind was interrupted only by the constant whoosh of tyres being deflated.

It was with much trepidation that our first day of riding on dirt finally arrived. While last year's riders would have experienced this much earler in the tour (as they entered Sudan), road builders in Sudan have been hard at work paving the main road from the North of the country to Khartoum.

This year, recognising that we were being deprived of precious off-road mileage (or should that be kilometreage), the route was rejigged so that we're passing through Dinder National Park and with that comes two and a half days of unpaved, dirt roads.

Having spent much time contemplating what bike to bring, it is now in Africa that our decisions are being tested. It is virtually impossible to change our choices of bike now.

The dirt began and within minutes you began to wonder 'what if'. The road was composed of fine gravel, corrugated in patches and sandy in other, mostly overlapping patches. Choosing your line wisely was important - to one side of the road the corrugation would shake you hard and to the other you'd be performing the bicycle equivalent of 'swathing' through sand.

When I finally reached the lunch truck, the relative rider ranking was clearly different. Riders with front suspension were (for the most part) smiling, those with rigid cyclocross bikes looked weary from hard work.

The afternoon was, despite much of the same terrain, surprisingly good fun. Occasionally the road would become slightly less 'throw you all over the place if you don't hold on tight with both hands' and more 'go fast' and there were some beautiful sections that rolled up and down. The constant corrugation led to sore forearms (for those of us without front suspension) and you soon forgot any other sores picked up in the last week.

The road took us through a number of local villages and in most of them, villagers lined up by the side of the road to cheer us on. Occasionally we'd cycle past a school building and nearly a hundred children would come out running and shouting. I apologise to their teacher for the disruption.

As I sit here writing at 6pm, there are still riders coming in, nearly 11 hours after they set off this morning. The sky is nearly overcast and there is potential for rain. Dinner will be well received tonight.

The last three days of riding have been quite tough, so tough in fact that I've been putting off writing an update each evening. Tonight though, I wrote a piece for the TDA blog so I'll fulfil my journalistic obligations while I have my writing hat on.

We've had two days of roughly 160km each and then 135km today, of which 85km was off-road (our first encounter with the unpaved). The first day started out slowly, as they usually do after a rest day. Having 30 riders load their kit onto a truck at 6am is never going to be the smoothest operation, especially when it's *all* their bags. I'll probably go into the locker situation more later but they're a necessary pain.

After waiting for ages to load my bags, eating breakfast and then realising I was late, I signed out and rushed to the toilet before I actually left.Not even 30 metres after I turned out of camp, the cable came off my front derailleur (also known as the thing that changes gears at the front) and I spent 10 minutes wrestling with it so that I could use my big chainring. Soon after this, my poor navigational sense led me to take a wrong turn (out of the four turns we had that day, this was the third and barely a kilometre out of camp). Double checking the directions, I turned back and was very relieved when the dinner truck drove past about 15 minutes later.

Eager to make up time, and as part of my new found speed (having almost recovered from my cold and saddle sores), I spent most of the morning cycling as fast as I could with the tailwind and caught up to the bulk of the group just as they reached lunch. I left lunch pretty quickly and caught up with an even faster group. It didn't seem like they were going fast enough though and I thought it'd be possible to overtake them. The law of the universe soon kicked in though (karma dontcha know) and within a minute of overtaking, my front gear shifter fell off my handlebars and I had to pull over.

Luckily no real damage was done but in order to tighten it and the cable up properly, it was necessary to replace the cable. Chris, the trip's bike mechanic sorted this out and it now shifts beautifully. He needed to adjust quite a few parts of the derailleur, something which I wish the mechanics at Cycleopedia in Watford had picked up - I'll be looking for a new bike shop when I get back home.

The traffic was really quite fierce that day and unfortunately there were a few accidents amongst the riders. I won't go into full detail but several helmets were cracked! The heavy traffic also caused several riders to actually cycle past camp and a couple of guys (both British in fact) cycled an extra 30-40km.

That evening, whilst being wary of the scorpions that supposedly shared our campsite with us, the staff awarded plates to the winners of the first section. I was happy to receive a special 'Bad Ass' award plate because of my efforts to continue cycling! It'll be going with the rest of my race plate collection at home.

The second 160km day was tiring too, although the road condition improved later in the day. In the morning I was overtaken by the lunch truck and managed to keep pace with it for some time as it slowed down for potholes. In my eagerness to keep up, I rode straight into a pothole and survived - my bottle decided to jump out of it's cage and explode on the road, leaving a mess of red energy drink.

I was caught in the afternoon by the second fastest group of riders, just as I was about to pull over and take a leak. I decided that this was too much of an efficiency advantage to let pass so I joined them for some time. Unfortunately there was no opportunity for relieving myself for the next hour - we picked up a police escort which took us through a crowded roundabout and town where people were out cheering, clapping and waving to us as we cycled through.

This was amazing and for the first time in my life, I felt like some kind of celebrity. Kids were going crazy and at one point ran into the road, almost closing off the way through. Most were fairly pleasant but they treated some of the later riders quite badly, throwing stones and trying to touch them as they cycled past - not amusing at all.

After the crowds had settled down, I left the group and pulled over - there are no words to describe the feeling of relief that ensued. The rest of the ride was fairly sedate, the only notable sight being some kind of airstrip where there were two wrecked aircraft strewn across the field.

Today was quite different indeed but I'll post the article I wrote for the TDA blog.

P.S. Full Mono since my one of my earphones broke.

Bump, bump, bump, curse.
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Offroad (left), road (right)
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Or should that be Khartoum.
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We're on the eve of our rest day now and I've finally had a chance to glance at myself in a mirror. Shockingly, my appearance remains fairly decent, aside from a fairly haggard beard and fairly messy hair. Neither are a problem though, given the lack of reason to look respectable and having to constantly wear some form of hat (either a helmet or a baseball cap to keep the sun at bay).

This next week of riding is going to be tough - it is one of the two longests contiguous riding weeks we have, seven days of back to back riding. We begin the week with two 160km days of road riding followed by our first (beautiful, hopefully) taste of off-road as we head through Dinder National Park. This park has been shut to the public for nearly a decade and we are quite privileged indeed (we were invited by the minister of that state). We're camping one night in the park, in the fine company of lions (we're told).

After this, we head to the border with Ethiopia, where in addition to kids throwing rocks at us (more on this later), we can eagerly anticipate our first mando-day. Mando (or mandatory) days are race stages which racers must compete in and cannot use their grace days (we are given three grace days to use for our worst three stage times) to cancel. They are mandatory because they are known to be difficult and this first mando day is no exception. The entire day involves 2500m of climbing. I'm hoping that there will be some nice downhill sections but I fear being struck with rocks whilst freewheeling could potentially be catastrophic, if not for the rider but for the bike.

Khartoum has been an interesting rest day. Woken up by the usual prayers at 5am, I was unable to sleep and ventured out to the intersection with the main road near the campsite where several kiosks and stalls have been set up. Walking on the street with my 'Africa-tan' was great for blending in with the locals (if not Sudanese, I at least looked Arabic) and I ate a sugary fried breakfast similar to that in of Dongola - the bread is sometimes called mandazi elsewhere in Africa and is usually topped with sugar.

After laundering our clothes (back to 80% of being completely clean, I'm beginning to think 100% cleanliness is impossible for a non-professional launderer like myself), Adrian and I began our hunt for a post office from which to send postcards back home. At first we flagged down a rickshaw and tried to make the concept of post (Adrian showed him a letter, then made some flying motions and tried miming a stamp) clear. When this appeared not to work, my Lonely Planet African Phrasebook came to the rescue with the Arabic spelling of post office and our rickshaw driver, having asked many other people for further direction, took us to the DHL office relatively nearby.

Once we were there, I queued to ask the DHL receptions where we could post a letter and they gave us the address of their DHL head office in the centre of Khartoum. Another taxi ride later, and we walked into the office to find out that it would cost 210 Sudanese pounds (approximately £50) to post a letter to Australia. Resigned to failure and not wanting to spend much more on the overall act of posting items back home, we were about to leave but asked if they knew of an actual post office - the answer, 'yes but it's far away'. Determined to finish the task we had started, we asked a taxi driver to take us there and to our surprise we arrived at an actual post office in Sudan.

At this point we didn't actually have any postcards with us, having not managed to find any shops that sold them (Sudan is really quite far from the popular tourist track) and it was yet another surprise when we saw stalls in front of the post office selling postcards. It became really obvious that tourists rarely come to Sudan (or at least don't send postcards) because the majority of postcards on sale looked like they had been printed ten or twenty years ago. They also had a variety of tourist guides on offer, 'Sudan - 1999 Tourist Guide'. Anyway, if my parents actually receive my postcard, I'll be satisfied.

Onwards now, Eastwards out of Sudan.

P.S. If you would like a postcard from any particular country that I have yet to visit, drop me a message via the contact page with your postal address and the country you'd like a postcard from. I'll try my best!

With the locals
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Since my last post there was another long day - 155 kilometres, a fairly uneventful day. I rode with Sam again for most of the day, leaving quite early (for quite a large distance we were at the front of the entire tour group) and it took about 70km for the fastest peloton to overtake us.

Today was our last riding day for this section, officially the longest section in terms of distance (whether or not it's the hardest, we'll find out). We started off with a 20km time trial and then rode the remaining 46km to lunch in our own time. After lunch, it was a 40km convoy into central Khartoum to the National Camping Residence, our campground for the next two nights.

One of the other riders commented yesterday that a time trial is known amongst serious cyclists as the 'truth test' since it's a true test of a cyclist's ability and fitness - discounting all the tactics that usually come into road riding (e.g. group riding or drafting). This morning Dave and I went for a short 10 minute warm up before we tapped out and began the time trial in turn. In retrospect, 10 minutes wasn't enough and it was a pretty slow 20km, 35 minutes with a tailwind and I was just outside of the top 10.

I really started warming up 35km into the day - after trying to ride with the semi-fast peloton for a bit and giving up because of saddle pain. Rage Against The Machine was on shuffle on my MP3 player and just after I'd dropped out of the peloton, Killing In The Name came on and with it, a sudden forward momentum. Within seconds I was up and rolling at 50kmph and decided it was easier to keep the pace for the remaining 30km than to take it easy. I zoomed past a good number of riders and reached lunch at 9:20am.

The convoy into Khartoum was easier than the last few convoys since I am now able to sit on my saddle. It was pretty warm and the traffic was heavy but the tourist police did an excellent job of ferrying us through the city. A lot of riders have decided to stay in hotels away from the campground. Those of us who are left are sharing with a huge number of Sudanese youths who are in Khartoum for an under 17s football tournament, taking place all of tomorrow. The youngest rider of the group, Steve, an 18 year old South African, has organised a match of our riders against one of the competing teams. I won't be joining them but might go and cheer the cyclists on.

This afternoon we visited the Afra Shopping Complex, a prominent mall in Sudan. After my experiences of Gurgaon's many malls in India, I wasn't quite sure what to imagine a Sudanese mall as. It was airconditioned as we had been promised but aside from a fast food court (much food was eaten), a large supermarket and a plethora of money exchanges, there wasn't really much to do and we soon left with large boxes of custard creams under our arms. Those small packets in which I bought 64 biscuits in Dongola also come packaged in boxes each filled with 50 packets of 4 biscuits each. Hopefully these 200 biscuits will last me until Ethiopia, to be accompanied by hot chocolate courtesy of a large box of cocoa powder.

There isn't much noise around, only the occasional coughing of another rider, or the sound of a truck passing by. It's 8:30pm Sudanese time, past the bedtime of most riders. Just a few moments ago I was lying down on my sleeping bag staring up through the mesh wall of my tent at possibly the most stunning night sky I have ever seen. We're still in the middle of the desert on our way towards Khartoum (the capital city of Sudan), with two more days of cycling to go. There is nothing but desert and road sight, the only permanent structure is a bamboo shelter cum water point besides which we are camped.

Having lived in a light polluted commuter town near London for most of my life, before university I had never really appreciated the beauty of a starry night. As winter drew in and I walked through the grounds of Fitzwilliam college to my room, I would glance up and notice the sky. Since then, I've had the opportunity to check out the night sky around the world (Alaska: great, Nepal: average, Mombasa: great) but this takes the win. The sheer quantity of visible stars and their relative brightness is unbelievable. If I don't sleep tonight, I think I will be easily amused.

We rode another hard 140km today. This was the second day that the intended race timing system was underway, where each rider clocks in and out using a small radio enabled tag and touching a start/finish sensor mounted to the dinner truck. People have realised the benefit of starting early and I was far behind the curve when I woke up at my usual time and packed up my tent, having to queue for a good fifteen minutes to load my locker up. When I left camp, I was one of the last few riders out, so I put my music on and prepared for a long solo day.

Not more than 10km in though, I was caught up by the leading peloton, the group of riders who have consistently reached camp first. I thought I'd tag along for a while and it was going great - they go scarily fast but in a group it is much easier to keep up. For the distance I rode with them, they'd be powering on at a decent 37kmph average. Adrian, the current race leader, keeps his rear light on for safety reasons. It also doubles up as a marker of some point, as I discovered when, whilst I rode on his tail, he reached the front and started pulling. All was fine until we reached a downhill section and he took it up to 50kmph. That's not impossible speed but I was spinning as hard as possible in my hardest gear whilst watching my heart rate reach 95% of my maximum and still could not keep up. As I dropped out of the group, I saw Adrian's red light disappear into the distance to be seen again only at camp.

I then rode with the second fastest group until lunch and struggled after lunch to return to that sort of pace (too many sandwiches?). Sam, the closest rider in age to me at 21, also found the pace of his group a bit too fast and we rode in some kind of sporadic formation until camp. My saddle sores are supposedly on the mend but still hurt *a lot*, on occasion tinging with a sharp intense pain (imaginably similar to being stabbed), so I'd try and stand often to relieve the pressure.

Camp has been pretty relaxed this afternoon, sitting in the shade and eating custard creams. I am down now to 12. I was alos disappointed that my orange band from the New Year's Eve party we attended finally broke off, not lasting until next December 31st as I had hoped. An entire month isn't too bad though.

Vimto and Champion
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Tonight we're at a 'Canal Camp' although some of the TDA staff have
given this camp an alter-name of the 'dead Camel Camp' because of the
three carcasses of camels surrounding the campsite. We're still fairly
near the Nile but tomorrow will steer away from it and further into the
deep of the desert.

The heat here is like nothing I've ever experienced before. The day
usually starts off fairly cool (in fact, trying to leave my sleeping bag
every morning has become harder and harder. At about 9am, it starts to
heat up (we normally leave camp at 8am) and gets steadily warmer. I'd
hazard a guess of around 10 degrees Celsius in the morning, reaching at
about 40-45 degrees at the warmest, about 2pm in the afternoon. The last
few days I was getting in quite late in the afternoon because of various
'challneges' (not sitting down / punctures) but tried today to reach
sooner to avoid the heat.

Water consumption is a big issue here - we need to drink many litres
worth in order to stay hydrated. Today whilst riding I drank about 6
litres of various beverages (occasional 'Coke stops' are one of the
luxuries en route to camp daily) and was still heavily dehydrated when I
arrived at camp. There are clay pots by the side of the road which
contain water for anybody to drink - I didn't try any of this today but
will to tomorrow. Something about the pots' construction causes the
water to stay surprisingly cool.

The other beautiful aspect of being a touring cyclist is that your
calorie burn is sky high - effectively meaning that you can eat as much
as you like and not gain weight. The sweets in Dongola were amazing, a
pastry similar to blaclava but available in a variety of different
forms. I bought snacks for the week of riding since eating only savoury
food quickly gets weary - 64 custard creams and 20 'Caramelo' chocolate
bars. The custard creams are holding up perfectly except that the fat
person inside me finds it hard to resist them (I've been through about
20 biscuits today already...).The chocolate bars lost their solidity and
are now delicious liquid chocolate.

It's strange that having been a vegetarian all my life (intially beause
my parents were vegetarian and then later because I didn't see the point
in switching), I've been seriously contemplating eating meat. Some of
the dishes that I see my fellow riders consuming look incredibly
appetising, made worse by my insatiable cyclists' hunger. I've resisted
so far and probably will do until the end of the trip but I do wonder if
I'm missing out on something good now. In addition, it's physically hard
to consume enough calories to balance the deficit and despite eating a
huge amount at dinner, I always wake up with a rumbling stomach.

We've in Dongola at the moment, on our second official (or proper) rest day. Another rider has his birthday today, NYC bike messenger Dave Arman, a pretty cool guy - so a shoutout to him! In the middle of the desert, it's amazing what will grow when given a proper supply of water. Dongola and the sides of the Nile are seriously green and crawling with flies.

We're camping at the Dongola Zoo, a bit of a misnomer given the lack of animals present. Dongola is a bit of a dusty town and I'm fairly sure it's affecting my asthma. In addition, I've got a headcold, probably caught from several other riders who have been coughing and spluttering for a few days now. Hopefully by the time the rest day is over it'll be on its way out but the combination of pushing yourself quite so hard whilst being ill doesn't lend itself well to speedy recovery.

So far I'm still EFI - it's strange that this the second time in my life that I've ever actually tried so hard for something (the first time being my end of university exams). Most of the time I tend to roll into things casually and don't mind failure since I don't really try. This time however, I've tried so hard for EFI that it'd be a true shame to fail. I've never heard the question 'how's your ass?' so many times. (Perhaps it would have been wise to white lie about the true nature of my problems, pretending to have a knee problem like I know at least one other rider is doing.)

We've only had three riding days since the ferry to Sudan, this route normally takes four days but has been paved over since last year - Tour D'Afrique decided to shorten it. As I wrote previously, I spent the first day (150km) entirely standing. The second day was another 150km and I was just exhausted by the end of the day. I rode with Dave and he decided to help motivate me by standing up when I was - we altogether managed about 60-70km standing up. In the evening, we had a camp fire running but I headed off to bed early, almost unable to walk. The morning of the final day was an ordeal in itself - it took a lot of effort just to get my tent and bags packed up.

As I rode my bike out to the main road where the day's ride would start, my legs felt very heavy. The racers soon started and as I started pedalling, I realised instantly that my rear wheel was flat. Thinking it was a slow puncture, I pumped it up slowly (with my tiny hand pump). Pretty much being the start of the day, the sweep rider (who rides behind everybody) caught up with my instantly, and Shanny, one of the ex TDA tour directors who is here to help the new directors out, lent me his slightly more beefy pump.

We pumped it up as hard as the pump would permit and hit the road again. Sure enough, 5km later, the tyre was flat again and it was time to replace the tube. Again, the sweep rider caught up with me and we changed the tube, pumping it up to 50psi to bide me by until I got to lunch. Caroline, the sweep rider, went on ahead, thinking I'd catch her easily - in actual fact, my legs wouldn't permit it. No matter how hard I spun, I couldn't top 25 km/h and catch her.

In the end, I never caught her, and after 40km of churning my legs trying to advance, I realised that my tyre was flat again. As I pumped it up by the side of the road in the middle of a desert, I was shocked to see a young Sudanese man walk up across the other side of the road and introduce himself to me, shaking my hand and asking if I needed any help. Once I had pumped my tyre up (and realised that the brake had been rubbing on the tyre for the last 40km...slowing me down massively), I rode with Musab (the Sudanese guy) for a while - he was apparently hunting in the desert, for rabbit and goat. On his clunker of a Chinese bike, he managed to keep up at a good 25-30km/h. His English was surprisingly good and this snippet of our conversation amused me:
Musab- 'Who is your girlfriend?'
Me- 'I don't have one'
Musab - 'Why not?'
Me- 'Because I'm in Africa'
I point to my bike- 'This is my girlfriend.'
Musab laughs.

I rolled into lunch just as they were packing up and about to send a search party to look for me, since the sweep rider had arrived and they had no sign of me. A brief lunch later and I caught up with another group of riders who had all been involved in a huge crash in the morning - supposedly a peloton they were riding in had collapsed and about eight people had hit the road. The nurse's supply of bandages has been compromised slightly but luckily no one was seriously injured.

The rest day has been surprisingly busy with mundane chores that just need to be done, washing, eating and fixing my tubes. This morning I tried handwashing my clothes for the first time ever (our negotiations with the Minister of Tourism to find someone to help us do laundry failed). The clear soapy water I used quickly turned a horrific shade of grey and brown. As I piled clothes onto my hopelessly inadequate washing line, it collapsed and a good quantity of my clothes fell into the dirty, rendering my efforts of the last hour pointless. As Ruben, a German rider said, it makes you appreciate your mother's effort washing clothes - I partially agree but they have washing machines to help them!

I them spent a good thirty minutes using my tiny pump to fill up my now fixed rear tyre. Just as I reached 100psi, I went to unscrew the attachment for my pump carefully. Within seconds I heard the depressingly familiar sound of air rushing out and thought perhaps I was depressing the valve head whilst unscrewing (as anyone who has ever used a Presta valve will know about). I unscrewed it faster and the tyre flattened even quicker - undoing all my work in less than 30 seconds. The valve attachment had unscrewed the inner part of the valve. Oops. I tried again a couple of times but no luck, so I'll try with another pump sometime later.

Well, I'm still EFI, for the moment. Determined not to give it up, I put aside medical advice not to cycle and cycled the whole 150 kilometres today standing up. Most of the weight is transferred to your legs when you stand up, roughly doubling the load on your knees and quads, so I took care to stretch my legs every 10 kilometres or so. At the moment they don't feel too bad but I worry that this is one of those cases where the day after always feels much worse. Tomorrow is another 150 kilometres and the Egyptian doctor I saw said 3 or 4 days of avoiding sitting in the saddle. It's now been 3 days, so I'm comtemplating my options for tomorrow.

Sudan is a beautiful country - unlike anything I've ever seen before. The landscapes are stunning panoramas of sand and rock, reminding me of the Planet Tatooine from Star Wars. (Mental note: put Star Wars soundtrack on MP3 player) It's crazy warm here, and is only going to get warmer as we head further into the desert. My water consumption is beginning to go up rapidly too. The sunset from the camp was beautiful tonight, an array of colour that seems impossible to replicate photographically.

Our camp tonight is by the river Nile. I found it strange but obvious that the Nile should flow through Sudan - years of education have left the notion fixed in my head that the Nile only passes through Egypt. There are swathes of flies around, about two dozen or so are camping on the roof of my tent. There are also some scary looking insects around; when I went towards the trees earlier to discard some of the water I'd been drinking all day, my eyes slowly came to focus in on some floating object right near my face. It took a few split seconds to realise that this was a spider at which point my reflex reaction was to bend backwards as fast as physically possible. No sign of the spider since, and luckily the encounter wasn't messy as it could nearly have been.

Connectivity is good but strangely difficult in Sudan. My Kenyan sim card is now working, and I bought a local number too. The only problem is that neither lets me send text messages to the UK, which renders my Twitter updating almost pointless (I'm now phoning in coordinates to home!). However, the local sim lets me use GPRS at a not-too-unreasonable rate, which I will try once I pick up some more credit in Dongola in a few days time.

I'm on the ferry at the moment. We're currently anchored about a mile off the port of Wadi Halfa, our entry port into Sudan. The overnight ride has been an unforgettable experience.

We rode to the ferry port at Aswan in convoy, which I successfully managed entirely standing up. My legs weren't too tired by the end of it, so I figure the 150 kilometres tomorrow might just be plausible. Boarding the ferry was a complex logistical problem which the Tour D'Afrique staff handled calmly and in the end everything went smoothly. While there were no chickens carried on board (which they had repeatedly referenced last year), there is no shortage of blenders and televisions made in China being transported to Sudan.

There aren't normally enough cabins for the entire group, so it's usually the case that the younger riders are made to sleep out on the deck - indeed I was quite looking forward to it. However, the cabins aren't the cleanliest of places and many of the older riders switched camp. While initially I was looking forward to a night on the deck, as more and more passengers and boxes were loaded, a cabin looked like a more sensible option. Luckily we managed to grab one of the spare cabins left vacant. The deck soon became a curious shanty town of boxes, rugs, sleeping bags and tinny pop music blaring out of mobile phone speakers. Some of the passengers who had evidently done this trip several times, built a fort of their goods around themselves. We joked between ourselves that it would be fun to step inside their fort and observe the end outcome but the menacing looks of the portly Arabic gentleman were enough to stop that idea in its tracks.

The ship is rusty, grimy and to quote one of the German riders - 'Everywhere you look, the ship is moving'. Our included meal on the ferry, yesterday at lunch, was punctuated by the occasional sound of slapping as riders defended themselves from the many insects interrupting the sanctity of their mealtime. The room was no better, seeming initially to be relatively clean. Eric, one of the French riders soon showed us the secret of finding the roaches (lift up the mattress quickly and look in the corner of the bed) and we hatched various plans to try and avoid bodily contact with them. These ranged from finding an alternative place to sleep (as it was though, deck was hugely congested) to sleeping on the floor (it is pretty filthy) to lining the bed with a groundsheet (we had no groundsheet here).

The final solution which I used all night, and which Adrian, my roommate, attempted for a while before giving up, was to sleep inside our tents. I used the inner part of my tent minus the poles, wearing it like a sleeping bag. This worked well enough until abruptly in the middle of the night we were woken up by a tannoy call, 'Tour D'Afrique riders, please come to the dining room immediately'. Struggling to break free of the tent, I eventually found the zip and made my way down the hallway, thanking myself that the boat wasn't sinking in this case. Having gone to bed at 7pm, and having been woken up from the deepest possible sleep, it seemed natural that it would be some obscene hour of the night. However, glancing at someone's watch, it had only just passed 8:30pm! Much less antisocial.

The reason we were woken was that Sudanese immigration now takes place upon the ferry (and not when we arrive - which should hopefully speed the process up a bit when we eventually dock). This consisted of filling out yet more forms inaccurately (when the questions are vague, what hope do you have? E.g. 'Carrier') and duplicating more information. I'm half contemplating writing as illegibly as possible for the next few countries and seeing whether anyone notices. They also took our temperature with an ear canal thermometer. Presumably this was to prevent illness entering the country but if anything, not washing the thermometer inbetween uses probably spread any sickness that was there. After this we queueued for an hour or so to get our passports stamped, after which the official realised that he didn't really need to see us to stamp our passport and just collected them all instead.

Bedtime rolled around again but it was much harder to sleep now. The hunger pangs from our bodies' now-all-eating metabolisms were beginning to strike and it took a good hour to fall asleep. This morning we awoke to see Abu Simbel from afar, a huge temple by the side of Lake Nasser. Now we wait for customs to board our boat whom the ferry captain is repeatedly calling with three long bursts of the ship's horn, deafening those on deck each time.

Accompanied by a beating drum
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Dry
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From Sudan
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The ride into Aswan today was similar to the ride to Idfu yesterday, lots of traffic, fairly smooth roads and quite a fast pace. We rolled into lunch at about 9:15am and then into camp itself at 11:30am. The mornings are nicest time to cycle, I've decided - the winds are usually much less fierce and everything looks much prettier.

It's winter here in Egypt and the weather varies quite massively, from near zero at night to baking hot in the afternoon (no exact figures I'm afraid). Every morning it becomes harder and harder to make the effort necessary to crawl out of my sleeping bag. This morning there was lots of dew - I didn't set up the flysheet for my tent properly last night and most of the inside of my tent was wet as a result too.

I spent most of the afternoon tracking down a doctor to get a professional opinion on my saddle sores. First the local tour company who is supporting us dropped me off to a hospital where I struggled to find someone who spoke English. When I succeeded, the woman who spoke English took me to a group of doctors who were working furiously on one ill looking gentleman on a surgical table. They said something in Arabic which apparently translated to 'come back tomorrow'. After some more time and a taxi ride, I managed to find another doctor who was available. I walked up there to find two people who spoke little English. In their broken English they told me to come back tomorrow. Not wanting to give up, I asked another guy downstairs who told me to come back at 2pm.

I walked around, bought a falafel and came back after 2pm when luckily the doctor had returned. I'll stray away from graphic imagery and tell you that the overall result was that I'm not allowed to cycle for 4 days. I've also been given some fairly heavy duty antibiotics to take for the same time period. The next couple of days are only 20 or so kilometres of convoy riding, which I could feasibly stand up and cycle. However, the next two days are solid 150km days and I fear these might not be rideable. This could be the end of my EFI status.

It's amazing what a single day of rest can do for your body. I was actively feeling the strain in my legs the last few days before we arrived in Luxor and the ride today was almost like starting from fresh. Last night in Luxor, I changed my saddle from the (pretty new and hence unmoulded) leather Brooks saddle to a spare Specialized Body Geometry saddle I had brought with me. My saddle sores are getting quite bad, to the point where I'm on antibiotics and the nurse wants me to see a Doctor as soon as possible! She recommended against cycling but so far I remain EFI* qualified and don't want to lose it until absolutely necessary.

As I was fitting my saddle in the dark, I was surprised by a trio of staff and riders who burst into a song of Happy Birthday and handed me a box of Hohos, a local chocolate cake wrapped sweet (similar to Twinkies in texture). I was so shocked that I dropped the box, no doubt waking up a dozen other riders who were fast asleep in preparation the next day.

The morning ride was 70 kilometres of pure pace (31-32 kmph average), we carried along the same highway that took us to Luxor. I realised today that the river that I thought was the Nile is actually just a side channel of it. Regardless, it's amazing how lush the banks were, compared to the dry, lifeless and seemingly infinite desert. As we rolled up to the lunch truck, we got a stunning view of the Nile itself, shining the bluest blue my eyes would recognise. A life-giving river indeed.

Every rider in the peloton I had ridden in with agreed that we should probably slow down and take a few more photos. It's ironic that individually we were all thinking the same thing but as a group the emphasis shifted to eating up tarmac as quickly as possible. The remaining 50km we took at a much more leisurely pace and stopped several times to-
- Take photos
- Give sweets to children (but only 7 children because I ran out pretty quickly)
- Drink carbonated beverages
- Tresspass on a local market

The last item was quite amusing. Just 5km approximately from the campsite, we noticed a market on the left where pick-up trucks were congregating to drop and pick up produce and local people. It was quite obvious that this wasn't a place on the usual tourist route, so we dismounted and rolled our bikes down the single carriageway on which all the stalls were set up. About 20 metres in, an official looking guard started speaking to me in Arabic (this has happened several times now, apparently I am easily mistaken for a local). I couldn't understand him but after he started pointing to his gun and then pointing to the riders who had gone walking ahead, I assumed that this was a cue to leave. Our understanding of it was that he was quite worried for our safety and didn't want us to get into trouble in the market...very odd.

The final few kilometres took us into the city of Idfu itself, via a bridge over the Nile. The Idfu end of the bridge consisted of a large roundabout which was surrounded by hordes of Egyptians. It was here that some moron in a van decided to try and throw a stick through the front wheel of Gerald's bicycle (a French rider). Gerald sped up and chastised the guy through his open window, quite a drama to observe. Luckily no harm was done but these sort of incidents are likely to become increasingly common as we head further south (I'll explain later as we approach).

The campsite here is a bit grungy, it's a soccer field in the middle of the city. There's at least two mosques on either side (and correspondingly prayers seem to be out of tune, out of sync and extremely loud). I won't go into too graphic a description of the showers / toilets but they are possibly the worst I've seen. The shovel option is non-existent here since our trucks have already left for Sudan, taking the shovels with them. In addition, the soccer field is surrounded by tower blocks of apartments.

I feel quite happy at the moment, I'm listening to a mixture of bhangra music and Coldplay in my home - my tent. I've just discovered two pockets on the walls and I've made a makeshift desk out of my day bag so there's an alternative to the awkward typing on the knees position. It's bedtime now. Last night I was dreaming of smooth flowing singletrack since all the riding so far has mainly been road riding. This whole trip will probably mostly be some form of road cycling too. If there are any mountain bikers reading this, the next time you hit a technical piece of singletrack, drop me a thought!

*I can't remember if I've mentioned EFI yet or not. EFI means Every F**king Inch, and is a accolade given to riders who cycle every single inch of the tour. Quite why it's in inches when the tour distance is measured in metric units I'm not sure. If your bike breaks or injury strikes - or for some reason you're unable to cycle any or part of any day, you lose your EFI status. Roughly 10 or 15 riders make EFI every year and hence it is quite an elite club - about 100 or so riders worldwide.

This has been a very strange birthday - for the last 17 years or so I've been confined to celebrating it whilst attending primary school, secondary school or university. This time however, I'm in a campsite on the edge of the city of Luxor in Egypt.

The final day of cycling before our rest day here was a brisk 90 or so kilometres along a fairly major highway which ran alongside the Nile. Before lunch I joined a train of pretty fast riders as they averaged about 30kmph or so towards lunch. The peloton oscillated from short to long, much like a longitudinal wave, as riders sped up and slowed down in turn. Soon enough though, we reached lunch, at the almost ridiculous time of 8:30am!

I hung about for a bit, wanting to eat more than just the two half pitta breads that the speedier guys were restricting themselves to. Instead, I helped myself to four halves, two with vegetables and two with peanut butter and jelly. Soon enough, my usual riding buddies, Jason and Jen, and Australian Dan rolled up and I just hung about until they were ready to go.

The 50km after lunch was just as rapid as the morning ride and we rolled into camp at about 10:25am yesterday. Most of the afternoon was spent tending to laundry and picking up various essentials (toilet paper, suncream, chocolate). The campsite is basically the lawn outside a hotel, which luckily comes under the remit of the hotel's wi-fi coverage. Essentially, I'm sitting in my tent writing this.

Today we journeyed (by horse and carriage) to the Karnak Temple Complex, a huge site of ancient temples which tower into the sky. It's impressive how large these were built given the comparably less advanced technology the ancient Egyptians would have had! After exploring the temple complex for some time, we walked to and then around the Luxor temple and then walked into the market. It's quite amusing here that many of the local sellers put on Scottish accents. The usual exchange goes something like the following:
Seller - 'Australian?'
Me - 'No'
Seller - 'American?'
Me - 'No'
Seller - 'Scottish?'
Me - 'No, Venezualan'
I've also developed a habit of greeting all the kids we pass when cycling in Swahili. I think once I reach Kenya I'll switch to greeting people in Arabic.

This afternoon I was using my degree in Computer Science to help fix people's computing woes. One of other rider's brand new Asus Eee isn't recognising it's hard disk anymore. Having tried several electrical screwdrivers over the last few days to try and open it, it appears that it was tightened by a robot with superhuman strength! So that she had a useful computer again, I downloaded Ubuntu Netbook Remix, sideloaded it onto a bootable SD card and the little netbook was good to go!

Other than that, this afternoon was more of routine chores, cleaning my bike and collecting laundry. To my relief, all my socks matched up (several other riders lost items of clothing on the chaotic washing lines outside). One point of confusion is that my cycling chamois (the padded cycling shorts) are exactly the same type, size and brand as another rider's shorts. Something to look out for!

Tomorrow we head south towards Sudan, and in a couple of days we'll be on a pretty epic ferry (30 hours!) which is the only official route for tourists to take into the country. Connectivity is likely to be difficult, so until next time, kwaheri! (Or, to be correct- ma'as salaama!)

The last update was written in a bit of a rush from an internet cafe in Safaga. I was running out of Egyptian currency and so my internet time was limited! I spent the afternoon cleaning my bike (not terribly effective but it's less sandy now) and looking for a money exchange. Walking into town, I passed several convenience stores. Since the trip has started, we've been eating a lot (and burning a lot) - whenever I see food now I think it must be eaten! As I walked towards the Bank of Alexandria, I bought and ate some biscuits, something similar to a slice of sponge cake and Fanta in some strange purple colour.

The town itself was quite a sleepy tourist town - there are a few resorts and hotels scattered about and most of the shops seem to be around on the back of those visitors. At 3pm on Monday though, there were few customers and many of the shops were in fact actually shut. The bank was shut but I managed to withdraw some money from the ATM which I promptly used to purchase biscuits (something similar to custard creams but round in shape). On the way back I passed a hairdresser's shop and with my electric razor being a poor excuse for a grooming device, decided to get my face shaved. The hairdresser's English wasn't that great, when I asked him how much, he replied 'It's okay, it's okay!' quite enthusiastically. I just nodded and pointed to my growing beard. After what seemed like an age of spreading shaving foam on my face, he put a new blade in his razor and started work. This was the first shave I've ever had with a loose blade and it was surprisingly decent. After he finished, I was a bit alarmed to see him attempt to cut my hair. I shook my head (while the scissors were held away, or it could have been painful!) and he got the idea, although he still insisted on using hairspray and combing my hair. Hairspray combined with a bicycle helmet results in an interesting hairstyle!

That night on the beach seemed like it might just be the quiet night we were all hoping for. In actual fact, the three dogs that seemed to live in that enclosure were at war with each other (seemingly) and several times during the night they were barking and making various noises of aggression towards each other! The morning came soon enough and we began the 138km fifth stage to yet another desert camp.

The Egyptian riders had forewarned us that the first 40 kilometres were all climbing, and it was with this in mind that we tried to form a group of riders. Trying to maintain a speed of 20kmph with a side/headwind on the ascent was just about manageable and we soon reached the lunch truck at about 10:30am! The remainder, a solid 75 km, was much less hilly but just as strong wind. Our group of riders absorbed several smaller groups and at its largest consisted of sixteen riders! At first we were a disorganised mass of bicycles and people, but Jen, a fairly loud (she admits this herself) Canadian lady, soon organised the group into a more orderly two column peloton*. It was a tough day all-in-all but we pedalled on and reached the desert camp at 2:30pm, giving us plenty of time to unpack, drink soup (a mixture of broccoli, potatos and other vegetables - great) and chill out.

Riders are starting to feel the pain of five hard days of cycling now (myself included) and knees are one of the most common disturbances so far. This happens because people aren't used to spinning (using a low gear and pedalling fast) and prefer to mash (using a high gear and pedalling less often). This is a cycling trait of mine as well, coming from a mountain biking background where there is less constant pedalling and more high intensity bursts, so I've been trying actively to spin more.

Camp life is starting to get quite fun - an enterprising local turned up today with a cooler full of beer which he sold to us at quite a hefty price. Since I don't drink beer, I tried my luck and asked if he had any soft drinks. The answer - 'no!'. We usually have a rider meeting just before dinner where they explain our route for the next day and discuss the next few days of the tour. Today the truck crew had an auction (the currency: cans of beer) of all the items that had been left lying around the truck. Luckily none of my items showed up - trying to fit my bags in the locker may have pushed the door off its hinges...

It's sometime after dinner now, which really just means bedtime. There are flies buzzing around my tent - I figure these are relatively tame compared to the nasty insects that will invade later in the trip. For some reason the Tour D'Afrique trucks were playing Celine Dion's 'My Heart Will Go On' (or whatever that song from Titanic was called). This probably makes sense given that Canadians represent the largest proportion of riders here.

*I realise that I keep using the word peloton and non-cyclists are probably wondering what on Earth they are. It's literally a group of cyclists, taking various formations, where each cyclist is fairly close to those in front and behind. This is more efficient than cycling solo since there are aerodynamic gains to be made - whilst the cyclist at the front works harder, all those who are drafting (i.e. riding behind) tend to save energy because of lower air resistance. The cyclist at the front usually rotates so that riders save energy most of the time.

Just empty.
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Someone's working on it - donate feature should be working soon! Apologies for the inconvenience.

The fourth stage was pretty straightforward (I wouldn't go so far as calling it easy, but relative to the horror of the second stage, then sure - easy). A brisk before lunch run to the lunch truck followed by a brisk after lunch run to the campsite saw us reaching Safaga, a town near the coast of the Red Sea.

This campsite is luxurious compared to our previous three nights - Tour D'Afrique has booked out three hotel rooms for us to shower in and there are GENUINE toilets! We're camping on the beach pretty much, adjacent to a hotel. There's a bar just next to the 'campsite', most of the other riders are busy getting beers.

There's really not much to say about the day's riding so far, so I'll leave off now until we arrive in Luxor in three days time - an 'official' rest day (also my birthday).

Yesterday's entry was cut short by a lack of energy. The ride today was much easier - shorter (all in all, 147km) and much less effort (a tailwind instead of a headwind!). I cycled the first 20 kilometres solo, having been dropped by the faster Australian riders within a kilometre. As we reached a police checkpoint however, the ride came to a halt. The heavy rain of last night had apparently caused the roads to become flooded and the police didn't want us riding down the road. After nearly half an hour of waiting around, we were given the all clear to proceed, ahead of about a hundred waiting trucks. As we spun along the road, the wind helping us along, there was no surface water to be seen. Supposedly the Egyptian police were being overcautious - either that or the sun is incredibly efficient at evaporation in these parts, especially at 8am!

I rode with Alison up until lunch, one of the staff who was on her day off and had chosen to ride for the day. After lunch (more pitta bread) I managed to join a group of riders - a mixture of North Americans mainly. It's amazing how much easier it is to keep up a certain pace when you're riding with other people. On my own, I'd struggle to motivate myself.

You can usually tell something is amiss when you roll into any place and all the riders who were in front of you are just sitting, waiting (as happened in the morning at the police checkpoint). As we reached the finish flag, we were greeted by this sight of riders just sitting, waiting. Supposedly the campsite was actually a further 8km (but actually 10km) down the road due to, wait for it, flooding at the original choice! This alternative campsite is very windy and right next to a police checkpoint. While we can hear the rush of trucks going past, the tent is also flapping all over the place. Luckily there is substantial debris on the ground around the campsite, so it's possible to ground the tent. Putting it up was an interesting experience, if I was any lighter, I'd have been literally blown away. As each pole went into the tent, it became more and more like a sail.

Camp life is interesting, since we wake up quite early daily (most people are awake sometime after 5am) and because we have been riding quite hard, bedtime is usually soon after it gets dark (and/or dinner has been eaten). We've been at 'desert' camps for the last few days now, which don't really have any facilities. Going to the toilet is a substantial effort involving a shovel and a lighter. Tomorrow evening we're passing through a town called Safaga, and we'll be at a genuine campsite with showers (and hopefully, toilets). Dinner at the campsite is usually a generous serving of carbs with some kind of vegetables. It's not the tastiest food in the world though, and I think I'll soon have to burst open the various packets of chilli powder that my mother has equipped me with. Tour D'Afrique has also given us enough energy bars for 2 per day - one of the riders today noticed that these bars all expired in June 2009. I'm not quite sure what to make of that.

It's 7:40pm and I'm sheltering inside my tent. It is wet outside, and getting wetter by the minute. Our campsite appears to be right under the centre of a thunderstorm, which has transformed the many constant winds of the day to the gusty winds of the evening. I'm wearing my pyjamas, with the intention of sleeping soon, should the noise from other riders, the weather and the road permit. Two days of hard cycling have left me with a curious smell, and the dirt from the road combined with the unrelentless sun has embrazoned my arms with fairly linear lines (dirt + tan lines as opposed to just tan lines) where my cycling jersey ends.

Today was a brutal day by all accounts and indeed probably the longest I've ever ridden in a single go in my life. 168km was the overall distance and it started well enough, feeling refreshed from a night of sleep. However less than thirty minutes into the ride, my back wheel started rattling in a strange fashion. I left the peloton of Australians I had pegged out of camp with and went to check the damage by the side of the road - somehow a small pin had managed to work it's way into and through my tyre. An easy enough problem to fix but enough still to lose valuable time. Soon enough, just about every other tour rider made their way past me, each asking if I was ok - a fact I am glad of, useful if anything does actually go drastically wrong.

In a futile attempt to catch up with the Australians, I pushed as hard as I could for the next 45km or so, overtaking most of the riders who had passed me attacking my wheel with a tyre lever in my hand. However, as we came closer to the coast of the Red Sea, a headwind soon picked up. Riding solo was a tactical error and I was soon overtaken by a group of riders all drafting each other - much more efficient. Eventually we reached the lunch truck and I filled up with cheese and peanut butter filled pitta breads (separately!).

Having pushed hard for the morning, the remaining 100km in the afternoon was tough. The headwind endured and became even more violent. The roads became more open and riders were spread sparsely. At about 140km, we had a refreshment stop and then it was full on until the finish. By the time I got into camp, the sunset was very near.

Today was the first and (in my opionion) probably the easiest day of the Tour D'Afrique. It began early, a 4:30am wakeup for a 6am (but actually 7am) departure in a large convoy to the Great Pyramids of Egypt. Once we arrived at about 8:45am, we met with local Egyptian riders who would join us for this stage (or day) of racing, and took many many photos in front of the start banner. The morning was marred by excessive equipment 'failure' - in an attempt to reset my cycle computer to kilometres (which all directions are given in), the reset button became stuck (leaving the screen to flash 'km/h' for the whole day), so I turned to my backup navigational aid, my Garmin GPS unit. Unfortunately this had run out of charge, and a lack of forward thinking meant all spare batteries were behind a locked door. Finally, it was cold in the morning and my heart rate monitor's chest strap failed to make adequate contact with my skin (lack of sweat y'see), giving erroneous readings for the first two hours (220 BPM I think not!).

Soon after this we were underway on our journey out of the city of Cairo. On this leg and the previous we were escorted by the local police who blocked off ramps (we were on the highway) and made sure we were protected from the surrounding traffic. It is likely a feature of all developing countries that drivers must horn excessively (something I picked up many a time on my visits to India, and also visible in Kenya and Nepal). The police are no exception to this generalisation, only more potent in their damage to our hearing - they have LOUD sirens. In addition to their excessive volume, they also have many different types of siren and it was a mildly entertaining game trying to determine which siren came from which vehicle (it is a many to many relationship).

Another two hours into the ride, we finally left the polluted and unpleasant highway to start our journey East towards the Red Sea, which we will follow down for some time until we cut back to the main road to arrive in Luxor. I left pretty quickly (choosing not to stop for a rest break) and was relatively near the front - they were being held up by an over enthusiastic police escort. Once he stopped limiting their speed, they soon shot off into the distance. I was soon caught up with a growing peloton of riders comprising of some of the Australian riders I had met early on. Putting the force down a bit, I was able to keep up with them, only finding it extremely difficult when I was at the front. Luckily we soon reached the lunch truck and my turn was short lived.

The scenery in the Egyptian countryside is starkly different to anything I have ever seen before. The colour of the landscape is, well, sandy. There's a lot of sand. And as far as the eye can see - more sand! The sand is contoured in a way that I'm sure even the most lackadaisical Geologist could appreciate. The sky was deep blue without even the slightest hint of a cloud. It made for some beautiful photos. The tragedy of being a cyclist however is that your motion is effectively powered by you. It seems like a terrible shame to stop unless absolutely necessary since it's your energy at stake. If you're a racer, your pride also stops you from stopping. I'm going to work on my taking-photos-whilst-cycling technique.

After a quick (15 minutes) lunch (pitta breads and peanut butter, surprisingly good) I rejoined the 'peloton' feeling fairly energetic. Sure enough, this feeling worse off and after some time I eventually hit the 'wall' and was unable to keep up. This is probably a good thing since my heart rate was pushing a good 180-190 BPM while I tried to keep up with them. After I dropped out of their group, it was a case of just pedalling on - something I think we will all become quite familiar with in the next 4 months! Some company would have been nice but it was refreshing to choose my own pace again.

It took a good two hours of solo cycling before I reached the stage finish where the trucks were parked. I was quite anxious for the first hour or so because of the sheer lack of other riders overtaking me. Soon enough though, a group of the local Egyptian riders came blasting past on my left, and soon after them, the lunch truck. As I got closer to the rough area where the campsite for the night was, I kept my eyes peeled for any sign of the trucks. When they finally came into eyeshot, it took some time to actually convince myself that they were there!

This first day was 133 kilometres of cycling, about 83 miles. This is the longest distance I have ever cycled in my life so far and tomorrow will be worse - 168 km, over 100 miles. Today wasn't as bad as it could have been, although every joint that has ever ached before in my life was aching at some point throughout the ride. My neck is sore from maintaining a grip on my drop bars - I wonder how sleeping on the floor will help that. My speed wasn't too bad (I think I was roughly 10th out of the male riders) but I was pushing hard for about 60km or so. The plan for tomorrow is just to chug along at my own pace - slow and steady wins the race, or at least reaches Capetown!

Oh and a final word - the trucks that are supporting us are FRICKIN COOL. Photos up soon but between the two of them they've basically got everything to support 60 people. A tonne of lockers, a huge supply of water, bike racks, FAT tyres (and lots of them), containers for food, and some other cool bits.

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One of two.
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So yellow!
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We had our start of tour rider briefing today, a few statistics for your perusal.

22 rest days

96 riding days

14 nationalities of riders

Oldest rider is 71, the youngest is 18

11,704 kilometres a(7315 miles)

Once we leave Cairo, it's going to be hard to stay connected - I will be regularly updating the stats by
text message however. Most of the riders have now arrived, all different ages from a variety of countries.
The strongest country (in terms of rider numbers) is Canada, where Tour D'Afrique (the company that
organises the Tour D'Afrique) is based.

A brief ride out to the pyramids of Sukkara this morning was slow but pleasant, with no major issues
except my brakes locking up as I went over a speed bump too fast. We think that this was because the
brake levers were loose on the handlebars - the impact of landing caused them to move and pull the
brake cables.

At the end of our rider briefing we were asked to choose whether we wished to ride as an expedition,
after speaking to many of the other riders who are planning on casual racing, I made the switch to race
too. The Tour D'Afrique is the longest bicycle race in the world, so it should be interesting to see how it
progresses.

The only annoying thing about being a racer is that there is no set time for lunch - this means that every
minute I stop cycling in order to eat counts against me. Then again, I'm not doing it with any air of
seriousness, so this shouldn't be a problem.

The first day of riding is almost upon us - less than 36 hours now! The plan is to ride out to the Great
Pyramid (see photos) for our 'official' start.
From here it's a lengthy 136km first day. This should be interesting :-).

The hours preceding my flight from Heathrow were possibly the most stressful few hours of my life. Five months away from home is a large amount of time, complicated by the fact that we're cycling for most of it! We left home about forty-five minutes later than we were aiming for (entirely my fault - a last minute shower + shave (possibly the last decent shave until June)), and reached the airport about 2.5 hours before the flight left. Having checked in online, it was a simple case of dropping my two bags and bicycle off. While queuing for the oversize bag drop, I received a phone call from a man at the Watford Observer, a local newspaper, inquiring about my trip!

After a lengthy Italian lunch (a delightful gnocchi) at Carluccios with my parents, I ventured forth alone through the security at Terminal 5 and made it through unscathed. A rushed walk to the gate (since lunch was quite lengthy indeed) and I sat waiting before noticing people were walking away from the gate. A quick search online (via my internet tethered netbook) revealed that our flight was delayed by 45 minutes, a fact which was not displayed on the monitors next to the gate - strange. This extra 45 minutes gave me some much needed internet time and despite looking around every minute to check the plane hadn't left yet, I was still one of the last few passengers to board.

The flight itself was a typically British Airways affair, we were further delayed out of Heathrow because of heavy traffic (there I was thinking flights were being cancelled!). I soon fell asleep though, a result of sleeping for only two hours on the previous night, and awoke some time later to drinks and another Italian meal for dinner (risotto this time). I was a bit confused at the number of people who appeared to be hovering around the immigration hall at Cairo Airport who weren't travellers - it seemed like anyone could just walk back through the desks. My bike was sitting by the side of the belt in the baggage hall waiting for me, looking surprisingly intact.

The transfer to the resort was as dangerous as expected, Egyptian roads being similar to the roads I remember in Kenya. Luckily for another cyclist they picked up and I, they placed our bikes inside the minibus - supposedly the bikes of another two riders were on the roof and predictably fell off! Arriving at the hotel in Giza, there was a clear failure of communication as our escort (who had taken us from the airport) tried to claim money from us (but for what, he could not say). At reception, they could not understand that I'd be sharing with another rider who had already checked into a double room, repeating that he had already checked out (of his single room). This was no doubt true but their booking system (and their grasp of English) was sufficiently abysmal to result in an hour of arguing while they tried to 'sell' us another double room for 3 times the rate we had booked it at. Not acceptable for a '5*' hotel. They finally found the room and I got to sleep at about 4am, after breaking the zip on my only pair of pajama bottoms!

On Tuesday I joined up with a group of Australians who had arrived much earlier to sort out visas and we went to go visit the Great Pyramid, not far at all from Giza. Finding transportation here is quite an adventure - most taxi drivers are 'off' the meter, so it's a question of negotiating the price down. The funny thing is that most drivers will gladly haggle hard but they won't know where you want to go. It's only after you've gotten into the cab, arranged a price and been driven around for a few miles that they will meekly pull over and ask for directions. It was clear each time that this happened that they hadn't known where they were going from the start since we usually ended up pulling a u-turn!

The weather in Cairo at this time is quite cool - getting slightly chilly at night - and it was unfortunate that when we went to visit the pyramids, it was quite overcast. Regardless of how the photos came out, the pyramids themselves are quite an impressive sight. Journeying into the burial chamber of the Great Pyramid itself was quite an experience, walking up with a hunched back something inbetween a ladder and a staircase in a confined passageway. To be fair though, we had a bit of forewarning that this was likely to be the case from the flustered faces of the overweight tourists leaving as we entered.

After walking around trying to find an internet cafe (and finding possibly the dirtiest such cafe I have ever seen), we went for an early dinner to have some of the local Egyptian koshary. Koshary is apparently a staple food here and is supposedly 'a complete dietary dish containing carbohydrates, proteins, fat, vitamins and minerals'. It's pretty cheap too, coming in about 50 pence for a pretty hefty serving. It's perfect food for any cyclist - sort of like a spicy spaghetti bolognaise.

After dinner was a sound and light show on the pyramids where our total lack of preparation for the cold meant that we were all sitting shivering until one of the riders found out you could hire blankets. I was feeling warm enough at that point so I decided to bear it out - it struck me about twenty minutes later and I was shivering for most of the rest of the show.

This morning, after breakfast, we ventured out for a hour long short ride. All went well aside from realising that my cycling computer wasn't working because my front wheel was on backwards. The seat was also slightly hard (it's a Brooks leather saddle which needs to be 'broken in'), which might be the only comfort issue that I can immediately foresee.

A long, traffic slowed, taxi ride to Cairo later, we arrived at the National Museum. A disorganised place, it has some genuinely interesting exhibits (although these are quite reminiscent of my memories of the British Museum's Egyptian section). It seems the ancient Egyptians were obsessed with their afterlife and it put me in a pensive mood about what legacy I'd like to leave on the world. A statue or Tomb would be a bit annoying for the generations after me, and I wouldn't really want it to be pilfered in order to buff up some museum exhibition's contents. Instead, I think I'd want my own Wikipedia page - and not something that would be immediately reverted back to empty disk space. I think it'd involve doing something genuinely interesting so that it would be worth having a biography there for people to learn from. Hopefully it would be useful enough information so that it would stay relevent throughout the course of time.

The other riders are all good fun, many of them also have blogs. Check out the TDA Profiles page to read more about them!

Dinner now, time for more koshary!

Packing for the Tour wasn't the hardest task in the world but it did require a fair amount of thought. I normally eschew the minimalist strategy when travelling, preferring to have options for every possible contingency. In this case however, with limited luggage storage space available (a 85x65x50cm locker ~ 150 litres of useful space) for four months worth of kit, it was necessary to prioritise.

Clothes being the simplest of all items to pack, I left this until last. It seems that if I hadn't had to take clothes then I would have been nicely under the space limitation. Adding a meagre amount of clothes (just THREE t-shirts, for four months of travelling!) filled out my duffle bags by a surprising amount.

The rest of the space within my two bags was composed of both camping equipment and bicycle equipment. The camping equipment consisted of a lightweight tent, a sleeping bag and thermarest which take a good proportion of one of the bags. This bag also stores most of my clothes.

The other bag contains a tonne of cycling spares (tyres, cables, chains, tubes etc) plus some 'rarely needed' clothes (for example, my swimming costume). It also includes various cycling accessories - such as the rack bag, bottles, lock and Camelbak I'll be taking from day to day on my bike.

My third bag contains my electronics. In the last few years I've gradually acquired more and more camera equipment with each trip abroad (photos here). However, it seemed unwise to cycle along the rough African roads with my D-SLR in tow since vibration would probably kill it slowly. At the same time, travelling through most of Africa is an unmissable photography opportunity. So I've taken both cameras with the intention of leaving the D-SLR in the van when I'm cycling. I decided against taking my wide angle lens and Gorillapod in the end because of the added bulk.

I'm taking a netbook because it'll be useful for writing purposes (I find it impossible to write anything significant on paper - my fingers just get in the way) and for backup of photos. The battery will last approximately 10 hours and we have weekly rest days on which I hope to charge it fully. Likewise, I will charge my camera batteries then.

I'm taking a handheld GPS device to provide the location updating that you can see on the Geo page. This runs on AA batteries and each set of batteries lasts (supposedly) 25 hours. I figure this should give me two or three days of usage at least if I was to tracklog all my riding. These batteries should be fairly easy to find on the ground.

In order to keep in touch with those back home and to update my coordinates (we'll see how well this works out), I'm taking a couple of mobile phones. Rather than take my smartphone, I'm taking a basic Sony Ericsson featurephone which has relatively better battery life. I have a solar panel which I can use to charge these via a Powermonkey (this is a self contained supplementary battery which can charge and be charged) - the Powermonkey can also take power from the mains or via USB from the netbook.

Finally, I'm taking a flash based mp3 player since my hard disk Walkman would almost certainly not survive the first month. This represents a cut in capacity but coupled with the ability to swap music from time to time using the netbook, this should suffice. This has a 25 hour battery life and can charge from either the Powermonkey or the netbook.

I wonder how the above reflects on the nature of our generation - that instead of embracing the opportunity to leave technology behind entirely, I've seen the more hostile operating environment as a logistical challenge to be solved.

Addition
Having arrived in Cairo and spoken to some of the other riders, the above chargin strategy seems sound except with one possibly useful addition. One of the other riders has the Solargorilla, this is the more heavy weight version of Powermonkey coupled to a solar panel - apparently it charges his Macbook in about 2 hours. They're quite expensive but for that sort of convenience, it's probably worth it!

Delicious.
(View in high res)

We're leaving for the airport in an about an hour and a half. Nearly everything is packed, but there remains a lot to be in done. In particular, the Geek On A Bicycle site isn't quite finished yet!

If you're on Twitter, besides following myself, you might also consider following TDA Live, which is the official Twitter account of the Tour D'Afrique.

Goodbye from London and speak to you next from sunny Egypt!

I'm happy to announce that as of yesterday, I managed to get the second of the two visas I need in advance of the trip.

A summary of the countries and their visa requirements:
Egypt - Possible on arrival
Sudan - Need visa beforehand
Ethiopia - Need a visa beforehand
Kenya - On arrival, but preferable to arrange beforehand
Tanzania - Possible on arrival
Malawi - No visa required
Zambia - On arrival or arrange beforehand
Botswana - No visa required
Namibia - No visa required
South Africa - No visa required

Of the two necessary to arrange in advance, the Sudanese visa was the most difficult. I abhor the amount of bureaucracy that is necessary to obtain access to their country. It took several visits to get my Indian visa because I was an informal volunteer (as opposed to volunteering through a formally arranged scheme) and the bureacrats at most embassies can't deal with special cases.

In any case, it seems Sudan is an exceptionally difficult country to gain access to, I hope it's worth the effort. In total, I visited the embassy five times before walking away with my visa. Over summer when I contacted them (being some sort of pseudo-organised traveller), they mentioned it would take three months for the visa application to be processed. After struggling to download the form from their virus infested embassy website, I made the trip in person and dropped off the form.

Roll along to October, approximately two months later and Tour D'Afrique decided to tell us them when to apply for the Sudanese visa. While none of this information was in the registration pack they sent us some time ago, it seems we were supposed to just wait to be told what to do. With their email, several letters of support (one in Arabic) and a magical authorisation number were given. When I contacted the embassy about my original application, they answered with all the enthusiasm of a graveyard shift shelf stacker and told me there was no sign of it. So much for being organised.

On my return to England in December, I called up the Sudanese embassy to find out what the best way to apply was - the lady on the phone said 'it's up to you. Do what you like! It makes no difference to me.' Helpful, neh? I went in person armed with all the various letters of support, only to forget the necessary passport photographs on my desk at home. After an hour of cycling around trying to find a photo booth (which had all conveniently been removed just previously), I rushed into the visa office with minutes to spare before it shut for lunch. At this point the bureaucrat at the desk told me that they required some kind of 'certificate' from the organisation in Sudan which my tour was affiliated with. Facepalm moment, oh yes.

I reread the various emails we had been sent and contacted the TDA office, realising that I had forgotten the magic 4 digit authorisation number. Another long trip into London and I got into the office just after it opened. This time the gentleman behind the counter nodded and told me that, much to my relief, my passport would be ready to collect at 3pm.

This gave me about 6 hours in London to kill, much of which I spent at Condor Cycles, looking on at all the various shiny bike bits they have and buying brake studs for Calamity Jane. After eating lunch with Phil and checking out some of the (superb) exhibitions on at the British Library, I went to pick up my passport. A quick glance through the pages confirmed my luck - I had a Sudanese visa!

The Ethiopian visa I attempted on my return from our family holiday to Mombasa. This was supposedly straightforward but blocked as soon as the lady behind the counter read my form. 'You need an address. An address where you will be staying!', I tried explaining to her that we wouldn't be staying in one place and that the accompanying support letter outlined the route we would be taking. This seemed to irritate her though and she started getting visibly frustrated, 'You please just write on the form where you will be staying in Addis Ababa. There is box for you name on visa form but your name is written on letter to. You do not write to see support letter in box for you name.'

I understood what she was saying and wasn't sure what address to put down, a quick email from an internet cafe, while I was photocopying my passport, to the other group of British TDA cyclists yielded some help and it seems that they had simply written what was on the letter in the box. I did the same, which seemed to satisfy this bureaucrat and when I rocked up at the embassy a couple of days later, she handed me my passport with a smile and wished me a good trip to Ethiopia.

P.S. I'm aware that the titles of these last few posts have been rather dull and will endeavour to improve their creativity as time progresses and the subject matter of these posts becomes more interesting.

P.P.S. Did you know Ethiopia is the land of coffee?

P.P.P.S. I understand that post scripts are redundant with modern computers but I like them anyway.

While I'm away cycling, it's likely I'm not going to be very well connected at all and as such, my good friend Phil is going to act as my 'tech support'.

If the site breaks, feel free to drop an email to webmaster at geekonabicycle dot co dot uk and one of us will pick it up.

Phil is also responsible for the build of Calamity Jane (the bike I'm taking to Africa) - helping massively with component choice and pretty much building most of it! He'll be posting from time to time as well.

The Tour D'Afrique is a fairly substantial physical challenge, and I've tried my hardest to train appropriately. Unfortunately, my travel plans of the last three months (i.e. living in India) have made that difficult. In addition, for those keeping track of my injuries, sometime just over a couple of weeks ago, I dislocated my right shoulder for the fifth time. It reset itself as I was strapped into the stretcher on the way down from the piste.

This is a recurring problem - despite surgery to 'fix' the problem. This was the first dislocation since the surgery so it is the question of concern is whether any further permanent damage has been done. My shoulder consultant has recommended for an arthroscopic MRI next week, so I'll report back once the results are through. With any luck though, it'll just be a case of physiotherapy. If it has been damaged then more surgery may be necessary.

It has since returned to a fairly normal state and I've been trying as hard as I can to train in Mombasa, whilst enjoying the full range of the resort's buffet meals.

Jogging on the beach-
Painful! I was using trainers that aren't really running trainers - gave this up pretty quickly after a combination of foot pain and late nights meant that early morning runs were unfeasible.

Gym-
The resort had a reasonable array of exercise equipment to use and I visited it about five times, for about 1 to 2 hours. Concentrated mainly on the recumbent bicycle and treadmill - the normal cycle had an incredibly painful saddle. My shoulder ached a bit on the treadmill after a while but once I started correcting my posture, it was much more comfortable.
Pressups and core exercises were a bit more wobbly but doable in slightly smaller sets of repetitions.

Tennis-
Raquet sport is an obvious danger area for shoulder injuries and I approached the game with fair caution. There was no pain though, and the only issue was a slight loss of fine control since the ligaments in my shoulder are now looser than normal. In actual fact, my forehand stroke seemed smoother as a result.

Cycling-
We managed to borrow some hard tail mountain bikes from a family friend. Cycling on the beach was quite difficult - I can see sandy surfaces becoming quite problematic. Cycling on the (decent) Kenyan road outside the resort was smooth - although the occasional potholes and speed bumps mean that some kind of suspension is desirable. I locked out the front fork to gain an idea of how my rigid cyclocross bike would fare and am quite happy that I invested in a suspension seatpost now! The heat is also going to be an issue - in the middle of afternoon, my shirt was quickly soaked after about five minutes of riding at my usual pace. Will definitely have to look into hydration packs this week.

To astute observers, you will notice this post has been given a fancy new tag 'goab'. To those of you reading this on geekonabicycle.co.uk, you will probably wonder what I am referring to.

This is, essentially, the first post for my new website, Geek On A Bicycle. To those of you reading this on hypedark.co.uk, you will probably wonder how it ended up here.

To explain - both sites share the back end database since it would be far too much effort to post things twice. However, Geek on a Bicycle (GoaB from now on) will only show a subset of all posts on Hype Dark.

Primarily this website (and blog, as I am loathe to call it) on geekonabicycle.co.uk is here to document my journey with the Tour D'Afrique 2010 as we travel from Cairo to Cape Town by bicycle.

This is a journey of nearly 12,000 kilometres and will see us pass through ten African countries. More details can be found on the route page.

Most of the rest of this site is self explanatory. As a career Computer Scientist, and someone who likes to be deliberately different, I couldn't bear to use a customised Wordpress site, so this is hand built (just like my bicycle - more details on the equipment page). As such, it is likely to be prone to breakage (hopefully not like my bicycle), in which case you may contact the webmaster who will be connected and able to fix things.

Anyhow, I hope you enjoy reading my updates - please add the site feed to your feedreader / browser or check back regularly!