GREETINGS FROM SOUTH AFRICA

Gerald is finally in South Africa, they have had some heavy days with cold and windy weather on the west coast of South Africa...He is fine and only two days to go...His computer does not work any more so he told me this evening on the phone that tommorrow they will have 146km and the arrival day to Cape Town Waterfront about 80km and the last 30km they will ride together... So we all are getting exceited about Saturday...I will go and see him tomorrow at Yzerfontein where they will stay their last night... Thank you for everybody for all the lovely messages... Greetings from windy Cape Town...Jaana

VICTORIA FALLS...ZAMBIA AND ZIMBABWE...

It has taken me 3 months and some 8500 km on my bicycle, but I have finally reached Vic Falls! It is a landmark in Africa as well as a crucial point for the TDA riders. This is the point when you realise that out of this extraordinary trip, there is hardly 4 weeks left. Now Cape Town is becoming a reality. When you start on such an expedition, you almost forbid yourself to think about the finish line, you want to focus on each stage and avoid mental fatigue. But Victoria Falls is the point where you can allow yourself to think about the end.

I am tired, but happy. Happy to have made it all the way to Vic Falls EFI (there are still 12 of us), but even more happy because I have finally rejoined my life time partner, Jaana. We have missed each other a lot and it has been a long 3 months and 4 days, but it has also been good to us as we have used this separation to think about our lives and the future projects we would like to engage in together.

When you live a normal life, the routine gets to you and rarely allows you to put things into perspective in your life. In many cases, it is unfortunately a big problem like a grave illness or a divorce that forces people to look back at their lives and take important decisions. Well, I feel very fortunate that I do not have to report on any grave problem, but thanks to this extraordinary adventure I am living, I am in the very fortunate position of having been detached from the material world. This has given me plenty of time to think about the bigger picture such as my personal future, the very meaning of happiness and what makes us happy. I have met so many happy people who owned absolutely nothing, but yet so nice and I also know so many people in the life I come from who have absolutely everything from a nice house to free access to medical treatment and yet they are miserable... So when I say that such a trip allows you to put things into perspective, believe me, it does. One thing I came to realise is that I stroke the lottery of life when I was born in a rich and developed country like France, and this trip has taught me that I should never forget that.

I am physically very tired and the 2 days brake we are given at this world famous site are going to be spent recovering. After riding 500 km in the last 3 days we have now reached the southern end of Zambia. The last 3 trading days have been fast with strong winds (mostly tail winds), so it has meant average speeds well above the 30 km per hour and long distances. We have done what we call pace lines which means that a group of riders get into one straight line and relay each other in front every 3 to 5 km. This is such an efficient way to ride that single riders have no chance and get caught very quickly, even if they are stronger riders.

Victoria Falls is one of the most beautiful natural site I have ever seen. Jaana and I have been here several times before, but each time you get in front of this wonder of nature you get goose pimples. This is a truly magnificent place. When you are at the Vic Falls, there is one hotel you must stay in at least once in your life, the Victoria Falls hotel. Situated in the Zimbabwean side, it offers the best view of the falls in the distance and the bridge that crosses over the gorge between the 2 countries. Victoria falls hotel was built in 1903 and if you want to experience what Victorian living was about, well there is no better place in the world than this hotel. Nothing has changed here, you feel back in time a hundred years when you enter this wonderful hotel. One of the highlight of the day is the high tea served at 15h00 on the terrace facing the falls. Many movies were shot here. I can guarantee you that there is no better place in the world than this terrace to enjoy a Gin and Tonic. The service here is impeccable with neatly dressed white jacket butlers wearing a safari hat. Life in this hotel seems to be slowed down,a sensation of well being floats in the air, you feel emerged into history and pampered in a perfect Victorian style... Just what the doctor ordered for me, I am so looking forward for enjoying the 2 rest days in such a great place.

So, there are exactly 4 weeks left and 2 countries before we get into South Africa. My next blog post will be from Botswana, and from there we will be heading for Namibia. There are still plenty of tough days ahead, with some 3500 km remaining. The stages in Botswana are going to be long. We will do almost 1000 km in the next 5 days, so it is plenty of saddle time remaining. In Namibia we have a very long dirt section as well which is a tough one. So I want to remain focused and to tackle each days as if it was the most important one. In any case, there is no such a thing as an "easy day" at TDA. Jaana will join me again in Windhoek, the capital of Namibia in 2 weeks.

Gerald packing his tent that has been drying in the sun

We walk from the Zambian border post over the bridge to Zimbabwean side

 watching at the Victoria Falls and the river gorge on the oppisite site of the bridge

Victoria Falls hotel and the view to the bridge and the falls...

Every afternoon with the sun and the mist you can see the rainbow

 under the bridge, feels magical

A train crossing the bridge

In Victoria Falls hotel you can really feel the colonial era of the Rhodesia,

They have hundreds of photos on the walls about the history of this

 over hundred years of hotel

Gerald and I in the Victoria Falls walk way to visit one of the 7 natural

 wonders of the world

CROSSING THE EQUATOR

Welcome to the southern hemisphere part of this trip! As planed, we crossed the equator at 7h45 this morning. The small rusted sign that marks the place is a bit disappointing, but so what, we crossed the equator riding our bikes since Cairo and that is legendary. This sign has been there for quite a few years and would probably need an upgrade at some stage... Just a little hint to the Kenyan government, especially when you see that every single tourist that passes by stops there for a photo... Many of us are equipped with GPS and we all could see on our maps that the sign is actually on the wrong place, it is a few hundred meters too much south... Our GPS are by far much more accurate than the the one they used when placing that sign... So, here is another hint to the Kenyan government...

The 105 km stage would have been a nice one if it wasn't for my prostate troubles. I unfortunately had to ride this whole stage standing on by bicycle as I could not really sit on my saddle. Riding a bicycle in such a way is highly inefficient and much slower. I made it last to camp tonight, but at least I made it and preserved my EFI. Not a nice day. Everything you do differently on the bike has its consequences. Riding such a long distance standing hurts the knees and I can feel it tonight. Having 6500 km left to ride, it is not a good idea to damage the knees.

We crossed very fertile lands today. It was beautiful, hilly, green, lush and just about every kind of fruit or vegetable grows here. We passed mango trees, avocado trees, paw paw plantation, banana plantations, rice plantations, maize, coffee, beans, roses, you name it, they grow it here. The soil seems very fertile, the temperature here is just perfect and there is no shortage of water. The traffic on the road also picked up tremendously as we approach Nairobi. It made some part of the riding unpleasant as some minibuses kept on flying by us without making any effort of leaving an extra space between us and them. At one stage, one of those minibuses almost hit me, so close he was, just because he wanted to pick up a passenger 50 meters ahead of me. I got so upset that I stopped next to him as he was busy boarding that passenger. I told him in very rude English what I thought of his driving skills. Mistake.... Big mistake... Mini bus drivers are notoriously aggressive and stupid, so imagine now, me a white guy tuning one of them in his own country... As I finished telling him what an ars hole he was, he pulled a big metal pipe out of his door and screamed at me "I kill you!"... This was the end of my 30 seconds of glory... I came back to some sense of survival as fast as I had lost it by going after this guy, jumped on my bike and pedaled as fast as I could. He chased me with his taxi and tried to hit me, but I was expecting that so I jumped into the ditch next to the road as he came at full speed from behind me. Another great reason to have a mountain bike. The incident raised my adrenaline levels to such a point that I picked up speed for the next 20 kilometers. I still made it to camp last as my technique of riding standing gave me no chance to keep up even with the slower riders. Actually the real slow riders are not even riding today..Some have gone straight to Nairobi. Using private transports while others got some lifts to camp from local people.

Camp tonight is a proper camp site, the best we have had so far, it even has a swimming pool and is standing next to a river where you can practise white river rafting.
Tomorrow is the long ride to Nairobi, long because it is complicated. There is a convoy half way through the ride and we also avoid the city by going around it to get to the Indaba camp site which is situated in the Karen area. This means we will ride 135 km to get there, despite the fact that Nairobi is only 95 km away...

                        Our best and most beautiful camp so far along a river, 100 km north of Nairobi.
                          
                                                      Signage along the road for ball pens

                                      I had to take a picture of this signage for our Finnish friends.
                                     Abloy is a Finnish company producing some of the best locks
                                     in the world known as far as remote villages in Kenya as you can see...

                                Everything grows here in these warm climate blessed with rich soils.
                                Here are some mango trees as well as avocado trees in the back.

                                                                         Paw paw tree

                               Cane chairs manufacturers along the road. The guy on the bicycle is
                               busy delivering the raw material, freshly cut cane.

                               7h45 a.m. on March 11, a great moment as I step into the southern
                                hemisphere. Cape Town is all downhill from here...

                            The entire TDA group stands together at the equator for the group photo.

AMAZING SUDAN

Sudan is amazing! Today, our 150 km ride was one of the most beautiful and exotic ride, I have ever taken. Mind blowing! The desert is really scenic and the newly paved road (Thanks to the chinese) made our ride even more pleasant.

The people we met along the road were extremely friendly and even a bit shy. Unlike Egypt, nobody ever asked for money and people were genuinely interrested about us. They were so kind. At one stop, I was invited to share lunch with them, at another it was tea and so on. They speak very little english, but they all want to know what our name is and where we are going. If we answer "Cape Town", they just smile, because it is simply too far away and they have no idea where it is, but when we say we are going to Karthoum by bicycle, they are amazed!

Our camp is by the Nile and it is by far the best camp so far. At least it is clean here, again unlike Egypt where the road sides are used as waste bins. We all jumped into the Nile and washed ourselves. What a pleasure after a day of riding in the desert. It is now getting very hot as we progress south and even tonight, we feel that the heat is now here with us.

At camp many children came on their donkeys to observe this strange caravan of cyclist. We are definitely the attraction of the year for the locals. These kids are very respectful and they just watched our camp animation with their eyes open in little groups of 5 to 10 kids. Some of the more hasardous one came to chat, one girl on top of her donkey, proudly showed me her English lesson book. Cute!

HERE IT IS

Here it is, Geralds new bike on the way from the shop to the airplane that will take it to Cape Town. The count down is for the 2010 Soccer World Cup held in South Africa. Gerald who is a big fan of soccer will actually arrive to South Africa by bicycle and not by plane than most of the fans...

Some races I have attended in Africa

Sabie Experience South Africa

Sani2C

Cape Epic

Photos from Cape Epic   Sani2c  sabie experience