TOUGH RIDES IN NAMIBIA...

Namibia is normally hot and dry at this time of the year, but for the

70 TDA riders who have battled cold headwinds and heavy rains since we

left Windhoek it has been a bit of a shock. Namibia is tougher than I
expected. We are doing the longest section on dirt of the tour with
almost 1000 km of uninterrupted gravel roads. Namibia is not flat
either, so when you mix, rain, sand and headwind on steep up hills,
the cycling gets pretty hard… To make things even more challenging,
the tour organization has planned very long sections here with riding
days up to 173 km long. Such distances on tarred are already painful,
but on dirt, they turn into something close to masochism….
But we have plenty to look forward, firstly this is some of the most
exotic and surreal cycling landscapes I have ever traversed, secondly,
Cape Town is now really close… As I am writing this, we have 11
riding days left and about 1500 km to go. (half on dirt)
Namibian landscapes are so unique and so different from what we have
seen over this long journey. Even if the cycling is tough, it is with
a sense of excitement that most of us are feeling as we get on our
bikes at the early hours of the morning. The morning light on these
colorful desert backgrounds is just magic. I have never seen so many
riders stopping for taking pictures, even the racers in front have now
understood how privileged we are to cross such places on a bicycle and
many of them were stopping for pictures yesterday.
The thunderstorms we went through over the past 3 days added some
dramatic dark blue colors to the sky making the whole landscape even
more dramatic. I must have spent more than 2 hours taking pictures
yesterday alone.
The clear skies have returned to compliment our rest day in Sesriem ,
a tiny place that reminds me of the “Bagdad café” movie. One petrol
station, one camping and a lodge in the middle of the desert. A
beautiful and calm little oasis lost between the red sand dunes and
the mountains. The visitors are mostly South African and German
tourists equipped to the teeth with flashy 4x4 vehicles. We don’t
really fit into that category of people and I find it hard to
communicate with these very pale and fat people. I have cycled over 10
000 km to get here and I simply cannot identify myself with a tourist
that has flown to Johannesburg and rented a 4 wheel drive car there. I
just feel that an entire world is separating me from these people.
They also seem a bit scared about this big loud group of cyclists and
only a few of them are actually making an effort to ask us some
questions about our trip.
Here is a first warning about things to come, in less than 2 weeks we
are all going back to our normal lives and some of it already scares
me a bit. How do you explain what we have just lived, how do you ever
look at overloaded supermarket shelves again without having a thought
at how we struggled to get hold of simple products like toilet paper
or toothpaste. How will it feel to see people eating twice what their
daily food requirement is when our obsession has been to match our own
calories deficit for the past 4 months? What do you respond to the
“How was it?” question????.....
On the other hand, I am really looking forward for not digging a hole
in the ground to have a crap and packing up my wet tent in the dark at
5 h00 am. I only have to pack my stupid locker 11 more times and that
is definitely something to look forward to. This locker queuing and
packing is one of the most irritating part of this trip. I hate it and
so does every rider…
My computer has been infected with a virus. This has resulted in a lot
of complications for me, especially for keeping this blog running. I
have helped so many people with Internet connection, lending my
computer. Unfortunately, somebody has managed to infect it with a USB
stick. Luckily, just about each TDA rider started the tour with one
working laptop. By now, many have been either stolen or have broken
down due to the horrific conditions we have gone through, from heat,
sand and dust to humidity and plenty of physical abuse especially when
the trucks went over corrugated roads for hundreds and hundreds of
km's. David’s computer has survived every above mentioned threat so
far, and that’s where from I am now doing this update.
The next 5 days are seriously hard and all efforts are going to be
needed to remain EFI. Namibia is an easy place to lose EFI. The gravel
roads are in good condition, so you tend to ride relatively fast, but
there are many things to watch for. Most dips have thick soft sand in
which it is easy to make a mistake and fall. One bad wipe is enough to
hurt yourself and it is therefore important to remain focused until
the end. On such long days, with the fatigue adding to the routine you
tend to make more mistakes as you are nearing the end of your riding
stage.
I am not sure about when I will be doing the next posting, but most
likely from the South African border where we will be enjoying the
last rest day of this tour on May 9.

 

                               David and I with a dramatic sky at the back. We are heading for it...

                                                          Who said Namibia was flat?

RISOTTO AND RAIN...

I am not inspired by Botswana. There is very little to report on, except that we are all bored out of our minds and that our legs are sore from the long distances we are now doing each day. To add to the morosity, we have had awful weather conditions ever since we entered Botswana. I can't remember seeing so much rain in my life. It has been pouring with rain days and nights. Thunderstorm after thunderstorm. Needless to mention that our tents are all soaking wet, that our clothes are soaking wet, that the trucks and lockers are full of mud and that everybody is pretty much pissed off with camping. Camping is not fun in such conditions, but it is even worst after long riding days when you are smelly, tired and would pay anything to access a hot shower.... Instead, you get to pitch your tent under the rain in a muddy field.... Sleeping inside this leaking and smelly piece of fabric is getting on every rider's nerves. By now, most tents have been put up and down so many times that they are not completely waterproof any more. Oh, and did I mention that it is freezing cold? Yes, 2 weeks ago we couldn't sleep because it was so hot, and now it is full scale winter here. This weather is not nice, believe me.


So we fight back in whatever way we can. To lift up the spirits, Gabriele decided to cook a risotto for the whole camp. Jos and I offered our help as assistants and we managed to produce a very good risotto for 80 people in the middle of the Botswana bush with basic cooking equipment. We also had some great locker 9 gatherings between rain showers and enjoyed some magnificent Swiss Italian salamis, home produced by the family of Tsiciano, Gabriele's brothers friend who joined us at Vic Falls for this section. I must add that the 36 months matured parmesan cheese he and Ricardo brought along with the salamis was the culinary highlight of this trip!

Today was stage 79 and a feared one as it was the longest of the tour, a mere 209 km. It went much better than we had all expected. If it had not been for the rain and some head wind towards the end of the stage, we would have clocked in record averages. By now, we are used to long distances. This was actually easy since there was no climbing. The legs are a bit stiff, but that is because we have done so many kilometers over the last 8 riding days (about 1200 km). If nothing else, we are definitely building powerful legs... The good news is that we are finally done with Botswana and have just entered Namibia this afternoon. We are now 2 riding days away from Windhoek where we will be given a 24 hour break to rest those tired legs. Before that, 2 more big stages to cover the 300 km that separate us from the capital.

                                                   Entering our 9th country, Namibia

                              Huge thunderstorms have been making our cycling (and camping) life
                              miserable over the past few days. This was the sky we faced today

                                     Finally we reach the Namibian border post after the longest
                                     day of the tour, 209 km

                            
                                     Tony and Simon at a rare coke stop in Botswana in a typical
                                      one horse town where we managed to buy some cold drinks
                                      from a shebeen (illegal home bar). This drunk local kept on
                                      telling us he had also done Cairo to Cape and that he knew
                                      personaly John Cecil Rhodes...

                                                                        My helmet....

                                    The owner of the shebeen was also drunk like most of the
                                    customers sitting outside under a tree. He gave us the keys
                                    and let us help ourselves in his freezer

                                    The first sign mentioning South Africa! It took us 101 days to
                                     reach this one. We are still over 2000 km away, but it is a nice
                                     booster for moral anyway.

                                                                  The dinner queue
                            
                                                The risotto was served by the maestro himself....

                                 This is even more rare than spotting a leopard.... Jos doing dishes...

                                          Gabriele starting to cook the rice for the risotto

                                    The riding info for the next five days... Plenty of kilometers...

                                    Grand Chef Gabriel in action tasting the bouillon for the risotto

                                  Today, James the TDA chef has been relagated to assistant.
                              Here he is preparing the mushrooms that will be used in the risotto

                        It is a miserable life at camp when it keeps on raining, and it is cold as well

                                                         Gert bathing in a cooking pot

                                 Sherita and James preparing food under difficult conditions.
                              The rain was so strong that it came through every possible corner

                                                            Gert cleaning pots for the kitchen.

AFRICA IS NOT EASY...

We were told that once you pass the equator, things start to improve, camps and food get better, conditions are nicer and you should look forward for this part of the trip... Well, who ever told this obviously did not ride north east Zambia... The last 5 days have been rather depressing. The only thing that has changed is the length of the stages, we have even done 200 km one day, but as for comfort, we have gone back to Ethiopia levels with one horrible camp after another. It has almost become a standard joke amongst us, how does TDA manage to find such horrible camp sites... I suppose we are all very tired and 3 months of camping across Africa going from shit hole to shit hole makes you depressed, or is it the the Lariam?.. They say Lariam (the anti malaria pills we take) makes you depress... Well, I am usually a very positive person, but right now, I am depressed. I need civilisation... urgently.... please... A burger on a clean plate with chips and no flies on it...


We have just done something between 700 and 800 km of hard core mountainous humid, super hot road across some boring country side (except for yesterday) with thinly populated areas. Thanks God, it is thinly populated because the few inhabitants here are either drunk or looking so poor and dirty that it adds to the depression feeling... I guess, we were all thinking that the worst was over a bit too early. 5 days in north east Zambia is a good reminder that crossing Africa on a bicycle is not a walk in the park...

Zambia is poor, very poor.It makes more than half of its foreign income on only one commodity: copper. So Zambia depends on the price of copper. Right now, copper is expensive and the country's empty coffers can be refilled slowly but it would need a lot more that that to take it out of its current poverty levels. There also seems to be a high level of alcoholism here as we have seen plenty of drunk people (mostly men). So far the places we have stopped at, along the great eastern highway (that is just the name of the road, don't get too exited...) have been dirty and messy. Nothing is being maintained, buildings are left to fall apart and people live in conditions that feel like middle ages to us. Just about every coke stop we have done in the last five days sums it up, dirty and smelly places, kids wearing filthy rags and drunk young men sitting in the shade of a tree drinking local home made beer. Not a very positive picture, I am afraid. We have also met plenty of nice Zambians of course, but it has been a bit of a shock to many of us how dirty and filthy everything is here. They have some of the highest infant mortality rate in the world and I am not surprised.

Camps have also been really depressing since we entered Zambia, hot humid and full of bugs. No commodities of course, no water, no toilets; so we have been looking for village water pumps to at least wash and get a sense of dignity back. This has been the highlight of the day, when we have poured this could bucket of water over our heads, giving us a fresh and clean feeling. But of course it is under the scrutiny of entire swamps of children and if you like privacy, you will be frustrated... The other thing is that you are permanently attacked by flies, mosquitoes, ants and spiders. Your nerves eventually start to give up and you hate being here. You cannot imagine how lucky you are when reading this in a sealed room with no flies on your face and ants climbing up your ankles. By now, many riders have very strange insect bites all over their bodies. Gabriele has been beaten by a spider on his stomach and it looks pretty bad, but there is not much one can do about it. We all have bites that are struggling to heal in this humid environment. Even a simple mosquito bite can turn into a nasty infection, so camp looks like a war hospital with many people walking with bandages on their ankles, arms and other strange body parts...

                                       Tony celebrating his 50 th birthday after the 200 km ride,
                                       the longest of the tour so far

                              Our amused public after we used the village water pump for shower

                                                               Young kid pumping water

                                    When I said that there is not such a word as privacy in Africa,
                                    you can see what I mean... Wherever we go, there are always
                                    children and people to observe what the Muzungus are doing...

                                 A very upset Tony, late on the evening of his 50 th cleaning up his
                                 tent from the 50 smelly dried fishes... It was like a scene out of an
                                Asterix comic book as he started throwing the fishes at other tents...
                                But who the hell put these fishes in his tent?....

                                                             Hardi and Eric at a coke stop

                                         Building maintenance is not really a priority in Zambia....

                                    Young local cyclist intrigued by our colourful bikes and gears

                                                            Jos and Gabriel buying food

                                      In rural Zambia, the shops are very basic and the buildings
                                      run down, we also found Zambia a lot more dirty than Malawi
                           
                                               Anti corruption billboard next to the border post

                                           Eric buying a coke from a typical small road side shop.
                                           (dirty and smelly)

                           The 28 bikes we are donating here in this very remote part of the country

                                      The bike hand over cermony was delayed and started late
                                      as the truck delivering the bikes from Lusaka broke down

                                      Believe or not, but this is a shop in the middle of nowhere
                                     along the great Eastern Hihgway which we are following all
                                     the way to Lusaka. It is stocked with clothes, alcohol and biscuits

                                                              Tony... still smelling .... fish

                                 Tony wanted to show me that he had reconciliated with fish and
                                 posed in front of this horribly smelly drying fishes outside a shop...
                                It might have reminded him of his tent... he he...

                                      Zambians are using straw to produce mùany things as you
                                      can see here. The police check point after the Luawnga
                                      river bridge has become a mini shopping center along both
                                      sides of the road

                                                 Dried smoked fish from the Luanwga river

                                    Most riders took a cold drink brake at the police check point
                                   after crossing the Luanwga river bridge. Plenty of activity
                                   going on here

                                    Police check points are commun all accross Africa, we have
                                    passed hundreds of them since Cairo. They never stop us on the bikes.
                           
                                    The Luanwga river and the beautiful hanging bridge that we
                                    have just used for crossing

                                 As I was taking a shot of the river, this young fellow appeared out
                                of nowhere and made his way to this blog...

                                 Fishing boat on the Luanga river. I took this shot from the bridge

                                                                            Luanwga river

                               We were told that it is absolutely forbidden to take pictures of this
                               bridge, so I had to get one...

                                                      The Luanwga river from the bridge

                                          The Luanwga river makes its way in the middle of this
                                          very mountainous area, just like us...

                                      This morning as we started our ride we had this amazing
                                      view of mountains bathed by sunshine and valleys filled
                                      with morning fog...

                                        Gabriele, pushing an early morning good pace for this
                                        150 km long stage which includes 2100 meters of climbing...

                                Men sitting under shade and drinking the local home brewed beer,
                                a very commun feature here in Zambia...
                                We have seen a lot of drunk Zambians...

                                  Family eating maize and a pumpkin leave mash (the green dish).
                                  I tried it and it was good

                                  In rural Zambia everybody still lives in such small traditional huts

                                  On the road we met this friendly young man from Mozambique.
                                  He had already travelled 50 km from the border to sell his goat
                                  loaded on his bike...

                          He he, another typical African story... We stopped at this restaurant
                          impressed by the large offer advertised on the board.... The T-bone,
                          the chicken and the beef were finished, the eggs were not ready and
                          the only saussage looked so bad we decided to order what was left, the chips...

                                   The bikes we donated are made here in Zambia by a company
                                   called Zambikes. These bikes are very solid and seem to be of a
                                    very good quality.