CYCLE AFRICA 2012 : Turning East for home

Rolling hills, banana wine, endless plains and the Dar Dash

A few hard earned rest days were taken in Kigali, Rwanda where we chilled out in coffee shops, ate some half decent food for once and toured the city. Ben was off on wheel adventures again – trying to find a replacement rear rim as his keeps popping spokes, while Tim and Gareth caught up on chores. Kigali is a rather cosmopolitan city and we were surprised and pleased to hang out for a few days somewhere with tidy streets, good restaurants, cafes, Internet access and a lovely little hostel where the power even worked (most of the time). We had a chance to visit the Rwandan Genocide memorial also, which was sobering to say the least. Over a million innocent people died within a 100 day period during the genocide in 1994 and hearing their stories along with some of the atrocities that were committed during those times certainly gave us a new understanding of living in a politically turbulent world. Thankfully, the people of Rwanda are doing a great job of turning around and our dealings with local people during our short stay in the country were very warm and memorable.

Friends in Rwanda

Local fish man

For our last night in town, we decided to follow one of Ben’s friends on a tour of the city – nightlife style…..Kirsty has been living in Kigali for a few years for work and has built up quite a network of friends, not to mention a healthy knowledge of where the decent local bars are. A night of banana wine (horrible), beers and some stalking of local billiards tables was probably not the greatest preparation for our next stretch of cycling. Suffice to say, we didn’t get on the pedals until well after lunch leaving Kigali. Somehow, beyond all of our understanding, we did manage 70km that day and also under the persuasive powers of Ben and Gareth, managed to score a decent little campsite out the back of a hotel which had a sauna and massage – all for free….talk about butter side up!

Tanzania bound

Swearing off the beers for a week at least has managed to help our cycling somewhat and as I type this, we are in a small city called Nzega in Western Tanzania, having covered almost 600km since leaving Kigali. The riding has been beautiful up to here. After an interesting border crossing, particularly for me, we climbed and descended out of the mountains and are now immersed in the endless plains of Tanzania. After weeks of hills, the flat roads have been a welcome sight and we have managed to significantly increase our km/hr averages per day. This, combined with lots of opportunities for peaceful wild camping have made Tanzania a great experience so far. Although the landscape lacks the stunning beauty of Uganda and the excellent hill riding of Rwanda, the starkness and vastness of the flat lands is surprisingly beautiful. It comes with its perils though, as we have dropped a bit of altitude, the heat has been turned up – the mercury clocking a balmy 41.5 degrees one afternoon as we cycled along. Not exactly perfect weather for someone recovering from a mystery illness…..the last few days have been tough for Ben as he has been battling stomach issues, weakness and lack of energy due to a mystery ailment (we suspect malaria or AIDS, but Ben has unfortunately assured us food poisoning is the likely cause). Yesterday, he somehow managed to manfully battle the heat and 115km of cycling to make it to this little town where we can rest and recover. Today is the first day in a few where he has been able to stomach some food, so we’re hoping for a speedy recovery as we depart tomorrow and continue to head East towards the finish line of Dar Es Salaam.

This leads me to our next adventure – one small piece of critical information to arise during the haze of a banana wine hangover in Kigali was the fact that we still had a few km’s to go….well……heaps of km’s actually! Therein was born the “Dar dash” as Tim has dubbed it. We are fighting the clock to get to Dar on the bikes before our Dec 21 flight and still have many things to see and do. Thus, we have devised a few different plans;

a. Take the direct route and have enough time to chill out on Zanzibar island for a few days before leaving

b. Take the scenic route (checking out Mt Kilimanjaro), adding even more km’s and compromising the Zanzibar plan

c. Take the scenic route and catch a bus to allow time for Zanzibar

d. Be an idiot and try and ride the longer, scenic route AND make it to Zanzibar for a few days

Thus, the Dar dash has been a hot topic of conversation as we make our way across this vast land. In 2 days time, we reach a town called Singida, or, “Decision town” as we have called it, where we need to turn North to go up to Kilimanjaro or keep heading East to Dar Es Salaam (our end point). Tim and I are determined to cycle the whole way but also want to go to Zanzibar for some R&R at the end of the trip – Ben and Gareth want to definitely do some diving on Zanzibar and can’t risk not making it and have thus opted for option c. With plans changing daily, we are unsure what the next week or so will hold, however, there is a better than average chance that I will take the “idiot” option and try and cycle the long way AND make Zanzibar in time and try and drag Tim with me. This plan however, will inevitably force us to crank out a few 140km plus days which are less than ideal in this heat....but given our penchant for trying to do it all, this might be the only way….

Impromptu English / Swahili lessons

A day in the saddle

Spending 5-6 hours a day spinning the pedals gives you plenty of time to think – so yesterday I thought I’d try and capture the essence of cycle touring to those who are unfamiliar with this mode of travel. Although ever changing, here is a atypical day for the gang;

7-8am: Wake up, pack up camp and eat whatever food we have - typically a few bruised bananas and some chapatti (pancake style bread made of corn flour). Load bikes and take off

8-9:30: Turn out 20 or so km’s - or to the nearest town for a morning break of more chapatti with jam/banana/peanut butter and some tea

10-12:30: solid riding with minimal breaks, try and get some kms in before lunch

12:30 – 13:30: Lunch break: typically rice and beans (if in a village), chapatti or avocado, tomato and onion wrapped in chapatti under a shady tree (if away from a village).

13:30 – 15:30: Afternoon session: try and complete the majority of the days goal km’s

15:30 – 16:00 – Afternoon break: crappy snacks, water etc. Load up on whatever food we can find for dinner that evening (mostly more rice, beans, chapatti, avocado, tomato)

16:00 – 17:00 – Cycle onwards until km marker is met for the day (typically 100km a day lately) and then look for a camp – typically off a dirt road, hidden behind some bushes away from sight if possible / or a school / behind a bar / lodge / church….basically anywhere!

17:00 – 20:00 – Set up camp, make fire, eat food, try and wash with whatever water we have, do some reading and sleep early.

7:00am: Wake up and repeat

So there you have it – a basic day in the life of riding. Insert some chaotic scenes with locals, children hounding you, people staring and yelling, hot sun, multiple applications of sunscreen, almost getting wiped out by trucks, lovely interactions with town folk and some random adventures and you have a typical day.

Goat head anyone?

Some would find this monotonous and uneventful, a long way of seeing the sights maybe….although that is hard to argue – sure, we could catch buses and cover 5 times the ground in the same period of time with less effort, one thing I have discovered is that this is a impressively simple way of travelling. Basically, we spend all day riding our bikes, finding food, shelter and water and then camping. Simple. No external pressures and BS. That, I think is where the beauty lies in travelling, particularly by bike – everything is broken down to the bare necessities - eat, sleep, drink and cycle – a simple life worth every drop of sweat it requires. Given that there is around 1,000km to go, there surely will be plenty more sweat to hit the pavement before we board the big bird back to Melbourne on December 21.

To be continued….