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HOPE
Posted on: Thursday, February 25th, 2016 at 9:09pm

I’ve been moving around Africa by bike now for over 4 years, and can’t really carry many souveneirs with me. Beautiful Carvings, Tapestries, Paintings – it just doesn’t fit in the panniers. Instead, I collect this faint glimmer of hope from the African Witch Doctors who seem to have a solution for everything. Enjoy.

Dr. Baku – Do you want your husband to stop beating you?

Mama Bwangu – Even my enemies confessed to me.

Dr. Lubobya – Salary Increments and Promotion

Sendi – Serious Witchcraft Spells.

Baku – Things moving around in body with all abnormality

Bazira – Like a Virgin Grip your Partner like a virgin

Buba – Do you have Evil Spirit Disturbing you?

Prince Joswa – I just don’t know what the best quote is..

Iddi – ETC

Ibengi – Hips enlargement from waist to knees.

Fein – Rats that bring money

Elias – Do you want a baby? Come now. 7 days.

Bwongo – Bring back stolen properties

Kabagela – Bring a plain sheet of paper

Lubobya – Small boy bringing money to you

Malik – Do you want to sell your properties quickly

Kalema – We make prayers for people with problems.

Kamau – Magic ring!

Mama Bwangu – In days I observed miracles with no pain.

Martin – Drinking partner who wants babies

Katimu – Rats that bring money AND lice!

Mobutu – Want to be watery / dry?

Mutoni – Speedin up of marriage / court cases

Kiwa – Unfinished jobs from other doctors are all welcome

Prophet Sadiq – Washing away bad lucky from yoru life

Uncle Sam – Do you want beards or avoid them?

Twaha – Massage Clinic is there for you

Okwi – Winning Elections Campaign

Ogwala – MAKE MORE ROUNDS

Tembo – Fortune Teller Extraordinaire

Shaban – Lost Lover in 2 days

Nyango – Herbal Stuffs for speeding up your marriage process

Nsereko – Restore your job to find a new job

Sendi – To love you more & more

Saazi – MAN WOOD

Ndaku – Helped me with the magic stick

Kariba – Do you want to win court cases?

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Now Available, Tired of I.T! - How I learnd to stop worrying and love the Bicycle - detailing just how far one has to go to embark on a long term bicycle journey, stories not found on the website, and a few lifes lessons thrown in there. Available in Digital and Paperback copes at http://www.tiredofit.ca/book/ and Amazon.

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Another poorly timed update
Posted on: Monday, November 23rd, 2015 at 9:43am

Morning Mist in Divundu Namibia on the Zambezi River

A Congratulations should be handed of down to me of sorts – specifically for worst blogger of the year in 2015. Another 3.5 months has gone by and I’ve travelled 2700km by bicycle, 30000km by plane, and 3000km by car in the process. 3.5 months can quickly turn to 6 months, so I better buckle down and just get this committed in writing before the next stage, otherwise I’m apt to forget (more).

Entrance to Botswana from Namibia

Hello from South Africa, 40km south of Johannesburg to be exact. You can probably guess that I did make it here with the bicycle, which is true, on one gear, save for a 100km cheat session at the end being picked up in Pretoria and taken down to where I’ve been staying with an acquaintance, now friend who I’ve been conversing with over the years. When I last wrote I was feeling the pressure of having to catch a flight a few weeks ahead in the future, with a wrinkle in the overall daily riding resulting in the loss of being able to shift via the twist shifter on my Rohloff internally geared setup. I kept it in the middle gear (7) for 98% of the time, only getting off the bike to manipulate it when I came to the rolling hills of South Africa. It wasn’t so bad, most of Namibia and Botswana is flat, so I just kept my head down and moved forward.

There are really no fences in Botswana. Elephant, Cattle, Goats, Donkeys everywhere.

I had ridden through the Caprivi strip (now “Zambezi Region”) before a year back so there wasn’t much “newness” to it, other than a planned destination in Divundu, a short 30km from the Botswana’s border. To my dismay, the person managing the lodge had moved onto other places, so after a short 3 day stay I continued forward seeking out new experiences. Border Crossings are easy in this region, and you can get away with joking, waving your arms without any threat of being taken aside for a bribe or pointless delays. There is a National Park that one has to cycle through with lions prowling on the side of the road and a tonne of elephants, and I was denied entry on the bike. I made a stink, tried to get the guards name so we could talk to his supervisor, but since it was early in the day, simply opted to just put my bicycle in a truck and travel metres down the road with Safari Viewers who let me off as soon as we were out of sight of the guard station. There were no lions, no elephants or anything fierce to worry about. Those types of experiences frustrate me greatly – on one end I can see their standpoint, but at the same time I tire of trying to stress my point that I’m going from A-B through a Nationally marked road with no other options to get to the destination. I’m not stopping to take photos, push the animals buttons, or intentionally put myself into Danger. I’ve yet to ever see a lion sitting on the side of the road during mid day – they retreat to shady areas as any creature with sanity would, when temperatures are well above 40 degrees.

What a pig.

Botswana I last visited in 2011, and it seemed more of the same – friendly people, prices for lodging and campsites jacked up to near obscene rates, but with the trade-off of nice roads. The last time I went through I hadn’t tried any of the beers as I was on a self imposed sobriety kick and looking back at that I probably should have done it again. The beer is terrible. I remember a blogger writing years back that Botswana is a good place to let the liver rest – and I quickly went back to a Coca Cola/Water intake after trying to unsuccessfully trying to find happiness in the alcoholic options. Botswana has a pretty good education rate, so stopping to talk to people usually goes a few steps above the typical “Hi how are you, I’m Fine” conversations you find in more northern countries, with the bonus of not being pestered for money at every stop as well. Rest stops dot the sides of the roads every 20km or so, however for the most part they haven’t seen maintenance in years, often covered in cattle excrement, thorns, and broken pieces of concrete with iron bar jutting out of them where the benches used to stay.

A most inviting Rest stop.

Other than the gear shifting issue, I had another frustrating failure, although I was able to make it all the way to South Africa before replacing – My right pedal started to feel resistant about 1800km away from Joburg – Seemingly the bearings had gone on them (not bad as they’ve lasted 35,000km) and I was thinking it would be a trivial experience to replace it and keep moving. I was proven wrong, after travelling through village to village, city to city searching for bicycle parts. The problem is here in these Southern countries is that bicycles are incredibly rare to see. Central Africa is where it really starts to pick up. I ended up just stuffing a bunch of grease and dropping oil on the pedal and changing the pressure of my foot when pedaling and by the time I made it to Botswana’s capital city Gaborone I figured it wasn’t worth it to replace and just opted to pick up some stuff when I was back home in Canada. My sleeping mattres also developed a fault where the inner chambers seperated and created a rather large bulge making sleep difficult. Exped sorted me out with a replacement and I’m sure it’ll give me a good nights sleep again. Also, I’m now moving with a pannier that has a huge hole in it. I was being careless and opened up my bag to fetch some biscuits during a rest and neglected to close the top when riding again. I suppose I ashed a cigarette right into the top of it. It wasn’t until I smelled burning fabric I noticed that my toilet paper was on fire and the side of my pannier was melting!. It’s going to make for good stories – so much for waterproof panniers again.

Healthwise, my back was a bit sore from the riding, but the real problem was my big toe. I hadn’t looked at it in a while and it was giving me some problems since the day I left. Now looking back I remember letting my kickstand land squarely on my toe. I didn’t look at it for about a month and then gave some TLC to it in Ghanzi. It was black, blue, green and when I touched it, made a sort of “belching” sound. Obviously things were damaged, so I peeled up the nail, but some antibiotic cream on it, krazy glued it back on and then once back in Canada peeled it off slowly and it’s in the process of regrowing back.

Main culprit for punctures. These things are strong enoug for flesh stitches.

Once I passed the city of Ghanzi (where I had passed through in 2011) I was on the long, windy, sandy stretch crossing through the mighty Kalahari desert. Each day was a challenge with the weather conditions, and worse, trying to find water. With villages more than 20km away from the main roads I was more often than not flagging down truckers for some donations of water, even though whenever I could source it I was carrying 14litres. On one of the toughest legs, a 280km stretch had me run out after 180km and spend the next day drinking juice from tuna cans, and even going as far as finding moisture from green Tabasco sauce. It’s been known as a pretty notorious stretch by many people in the country, and I think would have been a lot easier to go westward bound as opposed to the eastern direction I had chosen. Because of this headwind though, my bicycle had never been cleaner, being lovingly sandblasted by the grains of sand constantly in the air gusting at speeds of over 45km/h.

Facing some disappointment when reaching junctions where I had planned on riding through due to their dirt track potential showed that there has been an incredible amount of work done to see rural areas paved with tar over the past few years. Some of the roads I travelled would see less than 5 cars pass me in a day which made for great riding.

I had always wanted to visit Gaborone, and was mildly surprised to see a clean, orderly capital city with lots of green space, museums, and a good mix of services and entertainment. It took me a few days to get into it, but instead of a planned 3 day stop over, I extended it to 10 meeting some good people in the process, and proceeded to plan for my upcoming trip over to Canada, along with ordering spare parts and goods so that they could be there when I arrived. The only thing that I found disappointing about Gaborone, which is completely out of their control was the water restrictions. They’ve been under drought conditions for 3.5 years, and it was very apparent when whole areas of the city suffered loss of services for 3-5 days at a time. The problem was very apparent when I accompanied some friends to the 50th anniversary of the Gaborone Yacht Club. Not a drop in sight, and showed that people were in dire states when looking at the bulletin board plastered with “Kayak for sale! Sailboat for sale! Price Reduced” all over. Let’s hope for some rain in the area, but it seems the whole world is getting unique variants of weather these days.

Hare Krishna Temple in Gaborone

It wasn’t 20km into South Africa till the hospitality showed its head. I found myself constantly being flagged by drivers, and even a supported wagon for cyclists on a race being given hints and advice on routes, and even a few donations of tubes and slime for the bicycle. I had forgotten for so long what this country was like since the first entrance was so long ago, and I was going through quite the other set of changes of culture at the same time. Incredibly scenic, more first world than third world South Africa has a huge amount of area to explore, to that which I will be doing further. It’s still got that very present divide between the white and black people, and I still find 70% of the white people incredibly and shamelessly racist with their commentary – which still saddens me greatly. I’m not in the mood to debate people’s viewpoints anymore so just smile, nod, move on and find softer conversation to partake in. I actually made it to Johannesberg even with my extended stays in cities 12 days earlier than planned, so spent the time relaxing, eating, and meeting new friends.

Exped the Synmat 7 had, one hump? Failed Mattress again. Made for interesting sleeps!

I haven’t been back to Canada since 2011, and only then was a brief visit – so this was well overdue. Flying out of South Africa taking a brief stop in Germany brought me back to First World immediately – every single one of my credit/debit cards were frozen, making for some stressful moments upon arrival to Canada where I didn’t even have a dollar to get on the train, couldn’t rent a car as planned, throwing wrenches in plans for a 2 week road trip. Family came through and helped me out while I waited for replacement cards to be issued and I went on a whirlwind trip visiting friends, seeing places that I hadn’t seen since I was a youngster, and trying to take in just how much Canada has changed. For one, prices have increased on near everything on average 30%. No longer will I be bitching about the costs of Africa anymore, as it seems here with the strength of the US dollar everything’s become a sweet deal. The South African Rand and Zambia Kwacha are at the lowest they’ve ever been, and still falling – with Zambia’s dropping over 250% at one point in time in the past 6 months. Second, holy structure! This is a good thing and a bad thing. Thing’s work, service is efficient, and if you have a problem, it gets resolved properly and effectively. I couldn’t imagine trying to sort out 5 different bank cards failing at once in Africa, it would be months before everything was back on track but in Canada – 3 business days. Highways were in good condition, food was fresh not rotting in the markets, Internet access is everywhere (oddest one for me was seeing it offered in private taxis!), and the structure of work, and play is very apparent. So much it made it difficult to see some of my friends along the way due to their work commitments. I also had to deal with some formalities (unblocking certain bank accounts that froze, passport renewal and drivers license, personal taxes) and expected a 3 week process to get all sorted, but found that with processing times being speedy I had sorted out all of my errands in less than 5 days. After 4 weeks I was ready to come back to Africa, looked into changing flights, but found cost to alter was just too extreme, so sucked it up, relaxed, actually watched TV for the first time in over 15 years, and tried to find my groove in a country that once was home. I still don’t have a verdict on how I feel about it, and need to get back on the road. All in all, was fantastic to see friends, have my family back together (I can’t remember when my immediate family has all been together in one room, likely 2001), and even met new friends and explored areas where I had never been before. I’m not going to write off going back to stay, but I do know that the cities aren’t for me. Purely for traffic, land cost, and the scatteredness steers me away – where I’d opt for a smaller (50,000 or less people) community instead.

Laughing Man (men?) in Vancouver, Canada.

BC Parliament Buildings at 5am

My how you’ve grown. Vancouver Skyline

A sorely missed mate.

Did a Hell of a lot of Eating (and drinking)

Family Reunion – Immediate Blood – Haven’t all been together since at least 2001?

A cherished mate.

So which brings me back to South Africa. I stocked up on parts over in North America and now have a few extra tyres, repaired my GPS which had started failing, new pedals, brought over my cables for the Rohloff and even ordered a new twist shifter which had compltely worn smooth. I figured I could do the replacement myself, but upon inspection it was worse than I had found. Bolts had seized, and the old shifter wire had unravelled inside the components damaging the actual external gear mechanism. Disapoointed that I couldn’t solve it myself, a quick drive over to Bruce Cycles (the only Rohloff Distributor in all of Africa) put me back in place along with a changing of my brake cables for good measure. I even bought a couple spares from them should I experience problems in the future, but you know Murphy’s Law, everything will be fine otherwise. The bikes in great shape, the only uncertainty would be my front chainring is pretty worn – although it will last another 5000km that I have planned before I hang up the bicycle for an extended period and sort out this new stage of life called “settling.

Really? How to enforce in Africa?

I plan on leaving the Joberg area and heading down to vsit “The Mountain Kingdom” Lesotho, which should offer some pretty breathtaking cycling through 3000m mountain passes, and then head over to the coast of the Indian Ocean. I haven’t seen the Indian Ocean in 2.5 years so this will be a welcome site for some swimming and relaxing. Riding the coast north will take me into Swaziland, a small monarchy which from based on experiences from friends offers a more traditional African environment that one would see in more northern areas of the continent before heading back into Mozambique for round two. I’ve never been to the capital city of Maputo, and am eager to visit based on my strengthening of Portugese speaking over the past few years. The beer there I recall being the best I’ve ever had in my life, so this is the primary driver into going back, where I’ll ride near 2000km through the country to get back into Zambia. Estimated Arrival into Zambia will be February 15th, where I hope that the power situation (I am still hearing reports of 14hour rolling power cuts per day) will be better, and then figure out the whole earning money thing. I’ve sent some of my leftovers in Canada over ahead of time, mostly some clothes, kitchen supplies, and even a few drum machines and music synthesizers to keep myself occupied, hoping to not fall into self destrcutive repetitive habits. Am a bit nervous to actually commit to stopping willingly, but I need to realize that this isn’t the “end”, just a pause. I’ll still travel, but I think 3 month burst are more suited for me now a days as oppsoed to long hauls for years at a time.

Will do my best to update a bit more on this next leg!

Here’s the proposed 4700km route back up to Zambia.

Elevation Chart

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Now Available, Tired of I.T! - How I learnd to stop worrying and love the Bicycle - detailing just how far one has to go to embark on a long term bicycle journey, stories not found on the website, and a few lifes lessons thrown in there. Available in Digital and Paperback copes at http://www.tiredofit.ca/book/ and Amazon.

The post Another poorly timed update appeared first on Tired of I.T!.

Sudden Setbacks
Posted on: Friday, August 7th, 2015 at 5:35pm

Back in the saddle, and the sitbones have calmed down, yet frusatratingly the thighs and calves have not calmed themselves down like they should have. Even still, experiencing a bit of numbness in my left foot which is troublesome – I need to be careful going forward. Even though I said I wouldn’t push myself I found myself unintentionally driving myself into that stage.. First few days of riding working out the kinks brought a few more. Woops.

I’m at the Zambian/Namibian Border – on the Namibian side in the city called Katima Mulilo. I was here in January 2014 resting at the exact spot where I sit now and believe it or not met my to be… Obviously the place has a bit of nostalgia to me – so I’ve been here for 2 nights so far and planning on staying one more before heading west, down the Caprivi (Now called Zambezi) strip to a small town called Divundu. Those who remember, it’s a small “finger” at the top of the country and also crosses for 200km through a National Park. I have a python slither past me in my tent, and even caught sight of a leopard way back when. Let’s hope there’s no excitement this time. It’s flat, the tail winds are going to push me, where I will reach another favourite of mine and rest for another 5 days. What’s the rush? I’m still making great distance and have an excess of energy, likely due to the extra weight I’m carrying. 100km is a snap each day. In 2013 and 2014 I was skin and bones struggling for 70km some days so I take this as a good thing.

I left Lusaka as planned on July 28th saying goodbye to the couple who have been hosting me over the past 3 and a half years off and on. They ran Lusaka’s (only) German resturant and come March of this year closed it down for good. Too many people hitting up the malls, not wanting fine experiences – and plus they had enough. Good for them, early retirement – and they will do just fine. It so happens that they are to move into the house I was living so timing was rather perfect for it all to work out. When I return to Lusaka I’ll be living at a new location, likely to build a house out of tyres, shipping containers, or 21 tonnes of Bombaby Saphire Gin bottles – Idea’s running through my head. After a goodbye, and a 10am beer I raced over to pick up the remainder of my gear in the indusrial area of town, with more goodbyes from close friends and I was off. Heading west on a dusty dirt track to the town of Mumbwa. I’ve been there before in 2012 – yet on the tar road, but trying to keep with my goal of not riding the same roads twice as much as possible I figured this would be a good solution. To get 70km in on the first day felt terriffic as I listened closely to any sounds of the bicycle or things that seemed out of line. So far so good. The following day found me for some reaon putting in 113km, not intentional, but searching for petrol for my stove. There are rolling blackouts in Zambia right now which are causing major havoc to utilities and shops – including petrol – if its available. I had to search and find an area that wasn’t suffering from a blackout in order to be able to cook my dinner/coffee in the morning.

Sleeping behind churches, or in the bush seems to be the norm so far – The churches are OK, save for the fact I usually have a healthy crowd overlooking my every move, but usually comes with a bucket of water for a shower, much welcomed. The bush is tranquil, not much going on – because people seem to be afraid of moving at night, fearing that animals will come and eat them, or worse.

I was getting nervous a couple days in as I had to cross the Kafue National Park. It’s 140km from end to end – and asking people along the way how far the gate was elicited multiple responses. The most confusing one was the fellow who said it was “Eight-e”, to which I responded “Eighteen?” which was what I hoped for, but he persisted that it was “Eight-E”. Sure enough, 8km later I was at the gates, convincing the park rangers that I was sane enough to go through the park with Hippos, Lions, Elephants and a handful of other animals. I knew of a lodge 80km in which I was planning on staying at before riding again during the day to get out of the park. Sleeping on the side of the road would be suicide. 20km I was making good time when the Tse Tse flies started attacking. Not just one, not two, but a couple hundred at a time – This was worse than my bug experience up in the North of Canada a few yeasr back. These flies land on you, bite, and continue biting until you swat them away. I had to put on my long sleeved shirt and wrap shirts and bandanas around my bare legs to try to get them away all the while swinging a facecloth around to get them off of me. Too late. I was getting bitten. Tse Tse flies are known for transmitting Sleeping Sickness – I wrote about this some time ago, and actually know 2 people in the past 6 months who suffered from it. It was so bad they had to be injected with _arsenic_ daily to clear the system. A nice couple passing on the road stopped and gave some water to me while warning me about the dangers of the flies, something I had already known because they wouldn’t let up. I kept on riding. 80km a World Health Organization vehicle pulled up beside me along with a member of the Zambian Wildlife Service and ordered me inside their vehicle. Loading all my bags and bicycle onto the roof they insisted that I wasn’t to stay inside the park anymore and my health was more important. 2 years ago I probably would have told them to go somewhere not so pleasant, but only a few days into the tour, still getting my muscles ready, and _not trying to be a hero_ I got in, where they took me to the end of the park. I only saw a few baboons and a few 4 legged antelope type creatures, so it wasn’t that bad, but the flies aspect of things could lay some groundwork for very bad illnesses in the future. Loading up on Antihistamines I drank water, sugar, and purged myself as best as I could before riding off further down the road into the Western Province, city of Mongu.

Mongu is actually where my ‘to-be’s family is from and I’ve always been curious about the area. The Losi tribe are herdsmen and have been in the area for thousands of years. You can see similarities between them and the Masaii of Kenya/Tanzania, and still believe in Kingdomship. Every time I would mention my partners surname people would stop and bow to me, so I’m sure I’m not being let on to how her relation to the area actually is. Most police offices in the country of Zambia are Losi, and there have been times where they have wanted to secede from the country itself, calling their area ‘Barotseland’. I hate to say it, it would probably be the worst idea ever for them, as there isn’t much going on in the town of Mongu and anything south. With no real ability to grow things due to the massive amounts of sand there isn’t much other than tourism, and even that is minimal.

Mongu Scenery

Farmers right now are employing the technique of slashing and burning, preparing for the upcoming crop season. It’s quite a frightening situation when you have to cycle through a smoky road with flames higher than 3 metres roaring at high speed through the area. Your face gets scalded, it becomes impossible to breathe, and the threat of being caught in the flames due to random winds is always there. It leaves a smoldering mess for days to come making it quite impossible to go and rest, or pitch a tent at the end of the night.

I Can’t say I’m going to miss Zambia. I’ve been here almost 15 months consecutively (take away a few vacations to Malawi) and over even the past 4 years I’ve been coming here I’ve observed a slow but steady nosedive. The people are friendly (Zambia is voted the most peaceful country in Africa) but it lacks the drive and excitement of other countries. When Zambia became a country before being previously known as “Northern Rhodesia”, the British Colonialists simply gave them the country. There was no fighting, no civil war, no real action taken on the peoples end, which definitely reflects the blahze ethic of the people here. There are unique problems in every country on this continent and even around the world, but I sometimes shake my head at the desire to fast forward ahead to become financially wealthy while skipping the fundamental groundwork that is required to support that sort of lifestyle. The skills that are being taught in schools are certainly not enough, save for if you want to learn accounting, prices are the second highest in all of the continent (for no specific reason – For example a guesthouse room with mostly working water, a bed, and a fan is minimum $30 USD in Zambia, and $60 in the big cities, where it would be $4 in Uganda, $7 in Tanzania, $8 in Rwanda, $20 in Congo etc). Prices for appliances, entertainment and any other goods are 40% higher than neighbouring countries, and it all points to greediness and a sort of pride by the people running the country. Call it Corruption, but don’t forget about the Pride. Noone really is doing anything about this blatant ripping off of the people – NO riots, NO demonstrations. I’d burn a few tires and parade around with someones head on a stick if it were me – but maybe it just goes back to the country being essentially handed over, and not knowing how to stand up for humanitarian rights.  It seems the mentality is “Now it’s my time, take it and don’t care about anyone else”, which is quite disheartening for a third world country that needs to get itself together before it becomes the laughing stock of the entire region. Oh wait, it already is. The country relied for many years on Copper Exports, but seeing that Copper prices globally have dropped 2/3rds over the past 3 years, USD has skyrocketed against the failing Zambian Kwacha currency (a -150% drop against the USD!) and little to no exports other than Maize to neighbouring country Zimbabwe sets the stage for a collapse in the coming future. What’s worse, corruption in the governmetns and utilities sector has now brought on widespread loadshedding across the country. Depending on where you are in the region, you are going to get 4 – 10 hours a day of power cuts. It doesn’t matter if you are a business, in an industrial area, retail sector – you get it. Imagine the malls going completely dark and noone able to process their transactions. Imagine the warehouses trying to fill stock, manufacture goods, transfer stock – Darkness, nothing can be done. Schedules have been put out by the power company, yet they can’t even seem to follow a schedule after 3 days, just blindly cutting off service when they feel like it. It’s only going to get worse until a 24 hour blackout comes. This forces people running businesses, living in homes to go and invest in generators, battery operated inverters to keep essential things running like freezers, fridges to avoid spoiling of food. Luckily people have already purchase gas ranges for cooking – if only there was compressed gas – There was a 3 week period just before I left where there wasn’t even a cubic ft of compressed gas available.. And those diesel generators? If only you could find Diesel! It’s a tipping point that keeps affecting other area that are heavily dependent and reliant on each other. There is an election coming in the year 2016, where the current government is trying to change the constitution for a 3rd term – This could spell disasterous for the nation – and quite frankly, I’m not sure I have the heart to live through it all.Knowing there are better places just even next door, is where I’ll likely end up residing for a few years. I still think Zambia is a great place, but not right now.

No Water Anywhere.. Noone really wants to admit there is a drought.

Origin Unknown – Zambian Humor making fun of loadshedding

Origin Unknown – Zambian Humor making fun of loadshedding

Origin Unknown – Zambian Humor making fun of loadshedding

Good news – When I arrived in Mongu I splurged and stayed in a Hotel for a few nights resting my muscles, feeling confident enough that I could complete this leg of the trip. I went ahead and booked my flight back to Canada from Johannesberg. I’m flying out September 17, along with my partner. She’ll stay for 3 weeks while I’ll remain until Mid November tying up loose ends, and likely taking a trip to the carribean for some R&R or something. I want to time it properly to be able to pick up stuff from the USA for shipping back to Africa, as its close to impossible for me to find shoes that fit, (Max size is 11), pants that fit (I’ve got cyclist legs and I just rip pants to shreds on day one), and shirts. Maybe if the technology sector changes I might pick myself up a new computer, who knows. Am excited to show my partner around my beautiful country, yet at the same time a bit frightened that I might like it just a bit tooo much.. We’ll see.

The bad news – Departing with great Gusto from Mongu earlier on this week I noticed halfway throughout the day some resistance when changing gears. After a bit of wrenching on the shifter it seized entirely. Uh oh! I took the assembly off and noted that the cable assembly was broken – rendering my ability to shift up and down with my hand impossible. I can change the gears with a spanner manually, so this helps a bit, but close to impossible when you are trying to effectively shift on ascents or descents to keep your cadence. Becasue of this I’ve been in the middle gear (7) and now single speeding it. This is where I started to push myself. Remember that tailwind that pushes me? Well when you are going South East it turns into a 25km/h crosswind – seriously hampering your efforts to move. Then of course come the hills that weren’t expected. Trying to slug up a hill at a slow speed is a recipe for disaster in the desert areas as you start to pick up road junk. In fact I picked up _9_ road junks on my last day coming into Namibia resulting in a very testing day muttering all sorts of obscenities to myself, luckily being smart enough to know that bad days are temporary and to keep my eye on the prize. This is where I’ve probably pushed myself the most hence the soreness that hasn’t gone away.

There’s a light at the end of the tunnel though, 300km of straight line, FLAT riding to my next checkpoint. To get parts to replace the cable is quite difficult. I asked for help from a friend in Amsterdam, who could help, but it would be a crapshoot on getting the psarts. I contacted the South African Distributor, who said it is fixable but they don;t like changing the parts – If they don’t I certainly wont. I figure I have 1600km of flat land to make up my mind, and it may mean a 200km hitchike to the bike store once I get to the end of Botswana and into the mountains of South Africa. This is supposed to be fun, and I’ll be damned if I’m going to push myself to the point of injury just to say I made it all the way. My health is good right now, and I’ll keep on going until it starts to act up. Smart decision.

I managed to break a spoke on that last day along with a few mounts for my speakers and popped all the buckles of my ortlieb panniers – I’m already building a replacement list in my head for when I’m in Canada…

Elevation Chart

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Now Available, Tired of I.T! - How I learnd to stop worrying and love the Bicycle - detailing just how far one has to go to embark on a long term bicycle journey, stories not found on the website, and a few lifes lessons thrown in there. Available in Digital and Paperback copes at http://www.tiredofit.ca/book/ and Amazon.

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Back in Balance
Posted on: Monday, July 27th, 2015 at 2:46pm

As Mark Twain once said – Reports of my death have been greatly exaggerated – 15 months later I rise again. I’ve had numerous emails, private conversations and call outs from people around the world wondering of what’s been going on with my silence. For those following along – the last I wrote I found myself in the Democratic Republic of Congo suffering from Malaria for the 5th time in my life, suffering from a wrist breakdown (again), and a strange numbness in my foot. Things went downhill fast. This was so long ago now the details are fading. I’ve been trying to write this over and over in my head for months due to many false starts and find that I’m likely a bit rusty after this long break. Let’s try to get back onto the good foot.

Stuck in a small town of Matadi waiting for the Malaria symptoms to disappear I would find myself walking around the market area of town for exercise throughout the day, unable to lift my left leg much higher than a few centimeter, easier to just drag it behind me. Rapidly losing weight, delaying my departure day after day friends and family organized contact with various Embassies and business contacts in the nation with my stubbornness hoping that something would turn positive eventually. Hospitals in the area didn’t know how to deal with the situation, only going as far as doling out more drugs to keep fever down and try to squash the malaria. Daily saline injections to sort out the dehydration and the vomiting.

Enough was enough. I wasn’t going to die in the Congo and was Airlifted out of the country to Kenya, followed by a flight into Zambia. Those following along have seen me back and forth in Zambia throughout the years. It wasn’t 5 minutes into my first day in the country when I met strangers on the side of the road, soon turning into acquaintances, friends followed by near family. It was the closest place and most logical place to go and recover where I’d be surrounded by people who knew me for more than 1 day.

I arrived in Lusaka May 10th at 1:30am, 66kg and lucid, desperately needing medical attention. Enter the nightmare of Blackwater Fever. It appears when I was drinking the jungle quinine in Angola that it was only masking what was really happening in my body, causing further internal damage.
I started the path of recuperation to rid myself of the sickness, while still suffering from my leg being numb. The symptoms had evolved into a full on numbness of anything on the left side of my body lower than my back. Doctors, Massage Therapists, Chiropractors all shared the same opinion – I had damaged my back followed by concrete proof via X-rays confirmed the situation showing that I have pinched my sciatic nerve (something I have done in the past).

A refresher on the Sciatic nerve, it stretches from your neck all the way down to your big toe. I’ve had problems with it in the past (2011 in Canada) and even before I started cycling..
It seems when I damaged my wrist again, I put increased pressure on the opposing side of my back trying to keep cycling and stay stable. The spinal cord has multiple vertebrae that sort of look like little wings, that shift up and down during regular movement. In between those vertebrae are discs – sort of like a sponge to protect all the important bits. Somewhere along the line I had compressed my disc so much one of my vertebrae snuck it’s way in and got stuck on the nerve..

Parallel recovery commenced. I couldn’t sleep, couldn’t walk, couldn’t even put on my socks. I had to enlist the help of someone to make sure I could move around daily. When walking, I’d randomly lose all feeling and have to grab onto something around me in order to keep from collapsing.

Come September of 2014 I was able to walk without major pain, yet maybe feeling a little too overconfident, tripping and spraining my ankle. Obviously 2014 was going to be the year of injuries. I decided to settle down and focus on my well-being as opposed to the desire to get back onto the road. Normally in Zambia you are allowed 3 months per year of staying, but I managed to pull off a full one year before having to leave the country in a flash over to nearby Malawi and hiding out for 3 weeks while I came up with a plan, having friends come together to help me get back into the country where all my possessions resided. In this time as well I violated one of my first rules – never pay a bribe. Maybe I’ll get into that one at a future date.

Back to one of my old stomping grounds – Nkhata Bay Malawi

Flash forward to June 21, 2015 – I was back in Zambia with my bike, bags, and clothes – finding myself buying my first appliance in 7 years – A rice cooker.. When you buy appliances it’s usually to assist in your living, to save time, and to enhance your life. Remember about that person who helped me put my socks on in the morning? That day I also proposed the idea that we should get married and spend our life together. She said yes. You really get to understand and become quite fond of people’s intentions while they are going out of their way to assist you back to a healthy state.

So here I am now – Engaged to be married, 85kg in weight (the most I’ve ever weighed!) and needing to go back to my home country to sort out a few loose ends such as a Passport, Bank accounts and such. The logical solution is to go and cycle again!

Had to stay here on my last night in the Congo all things considered. Apocalypse 22.

Unsure if my leg and back will cooperate, or if I even have the mental sanity to put myself through long rides again, I’ve made a plan to departing from Lusaka tomorrow morning, embarking on a 3000km ride to Johannesburg, South Africa. There is a route out of Zambia that I’ve always been interested in which seems like it could be a lot of fun moderately flat and on nice tarred roads paired with a few national parks, before heading back into Namibia, Botswana, followed by South Africa.

Not entirely the most direct route, but this seems to be the plan going forward.

I’m travelling the lightest I’ve ever moved, with only 2 pairs of pants, a few shirts, and minimal other gear (half the technology I usually move with, ixnay’d the first aid kit and so on), and this time I’m not going to put a timeline on arrival. Pushing myself and setting unrealistic goals that I end up over-stressing my body and mind will just put me back into a state of burnout. – I don’t want to race, I don’t want to beat my chest – I need to be perfectly sure my body is in order before I commit to purchasing a plane ticket to Canada. If I can’t cycle due to health issues, I have enough friends around this continent where I can simply hop on a bus and hang out with them for a few weeks before meeting up with my fiance and traveling back together. She’ll stay for a few weeks with me while I remain in Canada dealing with formalities.

I intend to fly back to South Africa in November and finish the year off traveling through Lesotho, Swaziland, followed by Mozambique, before returning to Zambia in the new year of 2016. Estimated distance for this all is 6000km.

I’m excited for this new stage, but frightened at the same time – perfectly healthy emotions in my mind. Let’s see how this all shakes out. I’ll get back to posting photos, journal entries, and even start tweeting a bit more.

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Darkness Calling
Posted on: Sunday, May 4th, 2014 at 11:26pm

After over a year of trying, I’m finally in the Democratic Republic of Congo. Hooray! 180 days of multiple entry visa came through as I hoped and I quickly left Luanda to start the journey of who knows what’s to come. Forces were holding me back – Let’s get to it.

The day the visa came was a good day. After a few days of calling the embassy where they wouldn’t pick up, or just said “tomorrow, tomorrow” I received confirmation that they would see me on the Friday afternoon at 3pm. Instead, I went down on a hunch at 1:30pm and banged on the gate of the door. The security guard was quite pushy in telling me that I was not welcome as they were closed for the day. I said, no way sir – I’ve got an appointment for 3. Instead he just opened the gate and shut it on me. I stood outside along with someone representing the Ecuador embassy wondering just what would happen next. 15 minutes later, the man who took my application came out and was walking to his car. I got his attention, told him that I was there, to which he replied they were closed for the day. Not another 3 days waiting in Luanda! I was itching to get moving. He smiled and went back into the embassy and returned 5 minutes later with the passport. Grinning, I shook his hand and pedaled away.

Racing back to the International School where I was staying with great momentum I received a call that my laptop that has been on repair was in Luanda and being delivered to me at that very moment – the day couldn’t have gotten better! Taking delivery and thanking the person for all the help they gave me (they were very instrumental in the DRC Visa as well) I raced upstairs to start packing, turn on the new computer and transfer data over to it eager to be able to use a machine that handle the abuse I could throw at it. When I powered it on, something looked strange. The POST boot up logo was larger than I thought, and as my encrypted drive booted up to the way it was in November I noticed a few artifacts in the screen’s desktop background. Something’s awfully large… Till when I realized that the company who held my unit ransom for over half a year didn’t repair it properly. They replaced the screen with an inferior 1368×768 screen instead of the 1920×1080 HD panel that came with the unit. Nor did they replace the battery, as it was obviously damaged when the mainboard fried. Dammit! After all of that! Now faced with carrying two laptops I became frustrated at how badly a company could screw up a repair and blasted messages on various forums, social media networks, and to their MD.  They now admit to the fault, but have put the honus back on me to get the unit to them to repair. Once this post is finished I’m going to write a choice letter outlining their options (they pick it up at their cost, or they pick it up at their cost) before I go nuclear around the internet with the whole story. But it’s just technology – and another 3lbs in my pannier. Whatever – got a new country to visit.

Luanda is on fire right now with construction. With an estimated 8 million people and growing there are developments _everywhere_

I left Luanda on a Sunday knowing that traffic would be lighter and wanted just to get outside the city perimeter before the end of the day to have a fresh full day of minimal traffic. It worked, but riding in the dead heat of the day after sitting on my behind for 2 weeks obviously tweaked my body a bit. It seems I’ve pulled my left ham string – starting with a dull ache now moving to a noticeable limp when I walk. Strangely enough, when cycling I forget about it. The Calf muscle fired up 3 days after that and everything seems very tight. My solution is Ibuprofen and Naproxen. Lots of it.

It sure was nice heading north from Luanda on brand new Chinese roads, still not entirely finished assembling the guardrails or painting the lines. Gradual Grades and smooth surfaces to ride on. I was making good distance one day, stopping at 4pm to have a few beers when upon returning to the bicycle my GPS wouldn’t power back on. Stuck at the Garmin logo I figured it was just on the fritz and later during a strange stealth camping setup I pulled the history off the unit and attempted to power it up again – no dice. This time I renamed some of the maps to see if that was the problem – still nothing. I opted to read a book instead and go back to it the next day, as sometimes when the unit has gone on a vacation in the past it seems to gather its senses a few hours later. It poured rain that night for hours, thoroughly soaking my clothes I had left out to dry, water poured into my tent, and everything became sand and muddy – so much for being clean. My body has also since arriving in Angola started rejecting Cycling Shorts and liners – something to do with the humidity and having the jewels jammed up together in one place for 8 hours a day. Huge rashes exist on both inner legs from ‘taint’ to midway down my thighs. It’s also bloody painful, and I’m pouring baby powder and Zambuk lotion on it multiple times throughout the day, with it eventually turning into a gloppy chunky mess that I have to pick out at the end of the night. There ain’t no showering, but at least I smell baby fresh going commando. Yeesh.

Towards the end of the Chinese road I met a fellow (Angolan) who was working for the Chinese company as a road inspector. He invited me to his work camp as all the other expats had left on vacation for a few weeks, giving me his private self contained room. Muchly appreciated as I had a nice bed to sleep on, a washing machine to throw my dirty clothes in, a proper shower, and importantly, time to plug things into the wall and try to sort out the GPS issue. Eventually I did it. With creative hacking of the firmware loaded on the device, I managed to pull a copy of it onto my system, tweak the firmware into tricking the device that it set to be upgraded, initiated a low level format of the device, manually recreated the folder structure, and hand edited the configuration to look as if it was a brand new unit with no riding done it. Amazingly, it booted. One hour of work, and I’m in a much better state. The day it was down was interesting – head swimming with thoughts on just how exactly was I going to navigate my way through DRC if there was no map – quickly resolved by the “duh” moment of – Just find a map dude! Other thoughts involved wondering how I was going to record and document my travels for future travellers, and also retagging my photos.. There’s an app for my Android phone that records GPX movements, but I’m unsure of how much battery juice it uses, and would be testing it blindly.. Wanting to keep things simple I tried it for that one day, and in the future will retry again so that when the GPS does finally die I’ll have a backup ready and waiting. Technology.

I went anyways

Gathering advice from the Road Inspector on what was coming he I made it 80km to my junction point of the final stretch to the DRC – a town called Noqui which straddles the great Congo River. I’d been eyeing this route for near 2 months, with all my mapping and planning software telling me that it was a decent route to take, yet when I arrived at the junction, staying at a gas station with probably one of the most uncomfortable awkward moments of Africa as the gas attendant kept coming by bringing strings of ladies and making some pretty erotic motions telling me to pick one for the night – the ladies purring, clucking and smooching at me to pick them. Playing dumb and not understanding Portuguese worked well in my favour and I found myself talking to the security guard for the rest of the night – him also leaving me his baton (he said he’d just use his gun instead of the night) incase the ladies came back for trouble. The Security guard warned me that I should not take the road whatsoever to Noqui, and instead pass through nearby Mbanza-Congo, where the road remained tar, and then switch over to Noqui. Looking at my map it seemed it was going to double my distance (160km vs. 300km) – I figured it would take one and a half days on my planned route.

Again in the morning I was told sternly ‘Estrada Mal!’ as I left by multiple people in the area. I chalked it up to adventure, a bit of stubbornness, and wanting to end my time in Angola, as 7 weeks was enough – and I had bigger fish to fry. All went well for the first 2km, before it turned to a rather nasty dirt track, ruts in the road, steep descents, and mud remaining from the rainy season that is just ending here. It was scenic however, and I was content with having some solitude for the next few days, where cellular service was non existent, and giving me a little taste of what was to come in the next few weeks. Riding slowly by myself, thinking in deep thought I came within 5 metres of a huge tree falling on me and my bike while riding. Coming down with a thump in front of me, I realized there were boys in the bushes cutting down trees and taking the wood for burning. They were just as shocked to see me appear, and offered apologies as I waited while they hacked all the trees branches off so I could cross this narrow pathway.

Ridiculously scenic jungle riding with not a person in sight. Good or bad, depending on which way you look at it..

More descents and the sun was coming out of its clouds by 10am I was exhausted, not having anything to eat for breakfast but 500ml of coffee. I found a river with the clearest water I’ve seen in weeks and took advantage of it for bathing, boiling another cup of coffee, and what seems like my Angolan Staple: Spaghetti and (ugh) Sardines. Back on the bike I decided to look at the odometer – I’d only covered 17km in 3 hours! OK, 143 to go – slowly slowly, nothing good ever happens fast, whatever you want to say.

2 hours later I was slogging through nasty muddy puddles, bicycle getting stuck and jamming the brakes just like they did upon entry into Angola, and I searched on the sides of the shoulders for small foot paths. Sometimes they were there, sometimes not, most of the time it involved one foot in the puddles, one foot on the path, or just running the bicycle through the puddle and walking the bike through the puddles. I had to raise my front panniers up to the top part of the rack, as after 5 years of hardcore usage they are now springing holes and allowing water in. At one point in time I went through a puddle, fell over sideways, and the bag containing all my electronics submerged, along with the pannier containing all my clean clothes was penetrated as well! Since my food pannier is thin I have to keep the clothing pannier open and use one of its buckles to keep my trunk bag level, and this only caused a huge problem destroying any semblance of clean clothes for the near future. My feet were (and still are ) trench footed and grandma wrinkled from wearing soggy socks for 3 days, My shirts that I’ve been carefully trying to keep in good condition have all ripped, and the soles of my boots separating from the main leather. From the water the stickers that I was so proud of applying to the frame upon entry to each country now are starting to pull a “Back to the Future” moment, slowly turning white – Tanzania is fully gone, Burundi as well, and Malawi and Mozambique are halfway done. Hoping this doesn’t cause frustration among people assuming that I did it on purpose when they analyze my bicycle.

Sadly some countries have just disappeared..

It’s pretty much definite I’m going to need to change the chain, and front and rear chain rings shortly. Also redo the bearings of the pedals, regrease my bottom bracket, and give some tender love to the Bicycle. It’s making grinding sounds frequently, just not able to put up with what it’s been thrown into. Correction – It’s handling it, but for how much more longer. The kickstand does well at holding the bicycle up, but getting it to retract is a tug of war game, and it’s going to snap eventually just like the last one did in Namibia.

Not appearing on a map, but obviously well used, these foot paths can lead you into a beautiful space or a problem zone. But for the most part – trust the footpaths.

So it’s 2pm on that road, I’ve covered 30km in 5.5 hours, my leg is aching, my clothes are soaked, the sun is beating on me, left thumb is oozing puss (never underestimate the sharpness of a serrated Spyderco Knife Blade) and I’m in terrible shape. Running out of water fast, I note that my final remaining 1.5 litre bottle has been popped with a hole in it from the riding, and has now been mixing the clean water with the muddy goop I’ve been riding through. I drink it anyways, no choice whatsoever – as the next village is who knows how far away. Wicked 16% grades sapping my energy as I’m starting to regret this 160km shortcut when it starts – Blam, the headache at the top of the head, followed by chills. I know this feeling, I’ve felt it before, all to well, actually 5 times to be exact. Dave, you are so screwed – You’ve got Malaria and you’ve let your health down so much here it comes hard and fast. Guess who took his last Malaria tablets 2 weeks before and was going to pick them up at the border before entering into the DRC – this guy. Similar story to last time in Zambia where the immigration officer manhandled my drugs and lost one of the pills.

30 minutes later I’m lying on the ground in pain, unable to ride any further. Yelling out loud – please help me was definitely the low moment that I’ve experienced in Angola, to which of course no one came. I was panicking, I was out of water, I couldn’t even boil water as I was out of fuel in the bottle that held the pump, as somewhere in the 32km I had travelled my reserve bottle flew out and was lost. This wasn’t how things were supposed to go and for the first time in I don’t know how many years I lied down and bawled my eyes out. There was no traffic whatsoever nor was there any clear sighting of villages, just jungle and rolling hills in the distance. Lying there for about 30 minutes with my eyes closed and fever coming hard and fast I just wanted to sleep forever, real dark thoughts entering into my head, a voice nagging me that said “you were warned and now you’re going to suffer”. Refusing to let it beat me I started walking with the bicycle up the hills, not making much distance at all, but moving, tunnel vision fully set in, and on the state of delirium – putting on music sounded like demented circus music and static (some of you who know me well may think that’s what I listen to in the first place, but this was different, honest) and wasn’t helping keep my mind off things. I spent the time focusing on what to say in Portuguese if I did encounter someone, needing to get to a hospital, or take a ride to Noqui – even at that stage planning on offering the $180 USD in my pocket just to get me out of the mess.  Sometimes things don’t always come out the way you wish for and I found myself giving up after 48km (44km and 4km backtracking looking for the fuel bottle), pitching my tent, skipping dinner because there was no fuel left to cook pasta and going on a wild psychedelic ride involving wild horses coming to step on me, my jaw in a vice smashing into pieces along with a pulsing alarm sound. I don’t actually know if I slept.

The next morning I awoke heavy headed, grabbed a bunch of anti inflammatory tablets, and forced myself to ride until I met people – there was no way I was going to have Angola the last place I was ever seen functioning, and weaved and swerved on the road which had better riding conditions due to the nighttime packing of the sand from the dew until I reached a village. First thing I saw – A Hospital! Dropping my bike and staggering to the entrance a crowd appeared and noticed that something was terribly wrong. Water appeared, I found myself lying on a bed and attempting to explain what was wrong. A test confirmed the results – It was Malaria, by this time a full on commotion had appeared outside the one roomed hospital. A spoonful was jammed into my mouth, with a small amount of liquid on it that tasted like bitter aluminum, and burned while going down my throat. Pure Quinine said the nurse, followed by package of Fansidar anti malarial tablets – taking the first 2 immediately and then told to take the next two the following day. No charge, and after 3 hours of lying down, they released me and bid me a bonne journee. I’m sure I could have stayed for a few days, but with the crowd constantly peering in the windows, and the fact that the weather was actually optimal for riding on the crap roads I decided to make a go out of it – slapping more painkillers into my mouth, this time freshly loaded up with another 8 litres of water and moved on. I hazily made it through 70km that day – Don’t tell me what happened through out it, I don’t know. All I do know is waking up to again yet another rainstorm, this time making huge puddles beside my tent, soaking the insides of my open bags, and loosening the mud in my tire valves causing a flat in the rear tire.

It doesn’t help that my tire pump has been on the fritz for the past possibly 6 months, only pumping when it feels like it, and on an extreme angle. I guess that extreme angle has bent the valves so much that on any bit of external pressure they release immediately. I noticed this after replacing the first tube with another one, only to have it happen a short 2km down the road. Crowd surrounding me again as the the other tube I had had a hole in it needed repairing and didn’t stick, finally with me opting to replace the one last brand new tube I had that was given to me by someone in Luanda. It had a presta valve – but my pump works all the same. And it did! By tearing the valve right off and ruining the tube completely upon inflation! Feeling terrible, stressed out, baking in the sun, I yelled one of those famous 4 letter words and flung the tube into the jungle to which a half dozen kids went chasing after it as a prize. I patched one of the tubes up and tightened the valve with the leftovers of an old Slime Applicator tool and went off again – this time frustrated that near 3 hours was wasted with dealing with pointless flats. I wanted to get to the border early in time for crossing into DRC so that it didn’t turn into a shitshow at night trying to find a hotel or place to stay in a city of 1 million people.

Stopped by police and military along the way on some of the final checkpoints, I left carting away a military ration box as a gift from the commander. Inside the box was quite interesting – 2 juice boxes, 4 packets of sugar, 4 small packets of Jam, two cans of “stew”, 25g of dark chocolate, water tablets, and some crackers. So that’s what the military eats – not so much when they are out protecting their borders or whatever interests they have. Glad to have some proper nutrients in my body I slammed the majority of the box into my stomach and rode onto the return of the tar road, noting the fluorescent green mountains to my left as I entered a steep descent to Noqui, Congo River off in the distance – then it was backup another 200 metres to the border – to which I arrived at 3:15. Sun sets at 6pm, Was I ready for this? Usually it takes 1 to 2 hours to cross the border for me in countries like this, but I’m at the whim of whoever is behind the desk on either side and how much trouble they want to give me.

Ever wonder what the Angolan Military eats? Well wonder no more. Sugar, Sugar, Sugar, Coffee, Chocolate, Beans, and sugar.

Angola – difficult. Again came up the issue of my strange permitted Visa that states I am working in the country. They needed to “make a call” but couldn’t get ahold of who they wanted to get ahold of in this small one roomed border office with no power, no computers, not even forms to fill out. Finally it came – We need some money so we can go and make a call from DRC and Photocopy your passport, and also release yourself from this work permit. My response was, no problem! I didn’t want to enter DRC today anyways since its afternoon – I’ll just go outside and pitch my tent and sleep here for the night. Power can come tomorrow!

It wasn’t 1/3 into putting together my tent pole unit that my passport appeared with an exit stamp on it, and I was on sent on my way into the next phase – The DRC. Any other cyclist I know who has crossed in has horror stories outlining entry and exit procedures and I wasn’t quite sure what I was ready for. Still flying high from the Malaria Drugs, my body screaming “Just exactly who do you think you are crossing into this place, for what?” I was taken into a small room where a well dressed older man sat under a flickering light bulb. It was then I noticed he had only stubs for fingers and struggled with opening my passport, or using a pen, picking up paper, or whatever. I explained to him politely my mission of entering the country and where I intended to go en francais and he seemed to perk up a bit when I spoke quite fluently. He had to make a call as well – this time it went through for 15 seconds then abruptly cut out. Asking me politely where would I like to have the stamp placed and on what page (that’s a first! Most of the time the border guards just pick a random page and wreck it for full page visas for other countries) and sent me over for verification that I had proper shots. I have everything I needed to enter the country (Yellow Fever is Mandatory, they recommend all the other nasties like Hepatitis A, B, Typhoid, Diphtheria , etc.) and I had went back to the man who stamped my passport. Where is it I asked? “Around the corner, with those men” he said in a rush, keeping his head down…

I guess that was where the fun was going to stop, the searching, the bribing, and random paperwork – and I was right. Ushered into an office where two men sat leisurely staring at me it seemed oddly familiar to my last Zambian entrance.. “Carnet de passage?” they asked – I laughed and said “Non, C’est une velo” knowing damn well that wasn’t necessary for a bicycle. They both nearly fell out of their chairs when they realized it was a bicycle, talking to each other and started asking me questions as to the journey. Even better, they sent someone hanging around outside to go and pick up a sprite and a few oranges for me so that we could talk in comfort! 30 minutes later we had exchanged names, email addresses, telephone numbers and I was leaving at 4:45pm to make the 7km into the town of Matadi hoping to find a place before nightfall. A quick stop to exchange money at the money changers (I had $180, I received a wad the size of an encyclopedia in Congolese Francs in return) followed by the 3rd oldest trick in the book – requesting that I give back some as I gave them damaged bills (I mark all my bills with a smiley face before crossing a border for this). It was the equivalent of $20 they wanted back – and it wasn’t worth my time to piss around arguing with a mob watching every move as I pulled the money out of various pockets and replaced it shortly after. $20 gone and I was riding the ups and downs into the city. I really had no plan on where I was staying as I’d been feeling so crap the days prior and started looking on the GPS, noticing that there was a Convent listed for $5 a night camping. I tried to find it, and of course it didn’t appear where my map said it would, so queried a man at the side of the road for directions. 2nd wrong move of the day – He took me to a hotel where they said it was full, followed by to his friends “guesthouse”. The guesthouse with no water, no fan, loud music bumping, and an awful smell cost me $30, an obvious partnership to fleece the newcomer out of money. It was dark, I was tired, I paid it. I had a good sleep – so it couldn’t have been that bad.

Descent towards the Congo River, final 3km of Angola.

Now I find myself in the DRC Congo, sad that I’m out of Angola. Angola stands out as a very special country to me. From the first minute of entering it had a breath of freshness to it, even though within the first 10km I was slogging through rivers, crossing on dugout canoes and plucking mud from every crevice of my body and the bicycle. By far it stands out as the most scenic country I’ve visited (next to Canada of course, but I’m biased, and well, Canada is bloody huge) and contained a mixture of the most challenging moments I’ve ever had on a bicycle but at the same time the friendliest welcome by the locals, even though for the first bit I hadn’t the foggiest idea of what they were saying. By the end my Portuguese was good enough to converse past the basic formalities and had quite a good time. People went out of their way to make sure I was safe, many offered gifts of food, lodging in hotels, some even found me after seeing me on TV and invited me to their place. Not once did I ever feel threatened or frustrated at how the locals were treating me – and not once was there any subtle hint of racism, catcalling of my skin colour, just plain acceptance of that I was who I was. Angola is set to enter the SADC in 2017 along to join with other Southern African countries in a sort of a union/trade agreement, and there is talk to remove the strict visa restrictions in the coming months/year – which will open a floodgate to new visitors whether their be tourists or workers.

There’s already a tonne of expatriates living in Luanda, slowly milking the resources dry, while causing costs of living to skyrocket with big companies just throwing money to make their workers happy. Paired with near 40 years of war this country is in its young teen years only 12 years out of the nastiest and most arms used war since World War II. They’ve got the potential, just need to get their shit together dealing with education from the primary level up, agriculture farming – to curb the insanity on pricing as 90% of the products or more are imported. Beer and Cigarettes are cheap – that’s a given, the country would revolt if the lesser privileged people couldn’t get completely blitzed every night – but other products are completely unattainable for a regular person. Rent as I mentioned in a previous post is insane in bigger cities, often not coming with running water or sanitation. If it does – it’s in the thousands of dollars – with the highest I found being $45,000 USD per month. Food costs – How does a $14 dollar head of lettuce sound on your plate? Or $91 for a kilogram of pistachios? $5 for half a dozen eggs? A cucumber for $6? Don’t forget about desert – Ice Cream is apparently going for $41 a litre due to some recent taxing changes. It’s not just food that’s high priced. Mobile Telephony and internet is ridiculously high for what it gives you. I spent over $120 in Telecommunication costs alone, and wasn’t only24x7 whatsoever – for 2 weeks I didn’t even have service! Frustrating memories of standing with a dozen people in a 10 ft. square in a village all raising our phones in the air craning our neck to see if we were able to get signal .  Bicycle Parts were another shock – $99 for a pair of cheap Chinese brand gloves – $40 for a spare tube and $60 for a cheap KMC Chain. Outrageous prices for sure, but this will change when the bigger companies from the South move in. Angola is ready for further change – and it’s going to be great to watch for a country that deserves every bit of it. I may just say that it’s been the best one yet..

This was an $8 sandwich. It was a freebie by someone running a gas station. I would never have thought I’d eat one of these things, nor shelled out pocket money at this price..

Is there even any nutrition in this $14 head of lettuce?

My first encounter with Military helping me out. This was thrown at me overhand while riding along with soldiers pointing fingers to their mouth so I didn’t alert their commander. It was a nice gesture. This would cost $7

Now where I’m at in DRC. Matadi is the only ocean port in the entire country, first discovered in 1485 by a Portuguese explorer which then turned into a staging ground for explorers throughout hundreds of years, finally erupting into some real nasty colonial land grabbing, resource raping, turning this country into unrest for nearly 100 years. The history of how badly the people have been treated here is stunning – countries from all sides have done their best to try to break it up, and on the inside rebel groups pillaging the communities, deadly viruses decimating villages, along with some of the most hostile geography Africa has to offer is going to make this country a real challenge for me – in fact this is the one I’ve been worried about for a while. From what I know, the planned route I am taking back down to Zambia has a decent road for 1000km – after that, it just stops. No nothing. I don’t know anyone on a bicycle who has ever made it, the one I thought who had ended up taking a train halfway through, and pictures of an over lander in a heavily armored 4×4 took near a month to pass through the route on what would have taken 3 days on normal roads. I’m in for a big one I think. But as has been more h case in the past, I’m likely to have a surprise from my preconceptions from what the country actually is. Internet access might fizzle out again, but I’ll do my best to write a report along the way.. Side note – I left the place for $30 USD, found a cheaper place and gave a little love to my bicycle. I paid one of the hotel workers $3 to clean the bicycle.. If I was to do it I would have skipped a spot – this guy spent near 4 hours going at everything and it looks just like from the factory. I’m ready Congo..

Elevation Chart

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Writer’s Block
Posted on: Friday, April 25th, 2014 at 9:31am

Seems that the more I move this year the harder it gets to write – perhaps writer’s block, perhaps finding other things to do, but one thing for sure is that the longer I go without it the more memories disappear, so this seems to be a forced update instead of something I’ve actually wanted to do. Pardon the briefness and lack of detail even though so much has happened.

I still find myself in Angola, likely the most beautiful country I’ve visited yet on my travels, and certainly one of the friendliest ones. I’ve been in the capital city of Luanda for near 2 weeks waiting for a DRC Visa to be issued, with hopefully today to be the day where I’m going to be able to pack my bags moving forward again. The rest has been good, but now reached its point of monotony and I’m eager to get back cycling. Luanda is a real masterpiece. 5 to 8 million people crammed into a city that was designed for half a million, and steadily expanding daily. The rumors were true – It’s expensive here. Once holding the title as the most expensive city in the world it’s been taken down a notch by Singapore but that doesn’t change the fact that its near impossible for someone to survive here without making a tonne of money.

Likely the cheapest food you can buy in Angola, these little Portugese style buns in the south cost 10 cents USD. I would go through 10 of them a day. Sadly, they have disapppeared.

Rents for housing in areas are high – $3000 for a small place, all the way up to $45,000 a month in a gated suburb lined with trees, sidewalks, and private stores that makes you forget you are actually in Africa at all. Oil is the driver here – companies from around the world have setup shop and throwing their funds left right and centre in order to keep their employees happy but at the same time creating a huge gap for survivability for the locals who tough it out here. I had quite the fear from day 1 of entering into Angola hearing of all the horror stories of rampant crime, nasty traffic, and bad conditions, yet I don’t see it that bad whatsoever. I’ve been to a few large cities in this world and this is just yet another one struggling to cope with a massive population boom. Sure it takes 4 hours to travel 12 km in the city, but not on a bicycle if you ride in between the stalled cars and stay alert for an opening to keep moving. I manage 15km in the city fully loaded an hour, and much faster when the bags are off the bike. With minimal hills it’s quite a scenic and refreshing ride each day as I scuttle about doing my business, doing my best to stay off side roads that have not been tarred, or are in the process of being ripped up to replace the cities aging water and power network. When it rains however chaos ensues. Flooding occurs even at the smallest amount of rain, and you have to be careful that a small puddle doesn’t end up going 2 ft. into the ground and sending you over the handlebars (done it!).

During rainy season, it’s quite a mess, finding yourself pushing your bike and then plucking mud out of the drivetrain for hours afterwords to get moving again. Usually there is a footpath running parallel that is in better condition. Sometimes…

Getting here took a lot of energy, leaving Namibie back up to Lubango and heading to Huambo – basically the halfway point of the country where one has to continuously climb hills to cross over the hundred or so rivers that criss cross the area.  Luckily in the mountains the temperatures stay moderately cool and there are ample spots for shade and camping at the end of the day, and certainly enough spots where one can dive in the water and catch a wash.

Huambo was one of the centrepoints of the civil war where the two opposing factions were staging many battles. Water lines had been destroyed leaving all residents having to hire 3rd party sources in for delivery, whether it be a truck filling up a 5000 drum, or paying $1 to a street person to haul 100 gallons up 6 flights of stairs every few days to deal with cooking and bathing. Showers in the old part of the town just don’t exist. Buildings that had been destroyed by mortar shells still stand, as a reminder of how deadly the war was. Locals explained to me about searching for supplies out of town and being stopped at many roadblocks. Upon arrival the police and military looked in the vehicles and told drivers to let everyone out who didn’t speak the local language of the opposing side. If you didn’t, you were to get out of the car, and were shot dead at the side of the road. After decades of problems Angolans are more than happy to let these days stay in the past and instead are focusing on unity, and living a nonviolent lifestyle.

After leaving Huambo I found myself falling into a hole while dragging my bicycle up a hill to sleep in an abandoned church. Trying to hold onto the bicycle as I fell I felt a nasty crunch and seemingly sprained my wrist, the same one I broke 2  years back in Mozambique and then shortly thereafter when I was hit by a taxi in Malawi. Once one thing goes in the body soon others follow as the exhaustion set in, followed by internal issues where I just couldn’t keep anything solid in my body for 2 weeks, eventually resulting in a collapse at the side of the road, hanging my head down returning to a lodge at the great Kwanza River for some forced rest. Signs of Malaria were showing, along with some random digestive problems. I solved it by taking anti malarial, anti biotics, deworming, and bilharzia medication all at once. The doctors in my experience frequently misdiagnose – and I figured I couldn’t do anymore harm by annihilating whatever was going on in my system. Sure enough – 3 days later I was back to 100%.

I realized that I wasn’t going to make it all the way through the country in my 30 day allotment, and luckily was intercepted by a friendly couple from South Africa working at a local concrete plant, who let me stay at their place for a few days as I worked with Immigration authorities to extend for yet another 30 days. Problems ensued – It seems that I was issued the wrong visa, and I spent 3 days trying to convince them that no, I wasn’t working in the country, and this was simply the tour operator who invited me to come and stay. Try doing it in Portuguese with no English – definitely an exercise in tolerance. $100 later I was on my way, eager to get into Luanda knowing that there would be more bureaucratic hassles at the embassies trying to head north whichever direction.

A very rare self photo. Taken by a friendly couple from South Africa who were curious about my story and invited me for a few days rest at their place.

I opted for the DRC Embassy first. It’s gotten to that point where spite is kicking in, and I just want to get into the country so bad after being denied so many times. I arrived on the Monday morning, only to find out that they were only accepting applications on a Monday, but were requesting a signed letter from the Canadian Embassy authenticating that I am indeed a tourist and who I say I am. I thought that was what a passport was for, but obviously not. Finding the Canadian Consulate was easy enough, only to find out that they couldn’t issue this letter – only from Zimbabwe. They could Stamp my own drafted letter but only on Tuesday. And so the loop began. Letter in hand, various contacts I met did their best to expedite and get the DRC Embassy to open for my application without success, forcing me to wait the entire week with little or nothing to do but rest. It got worse when I appeared at the embassy and they rejected the application outright because it didn’t have Canadian official letterhead on it. Of course the Canadian Consulate was closed due to it being a holiday, and not being able to do something until the next day as well. I persisted, worked my way into the Embassy getting past the first wave, and eventually was able to succeed at putting in my application form for a 6 month multiple entry visa at the staggering cost of $550 USD. I don’t know how much of that is going into pockets or not, as I never received a receipt during the process, and refrained from asking for one hoping that this would achieve success. I’ll know in a few hours.

Lightning storms appear out of nowhere, and dump 30mm of rain overnight making for a very wet morning and tough cycling conditions.

I’ve decided that seeing as the visa is near impossible to get, I should get my moneys worth out of it. Originally intending to go from the Angolan border to Kinshasa, DRC’s capital city before crossing into the Republic of Congo (Brazzaville) it would be only 350km of cycling on fairly easy roads. I’m due for a rest and was planning on flying back to Lusaka Zambia in June from Cameroon, forcing me to leave my bicycle with someone and limiting my movement back in Zambia while I rested for 3 months. The obvious decision was to cycle back to Lusaka instead from Kinshasa – some 2500km through footpaths and crossing rivers along the way. What could possibly go wrong? This would allow me to rest, have a bike, and then simply fly back to Kinshasa DRC after I am done, and then continue to move forward on the original route plan. Apparently after DRC the visas become a bit easier to procure, but that remains to be seen.

Buildings like this dot the side of the road more often than not. A reminder of when the country was in much better shape. This was a police station at one point. Excellent for camping in at night.

This is now the new Police Station.

I’ve been staying with a British Teacher at the International School here in Luanda, and found myself presenting to a few hundred children of varying ages using my old dated presentation – Still working on this old laptop, waiting for my repaired one to be back in my hands, which apparently might happen in the next few hours thanks to some lovely people who heard my cry for help on the internet, went and picked it up from the repair centre in Johannesburg, South Africa and handed it to someone who was flying into the city as well. Carrying two laptops will be a pain, and I’m almost quite tempted to sell this one that I have here at the going rates here (which oddly enough are more than what I paid for this unit 4 years ago) and just buy a new one for the person who loaned me it back once I return to Zambia. 

As I wrote before, it’s a bit of a struggle to write these days, so I’m just going to leave off right here and caption photos going forward that have been taken in the past month.

Fishing is quite popular in Angola, and just look at the size of them, this is a small 15kg one found just at the mouth of the Kwanza River and the Atlantic Ocean.

Painted on this rock is the logo for the beer one would find North of Huambo, Cuca. It’s miles ahead of the sludge that I was drinking for the first half of the country.

For the geology nuts, Angola by far blows away any of the other mountainous formations I’ve seen in Africa. This is just one of a thousand I passed enroute to the coast.

In the mountains the fog didn’t lift till near 10am from the 6am sunrise making for cool riding conditions, yet a frustrating tent packup/followed by a mid day dry out.

These wooden scooters are everywhere. For kids to play with, but this one seem to have a more utilitarian usage for hauling products from village to village.

Random Bush meat for sale at the sides of the road. I managed to figure out that for $2 usd I could have this in my belly. I kept moving.

A typical village in the mountains. Rocks on the tin roof in to make sure it doesn’t fly away. Life is simple, and people get by.

This is why you don’t eat goat meat.

Here is some history. Old Cannons to protect the coastal perimeter still exist in forts.

If one follows along the coast one is sure to find a few shipwrecks.

There are some fantastic stealth camping spots along the coast, where the temperatures reach 30 during the day – humidity brings it up to 40, and nighttime rarely falls below 26.

Elevation Chart

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Janet..
Posted on: Monday, March 24th, 2014 at 10:37pm

From the Book “Tired of I.T! – How I learned to stop worrying and love the Bicycle”:

“People will randomly approach travellers for their own personal reasons. I was riding in a city in northern Canada when a truck pulled alongside with the driver motioning for me to stop. The passenger side window rolled down to reveal an older woman wearing a bandana, greeting me by saying “You’re the one!” “Who me?” I replied in confusion, “you are coming over for dinner tonight, we’re having moose stew!” No harm in that I thought, until she added, “my husband is not home!” Cautiously I agreed while taking the woman’s address and phone number, agreeing to a 7:30pm arrival. I didn’t want to set any wrong impressions and invited a female friend along with me to the dinner, also  agreeing that  it  could  be  used  as  an  exit  strategy  if  things  became uncomfortable. It was nothing of the sort.

We arrived on schedule and met not only Janet, the woman who had offered the invitation, but also her friend. She seemed to be there for the same reasons as my friend. Over the course of the next hour, before dinner was served; we briefly all spoke about who we were and what we were doing in the city. Janet spoke of her upbringing, born into the Dene (Den-EH) tribal bloodline which was local to the area, yet brought up far away in Uranium City, Saskatchewan.
Throughout the brief explanations of her life she offered gifts to my dinner companion, mentioning the fact that she had been sick four years earlier after doctors discovered a  tumor  in  her  brain.  After  repeated  treatments  and surgeries she succeeded in ridding herself of the cancerous growth. There was a moment of embarrassment on my mind, while we were eating dinner the phone rang. It was her husband calling to check up on her.Apparently he was working out of town, and was concerned that a younger man was to be coming to the house for dinner. Janet quickly ended the conversation after explaining that everything was all right and we all finished dinner. My companion had to leave for an appointment, but I decided that no harm would be found by staying after dinner to continue conversations.

Janet, with a smile on her face asked many questions about my travels and future goals that I hoped to accomplish as she rolled a marijuana cigarette. She explained that this was part of her daily routine, to smoke before and after a meal to settle her stomach. I asked Janet about world travel, putting her on the spot when I asked where in the world she always wanted to visit. “Oh, I don’t know, Switzerland or something,” she replied and I explained that I wouldn’t forget her generosity,and the minute I arrived there I would mail her a postcard.

It was getting late in the day, although you’d never know it by looking outside, darkness didn’t appear for a month at that time of the year in this area. I thanked Janet and her friend for the invitation and the lovely evening, the gifts that were given to my friend, and prepared to leave out the door. Janet approached me taking both of my hands, giving me a hug, while whispering into my ear “There is a huge statue of Jesus overlooking a city in Brazil, I want a picture of you in front of that, and I’ll wait for you until I get it.” Initially perplexed at this comment I pedaled away to deal with the errands. As I though further of the events of the day, the greeting, the clothing attire and pre/post meal rituals; it dawned on me that Janet was in the battle for her life and was forcing herself out of her comfort zone to do something she always wanted to do, but never could find the courage. Perhaps something like inviting a random stranger into your house to find out their stories. It still remains a heartbreaking story looking back, and even though the Cristo Redentor, a statue of Jesus of Nazareth in Rio Di Janeiro, Brazil is far off in the distance of traveling to by bicycle I still make a point to send her postcards in many unique places I have visited. I don’t ever leave a return address, so I will never know her outcome, but stay hopeful that she found that strength deep down once again.”

That was four years ago nearly, and as this journey has gone through its up and downs, delays, joy and loss I’ve still never forgotten about that moment, where someone went out of their way to try something new in their life just for the sake of seeing what would happen, potentially learning new things, and stepping out of that comfort zone that many hold dearly to. In 2010 I envisioned by now I would be on the home stretch back to Canada, and now in 2014 that destination seems so far off, almost unattainable. I’ve changed my style of moving, stopping to integrate into countries and communities when the time seems right, altered my course drastically, and learned a lot more than I ever could just racing through each country and continent as fast as possible in order to thump my fists on my chest like some sort of superman. Part of me in some way is delaying the fact that I may not want to face the inevitable – This is not Cristo Redentor in Rio Di Janero, but Cristo Rei, overlooking the city of Lubango, Angola 250 metres above the city centre. You can see it from near 30km away off in the distance, and even more so when the night falls and the lights shine on this statue, that allows guests to climb to the very top for a breathtaking panoramic view. I suppose we’ll call this the halfway point, and a small tease – Hang in there Janet, wherever you are – the real one’s coming soon…

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Now Available, Tired of I.T! - How I learnd to stop worrying and love the Bicycle - detailing just how far one has to go to embark on a long term bicycle journey, stories not found on the website, and a few lifes lessons thrown in there. Available in Digital and Paperback copes at http://www.tiredofit.ca/book/ and Amazon.

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Diamond in the Rough
Posted on: Sunday, March 23rd, 2014 at 10:04pm

It’s been a long time coming since I was able to add another sticker onto my bicycle, showing which countries I’ve passed through. Near 9 months to the day since the previous “new” country (Burundi) I found myself crossing into Angola, not knowing what to expect in the future – a country not entirely known for it’s tourism, and little information on the internet to provide insight on what to expect. I’ve only been in the country a mere 10 days and each day has been amazing, to say the least.

Marred by 27 years of brutal Civil War that ended in 2002, Angola is on the fast track to becoming a powerhouse on this continent as infrastructure such as roads, railroads, buildings and communication links were destroyed in it’s past. Expecting a hostile country that was unwelcoming to visitors, poor road conditions, lack of services, and frustrating confrontations with authorities there was sort of nervous anticipation into crossing at the border, my mind filled with horror stories from people who have been detained for long periods of time not being able to produce proper documentation, bribery and general confusion. Crossing the border was a snap – next to the first time I crossed into Burundi this was certainly the quietest border crossing ever. Waving goodbye to Namibia I encountered a group of police at the end of No Man’s land before reaching immigration who seemed quite shocked and taken back that someone on a Bicycle would be moving through. After the initial shock wore off I was called back, and asked to show the contents of my bags. Careful not to dig too far deep and come out with things like Cameras (which I just don’t have the time to show and explain that I’m not a journalist/spy/whatever), Computers, and medical kits (Again, no interest in going through like my last visit to Zambia), I kept my grin wide, waved my arms around and eventually made it past this checkpoint. It seems they had to open the Arrivals section of the border strictly for me, as the only traffic (foot) that was occurring was to leave. After a small amount of confusion (Nationality: Canada Canadian!) I was issued my stamp without request of any other documents (Letter of Invitation, Proof of Sufficient Funds, Yellow Fever Card) and went from tar road to packed gravel. I had been told a few days earlier that this crossing would be much less hassle than the other 3, along with much more added scenery and little traffic. Thanks for the tip.

It became apparent 10 days later that I should have taken an unmarked road immediately after the border to get to my destination, instead I moved 15km to the first village, asked a local who escorted me to the road, mentioning something in broken English that there would be a few rivers I would need to cross. For a main road I found this confusing, again – not knowing about this first path I should have taken. For the first day in the country my spirits sank as I found myself on dirt paths often splitting into 3 other paths making it a guessing game of which one to take. My map was no good showing the foot paths, yet I stayed within 2 kilometres of where it actually did say there was a road. Unfortunately that road had overflowed from the rainy season, and any attempts to move near it found myself sinking in mud, getting caught up inside the fenders, locking the wheels entirely and completely covering the brakes. Keeping my wits together I knew that I’d eventually find a way out of it with a bit of muscle, crossing some rivers that hadn’t yet filled up as I was told, until I came to what seemingly looked like a road that had a bomb dropped on it in the past, very likely so.

It was there when I found the Rio (river) Etaka, far to wide to risk crossing with the bicycle, deep, muddy, and downright scary looking. I followed the bank for a few kilometres where I noticed movement off in the distance, eventually coming to a small group of people who were crossing back and forth with a small dug out canoe. Vinto! the young man said In Portuguese, making motions that we could just put my bicycle on the canoe and cross manually. I opted to have it done in two phases, bags on one go, bike and myself on the other, otherwise the boat would have flipped and sunk surely. After rounds of congratulations when we made it across I was off again headed in the direction of Xangongo. It wasn’2 0km later where I found a decent road, and a small town where I could use the water supply to get the clay stuck off my drivetrain.

Once Tar road was found things became much easier. Rolling hills, light traffic, courteous drivers and curious at the same time. The Boda Boda’s (Motorcycles) are back in full force in this country, hustling people from place to place. They are about $600 USD to buy new and are low maintenance, especially when petrol costs in this country are a mere .40 cents per litre – Compared to $2.00 in Zambia this is a deal and a half and I don’t mind running my stove for a bit longer when boiling water now.

I had checked on the internet for service providers for mobile service – hearing horror stories of major price gouging for even the basic of services. A cyclist had friend who I’ll speak about later told me that it was costing him $9.00 for 25MB through the nations provider, Unitel. Luckily it seemed there was another provider Movicel which offered a 1GB weekly plan for the same price. I set out to find a retailer, and after a bit of fiddling I was back in 3G Land. Sadly, that was the end of it. In the next town, a reasonable signal, and for the next 300km near nothing. Speaking with locals in villages about service they would point over in the far off distance where a crowd of people were. Not quite understanding the fast speaking Portuguese language I didn’t know what to expect, should I go and ask over there? What? It turns out in the villages there is usually only one spot, about 3 metres wide where service exists for both providers, hence the crowding. Still, when I made it over to the area I was unable to  pick up any service at all. It was only until I reached the city of Lubango here I received a full 5 bars, but still unable to transmit more than a kilobyte at a time, – so if these posts come in a burst, that is why. In other cities where the population is 300,000 or more and signs blanket street posts for the providers, I’m still out of service – sure to cause confusion to the people I communicate regularly and provide location information for safety. Am sure once I head further north into more populous areas such as the capital city of Luanda (Population 5,000,000) I’ll have no problem. For now, the break is nice; albeit a bit frustrating to just throw the money away like that. I used 24mb in one week, so likely would have just been better off with the state run provider, where perhaps I would have received even a small blip of signal to SMS or call people who have given me their number along the way for checkpoints/resting.

The people so far have been extremely friendly, curious and very welcoming. The police, which I had told were to be annoying haven’t been quite the problem as expected. Uncertain for the first 4 days as each time I passed a police checkpoint or ran into police on the side of the road while resting, not a single one didn’t have a can of beer in their hand – but otherwise in the bigger cities everything is orderly as expected. Different layers of police don different colours, light blue for roadside traffic, dark blue for general police, and black as they roam around two to a motorcycle with the one riding in the rear wielding a large assault rifle. I don’t catch their eyes. In the cities it doesn’t take long for a small group of people to crowd around, pointing at the bicycle and its various components, asking questions to me in their language, where I attempt to respond as best as possible. Cinco Anos! As I point to the stickers on the bike, and withdraw a plasticized map of the world showing my travels. Some, perhaps 1 in 30 will speak basic English and I will be able to explain further. When I mention I am from Canada, eyes light up and a handshake is requested – Canada must be well regarded in this country from aid/missionary work in the past. I even ran into a few of them through contacts I had made in Namibia, a few Doctors from Ottawa, and a family who came here as missionaries in 1986 training priests, but have since evolved into running a 5 year English Language school peppered with ethics, decision making, conflict management, goal planning and the like. But for tourists? One.

JB has been cycling around Africa departing from France in November 2012. We’ve been talking for well longer than that, when he was in his preparation mode. Since 2012 (we were together on his 500th day of riding) he’s followed the perimeter of West Africa and gone through some 15+ countries, mostly on dirt roads away from the busy cities and traffic, avoiding them if at all possible. We had been in contact and timed our travels to meet up while he exited Angola for some hangouts, trading of information, and some parts – I gave him the SIM card from Namibia that had a few GB left and a few adapters for the different power plugs, and even sold him my old point and shoot digital camera, lightening some of my overflowing load. After a mix-up in timing, we ended up in a small village on a Sunday, confusing locals for the afternoon as we sat under shade, drank beer, ate food and discussed our travels. With well intentions of parting ways the next morning, a rain storm came at 6am and failed to cease until 11am halving our cycling day. It wouldn’t have been bad, I had 70km to the next major town where I yearned for my first shower in 5 days, if not for our stealth camping spot turning into a bog and both jamming our bicycle drivetrain beyond any suitable usage again. So, back to the beer, over to a river and spending 3 hours cleaning our bicycles and finding a more suitable place to sleep for the night this time without mud. Of course when you find a place like a school classroom protected from the elements it doesn’t rain at all. Figures. You can follow along with JB at http://www.freewheely.com as he reaches the end of his journey, terminating at Cape Town, South Africa. I’m interested to see how many punctures he gets in Namibia, as he told me since he left in 22,000km he had only had 10! I had 51 in Namibia and so far I’ve had 10 alone in Angola. I’ve determined that the patch kits I was purchasing from MEC are garbage, and in the future will invest in the Ream Tip Top patches at a higher cost, but less frustration and guaranteed to work. In the meantime I found some Chinese brand patches at 4 for $1 which I hope will keep me on the road.

Lubango was the first major city I reached, nestled high up in the mountains at the elevation of 1800 metres. I’ve heard rumors that this was to be the most scenic city in Angola, a relaxed atmosphere and reasonable infrastructure. Clearly growing at a fast pace with many tower cranes and building developments underway, it appears the rumors are true. 13km from the city centre above stands Cristo Rei, a large statue of Jesus overlooking the city, that can be seen for 30km away, and a short 25km up to 2200m takes you to the TundaValla picnic site, where one can stand at the edge of a cliff seeing villages 1500m below. This is a sharp 180 degree drop off and is surely to cause death if one finds themselves toppling over, which some have after drinking too much beer. Up at the site It looked like there was a small café in operation, but turned out to be that it was caterers involved in supplying food for a movie scene that was to be filmed on site. Where were they from? The Flamingo Lodge! I never mentioned the name in the past, but what is so significant about this is that this company was the reason why I was able to enter Angola in the first place. Although the Flamingo Lodge is a bit hard to get to with about 70km of deep sand where even the heaviest of 4×4’s find themselves stuck, a sister lodge more north in the country known as the Kwanza Lodge is on my way, and sure to be visited after they invited me to go and visit, rest, and relax. Offer taken. After being fed at the top, meeting various producers, movie stars, and other staff I descended back into the city, making my way far west towards Namibie.

Talk about a scenery overload – to get to Namibie one must ride 180km through one of the most beautiful roads I’ve ever travelled on. 40km along the way one encounters the Leba Pass, which descends the Tunda Valla escarpment 1100 metres in 15km through a series of weaving winding switchbacks offering breathtaking scenery at every metre. I had made sure my brakes were in good order, knowing that I was sure to need it, with my front brakes giving me problems for a few weeks prior. Once you reach the bottom it’s another 100km as the landscape slowly turns from forest to a barren desert, paired with temperatures that rise to the mid 30s and being blasted by a strong 20km/h constant headwind from the Atlantic Ocean. In Lubango I had met a nice woman who had let me stay in her brothers empty house for a few days to rest, and agreed to let me leave my two front panniers at her house while I took this trip. Not wanting to ride the same road twice (or ride that pass UP for that matter) it made life easier as I arrived in the coastal city confused, searching for service to contact someone, and exhausted from the searing heat and wind. It didn’t take more than 30 second after stopping before becoming surrounded by people, speaking to me quickly in Portuguese, to where a few bystanders translated for me that these people were from the newspaper and national TV station and wanted to do an interview.  Why not – I needed a rest and tried to answer their questions as best as possible, and rode around the city for them as they trailed behind with video cameras, and grabbing all the shots they need. I’d really like to find the newspaper article, or find someone who can translate what they say when it appears on television, as most times in the past the information has been skewed and really  not accurate to the actual journey.

An English speaker came to ask a few questions after the interview was over, to which I explained that I was going to be heading back to Lubango on the newly built train. “No way! The trains finished! 3 days ago the line washed away from the rains!” he said as I felt a large stone drop into my stomach. Darn it! There is a way north from here to avoid the climb, but I’d still be without my bags. As I sit here in Namibie I have yet to figure out if I’m going to build the courage to ride the 2500m back into the city, or find alternative transportation. I’m already exhausted even after a day of rest, and need to keep moving as my visa only lasts for 30 days, with 19 days remaining and a minimum of 1500km to cross, not including stops in Luanda to procure a visa for either the Democratic Republic of Congo or the Republic of Congo. I’ll figure it out somehow.

It turns out I arrived at the city of Namibie at the right time. Usually on a Saturday night things are in full swing with partiers and revelers, but Namibie was celebrating ‘Festas du Mars’, commemorating a time only in 2011 when a large Tsunami appeared and washed away parts of the city, taking people with them. Even worse, in 2013 large floods overtook the city from the mountains above causing more damage. All the reason more to celebrate. On the slipway alongside the beach carnival rides, go karts, craft sellers, lobster and crab sellers and huge sound systems (loud and clear!) were setup for people of all ages to enjoy. It seemingly went until sunrise, and not once did I see any problems as people walked with beers in hand, laughed, danced, and conglomerated in groups. I think to if that would have happened in my home town during the summer – all chaos would break loose – why does it not here? Sleeping deeply for the next two nights I spent the daytime riding around the city exploring the old colonial architecture, stopping in at seaside cafes for a beer, taking in the culture and working on understanding more of the language. Angola so far is great, and I look forward to seeing what else it has in store. It has it’s problems, as does every country – suffers from ridiculous prices for everything except gas (In the villages it is a free for all for prices, Spaghetti sometimes costing multiple dollars, Loaves of Bread higher than $2.00, and accommodation skyrocketing to $50 per night starting in a room with no running water. Roads are sometimes good, sometimes bad, but seem to be in preparation for a full refurbishment. Remnants of the civil war still exist, burned out buildings, abandoned/destroyed tanks can be seen as you pass by making it a reminder that it wasn’t 12 years ago that this entire country was in chaos, strongly divided from the North to the South. With it finished, it shows that life can still go on, and the past can remain the past. More later…

Elevation Chart

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Puncture Problems
Posted on: Wednesday, March 12th, 2014 at 4:16pm

51 – That’s the amount of punctures I’ve gone through in my time in Namibia. Looking at my stats and knowing what I have left before I cross into Angola I’ll have traveled just shy of 4600km. That’s one every 90km if we were to do the math, an often depressing thought each morning as I peer outside the tent to see if there is still air in the tires. I left Zambia with 5 spare tubes, and 5 spare patch kits (10 per), and now resorted to using motorcycle patches that I luckily found in the shops. Some of the patch kits didn’t seal properly, and worse, I’m getting double punctures when on rocky roads. The tubes that I’m using from MEC.CA just aren’t thick enough to handle the weight and constant jostling around, and my theory is that since I’m using foldable tires with no wire bead that they tires themselves are bending and causing a collapse of the tube on the inside. I need to invest in much more heavier duty tubes, like the Schwalbe series, whenever I can receive mail again. Finding replacement tubes in Africa is a crapshoot – Either too small (20 inch tires?) or they use the wrong valve – The Gates valve that operates similar to a Presta. Of course my pump doesn’t work with them and it becomes a frustrating exercise trying to find someone with a pump to inflate them. So I’ll stock up on more Rema German motorcycle patches before I leave and hope that I find better success in Angola.

The thorns and broken glass in Namibia is causing the majority of the flats, little goat head thorns that look like small mace balls find themselves attached onto the tread of the tire. When you roll over them, they penetrate even the thickest of tires that I use. I went as far as taping the insides of the tires with Gorilla Tape, but still suffer from the shifting tire syndrome. Oh well, this is Bicycle Touring at its finest.

I’ve moved quite the distance since Windhoek, heading back north on the same road for 350km, wind this time shifted from the south to the North equating to a headwind on this very challenging stretch with no shoulders, thorns, and a considerable amount of moving truck. Huge amounts of rain would come down from 3pm (17mm, 25mm, and higher) finding me huddled under a tree waiting for it to pass, riding another 30km when it had completed to dry myself off. On one of these days round 2 of a rainstorm was on its way and I found a fellow waiting at the side of the road. He insisted that I take a lift just past the storm so that I could remain dry for the night, with it quickly evolving into that I could have a warm bed to sleep in. Faced with the thoughts of remaining “pure” in my african travels where I don’t want to take lifts, I obliged and caught the last 30km of the day into Otavi – an area that I’ve passed through before. If it was somewhere that I hadn’t travelled to I would have likely stuck out my bottom lip, and moved forward politely declining his offer, but since I’d been there, the scenery was the exact same just in reverse, why not.

You’ll find tens of thousands of these things on the roads when travelling north of Windhoek to a place called Otjiwarngo. Locusts are what people are telling me, they are cannibalistic – Cars run over them, and they run onto the road to eat the smushed remains of their peers, until of course their fate is met a short time later. Quite large, 2 inches I would say.

I was in a toilet and found this thing next to the door frame the night before, thinking it was a twig. It’s some sort of insect. Look at the size of it! My shoes are Size 12.

As usual, meeting strangers is a healthy experience. I showed him some tricks with his Garmin GPS – mostly based on that article I wrote a few weeks ago, and he offered some great areas to visit in Namibia away from my straight lined path to the Angolan border. Well worth it, and was glad to keep him company. He had just gone through a divorce, lost his kids during the week, and was looking to get back on his feet, and I think a random scraggly traveler passing through just brightened his day that much more – rekindling some ideas on moving around on his motorcycle around the country.

The next town north, Tsumeb I spent 3 days resting, well needed after the 350km of headwinds and white knuckled riding. One night I found myself at a campsite with an Olympic Sized pool, but after that met up with a contact who I’d been communicating with about Angola for a few weeks. Nigel Francis, an Ex Tour De France’r, Ironman competitor and so much more moved to the area 3 years prior and created an organization known as Multisport Africa, where him and his wife spend their time aiding lesser privileged children in various communities around Namibia. You might have heard about BEN – a group involved with distribution of bicycles, and ambulances powered only by pedals for communities far out of reach – this is something very similar. In fact, BEN has now folded and Nigel has taken over a lot of the main functions. His vision is to see Bicycles become more commonplace in Namibia for travel throughout communities, and puts containers selling ready built bicycles, spare parts, and other community building services together. Instead of organizations like WBR – the World Bicycle Relief/Buffalo Bicycles who sell new bikes, Nigel has contacts where he is able to import old bikes from the western world, trains his staff in mechanics and other business functions, refurbishes them and either sells them or donates them. I took a look at his newly occupied warehouse at some of the bicycles this time all from Canada by a group called Bicycles 4 Humanity. I found Norco’s, Supercycles from my era of riding bicycles in the late 1980s, and then a bunch of more international brands. Some of the bicycles were virtually brand new! Either outgrown or cast off to make way for the video game consoles and such. Some of the parts lurking on the bicycles were quite high end, Shimano XTR derailleurs and Brake Assemblies, and a considerable amount of downhill/mountain bikes with shocks – great for people who are in some of the more remote areas living on either a ‘C’ or a ‘D’ road in this country. I made a commitment to return here in the future and assist them with setting up a computer based accounting/inventory system and a small Internet Café environment using code that I’ve already implemented in the past for his vision to see light of day.

Tsumeb Bicycles for Humanity Bicycle Empowerment Program

The Arts performance center in Tsumeb is a non profit, privately funded centre teaching children how to use different instruments, harps, mandolins, and this, the Marimba.

I found myself presenting to 20 odd people back at the campsite with the mega-pool over the weekend, mostly the attendance were children from De Voortrekkers, an outdoor skills based group similar to say what the scouts/brownies would be like back in Canada. Since I still don’t have my laptop back (5 months! Never buy ASUS!) I had to scramble to put together pieces from presentations that existed as far as 4 years back. The latest one I’ve been using is a bit too much for this temporary notebook I’ve been loaned. As with most things that I do, a lot of them are just testing grounds for learning, so this new one spitting out multiple streams of 1080p video at high frame rates synced up with a small application I built on a phone will be on the back burner for a while until I can sort out this hardware problem. I ended the day with a favourite, and I’m calling this the 1st annual Tsumeb Strongman competition. Most people don’t realize how heavy this bicycle is when it’s fully loaded. It’s a great group experience when around boys and men and even girls to see if they can hoist the bicycle in the air. Everyone wants to try it as soon as one does, which draws cheers and applause from their peers.

Tsumeb 1st Annual Strongman Competition

De Voortrekkers all having a photo after a Presentation. I’m in fine fashion with mismatched socks.

An offer came my way at the end of the presentation. Did I want to go to South Africa that week to go and participate in the Cape Argus Bicycle Ride? A 108km loop around Cape Town and surrounding communities along with near 40,000 other contestants? it’s the largest timed Bicycle ride in the world and I found myself staying an extra day to analyze the situation. I’d be sitting for 3 days before getting the ride down to South Africa, riding for only one day, and then waiting for another 3 days. Even though the ride, lodging and race costs would have been taken care of, I’d still find myself spending money that has gone from careful spending to bare minimum due to my theft a few weeks back. As much as it would have been nice to ride the race, see some old friends and storm into the ASUS South Africa offices demanding my laptop back, I found myself back on the road, eager to keep my momentum. Because of that, the winds shifted, the temperatures remained cool with no rain, and I was making 120km easy in one day with lots of hours to spare to meet people, rest, have a beer, whatever (fixing punctures).

Once you pass the livestock fence (the Red Fence) things really slow down, and become that much more friendlier in the country. Little to no white people, and traffic remains minimal. I quite enjoyed the previous time in the North a few weeks back and this was exactly what I was after, as I mentally psyched myself up for the next country. Namibia seems to have it all, water, mountains, extreme desert, scenery, wild animals, friendly people, huge beers. It’s no wonder why this country is filled with tourists from April – November each year. Now the few tourists I see are on their own long term mission, like the fellow who’s been moving for 9 years around the world in his huge man truck. No cyclists though in sight, although I keep hearing rumors about an older fellow ahead of me. When I queried the last person it turns out he was talking about me (who, me? old?) as he had noticed me the day before. Sadly though in the north, what were once campsites in cities have now been closed down, making it challenging to find a place to stay when all you really want is water, power, and a shower. After 5 days of not having a shower and wasting 4 hours looking for a room that was less than $50 USD I moved out of a town, sitting at a rest stop trying to analyze my situation. I had let my GPS batteries die down by accident the night before, which put strain on my other electronic components, killing my cache battery. Charging that battery is the most efficient to distribute power to my other components, but that would take near 13 hours of pedalling or more to get it up to speed. With 3% on my phone, 10% on my GPS, speakers long gone I met a fellow in a trench coat and huge white boots waving his arms like Jesus on the road to drivers passing. He explained that life became too crazy for him as a security guard in the big city, and moved back home to where he was born, and now raised cattle and goats with his wife. While he had no power or water at his place, he ran a Shebeen in the village off the highway that had power and we could go there, charge my stuff for 2 hours, have a beer and come back home. I wasn’t really in the mood for people or storytelling that night, but why not.  It turned out great, to have been invited into the chief’s homestead and meeting many members of the community until darkness.

A very impressive man truck. Traveling 9 years around the world.

Realizing I had made a wrong turn at the last town I struggled with turning back for the 5km to get on the right road, and decided to just keep going Northwest. It was worth it. Huge Shops, Fast internet service, and one of my Facebook readers tipped me off to a campsite in the area that offered everything I was after under the world’s largest Baobab Tree! Noone really knows how old this tree is, some say 1000 years, some say 2000 or more, but one thing is for sure – it is HUGE. Big enough to have been used throughout the past 100 years as a post office. Big enough to be used as a Church. Big enough to be used as a Prison when South Africa was battling Angola! It’s turned into a Heritage site since 1994 and thankfully the vandalism has stopped from people carving their names into it. With the campsite offering power and a shower I was in bliss, soothed to sleep by the roar of the tree leaves moving when a storm passed through. A picture does not explain the sheer size of this thing.

Tree / Bike Size Comparison – The largest Baobab Tree in the world

Now designated as a Heritage site, there are no more carvings. This is the door inside.

Inside – Once a shop, a Post Office, a Church, and even a prison.

Being only 50km away from the Angolan border at this point I opted to take a side trip since I had a chance to reset my power and shower situation. I’d have to head south 40km to get onto the road I originally planned on travelling on, and then it was a long 2 day haul through the hot desert to where the tar road ended. Opuwo is where the start of Kayaokoland is, most well known for one of the last of the tribes remaining in Africa who still dress in cloths around their nether region, but little more. To protect themselves from the hot desert sun that goes much higher than 40 degrees, each day they rub themselves with Red Ochre and Animal fat – Take that Coppertone! I wanted to ride through these areas, where the population is so sparse they have it listed as one person per 2 kilometres. Now, I guess you are wondering where are the pictures of the naked ladies! I opted not even to take a single picture of these tribesmen, finding myself battling with the concept of being a gawking tourist, or an individual who wanted to fit in. Some things are just best to be seen.

The last of the tar road before entering Kayaokoland / Himba territory

Naturally, I didn’t follow directions. The Himba Gravesites.

Going into this territory also means that I would find myself back on the dirt roads – losing the ability to find services for 200km, at the mercy of the weather and having to figure out a way to get out of a situation if arose. No cellular service whatsoever, no _nothing_ to be honest, only breathtaking views, a graded surface (there are waterfalls in the area that are quite popular with the tourists hence its good condition) and lots of spots to sit and relax to get away from the hot sun. I wasn’t interested in the waterfalls, and took the road which would get me back closer to where I started my 400km loop. Still the roads were in good condition, as I descended from 1400metres to 700 metres along the way. 40km of the way in things started getting weird. Many hills, dips in the road which were actual sand instead of packed roads. Rainy Season hasn’t come in its full force quite yet, and it was obvious these were overflow channels put forth by the river in previous years. Not a problem, just race as fast as possible down the hill through the sand, while keeping the bike from falling over as it fishtails over the surface and up the next hill. Some of them even had bits of water remaining, or the sand was a sticky mess, attaching onto my boots and bicycle frame. One was the actual river itself. Looking fairly shallow, I had been warned by a local the day before that if I was to cross the river to check first, and to follow the other tire tracks, as if I didn’t there would be a sharp drop on the other side. Keeping this in mind I checked rudimentarily and found an area where the water was minimal. By the fourth step my boots had sunk into the sand, and I was beginning to sink deeper. Pulling myself out by gripping my frame brought me out but the bicycle deep into the sand as I moved forward slowly, with the entire footing giving way, and I found myself up to chest high deep water. My panniers were fully submerged, yet the bicycle was standing straight up still due to the sand and I found myself completely under water, adrenaline kicking in and hurling myself and the bicycle as fast as possible out of the water on the other side, slowly getting it up the steep hill so I could remove my boots, wring out my socks, and check for damage on the bicycle and its contents. If you can believe it, after 5 years of these Ortlieb Panniers, filled with holes, taped up with tape, worn so thin you can see sunlight through them, everything stayed dry! I would have been sunk (ha) if the water had penetrated my electronics or paperwork bags. I decided to call it the end of a day, only moving 10 more km to find a nice spot before the sun went down to attempt to clean myself. With little water to spare I had to brush the sand out of my clothes and body slowly, not getting nearly half of it all making for a gritty evening in a sleeping bag. I was still pulling sand out my armpits and balls 2 days later.

Riding became that much heavier with muddy boots

Some days provided flat surfaces, great tail winds and minimal clouds. Excellent riding conditions. Picture is out of sync to story paragraphing :)

Minor River Crossing

Bigger River Crossing – Looks can be deceiving, I went chest deep!

With  a mere 45km on the dirt road to go before I was to find tar again my spirits were lifted when I found a deluxe lodge nestled alongside the Angolan/Namibia border on the Kunene river. There I was able to luckily refill my water bottles and grab a coffee to mark the end of my offroad experience. On the map I was seeing signs of “Bad Road” “Often Flooded” and “Do not Pass”. Cars made it, so why couldn’t I? I knew that the final day was going to be the most challenging based on my Elevation Chart and Distance Maps but didn’t quite understand the magnitude of it until well into it. 5 double punctures, one blown fresh new tube, rims sizzling from the heat from having to lock the breaks while descending 12% grade rocky hills, and worse, having to climb them. 11 hours it took for the 45km where I was near losing my mind, telling myself that I had to make it through the area or face dehydration in the 40+ temperatures. With no shade other than thorn trees it made for challenging moments when trying to repeatedly fix the punctures, worse when it was on a steep embankment. I could see a dam less than 3 kilometres away, but didn’t want to risk moving a fully loaded bike down a hill with a puncture. My last spare tube didn’t explode from the heat this time around and I stopped at a vacant campsite known as Hippo Pools where there was solar powered hot water still running. Final Challenge, was the crocodiles that were roaming the area looking for food. I climbed onto a structure and pitched my tent there to avoid any surprises. After 2 days of getting repeatedly waterlogged feet from the multiple river crossings, sapped energy from moving for 8 days straight without a rest often hitting 100km+ daily that was the last thing I needed. Tar road was a mere 300metres from the campsite the next morning, and as I passed Ruacana falls I climbed 500metres in 10km back to higher ground.

Budgeting be damned – I stopped for 2 days and sprung for a room rather than sleeping inside of a tent to prepare for my next challenge. A new country. A foreign language. Much more restrictive laws on movements, and the need to put my bicycle back together. I ended up bending one of my large 1.5litre water bottle cages so much bottles were falling out, my whole drive train and brakes were caked with mud and my clothes stunk like someone who had been moving 8 days through rivers. Sadly, this is the last town I will see in Namibia, with a fairly minimal selection of food, I was hoping to stock up on some of my favorites before leaving from the many mega stores, but that’s the way it goes. This is Bicycle Touring. Never assume, expect the unexpected.  Namibia has a huge opportunity in turning it into a Bicycle Touring Destination for those wishing to go on midsize length trips of 3 weeks or more to either the south or the north of the country. It’s ridiculously safe, amenities are virtually everywhere, and for anyone who wants to go off the main routes and seek adventure, it certainly awaits. It has my mind thinking about the future, perhaps leading people around paired up with the MultSport Africa team visiting small communities, assisting in some way before a group of tourists from different parts of the world move forward onto the next destination. It’s been years since I’ve been in the South of Namibia, and it is no different for the scenery and ruggedness. Some of those roads nearly flat out killed me, with its lack of population (recall Namibia being the 2nd most desolate country in the world!), sparse water and of course, those thorns. But around every corner is a reward. Am glad I returned back to this country for another go – this time cycling solo. It’s the African Country I’ve cycled the most distance in by a huge stretch – Namibia being 4600km, Zambia coming in 2nd at 2537km, and Tanzania a close third at 2272km. That’s an awful lot of distance for each country – I’ve just noticed as well that I’ve crossed over the 20,000km mark in Africa alone. Near double the amount that I had originally intended. With probably a year left to go we’ll see what that actual number turns out to be.

Ruacana Dam

The chestexploder. 500metres in 10km.

Well tired Selfie.

Elevation Chart

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