Picture Update 9 - Arusha

A graveyard of old rides, just outside of Nairobi.

A market in a Kenyan town.

Marelie and No Stress Kenya shirt.

Ride into Tanzania.

Single speed bike - the Black Mamba!

Black Mamba's homemade breaks!

Black Mamba

We have reached the half way point in Arusha, Tanzania!  We crossed from Kenya to Tanzania this morning.  Mount Maru greeted us with all her grandeur.

We've raised almost $1000 towards BkB.  Many thanks to the following people for their generous donations!  You guys rock!  Please keep sending the donations.

Avesh Jain and Serena Jain

Gerald and Joanne Blackmore 

Schneider Electric (match for Gerald Blackmore’s donation)

Gregory and Heather Smith

Megan Verbanick 

Jaideep Moorthy & Sharad Jaideep

Clayton & Chantal Stanyer 

Stage 46 - Nairobi was very relaxing.  We stayed away from the busy part of the city.  Most of us found our own sanctuary.  I got my bike completely overhauled and went to a mall to get food and internet.  Nairobi is fairly modern compared to the other capital cities that we visited.  When we left for the ride this morning, I saw a lot of sharply dress professional people either driving to work or waiting for a bus.  

The ride out of Nairobi was a nightmare.  The morning traffic was so busy on a narrow two lane road.  We had to dodge big buses, on coming cars, trucks, and mini buses.  Once we got out the city and headed south, the road was nearly empty.  The 100 mile ride seemed easy today.  The road was well paved.  In fact I saw Chinese engineers working on the road.  

Stage 46 - We crossed into Tanzania today.  Mt. Maru was in front of us all day.  After we passed the border control, Mike, our new Mechanic from Kenya passed me on a single speed Chinese style bike (modeled after the old Raleigh bike).  I asked him if we can switch bikes.  He happily gave me his bike, the "Black Mamba," as he called it.  I learned how to ride on a bike just like this one.  It took me back to when I was a kid.  I think I was 6 or 7, and the seat was way to high for me.  So I crossed my leg through the frame and my mom or dad held the bike from behind.  These bikes are really sturdy.  Mike and I agreed to change back the bikes at lunch.  When I arrived at lunch, everyone was waiting to see how I was doing on a single speed bike.  They also told me that Mike loved my bike so much, he left with the racing group!  I had to ride the Black Mamba in the afternoon, which included a 10km climb!  It was a tough ride, but when other riders passed me, they all took pictures.  I guess it's strange to see someone ride a beat up single speed bike that most locals might not even use.  I made it to camp with no problems.  Mike finished first on my bike!  Now I'm affectionately known as "Mr. Single Speed!"

Picture Update 8 - Kenya

Early morning sun rise at a bush camp in Kenya.

Typical bush camp, by the side of the road.

Sunset at Isiolo, Kenya.

Marsabit, Kenya.

Choma - chopped meat from the bones.

Lava rocks on the road.

Lunch truck.

Northern Kenya.

Obama sandals.

A huge cactus tree.

Barley fields near Mount Kenya.

Mount Kenya.

The team crossing the equator.

Equator sign.

Kenyan highlands.

I fell a sleep on the ride to Nairobi.  Dennis took this picture of me falling on Lindsey's shoulder.

Left is Right, Up is Down!

We have reached a mile stone on this trip - crossing the equator.  This nearly marks the half way point of the journey.  I've logged over 5300km on my bike computer, that's over 3000 miles.  It's been an incredible trip so far.  I've realized how little we need to survive everyday - food, water and some basic shelter.   Our body is an amazing machine, it can adapt to any condition.

Today we are relaxing in Nairobi.  I spent most of the morning working on the bike.  After all the dirt and sand, I needed to get it back in good shape.  Well, it was a complete overhaul.  The mechanic changed the shifters, all the cables, chain, and the cassette.  I gave the used parts to the Kenyan riders.  Bike parts are very hard to get here, they were happy to get them.

One more day of riding in Kenya, then we cross into Tanzania.  We'll have a three day break in Arusha, Tanzania.  I'll take a safari to Serengeti National Park and Ngorongoro Crater.  We had access to HOT showers on the last four riding days!  This was a luxury that we are not accustomed to.

Stage 45 - Equator supposed to be a warm place, but it was rather cool here.  The day time temperature was around 80F with low humidity and it got down to 50F last night.  It's 1800 meters above sea level here, more than a mile high!  We convoyed from camp to the equator line.  This was my fourth time in the southern hemisphere.    There was a small sign indicating the equitorial line.  Some riders with GPS went back about 10 meters for the "true" line.  We took pictures with each other and a group picture.

We cycled around Mount Kenya last two days and today we rolled into the Kenya highlands.  There were a lot of schools on the road today.   The kids were all properly dressed and were very polite.  We saw a lot of runners in the morning as well.

Stage 46 - We were scheduled to ride 130km to Nairobi.  At the last minute, TDA decided to shorten that to 50km and everyone had to take the truck to town.  Once we got on the trucks, we realized why TDA decided to take us to our camp site on trucks.  The traffic was terrible on the narrow two lane road.  Keep in mind most of the riders are not used to drive/ride on the left side of the road.  Cars, trucks, and big trucks zoom passed us with very little space.  Most of us were on the edge of the road.  The passing cars from the other lane crossed into our lane, even after they had passed other cars.  Nairobi is a hugh sprawed out city.  They were building a seven lane highway.  The traffic was horrible.  Along the way, we saw the skyline and slums of Nairobi; stark contrast between wealth and poverty.

Foreign aid to Somalia, Intercepted by War Lords

We are in Nanyuki, Kenya, very close to the equator.  Tomorrow, we will cross into the southern hemisphere!  A lot has happened since the last update, which wasn't too long ago.  We cycled by Mount Kenya today.  Two more days, we'll be in Nairobi.  


Stage 42 - Marsabit was a tiny town with unpaved roads.  Muslims and Christians live side by side.  You can tell which shop is owned by a Muslim or Christian.  After the two consecutive hard rides, I was on the hunt for meat.  We eat on our own on rest days.  James, our chef, recommended a place in town.  In Kenya, they kill the animals on Mondays, so our meat was fresh.  A plus sized lady with even larger personality runs the restaurant.  They brought seven kilos meat freshly roasted for eight of us.  It was delicious.  I was starving for proteins.  I also found some good patch kits for my tubes.  Everything is possible in Africa.


Today's ride was also tough, but it was the last day on dirt.  We crossed some interesting tribal people all day.  They were very dark and wore beads on their head and chin.  Some wore the same beads as a top as well.  They all had marks, like branded dashes, on their body.  I shook hands with a few of them, very friendly people.  We were warned to not to take pictures, because they think people might take away their soul.  Last year a rider had a spear thrown at him for taking a picture, yikes!  The ride was on deep sand and terrible corrigation.  115km seemed to last forever.  I rolled into camp around 4:30pm and had to rush to change my bike tires.  We start the pavement again tomorrow!


Stage 43 - This was the day that we all looked forward to, tarmac, finally!  Today was 158kms (about 100 miles) with some climbing.  We were all excited to get out of the horrible dirt road and on to the paved.  I started a bit slow, after four days of hard pounding from the corrugation, my body was slow to warm up.  Everything felt good for me and kept riding until the 35km mark.  I stopped to take a Vitamin pill and put on sun block.  A couple of locals stopped and talked to me.   I saw Marelie, Sarge, Eric, and Kendra coming up the hill.  "Kendra was shot! Someone got shot!"  I heard Marelie yell.  I thought it was a joke.  Marelie stopped next to me and said "Someone shot Kendra."  Kendra yelled out "Are these people friendly? Are these people friendly?"  This was serious!  Kendra looked distraught.  I said, "Yes, these guys are fine."  They pulled over.  I saw a blood spot on Kendra's left shoulder and realized the seriousness of situation.  We took Kendra on the side of the road under a tree.  I took her pulse and Marelie counted her breath per minute.  She was also coughing up blood.  Eric and Sarge went back to the road to look for a passing car.  We unzipped Kendra's jersey, and checked out her wound.  She was concious and of clear mind.  The wound was a skin puncture.  Kendra said she was hit by a big rock, the size of a brick.  Eric and Marelie hear a gun shot as well.  Accourding to them, there were three men, one of them had a rifle.  The shot was fired into the air.  We flagged down a car told them the situation.  The people in the car said this area was well known for bandits.  They were so nice and took Kendra back to the town's health center they came from.  Marelie went with her to make sure everything was OK.  Sarge, Eric and I decided to ride in convoy to the Coke stop, about 8km away.  About one hour had passed during this whole time.  It was strange that we saw no other riders and our trucks in that hour.  We realized something must had gone wrong back there.  The driver of the car also let us used the phone call to call TDA, but no one picked up the calls.


We waited at the next Coke stop for about 30 more minutes and finally saw some riders coming.   Kendra was taken to the health center in this town.  Daniel, Peter, Ruth, Pierre, Christine, Kim and Megan came up.  The next thing I heard was shocking.  They were robbed at gun point by bandits.  About four men took money, camera, water, energy bars, and whatever else they thought was useful.  Christine's left ear was covered.  When she pulled up, I gave her a big hug and asked how she was and comforted her.  She would not let go of me.  Shaken from a bullet that went by her ear, she said a bandit hit her head with a gun.  Peter from South Africa is a really tough guy.  He was really sick a few weeks ago and toughed through some really hard rides, a real man's man.  I saw him shaken by the experience.   


Sarge, James and I decided to go to our lunch stop, about 45km away to inform TDA.  After about 30kms, we finally saw our truck with Sharita and Paul.  They already knew what happened.  I noticed there were several men in military uniforms with sub machine guns sat in the back.  We kept on to our lunch stop.  During the ride, thinking about how my fellow riders almost lost their lives, emotion got the best of me.  Everything seemed meaningless. Then, I realized that if I was the last person to pass the bandits before all the things happened. 


When we got to lunch, Adele informed us that everyone was OK and today's stage was cancelled.  More facts came out at lunch.  People were robbed at gun point.  The bandits made people lay on the road and they looked through everything and took whatever they wanted.  Kim said one of the bandit was really nervous, any wrong moves, the situation might turned out different.  We finally saw our trucks pass us.  We rode our lunch truck to camp.  We found out the Kendra might have a cracked rib.


Here is the official press release from TDA on the incident:

Armed robbery in Kenya. All riders are safe.

In Kenya earlier today, six of our Tour d’Afrique riders were robbed by the side of the road by armed bandits.

All riders and staff are safe.

The stage was cancelled so that all riders could be brought safely to our organized campsite by the town of Isiolo.

We are contacting the family members of the riders involved in the incident.

All proper authorities have been contacted and are dealing with the situation.

The Tour will continue on schedule tomorrow.

Please contact Mike Coo in our Toronto office for any further information: +1 416-268-1040

Thanks.
The TDA Team.

Stage 44 - After the incident yesterday, all of us wanted some normalcy.  It was a short day, only 72kms. We will go around Mount Kenya today.  It was definitely a strange day for cycling.  It was all climbing in the morning.  On what appeared to be a down hill, I was only going 10kmph.  Right before lunch, I was going over 40kmph on what appeared to be an uphill!  The optical illusion played tricks on us all day.  It was a beautiful ride.  We saw barley fields as far as the eye could see and evergreen trees along the road.  A Canadian rider remarked that this was like home.  Tomorrow we will cross the equator!

Picture Update 7

Riders taking a break.

In action!

Two lakes of Arba Minch.

Eating fish dinner on injira.

A lot of road head for us.

A random market on the side of the road.

Camels in a dry river bed.

Ant hills.

A morning ride in Ethiopia.

Italian fort.

A tiny village.

Obama is everywhere!

Hmmm, fresh meat!

Getting a haircut in Kenya!

Prison Canteen.

Carrie giving Ram a hair cut.

Kari and Kendra repairing a flat tire.

Early morning ride to beat the heat.

Corrugated road.  This was not that bad.

Lava rocks scatter in the desert.

Finished last

We are resting today in Marsabit, Kenya.  We had 7 consecutive days of riding, including 3 mando days.  We crossed from Ethiopia to Kenya during this stretch.  A rider said we climbed over 25000 meters in Ethiopia!  The landscape changed dramatically.  The hills of Ethiopia became the flat Kenyan lava rock desert.  The desert is flat, and you can see for miles and miles.  It's almost like mars.  Cantaloupe and watermelon sized lava rocks scattered all around.  The road was terrible - corrugation, deep sand, and rocks.  To ride on it was pure punishment.  The area was so remote, I saw only a couple tiny villages.

We will ride to Nairobi in 5 days.  During the next 5 days, we will cross the equator and see mount Kenya and Kilimanjaro.  

Stage 35 - Arba Minch rest day was not restful at all.  The camp ground did not have running water.  After four days of cycling, we really needed a good rest.  The fresh juices and fish more than made up for the lack of amenities.  Apparently, the TDA riders disrupted the local economy.  We drank a lot of juices, by the second day, the whole town ran out of mango and avocado.  Only papayas were available.  For dinner, I went to a local fish cooperative restaurant.  We were the last customers that night.  The Nile Perch with injira was delicious. 

I encountered two incidences in Arba Minch where a good Samaritan helped us.  We took a mini bus from the town back to our camp site.  The ride should only be 3 bir per person, as we took the bus from our camp site to town.  For some reason, the cashier on the bus decided to charge us 50 bir per person.  I got into an argument with him and another person that spoke English on the bus.  They backed down and said it was a joke.  We all know if we had paid that price, then they would not have said anything.  Another passenger on the bus got off just when the argument started and whispered in my ear "do not pay more than three bir."  A similar situation happened at a Coke stop just before town.  Normally a Coke is 5 bir and a bottle of water is 10 bir.  The waiter wanted to charge 25 birs for both.  Two local patrons at the same place told me and the waiter that it should not be more than 15 birs.  I just handed over 15 birs  and told the waiter that if that's not enough then tell the police.   You have to be very smart during international travel.  Always ask the price and negotiate before buying anything.

The ride today was on mixed pavement and dirt.  The area we rode in was very remote. The dirt road was not took bad, as Paul W, the race leader, gave me some advice on how to handle the rough section.  We were into our ninth area with distinctive language - not dialect, but language.   Last few days, we crossed predominate Muslim, Pentecostal, and Coptic areas.  Ethiopia is a very diverse country.  Tonight we camped at a river bed, surrounded by mountains.   Tomorrow we head into the Rift Valley.

Stage 36 - This was a mando day, 95km on corrugated dirt road, with 60km of uphill climb.  It was tough!  At one point, I was going 3kmph (2mph).  The people were so friendly today.  No one threw rocks.  This area we went through was very remote.  I saw no more than 100 people today.  The locals all carry a spear.  They all wore very colorful dresses.  Actually some women were naked on the top, very much like what you might see in a National Geographic magazine. 

I rolled into our camp site around 3:30pm.  There was shower facilities!!!  This is the first time in 8 days that I took a shower!  Imagine the joy of taking a nice cold shower after a long ride in the dirt.  Actually my skin was covered in sun screen, bug repellent, dirt, and sweat.  I realized that I was not black after all that stuff washed off.  I also shaved my face today since January.  2 more days in Ethiopia and then the biggest challenge awaits for us in northern Kenya.

Stage 37 - We rolled out of the camp site on paved road today for 128km ride.  The landscape was very strange today.  In the early morning, we saw lush green mountains.  All of a sudden, it seemed trees had no leaves and grasses were brown.  It's still winter here, that could be the explanation.  Then the landscaped changed to more desert like, cactus trees were everywhere and the trees were green again.  The mountains seemed a little smaller.  With each mountain we passed, the road became more flat.  We hit some nasty head wind today. 

The people also looked a little different as well.  The girls all had their hair braided and wrapped around their head.  I even saw a boy had the top his head shaved in a circle, it's like a halo.  Again, we didn't see many people today.  The villages were very small, just a few huts bunched together.  We saw some huge ant hills.  Some of these ant hills were almost 3 meters tall.  In some stretches, there were as many ant hills as trees. 

Stage 38 - The last day in Ethiopia!  A lot of "you you you," "I love you," what's your name," and a rock, of course.  The hills also presented a challenge as well, but it should be behind us now.  We were in Ethiopia for almost a month.  Looking back, there are a lot of things that we'll all miss - kids, good juice, beer, food, etc.  We went through border control with ease.  Kenya drives on the left side.  Actually we'll be on the left side until Cape Town.  The Kenyan side of the Moyale was much more tamer than the Ethiopian side. One thing that struck me was that all the kids had school uniforms.  They all greeted us with "How are you?"  Once we arrived, a couple of us went to town.  I had my hair cut by a kid, for only 50 schillings (about 70 US cents).  He did a great job.  Horst and I went to the "Prison Canteen" and had a couple of beers.  We talked about life.  The tough part starts tomorrow.

Stage 39 - East African Highway is a rocky and corrugated road.  We left our camp early in the morning.  Our ride was jarring all day.  It suppose to be even worse tomorrow.  I had a thorn in the front tire early in the afternoon.  I managed to get back to camp and patched the tube there.  We arrived in a tiny village and made camp.  This area of Kenya is very remote and hot.  We reached over 100 today before noon.  We saw very few people.  Some people found a little shop with cool soft drinks.  I tried a Black Currant Fanta and a Ginger Beer (Ginger Ale).  Tomorrow will be a mando day, corrugation, sand, and rocky road will challenge us.

Stage 40 - This was a tough day.  It was hot.  I felt like I was on Mars.  I rolled into camp at 4:30 completely exhausted.

Stage 41 - It got tougher today.  Sharita warned us last night that today will be the toughest day on tour.  I rode for 12 hours, just barely made it to camp at 6:30, right before sunset.  This was about a 50 mile ride.  Typically back home, this distance took no more than 3 hours.  You can see how tough the condition was.  I was the last rider in.  As soon as I rolled into camp, Carrie ran up to me and gave me a big hug.  I walked into the canteen and all the riders gave me a thunderous applauds.   Today was hot, rocky, hilly, and strong head wind.  I made it into lunch with no problems.  Then shortly after lunch I had a puncture in the back tire.  After patching it, I rode it for a little more and it punctured again.  I checked the tire and it had a big gash on the sidewall.  All the rock and sand chewed up the tire.  I was in despair.  Miraculously, the lunch truck appeared.  I put my bike on the lunch truck and borrowed Martin's, our bike mechanic, bike.  I want to ride all the way to Cape Town and not ever ride the trucks.