Hi there,
Well ...Chris and I are still in the UK eating our way around the country and getting back to normal weight before flying back to the states this coming Thursday. We did our first swim session with the masters squad in Shrewsbury where Chris's mother lives and that was a shock to the system. There weren't many swimming pools in Africa with masters swimming sessions and so the body kinda died on Saturday. It was good to be back in water and we are also back running. The running has been tough on Chris's legs as they are so used to cycling -- he had to walk backwards after running one day as a result of the cramps he was getting. A soft tissue massage from yours truely sorted them out and although he is not 100% at least he can walk forwards and not look like a character out of a John Cleese play or a Little Britain skit!!!
Unfortunately the other task that I have been doing is pestering British Airways as they lost my bike in transit from South Africa to London. I am still bikeless 5 days later!!! British Airways managed to lose my bike on our flight from Cape Town on the 23rd May and they still can not find it!!! The BA folks in South Africa claim that it left the country AND London BA have lost it and BA London are claiming the opposite. Bottom line --- no bike, no tent, no cycling clothes, no second place trophies, no knick knacks from the trip. Fingers crossed that they find it...apparently it is like finding a needle in the haystack at Lost Luggage Heathrow so myhopes are not high.
Chris posted the words to his song that he sang in the talent quest we had on the second to last evening of the tour. It was well received and very entertaining for us but I'm sure some of you will be wondering who half the people are but you know the rules..what goes on tour stays on tour!!!
I have to call BA again....later
Tuesday, May 29, 2007
Talent Show Song!
This song was delivered in fine style in the evening at our last camp site on Friday May 11th. Yes, there were some red faces..but also a lot of laughter. Sung to the tune of Wild Rover by the Pogues:
1. There once was a bike ride from Cairo to Cape
30 plus idiots paid ten grand to partake
They pedalled from sunrise until they were dead
Then lay about wasted with legs full of lead
Chorus:
Please God no more cycling
No more red raw crotch pain
Let my legs have a rest
Let's do something else
2. There's Adrie from Holland who just wont give up
And Gunther from Belgium with talent galore
Andy from Canada farts all the time
Jan is an old guy who sneaks to the line
(Chorus)
3. Andy from Scotland has his ups and downs
While Alice from Joburg rarely ever frowns
Josh is a work horse who powers away
He grags his mate Douglas who bounces all day
(Chorus)
4. Secret liaisons have been common place
Just look round this camp for the very red face
Duncan and Lucette will get the first prize
For bonking in the dirt well before sunrise
(Chorus)
5. Then there are the couples who share a tent
I've been told not to mention there names in this song
Suffice it to say that their love is red hot
Old married couples they're certainly not!
(Chorus)
6. Adrie and Eva are tightly shacked up
Their nocturnal action has broken their tent
Miles and Rachel talk into the night
Dialogue peppered with squeals of delight
(Chorus)
7. There's also a young girl whose always on heat
She's famous for chasing a fresh piece of meat
Be careful when entering your sleeping bag
Inside it you might find a short dumpy dag
(Chorus)
8. Gunther's a Belgian with plenty of power
Cigarettes and alcohol he likes to devour
Sometimes he struggles to get out of his tent
But he'll still race you so hard that your bike ends up bent
(Chorus)
9. When needing a good laugh just go look up Sean
Known as "the baby" he was only just born
His wisdom will amaze you, though King Solomon he's not
A short conversation will show he's lost the plot
(Chorus)
10. Of course I must mention the TDA staff
Jack's accurate route descriptions make everyone laugh
If we get pissed off they're quick to contend
That Africa is supposed to drive you round the bend
(Chorus)
11. Elaine and Rachel are happiest when drunk
They both like a man with plenty of spunk
Give them a few drinks and they get quite rude
Sooner or later you can bet they'll be nude
(Chorus)
12. This trip has been tiring with way too much stew
More shitting in holes I just don't want to do
My bike shorts are worn out, my sperm count is low
Why the fuck I did this I really don't know
(Chorus)
1. There once was a bike ride from Cairo to Cape
30 plus idiots paid ten grand to partake
They pedalled from sunrise until they were dead
Then lay about wasted with legs full of lead
Chorus:
Please God no more cycling
No more red raw crotch pain
Let my legs have a rest
Let's do something else
2. There's Adrie from Holland who just wont give up
And Gunther from Belgium with talent galore
Andy from Canada farts all the time
Jan is an old guy who sneaks to the line
(Chorus)
3. Andy from Scotland has his ups and downs
While Alice from Joburg rarely ever frowns
Josh is a work horse who powers away
He grags his mate Douglas who bounces all day
(Chorus)
4. Secret liaisons have been common place
Just look round this camp for the very red face
Duncan and Lucette will get the first prize
For bonking in the dirt well before sunrise
(Chorus)
5. Then there are the couples who share a tent
I've been told not to mention there names in this song
Suffice it to say that their love is red hot
Old married couples they're certainly not!
(Chorus)
6. Adrie and Eva are tightly shacked up
Their nocturnal action has broken their tent
Miles and Rachel talk into the night
Dialogue peppered with squeals of delight
(Chorus)
7. There's also a young girl whose always on heat
She's famous for chasing a fresh piece of meat
Be careful when entering your sleeping bag
Inside it you might find a short dumpy dag
(Chorus)
8. Gunther's a Belgian with plenty of power
Cigarettes and alcohol he likes to devour
Sometimes he struggles to get out of his tent
But he'll still race you so hard that your bike ends up bent
(Chorus)
9. When needing a good laugh just go look up Sean
Known as "the baby" he was only just born
His wisdom will amaze you, though King Solomon he's not
A short conversation will show he's lost the plot
(Chorus)
10. Of course I must mention the TDA staff
Jack's accurate route descriptions make everyone laugh
If we get pissed off they're quick to contend
That Africa is supposed to drive you round the bend
(Chorus)
11. Elaine and Rachel are happiest when drunk
They both like a man with plenty of spunk
Give them a few drinks and they get quite rude
Sooner or later you can bet they'll be nude
(Chorus)
12. This trip has been tiring with way too much stew
More shitting in holes I just don't want to do
My bike shorts are worn out, my sperm count is low
Why the fuck I did this I really don't know
(Chorus)
Wednesday, May 16, 2007
We did it!!!
Hey Team Janet-and-Chris-in-Africa!!!
We did it!! We arrived in Cape Town on May the 12th to a buzz that was unbelievable and a huge crowd of family and friends of the TDA riders from all around the world, including my dad who had traveled all the way from New Zealand. There were also a few surprises such as Rich one of our clients and friends from San Diego who was at the finish line. I looked up after crossing the line and there was my dad who I knew would be there and standing next to him was the fabulous Rich. Great fun. Jan from Holland got to the finish line and the next thing he knew he had a blonde hanging around his neck giving him kisses. His wife had flown in to surprise him and Rach our lekker TDA staff member knew she was coming but it it very secret. It was a blast to see Jan's face, he was beaming from ear to ear..very much an 'ohhhhhhhhhhhhhhh' moment. Chris and I both enjoyed Jan's company on the Tour, not only racing but also socially and we will be hooking up with him next February in Canada as Jan is a hot cross country skier!!
Besides family and friends there was also an array of African dancers and drums and members of the public at the waterfront who were just hanging out in the shopping area wondering what on earth all these cyclists were doing. The Cape Town Waterfront complex is very much like the Auckland Viaduct and a really good looking place to have a race finish. Seagulls, boats, lots of noise, shops, restaurants, people having lunch under umbrellas etc. The weather was superb - hot and sunny and a great view of Table Mountain in the background, we couldn't have asked for a better day. Once we arrived at the finish, our bikes were taken by little helpers who placed them in a safe place (a tent near the ampitheatre) and we all then had to get flags of our respective countries and proceed in an orderly manner to the ampitheatre where the Mayoress of Cape Town was going to welcome us and then give us our finishing medals. We all had on our new Tour d'Afrique Cycling bike jerseys and so I must say we all looked great. We had to stand on stage during the official speeches and then it was team photos, individual country photos with flags and then we were given a little reception nearby which included champagne and food!! All this happened between 2 and 4pm and it was quite emotional and hectic at the same time. Lots of hugs and kisses and hellos to TDA family members who were busy putting faces to names that they had either read on the official TDA website or the individual blogs. It was madness!!
However, girlfriends - you would have been proud of me - while all of this madness was going on - I managed to:
1. circulate,
2. give all the team congratulations-we-did-it-hugs
3. find my husband who had disappeared earlier in the day - read the next paragraph AND more importantly
4. also managed to nip out to do a spot of shopping and buy a hot dress!!! On Saturday morning while we were all riding in to meet the police (who were going to lead us convoy style into Cape Town), a couple of the riders asked me why I was riding so fast! My response - I'm on a mission to find a dress! After 4 months of being on a bike I was not about to turn up to the finale dinner in bike shorts or REI overland/cargo trousers. I had been telling all the girls that I was going to buy a little black dress and I did, in record time - less than 10 minutes. Inbetween sipping champagne and eating spring rolls I bought a dress. I could tell by the look on the faces of the women in the Marion and Linde store that they were not used to seeing a female cyclist in cycling gear including the mandatory clicking Shimano cycling shoes! I asked for a little black dress that had to cover the cycling shorts tan lines on my legs and without any hesitation one appeared. I put it on and it looked hillarious with my cycling shoes but as the assistant said..if it took 12,000km to get legs like mine she would ride a bike too! I didn't have the heart to tell her that legs like mine were genetic but hey if it means another woman hits the tar pedalling then who's checking little white lies huh!
So re lost husband. We left our beach camp at 7.30am and had until 12.30pm to make it to the point where the Cape Town police were going to convoy us into the finish line. It was only about 60km and Chris didn't see the point in hanging around when he could ride all the way to Cape Town, check into the hotel we were all staying at, shower and eat all before our arrival at the finish line at 2pm. So, he did just that!! Some of the riders were concerned that he would not be with us at the finish but he was. We couldn't miss him. All our gear was on Doris the truck and so when Chris got to Cape Town he went to the Nike store and bought some clothes as all he had were his cycling clothes. He also bought some new running shoes..racing flats that could be seen in the dark. There was Chris..black shorts, white t-shirt and irridescent green shoes. The team all laughed when we saw the shoes ..honestly they were bright!!! He joined us on stage with the TDA cycling jersey but those shoes....they were bright. I will publish some photos when I get back state side and you will see them gems!!!One other husband got lost as well.....when we got to the convoy start point Adrie wasn't there either, Eva and Jan and the rest of the Dutch group had no idea where he had got to. Turns out that he missed the traffic light (or robot if you are from South Africa) and he inadvertently rode into Cape Town. Hillarious that the number one and two racer boys missed the convoy..one planned it, the other missed the right turn and sailed through to Cape Town.
After the medal ceremony we all had the task of emptying out our red boxes as Doris was leaving the next morning to head back to Joberg. What a job. Chris and I donated most of our gear to the 'give it to someone who needs it pile'. We gave our mountaineering 5 season tent to Joash from Kenya as he is a mountain guide on Mt Kenya and Kilimanjaro when he is not guiding the blind rider Douglas. His face was priceless when I handed it to him. He deserved it..he worked his ass off for Douglas and if he was riding individually he would have given Chris and Adrie a good running especially on them hills! We gave our thermarest sleeping mats to Jack, our camelpack hydration units to Windy from Ethiopia with instructions to give one to Mahmoosh who was one of the riders we rode with us in Ethiopia. Spare bike parts and tyres went to the pile as well as Chris's cyclocross shoes which were on their last legs, water bottles went in the rubbish pile and so compared to when we started back in January we're currently lighter in terms of gear. While doing all this and trying to get it done before the dinner time of 7.00pm we found out that there were no accommodation bookings for the African Routes guys - Trevor and Wimpey which we thought was really poor. These guys worked their butts off for us and you would have thought that TDA or AfRoutes management would have made sure the boys had some kind of room for the night. I guess they could have slept on the truck but Chris and I thought that sucked so we did the right thing in our minds and booked them a room. Trevor and Wimpey deserved it and we were pleased to see them at breakfast the next morning - slightly worse for wear - after our finale dinner but having had sleep and food before embarking on a 20 hour drive to Joberg.
The dinner was great and the prize giving was good for Chris and I - having won some sections between us we got books for those section wins as well as overall second place trophies in the form of African masks and bowls. How we are going to pack them is anyones guess but we'll figure it out.
Today is Saturday 19th and we are in a coastal town called Plettenberg Bay which is on the Garden Route. Chris is doing a work out at the Virgin Avtive Gym as his legs are doing crazy things like cramping so bad when he runs that he can hardly walk.He's found that if he does a cycle first..yes can you believe it - he can run after and so he needs the gym as we left our bikes in Cape Town. As for me, my body is in great form. I did an hour and a half run this morning along a river trail about 50km away at a Lodge we stayed at and it was great. My dad was with us this past week and we had a good time. We left Cape Town last Monday and stayed in Stellenbosch at a boutique wine/country lodge called L'Avenir..as you do..Monday night. It was a blast. We were the only people at the lodge and so it seemed like we had our very own country house for the evening. It was a beautiful place. Wine tasting in the afternoon, fire place, luxury couches and cheese and a bottle of their 2005 Pinotage to kill time with. Much better way to pass the day than riding a bike huh!
We then went towards George and stayed at the Point Hotel in Mossel Bay..superb views of wild coastline. Very much like New Zealand. Dad took lots of photos and then it was on towards Knysna where we had lunch in the harbour and then mossied onto Plettenberg Bay where we stayed in a really nice B and B. Small world. The owners two sons are golfers in the states. One was on the PGA tour until he injured his wrist and had to have surgery and now on the Nationwide Tour and the other son is on a golf scholarship in Columbia.We talked sports over breakfast and gave them my business card just in case he needed a second opinion regarding his rehab. Dad had a flight out of Port Elizabeth yesterday hence our need to get there by Friday and so we drove from Plettenberg Bay - past Goose Point - Gary Players home golf course to Port Elizabeth on Thursday. We stopped off in Jefferys Bay - a renowned surf spot for lunch and checked out the break where the Billabong surf competition will be held in July. Nice break and beautiful beach --once again though - I swear I could have been in one of many beaches in New Zealand.
It's great to see South Africa keeping their beaches, road sides and national parks so clean but it does bother me to still see the poor housing that many African native people still live in. It's been 15 years or so since the end of segregation and a lot has been achieved but when you see the projects/tin shacks for housing along the sides of the roads - hundreds of them across the road from fabulous million dollar houses it still causes a lump in my throat.Maybe in twenty years time it will be a thing of the past, Here's hoping.
OK so Chris is back from his work out..time to eat.
Hope you are all well. Off to check out Ostrich racing.
Cheers
We did it!! We arrived in Cape Town on May the 12th to a buzz that was unbelievable and a huge crowd of family and friends of the TDA riders from all around the world, including my dad who had traveled all the way from New Zealand. There were also a few surprises such as Rich one of our clients and friends from San Diego who was at the finish line. I looked up after crossing the line and there was my dad who I knew would be there and standing next to him was the fabulous Rich. Great fun. Jan from Holland got to the finish line and the next thing he knew he had a blonde hanging around his neck giving him kisses. His wife had flown in to surprise him and Rach our lekker TDA staff member knew she was coming but it it very secret. It was a blast to see Jan's face, he was beaming from ear to ear..very much an 'ohhhhhhhhhhhhhhh' moment. Chris and I both enjoyed Jan's company on the Tour, not only racing but also socially and we will be hooking up with him next February in Canada as Jan is a hot cross country skier!!
Besides family and friends there was also an array of African dancers and drums and members of the public at the waterfront who were just hanging out in the shopping area wondering what on earth all these cyclists were doing. The Cape Town Waterfront complex is very much like the Auckland Viaduct and a really good looking place to have a race finish. Seagulls, boats, lots of noise, shops, restaurants, people having lunch under umbrellas etc. The weather was superb - hot and sunny and a great view of Table Mountain in the background, we couldn't have asked for a better day. Once we arrived at the finish, our bikes were taken by little helpers who placed them in a safe place (a tent near the ampitheatre) and we all then had to get flags of our respective countries and proceed in an orderly manner to the ampitheatre where the Mayoress of Cape Town was going to welcome us and then give us our finishing medals. We all had on our new Tour d'Afrique Cycling bike jerseys and so I must say we all looked great. We had to stand on stage during the official speeches and then it was team photos, individual country photos with flags and then we were given a little reception nearby which included champagne and food!! All this happened between 2 and 4pm and it was quite emotional and hectic at the same time. Lots of hugs and kisses and hellos to TDA family members who were busy putting faces to names that they had either read on the official TDA website or the individual blogs. It was madness!!
However, girlfriends - you would have been proud of me - while all of this madness was going on - I managed to:
1. circulate,
2. give all the team congratulations-we-did-it-hugs
3. find my husband who had disappeared earlier in the day - read the next paragraph AND more importantly
4. also managed to nip out to do a spot of shopping and buy a hot dress!!! On Saturday morning while we were all riding in to meet the police (who were going to lead us convoy style into Cape Town), a couple of the riders asked me why I was riding so fast! My response - I'm on a mission to find a dress! After 4 months of being on a bike I was not about to turn up to the finale dinner in bike shorts or REI overland/cargo trousers. I had been telling all the girls that I was going to buy a little black dress and I did, in record time - less than 10 minutes. Inbetween sipping champagne and eating spring rolls I bought a dress. I could tell by the look on the faces of the women in the Marion and Linde store that they were not used to seeing a female cyclist in cycling gear including the mandatory clicking Shimano cycling shoes! I asked for a little black dress that had to cover the cycling shorts tan lines on my legs and without any hesitation one appeared. I put it on and it looked hillarious with my cycling shoes but as the assistant said..if it took 12,000km to get legs like mine she would ride a bike too! I didn't have the heart to tell her that legs like mine were genetic but hey if it means another woman hits the tar pedalling then who's checking little white lies huh!
So re lost husband. We left our beach camp at 7.30am and had until 12.30pm to make it to the point where the Cape Town police were going to convoy us into the finish line. It was only about 60km and Chris didn't see the point in hanging around when he could ride all the way to Cape Town, check into the hotel we were all staying at, shower and eat all before our arrival at the finish line at 2pm. So, he did just that!! Some of the riders were concerned that he would not be with us at the finish but he was. We couldn't miss him. All our gear was on Doris the truck and so when Chris got to Cape Town he went to the Nike store and bought some clothes as all he had were his cycling clothes. He also bought some new running shoes..racing flats that could be seen in the dark. There was Chris..black shorts, white t-shirt and irridescent green shoes. The team all laughed when we saw the shoes ..honestly they were bright!!! He joined us on stage with the TDA cycling jersey but those shoes....they were bright. I will publish some photos when I get back state side and you will see them gems!!!One other husband got lost as well.....when we got to the convoy start point Adrie wasn't there either, Eva and Jan and the rest of the Dutch group had no idea where he had got to. Turns out that he missed the traffic light (or robot if you are from South Africa) and he inadvertently rode into Cape Town. Hillarious that the number one and two racer boys missed the convoy..one planned it, the other missed the right turn and sailed through to Cape Town.
After the medal ceremony we all had the task of emptying out our red boxes as Doris was leaving the next morning to head back to Joberg. What a job. Chris and I donated most of our gear to the 'give it to someone who needs it pile'. We gave our mountaineering 5 season tent to Joash from Kenya as he is a mountain guide on Mt Kenya and Kilimanjaro when he is not guiding the blind rider Douglas. His face was priceless when I handed it to him. He deserved it..he worked his ass off for Douglas and if he was riding individually he would have given Chris and Adrie a good running especially on them hills! We gave our thermarest sleeping mats to Jack, our camelpack hydration units to Windy from Ethiopia with instructions to give one to Mahmoosh who was one of the riders we rode with us in Ethiopia. Spare bike parts and tyres went to the pile as well as Chris's cyclocross shoes which were on their last legs, water bottles went in the rubbish pile and so compared to when we started back in January we're currently lighter in terms of gear. While doing all this and trying to get it done before the dinner time of 7.00pm we found out that there were no accommodation bookings for the African Routes guys - Trevor and Wimpey which we thought was really poor. These guys worked their butts off for us and you would have thought that TDA or AfRoutes management would have made sure the boys had some kind of room for the night. I guess they could have slept on the truck but Chris and I thought that sucked so we did the right thing in our minds and booked them a room. Trevor and Wimpey deserved it and we were pleased to see them at breakfast the next morning - slightly worse for wear - after our finale dinner but having had sleep and food before embarking on a 20 hour drive to Joberg.
The dinner was great and the prize giving was good for Chris and I - having won some sections between us we got books for those section wins as well as overall second place trophies in the form of African masks and bowls. How we are going to pack them is anyones guess but we'll figure it out.
Today is Saturday 19th and we are in a coastal town called Plettenberg Bay which is on the Garden Route. Chris is doing a work out at the Virgin Avtive Gym as his legs are doing crazy things like cramping so bad when he runs that he can hardly walk.He's found that if he does a cycle first..yes can you believe it - he can run after and so he needs the gym as we left our bikes in Cape Town. As for me, my body is in great form. I did an hour and a half run this morning along a river trail about 50km away at a Lodge we stayed at and it was great. My dad was with us this past week and we had a good time. We left Cape Town last Monday and stayed in Stellenbosch at a boutique wine/country lodge called L'Avenir..as you do..Monday night. It was a blast. We were the only people at the lodge and so it seemed like we had our very own country house for the evening. It was a beautiful place. Wine tasting in the afternoon, fire place, luxury couches and cheese and a bottle of their 2005 Pinotage to kill time with. Much better way to pass the day than riding a bike huh!
We then went towards George and stayed at the Point Hotel in Mossel Bay..superb views of wild coastline. Very much like New Zealand. Dad took lots of photos and then it was on towards Knysna where we had lunch in the harbour and then mossied onto Plettenberg Bay where we stayed in a really nice B and B. Small world. The owners two sons are golfers in the states. One was on the PGA tour until he injured his wrist and had to have surgery and now on the Nationwide Tour and the other son is on a golf scholarship in Columbia.We talked sports over breakfast and gave them my business card just in case he needed a second opinion regarding his rehab. Dad had a flight out of Port Elizabeth yesterday hence our need to get there by Friday and so we drove from Plettenberg Bay - past Goose Point - Gary Players home golf course to Port Elizabeth on Thursday. We stopped off in Jefferys Bay - a renowned surf spot for lunch and checked out the break where the Billabong surf competition will be held in July. Nice break and beautiful beach --once again though - I swear I could have been in one of many beaches in New Zealand.
It's great to see South Africa keeping their beaches, road sides and national parks so clean but it does bother me to still see the poor housing that many African native people still live in. It's been 15 years or so since the end of segregation and a lot has been achieved but when you see the projects/tin shacks for housing along the sides of the roads - hundreds of them across the road from fabulous million dollar houses it still causes a lump in my throat.Maybe in twenty years time it will be a thing of the past, Here's hoping.
OK so Chris is back from his work out..time to eat.
Hope you are all well. Off to check out Ostrich racing.
Cheers
Sunday, April 29, 2007
Chris has a birthday in Africa!
Hi there from Windhoek the capital city of Namibia!
It's been a big week for two reasons.
One being the 840kms of cycling in five days - close tot he type of mileage that pro riders do - flat long sections 160km, 160km, 208km in Botswanna, 150km to the Botswanna/Namibia border and 160km into Windhoek. The last two days had cross winds and full on head winds that made us question why the hell we were on bikes!!!! The last half of Fridays ride was tough going and so it was with a big exhausting sigh that we headed into two rest days. Saturday and Sunday have been spent relaxing and swanning by the pool for Chris and I who opted to stay at a hotel instead of camping up the road with the rest of the group. Some of us hit the mall for ice cream and a spot of retail therapy in our first European African city since Cairo. It was odd to see western shops including a Vigin Gym and Pool. It showed that we had got quite used to the typical African stall on the side of the road and at it's best a Shopright or Spa Supermarket. Windhoek is very German and so hence all the shops. We did however capitalise on the German influence and spent quite a lot of time adding calories to our diet in the form of German pastries and cakes. Oh la la they were good!!! We also found a great bike shp called Cycology and and repairs were made to bikes that have been making too many creaking noises and Patrick the owner is going to ride part of the course in the morning. HIs wife also gave us massages and so the body is in a better state than when it arrived on Friday.
The second reason why it's been a big week is because Chris turned the big 'four 0' last Thursday and he celebrated that by riding 150km to a bush camp. Champagne wasn't available in the middle of nowhere Namibia and so he had to settle for a belated celebration. The other crazy thing is that he and Adrie the race leader share the same birthday and so the TDA staff organised balloons and a treasure hunt/race for both of them as the actual TDA cycle race always ends up with the two of them sprinting for the line. In this case Chris got all the clues first and so was the first to the chocolate and yoghurt that they had hidden in the Toyota. When you are in the last stages of a cycle tour through Africa, celebrating a birthday with choclolate and yoghurt beats champagne anytime...(according to them..me..? I would have gone for the champagne!!) He did however eventually get cake! Dean the TDA bike mechanic was very generous and beat me to it. He went ahead to Windhoek and had a couple of days off and in his travels came across a superb bakery and had a piece of cake that he knew Chris would love. So when we arrived on Friday night he presented Chris with an entire chocolate cake that was so decadent that there is still half of it in the fridge!! I had a slither and it sent me into a sugar coma, as for Chris I'm sure he'll polish it off for dessert tonight.
So..we head to Fish River Canyon in the morning which is on the border of Namibia and South Africa and we will arrive there in five days time. 12 more days of riding and then we hit Cape Town. Can you believe it? We are in the home stretch. We ride 155km tomorrow and the first 30km is hilly and then it is flat for three days before we hit two off road days and a time trial. WOW!
I spoke to my dad tonight as he is in Joberg and quite jetlagged having travelled from Auckland New Zealand, via Melbourne and Dubai to be in Joberg today. He heads off to do a Soweto tour then a safari tour of Kruger Park and then Vic Falls before meeting me in Cape Town on the 12th. It will be a blast to see a familiar face at the finish line. We've all been told that it will end in tears and that the finish is quite emotional as we have all been living and riding together for 4 and a 1/2 months and so are now very close and our own kinda family. It will be strange not to see their faces at 5.30am over a cup of tea and the bicycle pump..hmmmmmm.
Anyway, Chris has just arrived back from sorting out his rear wheel and the crisis is now over..we can relax and have dinner. To my nephew Nicholas..hope your 21st birthday was a lot of fun..I'll see you later in the year..and wonderful Dan in La Jolla California ..you have a great birthday May 7th..tell Michelle to give you hugs on my behalf!!!
Love ya guys
Over and out from Windhoek, Namibia
It's been a big week for two reasons.
One being the 840kms of cycling in five days - close tot he type of mileage that pro riders do - flat long sections 160km, 160km, 208km in Botswanna, 150km to the Botswanna/Namibia border and 160km into Windhoek. The last two days had cross winds and full on head winds that made us question why the hell we were on bikes!!!! The last half of Fridays ride was tough going and so it was with a big exhausting sigh that we headed into two rest days. Saturday and Sunday have been spent relaxing and swanning by the pool for Chris and I who opted to stay at a hotel instead of camping up the road with the rest of the group. Some of us hit the mall for ice cream and a spot of retail therapy in our first European African city since Cairo. It was odd to see western shops including a Vigin Gym and Pool. It showed that we had got quite used to the typical African stall on the side of the road and at it's best a Shopright or Spa Supermarket. Windhoek is very German and so hence all the shops. We did however capitalise on the German influence and spent quite a lot of time adding calories to our diet in the form of German pastries and cakes. Oh la la they were good!!! We also found a great bike shp called Cycology and and repairs were made to bikes that have been making too many creaking noises and Patrick the owner is going to ride part of the course in the morning. HIs wife also gave us massages and so the body is in a better state than when it arrived on Friday.
The second reason why it's been a big week is because Chris turned the big 'four 0' last Thursday and he celebrated that by riding 150km to a bush camp. Champagne wasn't available in the middle of nowhere Namibia and so he had to settle for a belated celebration. The other crazy thing is that he and Adrie the race leader share the same birthday and so the TDA staff organised balloons and a treasure hunt/race for both of them as the actual TDA cycle race always ends up with the two of them sprinting for the line. In this case Chris got all the clues first and so was the first to the chocolate and yoghurt that they had hidden in the Toyota. When you are in the last stages of a cycle tour through Africa, celebrating a birthday with choclolate and yoghurt beats champagne anytime...(according to them..me..? I would have gone for the champagne!!) He did however eventually get cake! Dean the TDA bike mechanic was very generous and beat me to it. He went ahead to Windhoek and had a couple of days off and in his travels came across a superb bakery and had a piece of cake that he knew Chris would love. So when we arrived on Friday night he presented Chris with an entire chocolate cake that was so decadent that there is still half of it in the fridge!! I had a slither and it sent me into a sugar coma, as for Chris I'm sure he'll polish it off for dessert tonight.
So..we head to Fish River Canyon in the morning which is on the border of Namibia and South Africa and we will arrive there in five days time. 12 more days of riding and then we hit Cape Town. Can you believe it? We are in the home stretch. We ride 155km tomorrow and the first 30km is hilly and then it is flat for three days before we hit two off road days and a time trial. WOW!
I spoke to my dad tonight as he is in Joberg and quite jetlagged having travelled from Auckland New Zealand, via Melbourne and Dubai to be in Joberg today. He heads off to do a Soweto tour then a safari tour of Kruger Park and then Vic Falls before meeting me in Cape Town on the 12th. It will be a blast to see a familiar face at the finish line. We've all been told that it will end in tears and that the finish is quite emotional as we have all been living and riding together for 4 and a 1/2 months and so are now very close and our own kinda family. It will be strange not to see their faces at 5.30am over a cup of tea and the bicycle pump..hmmmmmm.
Anyway, Chris has just arrived back from sorting out his rear wheel and the crisis is now over..we can relax and have dinner. To my nephew Nicholas..hope your 21st birthday was a lot of fun..I'll see you later in the year..and wonderful Dan in La Jolla California ..you have a great birthday May 7th..tell Michelle to give you hugs on my behalf!!!
Love ya guys
Over and out from Windhoek, Namibia
Sunday, April 22, 2007
Where has the time gone!!
Hello to one and all!
It is April 22nd and we are in a town called Maun, Botswana and we have less than three weeks to go before we hit Cape Town. None of us can quite beleive that 'd' day is fast approaching. Have we really cycled 9,000kms to date? Is this trip of a life time almost over? Do we all have to go back to our respective homes and start working and get real jobs? Can our bodies adjust to sleeping in and not wake up at 4.30am-5.00am? Will we be able to cope with a new breakfast routine that does not involve taking down tents, packing a red box and pumping up tires ready for the 160km ride of the day? Will we be able to sit at starbucks in the morning when our bodies are looking for the lunch truck at 9.30am and a coke stop at 1.00pm? Life will be different after May 12 but I tell you what..we have had the time of our lives and would not have missed any of it -including the broken wrist - for the world!!!!!! OK we could have ditched the wrist injury but we are all in high spirits..somewhat jaded as we have hit high temperatures again..it was 41 degrees celcius yesterday but a rest day does wonders for our souls!!
This morning Dave and Alice from South Africa, Jan from Holland and Chris and I took a flight over the Okavango Delta. It was truely amazing to see the delta and all the wild life from the air in a five seater plane. It was an hour flight and we saw elephants, giraffe's, wilderbeest, hipos, bird life just doing their normal day to day thing oblivious to us up in the sky.The delta is in the middle of two fault lines. One fault line is in the south at Maun..the town we are having our rest day in and the other is miles north near the Angola border. The difference between the two fault lines is only 150 meters spread over miles and miles of ancient sands, hundreds of meters deep which buffers the movement of the underlying fault lines. The rainy season in the highlands of Southern Angola - the rain clouds over the Bie Plateau provide the rain and flood waters which journey thousands of miles through the Makgadikgadi Basin and disperses in an annual inpouring upon arrival at the Delta. The water seeps into the massive, shallow floodplain changing the delta and bringing water to the animals. At the moment you can see the flood water moving toward Maun and apparently in August everything will be covered in the immediate area close to Maun and so it will look like a large mass of water with little islands. We flew this morning for about ten minutes before we saw the flooded channels with lily pads and long grass swaying in the breeze and water holes. Prior to this is wide open space and the elephants and giraffes are cruising looking for shade and food.Check it out on the internet, there is nothing like it in the world.I took some video footage but have no idea how it will work out. It was a blast.
OK and so back to the race....Chris won the individual 40km time trial by 16sec over Adrie when we left Livingstone, Vic Falls - Zambia and his team also won the 40km team time trial yesterday, breaking the one hour mark with a great time of 59.47sec. It was supposed to be for fun and their team was the UK team called 'Tea and Scones' made up of Andy from Scotland, Ian from Guernsey, Phil from London and Chris.Their team strategy allowed them to whip the staff team who came in second by almost 2 minutes.Happy days for the UK boys.
My team was more style than cycling. We were called the Absolutely, Positively, Fabulous Team and so we had a great outfit...bras, bikini tops, cycling shorts, mini skirt, neck scarves and team tattoos of who we loved, "I was Prada, Alice was Gucci, Tiffany was Puppies and Sara was '60km from Kimberly..location joke..long story..will have to tell over a glass of champange when I get back story!" We were going for the look of how you could dress for cycling and even practiced our last place 'entrance' as we crossed the finish line with hands on handle bars and one leg extended out the back in a beautiful scale balance--ballerina style. This worked and got a collective laugh from the other riders as it was obvious that we were having a lot of fun. We as a team felt smug in our achievement .....however....much to our amazement our entrance to the finish was totally usurped 5 minutes later by one of the other riders who was dropped by his team and who shall remain nameless. He defintely one upped us by cycling at least a hundred meters and crossing the line minus cycling shorts and wearing them on his head as an aerodynamic accessory!! It was the most hillarious sight and all of us have not laughed so hard in a long time. He took the cake and prize for best effort!!! Of course we all took photos but they will not be published on the TDA site!!! A great time had by all.
So, some of you are probably wondering where I figured in the individual time trial. I didn't do it as I got a food bug and was flat on my back in Livingstone and was forced to stay an extra two days to let 'it pass out of my system'. Bad chicken will do that to you!! I joined the group at the second bush camp in Botswanna. That was an amazing drive as we crossed the Zambia border and instantly were stopped by a group of elephants crossing the road. This happened three times and it was a joy to see them just cruising in front of us. The other day we had a 176km ride and 10km before our camp there were at least 30 elephants just wandering along the sides of the road on both the left and right side. How can you race when that is going on? The front racers didn't see them as they had their heads down and bums up. As for me..I stopped..who cares about race results when you can see elephants just doing there thing. This section is called the Elephant highway and you can see why. We have seen them everyday for the past five days!!
I'm going backwards here but Vic Falls in Zambia is everything and more than what you hear. The noise was insane and so loud. The Zambesi River is in flood and at what they call the high, high level and so the amount of water falling over the edge is umbelievable. We couldn't white water raft as the water volume was so high and there would have been no time to recover between rapids should anyone fall out. We also looked at bungy jumping from Vic Falls bridge but the spray of water was too much and they could not adjust the tension of the elastic cord..a safety issue which one should not ignore!!!! We crossed over to Zimbabwe while we were at the falls and you can see the difference between the two countries. Zambia has benefited from what Mugabe is doing to Zim..all the tourist dollars are pouring into Zambia and no money is going into Zimbabwe..their inflation is currently 2,000% or something ridiculous and it's really sad to see what has happened to a previously properous country.
So we are in Botswanna and now head towards the Kalahari Desert and Namibia and so temperatures are going to get hot again. We have two rest days in Windhoek and celebrate Chris's 40th birthday there. His actual birthday is April 26th but the next morning may be another team trial so there will be no celebration on his part. Crazy thing is ..Chris and Adrie share the same birthdate!!Both are competitive and so birthday celebrations will be delayed.
OK..I'm sweating here and need to find a pool. Sorry for being so long in updating this blog but promise to do another in Windhoek.
Love ya
It is April 22nd and we are in a town called Maun, Botswana and we have less than three weeks to go before we hit Cape Town. None of us can quite beleive that 'd' day is fast approaching. Have we really cycled 9,000kms to date? Is this trip of a life time almost over? Do we all have to go back to our respective homes and start working and get real jobs? Can our bodies adjust to sleeping in and not wake up at 4.30am-5.00am? Will we be able to cope with a new breakfast routine that does not involve taking down tents, packing a red box and pumping up tires ready for the 160km ride of the day? Will we be able to sit at starbucks in the morning when our bodies are looking for the lunch truck at 9.30am and a coke stop at 1.00pm? Life will be different after May 12 but I tell you what..we have had the time of our lives and would not have missed any of it -including the broken wrist - for the world!!!!!! OK we could have ditched the wrist injury but we are all in high spirits..somewhat jaded as we have hit high temperatures again..it was 41 degrees celcius yesterday but a rest day does wonders for our souls!!
This morning Dave and Alice from South Africa, Jan from Holland and Chris and I took a flight over the Okavango Delta. It was truely amazing to see the delta and all the wild life from the air in a five seater plane. It was an hour flight and we saw elephants, giraffe's, wilderbeest, hipos, bird life just doing their normal day to day thing oblivious to us up in the sky.The delta is in the middle of two fault lines. One fault line is in the south at Maun..the town we are having our rest day in and the other is miles north near the Angola border. The difference between the two fault lines is only 150 meters spread over miles and miles of ancient sands, hundreds of meters deep which buffers the movement of the underlying fault lines. The rainy season in the highlands of Southern Angola - the rain clouds over the Bie Plateau provide the rain and flood waters which journey thousands of miles through the Makgadikgadi Basin and disperses in an annual inpouring upon arrival at the Delta. The water seeps into the massive, shallow floodplain changing the delta and bringing water to the animals. At the moment you can see the flood water moving toward Maun and apparently in August everything will be covered in the immediate area close to Maun and so it will look like a large mass of water with little islands. We flew this morning for about ten minutes before we saw the flooded channels with lily pads and long grass swaying in the breeze and water holes. Prior to this is wide open space and the elephants and giraffes are cruising looking for shade and food.Check it out on the internet, there is nothing like it in the world.I took some video footage but have no idea how it will work out. It was a blast.
OK and so back to the race....Chris won the individual 40km time trial by 16sec over Adrie when we left Livingstone, Vic Falls - Zambia and his team also won the 40km team time trial yesterday, breaking the one hour mark with a great time of 59.47sec. It was supposed to be for fun and their team was the UK team called 'Tea and Scones' made up of Andy from Scotland, Ian from Guernsey, Phil from London and Chris.Their team strategy allowed them to whip the staff team who came in second by almost 2 minutes.Happy days for the UK boys.
My team was more style than cycling. We were called the Absolutely, Positively, Fabulous Team and so we had a great outfit...bras, bikini tops, cycling shorts, mini skirt, neck scarves and team tattoos of who we loved, "I was Prada, Alice was Gucci, Tiffany was Puppies and Sara was '60km from Kimberly..location joke..long story..will have to tell over a glass of champange when I get back story!" We were going for the look of how you could dress for cycling and even practiced our last place 'entrance' as we crossed the finish line with hands on handle bars and one leg extended out the back in a beautiful scale balance--ballerina style. This worked and got a collective laugh from the other riders as it was obvious that we were having a lot of fun. We as a team felt smug in our achievement .....however....much to our amazement our entrance to the finish was totally usurped 5 minutes later by one of the other riders who was dropped by his team and who shall remain nameless. He defintely one upped us by cycling at least a hundred meters and crossing the line minus cycling shorts and wearing them on his head as an aerodynamic accessory!! It was the most hillarious sight and all of us have not laughed so hard in a long time. He took the cake and prize for best effort!!! Of course we all took photos but they will not be published on the TDA site!!! A great time had by all.
So, some of you are probably wondering where I figured in the individual time trial. I didn't do it as I got a food bug and was flat on my back in Livingstone and was forced to stay an extra two days to let 'it pass out of my system'. Bad chicken will do that to you!! I joined the group at the second bush camp in Botswanna. That was an amazing drive as we crossed the Zambia border and instantly were stopped by a group of elephants crossing the road. This happened three times and it was a joy to see them just cruising in front of us. The other day we had a 176km ride and 10km before our camp there were at least 30 elephants just wandering along the sides of the road on both the left and right side. How can you race when that is going on? The front racers didn't see them as they had their heads down and bums up. As for me..I stopped..who cares about race results when you can see elephants just doing there thing. This section is called the Elephant highway and you can see why. We have seen them everyday for the past five days!!
I'm going backwards here but Vic Falls in Zambia is everything and more than what you hear. The noise was insane and so loud. The Zambesi River is in flood and at what they call the high, high level and so the amount of water falling over the edge is umbelievable. We couldn't white water raft as the water volume was so high and there would have been no time to recover between rapids should anyone fall out. We also looked at bungy jumping from Vic Falls bridge but the spray of water was too much and they could not adjust the tension of the elastic cord..a safety issue which one should not ignore!!!! We crossed over to Zimbabwe while we were at the falls and you can see the difference between the two countries. Zambia has benefited from what Mugabe is doing to Zim..all the tourist dollars are pouring into Zambia and no money is going into Zimbabwe..their inflation is currently 2,000% or something ridiculous and it's really sad to see what has happened to a previously properous country.
So we are in Botswanna and now head towards the Kalahari Desert and Namibia and so temperatures are going to get hot again. We have two rest days in Windhoek and celebrate Chris's 40th birthday there. His actual birthday is April 26th but the next morning may be another team trial so there will be no celebration on his part. Crazy thing is ..Chris and Adrie share the same birthdate!!Both are competitive and so birthday celebrations will be delayed.
OK..I'm sweating here and need to find a pool. Sorry for being so long in updating this blog but promise to do another in Windhoek.
Love ya
Thursday, April 5, 2007
Chris wins Malawi Gin!!
Hi there to one and all,
You're probably wondering why the post is called 'Chris wins Malawi Gin'. I know you thought he was riding a bike in Africa and now you learn that he's winning bottles of alcohol? Is he gambling as well? Is he spending his spare moments learning how to play competition poker? (Well, actually he is as we have a new addition to the TDA family of riders called Tiffany who hails from the states and is a card shark and sharing her skills with all the boys. She's still winning but I tell ya, these boys don't give up no matter how much she fleeeces them!)
Anyway, Malawi Gin was the name of the section of stages from Iringa, Tanzania to Lilongwe, Malawi, all 1124kms. Chris won the section by 15 minutes after a superb effort over the hilly stage out of Chitimba Beach. We had a rest day in Chitimba Beach which is on the shores of Lake Malawi. Beautiful, white sandy beach, lake front camping, palm trees, little bungalows, a bit like Fiji...nothing to do. We didn't have internet connections and no shops so all we could do was sleep, eat and swim. It was an amazing rest day and everybody felt great for it. The stage started with a 15km easy ride along the shores of Lake Malawi and then at 14km there was a sharp right hand bend that went straight up this hill. We were told the night before that we would climb 1000 meters and then drop 2500 meters to a town called Mzuzu. The first climb was 25 km up! The Billy goat part of Chris's personality came out of it's wrappings and crucified the rest of the racers. He took a 15 minute chunk of time out of Adrie in the hill climb and as one of the other racer boys said..'Chris was on fire'. They did not catch him and so consequently he rode 120 kms by himself.
At the end of the stage he gratefully inhaled a home made fruit cake that Alice from Joberg's mother had made for him and sent via Patrick's brother Andre from Cape Town. Is that confusing? Basically we met Alice's parents Sue and Dave when they joined us in Nairobi and we got to know them as they also came on safari with us when we did Serengeti...AMAZING..saw the big five and Ngorongoro Crater Safari - also amazing..saw cheetahs again. While on safari Chris got talking with Sue and next thing you know he has negotiated a fruit cake..she is a babe of a woman and I love it as it means that I don't have to bake it!! She rocks. Patricks brother came to visit at Chitimba Beach and he had all sorts of goodies from fruit cakes to spare wheels to a conglomeration of bike bits!! He rode one stage with us and it was the hilly one. He did well to do that on his first day..it was tough!
Anyway, Chris is a happy boy to win a section and is looking forward to more hills in the Zambesi Zone section. We start off flat and long, 159km, 195km, and then on day three hills start again as we go trough one of the two gorges before we get to Lusaka.
As for me..I'll be happy with the flat roads as my wrist is still not quite right. I took the cast off after the three rest days in Arusha and then rehabbed it while the off road sections of Tanzania were taking place. There was lots of rain and mud and we decided that it would be crazy for me to ride those roads with a freshly healed wrist. I stayed in the truck and enjoyed the experieinces of seeing Doris truck getting stuck, digging it out, moving 200m in 5 hours and hanging out with the locals. Once we got to Iringa and we were back on tarseal/tarmac I raced the first stage and won it. It felt so good to be back on the bike I tell you it was heaven. I was so excited to be back on the bike after 5 weeks that there was no holding me back. The next day my wrist hurt like hell and I realised that I had better ease into the racing and so took it easy for the rest of the stages hence you not seeing my name in the stage wins after day one.I still have trouble holding on to the hoods and climbing as the wrist is stiff and feels like concrete. So the hilly sections are a problem but the flat sections are great as I have put my aerobars on...thanks to Richard in Encinitas who has been our saving grace and sending us things from out of our garage. Without his help I would not be riding as the aerobars make all the difference. Anyway, we ride for the Zambia border in the morning and hopefully I'll be able to race the section...fingers and toes crossed people.
We are off to clean bikes and get a load of food for the next section and so hopefully you are all well.
Love ya
You're probably wondering why the post is called 'Chris wins Malawi Gin'. I know you thought he was riding a bike in Africa and now you learn that he's winning bottles of alcohol? Is he gambling as well? Is he spending his spare moments learning how to play competition poker? (Well, actually he is as we have a new addition to the TDA family of riders called Tiffany who hails from the states and is a card shark and sharing her skills with all the boys. She's still winning but I tell ya, these boys don't give up no matter how much she fleeeces them!)
Anyway, Malawi Gin was the name of the section of stages from Iringa, Tanzania to Lilongwe, Malawi, all 1124kms. Chris won the section by 15 minutes after a superb effort over the hilly stage out of Chitimba Beach. We had a rest day in Chitimba Beach which is on the shores of Lake Malawi. Beautiful, white sandy beach, lake front camping, palm trees, little bungalows, a bit like Fiji...nothing to do. We didn't have internet connections and no shops so all we could do was sleep, eat and swim. It was an amazing rest day and everybody felt great for it. The stage started with a 15km easy ride along the shores of Lake Malawi and then at 14km there was a sharp right hand bend that went straight up this hill. We were told the night before that we would climb 1000 meters and then drop 2500 meters to a town called Mzuzu. The first climb was 25 km up! The Billy goat part of Chris's personality came out of it's wrappings and crucified the rest of the racers. He took a 15 minute chunk of time out of Adrie in the hill climb and as one of the other racer boys said..'Chris was on fire'. They did not catch him and so consequently he rode 120 kms by himself.
At the end of the stage he gratefully inhaled a home made fruit cake that Alice from Joberg's mother had made for him and sent via Patrick's brother Andre from Cape Town. Is that confusing? Basically we met Alice's parents Sue and Dave when they joined us in Nairobi and we got to know them as they also came on safari with us when we did Serengeti...AMAZING..saw the big five and Ngorongoro Crater Safari - also amazing..saw cheetahs again. While on safari Chris got talking with Sue and next thing you know he has negotiated a fruit cake..she is a babe of a woman and I love it as it means that I don't have to bake it!! She rocks. Patricks brother came to visit at Chitimba Beach and he had all sorts of goodies from fruit cakes to spare wheels to a conglomeration of bike bits!! He rode one stage with us and it was the hilly one. He did well to do that on his first day..it was tough!
Anyway, Chris is a happy boy to win a section and is looking forward to more hills in the Zambesi Zone section. We start off flat and long, 159km, 195km, and then on day three hills start again as we go trough one of the two gorges before we get to Lusaka.
As for me..I'll be happy with the flat roads as my wrist is still not quite right. I took the cast off after the three rest days in Arusha and then rehabbed it while the off road sections of Tanzania were taking place. There was lots of rain and mud and we decided that it would be crazy for me to ride those roads with a freshly healed wrist. I stayed in the truck and enjoyed the experieinces of seeing Doris truck getting stuck, digging it out, moving 200m in 5 hours and hanging out with the locals. Once we got to Iringa and we were back on tarseal/tarmac I raced the first stage and won it. It felt so good to be back on the bike I tell you it was heaven. I was so excited to be back on the bike after 5 weeks that there was no holding me back. The next day my wrist hurt like hell and I realised that I had better ease into the racing and so took it easy for the rest of the stages hence you not seeing my name in the stage wins after day one.I still have trouble holding on to the hoods and climbing as the wrist is stiff and feels like concrete. So the hilly sections are a problem but the flat sections are great as I have put my aerobars on...thanks to Richard in Encinitas who has been our saving grace and sending us things from out of our garage. Without his help I would not be riding as the aerobars make all the difference. Anyway, we ride for the Zambia border in the morning and hopefully I'll be able to race the section...fingers and toes crossed people.
We are off to clean bikes and get a load of food for the next section and so hopefully you are all well.
Love ya
Friday, March 9, 2007
African Safari - The Big Four not Five!
Hi there,
I'm back in Nairobi after almost two weeks of rest and recovery of the said right arm which is still prisoner of the ever present semi white cast!! It is now embellished with a new collection of signatures ranging from Felix the concierge of the hotel who loves me, to concerned medicals who are visiting from Europe and have stopped to ask how and where,to a variety of street vendors who tried to coerce me into their shops by saying they wanted to sign my cast but would I please go with them as they had forgotten their pens. Wouldn't you know it..'the pen' always lived in a little curio stall laden down and bursting at the seams with African masks, wooden giraffes again, beautiful fabric from Somalia, Tanzania, Kenya, you name it they had it even out in the Mara. Everything that I did not need. Can you imagine Chris's face if I turned up with a huge African Maasai wall hanging, a door mat and a giant mask. He would surely hit the roof!! It would be a laugh though. The funniest new signature was obtained from 'Lawrence of Kenya' who saw my cast through the window of his Range Rover while passing our minibus while on Safari in a particularly 'hairy and rocky' part of the track in the Maasai Mara Game Reserve Park. The drivers all know each other and there was a cousin sitting in the back of Lawrence's 4x4, Lawrence was driving at break neck speed to go and check one of his camps he owns in the Mara and so you couldn't miss his rally driver entry and we have no idea how our driver knew that the cousin was in the back. Anyway, our driver Leonard did the customary stop which was more of a lurch to a halt, on a precarious and rather jaunty angle with all of us passengers in the van sitting with a left lean. This put me on the high side of the van and while Leonard enquired as to the health of various family members, Lawrence in the drivers seat spied the cast and saw it as a good opportunity to sign. Of course he couldn't find a pen and there was a minor traffic hold up while he searched for one but hey it's Kenyan time and the other vans had to wait. Plus the Range Rover was bigger and so ruled the road. So all in all.....the cast is intact and... I'm also loved by Lawrence of Kenya!!
As for my African Safari experience....it was a blast. Unfortunately as the title of this posts reads..it was the Big Four- Elephants, Buffalo, Rhino (black and white)and Lions. Spotting (no pun intended) a leopard escaped us! There were enough trees at Lake Nakuru Game park the same colour as a leopard that we knew without a doubt that a leopard was surely camouflaged and sitting there looking at the tourists from high above.
I did a five day Safari, 3 days in the Maasai Mara Reserve and 2 days in Lake Nakuru. The Mara is unbelievably huge and expanse and everything that you thought a game park would be. We were lucky that on our first game drive early in the morning we came across a female cheetah. That was really special and we spent a long time just watching her observe the Thompson Gazelles in the distance...her breakfast. She was so beautiful, elegant and more graceful than I thought possible. I took some really good photos as well as a video of her cleaning andn preening herself in the early morning African sunrise. Very cool. We didn't get to see her catch a gazelle but I heard from some other people that arrived after us that they were there in time to see her..well not see her..just see the flash of movement and blurr of yellow, black, white and golden yellow..in mere seconds.. of her dart and veer to the side and in a blink of an eye she had pounced and caught the gazelle.
We also had a family of Elephants and Giraffes surround our van and were not at all aggressive..we didn't bother them..we all remained quiet and just watched and made sure that none of the cameras flashed light. Herds of buffalo were still in the Mara but apparently not in their usual thousands as most had migrated to Tanzania. By the end of my time in the Mara the poor Buffalo and Thompson Gazelle had been relegated to 'yeah seen them, let's look for a lion' category. Terrible really but they are plentiful compared to the lions who are the same colour as the golden grass and with the numbers of buffalo lower the grass doesn't get eaten and stays long at least to my waist height and so the lions can stay camouflaged. On Day two we did see a family of 10 lions - male and female and cubs - take down a gazelle and demolish everything bar the horns. Females caught it, males sat and watched and then ate first..what's with that?, females ate next, male cubs ate next and baby cubs got the scraps. They were funny to watch fighting over the bones. We also saw two lots of male lions sleeping under a tree virtually on the side of the road in the blazing sun and also were lucky to see two lioness's walking on the road in front of us with three baby cubs. They were really tiny and even Leonard said that that was an unusual sight. It is low season in the Mara and so not many tour vans and the animals know this and so are more inclined to wander out onto the roads.
I decided to do a camping safari rather than a lodge as I wanted to be closer to the action, meaning deeper inside the Mara. I was thinking tent and sleeping in my sleeping bag, the kind of camping style that we have been doing since our start of the ride with Tour d'Afrique. Camping safari in Kenya, meant I slept in a bed with sheets, inside a tent erected inside a banda, which is a thatched roof little hut with solid walls. I had electricity and hot showers and so now the question is...how on earth am I going to be able to go back to the Tour d'Afrique style of camping? I can see tears on the horizon!
The Maasai tribe apparently gave the land that the Reserve is on to the Kenyan government in exchange for 19% of the gate take which turns out to be about $8-9 dollars per person who enters.I'm not too sure how the money is used but they certainly have a thriving industry inside the park. They don't like you to take photos of them working with their animals when you see them on the side of the road and Leonard said that if the young boys see cameras they will throw rocks at the holder of the camera and the van. He said that they were highly skilled and always got their target and so it was best not to risk it. OK, so here is a potentially politically incorrect moment and I apologise in advance to any I may offend with my thoughts but you do have to wonder at the sincerity of it all. The reason why we couldn't take photos was because when you got into the park it was expected of us to do a traditional tour of the Maasai village and pay them for the photo opts. Minimums were set at 100 Kenyan shilling per photo of one person and the price could go higher depending of the number in the group. I found it particularly funny that as one group was being shown the wonders of traditional cooking on a charcoal grill, inside a little banda with mud floor, with the perfect photo opt of older woman, young mother and one child sitting on the floor, that the Maasai tour guide resplendently dressed in full red Maasai cloth and beautiful bling on his head, arms and around his neck, that his conversation was interrupted by his cell phone ringing with his personal popular tune. Apparently he reached under his red cloth, took the call and without a hitch closed the cell phone and continued his tour guiding as if nothing had just happened. I don't think he saw the irony of the moment. I'm glad that they have access to modern technology and I'm sure some still live like they are showing but there are also alot who now live in Norak which is the closest village to the Game Reserve gates. I also wondered and asked the question which was not answered directly..how come at 4-5pm every evening as the tour vans are travelling back to their respective camps that the Maasai boys are fully decked out in their red cloths AND bling to take the cows home yet the rest of the day they are bling-less? I got some half cocked answer but I figured it out myself..it ain't hard..it boils down to the tourist dollar and everybody including the Maasai can, will and do exploit it. I just hope that they don't sell out and that they are able to co-exist and maintain their cultural identity and that tourists see the Maasai as proud African warriors.The departing vision of tribal women at the gates of the Mara Reserve Park pushing and peddling their beautiful beads and crafts, which really are unique and exquisite but shoving them in the windows of the vans, into your face and lap is not at all endearing.Someone needs to show them the soft sell!
Anyway, my next stop was Lake Nakuru. It is an absolutely breath taking park and I found the Game reserve spectacular and well worth it. They call it small compared to the Mara but it is still big. We did a 6 hour game drive and although we saw all the animals you could see inclding the endangered white and black rhino we still could have spent more time as we didn't get around the entire park. The Lake itself is a soda lake and it has thousands of flamingos and so from the moment you enter the park all you can see is a band of hot pink edging around an emerald oasis. Truely breath taking. Add in some elephants, lions, giraffes, baboons, zebra, rhinos, buffalos, gazelles, dik diks - the smallest member of the antelope family, monkeys and a whole variety of birds..it make for a special place. The park differs from the Mara in the fact that the trees at Lake Nakuru are taller and more lush. The Lake is lined with Arcacia trees and the typical flat African tree which I can't remember the name of and so the bird life is plentiful. It is also surrounded by high rocky outcrops and at the highest point is Baboon Rock. It is an amazing viewpoint of the Lake and park which is awesome. Not only can you see the entire emerald green lake glistening in the sun, with the circle of hot pink flamingos but you can also see the whitish soda plain with the black buffalo, black and white striped zebra and the black and barely the white rhino just wandering around minding their own business against the background of the green trees and grassy edge of the lake all topped with a cloudless blue sky. It is certainly an amazing picture which is firmly etched in my head. I tired to take photos and video to capture it but although my camera is good..nothing can capture it as a photo just doesn't do it justice. I'll have to wait until National Geographic or Discovery Chanel do a documentary. You'll all just have to come and see for yourself!!!
While I've been on Safari, it appears that Chris has had his own little adventure in Northern Kenya. Read the blog on the www.tourdafrique.com website and you'll read that they have had hot - Sudan temperatures again of 46 degrees celsius, long - 4-5 hours for the racers mean 8-10 hours in the saddle for the expedition riders, dusty -sand and grit and dust mixed with sweat makes for a nice mud cake similar to the ones that some of us made as kids..only difference being that we had water to wash our hands at the end. If it's that hot where they are then water will be rationed and it will be bush showers. That means Johnson baby wipes inside the tent or by now just standing by the tent and if you're lucky left over water from your camel pack. It sounds like the racers may have even stopped for a coke stop which is unheard of but a sign of how hot the heat must of been. I see Chris tomorrow and so I'll make sure to quizz him on Northern Kenya and get back to you. I also heard from other travellers that pot holes in Northern Kenya sometimes were 6 feet wide and 6 inches deep. Hmmmmm makes the sand of Sudan quite appealing.
Even though I've had a blast on Safari..I'd have given anything to be there racing side by side with Chris. Let's not think about that..hope you are all well..time togo and walk fast around Nairobi.
Later alligator..didn't see one of them but I did se a crocodile!!
Love ya
I'm back in Nairobi after almost two weeks of rest and recovery of the said right arm which is still prisoner of the ever present semi white cast!! It is now embellished with a new collection of signatures ranging from Felix the concierge of the hotel who loves me, to concerned medicals who are visiting from Europe and have stopped to ask how and where,to a variety of street vendors who tried to coerce me into their shops by saying they wanted to sign my cast but would I please go with them as they had forgotten their pens. Wouldn't you know it..'the pen' always lived in a little curio stall laden down and bursting at the seams with African masks, wooden giraffes again, beautiful fabric from Somalia, Tanzania, Kenya, you name it they had it even out in the Mara. Everything that I did not need. Can you imagine Chris's face if I turned up with a huge African Maasai wall hanging, a door mat and a giant mask. He would surely hit the roof!! It would be a laugh though. The funniest new signature was obtained from 'Lawrence of Kenya' who saw my cast through the window of his Range Rover while passing our minibus while on Safari in a particularly 'hairy and rocky' part of the track in the Maasai Mara Game Reserve Park. The drivers all know each other and there was a cousin sitting in the back of Lawrence's 4x4, Lawrence was driving at break neck speed to go and check one of his camps he owns in the Mara and so you couldn't miss his rally driver entry and we have no idea how our driver knew that the cousin was in the back. Anyway, our driver Leonard did the customary stop which was more of a lurch to a halt, on a precarious and rather jaunty angle with all of us passengers in the van sitting with a left lean. This put me on the high side of the van and while Leonard enquired as to the health of various family members, Lawrence in the drivers seat spied the cast and saw it as a good opportunity to sign. Of course he couldn't find a pen and there was a minor traffic hold up while he searched for one but hey it's Kenyan time and the other vans had to wait. Plus the Range Rover was bigger and so ruled the road. So all in all.....the cast is intact and... I'm also loved by Lawrence of Kenya!!
As for my African Safari experience....it was a blast. Unfortunately as the title of this posts reads..it was the Big Four- Elephants, Buffalo, Rhino (black and white)and Lions. Spotting (no pun intended) a leopard escaped us! There were enough trees at Lake Nakuru Game park the same colour as a leopard that we knew without a doubt that a leopard was surely camouflaged and sitting there looking at the tourists from high above.
I did a five day Safari, 3 days in the Maasai Mara Reserve and 2 days in Lake Nakuru. The Mara is unbelievably huge and expanse and everything that you thought a game park would be. We were lucky that on our first game drive early in the morning we came across a female cheetah. That was really special and we spent a long time just watching her observe the Thompson Gazelles in the distance...her breakfast. She was so beautiful, elegant and more graceful than I thought possible. I took some really good photos as well as a video of her cleaning andn preening herself in the early morning African sunrise. Very cool. We didn't get to see her catch a gazelle but I heard from some other people that arrived after us that they were there in time to see her..well not see her..just see the flash of movement and blurr of yellow, black, white and golden yellow..in mere seconds.. of her dart and veer to the side and in a blink of an eye she had pounced and caught the gazelle.
We also had a family of Elephants and Giraffes surround our van and were not at all aggressive..we didn't bother them..we all remained quiet and just watched and made sure that none of the cameras flashed light. Herds of buffalo were still in the Mara but apparently not in their usual thousands as most had migrated to Tanzania. By the end of my time in the Mara the poor Buffalo and Thompson Gazelle had been relegated to 'yeah seen them, let's look for a lion' category. Terrible really but they are plentiful compared to the lions who are the same colour as the golden grass and with the numbers of buffalo lower the grass doesn't get eaten and stays long at least to my waist height and so the lions can stay camouflaged. On Day two we did see a family of 10 lions - male and female and cubs - take down a gazelle and demolish everything bar the horns. Females caught it, males sat and watched and then ate first..what's with that?, females ate next, male cubs ate next and baby cubs got the scraps. They were funny to watch fighting over the bones. We also saw two lots of male lions sleeping under a tree virtually on the side of the road in the blazing sun and also were lucky to see two lioness's walking on the road in front of us with three baby cubs. They were really tiny and even Leonard said that that was an unusual sight. It is low season in the Mara and so not many tour vans and the animals know this and so are more inclined to wander out onto the roads.
I decided to do a camping safari rather than a lodge as I wanted to be closer to the action, meaning deeper inside the Mara. I was thinking tent and sleeping in my sleeping bag, the kind of camping style that we have been doing since our start of the ride with Tour d'Afrique. Camping safari in Kenya, meant I slept in a bed with sheets, inside a tent erected inside a banda, which is a thatched roof little hut with solid walls. I had electricity and hot showers and so now the question is...how on earth am I going to be able to go back to the Tour d'Afrique style of camping? I can see tears on the horizon!
The Maasai tribe apparently gave the land that the Reserve is on to the Kenyan government in exchange for 19% of the gate take which turns out to be about $8-9 dollars per person who enters.I'm not too sure how the money is used but they certainly have a thriving industry inside the park. They don't like you to take photos of them working with their animals when you see them on the side of the road and Leonard said that if the young boys see cameras they will throw rocks at the holder of the camera and the van. He said that they were highly skilled and always got their target and so it was best not to risk it. OK, so here is a potentially politically incorrect moment and I apologise in advance to any I may offend with my thoughts but you do have to wonder at the sincerity of it all. The reason why we couldn't take photos was because when you got into the park it was expected of us to do a traditional tour of the Maasai village and pay them for the photo opts. Minimums were set at 100 Kenyan shilling per photo of one person and the price could go higher depending of the number in the group. I found it particularly funny that as one group was being shown the wonders of traditional cooking on a charcoal grill, inside a little banda with mud floor, with the perfect photo opt of older woman, young mother and one child sitting on the floor, that the Maasai tour guide resplendently dressed in full red Maasai cloth and beautiful bling on his head, arms and around his neck, that his conversation was interrupted by his cell phone ringing with his personal popular tune. Apparently he reached under his red cloth, took the call and without a hitch closed the cell phone and continued his tour guiding as if nothing had just happened. I don't think he saw the irony of the moment. I'm glad that they have access to modern technology and I'm sure some still live like they are showing but there are also alot who now live in Norak which is the closest village to the Game Reserve gates. I also wondered and asked the question which was not answered directly..how come at 4-5pm every evening as the tour vans are travelling back to their respective camps that the Maasai boys are fully decked out in their red cloths AND bling to take the cows home yet the rest of the day they are bling-less? I got some half cocked answer but I figured it out myself..it ain't hard..it boils down to the tourist dollar and everybody including the Maasai can, will and do exploit it. I just hope that they don't sell out and that they are able to co-exist and maintain their cultural identity and that tourists see the Maasai as proud African warriors.The departing vision of tribal women at the gates of the Mara Reserve Park pushing and peddling their beautiful beads and crafts, which really are unique and exquisite but shoving them in the windows of the vans, into your face and lap is not at all endearing.Someone needs to show them the soft sell!
Anyway, my next stop was Lake Nakuru. It is an absolutely breath taking park and I found the Game reserve spectacular and well worth it. They call it small compared to the Mara but it is still big. We did a 6 hour game drive and although we saw all the animals you could see inclding the endangered white and black rhino we still could have spent more time as we didn't get around the entire park. The Lake itself is a soda lake and it has thousands of flamingos and so from the moment you enter the park all you can see is a band of hot pink edging around an emerald oasis. Truely breath taking. Add in some elephants, lions, giraffes, baboons, zebra, rhinos, buffalos, gazelles, dik diks - the smallest member of the antelope family, monkeys and a whole variety of birds..it make for a special place. The park differs from the Mara in the fact that the trees at Lake Nakuru are taller and more lush. The Lake is lined with Arcacia trees and the typical flat African tree which I can't remember the name of and so the bird life is plentiful. It is also surrounded by high rocky outcrops and at the highest point is Baboon Rock. It is an amazing viewpoint of the Lake and park which is awesome. Not only can you see the entire emerald green lake glistening in the sun, with the circle of hot pink flamingos but you can also see the whitish soda plain with the black buffalo, black and white striped zebra and the black and barely the white rhino just wandering around minding their own business against the background of the green trees and grassy edge of the lake all topped with a cloudless blue sky. It is certainly an amazing picture which is firmly etched in my head. I tired to take photos and video to capture it but although my camera is good..nothing can capture it as a photo just doesn't do it justice. I'll have to wait until National Geographic or Discovery Chanel do a documentary. You'll all just have to come and see for yourself!!!
While I've been on Safari, it appears that Chris has had his own little adventure in Northern Kenya. Read the blog on the www.tourdafrique.com website and you'll read that they have had hot - Sudan temperatures again of 46 degrees celsius, long - 4-5 hours for the racers mean 8-10 hours in the saddle for the expedition riders, dusty -sand and grit and dust mixed with sweat makes for a nice mud cake similar to the ones that some of us made as kids..only difference being that we had water to wash our hands at the end. If it's that hot where they are then water will be rationed and it will be bush showers. That means Johnson baby wipes inside the tent or by now just standing by the tent and if you're lucky left over water from your camel pack. It sounds like the racers may have even stopped for a coke stop which is unheard of but a sign of how hot the heat must of been. I see Chris tomorrow and so I'll make sure to quizz him on Northern Kenya and get back to you. I also heard from other travellers that pot holes in Northern Kenya sometimes were 6 feet wide and 6 inches deep. Hmmmmm makes the sand of Sudan quite appealing.
Even though I've had a blast on Safari..I'd have given anything to be there racing side by side with Chris. Let's not think about that..hope you are all well..time togo and walk fast around Nairobi.
Later alligator..didn't see one of them but I did se a crocodile!!
Love ya
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