Thanks for your answers. I've been checking out the website of the company and definitely interested in trying a section.

What section has been your favorite so far?

What is the age range and approximate average age of person on tour?

What nationalities are represented? Where are most from?

Age range is now about 29-69 (there was a 23 yr old who finished in Addis)

Lots around 30 and around 40 and around 60

Mostly Canada, US, South Africa, W Europe

Definitely do not start in Khartoum unless you want to torture yourself as that is a super hard section. Egypt to Khartoum is prob a bit boring. I would also not do Ethiopia if I was only doing 1 section. I also wouldn't want to do the final section since I think it'd be weird to do only that and finish with the big ceremony.

I think I'd recommend going for Elephant Highway (though we haven't gotten there yet) or Masai Steppe if doing only one section - those would also both allow for good sightseeing (Vic Falls and Arusha, respectively). The Botswana one is longer/paved road days and the Tanzania one is, I think, more offroad.

Stayed at a decent Hilton in Nairobi for a couple nights to relax, including a deep tissue massage which was either very painful or very ticklish at different times



Then 2 more days cycling via the Namanga border and we're now in Arusha for a 3 day rest period. About half the group went on a 3 day/2 night safari to the Serengeti and Ngorongoro Crater, while I stayed at an Airbnb of a guy who was featured in an NPR article.

Although it's a really good value ($15/night) and he's an awesome guy who's also a tour guide, I really wanted to just relax and work on my blog and photos and take it easy, but we are basically in a random village so I have to rely on him for any transport and the wifi is a 3G dongle router thingy which is very unreliable and the power has even gone on/off quite a bit.

Last night I had a really great home-cooked meal at the house of a tour guide (white guy who seems to cater to very luxury tours) who I met in 2012 (who was not my guide) and stayed in touch with via FB. Very interesting crowd including a guy/his family who is a pilot and owns a charter company, the guide's mother/sister, a girl who works for an NGO, and a crazy part Arabic/Iranian guy who flies only Emirates First and accumulates infinite miles that he strictly uses to give away and apparently knows all the Emirates crews now.

Did a pretty bad job updating this apparently

At the beginning of April I got hit by a car just a day or two after arriving in Zambia. I was beginning the descent into a town so going pretty fast, a car was stopped waiting to turn into a gas station, and as I was passing, he started to turn in.

Here's the aftermath:







I had a headache for a while, but fortunately was able to get driven by our medic to the hospital in Lusaka the next day and waited for the group there. Then skipped ahead to Vic Falls and waited again for them there. Disappointing to miss basically all of the Zambia part of the trip, but in the end I was grateful that I ended with only a few scratches/bruises and no serious damage. Also extra time in Vic Falls and Lusaka, which is a major city, would be on the top of the list of places I'd want to be stuck in.

After I got back on the bike, I managed to succeed to ride every inch of the final month. Botswana through to Windhoek was pretty flat and straightforward and included a 208 km day on the day that we entered Windhoek. Namibia was super tough because the roads were TERRIBLE near the sand dunes, so I had back to back 10+ hour days that were physically and mentally exhausting, but will definitely remember days like those much better than easy days.

South Africa started off being pretty tough in terms of roads and also pretty boring, but then about half way through our ~8 days in South Africa, we started hitting some really beautiful landscapes. Also from Botswana onwards we had very very little interaction with locals other than tourist industry people, which was a major change from our days in places like Tanzania and Ethiopia.

Finishing was AMAZING, one of my best feelings ever (despite the not great views), and my parents/sister came to visit, which was really nice.



I had told myself that I would never do anything like this again, but I'm actually now contemplating doing their South American Epic from Cartagena Colombia to Ushuaia South America (basically the entire length of South America).
http://tdaglobalcycling.com/south-american-epic

I'll put my favorite 20-30 photos in the next post

wow looks sick, congrats op

Congrats! Epic trip, epic pictures!

this just got shared in omg, pretty sick, i've done camino de santiago across spain and via claudia from munich to venice

this looks dope though

How did I miss this? Rehost those photos!

Yes, with a photo of some kind of jamb. It would be nice to miss it.
On the topic - it doesn't sound bad, great article!

Travelling on cycle for that long is quite amazing. But where you used to stay while you travelled to these places. In a hotel or as a guest. It is adventurous and dangerous at the same time. I hope everything turned out well.