After a few visits to different places in Africa, beginning in 2010, I decided that instead of another touristy/wildlife trip, I'd do an overland trip to get a feel for the more "authentic" side of Africa and the chance to have lots of real interactions with people who rarely see tourists.

We departed Jan 15 from Cairo and are now in Addis Ababa (we are going through 10 countries - Egypt, Sudan, Ethiopia, Kenya, Tanzania, Malawi, Zambia, Botswana, Namibia, South Africa), about 5 weeks later, which leaves a bit over 2.5 more months on the tour.

Logistics
I'm doing this trip with TDA Global Cycling (www.tdaglobacycling.com), which runs challenging cycling trips all over the world, with the Tour d'Afrique being their flagship tour. We have a staff of about 6, including a medic, mechanic, cook, tour leader, and a couple assistants. They have three vehicles, one is the "lunch truck" that drives to the lunch spot every day, one is the big truck that keeps all of the cooking equipment and our bags, and an extra one for misc purposes.



We cycle an average of 125km/day and the whole trip is about 12,000 km (about 11,400 cycling and 700 taking buses for safety reasons).

Cycling
The cycling is A LOT. About half of the people on the trip are really hardcore and are loving it, but for me it is actually a bit much. I did sign up for this so should've known what I was getting myself into, but for example during a 3 day stretch in Sudan, they had us do an off-road absurdly bumpy/corrugated section even though a paved road was possible. So what I didn't quite realize is that they don't want the trip to be as much sightseeing by means of cycling as to be primarily a challenging cycling trip, with occasional sightseeing on the side. I still think this is preferable to an overland truck, since that would create issues of being too close to too many randoms for too long and seeing too many sights that I'd probably either not be super interested in or have already seen.

The cycling is actually not super hard on most days. It started off very flat and straightforward and now Ethiopia has been quite hilly. Each day tends to take about 6-7 hours, including lunch and a few rests along the way, with days before rest days and before border crossings usually being shorter.

Culture?
The Arab culture in Egypt and Sudan was really impressive and everyone was extremely friendly. "Welcome to Egypt/Sudan" was heard constantly and I'm now actually even thinking about trying to spend some time to learn Arabic and to visit more Arabic countries in the future.

So far Ethiopia has been pretty terrible. About 80% of kids yell "money money money" as their only greeting (or in addition to "you you you you") and many stand in the middle of the street and have thrown rocks and sticks at many riders this year and in the past. One even ripped headphones out of someone's ear the other day! Although Addis seems decent and there are of course more "normal"/educated people here, the whole thing has left a bad taste in everyone's mouth.

I'm also starting to question the value of meeting locals in 3rd world countries. I certainly see value in meeting new people and am impressed at the resilience and strength of many people who live very difficult lives, but feel like in terms of personal betterment, that I absorb much more from 1st world cultures, particularly those that have significant differences from America, like Israel.


I'll try to keep posting updates every couple weeks!

Trip begins:


Cycling in Egypt:


Almost at Abu Simbel in the south of Egypt:


Egyptian man in Abu Simbel:


Lunch:


Dongola, Sudan market:


Sudanese woman:


Offroading in Sudan:

wow i would love to do this one day.
good luck and have fun. be safe

btw, saw the podcast too, u seem like a very nice and modest person. big up!

*subbed

also i visit your blog once in a while too. have fun

The link to your tour group website doesn't work, you missed a character in the word global. Here is a link that works.

$4k USD/month seems very expensive considering you are camping the entire time. Do you feel you are getting good value for what you're paying, so far? How is the food?

Oops, thanks for the correction!

I'm a bit torn about the value because I'm pretty sure that the actual cost for each person per day is something like $5 worth of food (breakfast is usually oatmeal + breads/spreads + fruit, lunch is usually vegetables/fruit + tuna + bread, dinner is more substantial but still probably only costs ~$3/person). I think the food is tasty and I know that sourcing the items can be difficult in some places, but it's definitely not restaurant quality and they use a little too many annoying sauces/dressings (yeah, I kind of hate flavor).

There are of course costs associated with the 3 vehicles and staff members including unseen costs like getting the vehicles from Cape Town to Cairo before the tour each year and insurance. Also lots of the value is in their experience with doing the trip for over 10 years and having perfected the route and logistics.

I think doing this with one other person and a support car would be ideal and possibly even cheaper, although would require a lot more research about the route in advance. By yourself would be too lonely imo. Also one thing that I'm torn about is that since we're on a fixed schedule, if we're not feeling well, we're forced to skip sections, whereas if going independently, we could wait until we feel well and complete the entire thing at our own pace. That said, I'm pretty sure I'd find fast wifi somewhere and just stop cycling for a week and the trip would take a year instead of four months, so it's probably best to be on their relatively fast pace.

Thanks! Blog updating has been a pretty big fail so far, hopefully will do better on that soon

Bah! A true man would cut through Chad, Central African Republic, and DRC.

In all seriousness, best of luck OP

How was Sudan? Two minutes with google indicates that the British government advise against travel to around 30% of it.

Probably too late by the time you read this but go see Lucy if you're in Addis for a day or so.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lucy_(Australopithecus)

Cost me 10 birr to get into the museum so it's very cheap.

Good luck with the rest of the trip.

Link to your blog?
Looks like a pretty amazing trip. Curious to see what you think when you finish it, if it was worth the money, if you would've taken it slower, etc.

Wow, what an adventure. Best of luck, I'm looking forward to the updates.

Re: your statement about meeting locals. Do you think that's tempered by the types of people you meet? You seemed to really like the Egyptian/Sudanese.

I guess what I'm asking is, are you just no longer into it in general, or is it ok when the people are nice people?

Goodluck!

subbed gl

Really cool.

very nice, very cool, very handsome

Subbed, sounds like an epic adventure.

How has the traffic been in terms of right of way, running cyclist off road, etc...

Also, how was/is road between Addis and Nairobi? Where there any safety concerns with "shifta bandits"?

Haha, I have been to CAR and DRC, though not cycling (see here for someone crazy enough to do that: http://save-elephants.org/my-mission/) and hope to get to Chad next year

Sudan was really good, people were super friendly and it was cool cause there were so few Westerners there. All the areas we went through are green on the UK travel warning map. The toughest part about Sudan was that the TDA routed us through a brutal corrugated offroad section instead of taking the paved road, just to make the trip more challenging (and the sick heavy cyclists actually enjoyed this!).

Thanks, we actually had 2.5 days in Addis, but I was super exhausted so didn't do any sightseeing. Some people did see that and liked it!

I think the pace is really pretty perfect so far -- their "thing" is that it's 121 days every year. I'm not sure why that is, maybe so that it's 100 km/day average or something. As for worth the money, if you add up the variable costs per person, the markup will seem insane and I am a bit disappointed with the level of food given the prices (huge gap between lunch and dinner, irregular eggs at breakfast, more fruits/veggies should be made available) and think the price should probably be about 25% lower, but don't think it's too crazy.

Good question -- perhaps because the situation in Ethiopia was so rough, it's felt amazing to be in Kenya. The people have been super warm and friendly (and we're still only in the North), although unfortunately the wind has been insane!

ty!

ty!

We're still on the road and have two bus days along that stretch, one apparently due to bad roads/tons of bad rock throwing kids in Ethiopia and one due to banditry, in 2 days. In Northern Kenya, we've had armed guards with us until we reach Isiolo (which is in 2 days) and they did give us some warnings about how it's best to cycle in groups.

Traffic has mostly been fine -- excellent in Egypt and Kenya, very fast buses in Sudan that were a bit scary, and so-so in Ethiopia, where I got pushed off the road a couple times, but nothing *too* terrible.

Very cool

epic, youre a beast!

also seems like something where google glass would actually be useful

2 words.

**** That!

GL tho

chisness, thanks for the updates. You trip sounds unbelievably epic! I heard that Marsabit in Northern Kenya is like a scene outta the original Star Wars bar scene with all types of strange and unsavory characters.

How was it crossing the border at Moyale from Ethiopia? I imagine the border crossings are smoother with the company you've used for logistics, that probably makes the expense of their service support worthwhile.

What kind of wildlife have you seen from your bicycle? Anything that's made you nervous? Large snakes, hyenas, large cats?

kusafiri salama "safe travel" chisness!

Thanks! One problem with the rest days is that I've felt like just lying down (and using wifi if available) and eating a lot, so haven't done a huge amount of exploring. Marsabit didn't strike me as too strange (granted, we just came from Sudan and Ethiopia), but I would definitely believe it.

The border was super easy for us, although apparently despite the border being open, the customs agent(s) in Ethiopia weren't there to inspect the trucks due to some sort of holiday, so they had to somehow grab an agent from his house and bring him to the border . I think all of us were extremely happy to enter Kenya and the border agents on the Kenya side were extremely friendly and have great English.

There have been some spider sightings at night, but I haven't seen anything on the bike yet. One guy left his tent coversheet outside at our first camp in Kenya in Moyale and it got bitten up by (probably) hyenas! I actually also left mine out that night for the first time ever (it was hot and there was a risk of rain, so we all had them ready, but then didn't need to use them cause it didn't rain). He managed to repair it with duct tape and is now waiting for a new one!

Yeah that is actually true. So far I've done 95% of photos/video with iPhone and the rest with DSLR, mostly on rest days. There are a bunch with GoPros and I actually got one for this trip but wasn't using it much and gave it to a guy who got his stolen in Ethiopia.

ty!

Subbed!

What a great idea and a big well done for taking this on, it's something you can carry for the rest of your life.

Stay safe and take care.
Will be following along

Mick

How many people are doing the whole bicycle tour? How many are dropping in for a section or a two?

What is the male/female ratio?

How are the group dynamics?

What is one thing you wish you brought you didn't, anything you did bring you haven't really needed used? (other than the GoPro you gave to other rider)

Whole tour: low 20s
Partial: I think 2 did Cairo to Khartoum, 1 did Cairo to Addis, 1 is doing Khartoum to Lilongwe, 2 did Cairo to Nairobi, 2 or 3 are doing Nairobi to Cape Town (a very solid tour in terms of amount of time and countries seen -- the camping seems to drastically improve starting in Kenya where the tourist infrastructure is bigger), and a few are joining later

There are 6 girls doing the whole thing, so roughly 1/4

Things have been pretty civil, but some cliques have developed and some fights have broken out. One older guy was trying to tell our starting group one morning "OK, we're all staying together and if anyone wants to leave the group then you have to let us know" and another older guy was like "Nahh let's just ride how we always have been" so guy 1 mutters "**** you" and storms (ie cycles) off

One annoying thing is that it's so hot mid-day, that after cycling, we're kind of stuck staying under the shade tarp of the truck since going in the tent would be impossible. This means it can be a little hard to get alone time on cycling days, although I and many others cycle alone a lot.

There are only a handful I imagine keeping in touch with and unfortunately the guy I was riding with and hanging out with the most only went from Cairo to Addis.

Things I wish I brought:
-Good carrot peeler, bike computer, 1 more jersey (was able to have a guy starting in Nairobi bring me all of these)
-Front carrying bag (a staff guy generously gave me his)
-An easier easiest gear for climbing
-An extra set of Schwalbe Marathon Plus tires (mine might wear out and it would've been better to have different widths)