Suicidal goats and helping hands

Ethiopia was country number eighteen and immediately more incomprehensible than the rest right from the start. In Ethiopia the year is 2003 not 2010, they run on their own calendar. In Ethiopia nine o’clock is not 9 am but nine hours after the sun rises. In Ethiopia there are eighty-four indigenous languages, although most speak the ancient language of Amharic with it's own unintelligible script. In Ethiopia there are just two medical doctors per 100,000 people. But beyond the bewildering it's a country full of immense promise for the cyclist. There’s a tasty variety of food, a welcome change after a month of the bean-based foole of Sudan. There is a lower cost of living than perhaps any country I will visit over my five years on the road. Ethiopia also boasts great beers, prodigious mountains, palpitation inducing coffee and rumour had it, the most beautiful girls in all of Africa.

I woke early on my first morning in Ethiopia, smothered in a wonky mosquito net and instantly aware of the deafening medley of animal sounds. Ethiopia is a land brimming with both people and livestock and it played a very different theme tune to the hushed stillness of Sudan. It was as if each creature was competing with the next. It was ‘Old MacDonald Has A Farm’ at 300 beats per minute, without the lyrics but with guest vocals from an array of anonymous beasts. We packed up and cycled east towards Gondar but on the way I continued to struggle with stomach pains and diarrheoa, farting profusely into my slip stream. From behind rang loud profanities as Nyomi cussed with colour and gusto.

After two and a half thousand kilometres with barely an incline to test our quads we spied our first mountains. It felt as though we were at sea and a vicious storm was brewing. The hills rolled in like great waves, each one more foreboding than the last. I had my mountain legs, and the vivid memories of obtaining them, but Nyomi had yet to earn hers and Ethiopia offers a unique test to the uninitiated. We edged slowly toward a tough ascent into the Ethiopian highlands, a continuous climb of seventeen kilometres and over one thousand vertical metres. We arrived at a small settlement which marked the beginning of the pass up into the mountains and stocked up on local food and water before I issued Nyomi with a scandalously patronizing pep talk about mountains being bigger in your head than in reality. As with every Ethiopian village we came to we were quickly surrounded by a hoard of children and suddenly I realized that bits of our kit were missing from the pocket of my handlebar bag. We tried every tactic to earn the return of our possessions, demanding, pleading and offering money without success. “The thief runs very fast” was the message from onlookers. We gave up and started up the steep side of the mountain. I was angry, at us for leaving the items on show but mostly at the thief in the crowd. I began to hear cries and shrieks from behind. When I turned to look I could see that Nyomi was being chased by another great seething mob of kids.

They’re at it again

But I noticed that she was sporting a broad grin and it was then I started to understand. They were pushing her up the hill. The idea caught on and soon I had my own group, tiny hands pressing against my racks and panniers and propelling me upwards. It went on for several kilometers and soon we were high enough to get staggering view of the village in the valley far below. They giggled and cheered as they pushed with impressive stamina. At six years old there’s no way I could have run for several kilometres up a steep mountain pushing a fat man uphill on a bicycle. I started to see how the best distance runners in world hail from these parts. The children’s gift could not have come at a better time. Soon the theft was a distant memory. What Ethiopia takes, it also gives back. This, I’m sure, will end up being one of my most enduring and heartwarming memories of Africa and worth more than couple of bits of kit. I realize of course that the image of a group of small, poor, exhausted, black African children pushing a white Englishman uphill on a bicycle is a disconcerting one. Some would say that it even has colonial undertones. I guess you just had to be there.

After the children gradually peeled off we powered on unaided, thighs like pistons, doing battle with the mountain and waging war on gravity. I could see the determination and resolve in Nyomi’s face and I knew that this mountain, or any other, would not beat her. Towards the upper reaches a slow chugging truck crept past me and a man sitting on top flashed me a grin and then clenched and unclenched his fist. I instantly understood his message, he was inviting me to latch on. I had heard of cyclists in Africa grabbing onto the back of slow moving trucks to get up hills and I’d always wanted to try. Cheating? Maybe. But my arse was still firmly on the saddle and I’m in this for the experience. I raced after the truck and grabbed a wire jutting out of the back. It took a few moments to steady my weighty bike, then I relaxed my arm and I was coasting upwards. I abandoned my free ride after a passenger leaned out of the window and told me to let go. The irony wasn’t lost on me. The hefty Englishman who had just been pushed uphill by small children was being told to let go of the 15 tonne lorry as evidently he was slowing it down too much.

The very young children who shepherd the livestock in Ethiopia were so fascinated by us that they would often forget their role and instead turn and gorp as we rode by. Their animals, now without direction or guidance, would shamble into the road in front of us and there were frequent near misses. I wondered how much a donkey would cost to replace, it seemed that bowling into one face first and at high velocity was inevitable. And if it was an ox, I knew who’d be coming off worse. But it is the goats that inhabit western Ethiopia who are the hardest to avoid. In this part of the world they seem to have lost any inherent will to live. With an air of departing resignation they wait until the last moment as I zoom down a hill and then, in a manner I assume they share with the depressed man who steps in front of a train, they step directly into my path. They make eye contact with me and await their fate whilst I screech to a halt with just milimetres to spare. Perhaps the survival instinct in the goats of Western Ethiopia has been bred out of them intentionally. After all it would be quite useful for a community who slaughter thousands of goats if the goats didn’t really want to live in the first place. On top of dodging all the animals, life became even more difficult after discovering that the rumours were true, the women in Ethiopia are indeed stunningly beautiful. They often took my eye, and on the downhill this occasionally led to near fatal losses of concentration.

We arrived into Gondar in the north of the country and roamed the streets, taking in the sights and smells of the new city. We were invited into one family’s home, a grubby dingy shack where ten or twelve slept together. They were all drunk on ‘tela’, a homebrewed wheat beer, including the six, seven and eight year olds. Before we left a friendly local Rastafarian finished off Nyomi’s rudimentary dreadlocks and we had our first taste of Khat, a local plant with a strong unpleasant bitter taste that gives you a hit somewhere between strong coffee and amphetamines. Confident that I have put myself through worse in the pursuit of pleasure, we munched as much as we could tolerate and went out dancing all night.

Continuing south we decided on a 270 km unpaved road which would shave off perhaps 100 km from our route, it was a mistake with welcome consequences. The cycling was a grueling slog by any standards. I’d forgotten how hard rough roads can be, on us and on the bikes. But it was the same old trade, the more off the beaten track you are prepared to venture the greater the reward. People in this rural region were more surprised and more welcoming than usual. On one evening as the light faded and we still hadn’t found somewhere to camp, a local farmer and his family invited us in to sleep. We all shared food and he pulled out an animal hide for me to sleep on. During the night I sensed small creatures crawling over my skin, I brushed them aside, intent on rest. In the morning I could see the critters with clarity. The fleas were everywhere. Over the next two days red, intensely itchy lesions covered my back, stomach, shoulders, neck, legs and arms. Nyomi stayed free of bites, but on the same day she managed to lose her glasses and come down with a nasty bilateral conjunctivitis. She had to ride without lenses or glasses, and during our lunch break she squinted and pointed to our left ‘ohhhh, look at that school and all the children’, she was gesturing towards a small group of three donkeys and a goat.

The attention we receive in Ethiopia is unparalleled; it ranges from curious and friendly to overwhelming hysteria. Everywhere we are observed with intense scrutiny by dozens of faces. Even going to the toilet in Ethiopia is an unavoidable public spectacle. The faces pop up from long grass, from behind trees, from donkey carts. Faces with bright, unblinking eyes everywhere we turn. We wild camped a few times but each night was a restless one, we talked in hushed tones, terrified of triggering the ‘faranji’ alarm. If discovered, word would quickly spread and the village would all come out to have a look, and in all likelihood, to watch us sleep. Unfortunately the theft in the lowlands was not to be the last. Every so often a youngster would try their luck and bread, jumpers and others bits vanished from our bikes. Lets be honest, it’s hard to stay angry at a small Ethiopian child who steals bread from your bicycle, but we soon learnt that anything not firmly stashed away in a pannier was fair game and in Ethiopia, homeland of the infamous Haile Gebre Sellassie and other giants of distance running, the thief always runs faster than you do.

Ethiopians like to shout, usually one word and usually over and over. Here’s a few common ones and how we dealt with them…

“YOU YOU YOU!”
Ahhhh the ‘You’ game. Child shouts ‘you’ repeatedly until you look at them. Child wins. Don’t look and you risk a volley of stones. As you can see it’s a bit boring and there’s only ever one winner. And it’s never you.

“MONEY MONEY MONEY!”
‘Give me money!’, ‘Give give give!’ or sometimes the beautifully presumptive ‘bring me my money!’
We never give money to children, for all the obvious reasons.

“FARANJI! FARANJI! FARANJI!” (translates as ‘foreigner’)
To this our choice response was ‘Absouja’ (‘Ethiopian’ in Amharic) which you can also shout whilst pointing back if you like.

“PEN PEN PEN, GIMME PEN”
There are lots of better things to give – time, knowledge, help with English or just a little entertainment – silly dances routines and animal impressions do best.

“Where are you go?”
Don’t be fooled, this isn’t really a question. Very few listen to your answer, but even if they do they will often repeat the same line at a higher volume. I rotated my answers through ‘Timbuktoo’, ‘Basingstoke’; ‘The moon’, ‘anywhere’ and ‘nowhere’ but this got boring fairly fast.

“CHINA!”
Why do the children think we’re Chinese? The Chinese are building roads throughout Africa in return for cheap petroleum. The Chinese are the only foreign visitors some children ever see and so to them, it’s logical that we must also be from China.

The ratio of adults to children is very obviously skewed in Ethiopia. It’s not uncommon for families to have fifteen or sixteen children. The average life expectancy is just 45 years so children are everywhere with relatively few adults to exert authority. When huge numbers of children chase us chanting ‘YOU YOU YOU’, brandishing large sticks and throwing stones it can feel a bit like you’ve stumbled into an African ‘Lord Of The Flies’. Add to this that the school uniform is usually coloured overalls making the children look like escaped convicts and Ethiopia can be a daunting place to venture. On the downhill in Ethiopia I’d learnt that the animals don’t move out of the way for a cyclist, whereas the people usually do. So from now on when I see that line of silhouettes I steady my handlebars, narrow my field of vision, build up some velocity and take aim for the smallest people-shaped shadows I can find.

We pushed south and neared Addis Abeba, cycling to over three thousand metres above sea level and through vast golden arable plains, coniferous forest and then areas of short grazed green grass with solitary exotic looking trees dotted over the landscape, we could have been riding though the grounds of a stately home or a golf course rather than rural Africa. Lorries passed by with a singular lively but soon-to-be-dead goat tethered to the top. The Ethiopian version of a pack lunch. We tackled the infamous Blue Nile Gorge, an even bigger ascent than the climb into the highlands two weeks before. It was particularly testing for Nyomi who frequently had to capitulate and join in with my double handed high fives and accompanying ‘huhhh!’ in an American football style which I frequently insisted on. On Christmas day we sang Christmas carols loudly and out of tune as we cycled into the Ethiopian capital. We wished people Merry Christmas in Amharic only to hear ‘Yes. Now bring me my money.’ I gorged myself with food and alcohol, safe in the knowledge that I needed the calories. My weight has dropped to just 65 kg, I have lost 15 kg since Istanbul. Christmas is a reminder of the old and familiar and it did have me pining for home a little. I tried my best to bury a futile yearning for country pubs, chip butties and chocolate hobnobs.

Ethiopia wears a dreamlike air of the exotic. My preconceived mental image of African huts and villagers is set firmly in the grassy savannah, not amidst the mountains, and perhaps it’s this juxtaposition that contributes to this aura. Perhaps it’s also the brightly coloured exotic birds dipping and diving over herds of livestock in the fields or the young children with Mohicans and other strange haircuts who chase our bikes and shriek with excitement. Perhaps it’s the rich soundscape in the early evening, shepherds whistling, people yelling, strange birds twittering and whips on the hides of oxen. Perhaps it’s the palpable optimism of the Ethiopian people, they’ve never had it so good after coming through years of oppression, the cruel communist ‘red terror’ regime and devastating famine. But I think that above all it’s that Ethiopia is full of something that makes travelling there completely exhilarating – the unexpected. That’s why, of the eighteen countries I have passed through on my bicycle so far, Ethiopia, with it’s extraordinary atmosphere and unexpected sights and dramas around every corner, is my favourite of all.

If anyone feels inclined to make a Christmas donation to my charity Merlin please visit my justgiving page http//:www.justgiving.com/cyclingthe6. The adventure continues next through the lawless tribal borderlands of Ethiopia and Kenya, skirting the shores of Lake Turkana, a desolate wilderness where lions, crocodiles and carpet vipers roam.

The Nubian way

My 10,000 km milestone in the Sudanese Sahara

It is prohibited to cross the Egypt-Sudan border on land, and no paved roads connect the two countries, so a boat across Lake Nasser was our only option. We boarded the boat after stumbling through hours of beguiling bureaucratic chaos and paying an array of equally befuddling taxes. We settled on the top deck with a small band of foreigners. Each of us expectant, cheery and full of intrigue about the new lands waiting beyond the water. This felt like how you should enter a new African country. By night and by boat. Crossing a vast wild lake gave our entry a surreptitious and mysterious edge. We were past Aswan high dam where the densely populated Egyptian Nile ends and where crocodiles roam.

The boat was due to leave at noon. The sun had long since set by the time we were underway. I had already adjusted to African time. No matter how fast we cycled, I knew Africa would never change her pace for us. Four hundred souls crowded on board, many with all their worldly goods. It was a tight squeeze, people slept in the life boats, in the gangways and on every inch of the ship, above and below deck. Our small group hailed from northern latitudes, we were two Canadians, one Swede and two Brits. The other passengers on board were a mix of Egyptians and Sudanese. The five of us stood out all the more in our shorts and t-shirts. The remaining three hundred and ninety five looked ready to tackle a Siberian winter. Mummified in an array of thick over-garments, they observed us with the look of wonder and concern that most people reserve for the very, very drunk.

When I reel off the list of the places I will travel through, a select few are guaranteed to provoke a sharp intake of breath and raised eyebrows; places perceived to be too hostile for the cyclist, either due to climatic extremes, conflict, crime or political unrest. Amongst them northern Alaska, Colombia and of course the Sudan. In my mind the name invoked images of war and danger and violent disorder. However the north and the east of Sudan are relatively safe places for independent travel, not just safe relative to the rest of Sudan but safe relative to the rest of Africa and the rest of the world. The rate of violent crime is vanishing low. Islam is the predominant unifying force here, as opposed to the tribalism of the south where warring factions compete for power and oil revenues. Sharia law was implemented in 1983. We were arriving at a historic moment. In January there is to be a referendum to decide whether the country divides, north from south. An exodus of people was flowing to the south where the original inhabitants had fled from conflict years before. Frightened by the prospect of a divided nation they were returning home and we saw them en masse traveling the roads leading towards Khartoum.

The reputation of the Nubian people indigenous to northern Sudan precedes them. Cyclists I had met talked of unparalleled hospitality from these generous and kind-hearted desert dwellers who frequently take in and feed weary travelers. A Nubian man on the ship's deck welcomed me to Sudan. The festival of Eid was upon us and I was worried about the availability of food if shops throughout Sudan were shut for the three day public holiday. "Don't worry" he told me "if you are hungry just knock on someone's door. Anyone's door. They will feed you. It is the Nubian way".

We debarked and loaded up with supplies and almost twenty litres of water. The contingency supply was a wise move. We started out through the desert and after 50 kilometres there were no signs of people, no water points and no buildings in sight. Just sand and rock under the formidable Saharan sun. At 70 and 100 kilometres still nothing, it wasn't until we'd ridden almost 150 km could we refill and rehydrate. Even so the desert was a welcome friend after Egypt's Nile valley, often congested and cramped. The Saharan silence was a penetrating, piercing silence that I have lived in only once before, a decade ago when I rode through Patagonia. It's a silence so complete and unsullied that it almost has volume. A muffled scream in the open blankness of the Sahara. It becomes even more profound at night or when there's a lull in the wind, insects scuttling under the tent can sound like huge machines. With the serene solitude comes a filament of vulnerability, something I've always been drawn to, and the essence of a good adventure. We wild camped at night, unaware at this point of the stories of travelers ravaged by hyenas and wolves nearby. Later I heard Nubian men recount these tales with great enthusiasm. Local folklaw or fact? I can't be sure. Little wildlife exists in this region, but when I greeted these accounts with a dubious frown I was assured a motorcyclist had been hunted, mauled and killed by a hyena just two years before. If I wanted they would take me to his BMW motorbike, still by the roadside. I declined their offer, choosing blissful semi-ignorance.

During our breaks for lunch or for a snack we wriggled into the shady shelter of the ubiquitous tubular drains that ran beneath the road. Aside from the infrequent Acacia trees, these were the only sanctuary and retreat from the scornful, merciless Saharan sun. Eventually we were reunited with the Nile. The verdant cloak of riverside pastures had been ripped from her, she appeared naked against the desert backdrop. The heat was intense and oppressive. In the whole of 2010 this area of Sudan had received just ten minutes of light rainfall and on one day in June this year the temperature had been recorded at 49.6 degrees Celcius (121 F) in the shade. In the sun we recorded a high of 48 degrees Celcius (118 F) and this was winter. We drank the murky turbid water from clay pots by the road with fingers crossed after our filter gave up the ghost, hoping that it had been drawn from a well and hadn't been lifted straight from the Nile.

Lunch time in the drainage tunnels

It was goodbye to the delicious melon flavoured Fanta of Egypt and hello to feta cheese in a carton, equally good but without the flagrant Egyptian over-charging. There were lots more welcome small differences. Sudan is still Arab but has a slightly different dialect of Arabic, the temperature is even hotter here, there are slightly different customs but outwardly it was the manner and attitude of the Sudanese that contrasted most sharply. They appeared conservative, demure and polite as opposed to the gregarious, voluminous and excitable Egyptians.

When Eid came Nubians did feed us and when Eid was over they fed us some more. I enjoyed these meals. Typically Nyomi and I would split up, women and men dining in separate parts of the home. The women wore bright colourful robes with floral motifs and, if married, henna adorned their hands and feet in elaborate swirls and curlicues. The men were clad in white robes and the white prayer cap or taqiyah, their lower lips bulging with clumps of moist tobacco. Occasionally I would see Nubians with scars on their cheeks. Facial scarification is a Sudanese tradition, many ethnic groups and tribes have their own mark of distinction. We would greet with a hand on the shoulder followed by a shake of the hand. Eating was also done with our hands and was a velocious flurry of food snatching. Conversation was impossible if you wanted any nourishment. Sometimes they would give us food to take away, often completely unsuitable for carriage on the bikes such as huge raw joints of lamb, but as the man said, that is 'the Nubian way'.

After eating we got the chance to practice our less than pigeon Arabic. On one occasion an elderly man thought it prudent to warn us of the 'dangerous people and thieves' we'd find in Africa after we left Sudan. It all sounded a bit familiar. In Eastern Europe it was the Turks who were demonised as bandits and thugs. I encountered nothing but the greatest hospitality in Turkey, but whilst there I often heard of how the neighbouring Arabs would slice me up and rob me blind if I wasn't careful. In the Middle East I found many good-natured and generous characters who went out of their way to help me. Now in Sudan I was getting the same old warning. I wondered if every community harbors a dark paranoia of their neighbour.

Nyomi and Nubian women having lunch

As we continued through the desert I began to feel a bit uneasy. We were coasting along with a swift tailwind, my knee felt sturdy, people were friendly, there was no snow, no chasing dogs, no insects, no mountains, no police, no bandits. Cycling through Africa shouldn't be this easy. Something had to give and that something was Belinda, my bicycle.

Before I left for South America ten years ago I was worse than useless when it came to bicycle maintenance and repair. Over the following five months of riding, when every sub-standard component on our cheap bikes fell off, cracked or shattered, I never really improved. Every time I went near a bicycle with some tools and optimistic intent I would invariably do more harm than good, initially through my own incompetence and then later when I lost my temper with the tarnished machine. The result was that I developed a sort of phobia of tools and bicycles, a bit inconvenient if you harbor dreams of cycling around the world. So I before I left from London I did the fantastic Cycle Systems Academy (City and Guild) bike repair course which gave me loads of skills and confidence sorely needed. More or less every component on my Santos Travelmaster bike is serviceable by the road. One vital part that I had no intention of going near was the infamous Rohloff hub. Without getting too technical the Rohloff hub is an internal gear mechanism, which means there's no derailleur to faff with. It allows me to switch between fourteen gears. Ninety percent of serious cycle tourers have one. It adds almost a thousand pounds to the cost of the bike and has been on the market for twelve years. Rumour had it there has never been a mechanical failure. It is revered, respected, allegedly indestructible and is a very complex feat of German engineering.

It felt like a small puncture. I looked back. Tyre looked OK. Then I noticed the spoke flapping in the breeze. A broken spoke could easily be replaced but on closer inspection I saw the real extent of the problem. Inexplicably a piece of metal had spontaneously fallen off the Rohloff shell, the part where the spokes attach to. There was no way I could re-attach the spoke by the road and by the look of it I would need a new hub and with it I would have to deal with a whole world of problems. I was wary in my ability to build a wheel strong enough to take me to Cape Town but I also knew that whatever I did, I had to do it fast. My Sudanese VISA expired in three weeks. I had to pedal onwards to the next sizable town, Dongola, 50 km away. We were still 500 km from the capital Khartoum. The wheel became more and more untrue as I rode, dancing an erratic shimmy every turn. Now Sudan, once vivid, new and exhilarating was the last place in the world I wanted to be and the broken hub was beginning to look like an almost insurmountable problem. That night my mind was in turmoil. How could this happen? Every obstacle, every option, every possible outcome and consequence tumbled through my imagination in my semi-conscious doze.

The next day we arrived in Dongola. I photographed the damage, emailed bicycle experts in the UK and went on the hunt for the best bush mechanic in town, or failing that any guy with a drill or a welding iron. I kept hearing the same mechanic's name and after three days, with some help, I'd tracked him down. I was particularly lucky. He had the kit to weld aluminum, a rare skill, and he set to work welding a piece of metal to the hub and re-tensioning my wayward spoke. He worked with attention and skill and when he was done I almost hugged him. The weld had strengthened my hub, my resolve and my hope that I can complete my journey across six continents without using other forms of transport, aside from boats across those watery stretches. It's an absurd, ridiculous and petty ambition I know, but never-the-less it remains somehow important to me. I waited to hear from mechanics at home and in the meantime we delved into Sudanese life, frequently being invited for meals as well as attending two wedding parties and taking a dip in the cool waters of the Nile.

Word came that Santos and Rohloff had teamed up to ship a whole new wheel and hub to Khartoum. I have since learned that the incidence of this type of hub failure is approximately one in five thousand. Karma owes me one. We set out for Khartoum but yet another problem re-surfaced. The widest inner tubes available locally were too slim for my new back tyre which I fitted in Cairo. Unable to fully inflate the tyre, the tube could move around inside and pressure was applied to the valve when I used the breaks. The tubes had been rupturing again and again, right by the valve. Only just out of Dongola and another tube was heading for the bin. I had to reduce the internal size of my tyre. "Socks!" I announced "We need socks!". I stuffed nine socks into the tyre and inflated the tube and rode on with no more problems. If my plan had failed I knew I had no more socks left to add, but I was ready to ride 'commando' if it got me to Khartoum.

We continued, sweaty and sockless, our progress marred by those problems ubiquitous to travel in Africa; oppressive heat, insects and dodgy bowels. Our protracted symptoms were perhaps consistent with the parasitic infection Giardia from the muddied water we'd binged on. We kept up our spirits by riding side by side, talking of life in England, shared friends and past experiences, the good and the bad. The desert sand was an ochre sea with a million ripples over the surface. The limitless terrain was dotted with thorny bushes and prodigious termite mounds and occasionally the sky would appear on the earth, a desert mirage, the exhausted desert traveler's nemesis. We passed huge trains of camels, one hundred and fifty strong, loping through the desert. They were being taken through the Sahara from Southern Sudan to Birqash, a large camel market in Egypt where they would be sold for meat. The ancient camel route north was named after the time it takes for them to arrive, the 'forty-day road'.



A termite mound

A rare patch of shade

Camels on the 'forty day road'

On our approach to Khartoum I passed my 10,000 km  milestone and then wrote another to do list. The first task was a cathartic throw away...

"Go on a gram-saving mission. Get rid of anything and everything we don't use. Be MILITANT".

We chucked away a load of clothes and a few luxuries. Shampoo and deodorant were surplus accessories we could also afford to ditch. We might smell funky but that's the price you pay to get quicker up those hills.

It wasn't my ingenuity or resourcefulness and it wasn't good fortune that helped me solve the problem with my bike. It was people. The Nubian mechanic, the Korean family who found him for me, the bicycle experts in the UK, especially Cycle Systems Academy and MSG bikes, Rohloff and my bike sponsor Santos. Thank you all. Next stop will be Christmas in Ethiopia after we tackle the first proper mountains Africa has to offer. Afterwards we get much more off the beaten track by skirting the shores of Lake Turkana, a desolate wilderness and tribal area in the borderlands of Kenya and Ethiopia where few cyclists dare to venture and where lions, crocodiles and carpet vipers roam. We'll need strong legs, strong wills and probably a lot more socks.

Nyomi riding a ridge in the desert