The goddess of wind finally blew at our backs today. It was a much needed push for legs, tired by nearly four months spent on the road and was a final blast shoving us into the last country on our itinerary. Climbing from the Orange River valley and cruising along the badlands of northern South Africa was a welcome beginning to touring this final country. We face five riding days before we can bask in the afternoon winter sun in Cape Town’s Waterfront. Today’s wind was welcome, though it has been more than just the wind pushing us forward.
We are, as a group, in a perpetual countdown of km markers that follow us on our daily stages. A road sign for Cape Town makes the finish line seem realistic and within reach. This sign has us looking toward the finish line and the few camps left are slipping by surprisingly quickly. In hindsight, it seems our days in Egypt are vivid and we can easily recall the smallest details of each camp. I feel that the last five days of riding will return us to the ‘Egypt state of mind’ and the memories from these days will be as dramatic as our memories from the beginning.
Over the course of a tour, between waking up and falling asleep, changes occur in each individual. It could be anything from a darker tan to a wider smile or a more elastic sprit. Yet on a daily basis it is not noticeable. These changes are minute and it is difficult for others on tour to notice any change has taken place. It takes a moment of reflection, rereading a diary entry or glancing at a photo to take notice this accruement of change.
Yet even then, we do not notice the little ticks and transformations we have under gone. It is only as we periodically retouch past friends and families that we start to notice how little has changed outside of the tour. Things at home are still as they were and the people we love are still living life as they did before, but our change is more apparent with this contact. We hear an old voice on the phone and it sounds new and for the first time in a long time we are connected with this world we knew as Home. It is then we are able to realize and reflect on these changes.
In the long, flat, blurring, kilometers lunch came today as a moment of daisavue. Lost on the open planes of Botswana’s Kalahari Desert, it felt like a week of lunches was blurred into one long line of days spent in the saddle. With only a change in menu marking the difference between dreamy memories and today’s reality; tuna, spreads, fruit and cookies seemed like a misplaced puzzle piece in a four month long journey. On these flat stretches of road, the closing kilometers of the tour are symbolic of the cycle that one hundred plus days on tour will bring. Since the first morning of red boxes, tent packing, and sleeping bags to the first night of dinner chatting and journaling a rotation was set the has been mirrored by the endless spinning of legs and wheels here across the Kalahari.
As the speed of the tour has changed so have the personalities on tour, both varying across the continent. Yet now as the sun is setting on the final three weeks of the tour the flats have moved legs and speed into a predictable constant much as time has moved each rider into a constant pattern on tours. Even with the variations of wind and tired legs the same smiling faces are up early each morning to great the same glaring grimaces from others each morning. In this constant flat of Botswana more then just the landscape has shown us the constants of life on tour, the people them selves.
In ancient mythology the humorous drunk was a figure to be laughed at, yet revered for his momentary words of wisdom. Though unaware of his faults it was his transparent judgment that made him a man of many words, some of which could hit home. Today I met the mythological drunk five kilometers from camp.
I was sprawled out on the side of the road in the shade of a tree, a long cloud floating above me. As I stared at this cloud I had a vision. In this cloud,I could see something beautiful; the long wispy lines and delicate text of a cold Coke bottle. In this state of near bliss, I heard him, the mythological drunk.
He approached me with the fiery passion that only a drunk can have when he feel he has something overly important to say. He started trying to ask where I was going and why I was riding my bike. What came out was a spewing of slanted English words and a drunken slur. Still trying to gaze into my quickly disappearing vision of a bottle of Coke, I humored the man with a few answers from my quickly dissipating reserves of patience.
Out of his state of desperation for a friendly ear, this lowly drunk struck me with three words of wisdom that would ultimately carry me the final five kilometers to camp— “Just do your best.†With a gap toothed grin and a repetition of that statement I found my way back on my bike and pedaling towards camp.
As I am writing this there is a local man is wearing a ski mask the middle of camp and he is dancing. About three months ago I would have found this odd and totally nerve racking, yet now it seems strangely normal. His body, covered in banana leaves, floats and spins as he bounds in one meter increments towards the kitchen. I think for the riders on this tour the whole experience would still not be odd if it were only this one man bounding around camp, he may have been noticed, but he could have been totally missed, if it were not for the group of about of one hundred children hanging on this mans every move.
The constant shouting and chanting from the children has made this clown man another small treat in today’s tour life. The rippling ups and downs of Malawi’s highlands, the miniature logging villages made entirely of scrap lumber and the mist covered vistas of today’s ride are the little oddities and sometimes missed events are what make a tour thru Africa mystically memorable. And yet over the past few months things like this, things totally out of the ordinary have become strangely familiar. And in much the same way that riding a bike for hours a day has become a norm I hope that small moments like a ski mask wearing, banana leaf covered man surrounded by a sea of children continues to be normal state of imbalance that we have the opportunity to live in on tour.
After seven dry days through the rolling dirt roads of Tanzania, the heavens finally opened on Saturday night. For TDA mud lovers, the showers came too late. Tour riders emerged from silky-smooth black tarmac roads wet and not caked in deep red Tanzania mud. After a rest day and the resulting freshly cleaned clothes, many were thanking the hills and good tarmac for the extra rinse cycle.
Yet, for the dirty few who have been looking for an excuse to get down and dirty for one last time, they have all but missed there opportunity. From here south the roads may not get any better, but they will not get any muddier than what we’ve just ridden through. And though the tarmac is an every day reality for riders, for a dirty few, I am sure they will still find a way to get their clean clothes messy and their back ends covered in mud.
Poets and Potholes don’t mix. Dehydration and diarrhea are killer.
Describing today is difficult. In my minds eye, today was just as any other day on this tour. Wake Up. Pack. Eat. Ride. Ride. Ride. Eat. Eat. Eat. Ride more. Get to Camp. Eat. Eat. Eat. Sleep. We have been back on the bike for two days and we are falling into our daily cycling cycle.
Though repetitive, each event during the ride seems so significant, consuming the moment in a way that convinces me that life outside of this climb, decent, pothole, or peanut butter sandwich could not possibly exist. A moment later, the next event occurs, stealing my total concentration and the cycle continues. That peanut butter sandwich once again becomes my whole world and takes all of my concentration.
These frequent momentary captivations make tour life so much more different then life at home. Every moment is unique yet each moment falls into an inexplicable predictable pattern. So to all the folks at home I will sum up today on tour. The riding was hard, the food was good, and the sleep will be mediocre. As for tomorrow I can only imagine.
A clean start
Stepping into a jet of hot water I found a moment of peace. At my feet lay the melting remains of a day spent fighting thru the dust and dirt of Ethiopia. In the rising sun, riders set out with excitement, ready for tomorrow’s day off and the precious moments of a hot shower. Following the dusty tracks of those gone before them, each person pushing pedal found that a rest day must be earned. Greeted by the true heart of Ethiopian riding, riders battled against challenging mountain roads, rock throwing children, flat tires, dust, gravel, and personal limits.
These limits were tested, pushed and broken. Yet in these tests even the tragedies of the day added up to the greater victory. Tomorrow will be a rest day. Even for those who saw there EFI status disappears into the setting Ethiopian sun, tomorrow is still a hard won rest day.
Tonight’s shower is a small moment of relaxation, a little seclusion and a place where the days dust swirls and mixes with all the grime of a hard day on the bike.
-Buckey
