Ashleigh's Adventure In Africa: Spring Break in Uganda!

Hi Everyone!

Been a while since I've had time to email an update and I'm probably going to forget most of what I wanted to share but what can I say?

I'm in Addis Ababa again, after completing the toughest cycling of my life. Ethiopia has mountains and they refuse to build the roads around them. It's up and over. I'm talking climbing 5000+ feet day after day after day. Exhausting.

We took a new route for a few days, some of which was off-road. The first day of off-road was great because the road was rough dirt but still doable. The second day was pure misery. Took 4 hours to do 24k at one point. Road so rough you couldn't feel your hands after 15 minutes of being on it (don't even think about your saddle), there were no smooth patches, and you cringed looking at the hills. I had 2 flats (Ethiopia is been pinch flat central for me), fell off my bike (um, for no reason really...sort of like choking on your own spit), and wanted the bus to pass me so badly. It didn't. I made it another day.

The TDA blog mentioned a woman hitting a child. That was not me, people. Geesh. I did stumble upon it right after it happened and had to turn back for help (into the wind) adding 20k to my day. Yikes. That was a scary situation -- mob scene with large stones ready to start violence. The founder of the Tour was there, and afterwards he admitted how scared he was and how close it was to real serious trouble.

We've had a few accidents now. Nothing too serious, but a broken collar bone has taken one of our male riders out. We've had sickness...the other day I saw a 50 year old rider sobbing because he was so sick he couldn't move. He lost EFI that day -- had to get on the bus. It's sad to see, but some people are taking that a bit too seriously if you ask me.

Kids are still terrible. One of my friends rammed one into a fence with his bike (though he says his brakes failed) and I admit I got my hands on one and gave him a very ungentle shove (people say I Chuck Norris karate chopped him, but I didn't). You lose your mind here, I'm telling you.

As we moved south to the Kenya border, the entire face of Ethiopia changed. It went from mountains and rocky cliffs to red sand desert with thousands of huge termite towers. Westernish dress to tribal costume. Even the hair styles changed.

It's beautiful, but life here, even after seeing it with my own eyes, is unimaginable. These kids run up to you (we are watched 24/7 -- they stand around camp, which is roped off, and just watch) and beg for money (demand money) and you know that they are never getting out of this place. This is it for 99.9% of them. Seems crazy.

As for my life, it goes like this:

I get up around 6. Pack my stuff. Have breakfast. Sit around while one of my riding pals dicks around (like marie). We leave (usually the last group to get out of camp).

We ride for maybe 30km. Stop for a coke. Have a sit.

We ride another 40-50km to lunch. Sit around too long. Get stiff and uncomfortable. Groan and then get back on the bike.

We stop for flat tires, photos, dropped water bottles... really any excuse.

We ride to the last town before camp (camp is in the desert usually) and find a place that has beer. We drink beer (it's great when town is 2km from camp; it's rough riding when it's 30km). We get stiff. We talk about how this time we're really going to stretch when we get to camp (um, I admit that I have stretched exactly 2 times this entire trip). We groan about getting on the bike.

We get to camp, put up our tent, change, eat soup and bread, wait for dinner (forget about stretching), think about the next day ("where do you think the beer stop is?") and laugh at stupid stuff that will be lost when we all go our separate ways when this ride is over.

That's a day in the life.

My bike is holding up well - in spite of insane abuse. It is covered in dirt and dust, but I just put a lil' dry lube on the chain every day or two, and we're good to go. I was planning on leaving the bike in Cape Town, but lo and behold that is apparently hard to do for whatever reason, so looks like my Surly is coming home with me. We're in love anyway, so it's for the best.

Off to Kampala in the morning to do god knows what. 5 of us are going and we have no plans. We're landing. We're going to see the equator. Then we have 12 days to do whatever and find our way back to Arusha (Tanzania) where we'll start riding again...on dirt roads. I'm hearing rain and mud will be our new best friends, and that Ethiopia was some of the hardest riding, but there's a lot more challenge to come. Yikes.

Hope all is well with everyone, and I hope to be in touch in Uganda if possible.

xoxo,

ash