Tuesday, March 31, 2009

It really is a long way down...

Well its been a while since I have updated this blog and I'm sorry I haven't had the chance. Firstly I want to say happy birthday to Mum though!!! Sorry its a little late. I tried to call and find internet on your birthday but it was Sunday and all the internet places in the town of Rasungu were closed and Rasungu is not a place with mobile reception of any kind but I was definitely thinking of you!!!

We have entered Malawi. Our last rest day was at Chitimba Beach on the northern part of the lake, lots of sand and somehow there were big enough waves to body surf on. Even though it was rest day there was plenty of activity going on - beach volleyball, scrabble, cards, and a chance to curl up and have an afternoon nap!

My first impression of Malawi was somewhat similar to Ethiopia. Lots of children saying "money, money" at you... it wasn't until a few days after I'd been in the country that I learn that "Moni" is actually the word for "hello" in Chichewa, the official language of Malawi, and there is less begging than I thought.

Its this point in the tour however that many riders have in fact taken off to have a holiday from their holiday. A concept that I originally thought a bizarre idea but now understand it much more. Endless days in the saddle, sore bottoms, and a beautiful lake with the chance to scuba dive, beaches to relax on has led quite a few riders away for a few days. I keep riding though, enjoying the time in the saddle.

It rains everyday here - not something I am used to being from the Sunshine State where it barely ever rains. My tent has only had one leaky moment though and I have decided that I am actually quite happy with it these days!!! Should really stop complaining about it haha!

A bridge on our route has been washed away so we take an alternate route to Lilongwe (in fact the short route!) where I am now. We ride the mountains instead and they are beautiful... although we would have loved to ride the road right next to the beach!!! Headwinds and hills has made the challenge continue. We get 2 days to explore this city, the capital of Malawi.

Friday, March 20, 2009

And the hyenas come at night....

Well, I am feeling much better after my big stack. There is still a deep cut on my knee but its healing well, my wrist is still a little sore and will be pleased to have pavement so it doesn't have to put up with all the shaking of the unpaved roads, and I can still feel the bruising of my ribs but it only really bothers me when I sleep.Thanks for the offer to send a new helmet mum and dad however my existing one is looking ok and although it isn't ultra ideal to ride with I have examined it for fractures and cracks and it appears ok apart from a minor hole in the outer shell (which is seriouslz tiny) so I am confident it will still give me some protection.

Tanzania is a beautiful country - very lush in comparison to the rest of Africa that we have seen so far, and although I am a little sore I still love riding unpaved roads! I am taking it much more easy on the downhills because I don't want to do any more damage to myself if I come off again!!!
I have ridden every inch of every day since Arusha, with the exception of one afternoon when I got busy pretending to be an ambo for a little while instead.

Our 3 day safari was awesome. We saw all the big 5 and many other exciting things aswell. I like giraffes the most - they are very graceful animals, especially as they are so large... and they are docile aswell. Frank, one of the riders I was with on safari swears he nearly got eaten by a lion. But seriously, there are quite often hyenas around our camp sites - sometimes I wake up and need to pee but have to hang on because I can hear noises and I'm afraid I might get eaten by a hyena!!!

Today is a rest day in Iringa. The roads are meant to be paved until we get to Namibia now which is probably a good things because my knobblies are wearing out and Mitch the Rockhopper likes to ride all day every day and gets jealous when I stop to help people (like the other day when I was helping Bruce he spontaneously punctured himself, and then did it again when he was getting loaded onto the lunch truck while I was off getting Paul to the hospital!!!). Then he goes and decides to make all his rear gears stop working for a while (had to be a time trial day too! - silly bike!) so he's been to see Mark and Tom the bike doctors who have thankfully made him feel much better, and he now has rear gears that work.

So this morning has been a day of changing tyres, the slicks are back on, done my washing (that's one thing I won't miss when I get home - handwashing all my clothes!!!). Gave Mitchy a clean so he now has a nice clean and oiled drivetrain again. Hope he feels more loved now and will stop spontaneously puncturing himself for no obvious reason!!!

Thursday, March 19, 2009

Utter chaos... (and a trip to the local hospital!)

Yesterday was the most chaotic day on tour so far however it is always the unexpected events that happen along the way that make these trips worthwhile.

I'm riding along anyhow as I do most days except rest days and when I get to about 33km I see Alan & Bruce standing up inspecting Bruce's bike. I stop and they ask if I have any first aid stuff on me. Which I don't because I used it all up on me the other day!!! I look at Bruces elbow and there is blood everywhere coming out of it. His clothes are all ripped up too. Thankfully he is standing up and looking ok (apart from all the blood). Times like these we all work in a team however and the next rider is never too far behind. Evelyn is more organised than the rest of us however and she has some first aid stuff. Malcolm has babywipes to clean up all the dirt. And because I didn't bother to keep the fact quiet that I am a nurse, and because I am slightly more used to seeing copious quantities of blood compared to many other people, I am the one that gets to fix Bruces arm. So I clean the wound & compression bandage it and do a pretty good job at stopping the bleeding and Bruce is able to keep riding. I think Erin (the medic) is at the lunch truck & I want her to look at it to see if she reckons it needs stitches.

But further behind me Paul Porter (different Paul to the one helping me when I had my wipe out) also stacks it. He's gone over after not seeing a big huge pothole hidden by the shadow of a baobab tree.

Paul is a great guy and someone who I admire alot on this tour (especially because he's an Ironman, but also because he's 53 and keeps racing with the younger guys even though now he's the only racer in the masters category). He also knows a lot about a lot of things, and is a very interesting person to talk to.

Paul hurts his elbow quite badly, which needs to be sutured. When I get to the lunch truck Erin is not there (and I wanted her to look at Bruces elbow!!!). I missed seeing the 4x4 go by with her and Eddie our local guide for the section. Anyhow, the 4x4 gets back to the lunch truck while I'm still there with Alex & Erin our 2 awesome medics, and Paul. Erin can suture and I want to learn so I ask if I can come up to watch. As they take off the tape applying pressure to Pauls wound the wound opens and blood squirts out - I don't think I've seen blood squirt out like that before and they expect an arterial bleed - which means the artery requires suturing usually under anaesthetic - which means Paul will have to go hospital, but first we need to get Paul back from the lunch truck into the 4x4 and there is so much blood. I am trying to help by holding Pauls arm above his head & it is decided that 2 people need to go with Paul (as well as Eddie to drive the vehicle) to help stabilise the bleeding as best as possible along the way. We are more than 100km from the nearest hospital in Iringa. It's decided that Erin should stay with everyone else because she needs to check out Bruce, and in case there are any more emergencies along the way so I go with Alex & Paul & Eddie in the 4x4. Alex is applying pressure to the wound, I'm applying pressure to a point below the wound and for a while we get the bleeding stopped and stabilised.

We're in Tanzania. The roads are slightly better than the ones in Northern Kenya but it takes a good 2.5 hours in the car to get to Iringa. We get there and Paul is still alive and talking, slightly pale in the face and there is lots of swelling to his elbow and we suspect its fractured.

At the hospital Alex jumps out and finds out where we need to take Paul to. We must've looked weird - 3 Mzungus in lycra - 2 holding the others hand above his head.

Luckily the doctor is also a cyclist - he tells us he has a nice bicycle - it has 6 gears!!!

I was impressed with the hospital - they x-rayed Pauls arm, he was seen by an orthopaedic surgeon and we got his wound surgically cleaned and the bleeding controlled. Paul was admitted overnight and Alex, Eddie and I returned to camp.

Back at camp however, another rider had hit his head which also nearly required suturing (good thing Erin stayed at camp!), the dinner truck had broken down yet again (our dinner truck support vehicle is not feeling so well these days!!!) and hadn't got to camp until late. We don't get there until 1030pm and thankfully Sonja, Isobel & Michel have put up my tent for me - all I need to do is climb in and sleep...

Monday, March 9, 2009

Wipe Out!

It was a typical day riding in Kenya. Actually better than typical because we rode right past a herd of Zebras!!! Makes me really feel like I'm in Africa. It's meant to be a 165km day, and I make it to Lunch at 70km feeling strong.

After lunch there is a heap of road works (nothing new). They like piling mounds of dirt over the new part of the road so that cars and trucks can't get across - but for bicycles they are easy to get over, and the new construction road is often smoother and easier to ride on than the old road or the alternative route. Also with less traffic so usually safer too.

So I'm riding along, on a slight downhill that I don't realise when I come across one of these mounds of dirt and think it's not so high, I'll get over it easy. But when I get closer I see it's sandy dirt, and I remember I have my slick tyres on and I'm going faster than I anticipate. I break slightly before the mound then go up and over, and suddenly I'm up high, soaring through the air on Mitch the Rockhopper. What comes up must come down however and Mitch lands too heavily on his front wheel. I fly over the handlebars, and my shoes are cleated into my pedals so my bike flys over me and at some point I become uncleated. I hit the ground. Hard. Face first in to the dust. I roll over and sit up but I can barely breathe because I am winded. I hurt too. I take my helmet off and note briefly that my visor has come half unattached to my helmet. I take off my sunnies and take a look at how scratched they are and I'm glad I was wearing them because otherwise that would have been my eye! I look down at my knees and they're both grazed the left one more than the right. There's a tiny bit of blood coming out of my lip and the side of my face is grazed. Its only a couple of minutes before Paul comes along and finds me sitting in the middle of the road and stops. Then Sven comes along. And Ivo. And I realise I am riding with a truly great bunch of people. Sven has a few clean washers with him that he gives me to clean up the blood. But my knee has a hole in it - and a very tiny bit of fatty tissue is hanging out of it. I'm shocked and I know that normally I'd be okay to clean up a wound like that on someone else no worries, but I'm really shaken up. I have a few bits of first aid kit in my camelbak (which is actually a blackwolf and not a camelbak at all hahaha) and manage to patch myself up ok for the time being. I slowly check the rest of me over and note that my right shoulder is bruised, my left elbow and wrist is sore too.

I get up with help from Paul & Sven & Ivo and go sit under the tree for a bit. Paul is great and hechecks my bike and I'm lucky I've only put one of my bar ends out of alignment so Mitch is Ok, that's easy to fix. He waits with me because I'm still shaking and there's tears in the corners of my eyes but I'm trying not to cry. I know I'm ok but I can't stop shaking. I contemplate keeping riding but my knee hurts, and my elbow won't let me tie my hair back up which has become loose. Paul calls Shanny who is sweeping and we figure that the lunch truck is a few hours away so I could sit and wait for it or hitch a ride back to lunch with the locals where there is better first aid supplies and Erin the Medic. We take the latter option and manage to squeeze two bikes and 2 Mzungus into a vehicle, and they're nice guys that drive us 10km back to the lunch truck. Erin manages to give me a bit of a better clean than I can do of myself. I ride the rest of the way to camp on the truck. I look over my helmet closely and my visor is clipped back in, there's a small damage mark just where my right temple lies - helmets are great things that do save lives!!!

Now I have a new nickname - first it was Nubian (because I always collect dust and turn up to camp and lunch black like a person from the Nubian Desert), then the Mysterious One (I'm not going to write an explanation of that one here because it is complicated) and now I'm Hop-a-long.

Today I ride the truck because my knee is quite swollen but I think it's getting better, and although I'm stiff nothing feels like its broken. Just need to keep up the Ibuprofen!!!

The next 3 days are non riding days and I'm going on safari!!! Excitement +. And I don't doubt that my bruises will be sufficiently healed for me to jump back on my bike the next riding day :)

I forgot to write before I realised when I was writing my reflections about the greatest things about this trip. Here they are:
- Flying downhills at anything up to 77km/hr so far!
- the personal satisfaction of riding a hard day
- Being able to see the culture without the barriers you get when travelling in a vehicle
- Camping every night - although I'm frustrated by my tent sometimes I'm still not sick of camping
- riding lots and lots
- bargaining in markets (I bought a plate the other day for 180 kenyan shillings which I got down from 2700!!!)
- seeing wildlife
- camp cooking!!! I love it!
- the wonderful carefree feeling you get from spending so much time outdoors

Even in my battered and bruised state that I'm in today I still manage to have a great day.

The challenge continues as we ride through Kenya

*** I wrote this blog entry about a week ago now and haven't been able to post it until now!!! - sorry my blogs out of order now!***

As we descend out of the hills of Ethiopia we hit more unpaved empty roads in the northern desert of Kenya. The roads are rough and bumpy covered in LAVA ROCK! Not nice stuff to pedal on!!! And they call it a highway - average speed for our trucks is 18km/hr! Bicycle is faster sometimes. But me and Mitch the Rockhopper are both tough and handle it ok (although we did truck it for 30km the other day due to a sore knee – feeling good today although it’s a rest day today so it doesn’t have to ride!).

2 nights ago we have our first proper rain. I would like to be as proud of my tent as I am with Mitch the Rockhopper however if I didn’t have such a big addiction to camping I think I would be seriously considering in a new home for the rest of the trip. You see, my tent as lovely as it holds up camping in Aus, just doesn’t like the strong winds you get out in the desert. It won’t stand up without pegs (and sometimes it’s hard to get your pegs in tough ground, or equally tough to get it to stand up in super soft sand!!! The other night however it had a true challenge - lots of wind and rain at the same time – I took a photo and will one day hopefully be able to post it here but this whole continent is doomed with dodgy internet access and sometimes its as much as I can do to actually post these blogs. Thankfully it stayed relatively dry inside but I was surprised. Then last night we were camped in a beautiful campsite in Marsabit Wildlife Reserve – which has baboons everywhere!!! Unfortunately I had to choose the baboon toilet tree to pitch my tent under!!!! I thought there was a few heavy drops of rain over night but when I got up this morning I found that there was a heap of baboon faeces waiting for me to clean up… It was seriously gross –there’s another photo that I’ll post here one day!!! I’m usually ok with that kind of stuff but it was everywhere… everyone had a good laugh who walked passed me this morning cleaning it off… now it looks ok but still smells like baboon manure…. Maybe will spray some perfume on it see if it improves!!! Despite this I still plan to EFT this journey (Every F******* night in a Tent). Haven’t had the urge to take a hotel room yet and aren’t sick of camping despite my tent (which is also the smallest on tour) or my thermarest which has a cancer (this is what happens when your sleeping mat lining comes away from the cells and a big bubble of air creates a tumour which in this case is sadly malignant and I can’t blow up my mat anymore – its still comfy enough with my little 1/2cm thick foam mat underneath it though!!!

Today is a rest day and the thing I like most about rest days is taking a shower. Our vision of a nice shower has changed. All you need is 4 walls and running water and that is a nice shower. Hot water is a luxury. A hook on the back of the door to hang your stuff is a bonus. Yesterday we got to camp to find no water so it was a bucket bath instead. I get the chance to update this blog about the same amount of times as I get to take a shower. Kenya is hard to get water so we’re not allowed to even take a water bottle shower on riding days – it’s strictly baby wipes inside the tent.

Nairobi is the halfway mark and lifes meant to get easier after that!

Saturday, March 7, 2009

A typical day in the life

Wake up is around 6 and for me I don't need an alarm - the noise of everyone else deflating thermarests, folding up tent poles is enough. I put my cycling gear on, cream up (a very important part of the day for the prevention of saddle sores!) pack up my tent and gear inside my tent. Then it's time for breakfast which is typically either oats, cornmeal, and bread and spreads. I put my sunscreen on, make sure all my gear is in my locker on the truck and jump on my bike and start my ride.

I usually ride alone because I like a bit of personal space and we live and camp quite close to each other. But sometimes I ride with Sven, and sometimes with Jolyane. And sometimes with someone else. I usually ride non stop to lunch which somewhere between 40-75km from camp depending on the road and how far we are riding that day. If it is a hard day I might stop for an energy bar though.

Lunch is bread and tuna, egg, or cheese, and bread a spreads. I usually arrive at lunch between 10 and 11am. I fill up on water and reapply my sunscreen so I don't burn like crazy with the malaria tablets I take and jump back on my bike, trying to cover as many kms I can before it gets quite hot.

Then its back on the bike and time to keep pedalling. If there's a coke stop somwhere halfway between lunch and camp then I'll stop and get coke, or ginger beer, or fanta. And its amazing how so many people who don't drink much soft drink back home all crave coke - it's cold, its sweet, it contains energy.... and caffeine :)

When I get to camp I make sure I drink. Then I go help out in the kitchen to help get dinner ready - this is a highly optional activity that is always appreciated by the staff. There's 65 mouths to feed and lots of stuff to chop. Lots of garlic to peel. Lots of beans to top and tail. Beetroot peeling. I like helping though. Mostly I like it on the principal that I'm not here for a luxury expedition and helping cook food makes me feel like I'm not taking the easy way out. Eddie (our current local guide) jokes that the first thing I do after I jump off my bike is head straight for the kitchen.

I set up my tent and then there's a rider meeting around 5:30pm then dinner after the rider meeting.

Bed time is never long after dark after such a long day. And I always sleep well.

Halfway reflections

I'm in Nairobi! The halfway point in terms of time (still more than halfway on distance however) so thought I'd take a moment to reflect on my expedition so far!

What has the biggest challenge been so far?
I can't single out one challenge to be the biggest but there have surely been plenty of them as I make my journey southwards. Each country presents a new challenge -
- in Egypt it was getting used to long days in the saddle, headwind on the first day.
- the sand of Sudan
- The hills, rocks & kids that throw the rocks at you in Ethiopia. And riding at altitude where the air is thin. And the endless calls of "you-you-you how are you?" and although the caller doesn't care how you are they still want a reply from you.
- The corrugated unpaved road of northern Kenya called the "trans east african highway" although us Mzungu (white people) struggle to understand how such a road can possibly be called a highway!
- and next we have the mud of Tanzania to look forward to!!!

But there have been other challenges too for example:
- pitching my tent in the sand
- internet access that simply frustrates because it will work and I'll write a long piece of blog and then loose it - I have a previous blog saved on Tims USB stick at the moment but he doesn't happen to be here right now so now my blog is going to be out of order slightly!
- The time I pitched my tent right under the Baboon Toilet Tree (and I thought there were a few heavy drops of rain overnight! - something else to clean in the morning)
- The number of times I'm out on my bike and there's an oncoming truck passing an oncoming truck (and suddenly I'm riding my bike off the road and in the dirt to keep alive!!!)
- Spending every night so far in my little tent (which is the smallest tent on tour) on my little thermarest which sadly has cancer and no longer inflates!
- On the bike riding up hills in Ethiopia shouting "Salamno" to all the billions of kids you see in hope that they won't throw rocks at you.
- Knowing that there is showering facilities at the camp that you're going to only to find that when you get there there's no water!

But now I recall the BIGGEST challenge for me. The biggest challenge was riding when I wasn't well, and when my knee was sore. And jumping on the truck. Jumping on the truck for me is a huge mental challenge which I have done for 200 of the roughly 5500km of this trip so far and I have only done it when I haven't been well, and taken another 30km to rest my knee which was sore for a while. But everytime I ride the truck I feel like I'm cheating although really I know I'm actually being smart. It still doesn't feel as good at the end of the day when you rock up in the truck knowing that everyone else has worked hard to be at the designated campsite that night.

How do I feel?
Good. Really good. I love this lifestyle. I love only thinking about riding everyday and only having to worry about keeping my feet turning. My neck no longer aches. My quads no longer burn. I have sensation in all my fingers again :)

What have I been eating?
An awful lot. I eat 3 times as much as before I left home I think!!! I eat what they serve on riding days and on rest days I try to eat as local as food comes depending on where we are. And that includes the Ethiopian injera designed to make you fart, and made many riders sick with GI upset (myself included thankfully only to a mild degree)