I thought it was drizzling when I woke up. It wasn’t; it’s just so humid that water was condensing on to the tree leaves above me and then falling off. It’s called a rainforest for a reason.

Continue reading “Gabon” →

After six slow, bumpy kilometres I arrived in the village of Ndalatando, the last village in the DRC. As I rode toward the immigration office, a man stopped me in the street and told me he was the immigration chief. Right from the start he seemed angry and unfriendly.

Continue reading “Congo-Brazzaville” →

Back in Uganda, I looked over into the DRC and said it’d be about 15,000km before I got there. It’s been a little over 14,000km – so not a bad guess! The DRC is a huge country but I’ll just be cycling across a small part of it, the narrow corridor that links the vast interior to the coast.

Continue reading “The Democratic Republic of the Congo” →

I realised that at the rate I was going, I’d reach Angola’s capital, Luanda, on a Friday and therefore be stuck waiting over the weekend. I decided to pick up the pace and aimed to arrive on Thursday instead.

Continue reading “Northern Angola” →

After an hour or so of riding I reached the town of Cahama. Though it was the largest town I’d been in for a week or so it was still pretty small, with no shop larger than a minimarket. I didn’t stop there long before riding on, along the quiet main road.

Continue reading “Inner Tube Drama” →

After a bit of a slow start I set off around nine. This part of Northern Namibia had a couple of similarities to the rest of the country: it was flat and there was a headwind. Otherwise, it was quite different. The road was unfenced! Trees were dotted around, giving good shade. The grass between them was kept short by herds of cattle or goats, watched over mostly by children. Occasional small patches were planted with crops, mostly maize.

Continue reading “Angolan Desert” →

After nearly two weeks of waiting around in Windhoek, I finally set off cycling again. The people I know who’ve travelled in Africa, as well as the blogs I’ve read, all went through East Africa. From here on, as I ride up toward West Africa, I’m less sure what to expect.

Continue reading “Northern Namibia” →

I set off from Sesriem on a road which, rather to my surprise, was tarmac for the first 15km or so. A group of oryx were on the road, and panicked when they saw me. One charged at the fence and rather than jumping, simply crashed into it and basically summersaulted oved. Another tried the same thing and ended up stuck.

Continue reading “Windhoek” →

I’d arrived at my campsite the previous night while it was dark. I therefore hadn’t seen that there were evidently lots of thorns, now stuck in my tyres. My front tyre was flat and my rear tyre started leaking air from several places once I removed the thorns. In the end I found 2 leaks in the front tube and 5 in the back. I think 7 simultaneous punctures is some sort of personal best!

Continue reading “Sossusvlei” →

From Steinkopf it was a 70 kilometre ride through the desert to the border with Namibia, country number 100.

Continue reading “Namibia” →