Fundraising status: 5921,43€ or 52% reached, it keeps on moving, thanks for that but unfortunately there is a huge gap with the 8000 km already rode ! The need for education in some African country is very high and YOU can contribute to give a better future to some kids with any contribution even the smallest one. Therefore thanks to support my fundraising ! If needed, the link is still here
Stage 65: Livingstone to Kasane
KM: 82.27 km
HM: 378 m
Time: 2h56 minutes
Flat tires: 0
Liter of water: 2
Strava link
Stage 66: Kasane to Elephant camp
KM: 170.21 km
HM: 294 m
Time: 5:44 minutes
Flat tires: 0
Liter of water: 4
Strava link
Stage 67: Elephant camp to Nata
KM: 144.57 km
HM: 113 m
Time: 4h39 minutes
Flat tires: 0
Liter of water: 4
Strava link
After the fantastic time we had in Livingstone, it was time to say goodbye to the Victoria falls and head toward Botswana, country n°8.
The first day of this section was a really short one with only 82 km. We, Baldr, Steve and Augustine a Zimbabwean guest rider, spent together the first 70 km till the border city of Kazungula where we went through the usual border crossing formality before jumping on the ferry crossing the Zambezi river. And when I say jumping, it is not an image as the ferries are not waiting for anybody and a few riders almost felt in the river while trying to embark… This ferry crossing is moreover having the particularity to be at the convergence of four different countries (Botswana, Zambia, Namibia and Zimbabwe) and this is unique. After this very short ferry crossing, we biked a further 12 km to reach our camp located at the border of the Chobe national park. And thanks to the fact that we arrived early at camp, we could enjoy an amazing boat safari through the Chobe national park where we had the chance to see many Elephants, buffalos, hippos and so on…
The second stage started very nicely as we saw many baboons while getting out of the camp, then a few warthogs and some Impalas which were running on the side of the road. Unfortunately, after this great start the rest of the day was rather boring, 170 km of flat straight roads and despite all the signs saying that we had to watch out for wild animals we saw absolutely nothing. The only event of the day was a small accident: As we were biking in a group together with Tim, Baldr, Augustine and Steve, Tim fell down at a quite high speed after touching the wheel of Augustine. Luckily he did not injured himself and to the exception of a bent brake rotor, his bike was safe too.And after 170 km we reached the so called elephant bush camp where we’ve been requested to stay rather grouped as wild animals can walk in the camp during the night (one need to be courageous to go to the toilets at night ;-))
Our target for this third stage was to finally see some Elephant along the so called “elephant highway” and just before lunch we finally got lucky as we spotted two big elephants (one on each side of the road) on our way. We immediately stopped to take some pictures and quickly realized that mister elephant was not so happy to see us between him and his madame. As he started to flap his ears, Tallis (our tour leader) who was there at that time, asked us to leave the place asap and that is what we did very quickly. The rest of the day was absolutely amazing, our friend Augustine happens to be a great elephant spotter and we saw at least 10 of them while riding our bikes. And after 4h40 minutes, we reached our very nice camp in Nata where I was planning to spend the afternoon at the pool but unfortunately the rain that we did not had in East Africa came there and my pool afternoon did not happen.
Stage 68: Nata to bush camp
KM: 186.01 km
HM: 122 m
Time: 5:36 minutes
Flat tires: 1
Liter of water: 5 + a coffee, a sprite and an ice cream
Strava link
Stage 69: Bush camp to Maun
KM: 134.52 km
HM: 132 m
Time: 4.33 minutes
Flat tires: 2
Liter of water: 4.5 + 1 coke, 1 sprite and an ice cream
Strava link
After having seen so many elephant the day before, I was hoping to see some giraffes or any other wild animal on this fourth day. Unfortunately Augustine our animal spotter left us and we knew that it would be quite challenging to see something without our local spotter! And unfortunately it was correct as we did not see anything during that day. The only enjoyment of the day was the stop we did at Planete baobab which is a stunning camp lost in the middle of nowhere, where we enjoyed coffees, ice creams and other soft drinks. After this very enjoyable stop, we kept on riding and after 160 km two of the riders we where with started to feel bad due to the heat of the day for one and the lack of water for the other and we therefore called our support team to give them a lift.
On that day we reached as well another milestone: 8000 km! And my odometer decide to jump out of my bike, most probably fed up after almost 8000km with me…
The real event of the day happen in the evening as just before we started to have dinner, two big elephants decided to pass extremely close to our camp, almost walking within the tents, this was just amazing.
The fifth and last day of this stretch was similar to the other ones, flat and straight without anything to watch, therefore to the exception of me having my first Coke of the tour, 2 flats and facing a crazy strong headwind as we reached Maun, there is really nothing to report. And now we are on for a rest day in Maun with a planned flight over the Okavango delta.
International AID
The image most westerners are having of Africa is, unfortunately, still the one of a continent ravaged by war, drought and famines and surviving on international aid.
Having had the chance to travel within this continent since many years, I can definitely say that this image is far from reality but we still have a very long way ahead of us to change this perception.
Nevertheless, even if this perception is wrong, Africa is, as a matter of fact, needing and receiving a lot of aid (my fundraising being one of them as well) and even if this aid is in most of the time needed, it is interesting to see some of the effect it is having within the different countries we went through.
First of all, aid is unfortunately almost always having two sides. An easy example is all the old clothes we are giving away. On one hand, these clothes, which we saw being sold in many local markets during our trip, are helping the local population by decreasing the amount of money they need to allocate for their clothing. On the other hand these second hand arrivals killed almost all local textile production and tailoring activities as these were not competitive any more.
This example brings me to one of the thing that really struck me during this trip in regard to the effect of aid and this is the following:
As we went through now 8 countries, we saw some very different level of poverty and wealth during this trip and it unfortunately appears that it is in the country/regions which are receiving the most aid that we had to face the highest level of begging and at time aggressivity when we were not ready to give/donate something.
Through a few discussion I and other riders had, it appears that many persons in these regions are only relying on aid and at time do not even bother any more trying to help themselves as the reflex they are having is to wait for support. This shows again the double effect of aid, on one hand we should keep on supporting these disadvantaged region, while on the other one we should somewhere limit it in order not to create a dependency towards it.
I definitely do not have any solution on how and what could be done differently but as said, observing this effect struck me and convinced me again that supporting a foundation like lessons for life is essential as education is the most sustainable improvement we can bring in these countries.
And here we are, after 8163.12 km, 38635 hm and 313 hours and 03 minutes on the bike, the sixteenth section is over.
Even tough I’m still doing good, the motivation is at time a bit harder to find and these long and slightly boring stages are not helping.
Unfortunately for us, the next stage till Windhoek will be quite similar with long stretch of flat landscape with almost nothing to see.
And the new gallery can be found here
Fred