January 1, 2015 - The Week Before, Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada

Welcome to my blog 'Karen in Africa'.  It was created in hopes of updating family and friends of my whereabouts during my upcoming adventure - a four month cycling tour of Africa.  

The tour, Tour d'Afrique (TDA), is organized by an adventure cycling company out of Toronto.  The tour will leave Cairo, Egypt on January 9th and arrive at the finish in Cape Town, South Africa four months later.   The riders will cycle the length of the African continent, a total of 12,000 km, through 10 countries (Egypt, Sudan, Ethiopia, Kenya, Tanzania, Malawi, Zambia, Botswana, Namibia and South Africa).  This includes over 4,000 km of sand, gravel, track or dirt roads and 8,000 km of great and not-so-great paved roads.  

Tour d'Afrique Route

On Monday, I will board an overnight Air Canada flight for London and onward to Cairo, arriving the night of January 6th.  I am desperately hoping that my bike and supplies arrive safely and at the same time as I do.  I will have two days before the start of the tour to re-build my bike, pick up any last minute necessities, and see some of Cairo.

Approximately one year ago, I made up my mind to register for the TDA cycling tour.  As scary as it was to commit to this challenge, the thought of sitting in an office for yet another year and not doing an adventure of this type was even more terrifying. Anticipating my next birthday and doing the simple math made me realize that my window of opportunity for the many things I wanted to do is closing ever so slowly.

Lucky bike is boxed, ready to go.

The past year was spent reading books and blogs written by previous TDA riders, assessing what I needed to do to be prepared, and obsessing over bikes, tires, electronics and everything else. Soon my bags were overflowing, and yet many of the necessities were not there. Many of the comfort items have since been replaced by spare bike parts, medical prescriptions (just in case), rain gear, multi-sized tires and tarps. My book of inoculations has entries on most pages.  A new steel bike (a Surly Troll, which weighs as much as and rides like a small tractor), a light weight tent and a silk sleeping bag were purchased. ...Now I am ready to go (kind of).  

The Tour d'Afrique website (http://tourdafrique.com/tour-dafrique) describes the tour route ..."cycle along the Nile past ancient temples, through the Sudanese desert, and up and down the biblical landscapes of Ethiopia’s rugged Simian Mountains. After crossing the Equator in Kenya, you will pedal past legendary Mount Kilimanjaro, to Lake Malawi, Victoria Falls, and along the edges of the magnificent Kalahari and Namib deserts, en route to the finish of your epic journey in beautiful Cape Town, South Africa."