Good afternoon my friends, and hello from Sudan!

Well, we have done three weeks,  1900 kms, 15 days of riding and Section 1 of 8 is DONE!

Where do I begin!? ... I guess a typical day is a good place to start!

The following picture conveniently has the general morning schedule in red. In Egypt we didn't have the custom built TDA trucks so instead of having individual lockers we had to fit everything into 2 duffel bags each morning, you'd think this would be an easy task as I did pack my own luggage before coming to Africa but every single morning it would take a good 5 minutes to squash everything enough to get the zips closed..

Anyway, daily schedule in Egypt: wake up, get dressed, tent taken down, bags packed, breakfast (porridge, banana and honey!), ~70km bike ride with incredible tail winds, lunch (pita bread with various salads and spreads then banana with nutella),  bike ride more tail winds, arrive at camp, tent up, wet wipes wash, warm clothes, cup of soup and how ever many beers before the sun sets, rider meeting where the winners of the day and the next days instructions are revealed, dinner (always delicious), bed at 7.30pm.

This is the white board of wisdom that is presented to us every evening and lets us know what we will be doing the following day.. the majority of which usually includes riding our bikes for 100+kms.

Then we arrive in Sudan. The days are of the same general form but each day the weather is getting hotter (we've just reached the 40's), the winds have changed direction and we have head and cross winds that peak after lunch when you are your weakest, we have fantastic lockers, the Sudanese people are lovely and are not after your money at all compared with the Egyptians! but the major different of course is that Sudan is a DRY country. That means no beer. It's been 8 days so far, it's been tough but everyone is coming together to support one another and we will get through it.

Ok, some photos as promised!

Day 1: Ian and I at the pyramids

Spending many many hours on the Egyptian desert road...

Some beautiful desert sights

Spices in the Luxor souk 

Marita enjoying shisha in the Luxor souk

 Chewing sugar cane at lunch is a terrible terrible idea... one bit is definitely enough!

My three hilarious riding buddies: Femke, Jenny and Marita

All our luggage waiting to board the dreaded 17 hour ferry ride (that ended up taking 29 hours) from Aswan, Egypt to Wadi Halfa, Sudan (my favourite place we've visited so far).  

Passing time on the ferry. The two slabs of beer we bought on were gone hours before we even left the dock. Most of my daylight hours were spent dreading Claire's hair, she's TDA's head medic. We had a beautiful nights sleep under the stars, despite a group of Egyptian men sitting right beside us smoking all night and eating all out food...

Trying to escape the sun at camp in Sudan

Week 2 schedule. 

TTT stands for Team Time Trial.. 

 In case you are not quite aware of the seriousness of the women's rAcing competition I'll fill you in on the time trials we've had so far. Stage 11, 30km Team Time Trial - our team was named "the Family" and consisted of Michael, "Dad", and his foster children Femke, Jenny, Marita and myself. We decided it was a beautiful day for a family outing and so at the start line of the time trial we took some family portraits ...

And proceeded to enjoy the late 20th century art deco architecture lining the roads (aka rocks).... stopping at 1km in to take some more family shots and to cheer on two of the teams that followed us.... make a human pyramid across half the road as a obstacle for the very serious German racing team, (they didn't seem to think it was a funny as we did).... and stage a 5 person pile up on the side of the road for when the staff team flew past (they did not stop despite our beautifully acted moaning and calls for help!)....

[You'll have to imagine the images here]

Week 3 schedule.
The TT here is an individual Time Trial. Time for some more fun!!
 We decided the theme was Zoro, and so with cut outs from a black garbage bag, the four siblings and good friend Jana donned the Zoro masks accompanied by very impressive eye liner moustaches.. 

and did our best human pyramids yet....

whilst fighting off some local baddies ...

Mission accomplished. [L-R: Femke, Jenny, myself, Jana and Marita]

  That's all for now folks. The next eight days are non stop riding including our first off road experience through a National park, apparently it's the hardest section of the tour... wish me luck!


Love to you all, I hope you're having fun!

xxx

Hi!

I've finally remembered the appropriate passwords and interpreted enough Arabic to be able to access my own blog! Woo hoo!

So hello everyone, I hope you are all well! I know there are a lot of you out there checking this space at every spare minute you have only to find I've not written once... sorry. Would you prefer direct links to other riders blogs or for me to use the old 'cut and paste' method?

Just kidding, this is all going to be completely original..

Currently I'm lying on a very comfy thermorest, in my tent, in the middle of Luxor, Egypt. It's 8.40pm, which is about 1 hour past my usual bedtime, and it's the 7th day of tour.

Day 1 consisted of 134km of riding, including a 40 km police escorted convoy from our hotel in Cairo to the outskirts of the city via the pyramids, for an official start of the race. Many of us were a little confused about the famous "swings" that we were to pass, until we came to a stop in front of the well known "Sphinx" and realised it may be important to take our tour director's accent into account when listening to instructions in future...

The chaos of the Cairo traffic, horribly thick smog and the heavily armed tourist police escort made an interesting beginning to the tour, then we were out on the open road with the sun in our faces and the beginnings of the sandy desert we were about to spend the next four days appreciating.

It was fantastically fun riding and getting to know some of the 45 people I'm spending the next four months with until the first crash of the tour occurred right in front of me. It was a huge shock, and a reminder of how quickly things can go wrong! A big knock to the head, scratches to the face and a black eye but luckily nothing serious enough to stop her winning the stage the following day!

I was full of excitement and adrenalin when night fell, I'd just ridden the furthest i'd ever ridden in a day before and I was in the DESERT in EGYPT! I couldn't wipe the smile off my face! My only slight worry was the apprehension of the following day's 166 km race!

Did I mention I signed up to race?  Seeing as there were no really serious women racers, the majority of us, I think 10 out of the 14, decided to become 'racers', our aim is to get every one of us to win a stage at some point and we'll have our own more 'interesting' awards at the end.. unless we all get sucking into the race and turn against one another..

The 166 km day turned out to be my favourite so far! It was a MANDO day, which means its a compulsory day for racers, and the first three men and women get 30, 20 and 10 minutes taken off their times. The beginning of the day was 16km of downhill. This meant we were riding with the lead peloton! It was very fast and very exciting and one of the other riders and I tried hanging on once we got to the flat but after about 0.2 seconds we were dropped and then they were out of sight in no time.  

I rode with two other women, both really strong riders and I was pushing myself as much as I could to stay with them. By the time we got to lunch though, at 70km, they were definitely carrying me.. I was riding between the two while they took turns in switching leaders. What great friends I have already! After lunch I rode alone until the refresher stop at about 130km when I caught up the others and rode to camp with one of them, Jenny, while the other Femke powered ahead and won the stage.

It was an exhausting day, but very rewarding!

Day 3 and 4 were much the same desert, but much the same fun! I'm loving it so far, can't imagine anywhere I'd rather be!

ok I'm running out of battery... I'll update in a few days time. You can follow the riding times here:
http://tourdafrique.com/tours/tourdafrique/race-results/2012/overall#t
now that we're out of the desert I think i'll be stopping a lot more often and racing a lot less!

I hope you are all well, I'd love to hear from you, I promise I'll write again when I can and maybe even put up some photos...

 

Testing...

The Wheelie Good Fundraiser!

Nungurner local, Esther Borg, is spending the first four months of 2012 riding her bike 12,000km across Africa!

She is doing this in support of Bicycles For Humanity, a volunteer run organisation that arranges the shipment of second hand/disused bikes from Australia to co...mmunities in need in Namibia and Zambia.

Join us for an afternoon of drinks, food, games, firetwirling and live music to help celebrate Esther's imminent journey, and to raise money for this worthy cause!

$10 entry

Dress Optional or Dress Down

.. and bring an instrument and join the live music!

* to donate go to www.everydayhero.com.au/esther_borg

Hi Everyone!

As some of you will know, I have suffered some kind of mental damage and decided it would be a great idea to ride a push bike 12,000kms across Africa, from Cairo to Cape Town! I am doing this with an organisation, the Tour d’Afrique (http://www.tourdafrique.com/tours/tourdafrique).

This adventure is not completely insane as I will be raising money for Bicycles For Humanity Australia, a volunteer run organisation that arranges the shipment of second hand/disused bikes from Australia to communities in need in Namibia and Zambia.

Bicycles For Humanity: “A bike allows someone to travel twice as far, twice as fast and carry four times the load. In the countries in which we work a bike can mean access to education, health care, fresh water, economic opportunity and community. Breaking the cycle of poverty by providing sustainable transport for one person impacts not only their life but also the lives of their families, communities and future generations.
Bicycles For Humanity kicked off in Australia in the last quarter of 2008 and now has three chapters based in Melbourne, Sydney and Perth. In the last 2 years we have shipped more than 1600 bikes to our partner BEN Namibia. These shipments have created and resupplied two highly successful Bicycle Empowerment Centres in Namibia and Zambia. As well as providing cheap sustainable transport for whole regions these workshops provide skills training, employment and entrepreneurial opportunities for the communities in which they are placed.”
For more information please visit http://www.bicyclesforhumanity.com/

If you would like to support me and raise funds for Bicycles For Humanity please go to http://www.everydayhero.com.au/esther_borg and donate now!!

Thanks,
Esther