Tour d'Afrique 2016: Adventure, Danger, and
Poop
In the spring of 2016, I completed the famed Tour d'Afrique
race/expedition that crosses Africa from north to south. Two
years earlier, I had ridden from Sudan in the north to Lilongwe,
Malawi, where I stopped because I had a blister on my finger.
You can see my "tour report" of that trip here.
This time, I started where I left off--Lilongwe--and followed the
Tour all the way until its end, in Cape Town, South Africa. I
thus became one of the very few people who has ever bicycled across
Africa, or been to Africa, or has heard of Africa.
Am I proud of my achievement? I suppose that I am, in a
way. True, I had to be carried the entire way in a
hammock. Yes, I cried a lot. I peed my pants, and pooped
in them, as well, and screamed "Get me out of here! I hate
this!" pretty much all the time, every single day. So there's
that. But, on the other hand, I got the opportunity to pet a
baby giraffe and snuggle up to a baby hippo. I didn't do
either of those things, of course, because those creatures are
disgusting and crawling with vermin, and baby giraffes can kill you
with their sharpened tails, but the point is: I was in
Africa.