April 7, 2025

Sorry no photos today for two reasons: First, while I did see elephants on the highway, I followed elephant etiquette and did not stop to photograph them. Second, where we are staying tonight barely has Internet access and I ill be lucky to just upload this post.

The elephant highway did not disappoint and was worth the 150 kilometer ride that took me past them. The first elephant was just crossing the highway about 500 metres in front of me. It was a swift elephant glimpse and gone. The second sighting came neat the end of the ride and was a perfect photo opportunity if I were not on a bicycle. There was a pool of warter about 200 metres from the road with a cow and a calf playing it the water. Another large elephant stood watch nearby. It was a perfect but one that I will have to hold only in my memory.

Tonight we are staying at Elephant Sands, a rustic lodge with cabins and campsites about two kilometres off the highway down a soft sand road. After 150 kilometres of riding in the burning sun you can imagine my everlasting joy at having to push my bike through loose sand. However, Elephant Sands’ motto is, “Where Elephants Rule.” The owner has drilled a bore hole to pump fresh water to fill a pond which the elephants will travel miles to visit. Surface water in these parts is salty and while the elephants will drink it, like us they prefer it fresh. The result is a campsite that becomes an elephant watering hole after dark. We are told the will wander between our tents but they are only interested in the water and will leave us alone. However, our bicycles are a different matter. If left alone away from the tents, we are told the human scent attached to the bike sometimes causes the elephant to express its displeasure by bashing it to bits. Why this is not also true for our tents is something that will be on my mind as i go to sleep this evening.

April 6, 2025

Today began our trek down the Elephant Highway. We ride encouraged and informed by a safety lecture outlining the mostly, don’ts of what to do when encountering Elephants along the highway. They generally ignore cars but bicycles are often seen as a threat they can handle. These are mostly bulls this time of the year and they just eat most of the time. If they are eating or peacefully resting it is basically, go in peace my friend. However, if you get to close this gentle giant swiftly becomes a raging tank bent upon destruction, your destruction, so give them space and if the elephant goes full frontal, with twitching ears and restless pawing of the ground, you have crossed a line in it is time to step back and do so swiftly.

Unfortunately for me the experience was 100% highway and zero percent elephants. Some in our group saw a somewhat perturbed bull before I got to that section but they were informed about elephant etiquette and avoided disaster.

An interesting fact: You may at times see an elephant painfully lifting one of his legs. It is said that if you slowly approach and assist in removing the thorn or other foreign object imbedded there, the elephant will show his gratitude by gently lifting you with his trunk and bashing you to bits against any nearby solid object. He is after all a wild elephant and not some dumb children’s story elephant. You broke the rules and he responded according to his nature.

April 5, 2025

It was finally time to start riding today and thankfully, a fairly short day. I don’t mind longer rides and this trip is going to have some extremely long ones in the days ahead, but I cold only train a limited amount in our winter weather and I was happy to only have to do 84 kilometers today. The heat is the biggest factor my body needs to adapt to. At home you get used to it gradually but with jet travel you can get dumped, quite quickly, into the cauldron.

The ride was mostly flat but I felt it in my legs to the point of painful cramps near the end. His almost never happens to me and I resolved to up my intake of electrolytes on future days.

We crossed into Botswana right after lunch and while there was some paperwork, there was no charge for the visa and the process went very smoothly. From the border there was a quick stop to turn $100 US in over $1,000 of the local script. I am a rich man in Botswana.

After setting up my tent, showering and getting my gear stowed, I was able to sign up for a boat safari on the Chobe River. The Chobe runs through a national park with Botswana on one side and Zambia on the other. The river is often featured in National Geographic specials, or so we were told. If so, they must close it off to other traffic as there are dozens of craft of various configurations, powering hundreds of tourist up and down through the park. It is not hard to spot the wildlife, just look for where another boat has stopped.

That said, there is wildlife a-plenty. Hippos wallow and dive in the shallows, Cape Buffalo cluster on the islands, Elephants and Giraffes cruise the shoreline. None seem to worried about the attention they are getting which is surprising as some of the boats are really aggressive. Despite the crowded waterway, it was still quite an adventure and well worth the time and money.

April 4, 2025

It took all morning to finally be free to visit the falls. First, there was the obligatory meeting for new riders but the big delay came afterwards. The Namibian government recently, as in sometime about a week ago, decided to require Canadians as well as a lot of other nationalities to purchase an entry visa. Can anyone say, “revenue generation?” The process involved using a wonky website and some very specific requirements such as a copy of your passport as a PDF and under 2 Megs in size, as well as other thrilling requirements. To top it all off my Travel VISA card, which was notified that I was travelling, was declined, requiring me to do the entire application over again. Fun times.

With my new Namibian visa in hand, I was free to taxi my way to the falls. It is quite impressive and I will let the photos below, speak for me.

April 3, 2025

Yesterday I arrived in Livingston, Zambia at the end of 35 hour transit from Montreal plus the 4 hour drive from home. Sleeping in economy class is more of a dream than dream inducing. However, the nasty surprise that awaited me in Livingston was that my bike did not make the trip with me. This was bad and possibly an early end to an adventure that began 3 months and many dollars ago.

While all I wanted to do was relax, my focus had to be locating the missing bike and getting it to me before the group leaves in three days. Air Canada was polite but could do nothing more than tell me they handed it off to Lufthansa. Lufthansa, was not only hard to get in touch with but when I finally made contact they threw up their hands and passed the ball to AirLink, my final flight. AirLink was at least responsive to an email and by the evening had found my bike in their system and promised delivery to the Livingston airport the next day.

No one of above sufficiently describes the difficulty of doing all of this with a wonky Wi-Fi connection and only a data plan and WhatsApp for telephone access. I wound up having to buy a voice plan that allows voice calls to land lines to complete my mission. Along the way I had some great help for the TdA Group Tour leader Colleen. She really rocks as a leader.

So, around noon today I left for the airport and after some bureaucratic red tape, was able to get my bike. Again a big shout out to Andy, my taxi driver, who knows everybody at the airport and had just the right tools to cut the red tape.

Three hours playing build-a-bike later my aluminum steed is fully restored to assembled and rideable condition and ready for the long journey ahead. Me, I am ready for a beer while looking over the Zambezi River at the mists from Victoria Falls in the distance. Tomorrow I plan to see them a lot closer.

I booked my flight with Lufthansa but my check in at Montreal was with Air Canada and so was the first snag. While I booked and paid Lufthansa for the extra baggage of a bicycle and paid the hefty $300 fee, that information did not make it to the Air Canada check in desk. The attendant was very supportive and pulled out every stop to help me but in order for her to get my bike onto the plane I would have to pay Air Canada another $375!!! The most I’ve paid on past trips has been $100 and I paid when purchasing, no matter what airline owned the plane. Looks like I now have some additional entertainment in Frankfurt while I try to get Lufthansa to straighten things out. As long as the bike makes it undamaged to Livingston, I’ll claim victory.

Frankfurt update: No answer from the very patient Lufthansa representative. It appears that I need to prove payment despite having confirmation that I booked the extra baggage (bicycle) when I made the original reservation. It looks like I’ll need to produce the credit card transaction record that would show the payment of the extra fee. Of course that assumes that the credit card bill would show it separately from the flight reservation. Note to self: maybe just add the bike at the airport in the future. This is a matter that will have to wait until I return home.

With only a few days remaining before I fly out and some bad weather expected between now and then, I took advantage of a fairly calm moment to get in one last and somewhat short ride on my fat bike. Rather than subject any of my bikes to the salty local roads, I took one of my favourite roads less traveled. However, calling it a road is somewhat misleading.

In a strictly legal sense it is a road but one where where most vehicles fear to tread. Originally it was a fire department access but even that use is obsolete these days. However, if you don’t mind riding through some streams and over a couple of bridges that would not look out of place in an Indiana Jones movie, it is doable on a fat bike. Not a bad ride with my dog giving it his highest, two paws up, rating. The roads I encounter in Africa will likely be an improvement.

The longest journey begins with a single step or so said Chinese philosopher Lao Tzu. That may be so but a bicycle tour begins well before that first step with a lot of planning and packing. For a compulsive, got to have everything in order, personality like mine, this takes months as I reevaluate, reconsider and review nearly every detail and still screw up something. This time, on a trip to a warmer climate to test my new bicycle and to get in some longer distance rides, I managed to leave both my helmet and bicycle lock behind and beyond a reasonable means of getting them returned to me to me in time.

Fortunately, getting replacements was within my budget, so all ended well but I still gave myself a mental tongue lashing for being so forgetful. I just hope it is not a sign of my advancing years or I might wind up leaving my dentures somewhere.

Getting every necessary item for a month of riding and camping in areas where replacements are not just an Amazon click away, into the proper sized luggage for a 35 hour transit, is a big chore and I must have packed, measure and weighed my load a dozen time before being satisfied, for now. I hope this holds true until my departure.

Introduction

Having taken my bike across two continents as well as nearly across Europe and across South Korea and Japan, I decided to try something a bit further from my comfort zone. Africa was pretty far out to my mind and so my next two wheeled journey is headed for its center, Livingston and Victoria Falls. 3,000 kilometers of mixed asphalt and dirt roads later I hope to ride high and proud into Cape Town. This blog follows that journey.