Desert Flooding in the Animal Republic

Riding the Tour D’Afrique, days 92 to 102, Victoria Falls to Windhoek

Distance Cycled: 9,262km

Meters Climbed: 46,995m

Time on Bike: 356:22:43

Time in Truck: 00:00:00

This last section has been the longest in terms of distance so far, blitzing across Botswana, cycling 100 mile after 100 mile day to cover a total of 1,500km in 10 days. Suffice to say I'm pretty relieved to be off the saddle for a couple of days as I recuperate in the quiet but pretty Namibian capital, Windhoek.

Lunch under a Baobab

Despite the huge distances covered, the pan-flat terrain meant that the main challenge in completing this section was more mental than physical. Botswana, for the most part, is exceptionally boring to cycle through, with endless, never-changing, flat bush-land for days at a time. Neither are there the opportunities for any human interaction on the road that we had been previously accustomed to; between leaving the border town of Kasane to arriving in Maun 5 days later, we saw more horses on the road than humans, and it wouldn't be too much of an exaggeration to say that we saw more elephants too! We've done long flat days in changeless terrain before, in Egypt and northern Sudan, but there there was still something almost majestic about crossing the Sahara desert, with its rugged bleakness. The scrub-land bordering the Kalahari, however, is somewhat less awe inspiring. Considering we were supposed to be traversing a semi-arid desert, it was pretty unexpected to get drenched on more than one occasion. Following the wettest wet season in recent times, we also had to deal with severe flooding, both at campsites and on the road. A short stretch of road was entirely un-passable by bike and we had to resort to 'shipping' ourselves and our bikes on flat bed trucks, provided by a couple of entrepreneurial locals. Desert, indeed..

Impassable on two wheels

Despite that, Botswana has also provided a few highlights of the trip so far. Included in this section was the longest day of the whole tour, at 208 km (bare with me on this one). Having continually beaten my daily distance record over the last few weeks, this was still another 30 km further than I'd ever ridden before - never mind having already cycled 155 km and 147 km since the last rest day. Coupled with the distance, the weather gods were not with us either, with heavy rain and the tailwind that had helped us for the days before turning round on itself. Oh, and the first 3 km were on sand... So, we decided to race it, obviously. For well over half the day, Charles, Niklas, Julian and I took turns leading the group, 2 km at a time, primarily to keep ourselves, warm, occupied and sane. Incredibly, after such a long, brutal day, we all finished within 10 minutes of each other. I guess this day was almost the definition of 'type 2 fun', as difficult and at times painful as it was, it will certainly be a day I will remember and one with a huge sense of satisfaction in completing.

Bush/wild camping after 100 miles on the bike

Adding an element of excitement to the monotony of the riding were the elephants who occasionally shared the tarmac with us. Botswana has the largest population of these animals, magnificent, serene and terrifying. Of course it wasn't the first time seeing an elephant, or even the closest I've come to one, but where previously it has always been from the safety of a land cruiser, this time I was acutely aware of how exposed and insignificant we were on our bicycles.

An elephant shall not be rushed

The pinnacle of the last 10 days, though, was exploring the Okavango delta, a vast inland river delta forming swathes of fertile marshland in the middle of the desert (previous paragraph excepting). Initially I took a flight over it, with sightings of (more) elephants, various antelope, giraffe and a solitary lion. The following day I was taken into the swamp on a Mokoro - a punt-like canoe - to one of the islands for a safari walk. Having been briefed on what to do if we came across any PDAs, or potentially dangerous animals, the fact we didn't see any didn't really matter as just the anticipation of seeing a lion, leopard or buffalo, whilst on foot in their domain was enough.

Very different forms of transport in the Okavango delta

In each country we pass through, I have tried to establish an insight (if only small) into what makes that culture unique, an essence of the country. With interactions with locals few and far between I was finding this difficult to ascertain for Botswana. But perhaps therein lies the answer. With a population similar to that of the city of Manchester but spread out over an area twice the size of the entire UK and a good chunk of that taken up by desert or devoted to game reserves, maybe Botswana is all about the landscape and the wildlife. This was reinforced by a rare visit to a local bar, where it was explained to us (perhaps in hyperbole) that in Botswana you would probably get away with 5 years in prison for shooting another person, but for shooting an elephant it would be an irrefutable life sentence. This prompted Charles to ask the obviously tongue in cheek, yet still somehow pertinent question, "so do animals get the vote here?".

Beware the Pumba

Slightly unrelated, but in our only other venture to a Botswana drinking hole, we learned about "the power". Essentially a description of the disinhibiting effect of drinking alcohol, particularly when related to the southern African beer, marketed at the working class, Carling Black Label. "It's like when you have a novel sitting in front of you, where you can't make out the words and the letters are all jumbled. But then you have 'the power' and the words start to make sense and now you can read the novel. Then with that confidence you can now talk to that girl that you couldn't before".