Tour de Tuli
Trip Start
Jan 01, 2009
1
2
Trip End
Ongoing
Tuli, Zimbabwe
Monday, August 3, 2009
Aug 3
5 a.m. departure from the hotel for a 6 a.m. bus ride - the goal being to reach the Botswana border before it closes at 4 p.m. Two buses packed with riders - mostly strangers, mostly white South Africans, left for a five hour drive north. Met a headmaster of a school near Cape Town, who almost immediately offered to see us next time we're in the area. Love that.
The border crossing was an adventure - you get off the bus, get stamped out of South Africa (the first sloooooow line), grab your bike and jump on a massive truck that looks like something out of Mad Max to be taken a kilometer across the Limpopo River, which was running about waist high. Then a second, even slower line to get into Botswana, where a lady in a bumblebee costume went sauntering across. Remember, we're in the middle of nowhere. Fantastic. We made the 4 p.m. cutoff by 30 minutes, but knew there were heaps of folks behind us. We later heard that South Africa agreed to keep their border open until 5, but Bots really wanted to go home at 4 - risking the chance of folks being stuck between countries. I'm sure it would never happen.....mostly.
Our first camp was in the Limpopo airfield - quite a sight with individual tents for 300+ people (270 riders plus volunteers and staff) and a large mess tent that glowed amber in the dark. They served us a fine dinner while we listened to the head of Botswana tourism, a rather effective - if casual - public speaker who tossed in random risque jokes from time to time, usually regarding the size of his manhood. He got the loudest ovation I've ever seen a tourism official receive.
We met our fellow group members at camp - the ride is broken down into 13 groups: Group 1 are the elite guys (they would clock something like 40km per hour one day - we did 10-15km by comparison), Groups 2-12 are 'intermediate' (though we found that to be a wide, wide swath of skills) and the final group of beginners called the Game Viewers (partially to avoid 13, apparently, but also to clarify exactly what their pace would be). We're Group 9, led by Richard. Only later would we learn that last year's Group 9 leader actually died on his bike on last year's ride. Gulp. (Terribly sad story, but not as frightening as where a creative imagination run amok might take it - though a fit man by all accounts, he had a heart attack on the ride and rode straight into a tree on 8/8/08. He hadn't been feeling well for a couple of days, and others encouraged him to rest, but he wanted to press on. They've created an award that's given in his honor at the end of the ride.)
Tents are organized by group, so you end up spending virtually all day and night with the same bunch of folks. Fortunately, we won the group lottery, as you'll see. Richard cleverly started an email thread two weeks before departure, so while we're all technically strangers, loose rapport had begun to build.
For someone who often can't sleep properly if her husband/security blanket isn't around, I love LOVE having my own tent. I'm 9 years old again, relishing in my little tent kingdom. Even better that Jim is next door, so I get the best of both worlds.
Aug 4
Our first day's ride was 80km of pure paradise. The daily schedule was the same each ride day: Wake at 5:15 or so in the dark, gear up and get the bags and mattress out of the tent by 6 a.m. so they could be moved to the next camp, load up on carbs (good hot porridge - it's bloody cold in the mornings), then leave around 7, after dawn. Except that Jim and I heard the wrong time on the first day and our group left without us while we were in the loo. We temporarily joined Group 11, which coincidentally contained a good friend of our friend/guide Gavin - but I avoided introducing myself to him as I didn't want his first impression to be 'Hi! We're the schmucks who can't apparently understand a clock, and our fabulous new teammates love us so much they've ditched us already, and so we're just going to latch onto you here.' As luck would have it, we came across Group 9 just 5 minutes later, as one of them had left his camelback back in camp, and order was restored.
Glorious morning riding - spectacular bush scenery, that lovely morning light, crystal clear blue skies. I suspect I choked up once or twice at the glory of it all, but blamed it on the dust. As we hit our first patch of sand I shouted back 'uh, guys, now would be the time to tell me how to ride sand' - and they did such a good job that I was able to adjust on the fly. Our team was hit by an inordinate number of mechanical woes on the first day, which resulted in us stopping every few minutes - so often it became comical. RIght when we'd get going again we'd get a report from the rear guard that something had blown up. One member, Jean, managed to jam her derallieur into her leg on a fall, creating a serious, deep gash, and another teammate was almost hopping with glee that she could do some mid-trail surgery. Jean broke off at brunch, never to be seen on her bike again. We'd see her at camp -- apparently her husband was in the advanced group - but apparently she'd done this ride before and had never completed a full day. Huh.
In our daily briefing we were told that the area had been experiencing high elephant and lion activity. You could tell who had been in the bush before partially based on what folks feared more - the elephants or the lions. Having seen lions in the middle of the day, I felt fine that unless a) they'd been stalking you for hours - unlikely at our speed, or b) you rode so close in front of a snoozing lion that it could bring you down without moving - they're that lazy, they're not much of a problem. But I've seen a charging elephant, and as our rear guard Markus - who turned out to be the head vet at Kruger - said that the elephant is the only animal to ever chase him on bicycle. Still, seeing them from a distance (or from a vehicle) is magnificient.
We got our first game spotting a couple of hours into the ride - four giraffes in the distance, then got a lone giraffe much closer, with a rather bemused look on its face (if you'll pardon the anthropomorphizing, spelling please). At this point he'd seen ~200 cyclists in the groups ahead of us, and the route wound past and around him on three sides. As this was early in the ride we didn't realize how rare this would be, and mostly had expectations of such game viewing on a regular basis. Alas, after 200 cyclists had passed any given spot, whatever game had been in range was either scared off (most of them) or pissed off (as you'll see).
Now, when I say the first day was 80km, it was really supposed to be 70-ish, but alas our group got lost. A lot. We re-routed ourselves a minimum of five times, sometimes leading other groups astray as collateral damage. One fellow rider started referring goodnaturedly to Richard as Captain Columbus, I suspect in reference to the navigation.
At the end of the first day we passed through an area with a large herd (100+) elephant who were quite near the road, and showing signs of restlessness. To keep riders safe, the ride organizers had a truck that drove slowly past them with 10 riders at a time on its right side, where the elephants hopefully wouldn't see them. When it was our turn to go, the group adrenaline level was at the highest point of the day. You could hear and see elephants out of the corner of your eye, but needed to focus on the road and rider in front of you to stay in tight formation and couldn't lift your head to really look. Alas, we hit a patch of deep sand - a bane to any bicycle - and the rider in front of me got stuck. That forced me to stop, and as I struggled to get restarted, the truck and our group pulled away, leaving Markus and I exposed. The elephants recognized us for what we were - human intruders - and one of them charged. Three times. I only heard the charge - a very loud trumpeting - and focused on following Markus's orders of 'come-come-come-come.' I didn't look, and focused on getting the. Fuck. Out. Of. There. You're told never to run, but apparently as we were already moving it was deemed better to keep going....though the elephant easily could have run us down if she'd wanted. Later we heard that a week-old baby was in the bushes near the road, likely provoking the charge. After we rejoined the formation a quad bike pulled up alongside and asked me repeatedly if I was OK - and seemed confused when I said I was. They'd filmed the last of the three charges - and later only after seeing it did I understand why they thought I should be a bit more freaked out. When we reached camp I heard the the media guys were looking for me for an interview, and ducked them repeatedly until I was at least somewhat clean and less cranky. At our insistence they interviewed both Markus and I (at first they only wanted me, which wasn't right - Markus was closer to her and was a hero for staying with me), but I was dead tired and certainly didn't do my best interview ever. They said they wanted to do it again, but never asked - they're threatening to put it out on SuperSport - we'll see if it happens.
That night at dinner there were a series of prizes: the first were a set of drinks for the 'Biggest Prick' awards - for those who'd had punctures throughout the day. For each puncture a rider had had, they had to down a shot of what looked like tequila. They then presented a yellow "Go Huge' jersey sponsored by the local telecom - to, uh, me. I earned that puppy. They gave Markus a zebra jersey for being the hero - I'm still wondering if it would have made more sense the the other way around (unless zebras are more associated with heros than I realize).
The other days won't be this long, I assure you.
