Today was more of the same unpaved roads as yesterday and overall more descent than ascent. For the manyth time on this trip, I caught myself desiring those brake levers which lie inline with the normal drop brake levers but are placed on the top of the handlebar. It is quite tiring to have to use the drop position for prolonged periods and my advice to future riders on a cyclocross bike would be to definitely bring those. (Paul, a returning rider who wasn't able to complete the tour last year, has added such levers to his bike in the interim year.)

There were a few moments going down the descent where I lost control. This was usually when my speed picked up over terrain rough enough to mean I couldn't process the road ahead fast enough and I realise that the road is approaching faster than I can react to it. In all of these cases I was able to gain control quickly, mainly by braking. A couple of times while in this mode my hands flew off the bars as my bike hit protruding rocks and I had to struggle to regain my grip. This is a recipe for danger and my brakes are usually partially enabled whilst descending most hills on dirt.

My once pristine bottle, new in Nairobi, is now a mess - scraped and blackened, having been ejected from its home in my bike's bottle cage as my bike and I ride over rough terrain. These ejections are quite an exciting sight, the bottle usually bounces just once before settling with a resounding THWACK. As it settles, the lid usually pops off, flying several metres off across the road. The contents of the bottle, usually red energy drink, empty themselves onto the road in the shape of a flame from the mouth of the bottle. Normally I notice fairly quickly but when this happened for the third time today, I noticed after a 50 metre (vertical) descent and was preparing to walk back up the hill when another rider, Paul, appeared at the top. Pausing to pick up my bottle, he delivered it to me at the bottom = much appreciated!

It was cloudy this morning which meant breaking out the yellow sunglass lenses (increased definition of the road in lower light). The clouds usually mean increased humidity and I was definitely sweating intensely, drinking 7.5 litres of water the entire day (similar to our days in Sudan). There was nearly as much climbing as yesterday - another sweat inducing way to spend the day.

The northern Kenyan road is meant to be the toughest unpaved road of the trip but I'd like to contend that observation. Whilst most of the last couple of days have been relatively straightforward rocky double track, the Tanzanian road today had several severely sandy sections. The road in Kenya was tough but rideable and occasionally fun. This road was not fun, did not cause any adrenalin release and it was extremely hard work. At times, the sand was multiple inches thick, swallowing your tyre. At some points, forward motion was almost impossible and most riders had to dismount (having been forced to by the sand stopping their bikes) and walk for a few metres to find somewhere more steady to push off on.

The worst part of it was that it was at the end of the day. Usually you can push through sand but it requires a lot of energy. At the end of the third day, the day after a mando-day (which was actually easier than today's ride), there was no energy left. Camp was a welcome relief today and I genuinely fear for my EFI status if the road tomorrow is similarly sandy.

(You should note that the road hasn't always been so sandy, it was merely corrugated in the past and had sand dumped on it to make it smoother for vehicles. Hmph.)

When we were on school ski trips, our teachers used to always say in our safety briefing that most accidents happen on either the first or last day of a trip because people are overconfident. Certainly this truth seemed to exhibit itself yesterday when on our first day of the second half I was hit by a truck.

The journey out of Arusha was at the peak of the Tanzanian rush hour on a Friday morning. For under ten kilometres we were riding through heavy traffic and riding the wave of adrenalin, I filtered through lines of cars, jeeps, buses and trucks with several other riders. As we approached a junction where a sideroad was joining our road, a truck was emerging slowly. It stopped, edged forwards a bit and then stopped again. Foolishly, assuming the truck had now stopped, I continued forward on our road, with right of way. The truck edged forwards again, pushing me+bike sideways onto the ground. Luckily it didn't advance any further and there was no real damage apart from a couple of bent (possibly fractured) bottle cages.

The driver of the truck came out and apologised profusely. I assume he simply didn't take notice of me. Lesson learnt and I'll yield more often to the African traffic. I took the rest of the day slowly, riding with Erin and Ruben. The paved road was to end at 80 kilometres but the TDA notes must be out of date since we happily rolled all the way to camp (105km) on some variety of pavement.

That afternoon I fixed the remaining issues with my bike, replacing the rear brake cable (oh does it feel good to have full control over the bike again) and redid my handlebar tape which has failed to cover about 20% of my handlebar since our first section of dirt in Sudan. Realising that we would have a significant amount of free time, with the help of some of the other riders, I devised a survey which we're going to ask every rider on the tour. Questions range from useful information for future riders to plain ol' information which is probably not so useful. Keep your eyes peeled for the results.

I slept for nearly 9 hours which seems to have helped my legs regain their speed. Today was a fast day and we hit the dirt road at 4.4km from camp. Thankfully it wasn't as hardcore as the Northern Kenya 'road' and my bike liked it. My body too was relatively happy with the amount of jarring through the handlebars (although I may be swapping gloves tomorrow to prevent a hole being worn into my palms). I started off early and was overtaken about 30km in by Frans (today's stage winner), Simon and Jethro. Just before lunch Gisi and Stuart overtook me.

After lunch, I was overtaken by noone, which was a welcome relief. Maintaining my pace to camp, the only annoyances of the day was the enormous dust clouds that the lorries and buses kicked up as they overtook us. Normally the clouds fade quickly but the sand or dust here is much finer than that we've seen previously. As a result, the air stays a sort of cloudy emulsion for tens of seconds, making it impossible to see (and irritating your eyes) and hard to breath. This is worsened on uneven downhills which require eyesight to navigate safely at any speed.

The second annoyance was being called a 'mzungu', Swahili for white person. I understand that the children here may not be well educated but surely they're able to distinguish between skin colour. (Perhaps mzungu is a general byword for foreigner but I'm a pedant for accuracy.)

The day was quite hilly, involving a fair climb on dirt - this counted as a mando-day, our fouth of the Tour so far. At on point the climb reached a 15% gradient and on that ascent I stood up to try and get enough power to move forwards. I slipped into a sandy rut at this point and my rear wheel lost traction. It wouldn't stop spinning enough for me to roll out of the rut and I had to unclip from my pedals quickly in order to avoid falling.

Looking at the actual ascent, it was under 1200 metres. Supposedly the ascent combined with the dirt made this stage difficult enough to be considered a mando-day. Personally, I don't find there is much difference between ascending on tarmac and on dirt - the speed difference might be a single kmph or so but proportionally this is much less. E.g., on a flat road on tarmac you could be travelling at 30kmph, versus 20kmph on dirt, a 50% speed difference. Climbing a hill, you (or I, because I suck at hills) could be doing 12kmph, versus 10kmph on dirt, a 20% speed difference.

Faith by Limp Bizkit shuffled around as I was grinding up the biggest single climb of 600 metres today, inadvertantly gifting me with a new climbing motto - 'get the f*** up'.

P.S. Happy Belated Birthday to Chirag, sorry for not sending a message sooner!

The mosquitos are unusually fierce here in and around Arusha. Within the last three days, I've accumulated at least twenty mosquito bites. We've been off the bikes for three days, resting in the official half way stop of the TDA. Previously I've commented about how rest days seem to go annoyingly quickly, filled with chores and other menial errands. This time, although we had much more time, about half the group elected to go on safari - I was part of a smaller group of 11 that went on a three day camping safari (although three day is a stretch, it was more like two and a half day). We left at 9am on the first day rest day and returned today on the third rest day at about 3pm.

I'm not going to go into huge detail since it's late and the photos will say far more about the safari better than I can! We visited three separate areas over the three days-
Lake Manyara National Park
The safari here was great - unlike anywhere I've been before. We saw lots of elephants and most of the big game (no lions, rhinos or cheetahs). Vegetation is very dense here so it's harder to spot animals. The area isn't huge.

Ngorongoro Crater Conservation Area
Unbelievable views. We camped on the rim of the crater and took a game drive through the crater itself. The park is pretty busy (I can imagine it getting a bit too crowded in high season) but there are plenty of animals to see. In our single game drive we saw:
- Flamingos
- Rhinos
- Hippos
- Elephants
- Giraffes
- Impalas
- Lions
- Hyenas
- Stalks
- Warthogs
- Baboons
- Meercats
- Mongoose
- Zebras
- Wildebeast
- Buffalo
In addition, I tried a new challenge - to rate limit myself to eating a biscuit every twelve minutes. This wasn't as easy as I thought and I had to stop after 18 biscuits because my stomach was uncomfortable. (Eating them in one go is very easy though - today I managed 20 biscuits without a pause.)
We spent most of the afternoon lying down in the shade under a big tree in our campsite. Awesome.

Tarangire National Park
A pretty big park but we didn't have time to explore it fully. Did almost get charged by an elephant and quite a few bites from the tsetse fly.

Overall the safari was excellent fun. The tents were hilariously old school and heavy but you could at least stand up fully in them. We didn't do much besides sitting around and getting bitten by insects so it was a good way to rest. Onwards now for the second half and the remaining 55% of the continent.

It just happened, sorry.
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Sorry for the lack of updates, the days preceding Nairobi and the two days afterwards were just busy! The ride out of Nanyuki to Sagana was beautiful - no rain and it was mainly a descent all the way into camp - nice and fast. The campsite (the Mike Savage camp) was very lush, peaceful (save for the persistent lawnmower that we could hear but not see) and to top it off, was a base for white water rafting down the River Tana.

Having never rafted before, and eager to use the full coverage of my travel insurance policy, I signed up (paying possibly slightly too much) for the three hour afternoon trip. I spent about two hours prior to the trip trying and failing to fix a puncture that I managed to get on the way into the camp. At first I was certain the patch was not on properly, took the tube out and repatched it. As I was pumping that up, air appeared to be leaking from the valve. The pump was on the truck and it took several hard trips up the short but steep incline to get to it each time. Finally, Jerry (one of the new British riders) stepped in and we discovered a hole about half a centimetre across. Observing my frustration, Jerry went ahead and put a new rear tube in for me - legend.

The rafting wasn't as death defying as I had hoped, nor as controlled. It seemed like the raft pretty much was constantly spinning and we gave it little direction. Sure there were a few situations where we fell out of the raft and were washed into relatively sharp rocks, but nothing that would have made me fear for my life. There weren't too many rapids either (maybe two or three good sections) so we spent a few times riding the first big rapid. At first I didn't want to fall out but once the raft flipped for the first time and we all flew overboard, it wasn't so bad. There are a few seconds where you're disoriented under the water and are desperately trying to figure out which way is the surface. The buoyancy aid kicks in though and you quickly surface and are dragged out of the way by the fast underwater current. It got a bit cold later in the trip because the sun was on its way West, the only disadvantage of the late afternoon trip. All-in-all it was good fun and I'm just happy my shoulder stayed in.

The next day was complicated, made more complicated by the fact we had missed the rider meeting explaining the extent of the complication. Our trip into Nairobi was to take a partial convoy on the part of the road with the heaviest traffic. To avoid doing a convoy the entire way, the route was extended to take us around the central areas, making the day 137km in total. In addition to the distance, there was also a fair amount of climbing (total ascent was 1550m).

Our route into Nairobi took us down the main highway, passing Thika. 25km into the highway, we stopped for lunch and the convoy began. In order to keep the group moving, we had three smaller convoys - I was lucky to make it into the first convoy. It was mayhem, as expected. Matatus (unofficial public transport in the form of overloaded minibuses) would swerve across our lane, or even try and pull out into the middle of the convoy. Once a 4x4 driver pulled across the front of the convoy and then stopped - his window was open and he received his fair share of verbal abuse from the riders! Soon enough though, we made it into town and down some beautiful roads, one of which contained many embassies. We passed close to my aunt's house and then rode through the city to a suburb called Karen where the campsite was located, reaching just before 2pm.

After my uncle picked me up, we went in search of the much acclaimed proper bike shop. Surprisingly it was a proper bike shop - full of high end bicycle supplies. Their stock wasn't amazing (apparently there had recently been a big event) but I managed to pick up a new (narrower) saddle and a new bottle cage. After this we went to Diamond Plaza where I had intended to get a shave. One thing led to another and I ended up with a haircut, the style of which is known as a 'tucco' - courtesy of my uncle. That evening my uncle, aunt, cousin and I feasted at their home - genuine home cooked Indian food and about 8 scoops of icecream. Beautiful.

The next day I had a massage (wonderful) and sorted out everything - cleaning my tent, bags, clothes, and bike. We went shopping, picked up a bottle of Amarula for safari, and fixed my watch! I also got to open the bag full of spare parts and goodies sent from London with my parents, with the effect that I now have the following:
- 10 Dairy Milk Crunch
- 2 Twix
- 5 Snickers
- 27 Nine Bars
- 17 Protein Bars
- 1 pack of Chocolate Digestives
- TicTacs
- 5lbs of Whey Protein
That afternoon I packed all this away (worrying all the time that it wouldn't fit in my locker - surprisingly it fits very well), met with some friends and feasted again on egg chapatis. Courtesy of my relatives at Mjengo Ltd (Anuj and Raj), we also took delivery of about 6,000 biscuits which were donated to the tour. Feedback so far has been positive - people love the biscuits. The time in Nairobi was too short (or at least too busy). I'll be back in May though!

The next day was a long (157km) day to Namanga, the Kenyan border town with Tanzania. All was going well until sometime after lunch where the newly constructed road we were unofficially using suddenly became wet tar. In retrospect we should have stopped instantly and moved off the road but we kept going. Luckily we didn't fall (as quite a few riders did) but our bikes and limbs quickly became covered in sticky, wet, tar. I could barely hold my handlebars, drink water, or eat an energy bar since my hands were so sticky and it felt unpleasant. Crucially, the brand new drive train I had just installed was now covered in sticky, wet, tar. Mentally it felt like a bit like riding into a wall - having spent the entire day previously cleaning my bike and clothes, only to have that veneer of cleanliness destroyed within half a day.

This slowed me down a lot and I was glad to reach camp. The only way to remove tar from yourself and bike is to use some kind of fuel - there was a jerry can of petrol which people were using to wipe themselves down. Something, either the massive petrol exposure or perhaps the egg chapatis the night before, made me feel quite ill - exhausted, unable to move and nauseous. When dinner rolled round, I wasn't able to eat much at all, and as usually happens on the worst days of the tour, I had dish duty. I managed to clean some of the tar from my bike but they quickly ran out of petrol.

Waking up the next day, compounding the effects of my unpleasant day previous, I had a puncture. Taking the tube out, it had a puncture near the valve - irrepairable. I was the last rider out of camp but managed to catch the group up at the border post to Tanzania. Rolling out of the border post, I forgot to scan my iButton (our timing device) and 2 kilometres later, had to turn around and go back. Great!

The rest of the day was as dreary and I severely lacked speed - either as an effect of not eating enough or because of the layer of tar on my drive train. Reaching Arusha at 3pm was a relief (EFI for another day) requiring five energy bars throughout the day just to sustain me. Arusha is a pretty built up place and Tanzania is much like Kenya. The scenery is beautifully green and we were treated to a great view of Mount Kilomanjaro on the way. Now we stop in Arusha for 3 days before we reach the official half way point of the tour. By my own statistics, we've only covered 45% of the distance (this was, presumably, because of the harder climbing and offroad days in Ethiopia and Kenya) so there is a bit of catching up to do. (Sneak preview: one of the weeks later on is at least 160km *every* day.)

I can never hold these steadily.
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Rain
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Some crazy beings crawling around in the grass.
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