Ride For Africa

Ride For Africa has repositioned across the Atlantic and is about to start the next portion of our journey to Tanzania.  With bikes being readied, paperwork in order, and a lot of maps, we prepare to leave Dresden for the middle east and then into Africa.

Unfortunately, it's during this preparation that we have encountered our first major logistical challenge.  Due to personal and professional responsibilities, Mike will have to delay his departure on this next leg of the journey.  Although not completely unforeseen, It was not an easy decision, and came as a huge disappointment for both of us.  We have spent the past couple years planning our trip to connect Edmonton to Kilimanjaro, so it's an unfortunate reality that Mike won't be able to attend all of the ride as we had planned.

Due to the schedule of our ride and our arrival date in Tanzania, Axel will have to continue without Mike until he is able to rejoin in the coming weeks.  Anticipating the possibility of this potential conflict between the Dresden departure and other commitments, a friend of Axel's (Andreas) was organized to help out and ride Mikes bike until he is able return.

Although Mike will have to wait to realize his plans, the spirit of the ride continues!  Our goal to connect Edmonton volunteers with their overseas projects has started it's next leg and we look forward updating you along our journey!

 

Our journey from Europe started in the beautiful German city Dresden. Prior to our departure we still had to get some last minute errands done. To all the items who still needed attention we also found an issue with the water pump of one of the bikes. Great timing. After working on the bike and test riding it for months, 2 days prior to departure we have to find a new water pump for a 19 year old bike. No, no stress at all. At this point I want to thank the helpful hands of my mechanic Lutz and his team of 1a who supported me and taught me for months to better understand our bikes.

 

Of course we fixed the bike just in time and were finally able to say farewell, leaving Dresden on the 13^th of May, heading East towards the Middle East and Africa. You can imagine our excitement when we heard our tires rolling down the tarmac road parallel to the river Elbe, heading towards Prague. We decided to take the fast route all the way to Rumania as we already new parts and cities we were passing by, trying to win time for other countries like Rumania and Turkey which we heard great things of.

But before getting there we had a lovely partner following us for days on our trip. A very persistent partner, and especially for bike riders a not so welcomed associate. His or her name is RAIN. You might recall the luck we had on our Canadian leg. Oh well, late us tell you. We paid for that luck here in East Europe. We got rained upon 6 days in a row. Sometimes, really, really bad. Ultimately, NOTHING is water proof. On the positive side we enjoyed the moments of short, sunny spells and roads even more. We heard in the news of all the flooding and how this impacts tomato prices – tomatoes for the Balkan countries are like the AAA beef for Alberta – a big deal.

 

Before entering Rumania we stopped at a camp site close to the boarder, meeting up with relatives of Andreas who were camping there. The whole camp site was awaiting us as they made a big deal of our arrival and our trip. We had to tell our story many, many times after visiting a thermal bath for relaxation. We decided not to continue for the day, but instead being invited for dinner and drinks with the campers. Great evening with lots of laughs and stories, like meeting Else, who is 88 years old and still travels Europe with a camping trailer – alone! That makes our “adventure trip” to Africa look like an afternoon stroll.

 

When we entered Rumania you could feel things changes. Faces turned darkes, smells became unfamiliar, people got more curious and dogs, dogs, dogs...You would not imagine how many homeless dogs run around in Rumania. Lots of them limp as they must have gotten hit by cars, living so close to the road. A poor sight for sure. As soon as you stop they come up and see if you have any food or anything. I could comment much more on what we saw on this matter, but rather leave this to a personal talk. However, Rumania has also something else in plentiness. Churches, mountains and Castles. One famous castle, the castle of Dracula – allegedly, we should say. There is no proof that the so called Dracula Castle has anything to do with the famous Count Drag, who apparently was a very cruel ruler of his land. The castle looks very much though like you would imagine, except all the tourist shops below it which make you want to leave right away. Which we did, keeping in mind that we wanted to pass the transilvian mountains before hitting dark.

These rounds going up the mountains were a real treat to us. Just beautiful scenery, making us to wish that Transilvania was three times the size it was. When the mountains decreases we got close to the flats of the river Donau. We tried to find a secret tip we have got. Some mud vulcanos in the last tips of Transilvania. After asking a priest at a beautiful church, high up the river, we found the amazing road going up to the Vulcanos. It has nothing to do with a vulcanco, but sure looks like it. You see all those mud holes where gas bubbles come up and start forming vulcano sizes hills. Looks really bizarre and reminds you of the moon. Sure was an amazing site. As it turned dark we decided to stay at the hostel close by, which was in the middle of no where.

Next day we continued our trip throng Rumania, visiting areas which had in the past lots of German influence. A lot of cities still have a German name and they have fantastic old city centres which invited us for some sight seeing, on foot!

After already spending 3 days in Rumania we decided to hit East and cross to the Bulgarian Boarder close to the Black Sea. Before that we took again some back country road going parallel to the boarder. Again, this was a great choice. Like always, taking back country roads has been the best choice to understand a country and the people. The life on the road has still lots of medieval character. All life seems to happen there. People just sit outside, watch the scarce traffic and hope to catch somebody for a chat. You see lots of animals on the roads, from horses, cows, dogs, geese to pigs...you name it, they are on the road. Even horse carriages still seem to be a very popular means of transportation. Nice to see, but for a bike rider it means paying even more attention to the riding.

 

When we crossed into Bulgaria, the immigration officers sure liked to check out our bikes. As we picked a boarder crossing far away from the beaten track we were likely the attraction of the day. When the immigration officer tried to start my bike without asking me (how could he, we did not speak any same language) I showed him what to do and let him push the start button and then let him hit the trottle. You should seen the smile on his face. All 4 officers stood around me and had a go, while Andreas was waiting for me and wondering from distant what “problem” Axel had with the immigraton officers.

 

Enterng Bulgaria started again with some rain. Sad truth, we got used to it. We decided to hit the Black Sea and find a empty Hotel to dry up again. Oh well, let me tell you. It was empty. We were the only guests in this East Block Hotel at the coast. They did not expect any guest at all, the receptionist and likely daughter of the owner apologized for not wearing anything proper. Looking at me in my dirty motorbike gear, made me try to explain to her that I should be apologizing. We got fed insanely and could hardly sleep after so much food and beer that we had to skip breakfast next day. We wanted to start early so we can make it to our next destination. Turkey. But before getting there, Bulgaria hit us with all it at. The roughtest tarmac road you can imagine. Not only rough, with pot holes you can hide giraffes in (as Andreas put it), but also lots, lots and lots of turns and ups and down. I seriously felt slightly sick when we finally hit the boarder to Turkey. On our way there we passed a old camper van on this 90 km stretch and two cyclists on their way from London to Africa. I bet, they will have this road in fund memory. Just horrible. But hey, that is why we are here for :-).

 

Customs was easy and we entered Turkey in the afternoon. What a difference. The roads where like diamonds and people were very, very friendly and curious. We liked it right away and new that the next days should be awesome. As we lost some time due to the heavy rain over the last days we tried to get as far as possible on this day, making it the longest riding day, spending hours 8 hours riding time on the saddle, until we hit the Dardanellen, the Sea Passage South of Constantinopolis (Istanbul). We decided not to enter Constantinopolis (Instanbul) to save us more time for more back country roads to get to know the country better. With looking over the Ocean Passage, seeing Asia, we are positive this will be the right choice for the next days.

 

Thanks for followng....