Wednesday, 11 January 2012
10 Years of the Tour d’Afrique
Crazy, doomed, hopeless, wonderful – my first thoughts when I read about the very first Tour d’Afrique – 12,000km, four months, all the way from Cairo in Egypt to Cape Town in South Africa. It really is the Mt Everest of cycling. I didn’t realise that a few years later I’d join in the crazy caper.
◄ The Tour d’Afrique celebrates its 10th birthday with a coffee table book on the great ride.
In 2009 I entered not one, but two Lonely Planet teams to ride the TdA relay style.
We entered 16 riders from the LP offices, from our authors and from our foreign language partners. Including me, I rode the Iringa. Tanzania to Lilongwe, Malawi stage – click here for my blog on the first half of my ride and here for the second half. Or try the report from Mara Vorhees, one of our author-riders My only regret from my ride? That I couldn’t just keep going.
▲ And my favourite souvenir of the ride, this picture the Lonely Planet riders gave me.
Once while Travelling: The Lonely Planet Story