Take On Africa

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Kananga to Lac Mukamba Kananga had enough distractions to keep me occupied for a couple of days – a quiet hotel, a small restaurant across the road selling good local food and beer, and an internet café. The first day I spent drinking. The second day I spent searching the town for my map which [...]

Tchikapa to Kananga – 286km in 4 days Diamonds and wetsuits I rested for the day in Tchikapa. A busy town. Dusty streets lined with small market stalls run by locals selling local produce – fruit and vegetables. Then there are the large buildings with clean compounds and glass-fronted shops – run by foreigners buying [...]

Kikwit to Tchikapa – 343km in 5 days Kikwit – shit, leave quick Always happy to arrive in a town – Good food, cold drinks, a bed, a shower… Usually happier to be leaving town – peace, and quiet, less hassle, good views, fresh air. Kikwit was no exception. The hotel, once a luxury establishment; [...]

It’s nearly the end of 2010 and I’ve just hit 20,000km – time for some more statistics. Now according to my original plan, I should be in Cape Town by now, having covered that far. But the best thing about plans, like rules, they’re made to be broken. So Happy Christmas all. Greetings from Livingstone, [...]

Chapter 1 – Entering the Congo One way to enter the Democratic Republic of Congo is at Kinshasa, by taking a boat from Brazzaville in the Republic of Congo. The boat crossing takes only 20 minutes. It will only be 20 minutes late leaving. Sometimes it is good to wait. You will spend five minutes [...]

90km after Kikwit and the tarmac ended. Abruptly. From smooth asphalt to shocking deep sand. And just at that point it chucked it down with rain. Sheltering in a local hut until it subsided I then spent a good while pushing my bike alongside the truck tracks that are the road in the slightly less [...]

Six days after leaving Kinshasa, cycling 500km on a good tarmac road, and I’ve arrived in Kikwit. It may have been a good surface but the endless hills and scorching sun made it tough enough! Apart from a couple of minor incidents (one corrupt non-official wanting money and screaming villagers chasing me) it’s been an [...]

Here are some photos from the latest part of the journey. I travelled south from Yaounde in Cameroon through Gabon to a small town called Booue. Having drunk some dodgy water and thrown up in the middle of the town crossroads, I thought it best to leave as soon as possible. This I did by [...]

I debated a long time whether to get a bike with a Rohloff hub, or a regular dérailleur system. In the end, not knowing much about bike maintenance and being inherently lazy, the appeal of a low maintenance piece of equipment won. If, in the unlikely event something went seriously wrong and the hub had [...]

This is quite a thorough list of how the bike, panniers and racks have held up and problems I have had. Most people won’t want to read beyond this intro, which is fine. I just hope that perhaps for anyone planning a similar trip, they may find some of these notes useful in helping decide [...]