Bike touring East Africa

a publication of ADVENTURE CYCLING ASSOCIATION

THE CONGO

NOTHING COMES EASY IN

$6.95

DEC 2018/JAN 2019 Vol.45 No.9

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contents

VOLUME 45 ∞ NUMBER 9

ADVENTURECYCLING.ORG

DECEMBER 2018/JANUARY 2019

is America’s only magazine dedicated to bicycle travel. It is published nine times each year by Adventure Cycling Association, a nonprofit service organization for recreational bicyclists.

Individual membership costs $45 yearly to U.S. addresses and includes a subscription to Adventure Cyclist and discounts on Adventure Cycling maps.

For more information about Adventure Cycling Association and Adventure Cyclist magazine, visit adventurecycling.org or call 800.755.2453.

SUBMISSIONS INFORMATION:

Adventure Cyclist accepts stories, articles, and photographs for publication. Learn more at adventurecycling.org/submit.

OUR COVER: A self-portrait of the photographer momentarily beaten by the red-sand desert in the southern Congo.

Photo by Nicolás Marino.

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DEPARTMENTS 08 Waypoints 34 Cyclesense 43 Geared Up 50 Donor Profile

ROAD TEST: TREK 520 The classic gets an update. $1,680

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RIDING PAST THE EDGE OF INSTAGRAM 10

ONE VISA, THREE COUNTRIES 24

➺ Escaping the influence of

➺ A single visa opens up an

influencers on a South African gravel adventure.

by Tom Robertson

NOTHING COMES EASY IN THE CONGO 18 ➺ There’s touring off the

beaten path, and then there’s the Congo. On his roundthe-world ride, a photographer heads into the heart of Africa.

by Nicolás Marino

incredible array of landscapes and cultures in East Africa.

by Janick Lemieux and Pierre Bouchard

DIXIE DIRT 44 ➺ The West gets the press,

but the Southeast offers bikepacking on an epic scale.

by Ellee Thalheimer

52 Marketplace/Classifieds 58 Companions Wanted 59 Open Road Gallery

LETTERS 03 LETTER from the Editor 05 LETTERS from our Readers 06 LETTER from the Director

COLUMNS 30 T ravels with Willie Willie Weir Reflections of a Bike Tour Guide: The Life 36 Road Test Alex Strickland Trek 520 40 Road Test Nick Legan Tout Terrain Scrambler GT

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Clockwise from top left: Happy to be back on pavement along the Marsabit-Isiolo Road in northern Kenya; One of Rwanda’s “Thousand Hills” on the outskirts of Nyungwe Forest National Park; A pair of Samburu brothers share a bike on a Sunday commute; Exploring Samburu country on its sweet and untamed laterite clay lanes; A “proper” taxi ride in eastern Rwanda; Packing up under watchful eyes on the Mau Escarpment, Kenya; Team work in eastern Rwanda; Traditional Turkana dome-shaped houses thatched with doum palm tree fronds; A Samburu entrepreneur selling traditional jewelery at the Maralal market in Kenya.

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Glorious stretches of the Congo Nile Trail snaking above Lake Kivu in Rwanda. The northern section features dirts tracks of all widths while the southern half, just paved by Chinese contractors, is a world-class mountain road.

aribu! Karibu sana!” said the officer in command of this remote border outpost, welcoming us. We had gotten our passports stamped by the Ethiopian soldiers 20 kilometers to the north and were riding into Kenya through an otherworldly realm — Lake Turkana country. The border crossing is a perilous one that consists of following a shifting track skirting the Omo River delta where it joins the alkaline waters of Lake Turkana, a.k.a. the Jade Sea, among the desolate, dusty, and sweltering bosom of the Great Rift. It sure makes for a very lonesome 20-kilometer no-man’s-land.

Except for low-key commercial ventures or courtesy visits between local Turkana and Dassanech tribes — sometimes less courteous ones in retaliation for cattle raids, a not-so-rare occurrence among these seminomadic herders competing for pastures in this arid land — most of the traffic nowadays, sporadic and sparse as can be, is composed of long-distance cyclists and a few foolhardy motorized overlanders. Indeed, the appalling condition of the road leading from the town of Kitale over Marich Pass and down the Rift to this northwesternmost corner of Kenya, left to rot since the early

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1980s, along with the lack of services in case of extremely likely mechanical breakdowns, deters transcontinental motorists.

Thrilled to attempt this border crossing, we trusted in a GPX track shared by a northbound German rider we had met in the Sinai who had just ridden it himself, guided by a similar file he had received by email from another two-wheeled traveler — some interconnectedness and solidarity among the adventure cycling community.

“It’s too late to keep on going to the Catholic mission of Todonyang so you will stay with us tonight. You can camp inside our compound, it’s safe — don’t mind the scorpions! We’ll bring you some water to wash and cook. Let’s look at your passports tomorrow, no rush. Anyways, you’ll have to report to Eldoret’s immigration office, south of Kitale, more than 500 kilometers

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KENYA (INFO ON EAST AFRICA TOURIST VISA) magicalkenya.com/visit-kenya/visainformation/east-africa-tourist-visa/

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EAST AFRICA TOURIST VISA Initiated in 2014 by Kenya, Uganda, and Rwanda, the East Africa Tourist Visa (EATV) is a nonextendable 90-day multipleentry ticket to these countries. At $100, the visa represents a cheaper alternative to getting an entry permit for each of the three countries and also saves time at borders. Given the geography of the region with its many road links, the multiple-entry component is very convenient. Applications have to be filled and paid for through one of the three countries. This process will determine where you enter the region.

Embassies and Consulates of Kenya, Uganda, and Rwanda can all process the visa and provide additional info about valid visa-onarrival entry points. Uganda and Rwanda offer online registration, but not Kenya.

Rumor has it that one day both Tanzania and Burundi will join the initiative.

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RWANDA E-SERVICES (EATV ONLINE FORM) irembo.gov.rw/rolportal/web/dgie/eastafrica-tourist-visa

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Above: Filling up fuel bottles in northwestern Kenya.

Below: Making friends in the village of Tepis, high above the Great Rift Valley on the Mau Escarpment, one of Kenya’s breadbaskets.

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away, for this is the closest place where you’ll get your entry stamp.

Good night!” The officer retired to his concrete apartment and sent his daily report over VHF radio waves: two Canadians on pushbikes just made it out of Ethiopia — over.

With the current state of the road, a mere succession of sand traps and corrugated dirt rapids scattered with myriad elevated islands of asphalt, and brief stopovers in the towns of Lodwar and Kitale along the way, our sojourn in this no-man’s-land lasted 10 days. “Hakuna matata!” the saying goes here in Swahili, one of Kenya’s two official languages and East Africa’s lingua franca. “No worries!”

Thus we chose to enter this backdoor into Kenya, an entry stamp finally adorning our East Africa tourist visas (see box). These tickets to the gems and wonders of three amazing countries — Kenya, Uganda, and Rwanda — filled our hearts and minds with prospects of infinitely diverse journeys and serendipitous itineraries. And the adventure had only just started!

As our current exploration project is sending us pedaling to nomadic peoples who herd, gather, hunt, and wander between Europe’s northernmost and Africa’s southernmost points, NOMADS2 cycling odyssey, we had a plan for our itinerary through Kenya, Uganda, and Rwanda: paying a visit to Turkana, Pokot, Maasai, and Samburu pastoralists as well as Twa Pygmies, “former” hunters and gatherers of the equatorial montane forests. But, beware, the possibilities of venturing on bikes within the borderless borders of East Africa tourist visa countries are as numerous as they are varied, not to mention rewarding! Here is a selection of moments and scenes from our ride among the dizzying landscapes and cultures of this colorful and extremely congenial corner of Africa.

Janick Lemieux and Pierre Bouchard have been patrolling our planet on their bikes since 1990. On a quest for scenes and stories, they’re currently pedaling among the nomadic peoples wandering between Europe’s northermost point and Africa’s southern tip: NOMADS2 cycling odyssey. Learn more at nomadsxnomads.com.

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