The Trans Africa Cycle / About

The Trans Africa is a bicycle tour  across Africa from the Atlantic Ocean in Namibia to the Indian Ocean in Tanzania. It is about a  6000 km in all.

Adventure it seems is becoming more competitive, more managed, more something to flaunt. Consumer tourists aspire for the Condé Nast exotica with their infinity pools and distinctive menus. Adventure tourists enroll more and more for well managed activities in a sterilized bubble of reliability. The significance of historic buildings, religious edifices, natural wonders are irrelevant compared to the opportunity for a social media post – “don’t I look sophisticated in front of this meaningless cathedral” I am not saying people are losing their curiosity, or travelling for the wrong reasons but there is continuing trend of one-upmanship and name dropping in travel now fed by glossy magazines, travel shows and social media. 

On the other hand amongst us there were among our fathers and grandfathers the cutting edge of modern adventurers, The Reinhold Messner’s of the mountains. The Hannes Lindemann and Oskar Speck of the kayakers. The lone Polar explorers of the 1990s. The Jacques Cousteau’s of deep sea exploration divers. The Wilfred Thesiger of the deserts, The Thor Hyerdal of the Oceans. And these revered adventurers stood on the shoulders of great historic explorers like Marco Polo, Columbus, Livingston, Namsen and many, many others.  And now we have some truly remarkable climbers, kayakers, paragliders, divers who are totally pushing the boundaries of exploration – and they are doing it for their own curiosity, in the spirit of learning about nature and themselves and they are generally doing it quietly and without fanfare. I am not in this camp.  I aspire to be but I have been too cautious and soft and now old to join them but they are my heroes, 

Some of the highest levels of adventure must be the now competitive record-seeking ascent of all the world’s fourteen 8000m mountains. It will always remain an unimaginably hard feat and just for supreme athletes. A lesser, but still exceptionally hard feat is the 7 summits, the challenge to climb the 7 highest points on each of the continents. Climbing most of these summits is awe inspiring, especially Everest, Denali and Vinson, but they are becoming very commercialised. It wont be long before you can simply pay, turn up, clip your jumar onto the rope for a week, reach the summit, helicopter back to the capital for a cultural show before returning home. In the process there is no curiosity, no exploration, no cultural interaction, and dare I say it, no adventure or certainly nothing in the Spirit of Adventure. It is a package tour, albeit an extreme one, unless you are Jelle Veyt who is very commendably doing it all under his own steam, starting from his home in Belgium.

My cycle across Africa is an antidote to this culture of conquest. It is one of 7 adventures which you guessed it right is one on each continent. Not the 7 summits but the 7 adventures. The nature of these adventures are quite subjective but one thing they all have in common is a long, candid, immersive journey where the nature and culture of the continent are show-cased before you. There are no sponsorship deals, no ostentation, no publicity. Instead the journeys should be made quietly without fanfare and with a degree of humbleness. The aim of the journey is to let the continent’s nature and culture absorb you so you learn from it and let it quench your curiosity. The journey is not to conquer the continent but to gain an understanding of it. It should be a spiritual journey like that of a wandering sannyasin

This I think is best done at a snail’s pace when you are submerged into it for months either on your own or in a very small team. In my case I can never find anyone else to put up with the relative hardships or find the time to commit so it is often on my own. This is with the exception of the Great Himalaya Trail in Nepal which I did with my Nepali friend Bharat and two superb porters, Ramesh and Santos and the Pacific Crest Trail where I often overlapped with fellow hikers for a day or five. The ethos of the journey is that it should be pure. That is unsullied by modern transport and all under one’s own steam going slowly enough to absorb what is going on in the natural and cultural landscape you are going through. It is like a pilgrimage or spiritual journey and any intrusion by motorized transport blemishes it. It distracts from the rhythm and lets the humdrum of the world, from which we temporarily withdraw, intrude again. Once this happens it is easy for the spiritual pilgrimage to run into the sand and the journey becomes quite profane again, like a consumer holiday. Ideally the travel should be on foot, or ski or by kayak. 

My project is to submerge myself into the nature and culture of each continent by doing a long modest trip on each one across the best that continent can offer. An expedition to showcase that continent. I have already done 4 continents, North America, Asia, Europe and Antarctica and these are all described on this Website under the links

https://www.baxternature.com/pct/, 

https://www.baxternature.com/nepal-ght/ ,

https://www.baxternature.com/mad/ and

https://www.baxternature.com/southpole/. 

This Africa trip will be the fifth continent and the route I have chosen is the one which I feel will showcase the best natural and cultural landscapes and allow me to do the journey unimpeded by unrest. I had considered other alternatives like from Lalibela in Ethiopia through South Sudan, Uganda, Tanzania and then Malawi but there is too much potential for disruption here. It was suggested to me by a few Africa aficionados and then I came across a book “Traversa” by Fran Sandham who not only did roughly this same route entirely on foot, but also wrote a hilarious account of it. After reading Fran’s book it became obvious this was the jist of the route for me. 

The trip will pass through 5 countries, Namibia,  Botswana. Southern Zambia, Western Malawi and Tanzania. I will cycle about 1300 km through each of the first three countries and about 1000 km through each of the last two making a total of around 6000 km in all with about 30,000 metres of ascent and descent. My intention is to cycle on the smaller 4 wheel drive tracks through rural villages and avoid the large roads, especially the tarmac ones and also avoid the towns and cities. But following the smaller 4 wheel drive tracks will also take me into game reserves and National Parks more frequently and I will have to avoid these areas to keep more exciting wildlife encounters to a minimum. The exact route will no doubt develop as I walk and hear local information about the trail ahead, but my rough route through each of the 5 countries will be 

To view the route in a zoomable map of my intended route in Namibia click HERE. This opens a map in a new page and you will have to click the “back” button to retirn to this page.

To view the route in a zoomable map of my intended route in Botswana click HERE. This opens a map in a new page and you will have to click the “back” button to retirn to this page.

To view the route in a zoomable map of my intended route in Zambia click HERE. This opens a map in a new page and you will have to click the “back” button to retirn to this page.

To view the route in a zoomable map of my intended route in Malawi click HERE. This opens a map in a new page and you will have to click the “back” button to retirn to this page.

To view the route in a zoomable map of my intended route in Tanzania click HERE. This opens a map in a new page and you will have to click the “back” button to retirn to this page.

 

Through much of Namibia I will be in the very tail end of the hot, humid wet season of April. In Botswana, in May, I will encounter the start of the dry season and more pleasant temperatures. I should be in Zambia for June and Malawi for July and during these months the climate should be dry and pleasant and the same in Tanzania in August. Despite being at the end of the rainy season in Namibia April, and then Botswana in May, I will still be passing through some very arid landscapes where water is scarce. Due to this I will have to carry 2-3 days at a time and that is up to 15 litres.  All this has to be carried on the bicycle in addition to all the other camping, repair, medical, electronic equipment, and also food which may all total another 30 kg. 

To learn more about the trip preparation and also to read about it as it unfolds please go to the “blog” page where I will post updates as they are written.