My Thoughts
Before Starting A Year-long
bike tour of africa

Today is the 17th of February and it’s the day that I leave Cape Town, South Africa and head north on my Journey to Cycle through Africa.

I just wanted to take a second to write down some of the feelings that I’m having before starting my adventure.

I’m going to be honest, I’m feeling a little nervous.

I really haven’t done a lot of training for this bike tour. In fact, I think I only went on about 15 bike rides in the past few months and prior to that, I hadn’t ridden a bike for more than a year.

I’m not a cyclist and I’ve never considered myself one. I’ve just found that a bicycle is the best way to explore the remote parts of the world that are otherwise difficult or expensive to reach.

So what am I nervous about?

Honestly, I’m nervous about travelling through South Africa. Everything I see on the news and many of the people I talk to, inform me that it’s very dangerous to be travelling alone through South Africa. With the daily power outages, corrupt governments and severe inequality, crime is extremely high at the moment.

I’ve been told to stick to main roads and not to take any shortcuts through “townships” because if I go through the wrong one, that may be the end for either my bike and/or me.

The whole reason I like bike touring is to travel through small villages by sticking to the quieter roads and trails that lead to remote places.

Am I not going to be able to do that here?

Am I going to have to wait until I reach Namibia?

I guess that I’ll feel better about it once I’ve left Cape Town. I’ve never really liked big cities, especially not cycling through them.

I’ll be able to breathe a bit easier in a couple of days once I’ve reached Cederberg National Park. For me, that is where the journey really begins.

In the end, I know that everything will be fine.

I’m happy that I’m not letting fear stop me from doing the things that I want to do with my life.