Before I head off on another adventure I thought it would be interesting to post some statistics from my recent tour, alongside a few comments and reflections:

Duration of tour: 238 days

Total distance cycled: 10,375 km

Total distance on unpaved roads: 2071 km. In northern Kenya and South Sudan I had no other option but to ride on dirt tracks. In other countries – Uganda, Ethiopia and Oman for example, I sometimes chose to take dirt tracks as a more adventurous/quieter alternative to the paved roads.

Number of non-cycling days: 106. I spent 3 weeks working in Tanzania (not in the original plan when I planned the trip) and took long rest stops in Kampala and Addis Ababa. Fortunately I was not bound by time constraints, so had the luxury to tour slowly and take as many rest days as I liked.

Mean daily distance cycled: 78 km. People often ask how far I cycle each day. My reply is an average of 80-100km. On this particular tour I did plenty of short days.

Longest day: 144 km in eastern Ethiopia. I was riding until late hoping to find somewhere to camp – never easy in Ethiopia as so much of the roadside was cultivated and populated. I ended up in a cheap Guest House.

Highest altitude cycled: 3300m in eastern Ethiopia.

Cost of visas: £410. Visas in Africa are almost always paid in US $ and the cost of mine as the trip progressed goes as follows: Kenya – $50 (3-month on arrival), Uganda – $100 (3-month on arrival), South Sudan – $100 (applied and paid for in Uganda), Ethiopia visa extension for 3 months – $150. (I already had an original visa for Ethiopia that I had bought in London – £60 for a 6-month multiple entry – this needed extending when I was in Ethiopia as it was already 4 months old when I entered the country) Somaliland – $70 (1-month visa bought in Ethiopia), Oman $50 (1-month on arrival which I extended by another 1 month for an additional $50).

Total cost of tour (including visas): £2450. When I left Tanzania for the final time I emptied my local bank account and changed all the remaining Tanzanian shillings into US $ ($2200 worth to be precise). Carrying more cash than necessary is never really recommended, but this kept me going for some months before I relied on my UK debit card to make cash withdrawals. I expected Oman would be the most costly country to tour through, but I camped almost every night during my time here. This meant daily costs were kept to a minimum, particularly as I wasn’t drinking alcohol and tourist attractions were very cheap.

Mean cost per day: £10.29. By camping or staying in simple lodgings, eating local food and avoiding expensive tourist activities, my daily costs were relatively modest on this tour.

Total spent on accommodation: £637.50. Most nights in Africa I stayed in local lodgings, ranging in price from bed-bug ridden £1 Guest Houses in Ethiopia, to more comfortable rooms costing £8-12+ (the highest I paid was £18 in Kenya). During the 3 weeks I worked in Tanzania accommodation was paid for. I was also invited as a guest in several places and used the Warmshowers website when there were hosts on my route.

Number of nights spent in tent: 59. Most of my camping was done in Oman where I slept in the tent on 41 nights. Only on 1 of these 59 nights was I in a campsite where I paid to sleep (Murchinson Falls National Park in Uganda). I mostly wild camped in Oman because camping here was so safe, easy and scenic. Accommodation in Oman, when it did exist, was also relatively expensive (typically £30 upwards).

Total number of beers consumed: 361. This number is about 90% accurate; the 10% uncertainty owing to the days when I drank too many beers to remember. Bottled beer is easily available throughout East Africa. I consumed more beers in Ethiopia than anywhere else, which is partly because the bottles were generally smaller (often 330ml instead of 500ml like Tanzania, Kenya, Uganda) and also because they were so easily available. Beer in Ethiopia was also cheaper than anywhere else (around £0.30 for a bottle) and the hardship of my days cycling here usually demanded I drink at least 2 every night.

Mean number of beers consumed per day before arriving in Somaliland: 2.2. Once I left Ethiopia and continued through Somaliland and Oman I went without a drop of alcohol for well over 2 months.

Number of punctures: 8 (2 in Tanzania 4 in Uganda, 1 in Ethiopia, 1 in Oman).

Hardest country to cycle through: Ethiopia (by far). Almost every day presented a battle with people (mostly children) who took great delight in chasing and taunting me from the roadside.

Easiest country to cycle through: Oman. Safe, friendly, easy to camp, scenic, great roads (some can be steep!) – the list could go on. A fantastic winter cycle-touring destination.

Most pleasant surprise: Being able to cycle freely in Somaliland without an armed escort, which I’d heard might be necessary.

Country I would most like to return to: South Sudan. For reasons that puzzled me a little at the time, I was deported from the country on a remote road that felt as adventurous as anywhere else I’ve toured on the continent. Several months after leaving I read of another foreign cyclist who was robbed and left badly beaten at the roadside. Looking back, perhaps my desire for adventure had been sensibly curtailed by the police who found me. South Sudan was, and remains, far less secure than most of the other places I toured on this journey, but I’d seen so little of a country that looked like it had so much more to offer.

Highlight of the tour: Spending 4 days at sea crossing from Somaliland to Oman with a crew of 15 Indians and a cargo of 500 cows. This was a timeless journey; detached from so many of the World’s problems one is witness to when on terra firma with an Internet connection.

I almost never went to Muscat. Oman’s capital, which had at one time been the end point to this tour, lost some of its appeal once I arrived in the town of Ibri and took a much needed break. I was now much closer to the UAE and Abu Dhabi, where my brother had recently moved. This seemed a more fitting place to finish a tour. Unless I were to fly out or take a boat to Iran, this really would be the end of the road.

But I had some remaining weeks left on my Omani visa. Leaving the country on a highway to the UAE and Abu Dhabi, when there were more mountains, wadis and desert camping to explore in one of my favourite cycle touring destinations, seemed like a poor plan. And so off I went towards Muscat, before turning round and finding the quietest possible route into the UAE.

I left Ibri with Daniel, aka Dosh, who was cycling from the UK-India. At least that was his plan when he set off some 6 months previously. He had recently been in the UAE and Iran. His route plans for Oman were vague so on the morning of departure we decided to ride to Muscat together. His blog is here.

Our first night on the road took us back into the Hajar Mountains. The moon was almost full. I put the camera on my tripod and opened the shutter for about 1 minute. I used to fear lighting fires when camping, but in Oman it’s perfectly safe. Wood is also surprisingly easy to find in many places.

We cycled through the town of Rustaq on our second day, which like many old Omani towns, has a fort worth stopping to see.

Over the past few decades many forts in Oman have been restored, at huge cost. Rustaq’s fort, like most of the ones I visited, charges a very modest £1 entrance fee.

Tea drinking outside Rustaq Fort. The only inconvenience with most of these forts in Oman is that they close at around 4pm.

The view from Rustaq fort. Despite there being so little rainfall in Oman there are parts of the country, which thanks to an ancient system of aqueducts, keeps areas like this fertile year round.

Rustaq sits at the base of the Hajar mountains.

One of many canons within Rustaq fort.

From Rustaq we continued to Nakhal, which also boasts a fairly impressive fort.

Looking out from Nakhal Fort

Dosh was riding a Koga World Traveller, a popular Dutch-made touring bicycle. We chatted a lot about gear, as is usually the case when meeting another tourer.

Our tents are both manufactured by the same company – MSR. The Hubba Hubba, which Dosh was using, is the tent I used before while touring in Africa. My replacement, the MSR Nook, beats it on weight and compactness, but I do prefer the extra floor space in the Hubba Hubba and fact that is has two vestibules and entrances. Without the flysheet the Hubba Hubba is also a better star-gazing tent. I may go back to this in the future.

Grilling chicken on hot stones. We failed to find a fresh chicken so I bungeed a frozen chicken onto my front rack for half the day. This wasn’t long enough to defrost it, but we managed to cook it quite well in the end.

The ride into Muscat included a surprising stretch of cycle lane as we went along the coast at Seeb. This only lasted about 5km.

Mutrah, the old quarter of Muscat, is where we headed to in the capital. This could have been the end of my journey had I decided to finish here. Looking back over the years I don’t think I’ve ever come towards the end of a tour and been happy to finish. Other than the jubilation of reaching a goal, life off the road soon makes me restless. It was just as well as I was tagging on another 600km or so to ride to Abu Dhabi.

There can’t be many public parks in capital cities around the World where camping is safe. This one in Mutrah did in fact close over night as the gates were locked at 11pm –  probably a good thing. I expected a visit from the Police at this time or whoever was closing the park, but we were left in peace until the muezzin in the mosque pictured here, woke us at 5am.

I said goodbye to Dosh in Muscat and headed north along the coast.

Fortunately parts of the highway were not completely finished. For some stretches I was able to cycle on a 6 lane highway to myself.

The Batinah coastline, which stretches north from Muscat to the country’s third largest city of Sohar, provided plenty of minor roads passing through small towns and coastal villages.

The view from one of the coastal forts in Al Batinah.

Outside of which I was invited for coffee and dates with this friendly duo. Omani men take great pride in their appearance. No wonder there are so many barber and tailoring shops in every town. As for Omani women – well during my entire stay in the country I recall speaking with one. Not everything about Oman was great…..

The fort in Al Suwayq was closed when I passed, but impressive enough from the outside to appreciate.

Most of the coast here is populated with fishing communities, who could probably learn something about protecting their environment. So much rubbish is washed up and thrown on the beaches here.

Fishing apparatus along the Al Batinah coastline, including a tradtional shasha reed boat.

In the small coastal village of Aluwaydat I met Ahmed, who worked in one of Muscat’s big hotels. He had come home for several days of leave and invited me to stay with him. This involved a tour around the grounds of his family’s property, where they kept several large bulls. ‘This one is a champion fighter’, boasted Ahmed as he grabbed the nostrils of an enormous beast. I didn’t know until I researched it later that the Al Batinah province has a long history of bull-fighting. Unlike the Spanish style of bull fighting, here the animals fight each other – mostly locking horns and using their strength to move or scare the other bull away.

My first and only night out in Oman was with Ahmed. This was less of a night out than him driving me 30km to the nearest bar where we sat in an almost empty hall listening to an Egyptian singer playing popular Arabic hits. The other dozen or so clientele were all Omani men, sheepishly sipping beer. I practically downed my first one having not had a drink in over 2 months. Alcohol is not forbidden in Oman, but not easy or particularly cheap to obtain.

In another smaller room within this bar/hotel establishment were more men – Pakistani mostly, as well as several women – Indian Ahmed had said. The latter spent most of the time sitting on chairs facing the tables of men, occasionally walking over to exchange greetings and probably numbers. It was a pretty depressing sight. Oman definitely isn’t a country to travel to for a drinking and dating experience.

I continued the next morning along the coast, slightly heavy-headed, which is when the fish markets are most active.

Several days previously while camping with Dosh for the last time we had tried to buy fish from a market in the small coastal town of Barka, but had arrived too late in the day. Not far away was a hypermarket, where I expected the price of fish to be far more than the cost from a local market. Whether that was the case or not, we bought over 1kg of fresh barracuda (2 fish) for £3. We ended up steaming these in tin foil on the beach later that night. One of the best meals I have had while camping.

A lot of the houses and buildings along the Al Batinah coastline are slowly being abandoned. It was Ahmed who told me of the government’s plans to build another highway alongside resorts and other housing here. Traditional fishing communities who once lived here are now offered money to build new homes some 500 metres or so from the beach front. The result is almost 200km of neglected and ruinous infrastructure.

Omani teenager in one of the Al Batinah coastal villages. Turns out this is great for letting the back wheel slide out when turning a corner. I saw a number of other bicycles in Oman put together like this.

Morning view from my tent. Blissful.

My last camping spot in Oman turned out to be as memorable and scenic as many of the other 40 odd places I pitched my tent in the country. There wasn’t enough wood here to make a fire, but the surrounding mountains, silence, night skies and beautiful sunrise were a fitting finale to a country I will probably remember best for its quality and ease of places to camp.

A lot of sand dunes as I crossed into the UAE, although getting to them was impossible as most of the roadside was fenced off – probably a good thing. I was disheartened at how much rubbish is thrown into the desert by careless people in Oman.

My only night camping in the UAE was within some semi-dead vegetation. Roadsides are entirely tree-lined and irrigated in this country. They are also almost all entirely fenced off, which makes camping away from the road somewhat challenging. Fortunately I had spotted a break in the fence nearby here and ducked in to hide myself as the sun began to set, kicking away broken irrigation pipes to pitch the tent.

In order to avoid the 10-lane highway that connects the Omani border with Abu Dhabi I managed to cycle on almost empty minor roads that run parallel to it. Most of these connect strips of irrigated farmland, worked on by teams of Bangladeshis, as well as some private estates. I expected to be turned back when I rolled up to the gate pictured here, but the smiling Ghanian security guard waved me through.

Most of these side roads were only visible when zooming in close to google maps or using maps.me, a phone app I’ve increasingly relied upon for this tour. This picture was taken about 60km from Abu Dhabi. Some 5km later I hit a highway full of trucks. I knew then the tour, for all of its enjoyment, was over. My brother had said to call him when I got close to Abu Dhabi so he could come and pick me up. With the wind at my back and adrenaline running high alongside traffic moving at 160km/hr+ I ended up riding right into Abu Dhabi, at which point traffic lights and pavements came to my rescue. Not a ride that I would wish to do again.

I locked the bicycle outside a mall and disappeared to find a wifi connection, paying £4 for a cappuccino while my brother came to meet me.

And then a few kilometres later, with bicycle loaded in a 4×4, I was gazing up at the many glass towers of Abu Dhabi. After almost 10,500km since leaving Mwanza in June last year, this was the end of the road, at least for now. The route for this final stretch can be viewed at the bottom of this page .

For those who’ve read through the blog posts from the start of this tour, thanks for following along. These days I realise an update and some photos on facebook are likely to be read more than clicking through to a website.

I decided to keep a spreadsheet on this particular tour, with some basic stats including distance, accommodation prices, beer consumption (that was going well until I entered Somaliland) that I will put into a forthcoming blog post, along with some reflections on the journey now that it’s over.

I’m no longer in one of Abu Dhabi’s glass towers, although my bicycle is. I sit writing this 100 metres from a beach in southern Kenya. It seemed a more fitting place to return to and sort out job prospects (alas not here) than a cold, wet England in February. Perhaps I’ll write a blog post about my time here with a new set of wheels. Isn’t she beautiful.

I shall start where I left last time, which is somewhere in the Omani desert around about Christmas time. No real festive spirit in this part of the World, just a lot more beautiful camping spots, mountain climbs, historical towns and memorable encounters to enjoy as 2015 came to an end.

It’s hard to pick a favourite camping spot in Oman as there have been so many. I sometimes pulled off the road before sunset, or waited till I found what was going to be the best place to sleep before it became too dark to see. As the weeks went by I became less concerned about hiding myself from the road. Camping in Oman is as stress free and safe as I recall it to be in Japan, where I first cycle toured over ten years ago, except there I would never be very far away from people.

Eric and Amaya are well-known in the cycle touring community, posting lots of useful information online for fellow cyclists. They’ve been on the road continuously for almost 10 years now and Oman is their 100th country visited to date. Having been in contact over the years it was a great opportunity to finally meet up with them in person, share some stories and camp together for the night before parting in opposite directions (they were headed south) the next day.

An equally memorable encounter, shortly after saying goodbye to Eric and Amaya, was being invited to stay with a Bedouin family in the desert.

The Bedouin, or Bedu as they are often referred to in Oman, are the original desert-dwellers of the Middle East and North Africa. In Oman, like elsewhere, many have given up their desert lifestyle by moving to towns. Others prefer to hold onto their nomadic traditions, opting for a lifestyle that combines living somewhere between the two.

Mubarak, pictured at the front here, was driving back out to the desert from his town house when he passed me on the road. He stopped and we chatted for a short time in simple English. At first I was hesitant to accept his invitation, but then realised such an opportunity might never come again. I was in no rush to arrive anywhere that day. So I loaded my bicycle into his pick-up and off we went into the sands.

We only drove about 8km from the road to an area which he said had received rain in recent months. It looked pretty barren to me, but apparently there was good grazing for his camels, which numbered about twenty, and a small herd of goats.

I was soon sitting in a traditional Bedu tent, meeting the family and sharing lunch, and wishing that my Arabic extended beyond more than simple greetings.

A mixture of old and new: a traditional Bedu tent, albeit with metal poles to hold it up, alongside a less traditional portacabin type mobile home and a Toyota Hummer that belonged to Mubarak’s brother. I slept in the tent.

Later in the afternoon Mubarak showed me his beloved camels, which hold special significance for Bedu. Camels are everywhere in Oman – idly roaming mountain and desert landscapes many miles from any human habitation. Most of these camels, Mubarak explained, would be branded in order to denote the owner. Were a camel killed on the road by a vehicle during the day time the fault would lie with the driver. At night the owner of the camel, whoever he was, would have to accept responsibility. In years gone by camels might have been raided by other Bedu clans, but Oman is a very different country from the time when this man wrote about travelling here.

Shortly before sunset Mubarak’s camels were herded together by his two Bangladeshi employees. It was they that prepared the food and milked the camels.

As night fell a fire was lit inside the tent and more family members arrived from a neighbouring camp. Women, long-veiled and wearing traditional Bedu head coverings, sat aside, eating once the men had finished.

In the morning the fire was lit again and foaming fresh camel milk was brought out. Mubarak later drove me back to the main road. We exchanged contacts and I thanked him for such tremendous hospitality.

A few hours later I was taking a boat to Masirah Island, which is Oman’s largest Island.

Measuring about 100km from north to south and 15km in width, this truly is a desert island. Windy as well! The beaches here and further north along the Omani coastline are popular sites for turtles to lay their eggs, particularly during the summer months.

In such open and exposed settings I fortunately found a few makeshift shacks that protected me from the wind. Having camped on sand and been so close to the sea for the previous few weeks my bicycle, and chain in particular, were now suffering somewhat.

 But the sand and wind were to continue for a few more days as I continued north along the coast, camping outside a desert mosque one evening to shelter myself. It was in actual fact the last day of the year and there was no phone network to wish friends in livelier places a Happy New Year. Just like several other years when I have been cycling on New Years Eve, I was fast asleep long before midnight.

A few days later I reached the scenic town of Sur. This was the first sizeable town I had been in since leaving Salalah, although seemed as soporific as everywhere else. Sur, I had read, is the only place in Oman where traditional wooden dhows are still constructed. I had anticipated a bustling boat-yard, but found just two dhows in the process of being built.

Of more interest, well at least colour, was Sur’s harbour wall, which was in the process of being painted with murals. This was conveniently located opposite the regional police station where my passport was receiving a 30-day visa extension for 20 rial (£35). I returned an hour later to pick up the passport before leaving the coast and heading inland.

I had the pleasure of sleeping inside the courtyard of a restored castle in the small town of Al Kamil a few nights later. The eccentric Omani owner had decided to turn the place into a museum; well worth visiting should you ever visit the town.

Traditional Omani coffee pots were just some of the many things the Castle museum housed.

Then it was onto Wadi Bani Khalid, which is one of Oman’s most photographed and famous tourist spots. Fortunately I arrived late in the day when most tour groups on day trips from Muscat had left. In many places in the World a site like this would either charge for camping or ban it entirely. Such a move would probably evoke a public outcry in Oman. The deep pools of water here were great for swimming.

Date palms at Wadi Bin Khalid

Equally as popular to visit are the Wahiba Sands, an area of Oman that displays the desert at its most beautiful. Cycling off onto 100m high sand dunes wasn’t really an option, so I made do with camping in a date-palm plantation where the dunes ended. Magical.

Intricately carved wooden doors remain in many old parts of Omani towns, outlasting the crumbling mud-brick dwellings that have now mostly been abandoned. I started seeing and photographing lots of them.

Another memorable encounter was a night camping beside an Omani farm. The green fields appeared like a mirage in the rocky landscape one late afternoon as I was thinking where I might sleep that night. Slowing to see what was growing beside the road, Said, dressed in the traditional long white dishdash that Omani men typically wear, called me over. After a short tour I was soon pitching the tent nearby and joined by Said’s friends. A fire was lit and then an enormous platter of roasted quails was brought out with fresh vegetables from the farm. Said returned in the morning as I was packing up. After a breakfast of pancakes, local honey and coffee I did my best to explain that it was not possible to carry kilos of tomatoes, aubergine and beetroot that were handed to me by one of his Bangladeshi workers.

 Away from the coast and desert sands I headed towards the Hajar mountains.

Nestled at the base of the mountains is one of Oman’s oldest towns – Nizwa, famous for its fort and souk.

Both of which appear so clean and almost recreated for the likes of tourists like me that they’ve lost the authenticity that the literature about them evokes. Perhaps I should have arrived on a Friday when there is a weekly livestock market. The souk, like souks and many shops throughout Oman, closes between midday and around 1600, which isn’t very convenient.

I decided to wait around a few hours for the fish market to open, which was about as lively as the place got.

While walking through the empty streets of Nizwa’s old town I met Ali, overhearing a conversation he was having at the time with a Zanzibarian. They weren’t speaking in Arabic, but Kiswahili. This language isn’t all that foreign to Oman as it once owned the island of Zanzibar, which now belongs to Tanzania. It was a good opportunity to reacquaint myself with what I would classify as my second language. Ali was born in Tanzania, but has lived in Nizwa much of his life. I ended up being invited to spend the night in his home, which turned out to probably be one of the town’s oldest inhabited buildings.

Despite the offer to sleep inside, I opted for the mosquito free comfort of my tent.

Beyond Nizwa it was onto Bahla, site of another enormous fort. I visited this the morning after being hosted Suleiman, who is a member of the warmshowers website. Omani’s with an interest in cycling aren’t very common.

Bahla’s souk isn’t as touched-up for tourists as Nizwa’s. Tuna fish seem to be popular in Oman. Around £5 for a kilo. Shame I can’t buy and carry this on the bike.

Not far from Bahla and at just over 3000m in altitude, Jebel Shams is Oman’s highest mountain. It only seemed right that I should have a crack at cycling up it, although the road ends at around 2000m, following a steep 15km climb. I camped half-way up, left my bags in a cave then continued to the top the following morning, cycling back down and camping in the same place the next night.

Goats rather than camels are more at home in this mountain geography.

Descending from Jebel Shams reminded me just how steep the gradients in a few places were. Riding a bike weighing 60kg up this is something of masochistic pursuit.

As it was on this nearby track, which required some pushing when my back wheel started spinning.

Cloudy skies are rare in Oman. A few spots fell out of these dark clouds, but not enough to stop cycling and seek shelter.

Another wadi and another great camp/swim spot. This is Wadi Damm – located towards the western side of the Hajar mountains.

 For several days I was joined on the road by a friend who now lives in Oman. This was the first time we had cycled together since I left England and started cycling to South Africa. Some years ago now.

Hard to ask for much more than this: great weather, smooth quiet roads and beautiful scenery. Actually the paved road stopped soon after this – not a problem for me but hard-going on a road bike.

More wadi camping. When there is wood, which there often is beside a wadi, camp fires are part of the de rigeur camping experience in Oman, where nights can be surprisingly chilly.

I somehow left behind a tent pole while packing up my gear one morning. Idiot. Fortunately I can improvise with a stick.

The constant companion. My time spent cycling each day in Oman was rarely very long. This was partly a measure of the sun setting before 6pm and the need to find somewhere to sleep before dark, but also because I was never in a rush to be anywhere, often stopping to charge phone battery for a few hours in a small cafe/restaurant, or look around whatever there might be of interest in the places I went through. With the exception of one rest day in Salalah I kept on the move constantly for over 5 weeks – typically riding 5-6 hours a day and covering 70-100km on average.

Oman is not quite over. This journey is after all entitled Mwanza-Muscat, so it’s the capital I’m headed to next. My route through Oman can be viewed at the bottom of this page.

If you have a question about cycling in Oman, or some other aspect of what I’ve covered here, please leave a comment below.

At first I was hesitant. Was it safe? Should I be asking permission from someone? Would an audience soon gather around me or visitors come in the night?

The sea was calm, clear and blue; the beach long, sandy and empty. It was my first day on the road in Oman and I’d arrived at a beautiful place to camp.

In most of Africa a beach like this, at least one next to a paved road, would never be so peaceful nor safe to sleep alone on. There might be a fishing community living in makeshift huts beside it – possibly some high-walled compounds housing the comparatively rich nearby.

Camping alone in such an easily seen and accessible place might be risky. I’d more likely ask someone to pitch my tent or choose to sleep in a nearby Guest House.

But this was Oman – a World away, as I was to discover over the coming days and weeks, from the life I’d left behind in Africa.

When a few 4x4s later drove along the beach at sunset, the drivers merely waved at me. What I was doing appeared to be totally normal. Camping, as I soon learned, is very much a part of Omani culture, although no-one camps alone here.

I expected my time cycling in Oman would be a contrast to travelling through Africa. And so it has been – on many levels. Be it the quality of the roads, the ease of finding food or water, the safety of camping and the silent and seemingly empty towns, or the interaction with people who often wanted to give me things (usually bottled water, food or even money) Oman has turned out to be one of the simplest and most peaceful places I’ve toured through.

Also beautiful, as I hope some of the pictures below are testament to. I’ve taken so many during my time here that I’ve split this update into two blog posts.

Any negatives? Well alcohol is prohibitively expensive (around £5-6 for a beer in a licensed hotel) and like many Islamic countries conversation tends to be only with men. That gets a bit boring after a while.

Anyhow, here is the first part of a visual tour from the last 5 weeks on the road in Oman, covering around 2700km. Most of the photos here follow a chronological order from when they were taken, moving from Salalah in the South to the small town of Ibri, where I’m writing this from, in the north.

A map showing the route I took can be found at the bottom of this page. For those reading and wondering where exactly Oman is, here we are:

My first stop after saying goodbye to the Indian crew who brought me from Somaliland to Oman was the souk in Salalah, famed historically for its sales of frankincense and perfume.

I always wondered what Frankincense looks like. Well here it is – a product that has been traded through the Arabian peninsula for thousands of years. Not much use carrying this in my panniers. Every other shop in the souk seemed to be burning it.

My arrival in Salalah and its souk coincided with that of a cruise ship carrying over 2000 passengers. Now this was a curious sight….

Frankincense trees grow around Salalah, although most of the World’s production comes from Somalia. The trees are mostly small and hardy in appearance – more impressive for their ability to grow out of barren looking surfaces.

I slept one night within a Frankincense tree plantation at Wadi Dawkah, a short distance from Salalah. The site came with a bench and pristine clean toilet block. I haven’t encountered such civilised wild camping since I cycled in Japan.

I cycled west from Salalah to begin with, taking me towards the border with Yemen. This was a good decision. Not only was there that beautiful beach to camp on, pictured at the top of this blog and in this picture, but some wonderful mountain and coastal scenery. During the summer months of June and July this coastal stretch of the Arabian peninsula turns green as monsoon rains transform the barren hillsides. That deserted beach would then probably be full of Arabs from around the gulf, who apparently flock to Salalah during those wet months. I was happy to have it to myself.

Steep climbing here, from sea level up to 1000m with gradients of 10-15%+. Other than beautiful views, the road had almost no traffic and the air temperature was no more than 30C. This would be truly murderous to cycle during the summer months when temperatures soar above 40C.

It was mid-way up this steep climb that I met Awdah, the first Omani I’d really spoken with since arriving two days previously in the country. He had pulled off the road a short distance up ahead and was taking pictures of me with a large camera as I slowly climbed towards him. Once we got talking I realised he also had an interest in travel and adventure, although preferred to drive off into the desert with a gun. ‘Not for people just for fun’, he explained before I was given about 2 kg of bananas and several litres of bottled water. ‘When you come back to Salalah just call me. We meet OK.’

I later turned away from the coastal road, which would have taken me to the Yemeni border, and headed into the desert on a dirt track towards the remote town of Muddai.

Not much shade out here – well none in fact. Earlier in the day I’d stopped at a military air-base and filled up with about 4 litres of water for this 70km stretch of bumpy gravel.

The GPS app (maps.me) on my phone proved useful out here where tracks often veered off in different directions.

Naturally I wanted to make sure I stayed on the main track on this gravel stretch.

Even in what by Omani standards are remote places, a village shop here will often be as well-stocked as a much larger place in Africa.

Before arriving back in Salalah I decided to call Awdah, who explained through a Whatsap message that accommodation had been arranged for me. I assumed this meant an invitation to his home or a place to pitch my tent, but he had gone ahead and booked me into a hotel. When I enquired about the price, he made clear that I was his guest. And so I checked into what was a 2-star hotel, which probably cost around £40-60 per night, feeling slightly odd that this stranger I had met on the road for 10 minutes was paying for me (I realised when I checked out that he was friends with the owner so perhaps there was no money exchange on my behalf).

With wild camping so easy, safe and free in Oman and budget accommodation, when it does exist, starting at around £20 a night, but more typically £30 upwards, I chose to camp throughout my time here.

Awdah later came to meet me, hoping I would stay around Salalah longer. We continue to keep in touch through Whatsap.

Leaving Salalah for the second time I headed east along the coast. Salalah and its coastal environs, largely because of those monsoon rains, is greener and more tropical than the rest of Oman. Coconut palms grow along the beach road beside banana and papaya plantations.

I managed to find space in my front panniers for half a kilo of bananas and some tangerines on the way out of Salalah.

 Mosques are everywhere in Oman, which is of no surprise as the population is predominantly Muslim. For the cycle tourer who wishes to wild camp this is particularly good news as almost every mosque will have a chilled water drinking dispenser beside its ablution block, as well as some toilets. The latter, which usually consists of at least several cubicles depending on the size of the mosque, will always have a tap beside the squat toilet, which allows one the privilege of an African-style bucket shower (there is usually a plastic container beside the tap) and opportunity to wash a few salt-encrusted clothes if need be. I timed my arrival at mosques to be outside prayer times, which meant they were usually empty. In this way I could happily tour for days and weeks while camping every night and keeping clean.

The night-lit roads were my first ever views of Oman when I flew into the country a few years ago on a night flight from Tanzania. Back then I thought what a contrast this was from Africa – street-lights stretching for many kilometres beyond any human settlement, shining throughout the night. I avoid cycling in the dark whenever possible, although on roads like this it doesn’t really matter. I was looking for somewhere to camp.

And ended up here – 10km beyond the small town of Taqah. It was a stunning spot above the sea, but the wind was so strong that it was impossible to pitch the tent so I rolled my mat out on the concrete remains of a mosque.

A short distance along the coast from Salalah lies the quiet coastal town of Mirbat. Quiet is a word that could be used to describe almost every place in Oman. Mirbat retains some of its historical charm, with a pretty little bay and perfect swimming beach in front of the fort.

Despite being so close to the sea for a lot of the time in Oman, this is the only place I went for a swim – my bicycle conveniently within sight leaned against the wall of the fort just behind where this picture was taken.

A view of Mirbat’s old town from the top of the town’s restored fort.

The classic Indian roadster is a common sight in Oman, used by many of the South Asian’s (Pakistanis Indians and Bangladeshis) who come to work and live in Oman.

Bicycles and sea-air don’t mix well. Many of the bicycles I did see in towns along the Omani coast were rusted.

The only Omanis I saw riding bicycles were children. Not much status to be had on two wheels when you can roar around in 4x4s on cheap fuel (£0.20 a litre).

Exploring Mirbat and its Yemeni-style architecture. Many buildings like this are no longer inhabited.

Traditionally Oman was a sea-faring nation. Many buildings along the coast depict this with maritime features in their facade.

 

 The Salalah to Muscat coastal road is entirely paved, although in stretches work crews are in the process of making it into a dual carriageway, which doesn’t seem necessary considering how little traffic there is. Many new roads in Africa are financed and built by the Chinese. Here it is South Asian labourers (predominantly Pakistani) doing the work, with lots of these human lookalikes holding flags to warn drivers.

It’s rarely hard to find a place to camp in Oman. After several nights I decided to leave the rainsheet off my tent, which allowed for better star-gazing, although on some nights a heavy dew would descend leaving myself and gear somewhat damp in the morning. Wadi’s, (dry riverbeds) such as this one between Mirbat and Sadah , are everywhere in Oman and often the most obvious place to pitch a tent as there are soft spots of sand and usually trees/rocks to lean the bike against or provide some protection from any wind. Wadis can also be very dangerous places to camp should there be any rain, quickly filling with water in a matter of minutes. I always tried to find a spot away from the main channel or beside the wadi itself.

East from Mirbat the Dhofar mountains drop into the sea, providing for some spectacular coastal cycling.

Fishing boats on the beach at Hasik

Up until a few years ago this stretch of stunning coastline, east from the village of Hasik, was only connected by an unpaved road.

The first touring cyclist I met in Oman was a young Austrian. This was Tobias’s first tour – a 4-week ride from Muscat-Salalah. It was late in the day when we met so we ended up camping together on a nearby beach outside the town of Ash Shuwayimiyyah.

Tobias had no tent, which isn’t a necessity in Oman as it rarely ever rains. I too started the night without pitching the tent, until the whining sound of a few mosquitoes dive-bombing my ears woke me up.

About 20km down the road in the town of Ash Shuaymiyah I met another Austrian – Tobias’s step-father Wolfgang. For one reason or another they had decided to cycle separately.

Restaurants and cafes are easy to find in Oman, typically run by Pakistani, Indian or Bangladeshis, and often very good value for money. Fish Biriyani, such as pictured here, would cost around £2-3 and a simpler plate of fried dal with chapatis less than £1. I often used the time in these small roadside eateries to charge my mobile phone.

Evening meals while camping often consisted of a large bowl of spaghetti/pasta/rice, mixed with whatever vegetables I was carrying and possibly some tinned tuna and takeaway roti/chapati from one of the cafes and restaurants I had been in earlier that day.

Camp spots with a tree or rock to lean the bicycle against became more important when my kickstand decided to split. No point in trying to weld this as it’s aluminium plated.

‘Do you want to see camels racing’, came the voice from a pick-up passing me by on the desert road east from Shalim one morning. 10 minutes later my bicycle was parked beside a camel racing track and I was sitting alongside a Bedu driver who was timing half a dozen camels running a 1km course. ‘Just practice today’. 90 seconds was the winning time. A minute later I was handed some water bottles and back on the bicycle.

On an almost daily basis Omani’s would pull over on the road and offer me bottled water, sometimes a soft drink and on several occasions I was asked if I needed financial help! Some spoke English, others just wanted to say hello and take a picture.

There are plenty more pictures to come from this journey through Oman in the next blog post.

It was a welcome surprise when my passport was handed back to me with permission to freely go. For the previous hour it had been in the possession of a member of the Somaliland Immigration Police Force, whose black-stained teeth and dark wrap-around sunglasses cut something of an ominous appearance as I arrived in a country that doesn’t officially exist.

On most maps, and to most international observers and organisations, the area of Somaliland forms part of a country that continues to be plagued by instability and danger – Somalia. To most other people, Somaliland sounds too much like Somalia to be conceived any differently. ‘Have you not seen black hawk down’? commented one person on Facebook. Mogadishu lies over 1000km away from anywhere I was headed to.

The truth is that for the past 24 years, when Somaliland claimed independence from its southern neighbour following the break out of fighting several years earlier, the country has witnessed relative peace. Somaliland has its own ruling government, army, currency and free press.

Up until 1960 the area that is now Somaliland was a British Protectorate, and British Somaliland was recognised as independent from its southern neighbour, modern day Somalia, which was then under Italian control.

Despite a relatively untroubled recent past I still wasn’t certain whether cycling here was permitted. The few travel reports that do exist said much the same as my 7-year old Lonely Planet; outside the main towns of Hargeisa and Berbera an armed guard was mandatory for foreigners. It was hard to imagine a soldier with an AK47 over his shoulder pedalling alongside me.

It was not a great shock therefore when I rolled up to a little used border following a peaceful nights sleep in my tent between the Ethiopian and Somaliland immigration posts (the first wild camp since northern Kenya) that I should be pointed to load my bicycle into a waiting vehicle.

Despite my passport no longer being in my possession I kept calm and refused, holding onto the handlebars while someone who had been ordered to assist with the loading attempted to relieve me of it.

Words were exchanged amongst immigration police and the driver. I expected a lengthily delay, but was soon permitted to cycle to the nearby town of Borama, 8km away, while this vehicle containing my passport followed closely behind.

I imagined this might be the scenario for the rest of the day, and at some point I would be presented with a bill for the driver’s expense and anyone else who had come along to witness the rare sight of a foreigner on a bicycle in Somaliland.

The fortunate truth was that once another teeth-blackened immigration officer had looked at my passport and visa, deeming it satisfactory to receive an entry stamp, I was free to go.

One of the many problems of not being an internationally recognised country is that there is no international banking system. Somaliland has no ATM machines accepting Visa cards so cash must be brought into the country. Cash means US Dollars.

Soon after gaining my freedom I was in a petrol station forecourt agreeing to change $100 into Somali Shillings. This was a mistake, for it took somewhat longer to count out the 780,000 Shillings, handed over to me in a mixture of 1000 and 5000 denomination notes. I later realised most businesses, be they tin-shack cafes or village shops, readily accept US Dollars, although having much smaller denominations of $1 and $5 notes is obviously preferable when a cup of tea costs about $0.12 and a meal between $1-3.

Unlike other African countries where $50 and $100 notes fetch a higher rate of exchange, here it doesn’t matter what denomination you use to buy Somali Shillings with. 1 US dollar = 7800 shillings and the only notes in circulation are worth 500, 1000 and 5000 Shillings.

Most Somalilanders get over this inconvenience by paying for nearly everything with their phone, electronically transferring funds to an account number displayed by the shop, restaurant or whatever business in question they are paying.

Somaliland lacks Ethiopia’s dramatic scenery, but I soon realised there was none of the roadside frenzy of shouting, chasing and stone throwing as I headed in the direction of the capital, Hargeisa.

The fact that there are far less people living here and very few foreign visitors is one reason to account for this relative normality. Indeed the semi-arid shrubbery at the roadside is more suited to goats than human habitation. There are more than twice as many of them (over 8 million) as there are people (3.8 million) here. Wild camping in such a setting is easy, although hyenas are also common. Now that I’m trained in feeding them I didn’t fear hearing them too much at night.

At least half-a-dozen Police check posts broke up the 120km journey between Borama and Hargeisa, but the effect of qat chewing, which is as ubiquitous here as eastern Ethiopia where its mostly grown, fortunately seemed to have more of a tranquillising effect on  those who manned the rope across the road. A few greetings, smiles and a simple explanation of nationality, where I was coming from and going to was usually sufficient to be on my way again. No one asked for money nor made life difficult.

In comparison to Ethiopia, people, for the most part, seemed wonderfully welcoming and civilized. Perhaps it was the traces of colonial history, or just a strong Muslim identity where the duty to respect and welcome the few visitors that do come here was being adhered to.

People frequently slowed down in passing cars to greet me, quickly asking my name and where I was from. Some spoke fluent English, having spent time overseas – be it in America, the UK or somewhere else in Europe. They were returning to visit family or set up a business in Hargeisa.

Education seems to be taken seriously here, at least if the number of schools and universities is anything to go by. Hargeisa is full of them, as it is pharmacies.

‘Good business’, explained Ismail, a young Somalilander, educated overseas but now back to help run his family clinic in the capital.

Fortunately I had no need to visit a Somaliland pharmacy, but wondered what regulations existed to ensure the authenticity of medicines sold.

I stayed in Hargeisa’s oldest hotel – the Oriental, during my time here. Compared to Ethiopian standards accommodation in Somaliland is definitely an improvement, although that isn’t saying much when I think of some of the bed-bug filled cells I passed a night in there.

Internet is also an improvement. Mobile Internet in Ethiopia is amongst the most expensive in Africa. It’s cheaper in Somaliland and the broadband service is far faster owing to a fibre-optic cable linked to Djibouti.

Too bad there is no alcohol. Other than sit in the company of other men and drink Ethiopian coffee, fruit juice or chew qat, there isn’t a huge amount to do in Hargesia. By 9pm most streets are deserted.

Like lots of other Muslim countries I’ve travelled through it was plainly obvious how much of a man’s world this was. I could freely walk around day or night and sit to eat and drink wherever I chose. A single foreign woman would either have to be very brave or in the company of other women or some male friends to feel quite so comfortable to explore.

This doesn’t mean to say Hargeisa was dangerous – quite the opposite in fact. Walking around the congested and chaotic streets it was easy to be drawn into friendly conversation with people. At first I was wary and assumed there must be a catch. There are almost no big cities or capitals in Africa where anyone who approaches you for conversation has merely a conversation and offer to freely help in mind. Sad, but true. Hargeisa, for the most part I think, defies this. Whether I was sitting in a busy restaurant in the centre of the city or visiting the capital’s livestock market, as I did one morning, people were mostly curious, sometimes too much so.

I visited the Ministry of Tourism on the morning I left Hargeisa. Somaliland’s main tourist attraction consists of a series of caves filled with ancient rock paintings dated to between 3000-9000BC. Located some 60km east of the capital on the way to the coast, entrance to Las Geel, I had been informed, needed permission from the ministry and payment of $25.

In a country whose annual number of tourists runs to hundreds rather than tens of thousands, the friendly team of Somalilanders weren’t particularly busy when I arrived at the ministry, issuing the permit within a few minutes. No mention was made of a mandatory armed guard, and I politely refused the offer of having a letter written for me at the cost of $20 to explain to the police at various check posts what I had successfully already been doing.

Las Geel, should you ever be in Somaliland, is well worth the visit. Not only is the site surrounded by some magnificent desert scenery, but it’s more or less guaranteed that the experience of viewing these ancient rock paintings will be done so alone, which adds to experience.

Camping here also made the trip memorable. Rain started falling shortly before I arrived and pitched my tent next to a wadi. What had been a waterless bed of sand dramatically transformed into a fast-flowing river within seconds as I watched a surging body of brown foam roar its way past my tent, safely pitched 10 metres away.

‘Are you the guy trying to get a boat from Berbera’, said a female voice from inside a car the next day as I headed towards the coast. Indeed I was. This had been on my mind for days, weeks in fact. How I was going to proceed from Somaliland. Soon I was about to find out.

The American tourist and her German travel partner were visiting the coast for the day in a private car, having also stayed at the Oriental Hotel, where they’d obviously heard about me. I saw them again later in the day on their way back, the passenger seat now occupied by an armed policeman.

It seemed absurd that here I was out on the road alone, passing through check posts more or less freely, while other tourists were renting cars and so called mandatory armed guards when I suspect they could have been using local buses. If there was a danger from terrorism or kidnappings it wasn’t apparent. Not one Somalilander warned me of any threat to being on these roads alone. There were so many check-posts and the desert landscape impossible to traverse by vehicle that unless I was going to be kidnapped by helicopter I really didn’t see any threat.

I’d told plenty of Somalilanders about my plan to leave the country by boat from Berbera. The responses had been optimistic. ‘Oh don’t worry you will find one, inshallah’, had been the general reply. Little did I know then how much the word inshallah would unsettle me over the coming days.

There are two roads to leave Addis Ababa on if travelling East. One is a new toll road consisting of beautifully smooth Chinese-crafted tarmac; the other is an old road – narrower and lacking a paved shoulder. As drivers must pay to use the toll road most stick to the old road. I should have known that.

Theoretically bicycles are forbidden on toll roads, but as this is Africa no one really cares. I only discovered this, although in hindsight felt I should have known this too, on my second day riding out of the capital.

Unfortunately by this point the toll road ended after 12km and I was back with the madness of trucks I’d spent the first day with.

As Ethiopia is a land-locked country it relies heavily on goods from its nearest port. This is in Djibouti – the destination for 90% of the container trucks and other large vehicles I spent the next day and a half with.

It wouldn’t have been so bad had there been a paved hard shoulder to give myself a bit of distance from this constant stream of metal monsters.

In months to come the new railway (Chinese constructed of course) should handle most of this cargo, but for now the road between Addis Ababa and Awash remains one of the most dangerous I’ve cycled in Africa. I lost count of the number of over-turned vehicles lying in the arid shrubbery at the roadside – usually with the surviving driver or passenger watching over whatever cargo or other stealable goods were present.

At least the traffic took care of the children – running alongside me would have been suicidal for the most part.

An armed policeman stopped me on the road a short distance before most of these trucks made a left turn towards Djibouti. He emerged from a tin-shack shelter beside a bridge over the Awash River. Not much English was spoken, but enough to understand I couldn’t cross the bridge. Too dangerous seemed to be the initial reasoning. This made little sense as the bridge was only 100m long and just as wide as the rest of the road. There was even an old dis-used bridge that I could have crossed nearby. Also a no-go. Apparently I needed to return to the nearby town of Awash where permission from the police to cross this bridge with my bike on a vehicle could be given. It sounded like nonsense to me.

I politely refused to cycle back so decided to sit on the roadside beside this tin-shack. About an hour went by before another policeman showed up and decided to flag down a vehicle, onto which my bike was loaded and I was driven across the bridge.

The whole episode left me a bit confused. Perhaps as the bridge was so strategically important for transport coming and going to Djibouti someone senior had ordered it closed for all non-motorised traffic. This still didn’t really make sense, but I wasn’t going to get a coherent or logical answer from either of these policemen.

The delay didn’t really bother me, except that I realised I would now probably be camping, rather than arriving in the small town of Mieso where I had planned to pass the night.

Like almost everywhere else in Ethiopia the bush, desolate as it often looked at first, was dotted with people – kids tending livestock, women collecting brushwood etc. Had I attempted to pull off the road and set up camp without being seen I would probably have failed. So when a friendly male voice greeted me in the dying light beside a solitary mud-brick dwelling, I stopped and decided that unless this guy was a total mad-man I was going to kindly ask to camp next to his home. Been here and done this many times before I thought to myself.

Osman, who had no idea that calling out ‘Salamno’ was going to lead to such an encounter, ended up sleeping outside that night. I wasn’t entirely sure if this was for my own protection or to guard the sacks of charcoal that he and most other people living along the roadside were selling during the daytime to passing traffic. 

I wasn’t on the road very long the next morning when I passed a hyena lying at the roadside. I made sure it was dead before getting close enough to have a better look. Moments later a tuk-tuk stopped and two men got out. After prodding the hyena with a stick to make sure it was also dead they muttered some words at me, then proceeded to pull the whisker hairs off the hyenas face. The hairs were carefully placed inside some paper, which was then folded and put into their shirt pockets before they got back into the tuk-tuk and disappeared.

I was later told some people believe the smoke released from burning the whisker hairs of a hyena can help cure a sick baby. Well there’s an interesting and little known snippet of information.

Ethiopia’s eastern Highlands don’t quite rival the scenery further north in the country, but there were plenty of dramatic vistas in the next few days to make the riding challenging and worthwhile.

Fortunately stone throwing children, albeit still present, were rarer the further east I went. In one sense this made life on the road more peaceful, but villages and towns were now inhabited by people intoxicated from the effects of chewing qat. This made roadside encounters and communication with the majority of Ethiopians, at least while cycling, more frenetic than anywhere else in the country.

Despite my love for the scenery, coffee, beer and friendliness of some Ethiopians (at least when I was actually off the bicycle) I longed to escape this mad country.

The old town of Harar was at least a welcome surprise. Here is a place whose UNESCO World Heritage protection seems to have saved it from the ugly hand of Chinese contractors, present almost everywhere else in urban Ethiopia, including the outskirts of Harar.

It may have been dirty and overcrowded, just like Zanzibar’s Stone Town or Fez’s old quarter, but that only added to its character – a place where hyenas enter the streets at night to be fed. This practice has gone on for a number of years – I presume to stop the animals attacking livestock and people.

There was a notable change as I left Harar and continued eastwards – both in the landscape that was more arid, as well as the people. Women were mostly veiled and children no longer chased nor yelled out ‘you you’ from the roadside.

The town of Jijiga, where I spent my last night in Ethiopia drinking draft beer in one of the few establishments serving alcohol, was very much Somali-dominated. I knew these would probably be the last beers I’d drink in a long time. That was a sobering thought, but after almost 10 weeks and 4000km of cycling in Ethiopia I was looking forward, albeit with some anxiety, to entering a country that doesn’t officially exist – Somaliland.

As usual, if you’re interested to view the route and altitude chart for this stretch of the tour please scroll to the bottom of the page here.

‘It gets better as you go north’, was a view held by some people about Ethiopia. Had they been describing the landscapes I would have definitely agreed. The Rift Valley has blessed Ethiopia with some of the most spectacular scenery on the continent.

The Blue Nile Gorge for instance, which I crossed during the third day out of Addis Ababa, had me stopping and pulling out my camera at many a hair-pin bend, not just to catch my breath on the long steep ascent (from 1000m in altitude to 2400m), but for the dramatic views. The same was true for many other stretches of road.

Unfortunately I can’t say something equally as positive about the people. After a month cycling in northern Ethiopia, covering around 2000km, I don’t think it does get any better as you go north. People, mostly children, can be some of the most unpleasant and annoying I have ever experienced, while cycling that is.

It’s interesting on that note to discover that Ethiopia was chosen as the World’s best Tourist Destination 2015, praised for its ‘outstanding natural beauty, dramatic landscapes and ancient culture’. Were such an award as ‘worst place to cycle tour’ exist, Ethiopia would also almost certainly win.

From a human perspective it’s hard to imagine any sane person truly enjoying a cycle tour here. On many occasions over the past month I did ask myself the question – Why bother?

Perhaps I hoped things would get better and my experience might differ from others who have cycled here. That by being patient, smiling, stopping to greet the children and attempting to talk with them would make a difference.

Well it was definitely never boring, which cycle touring can be if the landscape is monotonous and there are no people.

Things could have been worse. There were in fact some fantastic days on the road: no verbal abuse, nor armies of children running after me clutching sticks, incessantly begging and occasionally holding onto the rear panniers and saying goodbye with a flying stone as I pedalled away. Unfortunately there weren’t many of these days.

When children just smiled and waved, as they do in so many other parts of the continent, I often felt like stopping to ask ‘What is wrong with you? Why are you not begging?! ’

Sometimes children looked so kind and welcoming at first, only to end up following me and begging, often for many kilometres, while I slowly pedalled up one of numerous hills.

On the harder days my mind did plenty of drifting to being somewhere else – touring through eastern or central Europe perhaps – enjoying the relative anonymity of riding and stopping to sit somewhere in peace without the verbal onslaught that accompanies cycling in Ethiopia.

Let it be well known to anyone who reads this blog post that if you cycle in Ethiopia you will have at least one stone thrown at you.

I’m not going to exaggerate. There is no need. If I wrote about every incident a child threw a stone at me, or the many more times a child planned to throw a stone but didn’t because they usually only threw stones when I wasn’t looking (I soon learnt to keep my eyes on feral suspects as I cycled past and turn my head then keep glancing back until I was beyond stone-throwing range) this blog post would run to many thousands of words. Nevertheless, I shall offer a little insight and reflection on this abhorrent custom.

At first I thought stones were only thrown at foreign cyclists in Ethiopia. That isn’t true. I saw several incidents where a car stopped and kids fled while the driver, Ethiopian, got out to give chase. There were also many trucks, the driver probably oblivious, which made easy target practice for little monsters to throw stones at.

I also held the belief that it was only children who didn’t go to school in Ethiopia who threw stones. This is also not true. Packs of children (boys for the most part, but not always) either walking to or coming out of school, were some of the worst to encounter on the road.

As most schools in Ethiopia are so hopelessly over-crowded, many children either attend school just in the morning or the afternoon. This means there is a period of time early morning, midday and late afternoon when children will either be walking to or from school. As some children walk many kilometres, the chances of encountering school children on the road is very high.

Only one stone actually hit me. More a rock actually, a little smaller than my fist. It came flying out of some dense woodland one morning and hit the side of my rib cage. I saw no one nor heard a thing, other than a resounding thud when it hit me. Like a sniper camouflaged at the roadside, whoever threw it had seen me coming, then decided to hide himself until my vision was beyond his location, at which point the little shit decided to pitch it, probably from no more than 10 metres away.

I stopped to take a picture of the rock and check whether it had broken the skin, (just a bruise) then cycled on thinking of the evil things I might have done had I caught the culprit.

On another occasion a stone twanged its way through my front spokes and I decided to turn round and chase a boy of about 10. He ran straight into a stone hut. As I cycled up to the wooden front door it slammed in my face. I pushed the door back to be confronted by a very old woman, perhaps his great grandmother. The boy was no-where to be seen. I picked up a stone to demonstrate that it had been thrown at me, then dropped it and cycled off, wondering what would have been said or done to the boy when I’d safely gone.

What made such experiences stand out, and left me puzzled as to whether I was really enjoying my time in Ethiopia or not, was how they were often accompanied by either scenes of spectacular beauty, or occurred moments before or after acts of human kindness and cultural interest at the roadside.

Take the coffee drinking culture for instance. I would arrive in a small village or town and be able to choose from many a place to sit down, watch and enjoy the best coffee on the planet being served out to me with a smile. She, because it is always a she, would have no idea that I spent the last hour or so either dealing with unruly little shits or a litany of ‘you you you’s, ‘where are you go’ and demands for ‘birr birr’ being shouted at me from the roadside as I cycled along. It was such a contrast of experiences, and one which repeated itself on an almost daily basis.

On a few of these occasions an English speaker would be present, who would calmly ask my opinion of his country – the greatest country in Africa in his mind, even though Africa is often considered elsewhere in the mindset of many Ethiopians. I would be reminded on many an occasion that this was the only country in Africa to not be colonised, which is not entirely true.

Perhaps that explained the stone-throwing behaviour from the children and juvenile hysteria displayed at times by adults. I have no idea. No where else in Africa are people the same.

The conversations were mostly basic and never got beyond me saying that I was from England, at which point I was often asked what Premiership football team I supported.

Like most people in other African countries, the vast majority of Ethiopians, if not working in a field, sit on the roadside in villages and towns seemingly idle, at least that is how it appeared to me. It might be 11am for example and I would stop for a coffee or a coke. Anything from one or two, to several dozen people, almost all male and usually young, would cast their attention towards me. I soon realised most people in most places were doing absolutely nothing other than passing the time.

It could have been a good opportunity to learn more of a language I wasn’t making much progress with, but after the verbal assault while cycling I merely hoped for some minutes of relative peace before continuing.

I always looked for a quiet cafe or restaurant to stop at on the roadside, and one where I could sit with the bike in full view. I heard plenty of stories of children stealing items of equipment from unattended bicycles. Sometimes there were no quiet places and I just cycled straight through towns without stopping. Other times there was no option and it would be left to the cafe owner to deal with an excitable young crowd, usually with a stick or some stones.

I’m sure it would have made a tremendous difference were I able to converse with more people beyond exchanging simple greetings. Having said that I heard of an American Peace Corps volunteer who after living in the country for a few years and learning conversational Amharic, was still subjected to stone throwing and verbal abuse while cycling.

The diversity of people, in terms of how they looked and dressed, was overwhelming. Despite the daily challenges people presented, it also made Ethiopia one of the most fascinating places I’ve toured in Africa.

From a food perspective I found Wednesdays and Fridays to be the best eating days. In the Ethiopian Orthodox Christian calendar these are fasting days, which means most people don’t eat meat. I’m not vegetarian, but beyaynetu, a platter of vegetables and pulses, tastes a lot better and healthier than the plates of meat – tibs, which are typically served on non-fasting days in most small town eating establishments. I managed to avoid eating raw meat, which is also very popular on non-fasting days.

Shiro or tegabino, another popular vegetarian dish made from ground beans or chickpeas, together with minced onion, garlic and tomato, was also a good option and easy to find.

Injeera, the Ethiopian staple with the appearance of a wet flannel, is definitely an improvement on the maize/cassava that is served up in all other countries south and west of here on the continent, and which goes by a variety of names (ugali/pap/sadza). Fortunately bread is easily available, although light snacks don’t seem to be part of popular eating culture in Ethiopia.

In the larger towns juice bars are a popular feature. This is something hard to find in other African countries, although juice is misleading as fruit smoothies are so thick that they’re easier to drink with a spoon.

Roadside fruit on the other hand was less common to come by, but that’s not really surprising in highland areas where it doesn’t grow.

Alcohol. Ethiopia scores quite high on the variety, quality and ease of finding a beer in Africa. Cheap too. A large glass of draft beer – ‘Jambo,’ costs around £0.30-£0.40 in a small town. It was easy to sink several of these at the end of a day’s ride.

Accommodation was also usually easy to find and very cheap. In fact probably the cheapest and worst quality of budget accommodation in Africa can be found in Ethiopia. I would have happily paid more than the £1.50 or less that most single-cell rooms went for, but often these were the only rooms available. Public toilets were equally grim.

As most hotels were just single-storey establishments located behind a bar/restaurant it was at least easy to wheel the bike into the room rather than lug gear up a flight of stairs.

Towels or soap rarely came with the room, but Ethiopian authorities do a good job at encouraging safe sex. Condoms were nearly always there. So were bed bugs. After two days of scratching bites all over my body during the first week out of Addis I visited a clinic and was prescribed a course of oral anti-histamine. ‘You have too many bites on your body to use cream’, said the Doctor, who told me fleas and bed-bugs are common in small towns in the highland areas of Ethiopia.

When there was space in such small rooms I decided it wiser to pitch my tent and sleep on the floor. This also ensured a night free of mosquitoes. Few rooms ever came with a mosquito net.

Camping out in the open wasn’t really an option, despite days when I thought it would be. Places that at first looked like a good quiet spot would sure enough have someone tending to a flock of goats or cattle nearby, and I didn’t have the energy to chance pitching the tent and dealing with whatever attention would inevitably arise.

It reminded me of cycling in India, as other aspects of life on the road in Ethiopia have done (bed bugs being one). There I did camp in certain places. Perhaps I was more determined to do so back then, although many times people would find me, which could be stressful if it wasn’t the next morning when I was about to leave.

In one small town the Guest House accommodation was so basic and the room too small to pitch my tent that I requested to sleep in the nearby Primary school. At first the teachers thought this was too dangerous, but I locked myself in and slept fine. Schools in rural Africa often make excellent places to sleep.

Like India, Ethiopia just seems to have people everywhere. The population of the country now nears 100 million. It’s shocking to think that in 1950, this was 18 million and somewhat scary to imagine that in 35 years time the population is estimated to be at around 175 million. Having said that the speed at which Ethiopia’s population is growing is apparently on the decline. In the 1990’s women gave birth to an average of 7 children. Now it is under 5.

Of non-Ethiopians in the country the Chinese certainly out-number all other nationalities. I don’t think I have seen so much Chinese influence anywhere else on the continent as I have in Ethiopia. In some places, where the roads have been recently paved and widened, children and adults didn’t yell out ‘you you’, but ‘China China’ as they saw me approaching.

As for interaction with any Chinese themselves, other than one over-weight man taking numerous pictures of my bike with his phone and saying ‘you very strong’ several times after I had just climbed out of the Blue Nile River Gorge, most maintained a near invisible presence.

These wide roads and newly constructed buildings gave many places I passed through a depressing air of Chinese advancement in Ethiopia. Other than the old capital Gonder, with its historical palace grounds and Italian-influenced centre, I found little physical attraction in the rest of urban Ethiopia.

One of the most pleasant days of cycling (no stones and almost no begging) in northern Ethiopia came when I decided to follow a scenic dirt track from the town of Bahir Dar around the western shore of Lake Tana. Similar to the brief time I was on a new road in southern Ethiopia, it seemed children here hadn’t seen enough ferenji to chase and taunt them. Unfortunately there weren’t enough of these alternative detours. Most of the time I was heading to places most other people who visit Ethiopia wish to see, connected by the only roads to get there.

Lalibela is a good example of such a place. Ethiopia’s most well-known tourist attraction, famed for its ancient rock-hewn churches, draws more visitors than anywhere else in the country. Only fitting then that children on the dirt track leading here should be well-trained in the art of begging and stone throwing.

I never witnessed anyone stopping to hand out money or pens, which are demanded almost everywhere by rural children, but there must be such instances to maintain and fuel this behaviour. Many people blame the history of foreign aid in Ethiopia. Thanks Bob.

Fortunately the scenery surrounding the town made the hardship of reaching here worthwhile. The view from the aptly named Panorama Hotel, where I watched one of  the Rugby World Cup Semi Finals, was one of the most spectacular I have seen in Africa. More impressive, in my own opinion, than paying $50 for the privilege to see the famous 11 Churches nearby.

The importance of religion was evident almost everywhere I went. Churches, ancient monasteries and priests at the roadside were visible on a daily basis, but other than in Lalibela I stayed on the bike rather than be led by a birr-hungry guide to view something I probably wouldn’t have found as impressive as the surrounding landscape.

I met just one other foreign cyclist during this loop of northern Ethiopia. Frank, from the Czech Republic, was downing a litre of mango juice on the roadside one morning. It was about 10am and he’d already covered 70km. He aimed to cycle at least another 80km that day. Perhaps wisely, from the point of view of Ethiopian kids begging, he had no visible water bottles attached to his bike. More interestingly, his rear rack held a folded-up cardboard bike box, on top of which a single back-pack contained all his gear for a quick tour, by the sounds of it, from Nairobi to Cairo.

He claimed the box made a good tent, except for the mosquitoes. I didn’t ask him what happened when it rained, but couldn’t imagine the box being in a great state to pack his bike in when he flew out of Cairo.

As for Ethiopian cyclists, occasionally I would pass a few boys and young men riding around town on cheap Chinese models. Many of the bicycles were draped with flowers and tinsel and still had the tape on the frame in which they were probably shipped. Some rode with me for a few minutes, but no-one cycled between towns nor used bicycles to transport goods on. They were just play things. Donkeys, and in some of the lowland areas as I returned towards Addis from the eastern side of the Rift Valley escarpment, camels, did the unmechanised transport of goods.

There were few, if any, flat days of riding, but the I found the challenges presented by the terrain no comparison to the people. Other than Morocco, no-where else on the continent has the same diversity of elevation to rival Ethiopia. This made for some exhilarating descents (from 3200m down to 1500m on one day) and gruelling climbs (1100m up to 3250m on another), both of which rewarded me with views I wouldn’t be able to appreciate were I not with my own transport.

As for memorable wildlife, it was on one of these climbs back up the rift valley escarpment one morning that I encountered a troop of Gelada baboons, indigenous to Ethiopia, on the roadside. This was an unexpected highlight.

If you’ve read this far you’re probably thinking I’m glad to be back in Addis Adaba, where I am now, and preparing to leave the country as soon as possible. Well that’s partly true. One of the reasons I didn’t continue to the far north of the country, en route to the Simien Mountains and the historical town of Axum, was that my visa was expiring and Addis Ababa is the only place in the country where it is possible to make an extension. I was also weary of adding even more kilometres to an experience I was not fully enjoying.

On many days I questioned whether I really wanted to make a visa extension, the alternative being to fly out of Ethiopia before the visa expired on 5th November.

Well I’ve stuck with my original plan, which is to continue east from Addis Ababa to the border with Somaliland, about 700km from here, and venture onwards into a country that isn’t internationally recognised. To do that I needed an Ethiopian visa extension, which I now have at great cost.

I also have a visa for Somaliland, one of the easiest I have ever received in Africa. After filling out an application and handing over $70 at the chancery here in Addis Ababa, it was issued to me within 20 minutes.

Land runs out in Somaliland. The plan, if possible, is to find a boat that can take me off the continent to Oman. I read about a couple doing it a few years ago, although that was before the problems in Yemen started, which is where I would have liked to head next.

Unfortunately it’s not something I will really know is possible or not until I get to the port of Berbera. I’m not even sure how much cycling I’ll be able to do without an escort of some sort.

If I can’t get a boat, the alternative will be returning to Ethiopia and flying out, which is possible as my visa is multiple entry and valid for 90 days. That’s not an option I’m really considering much right now though. An adventure off the continent through the Gulf of Aden seems a much more fitting way to continue this tour.

For those interested in the geographical route that this post describes, scroll to the bottom of the page here.

Returning to Tanzania wasn’t in the original plan. This was, and remains, to ride north to Ethiopia and beyond. But the British Council, my former employer, needed an English teacher for a short-term contract in July. The job-spec sounded interesting. What would a 600km detour and 3 weeks off the road matter when I had no need to be any place at any particular time.

So rather than continue north from Kisumu I rode south-east towards Kenya’s Rift Valley – a region of rolling green landscapes, tea-growing estates and welcome cool climates. Naturally this involved a bit of climbing, so it was a good job I’d consumed the 1kg of dates and 1kg of popcorn I had in my panniers when leaving Mwanza.

Actually the climb into Kenya’s Rift Valley wasn’t as bad as it looks here. This shows the elevation profile between Kisumu and Kericho – the former lying at an altitude of just under 1200m and the latter, 80km away, at around 2000m.

I’ve started using this website to find the elevation profile between places. That’s when I can remember to look or have Internet access. Fortunately the strength of mobile Internet in Africa continues to develop faster than anything else here. Kenya, at least in towns, has excellent connection speeds. Worth noting that 2gb of data (including text messaging and about 60 minutes of call time) will cost around £6. That’s more than enough for over a week’s use of Internet on the road. It’s actually significantly cheaper than this in Tanzania.

The countryside was scenic, the towns mostly ugly. This came as no surprise. Small shanty-style tin-shacks and larger concrete structures – either abandoned or under construction, made no-where particularly pleasing to the eye when I stopped for something to eat or a place to stay. 

But I enjoyed the surprise in peoples reactions and subsequent interaction at the roadside when stopping for a drink or stepping into a make-shift eatery. Most of these in Kenya are named ‘hotels’, but it’s simple food and tea on offer rather than accommodation. A lot more beans and chapatis consumed.

Kiswahili is still widely spoken in Kenya, but it’s not heard as often as in Tanzania. Ethnic languages predominate here – the changing sounds of which are a good an indication of moving from one region to another. So eastwards from the Luo speakers around Lake Victoria it is Kalenjin that dominates the tea growing areas of Kericho and Bomet, before entering Masaai dominated territory that extends up to and across the border with Tanzania.

Much of the landscape in the latter remains scarcely populated, largely consisting of expansive tracts of scrubland and spiky bush. Here cows and goats probably outnumber people. Massai-dominated towns are in fact as distinguishable by the colourful shawls worn by their long ear-lobed inhabitants as they are by the sight of butchers and the accompanying smell of roasted meat. Nyama Choma (roasted meat) seems to be a staple food in these parts of Kenya.

The truth is the meat is very good – far superior to what is served in Tanzania. I ordered 500g of roasted goat meat one evening from the restaurant of a hotel I stayed in (orders of 1kg or 1/2kg are the norm) and decided to do exactly the same the next night. It was some of the best meat I’ve had in Africa – affordable as well at less than £2.

It might just be that I chose a good place to eat. The sight and smell of some of the butchers here are enough to turn one vegetarian. There are rumours that some nyama choma establishments in Kenya serve up donkey meat to unsuspecting customers. I wonder how that tastes.

The tarmac road was smooth and mostly quiet as I continued east, dropping in altitude and providing a wide sweeping view of Mt Suswa ahead of me.

This route was steering me directly towards Nairobi, which I had little desire nor need to enter for the second time.

Invisible on google maps, but quite clearly demarcated on my paper map, was a track that appeared to totally bypass the capital. I feared it might be a busy short-cut, but soon realised once I saw the turn off just beyond the small town of Suswa, that it would be anything but. So I filled up my water bottles, bought some bananas, spaghetti, tomatoes and sukuma wiki (a green-leafed spinach type veg) and headed off into the bush planning to camp.

I had been looking forward to a night in the tent and had a wide expanse of land to choose from. Well that’s not strictly true. Surrounded by acacia trees and various other thorny foliage it made little sense to venture far from the track before pitching the tent.

I think some people are under the impression that I spend most of my nights in this small green enclosure. I don’t. When adequate roofed accommodation is available for around £5 or less, which it often is in populated parts of East Africa, I don’t see much point in camping, unless I’m surrounded by some spectacular natural beauty, which usually isn’t the case if there are lots of people living in an area. Besides, wild camping isn’t particularly relaxing or safe if you are close to where people live, but trying to hide yourself. I’ve always found in this situation that it’s better to go and say hello and ask permission to camp. Invariably this often means pitching a tent somewhere like a school or church, or within someone’s compound. I’ve done this many times before in Africa.

Anyhow, this kind of landscape, despite the mine-field of thorns, was one perfect for camping. I pitched the tent under a full moon and woke up with the tranquility of bird-song rather than a group of noisy children waiting outside for me.

Fortunately the tyres remained puncture-free as I continued the following morning on a deteriorating but perfectly bikeable track in the direction of Ngong. It was hard to believe I was so close to Nairobi. My surroundings hadn’t felt more remote on this journey. Dirt tracks are always more memorable.

Back on tarmac I joined the main road connecting Kenya with the Tanzanian border of Namanga. More Nyama Choma towns.

By now I was able to greet people with a call of ‘Supa’ (the Masaai greeting for hello, which I probably mis-pronounced by just shouting ‘super’ at everyone – I think the correct pronunciation is ‘sopa’) from the saddle.

I had music playing most of the time. When I first started touring I used to wear headphones to listen to music. Perhaps that was in the days before mini-speakers became so compact. Now I have a little blue-tooth speaker that sits in a small frame bag. It weighs almost nothing and emits a decent sound for its size. I just need to download some more music to play out of it.

Tanzanian immigration stamped me in for free when I returned. Bonus. Apparently a 90-day single-entry tourist visa, which I have, allows multiple entries back into the country for which the visa belongs to, assuming you are re-entering from Uganda and Kenya. This isn’t publicised, but is part of some East African Community agreement. Without knowing about it I can quite easily imagine many a traveller handing over a $50 bill for another visa. Hard to believe anyone in such an instance being told that it isn’t necessary to pay as their current visa remains valid.

The first thing I did after leaving Namanga and the trucks at the border is eat a potato omelette, more commonly known as chips mayai in Tanzania. It’s the national dish and designed for cyclists who want a low-cost high calorie meal. They don’t serve this in Kenya. They should. One usually has the option in places that dish out this African delicacy to order mishkaki (kebabs) – a woeful sized quantity of meat skewered onto one stick. It’s sensible to order at least several – they don’t cost much either.

It was massai land again on the road south to Arusha. Here the young shepherds bedecked in colourful finery seemed more interested to flag me down than they did in Kenya. It was always more than just a greeting of course. As I wrote in the previous post no-one ever asks you to stop in Africa just to say hello.

Luxury awaited me in Arusha.I knew the hotel I was booked into and grinned widely as I ducked under the security barrier and rolled-up to the entrance. ‘You can’t park here’, said one of many uniformed guards as he took my camera and offered to take a picture.

Ten minutes later I was stepping into a room that I would never be staying in were I paying for it. Lucky me. The only disappointment was the manager not agreeing to my suggestion of placing the bicycle on the balcony.

The Arusha Hotel is one of east Africa’s oldest establishments, although nothing looks like it was here in 1884. Back then there would have been none of the groups of tourists that fill this place now. The car park if full of tour buses and safari vehicles. July is the start of the high season for trips to Serengeti, the Ngorogoro Crater and treks up Mount Kilimanjaro. Big business for people here. Arusha has dozens of forex bureaus. The moment I step out of the hotel I’m practically jumped upon by someone wishing to sell me something.

I’m here for a few more weeks delivering an English language course to a group of ‘creative artists’. After that the journey continues.

For those wishing to see the route I took from Kisumu-Arusha, scroll to the bottom of this page.

The boat left Mbamba Bay just before sunset. It was a scenic time to be out on the lake. The sky was clear, the water calm, and my bicycle safely wedged between a few large sacks of cassava and second-hand clothes. It felt good to be breaking the tour up with a boat journey – a peaceful continuation of slow travel without the physical exertion of the lung-bursting climbs I’d been experiencing on the road.

Other than the captain and two crewmen, a young woman and several of what I guessed were her children, the boat had plenty of space to pick up more passengers and cargo, which I suspected would be the case. We were headed south towards the Mozambican shores of Lake Malawi, although with no visa I hoped African officialdom, should there be any, would be kind on me.

Here are a few photos from that journey, along with those from the road in Malawi and western Tanzania. The photos in this blog post, as with the last, were shot with either a Nikon D90 or Samsung S4 phone, then edited a little in Lightroom and Snapseed respectively. Those without my watermark were taken by Anselm Nathanael who appears in this photo blog story. This is the first real time I have done much post-production. Comments and recommendations are welcome.

After several hours of motoring south from Mbamba bay we arrived in the village of Chimate, a short distance from the border with Mozambique. It was dark, but there seemed to be a hive of activity along the beach as young men prepared to head out onto the lake in their dugout canoes, each one rigged up with bright lights to attract fish. December, I had been told, was a popular time for catching dagaa, a small minnow-sized fish that is typically dried on the beach for a few days then transported inland in large sacks. Apparently it’s a profitable business. Like many fishermen with money to spend in a place with not much to do, excessive alcohol consumption seemed to be the most popular activity. I found a warm beer in a makeshift shack, which had a generator rigged up outside so that football could be shown, but retreated to the beach shortly afterwards and slept alongside the crew right at the very spot where this picture was taken just before sunrise.

It wasn’t long before we were motoring off and headed south towards Mozambique. I’m rarely awake and travelling so early, but that dawn serenity is usually the best time of the day in Africa.

Early morning sunlight and a few extra passengers onboard as we head into Mozambican waters. The village of Chiwindi appears to be the official border between Tanzania and Mozambique – another line drawn across a map by Europeans who probably never came to this part of Africa. Two Mozambican policemen, familiar to the captain, board the boat and pick up a few bags. It seems to be customary that there will be a small exchange of money – enough for them to feed themselves and have a few drinks for a day or two I suppose. Maputo, the capital of Mozambique, is many days of travel away and this is about as distant a post to be stationed at as possible.

The boat stops at a number of remote beaches along the Mozambican shore of Lake Malawi. For most people living here it’s boats like this that provide the only means by which to sell their produce. Likoma Island, which is part of Malawi, is only a short distance away and provides the closest market for trade.

How else would you spend your days if you grew up in a remote village along the shores of a crystal clear lake in Africa.

Likoma Island ought to be part of Mozambique seeming that the mainland is only 7km away, but the founding on the island in 1880 of the Anglican Mission to Central Africa meant it remained within what is now Malawi. On arrival I was accosted by two plain-clothed policeman on the beach who demanded an inspection of my panniers. This doesn’t happen very frequently, but they clearly had nothing better to do. Neither did the small crowd of local islanders who were very interested to see what I had inside my bike bags. In one of the front panniers I carry a small tupperware box that contains cooking ingredients – salt, pepper, cooking oil, mixed herbs. Well the latter clearly got the attention of the police and crowd seeming that it looked just like marijuana. It took a little time before I convinced them that it was no more than a mixture of dried mint, oregano, basil etc. I stayed on the island, which I first visited 14 years ago, a few nights, waiting for another boat to transport me onwards to Nkhata Bay on the Malawian mainland. The boat that took me there is pictured here, a replacement for the MV Illala, which appears in the photo below.

Built in Scotland in 1949, the Ilala has been operating on Lake Malawi since 1951. I’ve travelled on it before, but had heard it was being repaired this time round so prepared to take the boat in the previous picture. Just as we were about to leave the Ilala made a surprise appearance – the first time it had arrived on the island in months.

The last time I was in Malawi it was also December, so I knew mangoes would be in season. I spent my first two nights on the Malawian mainland at the ever-popular Nkhata Bay. Just like last time I came here it was full of American Peace-Corp volunteers on holiday. Away from the humid lakeside shore the road climbs to Mzuzu, a route I’ve cycled before and from where this picture was taken. Just like 3 years previously, most roads in Malawi are blissfully free of traffic.

Days were hot in Malawi, but I was fortunate to avoid the heavy rain that made international headlines a few weeks later with parts of the country flooded. Coke stops and random roadside exchanges were a familiar feature as always.

It’s always a great experience to be invited to stay with a local family. The evening before this picture was taken I’d stopped to buy mangoes on the roadside nearby. When asked where I would be sleeping, to which I didn’t have a definite reply (I guessed I would just camp as there were no towns) I was soon welcomed to stay. I left the next morning with panniers full of mangoes.

Having climbed away from the lake after leaving Nkhata Bay, the road north through Malawi descends again, offering great views across to Tanzania.

Malawi is so small and cycle friendly that there’s always a good chance of meeting other cyclists on the road. Lu, from Japan, had started his trip over a year ago and had recently flown to Tanzania then cycled into Malawi. Recumbents look a lot more comfortable in many respects than normal bicycles, but on rough roads with steep gradients I’m not sure how well they would handle.  

It was another of those new and smooth Chinese roads, the kind which seem to be getting more and more popular in Africa. This one connected the lakeside town of Karonga in northern Malawi, with Chitipa, which lies close to the borders of Tanzania and Zambia. It was Christmas day and there was barely another vehicle on the road. I had hoped the dark clouds a few kilometres up ahead would empty their load on me. Short intense rain-showers are very welcome in equatorial Africa, but unfortunately it stayed dry all day.

Anselm and I first met in Nkhata Bay, then started cycling together from Chitipa. He’d been on the road in Africa for eight months before I met him, slowly moving north from Cape Town with no specific route or time plan to return home to Germany. We continued to cycle together through western Tanzania and into Burundi, his rear bicycle wheel suffering from a number of broken spokes during this time. Riding a bicycle with 28″ wheels in Africa makes it harder to find spare parts, but he claimed he was too tall to ride a standard 26″ wheel bike.

From Chitipa a small dirt track branched off towards the border with Tanzania. At one stage I’d planned to cross into Zambia from Malawi, then head north to Lake Tanganyika and use the ferry service across the Lake, but there were rumours that this boat was also out of service. Besides, I’d taken this boat when I first travelled in Africa and was now quite looking forward to exploring western Tanzania by road.

The Tanzanian immigration office in the small town of Isongole probably doesn’t see many foreigners passing through. With a residency permit it means I don’t have to hand out $50 for the standard 90-day tourist visa.

First day back in Tanzania and the weather and scenery is great. From Isongole a quiet dirt track leads towards Tunduma. Narrow bridges like the one pictured here aren’t so common in Tanzania these days.

Same bridge as above. Bicycles are a more common form of transport on small roads like this than motorised transport.

Great spot to pitch the tent in for the first night back in Tanzania. The mountains in the background form the border with Malawi.

There aren’t many trains operating in Tanzania these days. This is the Tazara line railway, which connects Tanzania with Zambia. It was paid for and built by the Chinese in the early 1970’s – a time when Tanzania and China were particularly good friends. Now the Chinese have switched their attention to road-building. A bi-weekly passenger train still runs along here, but you need plenty of patience for the journey.

A few years ago, or less, this would have been an unpaved road in western Tanzania. Little used then, it remains that way, mostly because the population density out here is low. Thank you again China. At the time of riding (Dec 2014) the road from Tunduma north to Sumbawanga is beautifully paved, and remains so for about another 50km.

I took Anselm’s cue for a few minutes one day and saved my legs. Whenever there was a passing truck on a hill Anselm would be sure to be holding on. His luggage weighed far more than mine, on account of lugging a 3-person tent, two cooking stoves and various other gear which probably weren’t necessary in Tanzania, but might have been elsewhere.

Rare was there a day when I didn’t stop for mangoes. The small variety as pictured here are more or less given away – pocket money for kids.

Villages in western Tanzania don’t see many foreign faces so a fair amount of curiosity is created when stopping at a shop. For some random reason the woman holding a bucket to my right demanded to be given my underpants that were drying on the camping bag on my rear rack.

Another great camp spot – this one just north from Sumbawanga where the tarmac stopped.

When the tarmac stopped north of Sumbawanga the mud started. Fortunately it was only for a short stretch. With mudguards on my bike there isn’t a whole of clearance.

Sizeable and about to disappear into the dense bush on the road north from Sumbawanga. A green mamba perhaps?

The Ankole longhorn cow is native to Africa and has horns that can apparently reach 2.4metres long. Not sure what people do with the horns when they are killed. Anyhow, such impressive beasts are a common sight in west Tanzania.

Not a bad place to pitch the tent on 31st December. It was a long day on the road and I was asleep by 9pm.

 A sign like this is pretty useless unless you have someone enforcing such rules. A public road cuts through Katavi National Park, so game viewing is almost guaranteed, particularly if you follow some of the tracks that run parallel to the main road. Visiting the park as a normal tourist on an organised tour would, like most safaris in Tanzania, cost a lot. First there is the $50 per day National Park fees and then there is the vehicle and driver to pay. Very few tourists visit Katavi National Park, which makes the experience of travelling through it all the more special.

Unlike some other large animals in Katavi National Park, there is little sense of danger when up close with Giraffes. Most of them run away long before you get anywhere near them. These two paused for a short time before deciding which way to run. A great moment!

He was still some distance away, but very much aware of my presence – stopping for several minutes before deciding which way to move. Katavi National Park reportedly has large herds of Buffalo, but when alone they are apparently more dangerous (I read this afterwards fortunately).

In the water hippos look lazy and disinterested – sensibly keeping cool unlike those on bicycles watching them.

Best given plenty of space when out of water and aware of your presence. He soon disappeared.

What this photo doesn’t show are the hundreds of Tsetse flies attached to my front and rear panniers. I attempted to out-cycle them, which proved futile. Nasty bites and mosquito repellent were also completely ineffective. Other than that this was a very pleasant track in the National Park, running parallel to the main road nearby.

A market on two wheels – not an uncommon sight in rural Africa. This young chap seemed to take great pride in his work – donning a shirt and bow-tie as he cycled between villages on the outskirts of Mpanda. The tarmac lasted about 30km before returning to dirt.

I rested here a few nights on a heavy dose of antibiotics. Many days of continued cycling had caused a rather unpleasant boil to develop on my backside; an occupational hazard of sorts. Highway Guest House was a slightly misleading name as Mpanda is a long way from anywhere. Highway would therefore be referring to the dirt track that heads either to Tabora in one direction or Kigoma, where I was going, in the other.

Lunch in Mpanda: Pilau (spiced rice) fried fresh fish from Lake Tanganyika, chilli relish, beans and salad – £1.20 well spent.

Having watched this chicken being killed only minutes before, at least I knew it was fresh. It was soon cut into £0.40 pence pieces, (wings, legs, neck etc) which were skewered on wooden sticks and sold on the roadside.

This painting wasn’t finished, but the artist had a long way to go before making his depiction of Tanzania’s first President look anywhere near decent. 

German East African coin: From 1885-1919 what is now Tanzania was then part of German East Africa. In a small village close to Kigoma a young child showed me this coin, perhaps found in the dirt. He was more than happy to exchange it for a few sweets.

I later researched the coin, on the off chance it might be worth something to a collector. A coin such as this in mint condition (never in circulation) is estimated to be worth around 50 Euros. Anything else is worth very little, so it remains a nice souvenir.

Very convenient for onward travel to Burundi. A 7-day visa for Burundi can be issued on the same day for $40 in Kigoma.

Kigoma’s most prominent building is its German built train station, where a twice-weekly train leaves for Dar es Salaam. It’s a journey I’ve made before, and one that takes at least two days. Kigoma is the first place I ever visited in Tanzania, arriving by boat after a three day journey across Lake Tanganyika from Zambia.

Heading to the market, downhill fortunately, with 100 or so pineapples (small ones £0.20 large ones £0.40). This was taken on the smooth, Chinese-built road that climbs from Kigoma to the Burundian border post.

It’s amazing how the pineapples are stacked and balanced. Dozens of bicycles, equally as heavily laden with pineapples, passed me by so after a while I stopped to buy one – kind of foolish as I was climbing all day!

Young Tanzanian boys on the road to the Burundi border.

Pitched in no-mans land between Tanzanian and Burundian immigration posts. A lovely spot to sleep before crossing into Burundi the next day, where this photo blog story will continue.

The flights were booked well in advance. Mwanza-Dar-es-Salaam, then Dar-es-Salaam-Mbeya. Less than £90 in total, including the extra luggage allowance for the bike in a box.

The tour had been on my mind for months – around about the same time I booked the flights I guess. Beyond a rough route, which would bring me back to Mwanza by bike, I had little specifically planned for what ended up being 7 weeks on the road.

The Southern Highlands of Tanzania would be first up, an area of the country I’d yet to cycle through. Then I’d cross Lake Niassa to Malawi and ride north, possibly heading into Zambia and connecting with the ferry service across Lake Tanganyika to Kigoma in Western Tanzania. If there was time I’d revisit Burundi and Rwanda, dip into Uganda and then return to Tanzania. One thing I was sure I wouldn’t do, unless absolutely necessary, was subject my bicycle and bottom to the discomfort of an African bus.

The journey wouldn’t be short of climbs given that most of my intended route would pass through the Rift Valley. In fact there were very few flat days on the tour, as evidenced by the elevation chart below. In total I rode just under 3200km, in 38 days, and accumulated 36,458m of altitude, according to my GPS unit.

It was a great tour – both on and off the bike, riding a mixture of paved and unpaved roads and revisiting a few places I’d been before. I’ll do my best to share it here with pictures and descriptions over a series of blog posts.

It’s a perfect day and a perfect road to roll out of Mbeya on. Starting at 1700m the air is cool and it’s uphill all day – 25km on smooth tarmac then 25km on a dirt track towards Kitulo National Park. I’m in relatively good fitness, but 20kg of luggage, plus water, feels like a serious work out.

Buying local fruit and veg on the roadside has to be one of the most enjoyable aspects of cycling in Africa. People try to flog you an entire bucket of whatever is in season, unaware that carrying 5kg of carrots or tomatoes in your panniers isn’t sensible. And so you offer some small change and pick a handful, which is usually OK. I stopped to buy plums here, rare in Tanzania. Also nice to get service with a smile.

Room for the first night in a village called Kikondo. Pretty basic and pretty grim, but clean enough and at £1.80 per night I couldn’t really complain. It was the only Guest House in Kikondo (unsigned) – 10 tiny rooms or so behind a bar. I could have camped, but wimped out under dark skies. Kikondo is at about 2800m altitude so I asked the receptionist/bar girl to prepare some hot water for a shower. I turned in for the night early, happy the village’s limited power supply meant all was quiet by 10pm. Tanzania is one of Africa’s easiest countries to find cheap accommodation in. Naturally the choice, quality and price go with the size of the place.

On the second day I entered Kitulo National Park. It’s one of Tanzania’s lesser known parks (no big animals here) and is mostly situated at over 2000m in altitude. Between Jan-Feb wild flowers cover many of the slopes, so I was a month or so early.

Road through Kitulo National Park. Why does a Giraffe and Lion reside on my handlebars? No particular reason other than they were being sold off cheap on an online store when I was purchasing various other gear, and felt like pimping the bike up with some random mascots. Just a kid at heart really. Front light is also a new edition, wired up to the dynamo hub, although I rarely used it and found the placement right on the front of the rack to be too susceptible to the occasional knock. Will have to rethink that one.

Almost no traffic on this track heading to Makete in the Southern Highlands. I had read that December was the wet season, so was perhaps lucky that almost no rain fell during the first week. On some of the tracks, wet weather would have made the going very hard.

There were many tracks in the Southern Highlands and it wasn’t always obvious which one to take. I had download a GPS app on my phone, which showed hundreds of interconnecting tracks. I usually just followed my instinct and took whichever was going in the right direction.

Food options were fairly limited in the Southern Highlands, but surrounded by fields of potatoes it wasn’t hard to find a plate of fresh chips. And coke, well coca-cola is never that hard to find in Africa.

The scenery was superb, but the gradients on this track through the Southern Highlands were amongst the steepest I have ever cycled on (typically 12-18%+). Down one valley side and up another – all day. In the lowest gear I would usually cycle for a few hundred metres at 4-5km/hr, rest and drink water, then continue. Pushing the bike (about 45kg) on loose surfaces meant it was impossible to get any grip. Had there been rain such roads would have become very difficult to ride. This was the third day of riding on the tour and I managed 35km in about 6 hours, climbing 1200m. When I arrived mid-afternoon in the small village of Lupila I was told I had taken the short-cut, which probably meant the track people walk on.

This photo was taken about 2 hours after the previous, and probably only about 10km later. You can see the road snaking around to the right of the picture. The reward for such a sweaty workout were the stunning views over the Livingstone Mountains.

Nice to find some shady spots on this track to Lupira.

The views around the remote mission station of Lupira were really quite dramatic. The road I should have arrived on cuts into the mountainside on the top right of this picture. This picture is looking north.

Tanzania’s National Roads Authority (TANROADS) website has a surprisingly good database of maps detailing the network of roads in the country. I took a series of screenshots of the road network in the Southern Highlands on my phone, which turned out to be very useful and accurate as the names used here are those in existence. GPS devices and paper maps occasionally use inaccurate names. Lupila, which really felt like the middle of nowhere due to the difficulty in reaching it, doesn’t actually appear on most maps.

The weather and scenery continues to keep me happy as I head south from Lupira on day 4.

Few people live in a region that’s probably one of the most fertile in the country. The population of Tanzania is growing rapidly, but it’s towns where people want to live – the same throughout most of Africa. Tanzania as a whole remains sparsely populated and in the areas where roads are poor and mobile network non existent, such as this one, that isn’t likely to change too quickly.