Entries by James Davis
Cycling Namibia and a family reunion
We had a straightforward cycle north (yes, north!) on the B1 from Windhoek before we turned west onto the B2. After 118km we topped up our water bags at a roadside farm at Okazizi and found a dried-out riverbed to pitch our tent for the night – which displaced the resident cattle from their usual […]
Long roads, lodges, lions and a long ladder with baboon poo
We just had time to publish our last blog post before we left Livingstone, so I thought I’d do a quick recap on our time there. We had a rendezvous with my brother Francis, my niece Sarah and my nephew Ben. They’d just about recovered from the Zambezi hippo attack. In Livingstone, we stayed at […]
Cycling back in time to Shiwa and Lwitikila, Zambia
After our brief detour to Dar es Salaam for some well-needed r&r, we headed back to Mbeya. From there, we cycled the short distance to Utengule Coffee Lodge, where we met up with Tom and Eva, whom we’d first met in the lower Omo Valley in Ethiopia. They’d been stuck at the lodge for a […]
Struggling through western Tanzania
After a couple of wonderful days with Mike, Jenna and their kids in Kigali it was time to hit the road again. We’d had such a great time with them all that it was hard to leave. Mike and Jenna met while cycling across Canada and never looked back! A few years later they married […]
Cycling Uganda
Emily was terrified. She’d been saying to me for weeks that she didn’t want to do it. And now, as we teetered at the top of a 10-foot drop, she was regretting that she’d ever followed my lead by agreeing to go white water rafting. We were facing upstream but were stuck on rocks at […]
Cycling the Lower Omo Valley to Omorate and on to West Turkana
We would have loved to stay in Addis Ababa for Christmas. But, alas, we had to race to Kenya before our visas expired on the 31st December. From Addis Ababa, the conventional route to Kenya is the road directly south towards Moyale. However, the first few hundred kilometers of the road in Northern Kenya is […]
Up high: Getting stoned in the Ethiopian Highlands
It was possibly not the wisest choice for two tourists who were about to cycle in Ethiopia for the first time to watch an episode of “The World’s Most Dangerous Roads” the night before we set off. In the episode in question, British comedians High Dennis and David Baddiel drive their sturdy 4×4 the length […]
Walking back to recovery in the Simien Mountains, Ethiopia
We reached the Sudanese border town of Gallabat at 11am and found shade in the café nearest the border post. The incredibly friendly café owner refused to accept payment for the Cokes we’d plucked from the fridge and he even gave us a couple of bottles of water. We obviously looked in a bad way. […]
Cycling Egypt: A pharaoh way to go!
Reluctantly, we made the decision to fly from Jordan to Cairo because, had we cycled, our route would have taken us straight through the Sinai peninsular. The troubles in the Sinai have mostly been limited to the north east of the peninsular, close to the border with Gaza, where groups who’ve pledged allegiance to ISIS […]