I'm going back for seconds!

So, I’m going back for seconds!
Greedy? Crazy? A little bit insane? Yep – a touch of all three but in my mind there is validity in returning to Africa so soon. During the 2007 TDA I injured my wrist in Dongola, Sudan with a careless fall and initially thinking it was a bad sprain I kept riding off and on to Addis Ababa, Ethiopia. I rode with one hand on the sealed road sections, carried my bike on my shoulder with the semi off road sections and on the really tough off road days was forced to hitch a ride with Doris or Betsey the support trucks. Needless to say the fast descent of the Blue Nile Gorge in all its glory and not being able to ride the ascent was a realisation for me that it was a break with confirmation in Addis Ababa.

While the 2007 TDA team was riding through Southern Ethiopia and Northern Kenya, I was on a beach in Lamu, Kenya nursing a cast! When I rejoined the group in Nairobi, it was great to hear all their stories and even though they all told me it was wise of me not to ride that section I still felt like I had missed out. I didn’t get to experience the Mars like landscape, the brutal heat and humidity, the jarring volcanic rocky roads, the baboons aiming their evacuations at tents with such precision that it was both annoying and humorous or seeing the proud northern Maasai with all their exquisite jewellery. Although I rode the rest of the tour, the job so to speak was not complete.

I’m told by the 2007 TDA family that there will be days in Kenya that I will regret and will seriously question my sanity but hey that’s what life is all about. Husband Chris is willing to hold down the fort in Southern California while I join the 2008 TDA from Cairo to Nairobi. Here’s to more sand, early morning prayers, donkeys, camels, desert camps and a whole lot of stone and stick wielding Ethiopian children in the middle. Bring it on!!!