The past months have been a cycling version of “Paris – Dakar”, as they have crossed Morocco, Western Sahara, Mauritania, and Senegal and are now taking a break in Cape Verde (wish I could join!).

By what I saw on social media, cycling Africa really seems like a whole other level of challenge. Stronger language barriers, thousands of kilometres of emptiness and kind people seem to be some of the differences. Let them tell us the rest.

Starting in Morocco, which is a country full of life, diversity and things to see and do. Do you want to tell us about your itinerary, favourite cities (and why), landscape, food, moments…

We took the ferry to Tanger and then cycled a bit along the coast, before we cycled inland to Chefchaouen. At this point, we had to cross some hills in the Rif Mountains.

Afterwards we visited Rabat, Casablanca and Marrakech. After crossing the High Atlas Mountains, we reached Quarzazate and then Zagora. From Zagora we cycled the only main road to Guelmim and then through Western Sahara.

Our favourite city was Marrakech, because of the beautiful medina with all its riads and shops. There are many tourists, but it is still quite interesting to eat the food and discover all the crazy things happening at the main square.

Landscape: High Atlas Mountains

Food: Desserts

Moment: Once, a fisherman invited us for dinner and we camped next to him. Even though he was extremely poor and had nothing, he offered us food and water. Unfortunately, we had no common language and communication was difficult.

To reach Morocco was an important milestone for us. This meant we reached Africa and therefore the second chapter or our trip, which we both looked forward to the most. When we entered Morocco, we immediately realized there were changes and we had to adapt quickly to the traffic, culture and climate.

How was it to cycle Morocco? I feel like it’s the kind of country that would attract a lot of cyclists or bike lovers. Any tips in particulars?

Morocco is very popular for cyclists from all around the World. It is no secret that this large country offers various landscapes and people are friendly and hospitable. Wild camping is possible everywhere, local food is cheap and delicious. We loved the most northern part of the Rif Mountains and then the immense High Atlas mountains after Marrakech. The desert was interesting as well and is not as boring as we thought in the beginning.

After Morocco, you cycled for thousands of kilometres in the desert. How do you cope with several days without seeing anything or anyone? What distracts you?

We realized that people have a wrong perception of the desert or at least the part where we cycled. We were surprised about the amount of people living in the desert. Every five kilometres, there was a mobile phone antenna with someone taking care of it and many people living along the road.

Some anglers live next to the steep cliffs in simple huts. Of course, we did not see many people, but every day we had at least a settlement or fuel station where we could buy water or snacks. When we had strong winds or boring landscapes, we listened to music or audiobooks.

You seemed to have some memorable moments in Mauritania. Tell us more about this country that is a complete question mark to most people.

We did not know anything about this fascinating country as well. Mauritanians are extremely friendly and interested. Hospitality is extremely important culturally and we had very warm encounters with locals. The country is rich in resources like iron, gold, nickel and fish, but still ranks among the poorest countries in Africa. Political and ethnical problems make the development hard.

Mauritania offers various kinds of landscapes. On one side, there is the desert with huge and endless sand dunes. In the inland there are rock cliffs and green oasis filled with palm trees and dromedaries.

Somewhere along your journey, you have decided to take a train in the desert. Why did you do it and how epic was it?

At some point in Morocco, we decided to explore the inland of Mauritania without the bicycles. As we cycled a lot in the Sahara we didn’t want to cycle the same route twice in the desert of Mauritania.

Then we read about the iron ore train, which connects the coast to the inland. This was the perfect opportunity to explore the inland by public transportation and take the crazy ride on this train.

The ride was adventurous, since we had to climb the waggon ourselves. Of course, the waggons were full of powdered iron ore and we had to sleep on a huge pile of it. Completely covered in black powder, we looked like miners when we arrived after a long night on the shaky and windy train. Afterwards, we had to wash all our clothes and sleeping bags several times.

Up to now, what were the main difficulties you found in Africa? How did you overcome them?

The biggest problem was to find good food and water in the Sahara and Mauritania in general. In the shops, they only sell things like cookies or sweets, which are tasty, and we like it, but when you cycle you do not get a full stomach from that.

Now that you have reached Senegal, are there any outstanding differences between this country and the previous ones you travelled in (in Africa)?

We expected a big change when crossing the border from Mauritania to Senegal, but it was not as extreme as we imagined. The most prominent change was that all people had dark skin in comparison to only a minority in Mauritania. Additionally, there are more people living in Senegal and the vegetation is greener again.

In Mauritania, there were not many large villages or towns. In Senegal, there was a village every couple of kilometres and mostly full of people. People in Senegal, especially women wear colourful dresses every day. The dresses are more formfitting and a bit more revealing than in the previous countries.

Now, the part I really care about: how’s Cabo Verde?! What are your plans there besides not doing anything?

Cape Verde consists of ten mostly diverse islands and all of them offer different landscapes and things to do and see. We definitely relaxed quite a lot by our standards, but hiked a lot on Santo Antão and Santiago too. There are many different trails for hiking and the ones we did were beautiful.

Surprisingly, the islands we visited (Santiago, Santo Antão, Sao Vicente) are quite green even though there is almost no precipitation all year round. Local farmers are able to harvest bananas, coffee, avocados, papayas and mangos. In Santiago, we relaxed at the beach in the small village of Tarrafal and enjoyed the local cuisine.

When are you going to be back on the road and when are you planning to finish?

After two weeks travelling around Senegal and two weeks in Cape Verde we are really looking forward to cycle again. The plan is to go back to cycling after more two days in Dakar that means around the 21^st of February. We really need to clean our bikes and organize our gear again.

Our original plan was to arrive in Cape Town in the beginning of 2020. However, we realized that most Visas on the way there are quite expensive and we did not plan a lot of time in some of those countries. In addition, we want to travel around the countries too and really discover each country and use the Visas we get. We do not know exactly when we will reach Cape Town. Maybe spring 2020.

Can I meet you in South Africa? Just checked and there are very cheap return flights from London (direct!!)

Yes, this would be awesome!!

Follow these guys in:

Blog: www.cape2cape.org
Facebook: www.facebook.com/Cape2Cape.org/
Instagram: @cycling_cape2cape

The post [EN] Cycling Cape 2 Cape: The beginning of Africa and loads of desert appeared first on Mudanças Constantes.

In this post I want to go through the best and worst moments of the European Tour and try to grasp what is the next year of cycling going to be all about.

Since we last spoke, you crossed France and Spain. As usual, I would like to ask you about your most remarkable days in these two countries.

We crossed Andorra as well

In France and Spain, we liked the hospitality and the simplicity of the daily life and therefore enjoyed staying with locals a lot. In France, one of our favorite days was visiting the Dune of Pilat, which was just amazing. While visiting the Dunes we met a German couple travelling by car and ended up spending a nice evening together.

As we love mountains, we went hiking in Andorra and we had a blast. The mountain landscapes are just remarkable. Landscapes in Spain were hilly as well and we liked the strenuous climbs. Many times, we had problems to communicate with people and wished to speak some Spanish. I guess we have to get used to this for the next few months anyway.

How was it to cycle through the Pyrenees? Can you share with us your favourite landscapes and moments? And the hardest parts of it. I think you do now qualify to do the Vuelta a España!

It was nice to actually cycle a real mountain pass for a change. We had lots of climbing in previous countries, but it was always up and down and never long ascents. When you climb a mountain pass, to cycle uphill is hard and demands mental strength as well.

However, the downhill is the best part and we really enjoy doing nothing and cycling down with high velocity. The mountains surrounding the roads in the Pyrenees are beautiful and we recommend it to any cyclists. On the other hand, we did not like cycling through the busy roads and towns of Andorra.

During these last 8 months what were the hardest moments to overcome. Is there any decision you regret making? Any lesson which resulted from it?

The hardest moments were the days were we had constant rain and it did not even stop when pitching the tent. Sometimes, we only felt comfortable again, when we got in the sleeping bag inside the dry tent with some good food. There are many small decisions we would make differently and we learnt a lot along the way, but major regrets we don’t have so far.

It’s official: You won’t be in Europe for at least one year. What do you think you’ll miss the most and least about our continent?

Familiar languages, friends and family, good roads and of course chocolate for sure. Daily work stress and concerns about saving enough money for retirement, annoying tourists and fast food we won’t miss that much I guess.

Now, crossing into Africa, and after talking to people who are also cycling there, what are your biggest concerns?

The biggest concerns are regarding visas of Nigeria, Angola and other countries. Additionally, we are not used to some of the climates. Especially, the rainy season around the Equator is going to be challenging for sure. There are diseases we have to be aware of and even take medications for a long time (Malaria). In addition, it will be hard to be surrounded by the poverty and environmental pollution in some areas.

And about my concerns: are you going to be doing wild camping in Africa?! With WILD animals?

Yes, as long as we feel safe and nobody is warning us, we are going to do it.

How much of your budget have you dedicated to bribes in Africa?

Nothing, we have time to wait and hopefully patience

Of course, it is possible that we cannot get around it, but we will try to limit the amounts of bribes.

In two months, where are you expecting to be?

Senegal

To finish, I’d like you to give us some quick answers. A bit of a throwback to the last 8 months. You can have different answers

Choose:

One landscape: Scotland (F&A)

One city: Copenhagen (F), Edinburgh (A)

One road: Sierras de Cazorla, Segura y Las Villas Natural Park (F), Road between Pozo Alcon and Guadix (A)

One host: Toulouse (A), Nantes (F)

One camping dish: Lasagna with fajita bread instead of pasta slices (F), Pasta with Cheese and Salami pieces (A)

One proper restaurant dish: Seafood in La Rochelle (F, A)

One TV show: We watch movies from time to time: The 12^th man (A), Ace Ventura (F)

One thing you are proud of: I still have the reindeer antler from Norway with me (F), To not carry anything useless form Norway to Spain (A)

One thing you still have on your bucket list: North of Scotland (F), Cycle the Norwegian coast (A)

Last moment thought and Bonus Question: where are you going to spend Christmas and New Year’s?

We do not know yet, but chances are quite high that it will be somewhere in the Sahara.

Follow this guys in:

Website: www.cape2cape.org
Facebook: www.facebook.com/Cape2Cape.org/
Instagram: @cycling_cape2cape

The post [EN] Cycling Cape2Cape: The End of the European Tour appeared first on Mudanças Constantes.

And I’m dying to know how it has been going! So I’m using this second interview to get all the news and gossip first hand before our reunion in London next week. Yes, that’s happening!

Adi, what’s going on with that beard? Is it a bet, laziness or you won’t cut it until you finish the trip?

It is definitely not a bet I thought it is a good chance to grow a beard. At home, I probably would never do it, as there would be too many people telling me to cut it. The idea is to grow it as long as it’s practical and not too annoying. Let’s see how long…

Until now you’ve passed by Norway, Finland, Sweden, Denmark, Germany and Netherlands. Can you tell us how these countries corresponded or not to your expectations and do you have some highlights from each one of them that you want to share with us?

Norway: A lot of wind and the weather changes every 5 minutes, daylight 24/7. Regarding our expectations, it was what we already had in mind: lots of nothing at the beginning and then beautiful fiords and snow covered mountains. These were our highlights as well.

Finland: Too short to judge really.

Sweden: As expected, we witnessed breathtaking nature with thousands of lakes and forests. We were disappointed that we did not see any mooses along the way. About the myth that all Swedish women are pretty… it’s not true if you ask us!

Denmark: Copenhagen and beautiful beaches were the surprises in Denmark. We were a bit disappointed about the nature in Denmark as we were expecting more than agriculture and wind parks.

Germany: We expected people in Germany to be more extrovert than in the Northern countries. What we witnessed was even more than that. People approached us a lot and we had nice conversations everywhere. Highlights were the cities Hamburg, Bremen and the Mudflats. We also had many visitors from home, which was good to catch up.

Netherlands: The cycling paths were perfect in most of the country and this surprised us. We expected the Dutch people to be bike-freaks, but they just have better infrastructure and this helps a lot to promote the cycling lifestyle. The 30km dam we crossed and Amsterdam as a city with the Pride Parade, were definitely the standouts.

In general, the weather in the North was much warmer and drier than usual. This was surprising for us and we enjoyed it a lot, even though it was sometimes hard with to cycle with the high temperatures.

Seems like most of your accommodation up to now has been wild camping. Can you do it everywhere in the countries you are going to travel in and have you encountered any problems doing it?

Until Denmark, we could do wild camping everywhere and it was not a problem. In Denmark and Germany, it is not allowed to camp in the wild, but we never had a problem doing it.

The first night in the Netherlands, we camped next to railway tracks and had to move. The driver of the train warned us about the police and we changed the location. In general, in the Netherlands, there were not many places to put the tents, so we started to ask farmers if we could camp on their fields.

I know your bikes were stolen in a hostel in Sweden! What happened and how did you overcome this situation? 

We locked the bikes outside our hostel with our two locks and thought it would be safe, since the owner of the hostel told us it was not a problem. 2 days later, we realized that the locks were opened and the bikes were stolen. The only thing which was left, were the locks.

We then called our insurances and went to the police to get a report. After that we searched for 3 days for ideal bikes to continue the trip. Luckily, we have good insurance cover and we were in a big European city, so it was not such a big problem to replace them.

Besides that have you had any other setbacks? Like weather, winds, accidents…

So far we were really lucky with the weather. We had one minor accident in the beginning of our journey through Sweden. We were all cycling next to each other and Joel then fell sideways, because he got tangled in Fabian’s bicycle.

Up to now, how do you compare the planned route with the cycled route? Any major changes or everything has been quite close to the plan?

More or less we stayed on the planned route and only did small changes, adapting to the tips we got from local people. The only bigger adjustment was that we entered Denmark through Helsingör instead of Copenhagen.

Equipment wise, the things you had prepared were enough or you’ve made some adjustments since then?

In Copenhagen, we sent some warm clothes back home as the temperatures were already high enough.
The water filter was helpful in the beginning, because we didn’t have places to get running water from. No villages or cities aorund. Later on, as we started cycling on more populated places, we didn’t need it anymore.

We expected more mosquitos in Scandinavia, because usually it’s a big problem. But due to the dry summer, we did not encounter many of them overall.

How are the Northern European countries for cycling? Road conditions, camping grounds, many climbs… Would you say it’s a safe choice for beginners?

For starters we would recommend Sweden, because it’s relatively flat and camping spots are easy to find. In Norway, it is though, since there’s more wind and many steep climbs. In addition, the landscapes are rougher and it is harder to find camping spots. The road conditions were good in all countries so far.

What are your favourite meals to eat while camping? Any secret recipes?

We have been having a surprisingly well balanced diet for three carnivore guys. We cooked different versions of pasta, couscous, rice, soups, salads and mashed potatoes with meat. We do not have a favourite, but discovered many new recipes and ways to combine all sorts of ingredients.

And finally, do you still all love each other?

Love is relative (ahahaah, such a swiss answer!), but we enjoy our time together a lot. We are all surprised how well it’s going so far. All the cycling in between helps to cool down and to reflect on ourselves. Sometimes we have heated discussions, but we have also learned how to compromise. Anyway, it’s an important part of our journey and it has helped us to grow as a team.

Keep it going guys!
Follow them in: cape2cape.org and @cycling_cape2cape

The post [EN] From Nordkapp to Brussels: Cycling the first 5000 km appeared first on Mudanças Constantes.

One of these awesome people I’ve met is Adi. We met in Borneo for no longer than one day but we kept in touch for what it has been, today, more than one year. And now he’s doing one of the most incredible things I’ve ever heard of: A trip from Nordkapp (North Cape) in Norway to Cape Town in South Africa by bike.

Isn’t it the coolest thing ever?

And because I like to share cool things with you, I’ve partnered up with Adi to have a monthly (more realistically, maybe every 3 months) update on their trip here on Mudanças Constantes. To kick things off, an interview about the project and how they are making it happen.

Let’s start with the introductions: who are you guys? Names, cities, age, jobs, horoscope signs, weird tattoos… Give us a quick bio!

We are Adrian (28) and Fabian (29) from a small village in Switzerland called Buchrain. We both quit our jobs for this adventure. Adrian was working as a research assistant in aquatic research and Fabian worked as a wood construction technician.

And a little curiosity: Adrian has a tattoo on his foot with the outline of Switzerland.

Now that we are acquainted, how the hell did you come up with this idea? Have you done any long bike trips before?  

The process started a while back, maybe 3 to 4 years ago. We started to think about a long bike journey first and then later decided to go from North to South instead of going West or East. Upon this we did a test tour 3 years ago in the Baltics for about 2 weeks to see how it feels and if we would like to do this of traveling for a longer period of time. This trip was the longest bike trip we both did, up to this point. Eventually, we started planning the Cape 2 Cape trip with more details and now we are finally about to start.

What does it take to prepare a trip like this? For how long have you been planning, what have been your main difficulties at this stage?

The detailed planning started last summer and it got more intense in 2018. We planned the possible route, equipment, insurances, visas, bank accounts and other administrative things. The main difficulty was to find out if it would be possible to arrange the visas on the way and where. Up to this day, we still don’t have much information on how and where we can get visas for most African countries.

 Do you have your plan all sorted out? Or do you have some room for changes?

We just created a preliminary time plan and route to have a rough idea about how long it could take us. On the way we want to be flexible and change the route as much as we want, according to new information of locals or just the daily mood.

If you want to check our detailed planned route click here.

Right now, what’s your route? Number of countries, kilometres, days, dates…

We will fly to Tromsø and then go as far North as possible by ferry, a 16 hours ride! On the North Cape we will start cycling South through northern Europe, do a detour on the UK and Ireland, then cross France and Spain before we cross over to Morocco. Afterwards, we will cycle the west coast of the African continent until we reach Cape Town. We plan to cycle more than 30’000 km crossing 30 countries in about 600 days.

And what are you looking forward to the most in your trip? And the least?

While I (Adrian) am particularly looking forward to see Ireland, Scotland and Africa in general, Fabian can’t wait to experience the African culture. We are both concerned about the headwind in general and kids throwing rocks in Morocco (something we’ve heard about).

I’m a bit of a loser when it comes to bikes, but what’s your equipment? Talk to all the cyclists out there!

There is a lot to think about when it comes to the equipment for such a trip. I won’t go into details, since we will put all the equipment and the corresponding brands on the website. We are using rear panniers, handlebar bag and a huge dry bag on top of the rear panniers. A tent, cooking materials, sleeping bag, and air mattress are basic equipment we both need every day. Each one of us is carrying between 30-40 kg and in Africa we will have to carry even more.

If other crazy bike fellows want to join you on the road how can they reach you?

There are many ways to reach us. Facebook,  Instagram,  or using the contact form on the website .

And finally, with this huge adventure ahead, are you particularly nervous about anything?

Adrian: I get a bit nervous when I start thinking about the rainy season in Sub-Saharan countries as the “roads” tend to change into impassable trails.

Fabian: I am not very excited about the mosquitoes in Scandinavia and the humidity in the Tropical regions in Africa.

And that’s it! Hope you have enjoyed getting to know these brave guys and their awesome project! Keep up with them through social media and go give them some love!

Hopefully in the next months we get a second interview to know their stories! Have an awesome trip guys!

Boa viagem

The post [EN] A trip of a lifetime: a bike journey from Cape 2 Cape appeared first on Mudanças Constantes.