by Henry
Thursday, April 18
Three of the segmental riders (Ian, Mike, Annika) departed in Windhoek, and we welcomed a new rider Frank from Belgium.
The days are getting shorter in the southern hemisphere, and we have also traveled further west. First light is at 6:45 AM, with actual sunrise about a half hour later. Our daily bag drop off time was shifted to 6:15 AM today, with breakfast at 6:30 AM. We have many eager riders who are always on the road with first light.
U.S. Embassy on Nelson Mandela Avenue, just a kilometer away from UrbanCamp. The Indonesian and Indian embassies were on adjacent properties.
Leaving Windhoek, traffic was predictably busy. At one point, we were routed onto a four-lane divided freeway via a cloverleaf entrance ramp.
Once out of the city, the roads became much more serene. We were told that we would encounter the gravel road and begin a healthy climb after 20 km, but since last year an additional 11 km had been paved, so we did not reach gravel until reaching 31 km.
The gravel road played nice with us initially. Lunch was at 65 km and after that, the gravel road deteriorated noticeably. We were reminded how tough it can be to ride on washboard and sand of varying depths.
The scenery was much more interesting than what we had encountered on the Elephant Highway in Botswana, which was many days of flat and endless bushveld.
Our destination for the day was Weissenfel’s Guest Farm.
There were only about three suitable plots for us to pitch our tents, so we were crammed together pretty tightly.
At the end of the day, Frank shared that he had seven flat tires, an unlucky first day.
Kenny and Jason, our bike mechanics who are both skilled mountain bikers, gave us a short primer at our daily rider meeting with tips on how to ride gravel roads more efficiently and comfortably.
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