Today we had a full house (12 riders--the max we can take on any given day)...and have created quite the full house at Sara Gensmer's site. In addition to our permanent riders, we have Dylan Butler, Kirstin Krudwig, Carolyn Glidden and Phil Rodenbough. Kirstin has the distinguished honor of having BOTH of the flat tires experienced on our trip so far.
Currently, we can be found lounging under Sara's hangar (she has a hammock!!), taking bucket baths, washing our bikes, grabbing beers and wine, and....blogging. We're basically just killing time in-between meals, which seem to have become of utmost importance in the last few days. We actually starting discussing dinner while we were still at lunch!
We started off the day at the downtown marche, where we stopped to buy provisions (like Kanye West-esque sunglasses and omelets--you know, the essentials). Today's route was all paved roads and we "only" biked 49 kilometers. Our fastest riders made it in under two hours (1 hour and 59 minutes, to be exact, and I believe they went to some pains to keep it under the two hour mark) and the rest of us trickled in within an hour or so later. Our average speed today was 24.7 km and the fastest was 55 km (though that's the average speed of our fastest riders, aRobandJoshchoo).
The route was beautiful as always, with fields of sorghum, millet, etc., on each side under the gigantic African sky and random herds of cows and sheep occasionally creating their own crossing area. But there was quite a bit of traffic, as the road we were on is a thoroughfare between two major cities. We had to ride single file (normally we can take up pretty much the whole road if we have the mind) for most of the way and stay all the way right, so as not to upset the very large, speeding semi trucks.
All in all, it was an uneventful day on the road, but a good day. It's beautiful weather, we've put in a good day of hard exercise, and we're with good people. Ahhhhh, life is good. :)
(pictures: 1. Emma Prasher trying creative ways to keep the sun off her and 2. Sorghum field)
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