Bikes and Riders arrive on one plane in South Africa!!!!!
Hello from beautiful and not so sunny South Africa. The tour organizer finally got his act together and paid a specialist to organize our flight to South Africa and the next one to Greece. The 747 chartered from a UAE charter company did the trick. Everyone is hoping the gentleman who organized these two flights was able to entice the organizer into booking all the flights through him. It does not take a rocket scientist to realize booking all flights in advance is the way to get the best value.
On our last message failed to mention the ride over the Andes, which we chose not to do, and the final nights accommodation for those who were not staying in hotels in Bariloche. Everyone was advised there was 35km of very good dirt road to be ridden with a good shoulder and no potential problems. What they found was potholes the size of bicycles, rocks as big as your fist and no shoulder. Those who rode (very few) suffered broken spokes, flats and blowouts with a few crashes (none serious) thrown in.
The ride into Bariloche was the best ride of the trip but they were greeted by what turned out to be a unique camping facility, a pasture in which horses had been living up until the day before. Needless to say no one was to happy about having to remove the left over effluent created when hungry horses eat loads of hay!!!! We will leave the rest to your imagination.
The flight to South Africa while a long one went well. Upon arrival we had a less than fun wait for three hours while they off loaded bikes, baggage and the cargo associated with the showers etc.
We have spent the last few days with our good friends and are leaving tomorrow to head up to Kruger Park where we will join up with the group. We had a phone call from one of the other couples on a tandem indicating that approx. 60 riders had taken the time off to do their own thing and will like us join the group in Kruger.
When we leave Kruger we will have some very aggressive cycling, as our average in SA will be 83 miles per day. With any luck we will find a computer in Durban at which time will give you an update.
Love,
Dave & Mary