Tomorrow we start the ride, so no more sleeping in! I am not quite fully in this time zone and woke up at about 3:30 this morning. Next thing I knew, the 5:00 am call to prayer was being broadcast over nearby loudspeakers but I managed to ignore it, pagan that I am, then just like that, it was 8:00 am and Wayne was the first one out of bed again. All our fellow riders are here now and we have decided to join the contingent of racers. For me, this does NOT mean I will be actually "racing" but by timing out and in at the start and finish of each day's ride, my time and mileage will be tracked and that should make an interesting record of how things go. So, I have an iDisc just like the one I used to have at OJHS but with an entirely different purpose. It was funny how yesterday at the rider meeting, not one single person put up their hand when we were asked who might be racing...to win, but today there sure was a crowd picking up I discs. We were also given our bike number to zip tie onto the handlebars; it looks like a race bib for a run but much sturdier. I guess it does have to last for a looooong time. I am #114 and Wayne is #115 and I think our stats can be tracked on the TDA website or Twitter page. I have packed and repacked my gear because we are down to one bag each while we are in Egypt, due to the TDA using a different transport company until we are in Sudan. Once we get there, we will unload all our stuff into our lockers and it should become much easier to find that elusive thing that is in the very bottom of the fourth bag. We have been buying bottled water at the hotel, but today ventured out across the road to the local convenience store for a different shopping experience. This small business was set up in a lean to type structure covered with a tarp. The proprietor's family were right beside the shop in their home, another little lean to, complete with a black and white TV. He was kind and courteous, and even walked out into the road to stop traffic to ensure we could cross safely to get back to the hotel. Time to fuss over my remaining gear triple check everything for our 5:30 am start and get to sleep! Tomorrow's ride starts in a convoy from the hotel to the pyramids, with a total distance of 132 km for the day. PS. We LOVE to read any comments you may have on any of the blog posts🚴

Photo try...

Trying again in my battle with technology...

We are in Africa!

We're here! We arrived without incident, after two flights, many meals and several inflight movies, we landed in Cairo. We were met at the airport by the pre-arranged pickup man holding a sign with "Tour d'Afrique" on it...that was us!" The rest of the process went smoothly, ALL the luggage arrived almost instantaneously, including our bikes - hurray! Yesterday we had a leisurely start, a huge breakfast, then we tackled the task of reassembling the bikes. It took some time but we got it done in the end. Then it was time for a visit to the pyramids. It was an exciting drive there which makes me glad we will be leaving very early Friday morning and following more or less the same route, I hope with much less traffic than midday. The pyramids were surreal through the haze, and it was very apparent from the vast expanses of empty parking lots and vacant vendor tables that tourism has fallen on hard times here. Our guide told us quite plainly to ignore the aggressive souvenir sellers or to tell them "no thanks" in Arabic (she taught us how but of course I have forgotten now). However, we almost lost Wayne to an especially persistent seller of pyramid models and postcards. The man would put a pyramid in Wayne's hand, Wayne would try to put it back in the guy's backpack and the guy would put another pyramid into Wayne's other hand. This seemed to go on for some time; eventually the guy gave up but he sure put up a spirited effort. The pyramids and the Sphinx were worth all that though, amazing us with their size and grandeur! Who knows what other treasures might be buried under all that sand? We have met almost all the staff and participants and it will be interesting in the days to come seeing how we all do once on the road. It is a varied group of nationalities, although Canadians outnumber all the others; and everyone is friendly and seems to be the kind of people I will like getting to know. I'm a bit surprised at the weather here, very cool and rainy off and on, with a chilly wind. I did not foresee wearing my wool jacket AND my little down jacket at the same time, but I am very glad to have them both and were not even camping yet! I don't think it will be long before we are wishing for some of this coolness though!

Great new look!

Thanks to Adrienne, the blog now has a much more pulled-together look! She spent some time tweaking things...centering the picture at the beginning of the blog, giving me a profile and adding some fun features like the survey (don't forget to make your thoughts known on the all-important survey question!). Plus you can add your email address and get an email whenever the blog gets updated. Departure date is only 5 days away!

photo...maybe

Cool Dude!

Wayne models a pair of our new sand goggles!

Technical difficulties...

I thought I should refresh my memory on how to post a photo to this blog and it isn't going well!  I've taken the photo, and transferred it to my iPad, but do you think I can remember how to get a photo onto the blog??  Obviously, some work needs to be done before I get to Cairo and have other issues to think about.  

The photo itself is not all that interesting, just a shot of my bike on the wind trainer in the basement, to illustrate what training has looked like lately.  However, I did get 35 km in outside a couple of days ago when it was a balmy plus 5C.

Maybe I'll be smarter after I eat some lunch - worth a try anyway!