listen to africa

A selection of photographs of places we’ve stayed during our first ten months on the road.

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As we’ve now had visitors from over 100 countries and as quite a few of you have only recently started visiting the site, I thought now would be a good time to say hello, welcome, and we hope you enjoy following our journey over the next couple of years.

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Huw and Bex introduce the Listen to Africa expedition and talk about how it feels to be leaving Europe for Africa, near the beginning of a 24,000 kilometre cycling expedition across the continent:

Recorded: 28th to 30th April 2009
Location: The Mediterranean
Copyright: Listen to Africa

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Photographs from the 36-hour ferry journey that took us from Sète in France to Tangier in Morocco (April 2009). Photographs by Huw and Bex.

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This is Bex’s attempt to get me to write a blog. The idea came a few weeks ago when she realised that I am forever counting things, making lists and totting things up. So here’s a summary of my list keeping so far:

1402: The distance cycled so far (kilometres).
53: Average daily distance cycled – on cycling days (kilometres).
39: Average daily distance cycled – including rest days (but excluding our holiday with friends).
35: Number of onions consumed.
31: Squashed hedgehogs seen en route.

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After our leisurely stroll through France, we find ourselves in Béziers, a short hop from the Mediterranean. Our ferry to Tangiers leaves on Tuesday. Blimey.

One of the joys of travelling by bicycle is that your progress takes you by surprise. You travel so slowly (especially if you’re us) that you hardly notice the tiny changes that happen day by day – a night that’s a tad warmer than the previous night, or a landscape that’s a bit more rugged. Then suddenly, you’ve crossed a land mass and find yourself somewhere else altogether.

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Time to hit the road again. After two wonderful weeks at Phil and Laurence’s place, we’re about to set off towards the Canal du Midi (with Phil escorting us for the first 15kms to make sure we really leave).

As you might have gathered, leaving the UK was chaotic. In the mayhem, we threw half of the kit we thought we might need into our panniers and the other half into a box, which we sent out to Phil and Laurence’s. As well as generally enjoying life over the past fortnight, we’ve also had a chance to sort through everything, get rid of some extra weight and make sure we have everything we need for crossing the Sahara:

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Back in 2001/02, I cycled from London to Cape Town (yes, I’m forgetful enough to do this twice) with three friends: Laurence, Phil and Rich.

It was an extraordinary journey in all sorts of ways – partly because it was so full of happy endings, or beginnings; Laurence, Phil and Rich all got engaged during the trip – Rich to his girlfriend Cath when she visited him in Kenya, and Phil and Laurence to each other in Zanzibar.

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As we’re staying with friends in their Midi-Pyrénées farmhouse for a week or two (it’s a wonderful spot – I’ll write more about it soon), we’ve had the chance to work on the website a bit. We’ve added an automatic translator (the flags on the left) which has all sorts of comedy potential but might be useful to some, fixed up the home page and the map a bit, and put up our first galleries of the trip.

There’s one gallery of France and another of homes for the night, where we’ll be documenting every place we camp / stay from now on. Thanks for the suggestion – any other suggestions for themed galleries are welcome!

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Photographs from the start of the expedition (March and April 2009) as we pedalled down through Brittany, the Atlantic coast, Aquitaine and the Midi-Pyrenees in France. Photographs by Huw and Bex.

(New photos added on 25th April 2009.)

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