Lake Longana ....again on the water's edge!
Beyond the Saddle ....Cairo to Cape Town
Howard Fairbank
Fri 23 Feb 2007 16:20
LIke last night...camping right on the water's edge of one of the Rift Valley Lakes...this one being Longana.....
Cyled officially 117 km today...but I had a wonderful adventure day and must have done an additional 20km's with all the expolring...!
Forgot to mention yesterday.....straight from Addis we decsended about 600m down to 1800m to get to the Rift Valley per se...after that it was flat.
Today continued like the latter part of yesterday...pretty much flat just cycling down the Rift Valley.....very special for me....sperse vegation in the valley, but lakes either side and then mountains many of which are extinct volcanoes.
Makes for fast cycling, but I chose to just cruise and enjoy.....I left at 06 30 this am and only got into camp at about 16 30.....but just saw a huge amount and variety.... The birdlife around the lakes is absolutely wonderful......
Detoured off road onto one of the pans of the lakes to see the huge flocks of flamingoes....The surface seemed parched from the sun, but I had a few surprises.....there were cracks in the parched surface and this made the pieces between the cracks litterally wobble....felt like walking / riding on jelly! Then I had to cross one crack and the whole front wheel disapppeared down into the mud of a crack, and I went head of the handle bars.....quite funny afterwards....
Arrived back at camp looking like a real 'Camel Man'
Tomorrow is a big day again...apparently more than 200m of climbing ahead...!
Tell you tomorrow!