Day 72, 172km to construction camp


Today started with a cool flat ride. We were headed SSE and got a cross-wind starting middle of the day. That made the afternoon a tougher ride.

Our first 7km we backtracked from Kasane to the main road heading south. Apparently the more direct road on the map
becomes a sandy dirt track so we’re riding a big “L” the next four days to Maun. We saw plenty of warning signs showing us impala and elephants. However, I didn’t see any today. Our “elephant man”, Darryl who was accompanying us with safari vehicle and sometimes went off-road saw at least a dozen and some other riders also saw a few. Apparently, Botswana has ~160,000 to ~180,000 elephants which is about 60,000 to many. The road itself was surrounded by low trees and mostly cleared 50 meters on each side with only low grasses.


I saw a baboon sitting in a tree in the morning. It was a slow steady ride to lunch and was there by 10:30am at 76km.
After lunch the wind picked up. It was mostly cross-wind but also had head-wind components. We passed an area with
many crops at 90km. Saw sorghum and sunflowers. After our brief crop area, it was back to savannah and a coke stop
at 107km. Some riders stopped here to wait for the lunch truck. I decided to continue but still catch that same
truck when it passed. That got me until 127km and just the start of the construction zone. Signs said construction
next 135km, but I missed the first 45km.

The construction zone varied between new road, service road and often was a bit rough. The cross-wind continued and
we stopped frequenly to give riders still on the road a refill on water. From road reports, it doesn’t sound like
I missed much and was happy to be at camp.

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