Guinea - The Lions on the Road: Cycling London to Cape Town - page 115

In the morning, the village children congregated to watch me as I packed my bike
outside my hut. I gave them each a Canadian lapel pin and pinned it to their shirts. It was
only after I left that I realized how I overtly contradicted everything I said about the lapel
pin to my Liberian tour guide…especially about how expensive it was. I could only ima-
gine his reaction when he saw all the children wearing the same pin.
I soon discovered how physically and emotionally draining the day was to be. At
first, some of the climbs were challenging simply due to the steepness of the road. Then
other stress factors started to creep in. I noticed numerous clusters of sharp rocks jetting
out of the road surface that posed a risk of damaging my tire if clipped at a wrong angle.
To mitigate this risk, at times I dismounted and walked past the clusters. In addition, when
thesunroseoverthehorizon,theheatandthenumberofmyunwelcomevisitors,thehorse
flies, followed suit. I quickly remounted and tried to out cycle them (as if) as I negotiated
around the rocks. Thankfully though, as I began to climb in elevation, the number of flies
diminished until I was not bothered by them at all for the rest of the day.
On the plus side, I did find myself stealing glances at the scenery as I concentrated
on the road. Those views reminded me of the foothills of the Alps in Austria and Switzer-
land- even the homes took on a western look. When I reached the top of the plateau at a
place called Tianguel Bory (783 m elevation), I found a spot overlooking the forest below.
I unpacked the food from my front pannier and sat down to eat. The serenity of my lunch
spot really allowed me to decompress. After an hour or so, I felt rejuvenated and resumed
cycling periodically dismounting to walk my bike- not because the road was difficult, but
because I wanted to preserve my tires from the clusters of sharp rocks and to rest my 'cyc-
ling legs'.
However, later on, the road became precarious. Not only was the road covered in
clusters of rocks, but there were also numerous large potholes and deep, and I do mean
deep, ruts I had to negotiate around. Some ruts, which started in the centre of the road and