Thursday 8 December 2011

Plenty of time to my self.

This sure is a long road indeed and there ain't nothing i can do but just carry on peddling. Well, i could ofcourse jump on a truck and catch a lift for a few hundred kilometers and the thought has entered my mind many many times over the last few days. But i guess i must like the challenge, or maybe i'm just mad..... answers on a post card to......

But really, I have indeed wondered what this is all about, as you can imagine, and why anyone would embark on such a mission in the first place. I have my reasons, my big visions and motivations but it isn't allways easy keeping the vision in focus so i would love to hear from you as to what you think its all about. What does it mean to do a journey like this? Maybe I'm just looking for a bit of encouragement when the going gets tuff or perhaps it really is a total waste of time.... what do you reckon? Please leave a comment below.

And back to the blog;
I'm in Boujdour, another coastal desert town, and resting up for a day befor heading ever southwards. Now the distances are so epic i'm covering around 140km in a day which takes it out of you. So a day of rest was well needed.
The people here have been so friendly and welcoming as they have in all of southern Morroco. I'll sit in a cafe and moments later my neighbour will be chatting away with me asking questions of what i'm up to. I love the response and general disbelief when i explain that i have cycled from England and heading to The Gambia. There's a gentleness and relaxed way of being around here. The men seem to have all the time in the world to sit around in cafes and watch the world go by. What the women are up to, i don't know as most of them are hidden away probably making the world go round in far more usefull ways than us boys.

The road continues to follow the coast some of the time and then dip inland for a while where there really is very little variation in the landscape and continues to look mostly like this;


Thankfully there's not to much in the way of traffic passing this way but there are still plenty trucks and quite often they'll pass with the beeping of horns and waves of encouragement. This feels great untill the aftermath of a great force of hot wind mixed with sand and exhaust fumes hits me as i brace myself and hold course and the truck passes on. There are also the odd heard of camels and a few amusing road signs including;


..... clearly there is a danger of splashing water.....????


watch out for the sand.......
But my favourtite was this one;


When i saw this a become very excited that perhaps there maybe other cyclists on the road as i had not yet met any. A few kilometers later, or was it a hundred.... i realised that it must have been put there just for me and that made me feel much safer indeed.
and this one....
ohps

There are police checks all along the way aswell and the police have all been really friendly and equally bemused as to what I'm doing. One told me about someone thay had met once who was doing something similar for charity and i explained that i was doing the same however he was unimpressed when i told him how much i had raised so far. This got me to thinking about how to raise the profile of this trip and try to raise more cash for the Fresh Start foundation in The Gambia.

Firstly a massive thank you to those of you who have supported this project in all sorts of ways, only one of which is by donating cash. It would be great if any one would like to put it out on their own networks, have links on websites, or send twitters, of which i know nothing, or tell their rich friends or generally spread the word in anyway that works for you. when i reach the Project in the Gambia I'll send lots of pics and more info about whats going there which will help the whole thing make a bit more sense.
In the meantime big love to you all. I've got another 1000km of desert to cycle through befor Christmas.
Untill nexttime, here's another picture of some camels cause i love em,


All the best
Ed

5 comments:

  1. Ed I've just got on the tweet bandwagon so will tweet it out. Its dead easy to set up yrself so you can tweet out stuff that comes up on the spot.

    They'll be a multitude of reasons why yr out there. If it wasnt for my excuses (of parental commitments blah blah), I'd be on a bike myself somewhere forest gump pedalling away. I reckon yr going back to our roots, we all came from Africa, went pink to soak up the poor levels of sunlight/vit d up north and now yr heading home. :) The quality of relationships, the relaxed gentleness you describe is what is in short supply elsewhere, so thats got to be part of it - reconnection. Your engaging in the nomadic wander lust thing which is an expression of our primal nature.

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  2. Come on Edioiooooooooooooooo we are all looking forward to hear you say you´ve made it all the way to Senegaaaaaal!!!! We will be building a sand statue of you on a bike!
    Loads of great energies from your friends in Sevilla!!!
    Jorge

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  3. Is the LIFE a waste of time? I hope that, like mine, your answer be NO. So,I can assure this travel is not at all a waste of time, as it is (and will be for ever, don't forget it) a part of YOUR LIFE.

    Probably you will never be the same, probably you will be better...so please, live it, enjoy it, say 'fuck' as many times as you want...and please come back to share with us this amazing travel!

    A big hug from Seville!

    Marta

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  4. Marta cariño no me entero de ná,muchos besos de todas formas preciosa!!

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  5. Hi Ed,
    We are always talking about you as we hop about on our big old bike here in Brighton, Barney says that we were the last people to see you off on your adventure and I can tell that he is so inspired by that. We are lying here in Barney's bed reading your lovely words as a bedtime story to beat all others and Barney assures me that when he is old enough, he will head out on adventures on his bike. He wants to "do expeditions like daddy and Ed"
    It must get lonely out there as I know only too well and I have had those thoughts many times, doubt, scared, what's the point.... I can tell you now that the world needs you to be doing this, you are showing everyone the power, the gentle winding power of the bicycle to transcend boundaries and borders and to go wherever you want and to share the world with the wonderful people that you meet. Such a simple tool but an inspiration to all those young people back here. Keep going my friend, you are opening the horizons of the next generation as well as this one, we are very proud to know you. Night night, Ben and Barney x x

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