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Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time

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motorbike / mountain bike dude

So we were cycling through seriously beautiful tropical african villages, palm trees, happy villagers, open roads, healthy crops and high plantations everywhere. We stop for a midmorning water/fruit. And Lo and behold, what comes pootaling right at us, wobbling all over the road, was the happiest, roundest guy, straight out of god knows where.

He's riding a mountain bike but with a small motorbike engine. Absolute genius. It has an air horn, it has a big lever to switch between moutain bike and motorbike. It has a chain on both sides, one for each mode. It has tiny petrol tank sat on the middle bar, he's says in broken english that it does 100km on a full tank, a full tank being 2 litres. He created quite a stir and was suddenly overtaken by the sheer amount of people that he had just wowed, he said quite abruptly 'now i must visit my parents' - he jumped on, kickstarted and pootled off rather haphazardly down the dusty track. With Mike Pope, swearing that its the most dangerous thing he's ever seen.

Now after reading about the boy who made a windmill from scrap and was has been snapped up by the press. I was all set to give this lad the world wide media attention he deserved but alas, it wasn't meant to be, it had been imported from asia.

Back to Blighty Safe and Sound - Cycle Tanzania was a Success.

Dear all, Thankyou so much for supporting the project in Tanzania. It was quite an epic adventure. We cycled from Dar to Faranji Trust, a project setup to aid street children back into the education system whilst also educating them on HIV and Aids which is a massive problem. As a fundraising group we raised over £160,000 for the project with donations still coming in. If you didn't get round to donating this time, not to worry its still not too late. Also if you supported last years ride then your still on the email list to keep you updated. The cycle itself took us through glorious safari parks, military zones, across tiny bridges, through very remote areas, along the coastline, up and down rather large rolling hills and into the project. The photos from Cycle Tanzania are here - http://www.flickr.com/photos/matttinsley/sets/72157622548740545/ Or I find it easier to view all the pictures as a slideshow http://www.flickr.com/photos/matttinsley/sets/72157622548740545/show/with/4047253608/ We also adventured into deepest Malawi - http://www.flickr.com/photos/matttinsley/sets/72157622673309694/with/4047459550/ The slideshow - http://www.flickr.com/photos/matttinsley/sets/72157622673309694/show/with/4047459550/ All the very best Matt   Matthew Tinsley // MTVFX +44(0) 7726473824 // matt@matttinsley.com

Guardian article Dar

 

Touchdown in Malawi

All is now good, after 10 hours at airport the plane finally took off and flew us to the rather industrial capital of Malawi, Lillongwe. Now driving the 300km to Lake of Stars festival in a rented 4x4. Just had lunch next to the beautiful lake, lots of happy healthy people with broad smiles. Should be at festival site by sunset. Life’s good, I trust all is good back home.

 

Finished the ride

After 400 odd kms, 3 nights camping under stars, many many street kids high fived along the route, great people met, fair bit of dancing all thrown in the week, we are now chilling out on a white sand palm tree lined beach. Apologies for not finishing blog every day but batteries were down on the old telephone. I’ll throw in a few anecdotes from the week. One memorable moment was meeting a guy on a converted mountain bike which he had put a small motorbike engine on which has a 200km range. Took a few pictures of it which I’ll post all in good time. We visited the faraja trust, a street kid centre, getting the orphans off the street into remedial care to prepare them for school. Quite a moving experience. HIV is down in the area, which shows education centre is also working. Although malaria is rife throughout the slum. Everyone whom has sponsored me has contributed to helping this forgotten part of the world get better social and medical care. We had a fun game of football with the kids, it was a draw at fulltime, onto penalties with them taking the cup on 4-3. Another classic English defeat, good times though.

 

 

Day 3

One of the toughest days on a bike, but also the most adrenaline fuelled. Visited old slave trade forts before setting off, quite biblical views of the boats, fishermen and structures not much different to how they would have been hundreds of years ago. Then 20km heading out of town along dusty roads, then the adventures start. 20km along an old railway track with the path only room for one bike. A few thin bridges pretty high up above the rivers. A few beautiful off road sections through the trees. The distances were estimates and we hit our lunch spot 3 hours late. The food truck was stuck on the road and not able to get to us so we had to sit pretty tight for 8 hours or so. Made friends with a few locals though.