The adventure before the adventure.
I’ve often said that no matter how perfectly you plan, things will go wrong. The question isn’t if, it’s when...and in the case of my 5.8 Africa Expedition, I’m off to a roaring start. Missed flights, expedition delays. And now: the case of the missing bike!
First, we missed our connecting flight in Doha, Qatar by 10 minutes. So we spent several hours re-routing ourselves to keep moving forward, closer toward our final destination of Djibouti. Once we did finally arrive - about 24 hours later - everything made it...except my beautiful Specialized bike and cycling gear. For some reason, it showed up in Boston (where we had an earlier connecting flight) but never seemed to make it across the Atlantic. We went back to the airport again this morning but it seems to have vanished in thin air
We spent some time wandering around the shops here to see if we could find a road bike, but the closest we got was a pretty basic mountain bike. We've been working with the fantastic team at Specialized Bikes to see what else we can figure out! And despite the lemons we got today, we're still making some lemonade over here! The expedition will start tomorrow morning with a freedive in Lake Assal (we'll just be a little over a day late and minus one road bike).
I'm exhausted, but still standing, in large part because of the amazing crew we have here on this part of the journey! Big shout out to Branden Wilburn of VentureX Outfitters and Omar, one of our local fixers and translators here in Djibouti. Clay Frost is also with me; he's a long-time buddy and will also be shooting video and photos throughout the trek.
Fun fact: When I started the run across the Sahara desert, I arrived a full day later than the rest of my team due to several unexpected delays, and that trip was a huge success! So maybe these "lemons" are all actually signs of great things to come?! . . . I sure hope so.
Off to catch a few zzzzzz before we start in the morning!
-Charlie
We technically got to Ethiopia “early”
…. but on the plane doesn’t count. Time to swim, bike, run!
My impressive collection of baggage claim tags in front of me as I talk to the airlines!
I should start a scrapbook.