UM

3 welding shops
5 bolts
2 pieces sheet metal
and 2 countries
but i managed to assemble a strong crank arm
i know some of you cyclist are shaking your heads
but what can you do when you cant waltz into a shop and buy a new crank arm or bottom bracket?

all in all that shit is STIFF now
i put almost 200k into it the last couple days and it's holding strong
praise be the ingenuity

heart and tailwinds...

BEFORE AND AFTER

crossing into kenya there is some 600k of frontier between the border and paved roads/civilization. i was advised to take a transport for this section as i was alone and you would have to carry as much as 12 liters of water in case you don't find a village before you get robbed by bush bandits or somali pirates or whatever. anyhow, the only transport available were these trucks loaded with whatever farm stock coming from ethiopia. mine happened to be loaded with 15-20 tons of tumeric (which made for a pleasant smell). it was pouring rain all morning but the truck left anyhow. the photos illustrate the before and after of us trying to cross what was the road but turned into a muddy river from all the runoff. miraculously no one was hurt. really a miracle, because about 15 of us were sitting on top of this truck when it went over. about a hundred villagers appeared out of the bush and helped unload the truck before we tried righting it to no avail. i caught a bus nowheresville and took a room for a night while waiting for transport. finally sometime the next day i made it onto another truck (loaded with beans) and was in for another long haul. that truck broke a center bolt and we were lucky enough to be close to a frontier town were it could be fixed, but that took some time. so, four days later i arrived at a paved road and showers, sorted out my damaged goods (as my whole bag went swimming in muddy waters), fixed my cycle, and prepared to hit the road...

SOUFWARD!

100k through gravel roads and bush to get out of ethiopia
then some bus and truck transport due to mechanical problems
on the road again riding through the highlands of kenya
i miss ethiopian food, but passion fruit and oranges are in abundance here

feluahaw

thas right
more hot sprangs

All In All

some images from the last couple months

1. one from the road
2. pneumonia springs (hot)
3. funny hitch hiking adventure (http://www.not2latetrip.com/)
4. breakfast ceremony

DABBO BET

a few weeks back already
experimentation with the resident oven at the place i was workin
not a great design. the chimney was to large and even with the flew closed to much heat escaped for it to effeciently be able to bake bread. in fact, sometimes i would even have to take all the bread out, make a new fire, let it burn down to coal, and then close it up again. uhhg. this led me to making bread in a pan over a burner (or fire). much faster, baked all the way through, and no ash everywhere...

JERRY CAN PANNIERS

previously i had just been tying less used items onto the side of my rack with an extra piece of tube, but i thought it was about time i got myslef some proper panniers.
bike shope are pretty understocked around these parts, and besides what fun is it to just walk in and have everything done for you? thought i'd do things the african way... with a jerry can. people walk for days, with these things tied to there backs to fetch water, so why not modify them to fit on me cycle? they are mounted using some scrap metal and scrap tubing. the tops are cut to open and have a little tube latch. i'll let you know how they fare on the open road!