Day 7: Bush Camp to Ghanzi

 

Ghanzi, Botswana - Apparently some of the riders have been complaining about the monotonous landscape, so the TDA staff decided to add some excitement to our lives by creating a Battle of Nations. Basically it was a 20 kilometer time trial that each team would ride. Each person on the team had to lead the group for at least 1km, and the time was recorded for the first three riders over the line. To add some spice, we were also encouraged to take creative photos and complete other tasks for extra bonus points.

What I really loved about this experience is that there are only four Americans on this tour - not nearly enough to compete with the dozens of Canadians and many Brits and South Africans. So the four of us were placed on a team with some other randoms - one Australian, one Dane, one Belgian guy - and together we made up Team World.

I thought it was so cool to be on the World Team. Everybody else had to sing their national anthems. We decided to sing "We are the World". Indeed, this was really my main contribution to the team, as I was the only one who knew all the lyrics so I could write them out for the rest of the team. We are the world, we are the children...

Alas, in the end, Team World could not compete with the Canadians or the South Africans. But we were just happy that we were not in last place. That would be the Dutch, and they had to make tea for the Canadians as their punishment.

As for the creative photos, you can see my contribution: me doing a helmet stand. This was not quite as entertaining (read: risque) as what the other teams came up with. Check it out on the official TDA blog. 

By the way, after we were done with the fun and games, we rode an additional 122km, for a total of 140km (88 miles).