What's it like to cycle through West Africa? Morocco to Ghana. Nikki Ray

Today I'm featuring guest Nikki Ray talking about her tour through West Africa.  This is an excerpt from the full length episode I did with Nikki early on in the Podcast.  You can listen to the full episode with Nikki here  

You can also follow Nikki's future adventures  via her instagram account - @adventurecyclistnikki

Head over to Old Man Mountain and checkout the Manzanita Cradle 

Transcript

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SPEAKER_00 0:25

Hello everyone, Bella Maloa here, host of the show, and welcome to another midweek mini episode where I aim to keep your Wonderlust fire and stoke fueled for bike adventures. Today I'm actually going to be sharing an excerpt from a previous episode, one that I published almost two years ago. It struck me with so many new followers to the podcast, these early episodes can often just get hidden in the back catalogue, and I am passionate that the stories of the guests that I have shared deserve to live forevermore. And while you could trawl through the back catalogue yourself and pick these out, I thought it would actually be quite nice to just share some excerpts from them every now and then during these midweek episodes. So today I am doing exactly that and I'm highlighting the story of previous guest Nikki Ray. Nikki is an awesome adventure cyclist living in London there in the UK. She's participated in many ultra cycling events before, also hill climb races. And in addition to that, because yeah, as if that's not enough, she's also taken an amazing solo journey through West Africa. So you're gonna hear about 20 minutes of audio from that original episode. And Niggi's gonna tell us all about the bike that she took on that trip, how she built it up and made sure that it would be rugged enough for those West African roads, how she dealt with the tough terrain in Morocco, tackling the Atlas Mountain range and the anti-Atlas Mountain as well, dealing with hot temperatures of over 40 degrees, and also just the realities of what it was like travelling on the road there in West Africa as a solo female traveller. Now, if you enjoy listening to this section of the episode, I have also provided a link in the show notes where you can easily access the full-length episode as well. But yeah, this is going back into the archives of Seek Travel Ride, and without any further ado, let's take it away, Nikki, and learn all about this trip.

SPEAKER_01 2:38

Yeah, it was quite liberating in a sense, actually, because I didn't have a set route. I knew that I wanted to visit all the countries I hadn't visited, so it was like roughly speaking, following the edge of West Africa, but not along the coast because there isn't a road that goes the whole way. I had this discussion with so many people. They're like, no, no, you like on the way, they were like, No, no, there isn't a road that way, you can't make it. And I was like, No, no, don't worry, there is. I've done my research. Um, but yeah, I didn't have a time frame, so that was quite liberating. But at the same time, I met the woman who's now my wife. Unfortunately, like three months before I left to do this trip. So there was this little pull of I don't have a time frame, you know, I'm in like I was enjoying myself a lot, but then I guess also this pull of like, I do want to go back at some point and like see them again. And then I guess the longer I was away, I also wanted to come back and kind of see my family and my friends and stuff because it wasn't that I was cycling every single day, there was quite a few hiccups in in my travels, as I'm sure would happen with many people, but it just kind of seemed to drag on, and I just felt like I'm not arriving at my destination, and it's not about of course it's not about arriving at the destination, but kind of when you have a friend there, it then somehow does turn a little bit into arriving at the destination, but it was just taking a little bit too long, and this might be now why when an acquaintance introduced me to the ultra-cycling world, because he actually asked me, Oh, did you race to Ghana? I was like, Are you insane? I was like, No, I shouldn't race to Ghana, and I would never race. I don't know if I would ever race through Africa, I just think it would be such a waste, you'd miss out on so much stuff. Maybe I'd race in one country, like at the moment, there's the race around Rwanda. Maybe I would do that. But I just think when you're racing through multiple countries that are not close to you, it just seems like such a waste to do it in that way. But at the same time, maybe that's why I'm more into kind of races like that in the UK or Europe, because then you can kind of see loads of stuff, but in like a short amount of time, and it doesn't feel like it's dragging on.

SPEAKER_00 4:49

I'm just trying to think myself. I I don't think I could have a racing mindset through Africa. Yeah, because I feel it's just so starkly different to what I know. The whole point of being there is to just have difference, to to observe with curiosity and you know, absorb as well. And I imagine, you know, your tour. So you called it the ready, steady, slow, is that correct?

SPEAKER_01 5:16

Yeah, which is funny because now I still have that like name on my website, but have delved into ultra-distance cycling, but I've so I've written about that a little bit on this blog, but I've just kept that name, which now is a bit of like a juxtaposition. But yeah, I named it that because because of this mentality of like not wanting to rush to the end and to experience every country fully. But even so, there's some quite small countries in West Africa, like Guinea-Bissau, for example, which I only spent like two weeks in, even though I stopped lots of times, just because it's so small, so you you cycle through it quite quickly. But also, yeah, it was it was also named after this kind of cycling game that we used to do in primary schools of like a slow race. So it rather than being the fastest person to get to the line, it actually takes more skill to ride slowly, so it's a slow race. So you go ready, steady, slow, and then you find out whether they've actually listened to the instructions.

SPEAKER_00 6:12

Are they races where you're almost having people track stand to not finish?

SPEAKER_01 6:17

Basically, yeah, and I've seen videos of like tournaments of this kind of race across the world. Really cool.

SPEAKER_00 6:25

Now, you did take this tour on solo, but you also traveled with Frida. And I was wondering whether you could introduce our listeners to the love of Frida that you have with you, which is your bike.

SPEAKER_01 6:39

Yes, Frida's the best. I feel really sorry for Frida at the moment because she's not really experiencing as much love as now the road bike that I own, which I feel very bad about. But I do ride Frida almost every day, like to commute on. And it's funny actually, because at the end of the trip, my wife said, Oh, you should like frame Frida and put her on the wall. I was like, Absolutely not, like Frida must live on. Oh, I love that. Frida is um, how do I want to describe her? I don't want to describe her as a recycled bike. So I I built her with my friend Itor, and we like over half the parts were secondhand. So I was searching for a long time for a frame. I wanted a steel frame because I knew somebody who was cycle touring who managed to break his aluminium frame in half. I didn't really ask the details, but this worried me. So I was like, and I because I travelled quite a bit in different African countries before, I'd appreciate that not all of the roads are tarmaced and it can be a kind of bumpy ride. So I really wanted to have a steel frame and I really like the colour purple, so I was like looking for a purple steel frame for quite a long time, but I do have yeah, quite quite a lot of friends who are bike mechanics and contacts in different organizations who are kind of recycling bikes. So, yeah, so I had a few people looking and then we found the found the frame, and then so my friend Idol used to work for a higher bike, a famous one in London, and he may have borrowed permanently some uh pieces from these bikes. So, for example, the handlebars, not the brakes, which is a bit worrying because the brakes were not very good. So I I um I bought some new like brake levers, but yeah, the handlebars, the grips, and then my wheels were secondhand as well, and then some things were obviously new, like the crank arm and the pedals and the rack, which I have, which is excellent, it was so strong. So, yeah, so really like a labour of love, but like building building her kind of just a couple of months before I was um about to leave, kind of making it tweaking everything, making it great, putting a giant cassette on the back.

SPEAKER_00 9:02

What sort of gearing did you put on?

SPEAKER_01 9:04

So it was like a mountain biking setup, so it was a chain ring with three gears on the front. And actually, yeah, the cassette wasn't big, it was an eight-speed, but a mountain biking one. So the lowest gear was like much bigger than like a road bike cassette would have been, which proved very helpful in bumpy mountain roads where the incline was like so steep, and I had I don't know how much my bags weighed, and people would always ask me, and I couldn't give them an answer, but maybe like 20 or 25 kilograms was my estimate. So low gearing was really great. Spin to wind to wind. Oh, yes, exactly. Yeah, I remember writing about that. Because people would always ask me, like, I met um some people in I think Rabat in Morocco, and one of them was like a road cyclist. So I think it was it must have been somebody I was staying with through like warm showers or couch surfing. I can't remember, I can't remember who it was, or details about them, but their friend was like a road cyclist, and he was like, Oh, so how far do you ride every day? And I was like, This is a ridiculous question because it's all about the conditions. So is the road tarmaced? Is there a lot of climbing? Is there headwind? Are there like massive rocks jutting out of the road? Like it really makes a difference. It's not that you're cycling on smooth tarmac where if there is an incline, it doesn't matter so much. But when you're going up a really steep incline, like so in the I think it was in the anti-Atlas Mountains in Morocco, so there's the high Atlas Mountains, which are the famous ones, like relatively close to Marrakesh, and then there's a mountain range below them that I find really fascinating. I can't remember the dates, but they were made in very different prehistoric times. So the rock formations look totally different, and the anti-Atlas Mountains of it was kind of not almost desertist, like it's kind of on the border with where the Sahara's beginning. But this one road, I literally I think the maximum length I could cycle was five minutes before I had to stop again. So I would get on my bike and cycle for five minutes up this crazy road that wasn't tarmaced and was really bumpy and rocky. Obviously, with all the panny bags on the back. I had a front rack, but that broke really soon on. No, so I think like everything was on the back. And then I would five minutes would pass, and I'd just be like, I can't do this anymore. Let me just stop. Okay, let's go again. And I could see the top of the mountain, and it was just like really far away. But you know, perseverance gets you there. So even with this, like with the really wide gearing range that I had, sometimes it was tough. So yeah, on that day, I don't think I travelled particularly far.

SPEAKER_00 11:53

You had some really extreme terrain, and I would say in conjunction with extreme terrain, you also had some extreme weather as well. So you your trip started in Santander in Spain, through Portugal before you crossed over and arrived in Morocco for the West African leg and the bulk of your travel. So straight away in Morocco you're facing, as you said, you've got the Atlas Mountain range and the anti-Atlas Mountains. So straight off the bat, that's extremely difficult terrain. For any cycle tourist, when you're thinking hills, as soon as you put, you know, and you were saying however heavy your bags were, as soon as the road goes uphill, you notice that. And and you do go into a different mental mindset of enduring and just you're there for slow travel, you're definitely slow. But it's not about speed and distances, you keep going. But then also you're then crossing into the Sahara Desert and the sandy terrain and the weather that comes with that, so you know, sandstorms and and whatnot too. But I felt as I read through your blog, Nikki, another theme which really shone through was the heat that you were cycling to as well.

SPEAKER_01 14:11

Yeah, so I left in August, and this was kind of I'd planned backwards in regards to wanting and needing to cycle through the desert in the winter. So I based everything around this, but it unfortunately meant, and I really wanted to cycle over the mountain. I love mountains, so I wanted to cycle over the mountains in Morocco. Whereas other people's blogs I'd read, a lot of people just go along the coast in Morocco, which I think is such a shame. I did the same thing in Mauritania actually, where I went inland and there it was more mountainous, whereas on the coast it would have been less interesting. But unfortunately, I went over the high Atlas Mountains. Oh my goodness, yeah, and they were resurfacing the road. It was awful, it was so awful, like unimaginable, and like muddy and all these road works happening. But it was also November, so it wasn't that there was snow there, but it was freezing, it was freezing cold, and so I was doing really short days. Like one day I think I did like 40 kilometers because I stopped for lunch in like a roadside restaurant, and the guy was really friendly, and I was absolutely freezing. So I'm sitting around the fire, and then he was like, Do you want to stay here? And I was like, Absolutely, yes, I will, I don't need to go on anymore because it had been raining loads as well. So, yeah, so that's kind of the difference. Like the comparison with an ultra race, you'd be like, No, I've only done 40 kilometers a day. Probably should do a bit more, but when you're like cycle touring, you're like, Yeah, sure, that's fine, I'll stay. Um, yeah, so I stayed with loads of people along the way like that. But when I descended from the High Atlas Mountains, like I got a really bad fever just because it had been so freezing cold.

SPEAKER_00 15:52

And descending on a cold day coming down from because there what's the altitude level on the on the high atlas?

SPEAKER_01 15:59

It's a really good question. I've got a picture, it's and I don't really like these kind of pictures, but I got to the top of the highest point that I I don't think it's the highest point in the High Atlas Mountains, but it's the highest point that I was riding over. I think it was maybe 2,200 metres, but there was this like German tourist bus there, and they just looked at me and went, Oh my goodness, we must take your photos. And now I have this photo of me next to the sign. I think Tizin Tischka, that may not be correct, but it's like the the main road that goes over the high Atlas Mountains.

SPEAKER_00 16:35

Quite an elevation to be descending from, and I can only imagine the wind chill coming down.

SPEAKER_01 16:41

Yeah, it was chilly, but actually I think I got colder in the Trans-Pyreneese race, to be honest. Because I don't think I had gloves. Yeah, I don't remember it being like freezing, freezing cold. No, maybe I I can't remember if I had gloves. Because the maj like the majority of the trip was obviously in Europe, it was in the summer, like early autumn, and then the heat. So the the desert actually wasn't really hot, it was so windy. I cycled through a sandstorm at one point, it was just horrendous. But because of my plan, it was winter, so it wasn't that hot. So the the desert in the border of Morocco, Western Sahara was quite cool. I was I was wearing like long sleeves because of the sun, but also kind of for like cultural respect. And then I actually wore the same pair of trousers for like six months, and my wife and my friend made me throw them away at the end. I was like, they're still fine, then not fine. They didn't get to get hung on the wall, but yes, but then as soon as I um crossed into Mauritania, then the temperature kind of was starting to rise a little bit more, and so unfortunately, because there's kind of different seasons depending on which part of Africa you're in, and there's um I find it really interesting to look at maps of like the rainy season. So some places, like in West Africa, have two rainy seasons because the rainy rainy season cloud comes up, like Ghana kind of has two seasons that are slightly distinct. So it comes up and then goes, crosses through Ghana and then goes further north, and then it comes back for like a second round. But before the rainy season, it's like really hot. So I was also racing to arrive before like the proper rainy season happened in Ghana and the other countries. But I so unfortunately, so I left the desert, and then the next few countries weren't too hot. Like San Senegal, I don't remember it being like really it was hot, obviously, but not really, really hot. But then, let's see, Senegal, Guinea, Bissau. Yeah, in Guinea I started really feeling it, and then in Sierra Leone, where so along along my journey, I wanted to visit different bike projects, and so I visited the village bicycle project in Lunza in Sierra Leone. So I stopped there for a while, and because I was kind of relaxing, I was like, oh, let me just check the weather because I thought I was ill, like I'm getting really ill, what's wrong with me? And then I realized no, it's just 40 degrees centigrade with humidity. That's why you're so tired.

SPEAKER_00 19:16

Lethargy bites at 40 degrees Celsius.

SPEAKER_01 19:19

Yeah, so that was challenging.

SPEAKER_00 19:21

Can I ask 40 degrees? But was it also like was it dry or was it humid?

SPEAKER_01 19:25

No, it's humid.

SPEAKER_00 19:26

Oh, it'd be the worst.

SPEAKER_01 19:28

So I think I drank five litres of water a day because in a lot of West African countries they sell water in bags, and it's usually sometimes it's 600, but it's usually 500 millilitres. And so then I would count at the end of the day like how many of them I'd drunk. So that's why I got a sense of how much water I was consuming. But then I'd also buy stuff like fizzy drinks as well.

SPEAKER_00 19:49

I don't think in 40 degrees and humidity I'm not sure that you could take on enough water in that that would be so challenging. Yeah. Did you get to a stage where you were adapting to that heat, where you were acclimated to it at all?

SPEAKER_01 20:02

I mean, I guess so, because I kept, you know, carrying on. Just for 40 degrees in particular is quite yeah, that was a that was a tricky point. So kind of around that season, so maybe a month it was like really, really challenging. And then that's a good question because either it was that I adapted or that it got a little bit cooler, or maybe a combination of both. I've never thought about that before. But I just I remember taking a picture of myself in Liberia where I just was like completely soaked. Like I I just cycled in like cotton t-shirts a lot of the time, and just the t-shirt was just wet, and my face was just wet. It's just so humid. But then at the same time, yeah, kept going. So yeah, I guess I adapted to some respect.

SPEAKER_00 20:50

Could I ask? Because obviously there were there were many dirt roads that you took through your tour, no doubt. Did you ever have the the combination of of wet dirt roads as well and the the joys that comes with cycling through those? So joys in inverted commas here.

SPEAKER_01 21:08

No, I didn't because that was the point of trying to arrive before the rainy season. So it did rain a little bit the last month or six weeks I was riding, and when it rains close to the rainy season, it rains. So you just stop and hide and just wait for it to finish. Because unlike in this country, England, where some sometimes it can just kind of drizzle or just like rain for hours and hours and hours, usually it's like a really head, really heavy downpour, and then it will kind of stop after a few hours. So sometimes it's just better to wait. And actually, there's one um one memory I have in regards to that. So when I was in Liberia, I acquired like a plastic sheet because I said, for when the rainy season comes, like everything's gonna get soaked, and me included. So I had this, I was carrying this plastic sheet, and then in Côte d'Ivoire, I realized that it was gonna rain, so I went into um I'm gonna say a forest. I think it was like a kind of farming forest. So I put my bike against the tree and I sat in between the tree and my bike and put the plastic sheet over my head for a few hours. That was quite fun. But then once it had stopped raining, it was amazing because I started riding again, and just all of the water, because it was so hot, was just evaporating from the road. You could physically see it all evaporating, it was so beautiful, and then like the sun was coming through all this evaporating water.

SPEAKER_00 22:33

Nikki, you would have had so many different contrasts on this on this trip as well. And I don't just mean crossing borders and different countries, but I also mean, you know, so you have the desert, so you have the mountains, you're in the coast, dirt roads, tarmac roads, but also no doubt, very remote locations and small villages to bustling big cities. What was it like going from one to the next?

SPEAKER_01 23:03

So the the thing that pops into my head first from what you said is so I feel that I went into cities too often, but I had to because of visas, because it wasn't possible to buy to get so many visas in advance. So let's see, I w I I think I needed eleven visas. So then it got to the point where I got a few in advance, but I just had to the country before go to the capital of that country. And get the visa and then continue. But this was some of my like least fun cycling through big cities. And actually, I think the one that I found the worst was um Conakry in Guinea because the city, the it's on is it a peninsula? Like it's a really long strip of land that's like jutting out into the sea. So it's like a long, thin city, and the point of it is the centre, but it just went on forever, and the way that people were driving was like really scary, and there was so much dirt and pollution. So I arrived, and I'm just like, my face is covered in muck, and I'm like, I'm alive. Um, so cities much less fun. The thing is that which is interesting. So in the desert, obviously, there it was quite sparsely populated, but after that, it's just people everywhere, people are just living everywhere. So you would cycle through, like in some of the sub-Saharan West African countries, you'd cycle through a village, but often it wouldn't be that long until you found the next one, which sometimes was a bit tiring. And I think towards the end, I got tired, and some maybe I wasn't as patient as I had been at the beginning of the trip because people constantly want to talk to you. And in Guinea-Bissau, it was a bit tricky because I can speak French to a certain degree. So then in all the francophone West African countries, I was able to talk to people, and obviously my French like massively improved throughout the trip. But in Guinea-Bissau, they just didn't really know what to do with me because they speak Portuguese, like a Portuguese um Creole. Um, and they were like, Oh, you don't need to speak Portuguese, I don't know what to do with this person. Yeah, trying to like communicate, and yeah, it was a little bit strained. But I do really, and I think maybe my patience waned a little bit because I do really like being in the middle of nowhere. I mean, I love meeting people, but I but cycling wise, I love being in the middle of nowhere when no one's around. Um, so just like the constant interaction, and I guess related to the topics that we're both interested in, of like highlighting women cycling, and people just would always, always ask me, oh, where's your like where's your husband or something? Or where's your friend? Like, where's the person that you're cycling with? And so towards the end, that's why I was really starting to kind of crack a little bit, and I was like, it's just me. Oh, where are they? Oh, I can't see them. And there is one incident where I was like, I wasn't very polite, and the man was like, Okay, wow, you're rude, which which I was because I'd got so frustrated by that point where I was like, No, you just see me and my bike, no one else is here. So, no, I'm not cycling with anyone else. But I do appreciate that slightly unusual, and I met loads of different people from like all walks of life. So I think in Morocco it was like a Dutch motorbike guide. That's quite a thing where there's all these motorbike tourists that are going around in a group and they have a guide, and he was like, Oh, I've done this this route, like I guess maybe to Dhaka and Senegal, Morocco, etc., loads of times, and I've never seen a woman cycling it, which obviously is untrue because I've read about women who've cycled it, and then people telling me that I was gonna die, that there was no road, da da da, etc. And I was like, Okay, very good. Nice to speak to you, goodbye.

SPEAKER_00 26:52

And that's where we're going to leave it today with that little excerpt from Nikki Ray's previous episode. As I mentioned earlier, if you want to listen to the full story there that I have featured with Nikki, you can do so just in your podcast player, click on the description, and you will see a link to the full-length feature. Otherwise, it was episode number seven that I shared on the show. Now we're getting to the part of the show where I get to say a big warm thank you to you, my absolute legends of super fans, who have continued to support me and the podcast by heading to my Buy Me a Coffee page and buying me some virtual brews. Today I'm saying a big warm thank you to Julie Murray, and Julie says, You've kept me going through some long cold work days in the Scottish Hills the last couple of years, and set me off imagining being in warmer climes on a bike. I've started planning a cycle from St. Marlowe to Sardinia via all the interesting bits. I'm planning to do this next year before I turn fifty. Thanks so much for the inspiration. Your podcast was such fun as well as interesting. Keep up the excellent work, Julie Murray, Inverness, Scotland. Oh Julie, I absolutely love everything about this message. I love that you've been tuning in to sort of escape some of the dreak weather you might be getting there every now and then in the highlands of Scotland. But also that it's set your mind forward to planning out this brilliant adventure. What a way to celebrate your upcoming 50th. And oh my heart is singing just thinking of all the great places that you are going to be taking in on the way on that epic ride from St. Marlowe to Sardinia. It's absolutely special and I just cannot wait to see it unfold. So make sure that you definitely get in touch and let me know how it all goes. We might need to get you on for your own episode. Next up I have bikepacking NV. And you've said I'm a regular listener, your interviews are often with me on my trips. I prefer riding into the wind over riding on washboard. The best thing about adventure travel by bike is falling in love with the land. Thank you. Well thank you, bikepacking envy, and also thank you for actually becoming a monthly supporter there on Buy Me a Coffee as well. And can I just say I'm with you? I actually too would prefer to ride into the wind than over a constant washboard corrugated road service. And that's saying something because you know, listeners, I absolutely hate the headwinds. And I loved your response there to the best thing about adventure travel by bike. Falling in love with the land. Oh, it resonates so deeply with me. I really, really live and feel that. And I find personally it's that feeling that I'm more connected with the landscapes I'm traveling to when I'm riding on my own bike adventures, and I feel that's possibly the same thing that you're referring to there as well. Once again, thank you so much for supporting me. You're an absolute legend. And listeners, if you would like to do as Julie Murray and Bikepacking NV have done and show some love and appreciation for me here at Seek Travel Ride producing these episodes for you, you can head over to my Buy Me a Coffee page at buymeacoffee.com forward slash Seek Travel Ride, or hit the link in the show notes, buy me some virtual coffees, and more importantly, let me know what is it that you love about the show, and let me know have you got any bike adventures planned? Because I would love to hear all about them. Until the next episode, I'm Bella Malloy. Thanks for listening.