Monday, November 29, 2004 - 12:00 PM

34,000 kilometres, give or take.

The itinerary for the first six months of 2005 is now in place. Here's how it goes.

On January 5th, I'll fly from Toronto to Cairo. I'll stay in Cairo until we begin the trip on January 15th. That's the day we set out from Cairo and begin to ride south. On January 27th, we enter Sudan and have a rest day in Khartoum on February 8th. On February 13th, we enter Ethiopia and have a rest day in Addis Ababa on the 25th. We enter Kenya on March 5th and will have a rest day in Nairobi on the 15th. On March 18th, we enter Tanzania and have a rest day in Iringa on the 28th. We enter Malawi on March 31st and have a rest day in Lilongwe on April 8th. We enter Zambia on April 9th and have a rest day at Victoria Falls on the 18th. We enter Botswana on April 19th and then travel into Namibia on April 27th. We have a rest day in Windhoek on May 1st. We enter South Africa on May 7th and reach Cape Town on the 14th. I'll stay in Cape Town until May 21st, when I fly to London. I'll travel in the UK until June 18th, when I return to Toronto.

Both Cairo and Cape Town have some of the best scuba diving in the world, so I'm hoping to spend some time underwater at either end of the trip. An antidote to all the dust and sand I'll experience for four months in the middle.