Volunteering in Livingstone, March 2016

Martigny, April 23rd

Terri and I arrived in Livingstone, Zambia on March 8^th, more than six weeks ago.  It’s funny to think that since I left Leysin last June, I had not spent three weeks in one place at one time until our three-week sojourn in Livingstone, and it seems unlikely that I will spend three weeks in any other place for a long time to come.  It felt as though I had given up my nomadism for a while, but since then we have restarted our peregrinations in South Africa, so it’s normal service resumed.

Terri, Angela and the 15 Kumon students at Victoria Falls

After two enjoyable weeks at my mother’s place in Ottawa and another week in Thunder Bay visiting my father, getting a flavour of the winter that I have missed by being in the southern hemisphere (although Ottawa has had a record-breaking El Nino-fuelled warm winter), I flew to London overnight on March 6^th-7th and had ten hours between flights, so I hopped on the Tube and headed into the city to visit my friend Sean and his girlfriend Shelby.  We had an outrageously good tapas lunch at a restaurant in Katherine’s Wharf, a tiny chic yacht harbour tucked away near the Tower of London.  It was good to see Sean, whom I last saw in Bali 18 months ago.  We have crossed paths all over the world, from France to Egypt to London to Japan to Bali, ever since we met as bicycle tour guides working for Butterfield and Robinson back in 1997.  Sean had to hurry back to work, but I still had a few hours, so I went to the Botticelli Reimagined exhibition at the Victoria and Albert Museum.  The first part of the exhibit was kind of strange:  20^th century uses of Boticelli’s Birth of Venus in all sorts of post-modernist settings.  The second part showed how the Pre-Raphaelites were influenced in the late 19^th century by Botticelli, and was more interesting.  The main part of the exhibit, paintings and drawings by Botticelli himself, was fantastic, even if The Birth of Venus and the Allegory of Spring weren’t there as the Uffizi in Florence wouldn’t let them go.  I really liked the painting of La Bella Simonetta, the young mistress of one of the Medici.  Then it was time to snooze my way back to Heathrow on rhw  and the next leg of my trip, refreshed by a few hours of companionship and culture.

The flight to Johannesburg was uneventful, and once there, I met up with Terri, who had flown in from New Zealand a few hours earlier.  We had a reunion, catching up on the past three weeks, and then got on separate flights back north to Livingstone.  I was stamped into my 123^rd country and emerged to find Terri waiting with Mr. Sakala, the driver/advisor who has worked with Terri on her Zambian trips since 2007.  We drove to YCTC, a youth vocational training centre run by the local Catholic diocese, and settled in for our long stay. 

Terri has been running a humanitarian trip for students from her former school since 2007, bringing in Japanese high school students to do work at a small pre-school that she has been funding for the past 9 years.  Even though she no longer works in Switzerland, the school ran a trip this year and we were on hand to help run it.  In contrast to previous years, we arrived a good 10 days before the students to give Terri a chance to do some time-consuming bureaucratic work and keep an eye on the construction of a new classroom building.  I had never visited Zambia, and had been hearing about this project for years, so when we both left our jobs last June to travel, we decided that it was a perfect chance for me to see the pre-school in action. 

My first impressions of Zambia were of heat, rain and a strange déjà vu.  I lived in Tanzania back in 1981-2, when my father worked for 2 years at a university in Morogoro.  Morogoro is on the train line and road leading to Zambia, and we would see heavily-laden copper trucks roaring along the road whenever we drove out of town.  Looking around Libuyu, the poor neighbourhood of Livingstone in which YCTC is located, I could have been back in Tanzania 35 years ago.  There were a few differences; cell phones have arrived in a big way, and the cars are all Japanese instead of the Peugeots, Volkswagens and Land Rovers I remembered, but the shanty towns, the women walking long distances with heavy loads on their heads, the dirt roads, the huge numbers of children and the Asian-owned shops were all familiar sights.  Although Zambia is held up as an example of Rising Africa (the 15-20 sub-Saharan countries that have shown sustained economic growth since about 2000), in the outskirts it looks more like Stagnant Africa.  Long line-ups at service stations for scarce gasoline, frequent power cuts and complaints of official corruption were drearily similar to my childhood memories.

I had never done voluntary humanitarian work, and I have to confess that my two adolescent years in Tanzania left me a bit skeptical of the entire aid industry, which too often seems to degenerate into empire building and boosting home-country industries, rather than bringing about lasting improvement in the lives of people in the target country.  Terri’s ongoing project in the poor neighbourhood of Ngwenya, though, was quite different.  

Some of the output of the Ngwenya quarries

It’s run on a shoestring, using money raised by students at her former school, the Kumon Leysin Academy in Switzerland (KLAS, or Kumon).  Students, Terri and (this year) her successor Angela raise money by selling snacks at school, running bake sales and a big charity raffle.  This year Angela and some of her enterprising students took fundraising to a whole new level with enthusiasm, persistence and the clever use of online fundraising tools, and raised far more than had ever been raised in a single year before.  That money, of course, goes far further in Zambia than in overpriced Switzerland and has a huge effect on the lives of over 100 pre-school and lower elementary pupils at the newly re-named Olive Tree Learning Centre.  The money goes to pay for half of the salaries of the teachers and staff at the school, as well as for the school lunch program and for occasional capital projects, such as the construction this year of a new building which will double the available classroom space. 

Brenda, the hand-washing monitor at Olive Tree

It might well be asked why a project that has been running for 9 years still needs ongoing funding support; one of the great complaints about aid and humanitarian projects is that they never become self-funding.  I had the task of having a look at the financial books this year and essentially the school funds about half of its ongoing expenses through school fees which, at 130 kwacha (about 12 US dollars) per term, or 36 dollars a year, are very modest but still beyond the very modest means of many parents in what is a very low-income area where huge family sizes are the norm.  If the school were to charge 300 or 400 kwacha a term (some of the schools for better-off students in Livingstone charge more like 600 kwacha a term), it would cover its expenses, but would in the process price out the very students that Terri has always wanted to help the most.  

School lunch line:  same as anywhere in the world

About a quarter of the students who attend the Olive Tree do so free of charge, as the school management feels that their families are too poor to be able to pay any fees at all.  The others pay a low fee that helps fund the school without making it a school just for the better-off.  The additional funding brought in by Kumon students is the difference between having another school for lower-middle-class pupils and having a school that makes a huge difference in the lives of the poorest children in a tough neighbourhood.

Olive Tree students 

The big construction project this year took up a lot of time and organizational effort.  Essentially a three classroom building, with two classrooms for the expansion of the school up to grade four and one multipurpose room that could be used for adult education or for income-generating activities to increase the self-funding capacity of the school, was being built from the ground up.  We watched the building rise from the extra plot of land that had been purchased a couple of years earlier.  One builder, a few permanent staff and some casual labourers methodically moulded construction blocks from sand and cement, laid a big concrete foundation slab and then began laying courses of blocks.  It all happened remarkably quickly, in a matter of perhaps six weeks in total.  What amazed me was the cost.  A fairly sturdy construction, tons of sand and concrete, doors, gates, windows, many man-weeks of labour, and it was all done for under US$10,000.  The same building would have cost 25 times as much in Switzerland, and 10 times as much in Canada.  Of course, the fact that building labourers work for 20 or 30 kwacha a day helps keep costs down.

At any rate, we watched the building foundations being prepared for the big day of concrete laying as we waited for the Kumon students to arrive.  Justin, the contractor, worked harder than any of his labourers laying blocks, mixing mortar and shoveling sand.  He had conferences with Mr. Sakala, our driver, who had been a builder in his day and was a masterful jack of all trades; they discussed the design of the building, the height of the concrete slab, the supply of bricks and sand.  I even got in on the act, trying to estimate the number of blocks we would need to produce, and hence the quantity of sand and cement we would need.

Starting to lay the foundation of the new school building 

The pre-school itself, still called the Little Angels Pre-School (the Olive Tree re-naming would happen while the Kumon students were there) was a hive of activity whenever we visited.  The school consisted of a main building with two classrooms and a tiny office, a cookhouse that had one room being used as a classroom during the construction (which had claimed one classroom as a storeroom for construction materials), a couple of latrines for the students and a chicken coop where the school supplemented its meagre income from school fees by raising chicks to adult size and then selling them for 45 kwacha (US$ 4) each.  It was a mildly profitable business that kept the otherwise chronically underemployed security guard busy. 

It seems as though every humanitarian endeavour in Livingstone has a similar income-generating activity (IGA, in the parlance) going to supplement funds from overseas donors.  Chicken raising is a popular one, along with sewing, vegetable farming and an Italian restaurant (Olga’s) that was founded to help support YCTC, the Catholic diocese’s training centre for underprivileged youth.  It’s a worthwhile idea to help projects become self-sustaining, but these IGAs run the risk either of not making enough money, or of falling into disrepair due to lax oversight.  Olga’s was apparently not making nearly the money that had been forecast, while YCTC’s IGAs (making furniture and selling clothing) were languishing because of cutbacks, lack of motivation and quality-control issues. 

The Olive Tree is attended full-time by two classes of pre-schoolers, and two half-day classes of grades 1 and 2.  The enrolment of almost 120 is about eight times what it was in 2007 when Terri got involved in the project, and the school is thriving.  The three full-time teachers run their classes with lots of energy and enthusiasm while the school lunch program for the pre-school classes has the pupils looking well-fed and healthy.  One day, walking around the Ngwenya neighbourhood around the school, Terri and I saw a number of students with the orange hair and bulging abdomens that are tell-tale signs of protein-poor diets and malnutrition.  I was amazed that the school was able to feed 70 kids four lunches a week on a budget of about US$100 a month.  That’s basically about 10 US cents a meal.  The staple starch of Zambia, maize-flour porridge called nshima (think of polenta) is unbelievably cheap, and it is supplemented by green vegetables, dried fish and beans.  And yet, despite these low prices, many of the parents of the neighbourhood, working piecework for the rock quarries of the area, are unable to provide enough food for their extensive families.  The school lunch is vital for the pupils, almost more important than the educational opportunities that are also on offer.  It amazes me how little money it can take to make a real, tangible difference in the lives of so many children. 

A joyful, tearful reunion between Terri and Miss Bwaliya

When we weren’t visiting the Olive Tree-to-be, we went to town to do grocery shopping, to buy construction materials and paint, and to visit some of the circle of friends and acquaintances that Terri has amassed over the years of coming to Livingstone.  The no-nonsense Irish nuns of the Little Sisters of St. Francis, Sisters Frances and Fidelma, provided interesting conversation and insight into the problems of trying to run charitable programs in Zambia.  Mr. Sakala gave us stories of economic mismanagement and official corruption.  Ms. Bwaliya, a dear friend who used to work at YCTC, told stories of her family and community that were straight out of Dickens or Victor Hugo, full of poverty, disease, untimely death and horrible crime; I was amazed at her ability to keep going and keep smiling in the face of such adversity.  Zambia has a huge number of orphans whose parents have died young of AIDS, and yet seems to have almost no street kids sleeping rough at night; the extended family takes in the orphans, swelling already large families to Biblical proportions. 

Saying hello to students at Luumono Elementary School

The main complaints that Zambians have about their country and their government are those that you might expect:  shortages of running water, electricity and gasoline; official corruption; a lack of jobs for graduates; and misguided economic policies that have hollowed out the small industrial base that once existed.  While economic growth has occurred over the past 15 years, its benefits do not seem to have been very widely spread.  There is still widespread and obvious poverty, and now that copper prices have fallen off a cliff and the copper mines that were once the leading exports are mothballed, and with a drought driving up prices of corn flour, many people are struggling more than before to make ends meet.  The story of decisions made in the 1990s to allow imports of cheap used Japanese cars and cheap second-hand Asian clothing were interesting and a bit depressing.  Livingstone had a Fiat car assembly factory, a Bata shoe factory and a textile mill that made blankets.  

Sister Bridgit, an inspirational young teacher at Luumono

Shortly after the cheaper imports were allowed, these three factories were gone, taking hundreds (perhaps thousands) of relatively well-paid steady industrial jobs with them and casting the former employees back into the more precarious world of informal employment.  It hardly seems the way to develop a modern prosperous economy, and it’s certainly not the route taken by Japan, South Korea, China, Malaysia and other Asian countries to raise the living standards of most of their populations.  With a hotly-contested election coming up later this year, Zambians fear both more economic populism and real electoral violence.

Zebras at the Royal Livingstone Hotel

At the end of the day, Terri and I often went to a couple of riverside restaurants to take in the breathtaking sunsets.  The Royal Livingstone has an air of colonial elegance and an unbeatable location, along with giraffes, zebras and impalas roaming the grounds.  One of the giraffes, a big male named Bob, took a dislike to me and would advance menacingly if he caught sight of me.  By the time we left Livingstone, Bob had been deported from the hotel back to a nearby national park for being aggressive with other hotel guests.  Terri and I would sit watching the sunset, sipping drinks and watching the passing birdlife.   It was Terri’s favourite spot to end the day.  We also went to the Riverside restaurant, just up the river, with an equally lovely view but without the genteel air of the Royal Livingstone.   Olga’s Restaurant, the Italian joint started as an IGA for YCTC (I feel like a proper NGO worker, spouting an alphabet soup of acronyms) and the Zambezi Café, a lively joint popular with the local Zambian middle class, were other frequent supper spots.  Then we would return to YCTC, often in the darkness of a power cut, and sleep under our sagging mosquito nets.

Bob the aggressive male giraffe

Then, suddenly, the day of arrival was at hand and 15 Japanese high school students and Angela, their South African-born supervising teacher, were at the airport (sadly, without their luggage).  The next 9 days passed in a blur, with work trips to the preschool, a cultural exchange with YCTC students, a class trip with one of the pre-school classes to a big cat centre and an amazing safari trip to Chobe National Park (across the Zambezi in Botswana, a trip which I will write about in a separate post).  The trip, honed over the years by Terri, was a good mixture of activities for the students.  Essentially Angela and the students had already done a lot of the hard work over the past 7 months in raising thousands of dollars to fund the project; that was their biggest practical contribution, and without that money Olive Tree wouldn’t be able to keep operating.  At the same time, though, Terri wanted the students to learn through doing and contributing, so we put the students to work making construction blocks, repairing broken windows and repainting the original school building.  They also taught lessons one day to the youngsters at Olive Tree, and escorted two or three pre-schoolers each on the trip to Mukuni Big Five, the cat sanctuary.  

Taro trying his hand at making construction blocks

I think that it was important for the Kumon teenagers to see the results of their fundraising, the smiling, irrepressible youngsters in their neat uniforms lining up for school lunches, eager to show off their poems and songs.  This sort of direct experiential learning leaves a much more lasting impression on teenagers than any number of academic lessons on the developing world.

Kumon students scraping before repainting Olive Tree

Taro discovers breaking rocks is tough

Daiki with three Japanese JICA volunteers

The impression can be so lasting, in fact, that students come back to Zambia on their own initiative to volunteer.  While we were there we spent a lot of time with Daiki, a former Kumon student who was on Terri’s first-ever Zambia trip in 2007.  He is now a graduate student in Switzerland, studying international development, and was on his second internship at YCTC.  He said that it was only a few years after the trip that he realized what a profound effect the trip had had on his conception of the world, and he was keen to try to help the students on this year’s trip get the most out of their experience.  It was great for me to have Daiki around as he was quite a good source of local information on what was going on at YCTC and in the wider community.  He also organized three local Japanese overseas volunteers who were working in the neighbourhood to come have dinner with the Kumon students one night and give insight into the life of an overseas volunteer.

YCTC dancers at the cultural exchange

The cultural exchange program with the students at YCTC got off to a slow start, with the YCTC group very late in arriving from their classes, but once it got going, it was a very worthwhile experience, with the Japanese demonstrating some typical Japanese skills like origami, calligraphy and wearing a kimono, while a group of YCTC students showed off their drumming and dancing skills.  Afterwards, there were throngs of Zambian students clustered around the tables getting their names written in Japanese characters or trying their hand at origami.  I think it was a good chance to bridge the huge gap in affluence, experience and expectation between the two groups. 

Drummers at the YCTC cultural exchange

Kumon students doing origami at the cultural exchange

Cheetah at the Mukuni Big Five centre

A caracal (African lynx) at the Mukuni Big Five

The grand finale of the "service" part of the trip took place on Friday morning.  Every year the youngsters who are finishing the reception class (kindergarten/pre-school) at Olive Tree take a class trip out to the Big 5 conservancy project at Mukuni village, near Livingstone.  The Kumon students are all assigned two or three tiny Olive Tree pupils to look after during the visit, and it's sweet to see the tall Japanese teenagers hand in hand with a pint-sized Zambian tyke on each side walking to the bus, sitting together on the bus, and then escorting their tiny charges into the Big 5.  For many of the Zambian children, it may be the first (or only) time in their lives that they come face to face with the charismatic megafauna that Westerners fly halfway around the world to see.  It was wonderful to see the excitement in their eyes as we walked past the lions, cheetahs and caracals.  The lions in particular took a keen interest in the small humans, sizing them up for a midday snack, and we were glad to have the strong chain-link fence between the felines and the pre-schoolers.  When Terri walked past the enclosure with Terry the lion inside, as soon as she turned her back on the lion, he perked up his ears, tensed his muscles and charged at her retreating back, only prevented from leaping on her by the fence.  It must have been a memorable and somewhat alarming visit for the Olive Tree children, and there were heartfelt goodbyes in the parking lot as they said goodbye to their protectors from Kumon.

After six whirlwind days of activity, hard work and service, it was finally a chance for the students to have a more touristy experience.  We went to Victoria Falls (my first visit after being in Livingstone for two and a half weeks) and experienced the awesome volume of water hurtling over the precipice.  At places the spray returning to the ground from the sky was like a second waterfall, drenching anything not protected by a waterproof rain poncho.  We could only really see one half of the falls, as the Zimbabwean half was completely lost in the dense clouds of spray.  

Victoria Falls, aka Mosi Oa Tunya, "The Smoke That Thunders"

Some of that Victoria Falls "smoke"

The waterfall’s spray is visible from many kilometres away on a clear day and is perhaps the most impressive part of an impressive natural sight.  That evening we had a celebratory dinner at the Royal Livingstone before heading off to the Chobe safari early the next morning.

One final coat of paint for the classroom.

When we came back from astounding Chobe, we had one final trip out to the Olive Tree, distributing some of the suitcases of donated clothing and sports equipment that the Kumon students had brought.  We talked through the figures:  the amazing amounts of money raised, and where that money was going to be spent.  We talked about what their efforts meant in giving youngsters in the poorest part of a poor country a bit of a head start through providing them with a safe space to learn and enough food to eat to be able to learn.  It was a bit heartbreaking seeing the crowds of youngsters from that neighbourhood who don’t go to school running wild in the streets, with little prospect of ever getting an education or a decent opportunity in life.  The educational needs of the community are far greater than one small school can provide for, but it’s better to do what we can than to do nothing. 

Mr. Sakala, his family and the Kumon students

As we waved goodbye to the Kumon group at Livingstone airport, it was a bit of a relief after 9 very intense days involving a lot of organizing and oversight, but it was also satisfying to have been part of providing both a possibly transformative educational experience to the Japanese students and a much-needed leg up to a worthy cause that is making a difference in the lives of a hundred families in Ngwenya township.  My long-held skepticism of a lot of large-scale aid projects is still there, but a small, focused effort like Olive Tree really does seem to be an incredibly efficient use of resources to do the maximum good.  There is still a ton of basic needs unmet in the townships around Livingstone (running water, sewage, electricity, health care, education) and it would be nice if the Zambian government did a better job of meeting these, but until (and if) that happens, projects like the Olive Tree will continue to play a vital role in trying to make a difference.  I am immensely proud of Terri and the program she has built up over the years, and I was glad to play a small part in this year’s trip.

Reunion with Natalie at the Royal Livingstone

And then, once it was all over, it was time for us to handle the last bureaucratic paperwork and have some fun.  On Monday, March 28^th we met up with a former colleague of mine, Nathalie, who is now working at an international school in Lusaka.  It was great to catch up with her and with the group of colleagues with whom we were travelling.  Then on Tuesday Terri and I treated ourselves to a microlight flight over the falls.  It was eye-wateringly expensive at US$ 165 for a 15-minute joyride, but it was a once-in-a-lifetime sort of thrill, and provided by far the best overall view of the falls, as well as glimpses of giraffes, buffalo and hippos in the surrounding national parks. 

Terri going for a microlight flight

On Wednesday, March 30^th we packed our bags, said goodbye to YCTC and to Mr. Sakala and caught a flight to Cape Town to start the next phase of our journey:  our overland trip around Africa.  More on that (and on the trip to Chobe) later!

Moe, Terri and Angela and the impressive fund-raising figures

Late afternoon light on the Zambezi

That smile says it all; it's why people volunteer

Summer Cycling in the French Alps

Leysin, Switzerland, August 25, 2013

I started this blog post sitting in the lovely little French town of Guillestre, in the old house being restored by my sister Saakje and her partner Henkka.  Terri and I were there for a few days of vacation before I start work again for an unprecedented 4th consecutive year in one place.  I'm a little surprised myself that I've stayed stationary for so long, but I seem to be having a great time and getting just enough time to travel to keep my wanderlust at bay temporarily.  This is a summary of the bike touring I did this August in France (I finished the big tour on August 15th, then went back down to Guillestre with Terri and came back to Leysin on the 21st; the blog post was finished once I got back to Switzerland.)

So those of you who are faithful readers of my blog know that I love bicycle trips; I've taken at least one long bike trip every year since 2000 except for in 2008 and 2012.  However, this summer, having done my bike trip through Iceland with Terri in June, I decided to try something new in August.  I was in Canada and the US in July, visiting family and friends, but came back to Europe a couple of weeks before school began in order to do a different style of bike trip.  I have always taken camping equipment and ridden with a fully loaded touring bike, allowing me to stop wherever I want, sleep cheaply (or for free) and make the bike trip more of a complete adventure package.  This time, though, I wanted to experience riding the great passes of the Alps, the ones that the Tour de France goes over, travelling as light as possible.  I booked some (not-so-cheap) hotels, got a small back rack trunk to carry a change of clothes, some toiletries, a few spares and a Kindle and set off with my racing bike on the TGV for Avignon on August 6th.  The plan was to spend 9 days cycling back to Switzerland over as many of the great cols as I could.  It was a different sort of travel experience, centred much more on the cycling and less on sightseeing than I am used to.  Here's a summary of what I got up to.

Day 0:  August 6th, Avignon-Carpentras

Distance:                                 36.9 km

Total to Date:                          36.9 km

Final Altitude:                             180 m

Vertical Metres Climbed:            294 m

Time:                                             1:49

Average Speed:                    20.1 km/h

Maximum Speed:                  43.2 km/h

After I got off the TGV in Avignon (man, was it hard to get a booking and a reservation for my bicycle!  It eventually took my sister and two employees of the Swiss railways almost an hour to get it done.). I took a long time and a lot of wrong turns to get out of the city and onto the right road to Carpentras. It was an urban cycling nightmare of one-way streets and misleading signs.  Once I was finally pointed in the right direction, I raced along the road easily, looking up at the white summit of Mont Ventoux all the way to my lodgings above a little restaurant in the pretty old town of Carpentras, a town apparently entirely populated by immigrants from North Africa.  I was awakened repeatedly in the night by thunderstorms of apocalyptic violence.

Day 1:  August 7th, Carpentras-Mont Ventoux (1911 m)-Digne Les Bains

Distance:                                176.5 km

Total to Date:                         213.4 km

Final Altitude:                              615 m

Vertical Metres Climbed:             3312 m

Time:                                            8:59

Average Speed:                      19.7 km/h

Maximum Speed:                    52.8km/h

Happy and tired atop Ventoux!

Of all the iconic climbs of the Tour de France, two loom larger than any others in the public imagination.  One is the climb to Alpe d'Huez, a ski resort near La Grave; I cycled that last October on a weekend jaunt to La Grave with Terri.  The other is the Mont Ventoux, featured regularly in the Tour, including this year when Chris Froome imposed himself on the field with a dominant victory on the climb up the Ventoux.  The mountain is not enormously high (just over 1900 metres in altitude), but since the surrounding countryside is only a couple of hundred metres above sea level, the total altitude gain to the summit is about 1500 metres from Malaucene, one of the three towns from which roads lead right to the barren summit of the highest peak in Provence.

Looking back at the barren summit as I descend the classic route towards Bedoin and Sault

I started the day not knowing whether I would even be able to make the attempt; violent storms the night before were still raging when I woke up, and the proprietor of my hotel was dubious about the wisdom of trying to reach the summit.  Ventoux is named for the violent winds that buffet its upper slopes; last year Terri had the plastic cover blown right off her cycling helmet by gale-force winds near the top of the climb.  I had visions of the same sort of weather hitting me, especially as it was raining on me as I left Carpentras.  By the time I reached Malaucene, however, it was grey but not actually raining, and I set off undeterred.  I rode quickly, trying to race up as quickly as I could.  I passed a few cyclists, but nobody caught up to me until near the end, when a Dutchman about my age came up on me.  We rode together for a while before I had to stop to rest and take a few pictures just as we emerged from the beautiful forested lower slopes onto the barren scree slopes that look like snowcaps when seen from far away.  I took a couple of minutes to myself, then climbed the last few steep kilometres to the summit, emerging into another world right at the top.  Hundreds, if not thousands, of cyclists come up the other way from Bedoin and Sault every day, and I met the horde at the summit.  Somehow I managed to get a picture of me alone with the sign before bundling up into warmer clothes for the descent.  I felt tired and a bit dehydrated, but I was pleased with my time of 1:49 for the 1500 vertical metre climb.  It was the fastest that I would climb until almost the very end of the trip.

Lovely village of Montbrun-les-Bains, just north of Sault

The rest of the day was a long, tiring blur.  I descended at speed towards Bedoin, branching right towards Sault partway down.  I passed the memorial to Tom Simpson, a great British cyclist who died of a heart attack on the Ventoux in 1967, killed by a fatal cocktail of alcohol and amphetamines.  British cyclists leave water bottles, flowers and other mementoes.  I took a photo and kept descending.  In Sault I stopped for disappointing lunch at a restaurant on the main square, and didn't get going until 1:30 pm, with still 100 kilometres to go until my hotel at Digne-les-Bains.  It was a long slog, with a surprising amount of climbing over two smaller passes until I started a long descent that lasted most of 50 km to Digne.  I got in fairly late, around 7:30, with my legs tired and my body crying out for food.  I slept like the dead after a great meal of roast lamb.

Day 2:  August 8th, Digne Les Bains-Col d'Allos (2250 m)-Barcelonette

Distance:                                111.6 km

Total to Date:                         325.0 km

Final Altitude:                            1130 m

Vertical Metres Climbed:             2110 m

Time:                                            5:56

Average Speed:                      18.8 km/h

Maximum Speed:                    58.3 km/h

My second day on the bike was a lot easier than the first, which was good news since I awoke with my legs feeling pretty stiff, tired and leaden after the race up the Ventoux.  Digne intrigued me, since all I knew about the town was that it was the setting of important parts of Les Miserables.  I had forgotten, or perhaps never knew, that one of my favourite Western explorers of Tibet, the redoubtable Frenchwoman Alexandra David-Neel, had lived in Digne and left behind a museum and foundation for religious studies.  I wished that I had time to go poke around the museum. As well, there's an intriguing-looking Valley of the Ammonites, and signs for prehistoric archaeological sites just south of town, all of which I had to leave for another time, if I ever make it back to Digne. I rode out of town after another night of thunderstorms, climbing slightly over two heights of land before joining a river valley that was, as roadside signs proclaimed, part of the route followed by Napoleon Bonaparte in 1815 during his Hundred Days, when he escaped from Elba, took over France and was defeated at Waterloo.  I raced along a valley that seemed to be a monument to forgotten industrial towns and railroads until I turned north towards the Col d'Allos.  I spent several hours toiling up the pretty valley, part of the Mercantour region, until I reached a little ski resort and got serious about climbing.  Late in the afternoon I reached the summit of the Col d'Allos (2250 m), took a few pictures, put on lots of layers for the descent and rode down nearly 30 km of steep, narrow roads across a dramatic landscape of gorges and cliffs before ending up in the pretty tourist town of Barcelonette, where I stayed in Le Grand Hotel, a place adorned with old black and white pictures from the glory days of the Tour de France.  I went to bed tired but full of good pizza, and slept the sleep of the exhausted.

Col d'Allos, feeling less fresh than atop the Ventoux

Day 3:  August 9th, Barcelonette-Col de la Cayolle (2326 m)-Col de Valberg (1673 m)-Col de la Couillole (1678 m)-Audon

Distance:                                135.3 km

Total to Date:                         460.3 km

Final Altitude:                            1595 m

Vertical Metres Climbed:             3548 m

Time:                                            8:11

Average Speed:                      16.5 km/h

Maximum Speed:                    55.7 km/h

This was the day that I discovered why professional cyclists dope.  I awoke with my legs absolutely dead, and despite making my way south  again over the incredibly beautiful Col de la Cayolle, my favourite high pass of the trip, in a reasonable 1:57, I was useless for the rest of a long, tough day.  The Cayolle starts with a dramatic gorge, then climbs up an almost deserted valley to the top of a beautiful forested pass.  There's almost no traffic (no trucks, no buses, no campers and only a few cars and motorcycles) and the scenery was suffused with a loveliness enhanced by the first morning of perfect cloudless weather of the trip so far.  It was hard to believe that this pass was a deforested semi-desert 150 years ago before a serious reforestation program rescued it from overgrazing.

The top of the lovely Cayolle

From the top, I rolled south down a beautiful valley (the Var) to the town of Guillaumes, where I turned left and started the second big climb of the day.  This one was only 850 metres in total, but in the heat of the day, on legs that were crying out for EPO, it was a rough climb.  I reached the lovely Col de Valberg and its unlovely ski resort, dropped a few hundred metres to another ski village, Beuil, and then climbed again, very slowly, to the Col de la Couillole before starting a memorable plummet down the red rock gorges (reminiscent of Ladakh) of the Vionene valley to St. Sauveur sur Tinee, past spectacular Roubion perched atop a precipice.  This looks like a classic climbing route, as there's a narrow tunnel and small bridge that keeps the campers, trucks and casual tourists off the road.

The pass that killed me after the Cayolle

Beautiful cliff-top Roubion

At this point, I was physically pretty finished, but I hadn't been able to find accommodation in the valley, I was obliged to turn uphill again and cycle up the Tinee valley for 28 hard-fought kilometres.  An Austrian guy on a bike with a small backpack passed me, and I was fated to keep crossing paths with him for another week.  I made it to the turnoff to Audon, the ski resort where I had found a room for the night, and turned uphill.  It was only 5 kilometres of climbing to Audon, but after 2, I was completely spent.  I stopped, lay beside the road, started again, quit again and generally made an ass of myself until I finally crawled into the ski resort completely dead.  It was the first time in 3 years that I had cracked so totally on a climb.  A beer and a salmon sandwich revived me from the dead, and a subsequent burger and fries completed the rebirth, but I was a sad excuse for a cyclist as I went to bed in my strange little hotel in which I was the only guest.

Day 4:  August 10th, Audon-Cime de la Bonnette (2802 m)-Col de Vars (2109 m)-Guillestre

Distance:                                96.5 km

Total to Date:                         556.8 km

Final Altitude:                            1000 m

Vertical Metres Climbed:             2654 m

Time:                                            6:12

Average Speed:                      15.5 km/h

Maximum Speed:                    59.4 km/h

The little summit loop to the Cime de la Bonnetee (rising diagonally to the left)

This was the day that I realized that I really, truly needed a day off the bike.  I got up early, froze on a frigid descent back to the Tinee valley, had a belated breakfast with the local madmen in front of St. Etienne church, then spent a tough two and a half hours climbing high up over the highest pass so far, the monstrous Col de la Bonnette.  I loved the scenery, with lots of forests and dramatic gorges, but the heavy traffic detracted from the enjoyment, as did my legs, which still seemed to be set on empty.  I reached the top of the col at 2715 metres, then took the steep extra loop that led pointlessly around a little lump on the ridge to make the road reach an altitude of 2802 metres, the highest road in the French Alps (although not in Europe; there are higher roads in Spain and Georgia).  It was a zoo at the top, with campers, motorcycles, cars and bicycles jostling for parking position.

Highest elevation of the trip, on the Cime de la Bonnette

I was glad to snap a photo, put on warmer layers and start the long descent back towards Barcelonette.  I reached the bottom, turned away from Barcelonette and towards the second climb of the day, the Col de Vars.  While I didn't completely crumble as I had the day before on the climb to Audon, I suffered on the steep (10%) grade to the summit, and had to take a long breather a few kilometres from the summit.  I rode much of the last part of the ride with a French guy my age from the Jura who was here on a week's cycling/hiking vacation with his wife.  We had a celebratory beer atop the Col de Vars before I set off through the unpleasant heavy traffic of a French ski resort in the summer.  By the time I reached Guillestre and the shelter of my sister and her boyfriend's house, I had decided to change my plans.  I had originally decided to ride up the second-highest true pass in the French Alps, the Col d'Agnel, the next day, but my slow pace (my average speed had dropped every day since the beginning of the trip) and my real weakness the last two days made me decide to leave the Agnel for later and take a day of slothful indolence instead.

That is one tired-looking cycle tourist!

Trying to revive with some amber nectar on the Col de Vars

Day 5:  August 12th, Guillestre-Col de l'Izoard (2360 m)-Col de Galibier (2642 m)-St. Michel de Maurienne

Distance:                                122.8 km

Total to Date:                         679.6 km

Final Altitude:                              740 m

Vertical Metres Climbed:             3165 m

Time:                                            6:36

Average Speed:                      18.6  km/h

Maximum Speed:                    64.8 km/h

The view down towards Briancon from the top of the Izoard

After a day devoted to eating, napping, playing guitar and then eating some more, I awoke on Monday morning feeling more human and with my legs greatly revived and less heavy.  I got going at a reasonable hour (around 7:30) and set off immediately climbing up the iconic Tour de France setting of the Col d'Izoard.  The road leads through a flattish section of dramatic gorges along the Guil river before turning uphill to climb through pretty scenery towards the steep summit and its stretch of Ventoux-like desert (La Casse Deserte).  I felt strong and set a good pace, not getting passed by anyone until a young racer and a tough old 60-something rode by me a couple of kilometres from the summit.  I was secretly pleased to see the greybeard catch up to, pass and streak away from the youngster near the summit; the youngster looked crushed by this.  At the summit, I relaxed for a few minutes, took a few pictures, put on warmer layers and set off downhill to Briancon.

La Meije, the mountain dominating the view from the Col de Lautaret

Pierre, Daryl and myself looking smug atop the Galibier

Briancon was a nightmare of traffic jams and heat, but once I had escaped I had a fast, pleasant ride up the gentle grades of the Col de Lautaret, the prelude to the famous Galibier.  I kept up a pace of over 20 km/h, which didn't seem that hard at first, but at the top, I definitely felt the lactic acid in my legs.  I had an ice cream, filled up my water bottles and met a couple of fellow Canadian cyclists, Daryl and Pierre, whom I accompanied to the summit.   Daryl was an ex-racer and was quicker than me, but I managed to keep up with Pierre.  Pierre recognized my Butterfield and Robinson bike since his parents used to take holidays with them.  The climb to the summit is absolutely stunning, through wildflower-dotted meadows under reddish cliffs.  It's not too long (8.5 km) or steep (average 7.5%).  It's really from the other side, the long climb over the Col de Telegraphe to the Galibier, that the pass lives up to its fearsome reputation.  I rode partway downhill, had a sandwich and then cruised the rest of the way to the town at the bottom of the Telegraphe, St. Michel de Maurienne.  I was having a celebratory beer by 5 pm, and was asleep by 8:30, happy after a good day in the saddle.

Day 6:  August 13th, St. Michel de Maurienne-Col d'Iseran (2770 m)-Bourg St. Maurice

Distance:                               118.8 km

Total to Date:                         798.4 km

Final Altitude:                             850 m

Vertical Metres Climbed:             2457 m

Time:                                            6:05

Average Speed:                      19.5 km/h

Maximum Speed:                    64.6 km/h

Midride fuel for the Iseran, both physical and mental (reading Proust)

Partway up the final climb to the summit of the Iseran

Although the Iseran is the highest pass in the French Alps, this day was the easiest one of the entire trip in terms of riding.  It took 75 km to get up to the summit, in a series of steep steps followed by long flattish stretches along a river valley that's postcard perfect.  I stopped partway to have a hot chocolate and a pastry, enjoyed the views and, sooner than I had expected, I was at the foot of the steep final wall.  I really enjoyed this part, with dramatic precipices framing oceans of wildflowers, and I arrived at the summit feeling pretty strong.  It was cold and windy at the top, so I didn't linger but raced down the steep road into the sprawling ski resort of Val d'Isere for a beer and a plate of fries.  I made it into Bourg St. Maurice by 5 o'clock and found my hotel, full of gregarious Dutch and German cyclists.  A great meal in an outdoor restaurant and I was asleep by 9, ready for a big ride the next day.

Riotous wildflowers carpeting the slopes of the Iseran

Top of the French Alps (at least by road!)

Day 7:  August 14th, Bourg St. Maurice-Cormet de Roseland (1961 m)-Col des Saisies (1657 m)-Col des Aravis (1486 m)-Col de la Colombiere (1613 m)-Samoens

Distance:                               142.9 km

Total to Date:                         941.3 km

Final Altitude:                              750 m

Vertical Metres Climbed:            3784 m

Time:                                            8:17

Average Speed:                      17.3 km/h

Maximum Speed:                    58.5 km/h

The Aiguille de Glacier seen from the Cormet de Roselend

First pass of the day!

Looking at the elevations of these passes, this day doesn't look that hard; not one of them is over 2000 metres above sea level.  This impression is wrong; it was in fact the hardest day of the entire trip.  Four passes and a final climb into the Samoens valley added up to 3700 vertical metres of climbing and a very tired pair of legs.  The first climb was the highlight of the day, one of the top three passes of the trip (along with the Joux Plane and the Cayolle).  The Roselend was quiet, cool and very pretty.  Almost no traffic disturbed my peace of mind along the narrow road.  At the top, a green jumble of hills tumbled down to a reservoir before tumbling down to the busy tourist town of Beaufort.

Second pass of the day!

From the lake onward, traffic picked in a harsh crescendo that lasted for the next pass and a half.  The climb up the Col des Saisies was unpleasant:  hot and wall-to-wall traffic up to a typical pre-fab concrete ski resort.  I was glad to head down to Flumet, cross the Albertville highway and start climbing up to the Col des Aravis.

Third pass; starting to feel and look tired!

The climb up was pleasant, but my legs were starting to complain.  I had seen the other side of the pass last fall, but the climb was through new territory.

The fourth pass of the day:  a pass too far!

I raced down to Le Grand Bornand, passing graffiti from this year's Tour de France, and then started a rather weary ascent of the Col de la Colombiere, again familiar territory from a trip last fall.  The downhill to Cluses left me more than ready for the end of the day; it was after 6 pm and all I wanted was a meal and a bed.  Instead I had to traverse the rather bleak post-industrial wasteland of Cluses and make a final 300-metre climb over a ridge to gain entry to the Samoens valley.  I was bone-weary, but I managed to fly along the flat valley bottom at 29 km/h and climb up to my hotel, the slightly pretentious Edelweiss.  I wandered down to have dinner only to be told that the restaurant was full and I would have to find dinner elsewhere.  It was a long, tired walk back to the hotel after a huge steak frites dinner.

Day 8:  August 15th, Samoens-Col de Joux Plane (1700 m)-Col de Joux Verte (1760 m)-Pas de Morgins (1369 m)-Leysin (1300 m)

Distance:                                 93.0 km

Total to Date:                       1034.3 km

Final Altitude:                            1280 m

Vertical Metres Climbed:             2848 m

Time:                                            5:53

Average Speed:                      16.0 km/h

Maximum Speed:                    65.3 km/h

One of my favourite passes!

This final day of the trip was a lot of fun, even if I again was starting to feel the effects of four straight days of big climbs.  The Col de Joux Plane was almost traffic-free, steep and pretty.  I managed to make it to the top, a 950-metre climb, in just over an hour of steep climbing (the average grade is 9.5%, making it the steepest pass of the trip).

The Mont Blanc looming large above the Col de Joux Plane

I rolled down into Morzine, a downhill mountain-biking mecca, then turned uphill again and climbed another 900 metres to the Col de Joux Verte, just outside Avoriaz.  From there I descended to the lift station of Les Lindarets and used the ski lifts to get up into the Chatel ski area.  A slightly dodgy walk down along a steep scree slope finally led to pavement and a descent into Chatel.  I turned uphill for 3 easy kilometres to the Pas de Morgins and descended into Switzerland.  In the town of Morgins, I met up with my friend Avery and rode with him back home, first downhill to the Rhone Valley, then uphill to Leysin, my home base.  Despite having lived here for three years, I had never done the complete climb from Aigle before, put off by the heavy traffic.  I climbed up fairly slowly in the heat, and Avery left me behind.  I climbed the last section, from Sepey into Leysin, as slowly as I have ever done.  It was sort of sad that after so much cycling, I was so slow, but I think of the trip as training.  I would be faster afterwards, after my legs recovered, even if I was turtle-like that day.

Addendum:  Four more days in Guillestre!

No sooner was I back in Leysin than I was packing the car with two bicycles to drive right back south to Guillestre with Terri.  Terri had a week off between summer and fall terms and was keen to do some cycling, and Guillestre is perfectly located for that sort of thing.  I think that Bedoin, La Grave, Bourg St. Maurice, Barcelonnette and Guillestre are probably the five absolute epicentres of road cycling in the French mountains.  With the Vars, Agnel and Izoard right out of town, and more passes just a short distance south near Barcelonnette, Terri was excited with the possibilities.

Looking from the top down the last two kilometres of the Col de Izoard

We were in town for four days.  We started with the Izoard, and Terri really enjoyed it, although there was a lot more traffic than there had been a few days before.  I think the Izoard is a good test of climbing ability, with 30 kilometres and 1360 vertical metres, as well as lovely scenery and a great warmup ride through the gorges.  I rode faster than I had the first time (2:11 instead of 2:18, starting in Guillestre) and Terri had a great ride, really enjoying the scenery and the challenge.

Terri riding the dramatic Gorge de Guil on the way back from the Izoard

Terri chugging up the long slog up the Agnel

The second day was harder, as we rode the Col Agnel, the second-highest pass in France at 2744 metres.  It's a substantially longer ride (42 km) and gains more height (400 m more).  The Agnel leads to the Italian border, and gets quite a lot of motorcycle and bicycle traffic, making it slightly too busy for my taste.  It's a long approach along a valley that seems to climb fairly steadily the whole way until the final few switchbacks.  Both of us were feeling the effects of the Izoard in our legs, and weren't as quick or effortless as the day before.  I made it to the top in 3:05 and shivered at the top in the swirling mist, dodging the tangle of motorcycles, photo-happy tourists and cars infesting the summit.  Terri and I rode back, trying to escape the rain gathering atop the pass and feeling pretty tired.  We decided to have a lazy day the next day, and felt justified when it rained.

On the French-Italian border atop the Agnel (2744 m)

On the last day, we drove south to Barcelonnette and rode the Cayolle again.  This was my favourite big pass the previous week, and so I recommended it to Terri.  She absolutely loved it, and conditions could not have been better.  There was almost no traffic, not a cloud marred the sky and the scenery was even better the second time around, with the lower gorges and the larch forests of the upper stretches bathed in mid-day sunshine.  I got up the pass 13 minutes faster than the first time around (1:44 instead of 1:57) and Terri absolutely flew up the pass, feeling stronger and quicker than she had on previous climbs.  It was a great final day.

Triumphant atop the Cayolle

On the way home to Leysin on Wednesday (yesterday), we stopped the car at the Col de Lautaret and rode the last 8.5 km up to the Col de Galibier.  Terri hadn't ridden this last year on a weekend in La Grave, so it was unfinished business.  Starting from the Lautaret, the ride is easy, beautiful and spectacular.  Terri loved it and found it much less daunting than its reputation.  I made it up in 0:49, rather than the 0:57 it took me the week before (after doing the Izoard.)  I was pleased that I was faster on all three climbs that I repeated; maybe all that "training" on the Avignon-Leysin ride paid off.  Or maybe riding on fresher, better rested legs makes a big difference!

Terri riding the Galibier with the Meije looming behind

At any rate, it feels good to have done so much bike riding up so many great cols in such a concentrated period of time.  I feel fitter than I did before, and I would be curious to see if I've gotten faster on the local rides that I have been doing for the past 3 years.

(A few days later:  I did the climb that I have to do every time I ride back into Leysin, the Sepey-Leysin road, yesterday.  I had had two days off from cycling, I warmed up with a quick flattish ride to Diablerets, and I basically had ideal conditions.  I did in fact climb faster than ever before, 17:10.  My previous record of 17:25 was set last year when I was coming down from six weeks at high altitude, effectively blood-doping me.  My non-altitude record was 17:50, so it's a pretty reasonable improvement in climbing speed.  On the other hand, when the professional riders in the Tour de Romandie came up from Sepey in April, 2011, the winner made that same climb in a bit over 9 minutes, so there's an awfully long way to go to be genuinely fast!)

I'm not sure that I would want to do a bike trip in this style again; although the riding is great, I feel as though it sacrifices too much of the joy of sightseeing that I love in bicycle touring.  The days become just about riding and take away some of the serendipidity and spontaneity of rolling along seeing what's over the next hill.  Like Lance Armstrong said (correct in more ways than one), it's not about the bike.