First email from Miranda Huron our Brodie Elan sponsored rider in the Tour d'Afrique, 11k+ kilometre race from Cairo to Cape Town.

I'm very sleepy, so | hope this message makes sense. I'm also dealing with a quasi-Arabic keyboard.

From the hotel in Cairo I can see the pyramids of Giza. The air is thick with pollution, and you can smell burning tires everywhere. When you get a flat in Egypt, you take off your tire, take the rubber off of the rim, and leave the rubber to burn at the side of the road. Apparently this will be one of our few challenges road-wise here in Egypt.

I had worried about not getting my luggage from the flight. When I boarded the plane, the ticket agent announced that I had to pay for my bike. 150 each leg - 450 extra for my whole trip. Being in the over-tired, over-emotional state that I was, I flipped. I knew that this was not the thing to do, but when my cries of "But I called your company... they were the ones I asked about extra fees for bikes - if you didn't have that I wouldn't have bought through you." garnered only a response of "well then don't fly with us." I started to question how KLM stays in business.

When the six of us who flew to Cairo via Amsterdam got in, we loaded the six bikes up on the roof rack (there was a definite tower of pisa quality happening up there). I feared that my bike had seen its last before it had even seen its first. Driving in this country is nuts. The only hard and fast rule is to stay on your side for the most part, and try not to kill anyone.

This morning I got up and put my Brodie Elan bike together. It's the most beautiful bike I've ever seen. I'm so stoked for this ride.

We went into the city for dinner. At first the cabs weren't going to drive us because there is a high chance of riots there right now. There is a celebration today, and with spirits high there is a likely hood for people to get pissed off by the situation on the Gaza strip.

I have fallen asleep three times writing this... I keep waking to infinite lllllllllllllllll's on my screen, but I must stay awake until 10pm. I need to get rid of this jet lag.

When you order food from the hawkers here in Cairo you can order anything you want and they will simply run out and buy it from someone else for you. Carola, my newfound friend, does not do well with gluten. So we ordered shishkabob with rice. They didn't have rice and so off someone went - it must have been far away as it was about half an hour before he got back. The owner in the meanwhile sat down with us and started the camel haggle for Carola's hand. 6o million camels. His brother offered me 50,000 camels plus 20,000 chickens and breakfast in bed every morning. I put my low price down to the jetlag - and the fact that Carola has an Egyptian look to her which is driving all the men wild here. As Amr put it - you will make my mother proud! Lots of Egyptian babies in Canada.

I swear, the next letter will be more together.

We leave on the 10th (full moon), ride 6 days, and have a day off in Luxor - valley of the Kings

Check out: http://www.tourdafrique.com/>

Miranda's Blog: http://africanpeddler.blogspot.com/>