Originally Posted by chromedome
So in your mind, she shouldn't waste the time of embassy staff. OK, fine. Tell her parents and friends instead. And then if she is a few days late, her relatives and friends can contact the embassy instead. Is that what you mean? By your reckoning, the embassy won't care if she's headed toward trouble--and certainly won't try to warn her off hotspots or away from bad weather coming--but will show concern in some manner if she is late in turning up. Unless she's British, and they don't have the resources to care. But she's Australian, and they do have the resources. I don't quite follow your line of reasoning there.
Even if she were to travel by train, truck or bus, hours late turn into days late and even weeks late because of ferries not waiting for trains, trains breaking down, sandstorms, trucks running low on fuel and making detours to look for more, land slides, swollen rivers, washed out roads, missing bridges, missing road signs, whatever. Use your imagination, and it can happen in Africa. Any number of things can go wrong, even for the people who live there all their lives, know the countryside well, know the ins and outs of travel in their own parts of Africa. But the expectation is that she and her group will fare much better because they are on bikes? It sounds like they should be relying very heavily on luck and guardian angels.
And is she to expect that there most definitely will be internet service and cell phones/land lines available where ever she gets to? Just a week ago, there was an earthquake in the ocean south of Taiwan. Who would've expected that internet service to China would've been as disrupted as it was for so long after? Can nothing like this happen to her? There cannot be forest/brush fires disrupting cellular and land line transmissions? Or something like that little settoo in east Africa the last week or two? Is that over, or will it blow up into something bigger? She won't fall and hurt herself, break her bike, pick up a serious water borne diarrhea (there are other ways of developing diseases than by drinking the water.) When the romance of the idea wears off and she gets sick and tired of the whole thing, or gets sick, or gets tired, how does she get home by herself? Can she travel to the nearest city with an international airport and not be taken advantage off? If she shows a level of naivete just about bikes and preparation for bike touring, will she not be just as naive in traveling solo in a place she is entirely unfamiliar with?
I'm sure its quite possible, but maybe with better planning and a more prctical approach to it than "Im going next month but my bike is broke. What kind should I get?"
**** happens. Some people like adventure, some cower in the corner if you say "boo".
What was that little setto in East Africa last week? Was that Uganda or Kenya or Tanzania or Ethiopia or Eritrea or Djibouti or Somalia? I'm guessing you mean the Somalia/Ethioipia situation, in which case you'd be fine provided you're not in the particular area of Somalia where the fighting occurred. Most of Somalia wasn't bothered by it. Uganda wasn't bothered by it. Nor was Tanzania. Nor was Eritrea...... It was a regional conflict in a very small region of a very large CONTINENT. If you're not in that region it almost certainly won't effect you. I was in Ethiopia while there was significant tension between Ethiopia and Eritrea in 2004. In fact I was within 30 kilometres of the Eritrean border at one point when there were rumours of an impending war. But the exclusion zone was 20km from the Eritrean border so it didn't effect me. I was in the DRC in 2003 while there was a civil war. But I'd spoken to people living in and around the border with the DRC (spent an evening drinking in a bar with those infamous corrupt border officials who turned out to be ordinary, intelligent people (unsurprisingly)) so I knew that the part of the DRC that I was in was safe. Its a huge country. I was in northern Tanzania in 2003 during a time when Burundian rebels were fleeing their country and occasionally robbing people on a particular stretch of road. Since I spoke to local people there (as was the case everywhere I went) I knew what was going on and avoided one particular stretch of road. No big deal.
If Flic gets sick or bored with cycling she jumps on the next bus or hitches and that's that. Very simple really. Main roads are serviced by various forms of public transport for local people moving around selling things. Small villages have basic guest houses for people moving around selling things. Such guest houses can be used by passing cyclists.
I've spent 12 months cycling in Africa usually drinking untreated water, didn't take any prophylactic for malaria and rarely used insect repellent, but I survived with only a few bouts of Giardia and got malaria once. That's what I chose to do, not saying everyone should do the same. IT'S REALLY NOT THAT BAD!
My point about informing embassies about your every move was that its completely unnecessary where Flic is going, unless she should choose to head into a war zone, which she will know beforehand because she will be talking to people everywhere she goes. Its clearly good to have someone tracking your progress, but not someone who will launch a full scale search if you're a couple of days late. As above, **** happens. If someone were ever tracking my progress I'd hope that they'd start worrying if I were a couple of weeks longer in making contact than I'd said. But I never give exact timescales. "You'll hear from me in a few weeks" is good enough normally. I'm an adult. I can look out for myself and should someone choose to kill me then that's unfortunate, but I'd rather that happened while cycling in Africa than walking along the road on my way to work in the UK. Probably equally unlikely to happen. I don't expect my embassy to help me and anyone relying on their embassy to bail them out no matter what is just an idiot.
And please, before you offer the benefit or your experience, read the previous posts. There is no group.
Go cycle in Africa then offer advice on cycling in Africa. Then maybe what you say will have some substance.