The Madagascar Bike Challenge has come and gone and believe me the trip was hard work and an eye opener.

The ride, 500km in 5 days was a mix of hard climbes and hairy descents, for the first 3 days, and coastal rolling and flat for the last 2 days. On days 2 and 3 climbed the about 1500m up and 2000m down. It was the 'dry' season!!!! but it rained non stop for 3 days. The ride started in the capital at 1400m elevation and finished at the coast but Madagascar is a very hilly place. The majority of the ride was on National route 2 good tarmac single carriageway road between the capital and the main port with a lot of big trucks and tankers. BUT we also cycled on some of the roughest, muddiest tracks I have ever experienced.

The eye opener was the level of poverty I saw on the whole route. Communities along the main route with no services, no electricity, water, public transport or any form of transport. Families living in mud or wood huts they built themselves. On the third day we stopped at a regional capital that consisted of hand built wooden buildings and mud roads. While there we visited a regional hospital that had very little medicine, 2 doctors and 1 midwife to service over 6000 people, the majority of who had to walk up to 20km to get there. The main project of Transaid in Madagascar at the moment is to develop a system of community transport to get people to care, or care to them.

Pete