Of course they do—they get to trek with camels. But you can, too! We’ve got the COOLEST TRIPS, TOP TEN TRENDS, EXPERT ADVICE, AND BEST NEW PLACES TO GET LOST IN 2003. So what are you waiting for? Giddyup!




Let the Pros Be Your Guides




Get Lost in the Back of Beyond




Say Hello to the Wild Life




The Next Best Thing to Actually Living There




Go the Extra Green Mile




Take the Multisport Approach




No Whining Allowed




Blazing New Trails by Mountain Bike




Water is the Best Element




Our Next Thrilling Episodes




Remote Trips Right Here at Home




Three Helicopter Epics




Six New Additions to the ���ϳԹ��� Travel Map




What’s Up in the World’s Danger Zones

Star Power

Let the pros be your guides

BIKING THE TOUR DE FRANCE [FRANCE]
What’s better than watching this year’s 100th anniversary of the Tour de France? Riding it, just hours ahead of the peloton. You’ll pave the way for a certain Texan vying for his fifth straight victory, pedaling 10- to 80-mile sections of the race route through villages packed with expectant fans, and over some of the toughest mountain stages in the Pyrenees and Alps. At day’s end, ditch your bike for luxury digs in villages like Taillores, on Lake Annecy, and the Basque hamlet of St.-Jean-Pied-de-Port. OUTFITTER: Trek Travel, 866-464-8735, . WHEN TO GO: July. PRICE: $3,575. DIFFICULTY: moderate to strenuous.

MOUNT EVEREST ANNIVERSARY TREK [NEPAL]
This May, commemorate the 50th anniversary of Sir Edmund Hillary and Tenzing Norgay’s historic climb to the summit of Everest by spending more than a month trekking and mountaineering in Nepal. Starting in Tumlingtar, you’ll hike beneath Himalayan giants like 27,824-foot Makalu, and strap on crampons to climb the 20,000-foot East and West Cols, and cross 19,008-foot Amphu Laptsa pass into the Everest region. At trek’s end in Thyangboche, Hillary’s son, Peter, will preside over a ceremonial banquet, while the man himself (now 83) will join in by sat phone from Kathmandu. OUTFITTER: World Expeditions, 888-464-8735, . WHEN TO GO: April-June. PRICE: $3,690. DIFFICULTY: strenuous. CRUISING THE SEA OF CORTEZ [MEXICO]
To celebrate 25 years in the adventure business, Wilderness Travel has called on Ÿber-mountaineer Reinhold Messner and Amazon explorer Joe Kane to headline a weeklong cruise in the Sea of Cortez. When you’re not on the shallow-draft, 70-passenger Sea Bird, you’ll snorkel with naturalists as they track sea lions off Isla Los Islotes and spot gray whales in Bah’a Magdalena. Sea-kayak around uninhabited islands and hike desert arroyos, then spend evenings swapping expedition tales with Messner and Kane. OUTFITTER: Wilderness Travel, 800-368-2794, . WHEN TO GO: March. PRICE: $4,595. DIFFICULTY: easy.

CYCLING THROUGH THE TUSCAN VINYARDS [ITALY]
Might want to add another front chainring to your bike before embarking on this hard-charging eight-day affair in Toscana, birthplace of cycle touring. Thanks to the expertise of former Giro d’Italia winner Andy Hampsten, this 400-mile route is designed for riders who are as serious about their Brunello as they are about their hills. From coastal Maremma, you’ll pedal little-trafficked backroads past farmhouses and monasteries, resting your climbing legs and dining like a Medici at wine estates and 12th-century hamlets. Four nights will be spent at a vineyard for a thorough indoctrination in winemaking (and tasting). OUTFITTER: Cinghiale Tours, 206-524-6010, . WHEN TO GO: September. PRICE: $3,000. DIFFICULTY: strenuous.

KAYAKING THE YELLOWSTONE RIVER [USA]
Drop into Craten’s Hole with freestyle-kayaking phenom Ben Selznick. Bozeman local and winner of the Gallatin Rodeo 2002, Selznick is your guide on a seven-day tour of Montana’s most famous whitewater. After warming up on the Gallatin River’s Class II-III waves, you’ll graduate to the steep creeks off the Yellowstone, ranging from Class II to V. At night, ease your sore shoulders poolside and fireside at the Chico Hot Springs and Rock Creek resorts. OUTFITTER: GowithaPro, 415-383-3907, . WHEN TO GO: July. PRICE: $4,500. DIFFICULTY: moderate.

Far Out

Get lost in the back of beyond

Big wig: a Papuan prepares for a tribal dance

SHAGGY RIDGE TREK [PAPUA NEW GUINEA]
If you were to drop off the face of the earth, you’d probably land in Papua New Guinea’s steamy Finisterre Mountains. Rising 13,000 feet out of the sweltering lowlands, the mountains’ flanks are choked in jungle thicket that few have ever fully explored—not even the locals. Be among the first. Hike and camp for seven days on tangled game trails and World War II supply routes to Shaggy Ridge, an airy fin of rock 4,900 feet above the Bismarck Sea. Be prepared to answer a barrage of questions from Papuan villagers who rarely, if ever, see outsiders. OUTFITTER: World Expeditions, 888-464-8735, . WHEN TO GO: August, September. PRICE: $2,150. DIFFICULTY: strenuous.

THE ULTIMATE FLY-FISING ADVENTURE [MONGOLIA]
You’ve got much more than a fish on when you’ve nabbed a taimen, a specimen that regularly grows to five feet long and dines on prairie dogs and ducks. If you’re not up for hunting the world’s largest salmonid for a full week on the Bator River, you can cast for lenok, the brown trout of Mongolia; ride horses or mountain bikes; or just enjoy the good life in your ger, a woodstove-heated yurt with two beds and electricity. Outfitter: Sweetwater Travel Company, 406-222-0624, . When to go: May-June, August-October. Price: $5,200. Difficulty: easy.

RAFTING THE FIRTH RIVER [CANADA]
Caribou know no boundaries. Every June, the 150,000-strong Porcupine herd leaves the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge and migrates into the Yukon’s roadless Ivvavik National Park. And because the Class II-IV Firth bisects the park, you’ll be awestruck when thousands cross the river in plain view. Other big game are afoot, too—musk ox, barren land grizzlies, and wolves—and in such high concentrations that the region is often referred to as North America’s Serengeti. With long Arctic days and three- to four-hour river sessions daily, you’ll have plenty of time on this 12-day trip to hike the gently sloping 6,000-foot Brooks Range and fish for arctic char. Outfitter: Rivers, Oceans, and Mountains, 877-271-7626, . When to Go: June. Price: $3,995. Difficulty: moderate.

RIO NEGRO & AMAZON ADVENTURE [BRAZIL]
The upper Rio Negro is your portal back in time on this 11-day adventure that plumbs the deepest, darkest corners of the Amazon Basin. From the former Jesuit outpost of Santa Isabel, you’ll motorboat on the Negro’s blackened waters through virgin rainforest, camping alongside Tucanos Indian settlements stuck in a 19th-century time warp. Off the water, you’ll trek with native Brazilian guides into the rugged tepuis (3,000-foot plateaus), prowling for medicinal herbs used by local shamans. Resist the urge to swim: Football-size piranha call the Rio Negro home. OUTFITTER: Inti Travel and Tours, 403-760-3565, . WHEN TO GO: year-round. PRICE: $2,750. DIFFICULTY: easy.

RUNNING THE KATUN RIVER [RUSSIA]
If you’re looking for bragging rights to a truly remote river, consider the glacier-fed Katun. This 90-mile stretch of whitewater drains from the southern slopes of the 13,000-foot Altai Range, dropping fast through alpine tundra, 300-foot granite canyons, and continuous sets of Class III-IV pool-drop rapids. After a long river day, your evening entertainment at camp consists of traditional Russian dancing and a steamy riverfront bana (sauna). Outfitter: Bio Bio Expeditions, 800-246-7238, . When to Go: July. Price: $2,800. Difficulty: moderate.

COAST TO COAST IN BALBOA’S FOOTSTEPS [PANAMA]
Cross a continent in less than two weeks? Improbable but true when you retrace the route 16th-century conquistador Vasco Núñez de Balboa used to transport riches across the Isthmus of Panama. Five days of hiking, from the Caribbean village of Armila through the Darien Biosphere Reserve, take you to the Chucunaque River, where you’ll board dugout canoes and navigate a maze of flatwater channels past Ember‡ Indian settlements. Four days later, you’ll find yourself on the other side: a wide stretch of beach where Balboa “discovered” the Pacific in 1513. OUTFITTER: Destination by Design, 866-392-7865, . WHEN TO GO: May, December. PRICE: $3,290. DIFFICULTY: moderate.

Close Encounters

Say hello to the wild life

A scarlet macaw perched in the rainforests of Belize

EXPLORING REEF AND RAINFOREST [BELIZE]
Mingle with everything from crocs and tapirs to jabiru storks and hawksbill turtles on this eight-day whirl through Belize. After three days on the mainland, gawking at toucans and parrots at the Crooked Tree Bird Sanctuary and dodging howler monkeys at the Mayan ruins of Lamanai, you’ll be whisked 55 miles offshore to a tented base camp on undeveloped Lighthouse Reef. Spend your days snorkeling, kayaking, and scuba diving within more than 70 square miles of pristine reefs. OUTFITTER: Island Expeditions, 800-667-1630, . WHEN TO GO: December- May. PRICE: $1,929. DIFFICULTY: moderate. WALKING WITH BUSHMEN [BOTSWANA]
See the backcountry of Botswana and all its attendant wildlife—with a twist. On this nine-day safari, you’ll tag along with Bushmen on their daily hunting-and-gathering forays (while still bedding down in luxe lodges and camps). Following the lion-cheetah-leopard-elephant-giraffe-zebra spectacle in the Okavango Delta, you’ll head north for a night to stay in the River Bushmen’s new camp, where you’ll search for medicinal plants or hunt with bow and arrow. Farther south, in the arid Central Kalahari Game Reserve, San Bushmen will show you how they survive on roots and prickly pears. OUTFITTER: Africa ���ϳԹ��� Company, 800-882-9453, . WHEN TO GO: April-November. PRICE: $1,925-$2,595. DIFFICULTY: easy.

SWIMMING WITH HUMPBACK WHALES [TONGA]
It’s been said that life is never the same after you’ve looked into the eye of a whale. Here’s how to find out: Every year between June and October, hundreds of humpbacks congregate in and around the turquoise waters of Vava’u, a group of 40 islands in northern Tonga, in the South Pacific. For seven days, you’ll bunk down in Neiafu at night, and by day slide into the water and float quietly while mammals the size of semis check you out. OUTFITTER: Whale Swim ���ϳԹ���s, 503-699-5869, . WHEN TO GO: August- October. PRICE: $1,180. DIFFICULTY: moderate.

Immersion Therapy

The next best thing to actually living there

REMOTE HILL TRIBE TREK [VIETNAM]
Despite the boom in adventure tourism in Vietnam, few travelers venture into the far-northern hill country, some 200 miles north of Hanoi. You should. Following overgrown buffalo paths and ancient Chinese trading trails, you’ll hike steep terrain for 120 miles over 11 days, traveling north from Cao Bang and staying with Nung villagers in huts on stilts. Save some film for Ban Gioc Falls, on the border with China, and Pac Bo Cave, Ho Chi Minh’s legendary hideout. Outfitter: World Expeditions, 888-464-8735, . When to go: October-March. Price: $1,490. Difficulty: moderate.

TREKKING THE ATLAS MOUNTAINS [MOROCCO]
The M’goun Gorge is so narrow in places, you can’t see the sky—let alone the craggy summits of the nearby 12,000-foot Atlas Mountains. But they’re never out of sight for long on this ten-day trip through small Berber burgs in Morocco’s most fabled range. Over four days of hiking, you’ll climb Tizi n’ AïImi, a 9,528-foot pass, and sleep in Berber farmhouses en route to the Valley of AïBou Guemez, a rare oasis where you’re welcomed as family. OUTFITTER: Living Morocco, 212-877-1417, WHEN TO GO: May. PRICE: $2,950-$3,050. DIFFICULTY: easy.

BARACOA-GUANTÁNAMO CYCLE TOUR [CUBA]
Ride beneath the radar on this Canadian outfitter’s weeklong, 300-mile bike tour of Cuba’s northern coast, past black-sand beaches and nature reserves. The towns en route—Mayar’, a village immortalized by Cuban crooner Compay Segundo, and lush Baracoa—see few tourists and fewer cyclists, so you’ll have La Farola, a winding mountain pass known as “Cuba’s roller coaster,” all to yourself. Use caution when hydrating: Rum’s cheaper than water. OUTFITTER: MacQueen’s Island Tours, 800-969-2822, . WHEN TO GO: April, December. PRICE: $2,595, including round-trip airfare from Toronto. DIFFICULTY: moderate to strenuous.

SNOWSHOEING THE RHODOPE MOUNTAINS [BULGARIA]
Haven’t heard of the Rhodopes? No surprise. Obscurity has helped keep these 7,000-foot peaks in southern Bulgaria among the least visited in Europe. You’ll spend four to seven hours a day snowshoeing along ancient footpaths, through deep drifts and pine forests, to the slopes of Mount Cherni Vruh. Medieval monasteries and village guesthouses provide shelter on this eight-day trip, and Bulgarian perks include homemade sirine (a local feta cheese) and chance sightings of the Asiatic jackal. Outfitter: Exodus, 866-732-5885, . When to Go: February, December. Price: $775. Difficulty: moderate.

It’s Only Natural

Go the extra green mile

RAFTING THROUGH THE RÍO PLÁTANO BIOSPHERE RESERVE [HONDURAS]
Hail the monkey god on this 12-day rafting expedition through the R’o Pl‡tano Biosphere Reserve in eastern Honduras, a primordial jungle where more than 100 archaeological sites are covered with petroglyphs of the primate deity. On the R’o Pl‡tano, you’ll run Class III-IV rapids and float through serene limestone grottos, encountering en route the full Animal Planet menagerie of macaws, tapirs, spider monkeys, anteaters, and, with any luck, jaguars. At trip’s end, you’ll “hot dance” in a Garifuna Indian village. OUTFITTER: La Moskitia Ecoaventuras, 011-504-441-0839, . WHEN TO GO: December-August. PRICE: $1,430-$1,765. DIFFICULTY: moderate. DOCUMENTING RARE RAINFOREST PLANTS [CAMEROON]
Thanks to 4,000 resident species of plants, Cameroon’s 6,500-foot Backossi Mountains are a horticulturalist’s dream. Join scientists from England’s Royal Botanic Gardens and Bantu guides for 13 days to help inventory rare forest flora such as endangered orchids, edible fruits, and a new species of bird’s-nest fern. You’ll camp in a nearby village or bunk in a community hall and learn to prepare local fare, including plantains, fu-fu corn, and cassava. OUTFITTER: Earthwatch Expeditions, 800-776-0188, . WHEN TO GO: March-May, October-November. PRICE: $1,295. DIFFICULTY: moderate.

EXPLORING NAM HA [LAOS]
The Lao equivalent of a national park, the 858-square-mile Nam Ha National Biodiversity and Conservation Area in northwestern Laos offers some of Southeast Asia’s wildest rafting and trekking. Spend ten days paddling Class III whitewater on both the Nam Ha and Nam Tha rivers, sleeping in villages and bamboo-and-thatch bungalows at the Boat Landing Ecolodge, and trekking with local guides deep into the jungle, on the lookout for tailless fruit bats and Asiatic black bears. OUTFITTER: AquaTerra Ventures, 011-61-8-9494-1616, . WHEN TO GO: June-January. PRICE: $1,150. DIFFICULTY: easy to moderate.

ECO-TRAIL SAFARI IN KRUGER NATIONAL PARK [SOUTH AFRICA]
Go trekking with rangers on the newly designated Lebombo Eco-Trail, which runs for more than 300 miles along the previously off-limits eastern border of South Africa’s Kruger National Park and Mozambique. You might encounter rhinos, zebras, and even the lowly dung beetle in Africa’s most biodiverse park. You’ll also trek into nearby 200-million-year-old Blyde River Canyon and stalk lions on a walking safari. OUTFITTER: Sierra Club, 415-977-5522, . WHEN TO GO: September-October. PRICE: $3,695-$3,995. DIFFICULTY: moderate.

Variety Packs

Take the multisport approach

Skiing the extra mile: Norway’s version of the Alps

CROSSING THE PATAGONIAN ANDES [CHILE AND ARGENTINA]
The Edenic Río Manso Valley, at the southern tip of South America, is pure Patagonia—high, open country surrounded by ancient alerce forests (think redwoods) and populated by gauchos and trout. How you choose to play on this nine-day camping trip—rafting the Manso’s Class IV-V rapids, casting for rainbows, or horseback riding along the riverfront trail—is up to you as you venture west from the altiplano of Bariloche toward the chiseled fjords of coastal Chile. OUTFITTER: ���ϳԹ��� Tours Argentina Chile, 866-270-5186, . WHEN TO GO: December-March. PRICE: $2,900. DIFFICULTY: moderate.

MUSHING WITH THE GREAT WHITE BEAR [NORWAY]
You take the reins on this 12-day dogsledding sojourn across the frozen island of Spitsbergen, Norway, 600 miles from the North Pole. When the huskies are resting, keep busy by snowshoeing amid gargantuan icebergs, cross-country skiing over glaciers, and spelunking blue-green ice caves. Defrost at night in a lodge made of sealskin and driftwood, expedition-style tents (you’ll be snug beneath reindeer-fur blankets), and a Russian ship intentionally frozen into the pack ice. Your only neighbors will be the island’s 4,000 polar bears (in case of emergency, your guide’s got the gun). OUTFITTER: Outer Edge Expeditions, 800-322-5235, . WHEN TO GO: March-April. PRICE: $3,990. DIFFICULTY: moderate.

POST ECO-CHALLENGE MULTISPORT [FIJI]
The professional adventure racers have gone home, so now you can spill your own sweat on the 2002 Eco-Challenge course. This new ten-day trip gives you access to some truly wild, made-for-TV terrain: mazy jungle trails, precipitous singletrack, and idyllic beaches. After sea-kayaking two days to the island of Malake, where spearfishermen bring up walu for dinner on a single breath of air, you’ll mountain-bike 25 miles over rugged terrain from the village of Ba to Navilawa. Next up is a two-day trek through lowland rainforests to the summit of 3,585-foot Mount Batilamu, followed by Class II-III rafting on the Navua River, from the coral coast to the interior village of Wainindiro. After all this, you’ve earned two days of beachfront R&R on the little-visited island of Kadavu. OUTFITTER: Outdoor Travel ���ϳԹ���s, 877-682-5433, . WHEN TO GO: May-October. PRICE: $1,999. DIFFICULTY: moderate.

Take It to the Top

No whining allowed

The frozen zone: Argentina’s Perito Moreno Glacier

CONTINENTAL ICE CAP TRAVERSE [ARGENTINA]
Patagonia’s 8,400-square-mile slab of ice wasn’t even explored until the 1960s, when British explorer Eric Shipton crossed it first. Starting in El Calafate, on the shore of Lago Argentino, this arduous 16-day backpacking/ski-mountaineering trip cuts through Parque Nacional Los Glaciares, where you’ll cross rivers and crevasses, ascend 4,830 feet to Marconi Pass, do time on ropes, crampons, and skis, and set up glacial camps along the spine of the Fitz Roy Range. The payoff? A wilderness fix on the gnarliest mass of ice and granite this side of the South Pole. OUTFITTER: Southwind ���ϳԹ���s, 800-377-9463, . WHEN TO GO: November-March. PRICE: $3,395. DIFFICULTY: strenuous. SURFING EPIC WAVES [THE MALDIVES]
Board where few have surfed before: off the Indian Ocean’s remote Huvadhoo Atoll, site of several world-class breaks. Huvadhoo is a two-day voyage on a dhoni, a 60-foot, five-cabin, live-aboard wooden yacht, from the capital, Male; along the way, cast off the deck for tuna, marlin, and bonito. Once at the Huvadhoo, be ready for eight-foot-plus waves, especially near the atoll’s largest island, Fiyori, where there’s a fast (and dangerous) right break. OUTFITTER: Voyages Maldives, 011-960-32-3617, . WHEN TO GO: April-September. PRICE: $85 per day (typically a 7-, 10-, or 14-day tour). DIFFICULTY: strenuous.

RAFTING THE BRAHMAPUTRA RIVER [INDIA]
With 112 miles of Class III-V+ Himalayan runoff, the Brahmaputra, the lower portion of the legendary Tsangpo in Tibet, is one of the planet’s ultimate whitewater challenges. And a relatively new one at that—the first commercial rafting expedition was launched late last year. You’ll spend nine days blasting down emerald-green hydraulics (the Class V Breakfast Rapid is famous for flipping rafts), camping on sandy beaches, and passing through Namdapha National Park, home to one of Asia’s most varied tropical forests. OUTFITTER: Mercury Himalayan Explorations, 011-91-112-334-0033, . WHEN TO GO: November-February. PRICE: $3,300, including internal airfare. DIFFICULTY: strenuous.

Get Wheel

Blazing new trails by mountain bike

Sandstone heaven: on the rocks in Cappadocia

RIDING THE RUGGED NORTHEAST [PORTUGAL]
A good set of knobbies and generous helpings of local beef and nightly port will help you tackle this eight-day inn-to-inn tour through Portugal’s wild northeast corner. Dodge cows on Roman pathways, follow craggy singletrack alongside the Douro River, and spin along trails once used by smugglers trafficking coffee beans to Spain. The grand finale is the wide-open wilderness of the remote Serra da Malcata—land of pine-topped peaks, wild boar, and little else. OUTFITTER: Saddle Skedaddle Tours, 011-44191-2651110, . WHEN TO GO: May-July. PRICE: $1,120. DIFFICULTY: strenuous. MOUNTAIN-BIKING CAPPADOCIA [TURKEY]
In our opinion, any trip that starts off with two nights in a traditional cave hotel has promise. See for yourself on this six-day, 180-mile ride through Cappadocia in central Turkey. Thank three-million-year-old volcanic eruptions for the otherworldly terrain: impossibly narrow sandstone spires (called fairy chimneys) and towns that plunge 20 floors underground. Happily, the riding is as varied as the views. You’ll pedal along dry riverbeds, slickrock, and narrow jeep tracks en route to each day’s destination—luxe campsites or charming village inns. OUTFITTER: KE ���ϳԹ��� Travel, 800-497-9675, . WHEN TO GO: May. PRICE: $1,695. Difficulty: strenuous.

SECRET SINGLETRACK [BOLIVIA]
It was only a matter of time before Bolivia’s ancient network of farm trails, winding from village to village high in the Andes, found a modern purpose: mountain biking. On this new 14-day singletrack tour through the Cordillera Real near La Paz, intermediate riders can rocket down 17,000-foot passes, contour around extinct volcanoes, and rack up an epic grand-total descent of 54,000 feet. Nights are spent camping at Lake Titicaca and in local pensions like the Hotel Gloria Urmiri, where natural hot springs await. OUTFITTER: Gravity Assisted Mountain Biking, 011-591-2-2313-849, . WHEN TO GO: May-September. PRICE: $1,750. DIFFICULTY: strenuous.

COPPER CANYON EXPEDITION [MEXICO]
There’s lots to love about the 6,000-foot descent into Mexico’s Copper Canyon by bike—and gravity is only part of it. Get down in one piece and you’ll have a week’s worth of technical riding ahead of you in a canyon four times the size of Arizona’s Grand. Cool your toes on fast, fun river crossings near the village of Cerro Colorado, visit the indigenous Tarahumara, and bunk down in a restored hacienda built into the canyon walls. OUTFITTER: Worldtrek Expeditions, 800-795-1142, . WHEN TO GO: September-April. PRICE: $1,599. DIFFICULTY: strenuous.

The Deep End

Water is the best element

SAILING ON THE ECLIPSE [PALAU]
Captain John McCready’s 48-foot Eclipse—outfitted with a compressor, dive tanks, sea kayaks, and rigs for trolling—is your one-stop adventure vessel for exploring this South Pacific archipelago. After picking up the sloop near the capital, Koror, give yourself at least six days to explore Palau’s protected lagoon in the Philippine Sea, dive along miles of coral walls, and kayak and hike some of the more than 200 limestone Rock Islands. By the time you reboard each evening, chef Charlie Wang will have your pan-seared wahoo waiting. OUTFITTER: Palau Sea Ventures, 011-680-488-1062, . WHEN TO GO: November-June. PRICE: $4,200 for the entire boat (which sleeps four passengers) for six days, including captain, dive master, and cook. DIFFICULTY: easy.

SEA-KAYAKING THE MASOALA PENINSULA [MADAGASCAR]
Once a refuge for pirates, Madagascar’s rugged northeast coast has been reborn as Parque Masoala, the country’s newest and largest national park. For nine days, you’ll explore the calm coastal waters by sea kayak, watching for humpback whales, snorkeling the coral reefs, spearfishing for barracuda, combing the shorelines of deserted islands, and sleeping in one of two rustic tented camps. Onshore, scout for lemurs in the rainforest with Malagasy guides. OUTFITTER: Kayak Africa, 011-27-21-783-1955, . WHEN TO GO: September-December. PRICE: $1,080. DIFFICULTY: moderate.

SNORKELING AND SEA-KAYAKING NINGALOO REEF [AUSTRALIA]
A virtually untouched alternative to the Great Barrier Reef, Western Australia’s Ningaloo Reef is a 162-mile close-to-shore coral barrier protecting the white-sand beaches and high-plateau shrublands of Cape Range National Park from the Indian Ocean. Mellow two- to four-hour paddling days on this five-day romp up the coast are punctuated by snorkeling in 70- to 80-degree turquoise waters (never deeper than 13 feet), swimming with whale sharks just outside the reef, and hanging at the plush moving camp. OUTFITTER: Capricorn Kayak Tours, 011-618-9-433-3802, . WHEN TO GO: April-mid-October. PRICE: $450. DIFFICULTY: moderate.

KITESURFING SAFARI [BAHAMAS]
Steady winds, warm waters, and world-class instructors—essential ingredients for a perfect kitesurfing vacation—exist in plenitude among the numerous tiny islands off Abaco in the Bahamas. During this weeklong clinic, you’ll master board-off tricks and 360 jump turns, learn to sail upwind more proficiently, and critique videos of your kite moves over coconut-rum drinks at the seven-cottage Dolphin Beach Resort on Great Guana Cay. OUTFITTER: Kite Surf the Earth, 888-819-5483, . WHEN TO GO: mid-January-May. PRICE: $990, including airfare from Fort Lauderdale and all gear. DIFFICULTY: moderate.

Future Classics

Our next thrilling episodes

Everest’s seldom-scene cousin: Tibet’s Kawa Karpo

CLIMBING MUZTAGH ATA, “FATHER OF ICE MOUNTAINS” [CHINA]
Already been to Everest Base Camp? Next time, head to Muztagh Ata, a raggedy 24,754-foot summit in the Karakoram Range in China’s Xinjiang province. The five-day trek (instead of yaks, you’ve got camels!) starts at 12,369 feet, climbing through grasslands and river valleys to Camp One at 17,388 feet—where not one but ten glaciers converge in a vast expanse of ice and snow. Outfitter: Wild China, 011-86-10-6403-9737, . When to go: September- October. Price: $2,710. Difficulty: strenuous. PILGRIMAGE TO KAWA KARPO [TIBET]
Mount Kailash gets all the press—and all the Western trekkers. But this May, another sacred Buddhist route, the annual pilgrimage to Kawa Karpo, a 22,245-foot fang of snow and ice, will open to Western visitors. The 18-day camping trek climbs out of semitropical rainforest and Tibetan villages before circling the peak’s base. Snow leopards live here, too, but if you don’t catch a glimpse, at least you’ll leave with a lifetime’s supply of good karma. OUTFITTER: High Asia Exploratory Mountain Travel Company, 203-248-3003, . WHEN TO GO: May, July, October. PRICE: $3,800-$5,000. DIFFICULTY: moderate.

TREK THE VILCABAMBA [PERU]
Now that they’ve limited tourist permits on the Inca Trail to Machu Picchu, we’re left wondering, What else is there? How about a 17-day camping trek to Peru’s lost city of Victoria, a 600-year-old ruins discovered in 1999 and encircled by 19,000-foot peaks of the Cordillera Vilcabamba. You’ll log some 40 miles over ancient Incan walkways along the Tincochaca River, and then climb 15,000-foot Choquetecarpo Pass. Once at Victoria, you’ll have the excavated homes and ceremonial sites all to yourself. OUTFITTER: Wilderness Travel, 800-368-2794, . WHEN TO GO: May-June. PRICE: $3,895. DIFFICULTY: strenuous.

All-American

Remote trips right here at home

THE ALASKAN CLIMBER [ALASKA]
Many peaks in the Chugach Mountains of southeast Alaska remain unnamed and unclimbed. Your objectives are the 12,000-foot summits of Mount Valhalla and Mount Witherspoon, but even with a ski-plane flight into the range, you’ll still spend 20 days hauling, trekking, and climbing on this self-supported trip. Outfitter: KE ���ϳԹ��� Travel, 800-497-9675, . When to Go: April. Price: $2,895, including flights within Alaska. Difficulty: strenuous. DOGSLEDDING AND WINTER CAMPING [NORTHERN MINNESOTA]
Forget your leisurely visions of being whisked from campsite to campsite: Dogsledding is serious work. During four days in the wilderness bordering the Boundary Waters Canoe Area, you’ll learn how to handle your team of malamutes and brush up on winter camping techniques. Outfitter: The Northwest Passage, 800-732-7328, . When to Go: January-February. Price: $895. Difficulty: moderate.

RAFTING THE OWYHEE RIVER [NEVADA, IDAHO, AND OREGON]
This 17-day, 220-mile trip on the rarely rafted, Class II-IV Owyhee takes you down one of the longest and most remote stretches of runnable river in the Lower 48, through rugged canyon country. Need something shorter? Several sections can be run in four to seven days. Outfitter: River Odysseys West, 800-451-6034, . When to Go: May. Price: $3,735. Difficulty: moderate.

HALEAKALA CRATER SEA-TO-SUMMIT HIKING EXPEDITION [MAUI]
Go from sea level to 9,886 feet on this three-day trek from Maui’s sandy shores, through Hawaiian rainforests, to the moonlike floor of Haleakala Crater. You’ll climb 11 miles and 6,380 feet on the first day alone—good thing horses are hauling your gear. Outfitter: Summit Maui, 866-885-6064, . When to Go: year-round. Price: $1,190-$1,390. Difficulty: moderate.

GRAND GULCH TRAVERSE [UTAH]
What’s better than backpacking the 52-mile length of the Grand Gulch Primitive Area in southeastern Utah? Llama-trekking for much of the same seven-day route, past ancient Anasazi ruins and more recent historic landmarks—including Polly’s Island, where Butch Cassidy, some say, crossed the Gulch. Outfitter: Mountain Travel Sobek, 888-687-6235, . When to Go: April. Price: $2,590. Difficulty: moderate.

Elevator, Going Up

Three helicopter epics

MOUNTAIN-BIKING THE CELESTIAL MOUNTAINS [KAZAKHSTAN]
Just as your quads begin rebelling during this two-week, 300-mile traverse of the Tien Shan—the fabled 21,000-foot mountain range that separates Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan from China—a midtrip bonanza brings relief: A Communist-era cargo helicopter will whisk you to the top of the 12,000-foot “hills” for two days of screaming singletrack and goat-trail descents. Outfitter: KE ���ϳԹ��� Travel, 800-497-9675, . When to Go: July-August. Price: $2,395. Difficulty: strenuous.

RAFTING IN THE HOOKER RANGE [NEW ZEALAND]
Rarely boated, the upper reaches of southwestern New Zealand’s Landsborough River and the nearby Waiatoto are so remote that the only way to the put-ins is by helicopter. You’ll spend seven days roaring down Class III and IV rapids on both rivers, fishing for brown trout, searching for keas (the world’s only alpine parrot), and camping under the gazes of 10,000-foot peaks Mount Deacon and Mount Aspiring. Outfitter: Mountain Travel Sobek, 888-687-6235, . When to Go: March, December. Price: $3,190. Difficulty: moderate.

SHOOTING THE COLUMBIA MOUNTAINS [BRITISH COLUMBIA]
Spend four days coptering from Adamant Lodge in the Selkirks to remote 10,000-foot hiking trails in the Columbia Mountains for a photography workshop with widely published outdoor lensmen Chris Pinchbeck and Paul Lazarski. After pointers on lens selection and composition, shoot sunrise-lit alpine meadows till your film runs out. Outfitter: Canadian Mountain Holidays, 800-661-0252, . When to Go: July. Price: $2,360. Difficulty: easy.

Most Likely to Succeed

Six new additions to the adventure travel map

SURFING THE WILD EAST [EL SALVADOR]
Though the civil war ended 11 years ago, it’s been difficult to access El Salvador’s remote eastern point breaks on your own. Now you can hook up for eight days with Punta Mango’s local guides to surf Los Flores, La Ventana, and other perfecto Pacific peelers. OUTFITTER: Punta Mango Surf Trips, 011-503-270-8915, . WHEN TO GO: year-round. PRICE: $394-$818. DIFFICULTY: moderate. EXPLORING ISLANDS AND VOLCANOES [NICARAGUA]
Once a war-torn dictatorship, Nicaragua is now drawing scads of expatriates to its safer shores. Hike and mountain-bike around belching 5,000-foot volcanoes on the Pacific side, and kayak, fish, and loll in natural hot springs on islands in Lake Nicaragua. OUTFITTER: Nicaragua ���ϳԹ���s, 011-505-883-7161, . WHEN TO GO: November-September. PRICE: weeklong trips start at $600. DIFFICULTY: moderate.

RAFTING THE SOCA RIVER [SLOVENIA]
Spilling from the Julian Alps, the roiling Soca has long been a backyard destination for Europe’s whitewater intelligentsia. With improved infrastructure and an exchange rate favorable to Americans, now’s the time to hit this Class II-IV river. OUTFITTER: Exodus Travel, 800-692-5495, . WHEN TO GO: June-September. PRICE: eight-day trips, $715. DIFFICULTY: moderate.

BIKING AND BOATING THE DALMATIAN COAST [CROATIA]
Sail from island to island in the Adriatic Sea, stopping to cycle the nature reserves and medieval villages, safe again after a decade of political strife. OUTFITTER: Eurocycle, 011-43-1-405-3873-0, . WHEN TO GO: April-October. PRICE: eight-day cruise, $690-$740. DIFFICULTY: moderate.

MOUNTAIN-BIKING IN THE JUNGLE [SRI LANKA]
While the northeast is still volatile, don’t discount a southerly traverse of the island by mountain bike, through lush jungles and over cool mountain passes. OUTFITTER: ���ϳԹ���s Lanka Sports, 011-94-179-1584, . WHEN TO GO: year-round. PRICE: 15-day trip, $985. DIFFICULTY: moderate.

TRACKING GORILLAS [GABON]
Onetime host to warring guerrillas but permanent home to the peaceful lowland gorillas, Lopé-Okanda Wildlife Reserve is the jewel of Gabon, nearly 80 percent of which is unspoiled forest woodlands. OUTFITTER: Mountain Travel Sobek, 800-282-8747, . WHEN TO GO: February-March, August. PRICE: $6,490 (19 nights). DIFFICULTY: easy.

Cautionary Trails

What’s up in the danger zone

When it comes to foreign travel, how risky is too risky? It’s hard to know. But the best place to start researching is the U.S. State Department (). At press time,* these 25 countries were tagged with a Travel Warning advising against nonessential travel. Here’s the lowdown on what you’re missing—and just how dicey things really are.

RISK LEVEL:
1    GENERALLY SAFE
2    SIGNIFICANTLY RISKY
3    EXTREMELY RISKY

AFGHANISTAN
WHAT’S THE TROUBLE
Despite the U.S.-led Operation Enduring Freedom, now in its 18th month, Taliban holdouts still lurk in a country once known for great hospitality (and hashish).
WHAT YOU’RE MISSING
Trekking in the Hindu Kush’s remote, red-cliffed Bamiyan Valley, where the Taliban destroyed two monumental fifth-century Buddhas carved into mountain rock
RISK: 3

ALGERIA
WHAT’S THE TROUBLE
Terrorism in this oil-rich country has dropped off slightly in recent years, but there is still risk of sporadic attacks in rural areas and on roadways, especially at night.
WHAT YOU’RE MISSING
Hiking in the El Kautara Gorges and the jagged Ahaggar Mountains, near the town of Tamanrasset
RISK: 2

ANGOLA
WHAT’S THE TROUBLE
An April 2002 cease-fire put a stop to the 25-year civil war, though millions of undetonated mines are still believed to litter the countryside.
WHAT YOU’RE MISSING
Checking out Operation Noah’s Ark, an effort to relocate elephants and giraffes from Namibia and Botswana to the savannas of Quicama National Park in the northwest
RISK: 2

BOSNIA-HEREGOVINA
WHAT’S THE TROUBLE
The 1995 Dayton Accords ended the war between Muslim Bosnians, Serbs, and Croats, but UN troops remain to control localized outbursts of political violence, which are sometimes directed toward the international community.
WHAT YOU’RE MISSING
Some of the best—and cheapest—alpine skiing in all of Europe at the Dinari Range’s 6,313-foot Mount Jahorina, site of the 1984 Winter Games
RISK: 1

BURUNDI
WHAT’S THE TROUBLE
Decades of ethnic strife between Hutus and Tutsis have killed hundreds of thousands. The resulting poverty and crime can make tourist travel dangerous in this small, mountainous nation.
WHAT YOU’RE MISSING
Scuba diving in Lake Tanganyika, at 4,710 feet the world’s second-deepest lake (after Russia’s Baikal) and home to some 600 species of vertebrates and invertebrates
RISK: 2

CENTRAL AFRICAN REPUBLIC
WHAT’S THE TROUBLE
After independence from France in 1960 and three decades under a military government, C.A.R. was turned over to civilian rule in 1993. Still, it remains beset with instability and unrest.
WHAT YOU’RE MISSING
Bushwhacking and hiking with Pygmy guides through the rainforests of Dzanga-Ndoki, arguably the most pristine national park in Africa
RISK: 2

COLOMBIA
WHAT’S THE TROUBLE
Dubbed “Locombia” (the mad country) by the South American press, Colombia is rife with cocaine cartels, guerrilla warfare, and more kidnappings than any other nation in the world.
WHAT YOU’RE MISSING
Encounters with the pre-Columbian Kogi people while trekking through dense jungle and the isolated 19,000-foot Sierra Nevada de Santa Marta Mountains
RISK: 3

DEMOCRATIC REPUBLIC OF CONGO
WHAT’S THE TROUBLE
Though rich in diamonds, gold, and timber, this equatorial country is still in tatters—famine, millions of displaced refugees (since Mobutu’s despotic 32-year rule ended in 1997).
WHAT YOU’RE MISSING
Mountaineering in the Ruwenzori Mountains on 16,763-foot Mount Stanley, Africa’s third-highest peak
RISK: 3

INDONESIA
WHAT’S THE TROUBLE
Anti-Western terrorist attacks in Bali and separatist violence in West Timor, the province of Aceh, central and west Kalimantan, and Sulawesi have destabilized the world’s largest archipelago.
WHAT YOU’RE MISSING
Surfing Sumatra’s legendary breaks off the island of Nias and jungle trekking in Gunung Leuser National Park
RISK: 2

IRAN
WHAT’S THE TROUBLE
Despite inclusion in Bush’s “axis of evil” and the U.S.’s suspension of diplomatic relations, Iran is generally safe—though travel to the Pakistan, Afghanistan, and Iraq borders is best avoided.
WHAT YOU’RE MISSING
Skiing in the 12,000-foot-plus Elburz Mountains, where the resort in Dizin receives more than 23 feet of snow annually and lift tickets cost $4 a day
RISK: 1

IRAQ
WHAT’S THE TROUBLE
Even if you wanted to go to Iraq, no U.S. commercial flights enter the country that’s ruled by the world’s most infamous dictator.
WHAT YOU’RE MISSING
Canoeing the Marshes, the historic ecosystem at the confluence of the Tigris and Euphrates rivers—birthplace over 10,000 years ago of the Mesopotamian civilization
RISK: 3

ISRAEL
WHAT’S THE TROUBLE
Israel has been a hotly contested geopolitical and religious crucible since 1948, but the two-and-a-half-year Palestinian intifada has produced more suicide bombings than any other period.
WHAT YOU’RE MISSING
Scuba diving to the underwater ruins of Herod’s City at Caesarea, along the palm-fringed Mediterranean coast
RISK: 2

IVORY COAST
WHAT’S THE TROUBLE
Once the most stable West African country, this coffee-producing nation suffers from falling cocoa prices and clashes between Christians and Muslims.
WHAT YOU’RE MISSING
Trekking through the virgin rainforests of Taï National Park, home to the threatened pygmy hippopotamus
RISK: 2

Be aware that the State Department also posts advisories about unstable regions in many other countries, like Kyrgyzstan and Nepal. Carefully check the Web site’s postings and consult with well-informed tour operators before finalizing any travel plans.
*This information is current as of January 14, 2003

Compiled by Misty Blakesley, Amy Marr, Dimity McDowell, Sam Moulton, Tim Neville, Katie Showalter, and Ted Stedman

Cautionary Trails, PT II

RISK LEVEL:
1 GENERALLY SAFE
2 SIGNIFICANTLY RISKY
3 EXTREMELY RISKY


JORDAN
WHAT’S THE TROUBLE

Jordan is considered the least dangerous Middle Eastern country; still, threats of random violence (witness the October 2002 killing of an American Embassy employee) remain high.
WHAT YOU’RE MISSING

World-renowned sport and trad climbing on the 1,500-foot sandstone walls in Wadi Rum, and camel-trekking with the Bedouin in the country’s southern desertscape
RISK: 1



LEBANON
WHAT’S THE TROUBLE

Home to the terrorist group Hezbollah, Lebanon has a history of anti-U.S. violence, and there have been recent protests, sometimes violent, in major cities.
WHAT YOU’RE MISSING

Skiing the 8,000-foot-plus peaks and six resorts in the Anti-Lebanon mountain range, then heading to the coast to swim in the Mediterranean
RISK: 2



LIBERIA
WHAT’S THE TROUBLE

Though a democratic government took power in 1997, ending an eight-year civil war, this developing West African nation is plagued by clashes between government forces and dissidents.
WHAT YOU’RE MISSING

Safaris to Sapo National Park, Liberia’s only national park and one of the last rainforest refuges for bongo antelopes and forest elephants
RISK: 2



LIBYA
WHAT’S THE TROUBLE

Seventeen years under U.S. sanctions, convictions in the 1988 Lockerbie bombing, and rising crime make travel to Libya a tricky proposition.
WHAT YOU’RE MISSING

Safaris to the Ubari Sand Sea, land of shifting, 300-foot dunes and salt lakes
RISK: 2



MACEDONIA
WHAT’S THE TROUBLE

A geopolitical hot spot, this mountainous Balkan country is still smoldering with ethnic tension, most recently between Albanian rebels and Macedonian forces.
WHAT YOU’RE MISSING

Spelunking among the dripstone formations and stalagmites in the caves around 3,000-foot-plus Matka Canyon
RISK: 1



NIGERIA
WHAT’S THE TROUBLE

Though nearly 16 years of military rule ended in 1999, this oil-rich West African country suffers from rampant street crime, ongoing religious and ethnic conflicts, and kidnappings.
WHAT YOU’RE MISSING

Trekking through rolling grasslands and exploring the volcanic 3,500-foot Mandara Mountains along the border with Cameroon
RISK: 2



PAKISTAN
WHAT’S THE TROUBLE

In 2002, members of the Taliban, who had crossed the vertiginous Hindu Kush from Afghanistan, are believed to have instigated a rash of anti-Western terrorism in Islamabad and Karachi.
WHAT YOU’RE MISSING

Completing the classic three-week trek to the base camp of pyramidal K2 in northern Pakistan, leaving from Askole and crossing the Baltoro Glacier
RISK: 2



TAJIKISTAN
WHAT’S THE TROUBLE

A mountainous and unstable “stan” in the heart of Central Asia, Tajikistan is thought to be home to the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan (IMU) terrorist group.
WHAT YOU’RE MISSING

Climbing untouched glaciers and rock faces in the Pamir Mountains, where first ascents of 17,000-foot-plus summits abound
RISK: 2



SOMALIA
WHAT’S THE TROUBLE

Ever since dictator Siad Barre was ousted in 1991, anarchy has ruled this drought-prone East African nation. Warring factions are still fighting for control of the the capital, Mogadishu.
WHAT YOU’RE MISSING

Deep-sea tuna fishing in the waters off Somalia’s 1,876-mile coastline, the longest in Africa
RISK: 3



SUDAN
WHAT’S THE TROUBLE

Nearly 40 years of civil war, coupled with famine, have made Sudan extremely unstable, especially in the oil-producing Upper Nile region. Americans have been assaulted and taken hostage.
WHAT YOU’RE MISSING

Scuba diving in the Red Sea to famous shipwrecks and coral atolls, first explored by Jacques Cousteau in the sixties
RISK: 3



VENEZUELA
WHAT’S THE TROUBLE

Opposition to President Hugo Chávez and a nationwide strike have destabilized this tropical country, causing acute oil shortages and triggering violent protests in Caracas.
WHAT YOU’RE MISSING

Trekking through humid jungles and the vast savannas of the Guiana Highlands to 3,212-foot Angel Falls, the highest waterfall in the world
RISK: 2



YEMEN
WHAT’S THE TROUBLE

This country on the tip of the Arabian Peninsula has been plagued by anti-American sentiment since long before the 2000 attack on the USS Cole.
WHAT YOU’RE MISSING

Exploring the coral beaches of Socotra, the largest Arabian island, which abounds with flora, including frankincense, myrrh, and the dragon’s blood tree
RISK: 3



Be aware that the State Department also posts advisories about unstable regions in many other countries, like Kyrgyzstan and Nepal. Carefully check the Web site’s postings and consult with well-informed tour operators before finalizing any travel plans.

*This information is current as of January 14, 2003



Compiled by Misty Blakesley, Amy Marr, Dimity McDowell, Sam Moulton, Tim Neville, Katie Showalter, and Ted Stedman

The post Nomads Have More Fun appeared first on ���ϳԹ��� Online.

HE IS ALONE, but he is not alone. There are the schoolchildren by the road, waving shyly as he passes, and the idle men resting in the sparse shade. There’s a yellow Mavic-sponsored motorbike trailing him, with extra wheels in case of a flat, and a small convoy of official cars, creeping along at the pace he sets. Behind them, somewhere, is the peloton. A police motorbike draws even and a chalkboard is waved in his face: 40 seconds. He boosts the pressure on the pedals, turning perfect, powerful circles, extending his lead.

Give me your flat-tired, your worn out, your sweltering Europeans: Inside a Tour Du Faso transport wehicle, ferrying riders over a stretch of impassable road.

Rasta Rouleur: Jérémie Ouedraogo at his home in Ouagadougou’s Tampui quarter, with Burkinabé

The other racers can see him, of course. The road is as flat and straight as a stretched-out snake, and the lead he’s fighting to keep is less than a kilometer. When Jérémie Ouedraogo (pronounced “wed-DROW-go”) took off from the pack, sprinting into the clear, a few riders tried to chase him, but not for long. Perhaps they thought it was too early for a breakaway to succeed, or perhaps they saw the color of his skin and didn’t like his chances. But he went out anyway, and now he’s pushing a strong, steady cadence across the savanna, his wheels turning like the �����������Ի�é, the turning wind, which transports magicians and spirits across great distances, but not bike riders. He crosses a white line on the pavement: 25 kilometers to go.

He is a ���dzܱ���ܰ�—�� workhorse. When others are content to stay in the pack, sheltered from the wind, Jérémie attacks, he makes things happen. Today there’s a chance he could make it to the stage finish ahead of les blancs—the Dutch, Belgians, and French—but it’s a slim one. It’s the eighth stage of the 11-stage race, everyone is tired, and he’s too far down in the standings to threaten anyone’s overall lead, so maybe they’ll let him go.

Or maybe not. The peloton is waking; the riders smell the finish. The wind is waking, too, pushing at his face, and because he is riding alone, he is doomed. The chalkboard again: 30 seconds. His legs feel heavy. Then 22, 15, 5. They swallow him.

An hour later, Jérémie watches French race officials give the stage winner’s jersey—the first awarded to a West African this year—to N’gatta Coulaibaly, 33, an Ivory Coast rider he has beaten many times in the past. Coulaibaly is so exhausted he can barely stand, his gold shorts stained dark from urine. His tears of joy mix with sweat as he does a barefoot dance, to the delight of a mostly African crowd that numbers in the hundreds.

Jérémie, a 27-year-old native of Burkina Faso, waits patiently to receive the red “combativity” jersey, given to each day’s most aggressive rider—his reward for those long kilometers alone. He puts it on quickly, kisses the podium girls, and smiles for the cameras. But it’s a loser’s prize, and he knows it.

IT WASN’T SUPPOSED TO BE THIS WAY. Not this year, with the new bikes and the training in France and half the European sports press descending upon tiny Burkina Faso—a desperately poor former French colony wedged between Mali, Niger, Ghana, and Ivory Coast—to cover the Tour du Faso, the only professional, internationally sanctioned bike race held in the vast continental swath between the Sahara and South Africa.

After eight days, the host country still had nothing to brag about. Its dozen riders hadn’t managed to win a single stage. The highest-placed Burkinabé, 34-year-old Saïdou Rouamba, was lolling in 15th place, more than 15 minutes back, hopelessly out of contention. Jérémie Ouedraogo was in 18th, another three minutes behind. Most of the top places were held by European riders. There was a Moroccan in third, and another in sixth, but nobody from West Africa was anywhere near the front.

Foreigners have always done well in the Tour du Faso, which is held over 12 days every November. The first race was won in 1987 by a Russian, and though African teams have triumphed 9 of 14 times, Europeans have dominated in recent years, as the race has grown increasingly popular with over-the-hill pros and adventurous amateurs who make the difficult trip for various reasons. Some like the exotic locale, some come to rack up easy international racing points, and some show up out of altruism—bringing hard-to-get bike parts for local riders, or supplies for the threadbare hospitals. All are inspired by the opportunity to pursue a purer form of a sport that in Europe has been wracked by drug scandals and excessive commercialization.

The result has been a higher level of racing but a tougher time for the West African riders, who face tremendous training and equipment obstacles in a region that has spent decades on the economic ropes. Like its neighbors in the Sahel region, Burkina Faso has little industry or natural wealth. It has few minerals, not much water, and nothing to draw tourists. The HIV infection rate is horrendous, and illiteracy is the norm. The average per-capita income is $230, barely enough to buy cycling shoes. There’s no filthy-rich oligarchy, as seen in Congo or Nigeria, but that’s only because there’s nothing much to plunder. (“Here, the poverty is equally distributed,” one European development worker told me.) Presiding over it all is Burkina Faso’s president, Captain Blaise Campaoré, 51, a military strongman who’s no stranger to corruption, having allowed his country to be used as a conduit for diamond and arms smugglers, and a safe haven for “every pariah in the world,” as an American diplomat once put it to The Washington Post.

The last homegrown rider to win the Tour du Faso was Ernest Zongo, in 1997, a year when only a weak Belgian team showed up. A Frenchman won in 1998, an Egyptian in 1999, and in 2000 a squad of Italian professionals swept five of the top six places. The 2001 event was shaping up the same way—a Holland-based international team had grabbed the lead on the first day and hadn’t let go. Local newspapers like L’Observateur were turning Burkina Faso’s poor showing into a national crisis, accusing the home team of “always playing second roles.”

To make matters worse, this humiliation was being broadcast far and wide. The Tour du Faso 2001 was organized, for the first time, by the Société du Tour de France, the Paris-based body that puts on cycling’s biggest event every July and that stepped in to save the Burkina Faso race when it seemed on the verge of financial collapse. With a budget approaching half a million dollars, the strapped Tour du Faso took on relatively fancy trappings. There were nightly television feeds to Europe, better prize money for teams (about $30,000 in all), beautiful podium girls to kiss the stage winners, and five-time Tour de France winner Bernard Hinault on hand to present the maillot jaune—yellow jersey—to the overall leader. It looked and felt like a miniature Tour de France, only hotter, thanks to Burkina Faso’s blast-furnace climate.

The French had invited six European amateur squads—four French, one Belgian, and a group of riders from the multinational Marco Polo Cycling Team—to compete against ten African and Middle Eastern teams, including two six-man groups from Burkina Faso as well as squads from Niger, Mali, Ivory Coast, Cameroon, Morocco, Togo, Egypt, and Syria. To prepare for the race, a select group of Burkina Faso riders (including Jérémie) flew to France in September 2001 for six weeks of training in Brittany and Normandy, courtesy of the Société. Some even got new bikes—well, slightly used bikes, but still better than the patched-together wrecks they’d been riding.

But now they were racing like amateurs. No, worse: The amateurs were killing them. The Burkina Faso team leader—Hamado Pafadnam, a tall, barrel-chested 28-year-old—was having a tough time. The Tour du Faso was supposed to be his showcase, but he’d been plagued by flat tires and crashes, the result, he was sure, of black magic aimed at him by an unknown enemy. A few riders had shown flashes—Jérémie finished just behind the lead group in the first stage—but the rest seemed discombobulated. The head of Burkina Faso’s national cycling federation, an imperious man named Adama Diallo, had personally chewed the riders out, saying they were performing like cowards, always following the Europeans, scared to make a move.

Diallo knew little about racing—he’d played soccer as a youth, and volunteered to run the country’s cycling federation—but Jérémie had to agree. Sitting in the shade of an acacia tree, a few hours after the eighth-stage finish in the market town of Fada N’Gourma, he said of his teammates: “They are not in form. They are afraid to attack. When I went today, I called my teammates to join me, but none of them would.” Jérémie was disgusted but philosophical. There were three more stages, which meant three chances to win. His teammates were whispering about bad spells and conspiracies—but Jérémie was calm, always calm. Only one thing was certain. Tomorrow he would attack again. It was all he could do.

AFRICAN CYCLING IS A LITTLE like Australian ice hockey. Few people know it exists, and nobody expects very much from it. But just as the Brits brought cricket to India and the Caribbean, so the French introduced cyclisme to their African colonies. Liberation was just over the horizon when, in 1959, the French staged an exhibition race in Ouagadougou, the dusty, sweltering capital of a colony that was then called Upper Volta.

That race, a short criterium (multilap event) featuring top European riders, went down in cycling history, but only because of its aftermath. The second-place finisher—the great Italian Fausto Coppi, a two-time Tour de France champion and the dominant rider of his era—went on a hunting safari after the race and fell ill. His doctors back home thought he had contracted influenza, but it was really malaria, and it proved fatal. Coppi died in January 1960, just 40 years old.

The seed of cycling had been planted, and the Ouagadougou race became an annual event that eventually grew into the Tour du Faso, under the stewardship of the late Thomas Sankara, a charismatic military officer who seized power in “La Revolution” of 1983. Sankara instituted a wave of reforms, and renamed the new country Burkina Faso (a phrase meaning “Land of the Incorruptible” in the two major native languages, Moré and Dioula). In 1987, he started the Tour du Faso, inviting a Soviet junior team to compete. Soon afterward, he was ousted, executed, and dumped in a pauper’s grave by his longtime friend and fellow revolutionary, Blaise Campaoré.

As of last August, it looked like the Tour du Faso might also come to grief. Burkina Faso’s national cycling federation had run out of money. There were no funds to sponsor races, to buy new bikes, or even to stage a national championship. But in late summer, the French—motivated largely by lingering affection for the event—came to the rescue.

“I wanted to be involved in that African race, because I’d seen it and I knew how amazing and human it was,” says Jean-Marie Leblanc, 58, the director general of the Tour de France and a guest of honor at the 2000 Tour du Faso. But the fuzzy feelings were severely challenged when Société staffers went to Ouagadougou in August and found that their money had mysteriously evaporated. This, with the Tour scheduled to start in just two months.

At least the course was set. Burkina Faso has only a few paved highways, all radiating from the capital like spokes. By necessity, a 1,302-kilometer stage event has to use most of the nation’s rather bumpy pavement, so the tour traditionally starts in Banfora, a small market town in the southwest, near the Ivory Coast border, and makes its way toward Ouagadougou, smack in the center of the Colorado-size country. From there it traces a series of out-and-back journeys, traveling deep into the bush one day, returning the next.

A few weeks and a few hundred grand of the Société’s funds later, all the other logistical problems were solved. The teams had been invited, the international press had been alerted, and a French-owned catering company had been hired to serve meals, complete with tiny wedges of Camembert. The Tour du Faso was ready to roll.

Or so it seemed. A few days before the scheduled October 31 start, the whole thing almost fell apart again. An Air Afrique strike stranded half the riders in various airports around Europe and North Africa. As participants straggled in, bleary-eyed and jetlagged, the Syrians and the Egyptians wound up canceling, as did the Togolese.

And then there was the problem with the cars, which the Burkina Faso Ministry of Sports and Youth was supposed to provide. Actually, the cars were fine—a fleet of gleaming-white Renault taxis that were to serve as team vehicles, plus another squadron of minivans from National Car Rental. Two days before the start, race officials ordered the cars and the chauffeurs to assemble at the Stadium of August Fourth, a state-built concrete monstrosity on the outskirts of town. There, in its moldy bowels, the French were informed by representatives of the Ministry of Sports and Youth that the price for the vehicles was going to be substantially higher than previously agreed. Or else there would be no Tour du Faso.

It was not a happy meeting. In the end, the Société ponied up, the Tour went on as planned, and the French shrugged their shoulders and muttered, “C’est l’Afrique.”

THE DIMENSIONS OF THE TOUR DU FASO mismatch become clear on the morning of the first stage, when the riders gather in the main square of Banfora. Amid a grove of tall trees, the teams unload their vans, eat lunch, and assemble their bikes: shiny, new aluminum and carbon-fiber machines for the Europeans, with brand names like Look and Colnago; ancient Peugeots for most of the Africans, with torn saddles, old-style toe clips, and electrician’s tape wound around the handlebars. Their helmets are battered, their shoes ratty.

The biggest crowd gathers by the Burkina Faso team vans, where Jérémie is preparing for the race in his usual manner, which consists of standing around in a green-and-white track suit with a Walkman glued to his head, listening to reggae star Lucky Dube. He is tall and handsome, with high cheekbones and lively eyes that project a quiet authority. While Pafadnam is the official team leader, Jérémie is the one his teammates look to in the races, the one they’ll fetch cold beer for afterward.

His bike leans against a tree, an orange-and-black Eddy Merckx that’s only a couple of years out of date. It’s not actually his bike; it belongs to the national cycling federation, which got it from the bike company owned by Merckx—the legendary Belgian who won five Tours de France in the sixties and seventies—when the team traveled to Europe.

Jérémie hates it. For one thing, it’s too large; for another, it’s aluminum, stiff and dead-feeling. He’d much rather be riding his own bike, even though it’s heavy and old. The bike’s orange steel frame is more supple than aluminum, and more important, it’s his; after thousands of kilometers of training, his body has adapted to its dimensions. His nickname, “Rasta,” is lettered on the front fork. But he has no choice. The French gave him this bike, and how would it look if he were to refuse? He ditches the Walkman, stuffs a banana into his jersey pocket, and rolls to the line.

The race starts off fast, and the selection is merciless. On the very first climb, one of the riders from Niger is dropped. Hunched over the bars, his mouth halfway between a grimace and a gasp, he struggles to catch up, but can’t. The announcement goes out over Radio Tour: “Rider number 26 has been distanced by the peloton.” Within 20 minutes, four of his five teammates have also peeled off the back of the pack.

The Africans are not the only ones suffering. For some reason the stage started at 2 p.m., the absolute hottest part of the day, when shops close and nothing and nobody moves. The temperature has crested at 100 degrees Fahrenheit, and after a half-hour of racing, the red-faced Frenchmen at the back of the pack are waving their empty water bottles desperately.

Up front, the leaders put the hammer down, and the race explodes into a half-dozen small groups. Jérémie manages to join the lead breakaway but is dropped a few kilometers from the finish in Bobo-Dioulasso, Burkina Faso’s second-largest city. He winds up tenth, about two minutes down—by far the best of his teammates, and the best West African.

Riders are still coming across the line 30 minutes later, long after Hinault has pulled the yellow jersey over the shoulders of the winner, a tall, dark-haired, 27-year-old Dutchman named Joost Legtenberg. The stragglers are mostly African, their mouths gaping, some wobbling on their bikes, utterly devastated. Two European riders come into view, with an African just behind. Seeing the finish line ahead, the African sprints furiously to beat them, and the crowd—lifeless a moment ago—goes wild.

WHEN JÉRÉMIE OUDRAOGO WAS SIX OR SEVEN—his exact birthdate is unrecorded—his father, Sibri, took him into the bush, a day’s walk from their farm. Stand up straight, Sibri told him, like a man. Then he took a long knife and made three quick horizontal cuts on Jérémie’s right temple, just behind the eye. He repeated the cuts on the left side. Jérémie winced, but held back his tears. The scars that eventually formed would forever identify him as a Mossi, a member of the largest and most powerful tribe in Burkina Faso.

The Mossi had fended off Muslim raiders in the 16th century, slave traders in the 18th, and missionaries and colonists in the 19th before Ouagadougou finally fell to the French in 1901. The colonizers imposed brutally high taxes that pushed many Mossi to sell their livestock and go to work on French-owned coffee and cocoa plantations in Ivory Coast. Jérémie’s forebears were among the few who somehow clung to their land, tending their little plots of millet, sorghum, and peanuts, suffering the vicissitudes of rainfall and drought.

At home, one of Jérémie’s duties was to fetch water for the family, which was already quite large: He is the second oldest of nine brothers and sisters by his father’s first wife. (Now close to 60, Sibri has sired some 20 children with four wives, and shows no sign of letting up.) In the rainy season, April to June, this meant a quick trip to a well in a nearby field, not far from the family’s cluster of mud-and-thatch huts, one hut for each wife.

Every year the rainy season ended and the well dried up. Then Jérémie had to get water from the other well, five kilometers away through the bush. In the morning he would take a green plastic container, tie it to an old blue Peugeot one-speed that was the family’s only transport, and ride dirt paths to the well. The bike was too big for a seven-year-old, so he would stand on the left pedal and stick his right leg through the frame to reach the other pedal, holding the handlebars with his skinny arms.

It was years later on the same bike, a vélo ordinaire with a single speed and dubious brakes, that Jérémie entered his first race, in the nearby town of Boussé. He was 18, tall and strong by then, and he went along with a bunch of friends, turning his handlebars upside down so his rattletrap steed would look more like a racing machine. There were 40 riders there, on all kinds of bikes, and after riding around and around in a cloud of dust, he came in fourth. He won 300 francs—about 50 cents—the easiest money he’d ever made.

From then on Jérémie competed whenever he could, at the dusty races in small towns all over Burkina Faso. Most were multilap events through town streets, usually unpaved. Jérémie was a smart racer, and he clawed his way through the local scene. “He is très intelligent,” says Victor Duchene, a wizened 69-year-old Belgian who volunteers as the Burkina Faso team trainer. “And he is malin“—clever, and a little ruthless.

In 1996, barely 21, Jérémie was selected at the last minute to ride the Tour du Faso with the national “C” team. A German won that year, but Jérémie placed 16th—not bad. Two years later, facing a tough international field, he finished third overall, astonishing everyone but himself. On the final day, the Frenchman who won looked at Jérémie’s bike in disbelief: It was a rusty old Peugeot, with ancient shifters and a gummy chain, the front fork painted Rasta red, green, and yellow.

His stunning performance earned Jérémie a spot on a club team that also provided him with his beloved Rasta bike. As one of the top five or six riders in the country, out of some 350 licensed racers, he commanded a stipend totaling $55 a month—enough to live on.

He began training full-time, often in the company of Hamado Pafadnam, who was his teammate and best friend. A poor boy from the northern town of Kaya, Pafadnam was big and gentle and had a killer sprint. Jérémie was wiry and resilient, but Paf was the closer, the one who could win races. The two became inseparable, training every day on the road northwest of Ouagadougou. In local and national races they made a powerful combination. “When we rode together,” Jérémie remembers, “nobody could beat us.”

But Jérémie wanted more; he has always dreamed of bigger things. Every July, he spends his days in a firemen’s bar in central Ouagadougou, glued to the live TV coverage of the Tour de France. Sitting there in the dark, nursing a Sprite or a Castel beer, he’ll watch the flickering images on the ancient set, which is enclosed in a metal cage to prevent theft. It’s a 10-kilometer ride from his home on the outskirts of Ouagadougou, in the Tampui quarter, but the bar gets good reception. Over the years he has watched Indurain, and Ullrich, and Armstrong—all the greats. But no black African has ever made the starting line.

Maybe Pafadnam will be the first. He’s going to ride for a semi-pro team in Spain for the 2002 season—the first Burkinabé racer to go to Europe. Jérémie is a little envious of his friend, but he wishes him the best. So he’ll sit back and see how Paf fares abroad. And maybe his chance will come someday, too. But time is running out. He is 27 already. He has to make a move soon. When the Tour de France stage finishes, Jérémie pulls worn bills from his pocket, pays, and rides home to his wife, Kadi, their infant son, Evarice, and their two-room cinder-block house on a cratered, nameless street in Tampui. There’s a curtain for a door, a piece of corrugated metal for a roof, and inside—against one wall—a long, low table laden with trophies.

EACH DAY OF THE RACE dawns cool and pleasant, the amber light slanting across the flat grasslands and the scattered baobab trees, their roots as massive as the buttresses of a French cathedral. But it’s all a deception. By 11 the heat is oppressive and queasy-making, which is why most stages start at 7 a.m. The air is filled with dust from the Sahara, blown down by a seasonal wind called the harmattan, the bane of the riders’ existence.

By the third stage, from Boromo to Koudougou, quite a few riders are looking ill. So are the French TV people, the commissaire from the International Cycling Union, and the guys from Mavic, the wheel manufacturer. Watching a hapless Belgian drop back from the pack for a midrace Imodium—his shorts stained a repulsive color—Hinault rolls down the window of his Mercedes limousine and cackles, “Il fait la chiasse!” He has the shits!

If la chiasse doesn’t let up, a racer’s next stop is most likely the car balai, or “broom wagon,” an ancient beige school bus that rumbles along after the very last rider, like an overfed lion stalking the weakest member of the herd. Nine riders bailed during the third stage, out of 76 starters. The fourth and longest stage, a 173.5-kilometer run from Ouagadougou north to Ouahigouya, close to the Sahara, promises to be a banner day for the wagon.

The riders leave on time, but around the car balai there is little sense of urgency. In fact, it is out of gas. As an underling scurries off to find some, the car’s chief takes the opportunity to lecture me gently on America’s various sins. “You give us your wheat, your milk, your soy oil,” he says, referring to the U.S. foreign aid that Burkina Faso relies on heavily, “but you don’t know how to be loved.”

His full name is Nocke Blaise Antoine Mamadou Bassole, comprising his Mossi, Christian, Muslim, and family names, but he goes by Blaise. A tall, dignified man in his sixties, clad in a light-gray polyester African suit, with a salt-and-pepper beard to match, he spends most of the year as a state railway inspector. As the commissaire of the car balai, he commands a staff of four, a driver and three helpers.

Bassole’s underling returns. Gas has been found, but now the car balai refuses to start. Soon we are all pushing the old bus, joined by commuters who have been press-ganged into service. The driver jams it into gear, but it dies. He opens the hood and fiddles with something, and the engine growls to life. We climb aboard and rumble into morning traffic, bound for Ouahigouya.

We quickly leave the city behind, trading swarms of buzzing mopeds for a dry, flat landscape reminiscent of west Texas. The road is rough and newly graveled, and before long we come upon rider number 22, Harouna Amadou of Niger, 26, pedaling along at a slow and stately pace. He shows no sign of stopping—in fact, he has outlasted his own bike, which gave out during the third stage. The Mavic guys loaned him a yellow Cannondale, and so we fall in behind him, maintaining a respectful gap.

Soon we find our first customer: Lionel Vedrine, a 29-year-old from central France. He’s had bad luck from the start, when he flatted about eight kilometers into the first stage. He rode the whole way alone, exhausting himself, and when the pace picked up today he couldn’t match it. “You have pain in your whole body, you are thinking of your sweetheart, and it is over in your head,” he says, collapsing into the seat beside me. “Shit.”

We pick up another tired Frenchie, then a burly Moroccan who has snapped his seatpost, and isn’t happy about it. Finally, Amadou pulls off to the side of the road and dismounts. But instead of climbing aboard the bus, he squats behind a bush—la chiasse. He remounts and continues, unhurried as ever.

We pick up two more of Vedrine’s teammates, but Amadou still does not stop. Discontent rises in the bus. He is moving at only about 20 kilometers per hour—at this rate, it will take him all day to finish. The European riders want Bassole and his crew to make him quit, but Bassole will have none of it. Whether Amadou gives up or slogs on, it’s his decision to make. One of the younger French riders waves a cold Coke out the window. “Come on in!” the kid yells, waggling the bottle in his face. “Stop now!”

“Pourquoi?” asks Amadou. Why?

“We have these expensive bikes,” Vedrine whispers, “but they don’t quit.”

We pull ahead and park in a small town, in the faint shade of a tree. Semicold Cokes appear, along with a pile of sinewy grilled chicken and a bunch of bananas. A small boy comes up to the window holding a metal can, looking at us with pleading, gooey eyes. “Vote Blaise Campaoré,” his filthy T-shirt urges, “for the blossoming of youth.”

Ten minutes later Amadou rolls past, and we toss our chicken bones out the window and rumble off after him. Before long he pulls over to the side of the road and stops. His bike is hoisted to the roof with the others, and he takes a seat toward the front of the bus. He isn’t even sweating. “Malade,” he says, indicating his stomach. He takes a banana from his jersey pocket and eats it, staring wordlessly through the windshield.

OUAHIGOUYA. YAKO. KAYA. Ziniaré. Fada N’Gourma. The caravan rolls across the countryside, one stage blending into the next. In the small towns and tiny farming villages, children are let out of school and flock to the roadside to wave as the race goes by. They wave at the publicity trucks; they wave at the cops on the motorbikes; they wave at the multihued swarm of racers. They wave at the winners, and at the very last riders, the ones struggling just to keep going. “Bon courage!” they shout.

Everyone agrees that the race is better organized than ever; there is good food every night, and the stages leave on time. But the stage finishes are remarkably unfestive—sullen, in fact. Almost nobody claps. “There is something missing,” a Burkina Faso TV journalist tells me one night over beers. “Everything in Africa is like a party. But here, there is no fête Africaine.” One of the Belgians, who has raced the Tour du Faso for the past five years, agrees. “It has lost its African soul,” he mourns.

The reason is simple: The stage winner is almost always European. The Moroccans have a rider in third place overall, but they can’t seem to move him up. So the yellow jersey stays on Joost Legtenberg’s shoulders, even through the inevitable bout of la chiasse. As for the West Africans, they dropped out of contention for good with the grueling fourth stage, during which Jérémie lost a full 18 minutes after getting stuck behind a crash caused by a rider from Cameroon.

One night in Ouagadougou, after stage six, Jérémie goes to see Victor Duchene. Charged with tending to the riders’ physical needs, like food, fluids, medicine, and massage, the trainer is often closer to the riders than the team director. Victor worked with many of the greats, including Eddy Merckx and Greg LeMond; he spends a few weeks a year working with the Burkina Faso team, preparing them for the Tour.

Jérémie is discouraged. He is crying. He’d hoped for a top five finish this year, enough to get him noticed in Europe. But he’s so far behind, it’s hopeless. And his teammates still lack unity; each one seems to be riding for himself. He tells Victor he has decided to quit.

Victor has seen this before. “They are ���dz�������é,” he says later. They see the Europeans’ shiny bikes, their expensive sunglasses, their new helmets, and they become demoralized. Their legs feel heavy. They hesitate to attack, and instead only follow.

Look at me, Jérémie, he says. I am white, you are black. But you are just as strong as me. Stronger. You mustn’t be afraid, and you mustn’t quit. Victor knows that Jérémie is a good rider, a tough all-arounder. He is less strong than Pafadnam, but he has the smarts to make up for it, and he wants to win.

The next day there is a meeting, and it is announced that Jérémie has become the leader of the Burkina Faso team, replacing Pafadnam, his closest friend. Now there are tears, there’s shouting. But the logic is unassailable. “He showed in the Tour du Faso that he is the best rider in Burkina Faso,” Victor says later. And Pafadnam? Perhaps in his mind, he is already in Spain.

HE DREAMS OF ESCAPE, of long breakaways in the sun. On the morning of the ninth stage he takes off dangerously early, just three kilometers into the 126.5-kilometer dogleg from Fada N’Gourma to the town of Tenkodogo, joining a breakaway of five other riders: his teammates Lucien Zongo and Mahamadi Sawadogo; Martinien Tega of Cameroon; Sylvain Després and Arnaud Vettier of France. They are four Africans and two low-placed Frenchmen, so nobody pays them much mind as they build their lead, rotating smoothly to share the work. The gap grows to two minutes, then three, and then, after 40 or 50 kilometers, it starts to come down, dropping to two minutes and change.

At Koupéla, where the course turns south, their capture seems imminent. Jérémie urges his teammates to ride à bloc, all out, and they renew their effort. They are in a crosswind now, so they spread out across the road in a wind-cheating echelon. The gap begins to grow again.

Still working seamlessly together, they pass a large lake without noticing the crocodile basking on the muddy shore. Jérémie drops back to get water from his team car and stays at the rear of the breakaway, resting. His teammates Zongo and Sawadogo keep the pace fast while waiting for his sign.

He feels good, in part because he decided to ride his old bike again, but for other reasons as well. In earlier stages he felt weak at crucial moments, and he wondered—like Pafadnam—if someone hadn’t put black magic on him, known in Burkina Faso as “the Wak.”

Bike racers are superstitious in every culture, but especially in Africa, where magic is accepted as part of everyday life. If something bad happens, or even something good, a Burkinabé suspects the Wak is involved. Who would have done such a thing to Jérémie?

“Someone who does not want us to win,” he said gravely, implying that it might even be a teammate.

With five kilometers to go, he attacks, shooting up the right side of the road, almost in the gravel, and into the clear. His companions, momentarily stunned, are slow to react. But on the yellow Mavic motorbike, which has trailed the breakaway since the start, the driver groans. “He truly sucks,” he says to his passenger. “Why is he attacking now?”

Sure enough, he’s caught; his attack succeeded only in shedding his teammate, Zongo. With the gauntlet thrown, all cooperation ceases. After nearly three hours of working together, the riders have suddenly become bitter enemies: the three Burkinabé versus the three others. The six racers slow down, passing a dirty Shell sign, and Zongo claws his way back.

Jérémie sits nonchalantly at the back, watching the hostilities. With two to go, his teammate Zongo blasts clear down the left. The road slopes slightly downhill, so he gets a good gap. The Camerounais tries to chase Zongo down, but he can’t, leaving it to Després, the Frenchman. They are going quite fast now, over 55 kilometers per hour, and for a moment it looks like Zongo will make it all the way to the finish-line banner, rapidly approaching.

The road is like a funnel, sucking them toward the line. Després catches Zongo and keeps going for the finish, burying his head between his handlebars, with Jérémie on his wheel. But it’s too soon. He runs out of gas, and it takes almost no effort for Jérémie to swing right and float ahead, as though an invisible hand has given him a gentle push. His hands shoot up into the air as his bike swerves crazily across the finishing area, buffeted by waves of emotion from the crowd. He hears a woman scream with joy; his body tingles as he flies down the hill and into town.

JéRéMIE COMES TO REST in the shade of a small bar, several hundred yards past the finish line. There is a stampede, a sea of people surging toward him, small excited children and lumbering TV journalists, clearing a path with their heavy cameras. Everyone piles into the small outdoor bar, pressing him farther into the darkness, where he is wedged between a foosball table and a TV camera. A cold Fanta is placed in his hands; microphones are pushed in his face. “C’est une grande victoire pour notre pays,” he begins.

He is a champion, a hero. In his distinctive French, he thanks his teammates and describes how he was inspired by the crowds lining the final kilometers. A local journalist collars him, and he switches to his native Mossi tongue, the words tumbling out freely. Victor finds him, and they embrace. “Are you content?” Jérémie asks. Yes, Victor is content.

Soon, a representative from the Ministry of Sports and Youth drags Jérémie toward the podium, where he receives his white stage-winner’s jersey and his winner’s kisses. And the race officials breathe a collective sigh of relief. It would have been a terrible thing if the host country didn’t even win a stage.

Later, the Dutch will talk about what an easy day it was—almost like a rest day. And others will whisper: Was it fixed to let them save face? Last year, Jérémie’s friend Mahamadi Sawadogo won the same stage—but only, the cynics say, because the Italian team let him. Perhaps this was the same. At any rate, the following day, stage ten, is very fast—suddenly lots of people are going for it. “Every African guy’s got it in his head that he can win now,” complains a Dutch rider.

MAYBE JéRéMIE HEARS THE TALK, maybe not. Certainly he knows the truth: To win a single stage, in a race that barely matters in Europe, is not enough. And so Jérémie decides to go for it again on the 11th and final stage, the most prestigious of the race, a 156.5-kilometer run from P(tm), near the Ghanaian border, north to Ouagadougou. The stage will end in front of the Moro-Naba palace, home of the Mossi king, who will be on hand to watch.

The stage starts off slow and festive, but the riders—the 48 survivors of the race, that is, out of 77 starters—smell one last chance at glory. Twenty kilometers outside Ouagadougou, Jérémie finds himself in a breakaway again. In the ragged outer slums, the crowds lining the roadside are four and five deep. He can hear snatches of conversation. More than one person shouts, “Pafadnam! Pafadnam!” But Paf is not in the break. It is Jérémie, Sawadogo, a Moroccan, and a Camerounais—no Europeans this time. At one point they are ahead by more than a minute, but as they approach the city center they have barely 35 seconds, a sliver of a margin.

They enter the city from the east, dangling in front of the peloton, dodging potholes. At the United Nations circle they’re ahead by eight seconds. As they take a hard left at the Banque Centrale d’Afrique de L’Ouest, with one kilometer to go, Jérémie can hear the pack closing in from behind.

Sawadogo takes off solo, going for the win. Jérémie gives one last push for the line, but his legs will not turn. They have no power—he wonders, is it the Wak?

The chasers swarm past, catching Sawadogo too, and a big, muscular Frenchman wins the stage.

Later, Adama Diallo—the head of Burkina Faso’s cycling federation—comes up to Jérémie, removes his cigarette holder from his mouth, and gives him a questioning shrug, as if to say, “What’s the matter with you?”

Jérémie endures it, somehow. He respects Diallo, but Diallo has never raced a bike, so he has no idea how hard it is: the suffering, the loneliness, the mental torture. Jérémie merely shrugs back and mumbles a polite explanation. He watches the Mossi king, his king, give a splendid white robe to the overall winner, Joost Legtenberg, who looks—there is no other word—goofy in it. Then he goes to look for Pafadnam, but he is gone.

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