As we begin our adventure of cycling across Africa, one of the first orders of business is to get permission to be here. The visa application process can vary quite a lot among countries. As a result, it was really helpful to do some research in advance, to have some idea about how to secure the required visas before jumping on our bikes and pedaling towards the horizon. We’ve now secured our first two visas, and the processes could hardly have been more different.

Even if “average” weather is an oxymoron, it’s still useful as a way to think about the conditions we might encounter along our cycling route across Africa. In that spirit, we’ve graphed the average temperatures, rainfall probabilities, and wind speed/direction for cities along our planned route, based on a guess of when we will pass through. Overall, the conditions will mostly be in our favor, based on our seasons and direction of travel. We’re pretty happy about that.

In Africa, there are lots of choices to make about which roads to take. Our proposed route has been influenced by where we can get visas, countries that are considered to passable on bikes, and the advice of experienced travelers in Africa. In the end we may choose to take some different roads, but the overall route will take us from Cairo to Cape Town.