The Hills of Burundi
A bike ride across a beautiful, broken country
In June 2026 I rode the length and breadth of Burundi by bicycle — some four hundred miles, and a great deal of climbing, over seven days in the heat — as part of a charity ride for Great Lakes Outreach.
This is the book of that fortnight: a travelogue written up from the voice notes I recorded on the handlebars as I went. A dead pig on a bicycle and a live one on a lead; the source of the Nile dribbling out of a pipe; a hospital keeping premature babies alive in incubators built from eucalyptus and lightbulbs; a hilltop of sacred drums older than the monarchy; the day the heat beat me and a younger, kinder rider carried me home. And, underneath all of it, the quiet, extraordinary people rebuilding a country that has every reason to give up and refuses to.
Fair warning: it is a long account of a soft, desk-bound man being repeatedly humbled by hills, heat and his own bicycle. If that appeals, help yourself — in whichever form suits you.
Version 3 · 22 June 2026 — small corrections and a grammar fix since the first release.
The ride was in aid of Great Lakes Outreach, who back the Burundian leaders this book is about.