Collecting people's stories – Cycling 9000km in 70 days

Ruan Smit

On the 13 February 2010 Ruan Smit intends begin­ning his epic cycle jour­ney around South Africa. His jour­ney across the face of our cul­tur­ally diverse coun­try is not about beat­ing a gruelling time, or break­ing a record. Rather it is a social exper­i­ence. Along the 9 000 kilo­metre route, Ruan intends col­lect­ing stor­ies about the people he meets. On his aver­age 150 kilo­metre day, he will stop to chat to the people of South Africa, to enjoy food with them, and sleep in their surroundings ...

And every one of his stor­ies will find its way onto a series of social media — his blog, Facebook and Twitter – on a daily basis — and Ruan will be send­ing us weekly updates about his exper­i­ences which we will pub­lish right here on the SA-Venues.com Blog — so we'll be able to travel with him in a sense. The inten­tion is to cre­ate excite­ment around 2010; to give inter­na­tional and local tour­ists the oppor­tun­itiy to explore South Africa from a dif­fer­ent per­spect­ive. It will also give focus to the lesser known tour­ist des­tin­a­tions around South Africa.

Ruan has been asked by many people 'why' he is under­tak­ing the jour­ney. And his response on his blog has been: "When you get on that bike and the rhythm grabs you, your legs going wild and your breath steam­ing in the cool morn­ing air. When you pass that per­son that gives you a smile just because you’re there, when the mud washes your face and your legs start burn­ing ... At that point everything becomes silent. It’s you, the road, the land­scape and a few odd people that watch as you pass by.

“That silence makes it all clear ... you see everything as if for the first time, the free state really becomes inspir­ing and even Johannesburg roads have some form of wit as you dodge the potholes. I do it for that reason. For the silence, the people and shar­ing the land­scape again, for the first time.”

Ruan isn't tak­ing the jour­ney alone. His time on the road col­lect­ing the stor­ies of our nation needs our involve­ment. In a sense each of us who choose to sup­port him will travel with him as well. And it's as simple as send­ing an SMS, to sup­port the 70 day jour­ney. An SMS to 36545 costs only R5, so just about any­one can spon­sor his tour.

On his blog he has writ­ten about choos­ing the South African Coat of Arms as the logo for his cycle shirt and why. He says the sym­bol­ism grabbed him because the San words mean 'Diverse people unite' – what bet­ter way to sum up his tour.

Read more about Ruan's tour on his blog http://exploresa.wordpress.com/
To sup­port Ruan Sms CYCLE to 36545 (R5.00 per sms)

The Route:

Useful Links:
South Africa Travel
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Things to Do in South Africa