I think this was the most difficult cycling tour I have ever been on, mostly due to organisational problems. In short, it was really hard to find sponsors to cover the related costs. I started preparations for the trip too late - in April 1998. Surely you can understand it – never enough time, and you still have to work, and stay in touch with your family. Add flat decorating on top of it all, and suddenly there was hardly any time left. The delayed preparations resulted in lacking interest from sponsors. I expected the whole trip to cost about 10000 PLN (2500 USD at that time), half of which was the price of plane tickets. Apart from striving to obtain the necessary funds, I had to train as well. Madagascar is a hilly island, and I wanted to prevent crises or the risk of an early return. A trip like that was too expensive to go just for a week or two. Eventually, even the month that I spent there turned out to be too short a time to see and experience everything I had planned. And obviously my plans were bold! By the way, after coming back home I decided that I would visit Madagascar once again – without a bike but with my wife instead – in order to see the things and places I could not reach by bike. It turned out that in Madagascar the bike actually made sightseeing more difficult. Well, I may be exaggerating, but without any doubt I would have seen more had I been travelling on foot or using so-called taxi-brousse. When cycling, do bear in mind that you must stick to hard surface roads, which are scarce in Madagascar! Naturally there are dirt roads, but these can suddenly turn into a mud-covered nightmare. Hence the comment about a bicycle making things difficult. Besides, I concluded that I needed at least two months for such a tour in order to see everything I wanted to see. There are many places located dozens of kilometres from main roads, and unfortunately the only solution is a cross-country vehicle. If there is a chance to spend three months in that region, it is also worth visiting the Comoros to "kill two birds with one stone".

Obviously I needed to prepare a detailed route plan in advance. I was lucky to have met missionaries who had spent "some" time in Madagascar. They shared many interesting facts with me, and gave me a few noteworthy books. Having read these along with the Lonely Planet guidebook (from cover to cover) I knew more or less what to do and what to take with me. If you have organised a trip like this before, you know what the situation is like: your flat is literally turned upside down, your family and friends are praying that you leave as soon as possible! Of course without their help I would have never managed to make this journey come true.

Coming back to the time before my departure – being a thrifty person born and raised in Poznań, I was looking for the cheapest way to obtain a visa. I decided to send my passport to the Malagasy Embassy based in Bonn. This was a mistake that cost me several hundred zlotys in cash plus a two week delay. When my application reached the embassy in Germany, they issued a visa (cost: 50 DM) and informed me that my passport with the visa was posted back to Poland by registered mail. Four days before the departure – after dozens of phone calls and fax messages – I had to come to terms with the fact that my passport got lost! I managed to confirm that it did make it from Germany to Poland. Apparently this was where someone felt like using it. Although I knew the ID number of the letter, I could not seek more detailed information because the Polish postal service did not keep records of individual numbers of international registered mail! The only thing they did was count the letters and parcels. If the quantity was fine, then everything else was! After all, a letter is a letter.

Luckily, postponing my flight was fairly easy and free of charge, because AIR FRANCE was one of my sponsors. Otherwise, changing the reservation would have cost around 100 USD. On the other hand, I did pay 300 PLN for a new passport. Fortunately, with the help of some people from the Wielkopolska Voivodship Office in Poznań, the whole procedure lasted only two weeks instead of up to two months, by which time it would have been better to take a good umbrella to Madagascar rather than a bicycle.

On the departure day – 5th October – I was exhausted because of all the problems and nervousness that was quite uncalled-for. Before noon I mounted the bicycle on the car and – accompanied by my next of kin – set off for Warsaw. From Warsaw I went to Paris, where I stayed overnight at my friend's place, and eventually took off for Antananarivo on the following day.