Kristen and Ville Jokinen have biked nearly 30,000 miles together on seemingly impossible stretches of land throughout the world.

But their adventure earlier this year was extreme even for the most hardcore of cycling couples — crossing Africa from south to north on two wheels.

Their original plan was to bike from Cape Town, South Africa, to Cairo, Egypt. They only made it through about half that route due to civil war in Sudan, but their five-month, 3,700-mile trip from South Africa to Tanzania might just be their most memorable yet.

The Bend couple started in Cape Town on Feb. 10 and finished near Mbeya, Tanzania on July 12. They rode on dirt and pavement and struggled with broken gear that could not be replaced; interacted with villagers who had never seen white people before; camped at farms, schools and beaches; experienced heat waves and drought; and encountered giraffes, elephants and monkeys.

“We experienced some of our best days as well as our worst,” Kristen Jokinen said. “Through it all, we made friends, shared smiles and were welcomed by the African people. It was an incredible journey through Africa and we are grateful to all that helped us along the way.”

The Jokinens passed through eight countries: South Africa, Lesotho, Eswatini, Zimbabwe, Botswana, Zambia, Malawi and Tanzania.

Gearing up

The plan for the Africa trip came up in January just after the couple ended a long book tour promoting Kristen’s “Joy Ride: A Bike Odyssey from Alaska to Argentina,” which was released in May 2023. The book is mostly about the couple’s 20-month, 18,215-mile cycling journey from the northernmost location in Alaska that is accessible by road (Prudhoe Bay) to the southernmost tip of South America (Ushuaia, Argentina) from June 2016 to February 2018.

In the past eight years, the Jokinens not only completed that trip, but also biked from Finland to Croatia, through Spain, across both islands of New Zealand and through Cuba.

The couple were admittedly not accomplished cyclists before their trip across the Americas. They had never even completed a bike tour of any distance, but now they are seasoned bikepackers.

“On a whim we decided where to go,” Kristen, 43, said of the Africa trip plan. “Ville said we could start in Cape Town so we just booked tickets with no idea what route we would take.”

Once they left the coast, they biked on mainly gravel roads and farm roads. In Zimbabwe and Botswana, Ville Jokinen said, they wanted to stay on paved roads through towns and villages because of all the animals.

“You don’t want to wander off into the wild dirt roads because of the lions, hyenas and elephants,” said Ville, 44. “Elephants were the biggest problem because they’re out during the day. Elephants are actually pretty aggressive if they have babies, just like bears. We saw giraffes, elephants, monkeys, baboons. We heard the lions but never saw them in the wild. We heard them around our camp.”

A 200-mile stretch in Botswana is called the Elephant Highway, which includes 120,000 wild and roaming elephants. The Jokinens were cautious and would stop and stand still whenever they encountered an elephant.

“We had a big male elephant walk right past us about 20 feet away,” Kristen said. “It was like a brontosaurus walking right next to you. It was terrifying.”

People and politics

Some of their experiences were less terrifying and more heartfelt. In Malawi, the seventh poorest country in the world, the couple camped at schools and the young students could not contain their excitement at seeing foreigners on bikes.

“They wanted to play soccer with us, show us everything,” Kristen recalled. “We asked their names and engaged with them. It was a pretty amazing experience. The boys all went with Ville and the girls all came with me to help set up the tent and the bedding. They kept petting me and my hair. We each took turns giving the little kids rides on our bikes. They were so excited about it.”

Brutally dry and hot conditions became cooler as the couple biked into Zimbabwe and Zambia. Along the way, the Jokinens ate meat pies, fried chicken, ox tail, fat cakes, bananas, avocados, seafood and lots of cornmeal (a staple in every country through which they passed).

Zambia and Malawi were both in a state of emergency due to food and water shortages and power outages. Also, during their trip, the vice president of Malawi was killed in a plane crash, and they encountered large groups of mourners there. Sudan was their only possible route to reach Egypt, because Somalia, Congo and Ethiopia are all on the U.S. Department of State’s Do Not Travel list.

“So we decided to finish in Kenya, but riots broke out there,” Ville said. “So we ended the trip in Tanzania. But it was still an amazing adventure.”

The Jokinens boarded a flight to Ville’s home country of Finland, and stayed with family for a awhile. But soon thereafter, they embarked on yet another bike trip, this one from Helsinki to Nuorgam, more than 1,000 miles from south to north across Finland. They completed that trip in a span of about three weeks last month.

All told, the couple has biked 27,751 miles in the last eight years.

Kristen and Ville met while scuba diving in Vietnam. She was a real estate agent in Bend and he was a financial analyst for Toyota in his native Finland. After hiking the Pacific Crest Trail together from California to Canada in 2011 they came up with the plan for the bike ride across North and South America.

Since then, their biking adventures have taken them across the globe to some of the most beautiful, enchanting places — including Africa.

“We didn’t know what to expect,” Kristen said, “but it was such an amazing experience because we got to meet so many diverse people.”

For more information on Ville and Kristen Jokinen, follow them on Instagram @welostthemap, on Facebook, or visit their website welostthemap.com.