An eight-person team is mountain biking through Africa on an archaeological expedition in search of the origins of man and to find out why so many of Africa's animals are disappearing. Follow along here as they update their diary.

KAPCHEROP, Kenya -- This week, we traveled out of the desert, into Kenya's central highlands, and turned westward across the Rift Valley. As we climbed, thorny acacias and the rocky moonscape gave way to rioting vegetation and misty pine forests. While I approached the town of Kapcherop, three kids ran along the road with my bike and yelled out, "give me money, wazungu. "I was tired and frustrated from the ride, and sick of handing out money. I angrily waved them out of my way.

When I reached Kapcherop, a mob gathered around me. I looked at all of the Africans, with their dirty bare feet and threadbare clothes, and had to fight off the notion that I, a rich American, was somehow better than they were. One guy wore a slick, red warm-up jacket and pants.

Someone in the crowd yelled out, "He's Joseph Chebet, the famous runner."

I just laughed, not believing a word of it. Just then, John pulled up on his bike. He looked at the man in the red warm-up suit and recognized him immediately.

"I don't believe it," he said to me. "That's Joseph Chebet. He just took second place in the Boston Marathon."

I suddenly felt ashamed for prejudging people -- partly because these were the fastest distance runners on the planet, but also because I failed to recognize that the the kids I had seen on my way to town might have had hidden talents.

I edged my way over to Joseph Chebet and asked, "How did you become such a great runner?"

"By running in these hills as a boy," he replied. "I used to race bicyclists on the road for fun."

KITALE, Kenya -- Different cultures have different values. Your priority might be your new pair of Nike Air high-tops. For the Turkana, their animals are everything.

Ask a Turkana what his favorite food is and he'll tell you goat meat. His favorite drink is goat blood. You want to marry that cute Turkana girl? That'll be 50 goats, please! A man without goats, cattle or camels in Turkana country is dead meat, plain and simple!

Yesterday, while taking a break from the midday sun, I spotted a lone traveler coming along the road. He appeared as a mirage, fading in and out of heat waves. He stopped before us, an old Turkana man wearing a knit hat with a feather in it, a striped cloak draped over his pencil-thin frame. Like a primitive odometer, his leathery feet and tattered shoes revealed the miles he'd covered.

He had been walking for ten days and had eaten his last bit of corn meal a week ago. We gave him all we had to offer, a melted apple-cinnamon PowerBar, which he promptly devoured.

He was on his way to collect a debt of goats, some 60 miles away. Like other Turkana, a people who have thirty different verbs for walking, he thought nothing of covering 120 miles on foot, with only his walking stick, stool and a plastic pail of murky drinking water. His survival and the survival of his family depended upon retrieving those goats.

I guess if you are Turkana, you don't let anyone get your goat!

AfricaQuest Team Faces Danger

October 12, 1998

LOKICHAR, Kenya -- It's midnight in the desert and the reality of Africa's dangers just hit us like the snap of a wet towel. Johnston, a tall Turkana man with oily black skin and brown-stained teeth, points to the next leg of our route on a map and begs in fumbling English, "Please sirs, do not ride here. The bandits will stop you. They will put in you a bullet."

The next hundred miles of road crosses the border between the Turkana and Pokot people. Age-old rivals, these two tribes still kill each other regularly during cattle raids. In fact, Johnston's brother-in-law was killed last year in one such raid. The area is too vast, too harsh, and too poor to be patrolled by police. Drought and poverty have made people desperate. Machine-gun-toting bandits frequently block the road. If you don't stop, they shoot at you. If you stop and don't give them money, they shoot you. According to Johnston, even if you do give them money "sometimes they put in you a bullet anyway."

Worried looks dart around the room, most of them aimed in my direction. I am, after all, the leader and charged with the team's safety. In the next six hours, I need to decide if the team is going to cycle southward through bandit country or find a way to somehow get around it. I have no idea what to do.

Click here to read the diary from Week Three.

Click here to read the diary from Week One.