Cycling Through Africa – Tadeáš Šíma

Description

Native of Prachatice in Šumava, Tadeáš Šíma is a traveler and writer. On his adventurous journeys around the world, he photographs and seeks a sense of freedom. He enjoys returning home to South Bohemia, where he has a small beehive and a cottage by the forest. At seventeen, he first set off into the world with his friend Tomáš, hitchhiking across Europe. While studying Crisis Management at the Czech Technical University in Prague, he managed to embark on several expeditions to the Balkans and the Caucasus, as well as to Iran and Kyrgyzstan. With the acquisition of a new mountain bike with 'butterfly' handlebars from the Czech brand Apache, he realized a bold idea in 2017 and cycled along the western coast of Africa. In November 2019, he set off – this time without a bike – to Congo to help protect nature and installed camera traps in the jungle along poaching trails (as part of the Czech non-profit organization Save elephants). A month later, he cycled across the Arabian Peninsula. During the COVID pandemic in 2020, his book Cycling Through Africa was published, which was nominated for the Hanzelka and Zikmund Award for the best travel book of the year. In January 2023, he set off with a friend to Central America, traveling by bike with a light parachute. 'I had the opportunity to see the world from the five-thousand-meter peaks of Damavand, Kilimanjaro, and Pico de Orizaba.' During the journey, the idea for a charitable project Pohled pro Adama emerged. He gives lectures about his travels in theaters, cultural halls, and schools. In 2024, his second book titled Home on the Road was published, followed a year later by a collection of haikus Papillary Lines.