Friday 30 April 2010

From Lilongwe















I take the Great East Road out of downtown Lusaka, already miles behind Guy, who is racing towards the airport in a taxi, his bike boxed up and London just a day away. As I make my way into the rising sun, the traffic gradually thins and after a couple of hours I see the first wave of swelling hilltops emerge out of the misty horizon ahead. I am soon climbing across thick forest through the foothills of the Luangwa valley. In the glare of the midday sun the road winds up and up, my battered Converse turning stubbornly and my whole frame tense, locked into the slow rhythm of the climb. I hope for a downward slope at each bend, but the road winds on up relentlessly through the thinning trees. At last I see the top and I stop for a minute to look around at the dense forest, cascading down into the bowling valleys from the lumps of hilltop behind me.

By late afternoon I reach Rufunsa, a dusty strip of bars and general stores, 160 km east of Lusaka. It is Friday and men and women stoop under corrugated shelters drinking murky beer from the severed ends of plastic bottles. Grainy Zambian music blasts out from a generator-powered black speaker outside the bar and all around people stare impassively at me, as I wheel my bike through the hazy dust. I order a drink and sit in the shade, watching a young man beside me carefully pour a sachet of liquor into a glass bottle of Sprite. An old man walks towards me, wide-eyed and unsteady. As he gets closer I see flies feeding on weeping lesions in the patchy grey stubble around his lips. He doesn’t notice, or doesn’t care, and opens his mouth to speak, showing a few chipped yellow teeth. Muzungu, Muzungu. Money. Buy me one beer. I stare up at him in the glare and watch the barman push him into the road, helpless and sad.

The barman towers above me. He has terrible burn scars running up his left arm and neck and tells me that Muzungu, white men, don’t stop here, but that there will be no trouble for me. He offers me a room to rest in and gives me water. To reassure me it is drinkable he takes a long gulp from my bottle, wiping the drops from his mouth with the shrivelled skin of his thick forearm. He shows me the room and I lie down on the mattress on the stone floor. The plaster on the stained white walls is cracking and the only other object in the room is a candle stub in a bottle of beer. When I was in Lusaka I had spoken to a hunter about this leg of the route and he had told me about a cook on one of their trips who had stopped here in Rufunsa. He said the cook had refused to sell some meat to the locals and they had set fire to his room while he was sleeping.

Tired from the day’s ride I fall asleep early. At first light the area outside the bar is littered with hundreds of empty yellow beer cartons, quivering gently in the light morning breeze. I head onto the road and am soon climbing again, across great mounds of forested hills, tumbling towards the Luangwa Rift Valley. Thick Miombo trees shoulder the tarmac, broken by shady paths that lead to huts hidden behind the leaves. It is still early and the air is cool and dense around me. The smell of morning wood fires, being lit outside the huts, blows across the road and a thick layer of fog hugs the canopy in the valley floor to the south. I ride all day and camp just off the bank of the Luangwa River, pitching my tent in the fading pink twilight.

The following day I ride 160 km over the last of the rift valley hills and across the fertile plateau of the lower Zambezi to a town called Petauke. I pass countless small towns, all made up of a single row of buildings facing the highway, all falling down into the dust. The store fronts bear the faint logos of Coca-Cola and other big brands, whose goods the grocers and bars have never stocked. I buy some bananas from a stall and look at the neat piles of bright red tomatoes, laid out on row upon row of rickety wooden tables. I wonder who buys them. Every village I pass has a school marked by a sturdy headstone, bearing the name in bold and the school’s motto beneath: Chitimbwe Primary School. Motto: Look to the Future and Have a Vision. In clearings between the trees there are nondescript brick churches of the Seventh Day Adventists, Jehovah’s Witnesses, God’s Embassy, and other sects I have never heard of. All empty and dark inside.

I reach Petauke just before dark and check into a motel, where I have supper with a young government worker. He speaks softly about corruption in Zambia, about how chiefs are paid to direct their village to vote one way or another, and how politicians side with the most powerful party, irrespective of ideology. He looks sadly across the table and tells me about the theatre group he is head of in Petauke, about the lack of funding and prospects for artists and actors here. I tell him emptily that Zambia seems very happy and how England has its problems too: Meaningless clichés that neither of us believes.

The next morning, while it is still dark, I am sick twice and take a double dose of antibiotics before riding a shallow climb out of town. At the crest of the hill I stare out at the road shooting through the endless plains of elephant grasses into the soft yellow cloud ahead. My stomach cramps as I ride and I struggle to go quickly at first, but reach Chipata, a town 30 km from the Malawian border, before nightfall, having covered 200 km. I rest for a day here and head out of Zambia on Thursday, past children playing see-saw on a fallen tree, and past men walking beneath swaying palm trees to Chipata’s sand coloured mosque, across the border into Malawi and on through the flat, bustling countryside to Lilongwe.


Monday 26 April 2010

From Lusaka
















Guy and I set off along the flat highway out of Livingstone into the open bush and big blue sky at an easy pace. We have enough food to last a few days and little idea of what lies ahead. As the air around us heats up we come to a section of the road that is being re-tarred and must ride a dirt road parallel. Each time a car passes it kicks up a cloud of orange sediment that sits in the still air ahead, choking us as we rattle into the dust. We push our bikes through the trees to our right, back on to the newly laid tar and see the tracks of our wheels leave two long straight lines stretching back through the soft black road behind. While we stop to eat in the shade, a van passes sprinkling water to set the tar. We run under the spray and take a cool shower under the midday sun.

We ride on through the afternoon past conical huts with straw roofs that jut out from the clumps of green acacia bushes and dry yellow grasses that line the road. At four, we turn off down a thin path which winds past small plots of maize and sweet potatoes, opening out onto a dusty yard in the middle of five small huts. Three women are sitting on short wooden stools sieving ground nuts under a mophane tree. They bring us a purple cushioned stool each to sit on and are happy for us to camp here. There is a rainbow arching faintly in the sky above the largest rectangular hut and I get up to try to photograph the shadow my body casts on the hut’s sandy walls. As the sky pales and the thin white crescent of the moon becomes visible above the pink clouds to the east we cut wood and pull our stools around the fire.

One of the younger women, Rose, speaks English and asks about life in our place, where we come from. We tell her we are from London and she turns her head to the north and says, ummm.. oooh.. from that side.. and what is it like there? Do you live on farms, that side? We tell her we buy our food from shops and live in houses made of bricks. Oooh.. And do have a car, on that side? We tell her most people do, but we prefer to ride our bicycles. Oooh.. yes.. ummm.. on bicycles, you do prefer, by your own legs.. She nods and smiles and adds some more maize to the pot of boiling water. Gradually kids of various ages approach out of the dusk and perch beside us around the fire. They stare at us and whisper quietly to one another. We smile at them and slowly say our names and they look startled and search for Rose’s eyes across the low flames.
When the food is ready we each wash our hands in a bowl of water and share nshima which we dip in a paste made from ground nuts. It is very dark now and the sky is clear. Rose tilts her head back and tells us that here, this side, they do often enjoy to look up at the stars. We all stare upwards and I tell her that where we live the stars have been turned black by the lights in peoples’ houses.
The next morning we wake to a rooster calling loudly just outside our tents and set off early, heading for Choma, a town 120 km north. The road is flanked by little corn fields and small huts and waving children, calling out as we pass. We check into a motel in town and get an early night ready to ride 200 km the following day.

We wake to pouring rain and set off under heavy black clouds. As we leave town the road rise gently onto a low plateau above valleys of fertile green forest on both sides. To the east the escarpment on the western fringe of Lake Kariba is just visible through the thick grey air. After a few hours of riding in steady rain, the clouds begin to hail and I can barely make out the headlights of oncoming cars not twenty feet ahead. The hail ricashaes off the road and the tar is flooded with thin torrents of water that rush towards the muddy verge. The sand roads off the highway have turned dark brown and the rivets on the tracks are filled with puddles of murky water. We ride on past small towns made up of single rows of dilapidated buildings with faded facades offering butchers, spices, investment services, and groceries. At half past ten we stop at Monze for a cup of tea, having covered 100 km in four hours. As the clouds lighten and the rain subsides the road through Monze begins to fill up with rickety bicycles, carrying logs and bleating goats, and women wandering to market in brightly coloured sarongs with babies tied snuggly to their backs.

After a long break we set off again and the ride begins to wear me down. The road undulates over rolling hills and my legs are weary even on the shallow climbs. It is getting late and the roadside is fenced on both sides; there is nowhere to camp. Eventually we turn off down a muddy track onto a cattle ranch. The mud on the road down to the farm is thick and our wheels churn slowly and sink to a halt, refusing to turn. Guy falls and we are both exhausted and our bikes are soon covered in the thick red earth. The workers say it is ok to camp and we trudge back up to the track and pitch our tents in the dark. Guy cooks us both noddles and beans and we go to bed wet and tired, but knowing we will reach Lusaka the next day. We leave at first light and climb over the Mantumi Hills, across the Kafue River, into the heavy Lusaka traffic. The sun is bright and it is a good feeling to weave our way through the busy city streets, having ridden 550 km since leaving Livingstone four days ago.





From Bovu Island






For the first time since arriving in Africa I am reluctant to get back on the road. Guy and I are on a small island on the Zambezi. The sun is slowly rising, burning thin clouds of mist off the surface of the water that flows past our open fronted hut. To get here we have ridden across the far northern corner of Zimbabwe, from Kazungula to Victoria Falls, and across the Zambian border to Livingstone. Riding into Zimbabwe we pass a long line of lorries waiting for clearance from customs. The drivers tell us they are taking cooking oil to the Congo and have been stuck here for 36 hours. They laugh at our bicycles and honk as they pass us later on the road. The ride from Kazungula is hilly and for long stretches the roadside is full of trees. At the highest points we can see sprawling vistas of green bush stretching out to the bank of the Zambezi to the north and can hear the water rushing over the falls in the distance. We spend a night In Zimbabwe before riding up to Zambia and west to Bovu Island.

On the banks of the island, papyrus stalks and white branches of water berry trees are partially submerged in the high water. The island is carpeted in near white sand, interspersed with beds of darker earth. The trees are so thick in parts that I cannot see the river which I hear flowing only a few feet away. There are vervet monkeys swinging on python vines that cling to the patchy bark of corkwood trees and woodpeckers tapping loudly somewhere in the leaves. In the day we read under the shade of the enormous Jackleberry tree at the centre of the island and when the sun drops later in the afternoon we fish in dug out canoes. On our first morning here, Brett, the island’s sole permanent inhabitant and the guy who opened it up to travelers, sends us off to help build a school in the village across the river.

We work with a handful of local guys and two young Irish volunteers. The work is hard and we are covered in sweat as we mix cement and deep red sand with heavy shovels. By midday we have finished a section of the wall and stop for lunch at a house in the village. We eat nshima with dried bream and sweet potatoe leaves before taking a canoe back to the island.

In the evening we sit up till late around a long wooden table with Brett and his girlfriend, Evelyn. Brett is tall and thin, with a Rolling Stone haircut and smashed up teeth. He smiles and smokes and talks constantly, getting up every now and then to pour another vodka and Coke. After supper he begins to talk about the old days on the island. He is telling us about three day parties at Equinox, about lanterns hanging from the trees and mushrooms and tall whisky glasses and billionaire heiresses floating round with frisbies full of a thousand types of acid. As he talks his hands dance around his face, making crazy shapes as he tries to make us see how it was. He tells us about his travels before the island: walking bare foot across Tibet in the 70s, hitching through Germany in light brown leathers and knee high pink fluffy socks in Ferraris racing at 200 mph.
There is quiet for a moment and I watch two small white moths fluttering gently around the flame that is burning off the paraffin lamp in the centre of the table. Brett tells us they are our ancestors, grandparents and such, dropping down amongst us and happy to see us enjoying life on the road. I tell him that is a nice thought and watch the last of the candles die slowly, dribbling soft white wax down the old wine bottle in which it stands. The only light is from the paraffin lamp now and I think the table will look sad in the shadows tomorrow morning, when all around it the island will be bathed in sunshine. Calexico is singing Bob Dylan’s ‘Goin to Acapulco’ in the background and we drink more and smoke more and talk about Africa and Brett’s childhood and bird-watching and the school he is building. Eventually we go to bed and in the morning Brett gives us a long hug and tells us to be all super-dooper and ride all the way to Ethiopia.

Monday 19 April 2010

From Kazungula




It is a Sunday afternoon and the rain is pattering gently on the umbrella above me. I am sitting on a wooden veranda overlooking the Zambezi. On the far bank the sky is almost black and bolts of lightening split the clouds across the river. I am writing, smoking a Chesterfield and drinking tea. Guy is facing the river, with his eyes closed, meditating. We have bicycled 620 km over the past five days since leaving Maun, and are now in the far north east of Botswana, at the Zimbabwean border, which we will cross tomorrow morning.

Leaving Maun on Wednesday we ride due east towards Nata. The first day is hot, but the road is flat and we ride quickly. Late in the afternoon we turn off the highway and wheel our bikes into the sand and short trees off the road. We collect dead wood and dry grasses and make a small fire to cook on. As we eat, we hear elephant crashing around in the bush not far from our tents. We wake early and ride along the edge of the Nxai salt pans, which are concealed from view beneath pools of water. In every direction the land is completely flat. The only markers on the barren horizon are lonely leafless trees. We camp at Gweta , where we run into Hans, a German pilot who I met in Maun. He has been bitten by a spitting cobra here two nights ago and shows us the puncture wounds on the small of his back. He tells us how the poison spread throughout his body, giving him fevers and pain all over.

To reach Nata we bicycle 110 km on Friday, through torrential rain. Guy is far ahead and thunder rolls across the sky. I remember a story Thomas, the German cyclist in Maun, told me at the Old Bridge. He saw lightening strike a tree and a heard of goats beneath die instantly. He said their heads dropped a split second after the bolt struck the branches above. I pedal hard and hope each flash in front of me is the last. Nata is made up of a cluster of motels and gas stations, at the crossroads of the major routes linking Francistown, Maun, and Kasane. The road north, which we must take towards Kazungula, is desolate. It cuts across constant bush and the first settlement from Nata, Pandamatenga, is 200 km away. We must reach it by nightfall as we have been warned that leopard and lion make wild camping dangerous here.

Large swathes of the road are being re-tarred and our bicycles rattle across the uneven surface as we try to maintain a decent pace. Noisy trucks ferrying sand, rumble past, whipping up clouds of dust which sting our eyes and cover our filthy clothes. We press on, but we must stop each time there is an elephant standing by the roadside. The first we encounter is an enormous lone bull, with one tusk missing. We pedal gingerly nearer, hugging the far side of the road. He looks up at us and Guy brakes suddenly. I pedal straight into the back of him and our bicycles clatter to the floor. The elephant turns and runs powerfully into the bush and we pick ourselves up, laughing. After nine hours riding we reach Pandamatenaga rest camp. It is run by an old Tanzanian guy, who has travelled all over East Africa on his motorcycle. He gets up early the next morning before we set off for Kazungula, giving us some worn maps and wishing us a safe journey, with a jealous glint in his eye.

Tuesday 13 April 2010

From Maun




Leaving Ghanzi I catch glimpses of the sun, already blazing yellow, through the gaps between the buildings and the trees that line the road north. It is later than I usually set off and the wind is already flowing towards me. I am heading north-east on the A3, 110 km across the Kobe Pan, towards a village called Kuke, which I know as nothing more than a dot on the map. After a long ride under the scorching Kalahari sun I turn off onto a sandy track, which winds through circular wooden huts. I ask a group of women, who are giggling under a tree, whether I can get water here. They point me to a wooden pen in the midst of a throng of people. There are young men thrashing donkeys wildly and women pushing rickety wheelbarrows loaded high with tanks of water. I wheel my bike across a dusty football pitch, flanked with leafy camelthorn trees, and queue up for water. A young girl runs up to me, grabs the bottles from my hands and fills them. A crowd of children has gathered around me and more and more approach. They laugh at my shorts, my straggly beard, and the streaks of sun-cream and salt that are smeared across my flushed cheeks.

While I sit in the shade and take a long drink, the children sit on the logs beside me and the branches above. They stare expectantly and chat loudly in clicks, the language of the San Bushmen. I take some photographs and they tussle with each other to get in front of the lens, posing like action movie heroes. The light fades and gradually the children disperse, leaving me eating a tin of beans next to three young boys who sit watching me, smiling in silence. Across the village, children are chasing horses, which are rampaging wildly through the dust under the bright full moon. I get into my tent, tired, but feeling lucky to be here and I awake before day breaks to try to reach Maun by nightfall.

Maun lies at the southern end of the Okavango Delta, 170 km from Kuke, in the north-western corner of Botswana. I cycle the same road up and as I approach the delta, the grasses and acacias, which have flanked my ride since Windhoek, gradually become interspersed with a variety of taller trees and flat leaved bushes. The thicker foliage restricts my horizon to the banks of the road and I stare blankly ahead, pedaling hard. The road rises gently for a few hundred metres and as I reach the shallow summit the landscape opens up before my eyes. To the east there are seven hills with deep green slopes. There are huge sycamore fig trees standing tall in the endless expanse of green grasses. I can see black vultures flapping their wings clumsily in the low sky just ahead and single huts set back from the road, with brightly coloured clothes hanging from lines tied to fence posts. I ride on passing occasional villages for another 50 km, reaching the outskirts of Maun by 5 in afternoon.

In Maun I follow signs to The Old Bridge Lodge, weaving my way between taxis, scattering goats and donkeys onto the roadside, and grubby LandRovers piled high with fuel tanks and camping equipment. It is dusk by the time I wheel my bicycle under the thatch roof of the Old Bridge’s open bar. It has started to pour with rain and I haven’t slept in a bed for over three weeks; fortunately I get the last room. It is Wednesday night and I will stay here until Saturday, when Guy, a friend from London, flies to Maun to join me on the ride to Lusaka.

The lodge rests on the banks of the Okavango River and from the lawn I can see the seldom used old bridge. The bridge is formed by a bank of earth interspersed with heavy logs, all bound together by free growing grasses and the exposed roots of Jackleberry trees. From a distance it looks to have forded the river of its own accord. On the low roots nearest the water, old men sit, casting fishing lines gently in the clam pool below. Back in the bar a group of ex-pats, perched on tall stools, drink cans of beer and shots of Jagermeister. They all live in Maun now: David, who owns the place, John, a semi-retired safari pilot, and Thomas, a German guy, who arrived here by bicycle eight years ago and never left. John tells me this is his favourite sundowner place, although it is not yet midday. They talk about how high the river has got, the storms they have seen, close shaves with game, planes, lightening. The end of the bar goes silent for a moment and John looks across the room, laughing. Its Good Friday… No Bunnies... No fucking eggs… What kind of operation is this? Another round of Castles I think…

On Saturday I ride to meet Guy at the airport. We will take a trip out on the delta on Monday and ride east towards Nata on Wednesday morning. We take a speed boat under the old bridge into the Okavango, north towards Chief’s Island, where there is a small camp. David, and his girlfriend Helena, are going to dismantle the camp and have let us tag along with them. We follow a broad channel that flows through high reeds and flat green lilies with little white flowers. In the islands dotted throughout the wide body of water there are elephant and giraffe wandering peacefully amongst the fig trees and termite mounds. We share sandwiches and cans of beer and watch fish eagles flying above the reeds. As we approach the entrance to the Moremi reserve the channel opens up into a wide lagoon. Staring into the surface of the still water, I can see the shapes of the clouds above shifting slightly as they drift through the pale blue sky.

At the camp we play petanque beneath a pack of shrieking baboons and just before sunset we take the boat out and go fishing. Guy catches a bream and I watch the sun falling beneath the trees in the horizon, flushing the whole sky pink. In the morning we take a mokoro canoe through the shallows. Tiny frogs leap from the reeds onto the tip of the canoe and golden web spiders run across my arms. It starts to rain and we head back to the island where we pack up camp and eat a huge cooked breakfast, before heading back to Maun.

Thursday 1 April 2010

From Ghanzi




On Friday I leave Windhoek, happy to be climbing across green hills with the clutter of the city fading gradually into the bush. I am on the Trans-Kalahari Highway heading east. The sky is covered with thick grey cloud and the air is cool. The road is banked with tall wheat coloured grasses swaying gently in the breeze and thick acacia bushes as far as the eye can see. After a couple of hours I am over the hills and the dark tar road stretches straight and flat. I pedal fast, not sure where I am headed. The road, the sky, and the grassland become indistinct and my mind clouds over, daydreaming of unlikely futures. Eleven hours later I arrive in Gobabis, 200 km east of Windhoek. I find a campsite just out of town and fall asleep thinking that I will cross into Botswana the following afternoon.


The next morning the road continues through the desert grasses. The sky turns deep blue as the hours pass, with small white puffs of cloud forming low above the tree line. In vain I will the clouds to drift into the path of the sun, as it burns hotter with the onset of midday. When I stop at the border-post my face is streaked with fine lines of dried salt and my shirt is drenched. At Botswanan customs the official asks me where I will stay. I reply at Mamuno campsite, which is marked on my map. I am told that there is no campsite until Ghanzi, 220 km east. He then asks me if I am not afraid of wild animals and robbers.

I ride into Botswana and stop at a petrol station in need of shade. My bike falls as I try to lean it against a wall and my whole body aches. I will have to sleep rough for the next two nights and the repeated warnings, of people I have met along the way, begin to crowd my thoughts. I sit down and slowly rub the palms of my hands against the faint indents of my temples, fighting back tears. I light a cigarette and try to relax. I consider the journeys of others: Rory Stewart alone on foot through winter in Afghanistan, Al Humphreys on a bicycle for four years around the world, George Orwell in the slums of 1930s Paris, Christopher Mcandless slowly starving in the Alaskan spring. I am still near the start of my short trip and I am safe. I wheel my bike out of the forecourt and pedal slowly into the nearby village, Charles Hill.


Along the main sandy strip there is a general store and a liquor shop. In front of each, people mill around lazily in the afternoon heat. Many of the women I pass are wearing long and wide Herero dresses, draped with bright sequined shawls. On their heads they wear broad hats that match the dresses, shaped like rustic flat breads. A tall skinny man, dressed in baggy clothes, too big for his slight frame, approaches me and I ask if there is anywhere I might pitch my tent here. He walks with me to a Toyota pick-up and introduces me to a man in a dark suit. I am Mr Kamiizo. I am the chief of Charles Hill. You understand? I tell him about my ride and that I wish to rest here in his village.

I am led away by two men who have offered to let me stay outside their house. We walk through dusty yards separated by thin wire fences. They are both staggering slightly and their eyes are streaked with pale red veins, stretching out towards dark pupils. When we arrive at their place, the taller man, Abby, looks at the floor and starts to talk: Be at home, my brother… We are the same me and you… You understand, my brother? I feel... I feel that race, religion, no matter what, we are still the same, my brother... He trails off leaving the words hanging in the dry heat, stumbles gently, and shakes my hand. Be at home here, my brother.

A group of kids have collected around us. They look at the bicycle with wide eyes and I show them where I have been on the map. I pitch my tent in the shade of a Mophane tree and they jostle with one another, each tugging the ends of the poles. When the tent is standing they fall about laughing at how small it is. I open some tins of food and watch the children playing football in the sand. I give them some chocolate and feel better with a full stomach. The two men amble towards me to check if I am ok. As they wander off, Abby turns, and tells me that he is going to the liquor store. We are a couple of drunks, he says meekly.

The next morning I am on the road by the time the sun rises behind the flat plains to the east. On the roadside I make out the silhouettes of donkeys grazing in the dim morning light. On the horizon the sky is pale yellow, and thin wisps of low lying cloud are glowing orange and light pink. The wind is gentle in the early morning, but it picks up as the day goes on, and by 10:00 I am riding into an unrelenting wall of air that blows powerfully against me, sapping the speed from the wheels. I only cover 12 km an hour and it is exhausting. By mid afternoon I realize there is no chance I will make the next town, Ghanzi, so I turn off the highway and pedal 4 km to a village called Chobowanke. The village is divided into rectangular plots, in which there are circular huts made of staves of wood bound together. The roofs are thatched and overhang the walls below by almost a foot. I am directed to a deserted campsite at the end of a sandy track. No one has been here for years. In the long grass are three wigwam shaped wooden structures, all derelict. I peer at the inner roof of one. There is a fat white spider sitting peacefully in a thick cloud of web hanging from the fragile eaves. I sit under a tree and read, happy to have some quiet.

Next morning, eager to reach Ghanzi, I set off in the dark towards the highway. I ride slowly as my headlamp only illuminates a few metres ahead. After a couple of kilometres I settle and pick up speed. A horse appears out of the dark, just a few feet in front. It stands tall and still. I grab both brakes and just hold myself from falling. The horse stares at me, immobile, before exhaling deeply and running to the roadside. I continue gingerly until the sun rises and then pedal hard against the same Kalahari wind, arriving at Ghanzi by lunchtime on Monday.