Bye, Africa, bye!

Bye, Africa, bye!

Today is Wednesday, 21 May. Two months and six days ago I left Naboomspruit on my solo trek across Africa.

At the moment I am on a cargo ship, the Spes. Last Sunday the Spes reached the harbour of Haifa, Israel, six days late. This ship will bring me with my trusty KLR from the Middle East to Europe.

The only timetable this ship has is no timetable. No one is prepared to give an exact day or time, on which the ship will reach Monfalcone in Italy.

After three days crossing the Mediterranean our ship reached Izmir in Turkey this morning. They are going to load about 2 000 Fiats and Renaults, built in Turkey, destined for Italy.

There are only six passengers on board: A Finnish couple, a Dutch, employed by the UN and returning home after a year in Lebanon, myself and then dear old Sib and Nic. Yes, our ways crossed again.

Yesterday afternoon I had a good afternoon’s sleep (That is the only allowed activity onboard a cargo ship). I woke up in a miserable mood. I couldn’t believe it. I was missing the Nubian desert and those wonderful Sudanese people. The realisation crept into my mind: The KLR and I have left the shores of Africa!

My tour through Africa isn’t a dream anymore! It is a memory now.

It has become one of my most treasured memories.

My thoughts ran back to last year, sometime during February. It was late summer and the heat of the late afternoon covered our bushveld town like a warm blanket.

I was on my veranda. Bee-eaters flew low over my house, on their way to the overnight spots. A friend, a local farmer, came over for a cup of coffee. Earlier that afternoon I finally had decided to do the tour, and he was the first one, to whom I broke the news.

“John, next year I am going to ride over Africa with my bike, alone.”

John Mailovich is huge man, a man of few words, a hardened Waterberg farmer.

“You are f.. n mad,” was his only reply.

That was how many of my friends felt in the beginning.

Johannes, my old bush mate, immediately started thinking of the logistical realities should I need any spares or help along the route. I could see that in spirit he was already with me on this trip.

And then my colleague Ella died of cancer. She was a beautiful lady and much younger than me. Her death strengthened my determination to do this trip. Life is over so quickly that we have to live our dreams now.

Gradually my friends started realising that I meant it, that I actually was going to do the trip. My excitement spilt over to them and in so many ways they started contributing to the planning and executing of the tour.

I had a whole year to plan the trip. That was the shortest and longest year of my life!

Saturday 15 March 2008: The KLR was packed. We all stood around the bike. It was time to say goodbye. A wave of sadness to leave all my family and friends behind, suddenly struck me. My ex-neighbour Dries did a touching last prayer for my safety and for the bike. Then I left.

My route took me to Botswana.

Into Africa.

To that dark continent where all that could go wrong, should go wrong.

The first few days passed like in a dream. It didn’t feel like reality. Was I really busy riding from Naboom to Germany?

Gradually reality started sinking in. I realised I had to wake up and enjoy that incredible experience!

The turning point came in Lusaka. That morning as I left the city and turned east I started enjoying the ride. The joy of a long tour through Africa settled in my heart and stayed there until the end.

I was riding through Africa!

I rode through beautiful parts of the continent with breathtaking scenery. Unfortunately when one is on a motorcycle, sharing the road with bicycles and pedestrians and pigs and goats and donkeys and small children there is not much time to sit back and relax and enjoy the scenery.

The beauty of the tour shifted more and more from the beauty of the scenery to the beauty of human contact. Each time as I stopped at a small roadside shop or fruit stand I experienced African friendliness and hospitality. Each time I pitched my small tent at a village I discovered in the warm greetings of the locals what Christianity is or should be.

The first few weeks the KLR flew through the many different countries on route. The one highlight followed the next: My supper next to my tent in Petauke (East Zambia) under my first full moon on tour; Meeting Audrey and Ekke Kok at Lake Malawi; My early evening arrival at the Bongo camp site in Tanzania where I met Kasper and Mwinga, two beautiful people filled with love and idealism; Vimbai from the Old Farm House who was an excellent host and who became a real friend over the following months; Peter and Tessa, the father and daughter team from Holland who set an excellent example to so many families worldwide. These are but a few of many that I could put on my list.

Each person whose hand I shook, each person with whom I had a long conversation, each person who offered me some comfort under testing situations, each one became a mosaic stone in the big picture of my life.

During the trip I often thought about the prayer that Dries had done the last morning. I firmly believed that a whole bunch of guardian angels were travelling with me. How else could one explain so many things?

Nairobi: A taxi came speeding down the road on the wrong side of the road and hit me full from the side on the front wheel. I fell quite hard on the tar. I got up, aching but without a single scratch. The fork of the KLR was not bent and after a few small reparations I could continue with my tour. So easy it could have been the end of my tour that morning.

The next day, 100 km before Marsabit, I had another hard fall on lava stone. The impact was so hard that half of the front wheel was buried under the stones. Again I got up, no injuries.

Then there was the evening between Marsabit and Moyale. It was in a lawless part of the country with bandits roaming and killing innocent people even until last year. I missed the convoy and had to travel on my own. That night, pitching my tent under a heaven filled with stars as I have never seen before, is written in my book of special moments.

One of the biggest challenges on the tour was definitely the Nubian desert in Sudan. Many overlander riders prefer to put their bikes on the weekly train up to Wadi Halfa and skip the desert ride.

I arrived in Khartoum on a Sunday. The heat was unbearable. The sun burnt down on me and the asphalt radiated a heat as bad. Next to the road there was not a single kilometre without tyre carcasses lying there, coming from cars or trucks. That boiling hot road destroyed any old or damaged tyre.

I had a battle with myself in Khartoum. I was struggling in the heat and was considering putting my bike on the train. I had to prove nothing to anybody. But, if I would do that would I really feel that I had travelled through Africa?

The Wednesday morning I woke up and I knew what I was going to do: I would tackle and ride the desert!

I left Khartoum the Thursday morning at three. With the weak moonlight of my second full moon on tour I aimed for the Nile further north.

From Dongola until I arrived at Wadi Halfa, the final destination in Sudan, my journey was filled by highlights too many to mention.

What touched me the most? The many friendly people I met? The merciless and desolated desert? The cool drinking water in the brown urns next to the road under the palm trees? Or perhaps the two suppers on one night, sitting with the men at their oil lamp with a hot desert wind blowing that reminded us that the scorching heat would be back the next day?

Or was the greatest highlight perhaps the victory over my own fear? To overcome the anxiety when you come around a bend and the track disappears in a sea of tracks in deep, soft sand, threatening to stop you in your tracks? You had to keep yourself deaf to the screaming of the KLR’s engine in first gear until you reach firm ground again.

Why do the Nubian desert and the people living there attract me back? Is it perhaps the possibility that I never again would have the chance to experience them, untouched, unspoilt, as they are now, today? The new asphalt road coming will not only bring advantages, but also the evils of “civilisation” so much easier to them. Many of those beautiful people will leave their desert to find a so-called better life in the cities. However, do I, as a visitor, have the right to wish that their life must stay as it is now? I doubt it.

I am really sorry that I haven’t spent more time in the Nubian desert and villages. The travel guides were so wrong. I got much quicker to Wadi Halfa as planned. With the knowledge that I now have I would have gone slower, stopped more often and spent more time with those wonderful people.

Egypt was the biggest disappointment of the Africa leg of my tour. I would have loved to visit and see more places and tourist attractions, but due to the time constrains caused by the numerous convoys it was impossible. The only highlight was the one afternoon when Nic, Sib and I escaped from the police and turned off onto a gravel road leading to the small farms at the Nile. The afternoon and evening spent with Sameh and Niven Kaissar Raflah turned into one of the most memorable experiences.

So, what are the facts regarding my solo trip across Africa? Let me disappoint the pessimists:

• I never felt threatened in any way;
• I was never approached for any bribe;
• I was never robbed or anything stolen from me;
• Not a single time I was turned away when I asked permission to camp at a village.

Perhaps my trip may be classified as boring. People love to read about all the bad and dangerous things happening to travellers, and some travellers thrive on painting the picture much more dramatically as it was.

Was that elephant on the road close to me really so threatening that with a shaking hand I had to pray that the KLR wouldn’t die on racing away? Was that guy with the AK 47 in the bush in Southern Ethiopia really life threatening to me, or was he just a small farmer guarding his cattle against the notorious cattle thieves? It all depends on your perspective.

It would have been so easy to paint a dramatic picture of my Africa tour, with me the lonely hero. However, by doing so I would have insulted Africa and turn my trip into a Hollywood script.

Was it the right decision to go on this tour alone? Yes, yes, yes!!

If you as reader are one of those people dreaming to do such a tour, go and find a calendar, select a date and start working towards that date! Just do it! It doesn’t have to be a tour across Africa. You can realise your dream also within the borders of South Africa.

Africa has more good people than good governments. Leave the many prejudices at home and go and meet your Africa brother and sister!

It is indeed adieu to Africa now, and hello to Europe!

Until next week!