A version of this story was first published in Ride Magazine
When I noticed the rear-wheel
puncture I knew what was going to happen next.
“Oh no, not here.” I muttered to myself as I anticipated the curious
gallery likely to gather to watch my repairs.
I’d pulled off the tar to buy water at a collection of shack-shops. It was bustling with young men. This was in fact a one-stop shopping centre
for motor supplies. Instead of water I
found motor oil, brake pads and assorted other things useful to 2-stroke motorcycle
owners, but not to a cyclist with dwindling water supplies.
I noticed the puncture as I was
wheeling my bike through the soft sand back to the tar. Already the shoppers had stopped to stare at
the sight of me and my fully laden bike.
I pushed the bike up to a ramshackle fence lay it down in the sand and
unpacked it. Although mechanically
inept I can handle a tube change, but the audience was growing and with it my
performance anxiety.
My tyre-levers produced a
disquieting murmur of disapproval. I
glanced up furtively at the frowning experts of many thorny bike-problems. Once the tyre was loose enough from the rim I
slid my fingers under the edge to loosen the rest. A murmur of approval rippled through what was
now a crowd of at least sixty men. I
found the offending thorn and pointed at it with an emphasised “aha!” Three of the spectators leaned in close and
nodded grimly. Tube in place, I produced
my pump from my water-pack with a theatrical “ta-da!”, now warming to my
audience. But this was no laughing
matter, their frowns frozen on their faces.
Even the theatrical bows with which I ended the show elicited
stony-faced silence.
I was several days into a 1500
kilometre tour from Cuito Cuanavale in south-eastern Angola, to Tsumeb in Namibia.
Last time I’d been in Angola was during
the war in 1987 when as a 20 year-old conscript I spent three months in the
often thick forests between Mavinga and Cuito Cuanavale.
During my trip I rode through the
tall trees of the beautiful forest that covers much of the south-eastern corner
of Angola. I also crossed many of the rivers that journey with impunity across national
borders. Several hundred kilometres into
Angola I crossed the wide Kuvango River which starts life in the highlands of
Angola and ends in the vast swamps of the Okavango Delta. I crossed the Kunene at the vibrant, if a
little scruffy city of Matala, and remembered that as a conscript, twenty-five
years earlier, I had swum in the same river at the Hippo Pools near Ruacana
Falls. These and other rivers provide
vital water for people to drink, bathe and wash clothes in. In many places on one side of a bridge I’d
see women washing themselves and their children, with clothes and bed-linen
draped over bushes. On the other side
men would be washing themselves, their motorbikes and their cars. At the Cuito River I took my bike, white with
dust, from the back of the Land Rover and gave it a full immersion baptism
before washing myself in the clear, cold water.
I knew that I’d be camping wild on
many nights so I carried a tent, sleeping bag, stove etc. I also carried about six days’ worth of food
and up to seven litres of water. In
bigger towns I sought accommodation to wash my dirty clothes – I only took one
change – and to clean myself. In hindsight I could have managed without the
tent and made-do with a groundsheet.
I returned to see Angola in
peacetime, to enjoy the beauty of the bush and meet the people who live the
country that is in its tenth year of peace following thirty years of civil
war.
I thought about the ways I could
travel and settled on cycling because I wanted to have the closest possible
contact with the people and the landscape.
It worked. I exchanged greetings
with just about everyone along the road.
Motorcycles would give me a friendly toot, people sitting outside the
ubiquitous tavernas, would shout
greetings or laugh in surprise. Often I
would stop for a chat. I don’t speak
Portuguese so this usually took the form of me listing as many of the towns as I
could remember between Cuito Cuanavale and wherever I found myself. The average response consisted of eyebrows
shooting upwards at great speed followed by the Portuguese equivalent of “All
the way from Cuito?” “Yes”, “On a bicycle?” “Yes”. Then there could be hoots of surprised
laughter. I couldn’t tell whether I was
being judged to be strong and courageous, or insane. Probably the latter.
My longest day came after I decided
to push all the way to Lubango in what turned out to be a 126km ride. I knew the regional capital of Huila Province
was up against the mountain but I hadn’t reckoned on the number of hills I’d
have to climb at the end of a long day.
Then, looking forward to a hot shower and a cold beer, I was told that
the place I’d chosen to stay was halfway up the mountain. It was like arriving in Cape Town after nine
hours cycling to be told you needed to climb Kloof Street to get to your
guesthouse.
The infrastructure, though
improving rapidly, is still ravaged by the war.
Guesthouses are not always to be found, and when they are, they’re often
full. In a R300 a night pensão
my “shower” consisted of squatting over a bowl of cold water with only a candle
for warmth and light.
The roads were surprisingly
good. Road-builders are laying tar at an
incredible rate. I enjoyed hundreds of
kilometres of good tar, and a fair bit of old colonial tar, which was potholed,
or shell-holed. Where in a car one would
have to slow to a crawl to negotiate the damage, on my two narrow wheels I was usually
able to find enough unbroken tar to cruise comfortably without breaking my
rhythm.
Once or twice I found myself riding
on a section of gravel that had been compacted in preparation for tarring. I ignored the no-entry sign and flew along
the smooth surface while cars and trucks battled the loose gravel and sand on
the parallel detour. Later in the ride
I’d have no option but to ride a similarly poor section of sandy road and spend
a good deal of time picking up myself and the bike after falling. Then the road-building ended and I was on an
old rutted gravel road. The trees came
to the road’s edge creating a beautiful avenue which tunnelled off into the
green-fringed distance. The ever-present
mine-fields were closer so I perched on the road-edge when I took a
snack-break.
When it got rough it was very
rough. And as it got roughest, so my
good fortune deserted me. On the worst
piece of road, all loose gravel and sand, I started a bad bout of traveller’s
guts. I stopped regularly to rest. I had to cover over fifty kilometres. Nothing compared to the hundred kilometre
daily average I was managing, but this was a difficult of section, I was
dehydrated and, at one point, heaved my much needed lunch into the sand. I was miserable, sick and felt very
alone. I was in the middle of nowhere
and needed to keep going.
I made it to Kuvango, on the river
that eventually drains into the Okavango swamps, and holed up in a friendly but
thread-bare pensao. No flushing loo and
a limited supply of water which arrived in a bowl every morning only
accentuated my discomfort. I spent three days recovering.
My bike, although a source of amusement
amongst more image-conscious friends back home, was viewed as a piece of
high-tech by many of the Angolans I met. Near Xangongo one very cool dude on a shiny
Chinese two-stroke even offered to buy it.
“Then how do I get home?” I asked with an exaggerated shrug. “No
problem, no problem.” He said, without explaining how the problem be
solved.
My scraped old mountain-bike has
lugs to attach a carrier and the v-brakes, even I can maintain. I imported the Brookes saddle and touring
carrier for double the R1300 I paid for the bike. For touring I figure that high-tech is a
liability considering that the nearest bike shop capable of fixing, say,
disc-brakes, was probably in Windhoek, about 2000kms from my starting point.
I crossed into Namibia at Oshikango,
relieved that I could have long conversations in English and have long, hot
showers. I felt satisfaction at having
crossed a chunk of Angola on two wheels relying only on leg-power and having
said hello to just about everyone along the road. I only had to cover the remaining three
hundred kilometres to Tsumeb to complete what had been a rich and rewarding
ride on my aging Silverback mountain-bike.
