Cast of Characters: The Kid

It's the people you meet along the way that really make the journey, whether they invite you into their homes or whether you just meet for moments at a time between points A and B. I'll try to write up a few as I can. Here's the first of what I'm sure will be a series:

The Kid:

I rolled into Swellendam about ten in the morning. Time for second breakfast, something that's become pretty common on a trip where I'm burning in the realm of 6000 calories per day.


"Where are you headed?" - a tow-headed boy who could have been mistaken for Opie Taylor, sat on top of a red mountain bike.

Botswana.

"Whoa, that's far."

Yep.

"You got tubeless tires? That's important because there's lots of thorns here in South Africa. You should get some of these fingerless gloves though. I don't know about America, but here in South Africa, your hands will sweat real bad."

Cheers for the advice, kid. What's your name?

"Carl."


Now, I just have to say, I love the discrepancy of kids named Carl. It's the juxtaposition of a youth with an old fashioned name, like meeting a 78 year old Billy. Not Bill, Will, or William. Billy. It says something about an older guy's personality when he's committed to a nickname he really probably should have dropped in high school. But unlike a retired Billy, Carl didn't choose his name. He's just Carl.

And he's thirteen.


That's a good age. (I lied. Thirteen is a terrible age. Acne, growth spurts, awkward boners, there is nothing good about thirteen, but what else was I going to say?)

"Ya, it's okay. I go to school, way back that other way, on the other end of town."

By this time, we were moving, cycling slowly through the small town, as Carl gave me his personal guided tour.

"Are you Catholic? No? But Christian? That's the church there. It's really old. And over there is where my friends and I meet when we want to go swimming. Up at the old dam there's really good swimming, and we go after school sometimes. You want to go up to Barrydale? Well there's a hard pass and an easy pass."

Which is the easy pass?

"I don't know. But you should make sure to watch out for baboons. There are leopards too in the mountains but you really have to be careful with the baboons, especially if you're carrying food. I found that out the hard way. There's the road for the old dam, if you wanted to go swimming."

Found it out the HARD way? I had to know more, but the more Carl spoke, the more mesmerised I became. I thought I'd been transported to Andy Griffith's Mayberry, except it was real and everyone had a South African accent. I half expected Aunt Bea to walk by at any minute.

Is anyone getting any of these references, or did I watch WAY too much Nick at Nite as a kid? The point is, that the simplicity that exists in the Andy Griffith Show or maybe Leave it to Beaver still exists in the small town life in the Cape. It's bizarre, a world that you think can't possibly exist, and yet here it is, personified in a thirteen year old boy. You end up thinking, "This is too much. It's too idyllic. There have to be bodies buried here somewhere."

As we approached the edge of town, Carl stopped, turned his bike, and called out, "Okay, I'm going back now. Good bye."

Is that the N2 up there?

"I don't know."

Weren't you supposed to be showing me how to get back to the N2?

"I'm pretty sure that's it if you keep going up that way. See ya!"

See you around Carl.

I didn't want to look back, for fear that all of that was a dream. That the town didn't exist, and that Carl was nothing but a figment of my imagination. I mean, who names their kid Carl? He had to have been a piece of a dream.

Or maybe not. Maybe Carl is making a comeback in the name game. I can only hope that's the case. It'll give me a good excuse to start thinking up insane names for future children. Maybe something like Chester or Mabel. Martha or Calvin. Or maybe just Carl.

Carl - who rode his bike up and down the one street in Swellendam.

Carl - who went swimming down near the old dam.

Carl, who found out the hard way not to play with baboons.

What an odd kid.

Hills, Wind, and Rain

I've remained a few extra days in Cape Agulhas, waiting for a rain that I'd been watching with trepidation roll in from Cape Town. It's forced me inside and away from the road for the last several days.

I don't mind the rain, but when it's bucketing down, with no shelter along long stretches of road, it's not exactly ideal. Moreover, the rain brings with it 30 to 40 km/hr winds, and after surviving two days of these winds to finally crawl into Hermanus, I'm extra cautious. I respect the winds. Nay, I fear them.

I fear the mountains as well. They've come much sooner than I thought they would. I thought I might be able to build my strength before I hit Lesotho, 'the mountain kingdom.' Instead, they hit me hard on my third day of riding. Ten uphill kilometers, just climbing and climbing without cease, would destroy the spirits of any novice on a bike, and if nothing else, I am a novice to this type of riding. 

Give me London traffic, splitting lanes up Piccadilly, jumping a red light, cutting across stalled intersections, avoiding taxis (always the taxis), that's it, that's me. That's my element. That's where I cut my teeth as a cyclist (if you don't count the block off Wayne Street in Flora, Indiana, a scene that gets two or three cars an hour MAX on a busy summer day). 

But this cycling, long distances on dusty gravel roads, I just haven't done it before. It's amazing: the ride, the scenery, the pace of a heartbeat and the whir of wheels crunching stone. But it's a workout. I think my first leg, down to Cape Agulhas, 'the souhernmost point of Africa,' has been harder than anything I could've imagined. It's almost as if I set myself up to fail - especially as I've ridden into a southeasterly wind blowing constant and true at 20 knots as the miles slowly crawl by. But I've pushed through. It's north from here, a race against winter and the rains that accompany the season. 

I've got many  miles to go, and I'm still learning to take care of myself and the bike. The thing is, when it's good, it's so good. Once I'd crested the downs in the Overberg, I was flying through the backroads, through small towns with thatched fishing cottages, through fields of fynbos in Agulhas National Park, part of the UNESCO Cape Floral Region, through pastures dotted with sheep and ostrich. 

But when it's hard, it's the hardest thing I've done in a long time. Before I could get to the cottages, the fynbos, and the pasturelands, I had to muscle through ten kilometers of uphill cycling in the heat of a noonday African sun. 

That was bad, and when it's bad, it's enough to break you.

But when it's good, there's nothing like it.

A Return: Being and the Bike

I've been traveling for nearly two and a half months now, through Turkey and on to Cape Town, and I've been unable to write anything for nearly the entire time.

That changes now.

I got this crazy idea into my head to bike from Cape Town down to Cape Agulhas, the southernmost point of Africa, to turn north and east along the coast and through South Africa's Garden Route, up through the Mountain Kingdom of Lesotho, over the Drakensberg Mountains, and across the highveld to Zimbabwe.

I'm not entirely sure how this idea implanted itself in my brain, but it has firmly taken root, sprouted, and begun to branch out. I am now over 150 kilometers into a trip that will see me through over 2000km of Southern Africa. God willing.

I like to tell people I have no idea how I got to this point in my life, but if I really start to look back, I can see several narrative strands coming together, laying the prologue for what is sure to be a new chapter of my life.

I don't know exactly when all of this started. Maybe it was Jaime, between customers at Ronnie's, talking me through his tour through France. It's an arbitrary starting point, but it helps set the scene. Without encouragement, it would have been just the ghost of an idea, so maybe I should look towards James who, when I told him of my plan to travel north from Cape Town in search of work, said, "Oh ya, buy a bike and cycle through Africa." At the time, I thought it was insane. I think I even remember saying, "That is insane."

That should have been it right there. But then I met the four young Brits teaching English in Turkey. They told me a story of a girl cycling the entirety of Turkey, and beyond. They'd hosted her through a site called Warm Showers, which is a bit like couchsurfing for cyclists on tours. It seemed like a great idea, but it surely wouldn't ever apply to me.

Then I met the German cycling home from Israel. It seemed so cool what he was doing, and he didn't seem put out at all by the time or the distance.

I guess it all came together to pique my interest, and that seed that had been planted then germinated into this half-crazed romantic notion. But the more I researched it, the more possible it seemed to become. Maybe that's an illusion. Maybe it is just as crazy as it first appeared. There's only one way to find out, and that's by doing it.

From everything I've read, touring on a cycle, especially for a long period of time, is more an issue of will rather than physical fitness, experience, etc., so for me, this is a test of my willpower, much like Peace Corps was.

Hence, the new narrative chapter in my life. It just feels monumental in so many ways. Maybe it isn't. Maybe it's all just an illusion doomed to fail. There's only one way to know it, and that's to do it.

Just get on the bike.

If it is all about willpower, then yesterday was an important test of that determination; one that I passed, if only barely. I left Gordon's Bay with a headwind of over 40 km/hr against me, pushing me to a near standstill and forcing me to walk the bike up particularly steep hills. I never knew it was possible to have such a wind in your face for probably 90% of a 75k ride.

It's not like I was ever going the same direction, either. The wind just stayed with me, and I have to say, it nearly broke me. It's so frustrating to look down at the speedometer and realize that you could probably run faster than you are currently biking. To top it all off, near the end of the ride, I dropped the bike. I was so exhausted by that point that I wasn't sure I'd be able to pick it up again. The strain on my physical energy had depleted my mental energy, which again acted on any reserves that remained.

But in the end, I made it. Exhausted, nearly broken, I managed to get in to Hermanus, where I am now. I don't know if you'd call it grit, pride, or just bull-headed obstinacy, but I made it. It was an important test, and even if it hurt, I knew I just had to get back on top.

There's a lesson in there somewhere. I'll try to keep it with me for next time.