Cast of Characters: The Racist (Rapist?)

I’ve been sitting on this tale for a while, perhaps in a subconscious attempt to forget it. There are some stories that are both comically hilarious and horrifying, the type that can only be told from a distance and with time, the type that need some water under the bridge to clear out the muck. This is one of those.

It was the second to last day of my ride from Cape Town up to Botswana. I’d been at it for eleven weeks and had racked up 3500km in the saddle. I could practically see the finish line as I rode into the tiny South African town that would be my last stop before the border.

It was the “blink and you’ll miss it” type of place that populates the scrub land of the Limpopo province: a gas station, a few houses, a bar. There was one hotel, a place to stay for the game hunters and safari “adventurers” who come to this part of the world looking to shoot something.

Had I known that a friend of a friend knew the owners of the hotel, I could have enjoyed a quiet, peaceful night at the end of the road, but that wouldn't have made a great story, now would it? Instead, I met Dick. In this case, the names have been changed to protect the innocent, namely me in case this psychopath ever comes across the blog of a cyclist he once met on a lonely stretch of road. I needed a place to stay, was willing to camp, and he was more than accommodating. Told me to follow him back to his camp, a hunting resort a bit faded and past its prime.

Turns out looks can be deceiving. Dick owned 16,000 acres of land, scrubby lowveld pushed up against the Limpopo River and the border with Botswana. It was a massive game reserve, cut out of the bush for the enjoyment of wealthy patrons looking to bag one of the big five. I say wealthy, but Dick assured me that he had clients from every walk of life, including the type of blue-collar Americans who have always dreamed of a big game hunt, to follow in the footsteps of Hemingway. A policeman, a firefighter, the type of guy who saves his entire life for one trip, a chance to wake up with the African sun and shoot an elephant in his pajamas.

How it got in his pajamas, I will never know.

As I settled in and found an out of the way spot to sleep, I was greeted by a massive dog, more horse than canine, who bounded over and nearly tackled me in its good-natured stupidity. It was an Irish Wolf Hound, honest to God as big as my mountain bike.

“What’s his name?” I asked, ruffling the dog’s ears and trying my best to stay on my feet.

“Kaffir.” It dropped like a lead weight.

“What?” Dick had just let loose one of the no-no words in South Africa. Kaffir was what the most racist whites used to call blacks in the apartheid era. It’s equivalent, if not worse, to hearing your hillbilly cousin Cletus drop the word nigger. I thought he was joking. He had to be joking. He was just trying to get a rise out of me, right?

“There’s another one around here, a Great Dane named Gorra Ou. See, we called the blacks kaffir, and they called us that.”

Alright, well at least he was an equal opportunity racist, right? Maybe he was just trying to take the sting out of those words, maybe he was opening up a critical dialogue in a small town about the pernicious, lingering effects of racism in rural South Africa.

Or maybe he was just a massive, unapologetic, whack job racist. I have got to stop giving people the benefit of the doubt in these scenarios.

I can say that now. Benefit of hindsight, I guess. At the time, I had no idea what I was dealing with. It was my last night on the bike. My trip was nearing its end, and I was just grateful for a place to camp.

I had dinner in the bar. Dick was drinking. Heavily. As I cut through kudu and pap, he told me a bit about himself. He’d been a hunter all his life. Back in the 80s, he used to travel to Europe quite often, building a rolodex of clients for high-end safaris. He had a diplomatic passport back then, you see.

I thought that strange. Why did a hunter have a diplomatic passport during the most sanctioned years of apartheid? His own countrymen couldn't travel to Europe due to the travel restrictions, but here he was cruising around the continent looking to expand his business.

“I've worked for Kofi Annan. He had a game park in CAR (the Central African Republic). I've run a conservancy for Bill Gates. MUAMMAR QADDAFI SAT RIGHT HERE AT THIS BAR.” He was drunk now. He’d had several gin and tonics while I sat nursing my beer and eating my dinner. He bought me another beer, then another. Chastised me that I couldn't keep up.

“Yes, Colonel Qaddafi. It was a sad day when I learned that that man had died.”

Maybe for you, I thought, but not to the thousands of people who suffered through decades of autocratic rule.

Dick was in with the apartheid government. He had the diplomatic passport, and, I suspect, he had a military background that went far deeper than the average South African man of his generation.

Every man of a certain age in South Africa has a military background, and one of the most interesting conversations you can have with anyone forty or older is to ask them about their military service. Under the apartheid government, South Africa had one of the most elite military fighting forces in the world. A universal draft forced every adult male into one of the world’s most severe training regimens. The sanctions imposed by Western governments forced the South Africans to develop their own home-grown military industries. The government pursued a strategy of near-total war in the region, supporting guerrillas in Angola and Mozambique, keeping a firm grip on Namibia as a buffer against hostile black governments in the region, hunting down ANC activists operating as far afield as Zambia. I later heard that Dick was a sniper. It wouldn't surprise me if, with his professional experience, he hadn't spent time hunting people instead of animals.

Over the course of several hours, while Dick continued to drink and continued to berate me for not keeping up by drinking myself into unconsciousness, I heard the most vile, disgusting trash ever to come out of one man’s mouth.

"With all your traveling, you haven't forgotten your heritage have you?" He said it with a sneer that I knew would get me in trouble.

"Umm...I'm not sure what you mean by that."

"Have you ever dated a black woman?"

"I have."

His disgust was more than evident.

I heard how the blacks had ruined everything. How the niggers and the kaffirs fucked everything up. How they were lazy, and stupid, and violent. He had examples. to support his case from nearly every country on the continent, and unfortunately, there was no way for me to get out of this one-sided conversation.

Then my parents called.

“Thank you, thank you, thank you. You will never believe where I am. This guy is crazy. He’s fucking crazy. Like wow. Like I can’t even describe the crazy that’s coming out of his mouth. He’s racist. He’s vile. I don’t want to talk too loud, because I’m afraid that if he hears me, I might not make it out of here alive. I’ll tell you more tomorrow.”

I was gone an hour. When I came back, Dick was nowhere to be seen. I could relax. I tried to speak to his ex-wife, who hung around and helped him with the business. They had a daughter, but their marriage hadn't worked out. They were “differences” between him and her.

Dick called me. He had made me take his number earlier and beep his phone. He knew people all over the continent, and could be a great help if I ever needed it. Still, I hesitated to answer.

“Finish your beer and come to my room.”

What?

“Finish your beer and come to my room.” It was all he said before hanging up.

Well there’s no way I’m doing that. I texted my friend Jade, who has quite a bit of personal experience with vehemently racist South Africans: “If you are genuinely concerned, either don’t sleep, or wake up before dawn and get the fuck out. Make sure he drinks heavily or is tired enough to pass out bigtime. The dog, too. Whatever you do, don’t disagree. Just humour him. You don’t necessarily havet o agree but they feel threatened when you come across as a ‘kaffir lover.’ Or even sympathiser. Make sure your shit is packed and ready to pick up and fuck off. Otherwise, just swallow the nausea, smile, and be a dumb American tourist.”

I sat milking the beer for all that it was worth. Ten minutes went by. My phone rang again.

“Finish your beer and come to my room.” He was more insistent this time. “It’s in the main house. The bartender sleeps outside my room, just pass him by and knock on my door. But come now.”

There are times in your life when red flags are flying high and bright, when alarm bells are going off in your head, when you can’t see for the flashing of warning lights. And yet…you ignore it. You explain it away as temporary insanity, you're being unreasonable. He can’t be that bad, right? This is all in my head. I’m being paranoid.

In times like this, listen to that paranoia.

I finished my beer. The main house had a green light above the door. This was not my Gatsby moment. There was nothing beyond that door that represented anything for me. It was not my "orgiastic future receding year by year before [me]."

I entered the house. The bed outside Dick’s room was empty. The bartender wasn't there. He wasn't asleep. I had no one to witness the full-on crazy about to hit the fan.

I knocked on the door. “Come in,” Dick called. I turned the handle, the door swung open, and there was Dick, naked as his name day. “Ohp, sorry, I was just in the toilet,” he giggled, as he tip-toed like a cartoon character to the bed and covered himself with a sheet.

This is the most uncomfortable I have ever been in my life.

He lit a cigarette, took a long drag, lying on his back with an arm behind his head.

Correction: THIS is the most uncomfortable I have ever been in my life.

“So tomorrow, I’ll take you out hunting. We have to go find a certain buffalo. Then we’ll go fishing in the afternoon.” He was taking long drags from the cigarette. I was very conscious of the creepy, naked man fully three feet away, covered only by a satin sheet. How much time do you have to spend in a room with a naked man before you can make an excuse to leave? I don’t want to be rude after all.

Wait...why is appearing rude my greatest concern?! I’M UP FOR A BUGGERING, AND APPEARING RUDE IS MY GREATEST CONCERN?!

“You don’t have to sleep outside tonight. There’s a bed here in the house. It’ll be cold out there.”

There is no way in fuck that I am sleeping under this roof. No way in fuck. NO WAY IN FUCK. This whole experience has gone from racist creepy to fucking disturbing in nearly every way possible. “I don’t mind the cold. I like the fresh air.”

“Well, you can suit yourself, but if you get cold in the middle of the night, you’ll have to come sleep inside.”

NO WAY IN FUCK. I excused myself and nearly ran for the safety of an open-walled canvas tent. There was no way I was being caught without an escape route.

I was gone by dawn. The mosquitoes tore me apart that night, but there was no way I was staying even an extra hour longer than I had to. My biggest fear was that he would get in his truck and hunt me down on some lonely dirt road, my screams for help unheard in the wide, open savanna.

It turns out that my fears were justified. Some conservationists, who knew Dick personally, told me that he was a character best avoided. He’d offered on several drunken occasions to sell them his bar for one night with one of their male volunteers. People had been drugged in that bar. One of their friends had died in a car accident after leaving Dick’s place. The sheriff never investigated. Dick owned that town.

That night was my worst experience in South Africa. Everyone always asked me, “Aren't you afraid of the crime? Don’t you know that there are people who would slit your throat for a phone, let alone a shiny bike like yours? Haven’t you had any close calls?” I can honestly say that my last night in South Africa was the closest I’d ever come to being a victim, and it wasn't at the hands of a murderous thug in a crime-ridden township. It was more Deliverance than Do the Right Thing.

There’s still a lot of prejudice and tension in South Africa. People would often open up the topic of race with, “I’m not a racist, but…” Usually, these conversations were based around ignorance or generalizations more than any personal hatred. “You have to realize that there are good blacks and there are bad blacks.” That was a common one that I heard, especially in the old Boer/Afrikaaner heartland.

Everyone’s a little bit racist sometimes, myself included. We all have ingrained prejudice. It’s not necessarily a bad thing. Dick was on another level though. He took racism and distilled it down to its most hateful and vile.

I've met a lot of people on my travels. Most are good. They’re positive and kind. They open up their homes and welcome me as one of their own. In his own way, Dick did absolutely that, but he also represented a darker side of humanity, one that’s full of pain, anger, and hatred.

In a way, Dick is the other side of the coin to Chris, who I've written about in the past. Both men who had to respond when confronted with the reality of apartheid and institutionalized racism. They were offered a chance to accept or reject the reality of their time. Chris rejected apartheid and all that it stood for. Dick accepted it and even became its standard-bearer, with his diplomatic passport and his high-rolling clients. Times changed. Chris enjoys a quiet retirement with his wife and his art. He’s happy, one of the most positive people I've ever met. Dick still has his business, but I can’t say that he’s happy, and he’s definitely one of the angriest people I ever met.

I don’t know if I can draw any firm conclusions from that. Easy come, easy go. You reap what you sow. These trite colloquialisms get us through the day, help us to make sense of life. Maybe they’re true. I’m not sure. I’m just happy that this is a story I can tell as a distant memory, an experience that, for better or worse, I will never forget.

Bulawayo Beats: The Mood on the Streets

It's been about a month without any worthwhile Internet, and in that time, I've completed the last 500km of my cycling trip, kicked it for a couple of weeks in rural Botswana, and have crossed the border into Zimbabwe. 

It's impossible not to have some preconceived notions about Zimbabwe. I guess that's true of most places, but Zimbabwe stands out for its notoriety on the international stage: attacks on white farmers, brutal political violence, hyperinflation, economic collapse, outbreaks of cholera, etc. Perhaps what Zimbabwe is most known for is the old man who has been in power for over three decades and has presided over one of the most staggering declines in human development outside those societies engaged in open conflict: Robert Mugabe. 

The old man is one of the dinosaurs of African politics, and Mugabe has built a reputation as the head of one of the most repressive states on the continent. You only have to research Gukurahundi, or the Third Chimerunga to come to terms with the blood that has been spilled here since independence.

Knowing all this, it was with real trepidation that I decided to cross the border from Francistown and set up shop in Bulawayo, Zimbabwe's second largest city and the main stronghold of opposition to Mugabe's rule.

Hint: It's kind of a fixer-upper.

I've been to some pretty tense places in the world. I've lived in Jos, which has experienced some of Nigeria's worst interethnic violence over the last ten years. I traveled through Côte d'Ivoire on the eve of a renewed civil war. I spent time in Liberia and Sierra Leone, two countries slowly rebuilding after decades of savage violence at the hands of brutal warlords. Hell, I even unwittingly crossed into Guinea-Bissau about an hour before a coup d'etat threatened to bring down the biggest little narco-state in the world.

All my past experiences, however, were born of chaos, and as frightening as it may seem, if you know how to navigate chaos, it becomes relatively predictable. I can't say the same of a police state, where violence is directed and the men with guns seem so much more dangerous. 

I've been in Bulawayo nearly a week now, and I'm not dead yet. This is what I've learned so far.

In all my travels, everyone I've ever heard speak about Zimbabwe invariably says something along the lines of, "The scenery is unbelievably beautiful. The people are the friendliest in Africa. It's a shame what the country has become." That statement is more true than I could have imagined.

This country is stupidly beautiful. It's winter here, though if you were coming from a temperate climate, you wouldn't know it. To me, it feels like an autumn day in England (at least on one of the rare days when it isn't raining). During the day, it's dry, sunny, and warm. At night, the temperatures fall to just above freezing. To me, it's perfect, but Zimbabweans seem to have inherited the English predisposition to complain about anything and everything. I recently overheard someone at a cafe say, "See, this is the problem with the weather during this time of year. If you sit in the sun, you get too hot, but if you sit in the shade, you need a jumper." You've heard of 'first world problems,' this is a decidedly 'privileged Zimbabwean problem.'

The people are also ridiculously friendly. I seem to have learned over the course of many travels (to my detriment) to ignore most people who accost me on the street. "Excuse me, sir, how are you..." often leads to a market stall selling trinkets, a Moroccan rug dealer, or a man who will perform back alley exorcisms (Nigeria can be a very, very strange place).

I've become so used to this kind of street harassment that I often shrug it off and ignore 98% of people I pass by on any given day (a habit that has served me well in New York and London). So when I was stopped in the street by a young guy with dreadlocks, asking me if I'd like to come to a watch his traditional dance group rehearse, I immediately thought, "Right, how much is this going to cost me slash where will you take my harvested organs?"

To my surprise, my organs were not harvested, nor was I made to sit and drink tea while someone tried to foist an old djembe on me. It was a rehearsal for a music and dance troupe who performed traditional Shona, Ndebele, Kalanga, and Tswana dances. They'd traveled all around Africa and even into Europe for competitions, and damn, were they good. They asked nothing of me and were just excited to meet me and have me in their company. I haven't felt so welcome among strangers in a long time.

Other Zimbabweans just seem to really love people. Not since I was in West Africa have I had so many strangers greet me on the streets or from moving vehicles, but whereas in West Africa I always had the fleeting suspicion that my rarity as a white foreigner evoked normally reserved smiles and excited shrieking children, in Zimbabwe, I feel like a well-known neighbor out for a stroll. 

Like any beloved neighbor, the people on the street are quick with a joke and a wink to lead you through the drudgery of the everyday. Crossing through a busy parking area, I found myself trapped behind a car that was attempting to pull out of a parking space and into traffic. Forward a bit, then reverse, a bit to the side, do a quick three pointer, wait, go, stop, back again, stop, wait for it...wait for it...reverse one more time for good measure, drop the clutch, and...damn, stalled. Having to break stride and try to find a way around this idiot, a man in a suit casually remarked, without even looking my way, "Ya, the traffic here is annoying," before continuing on his way without another word. I imagine his quip brought a wry smile to his face, matching the one on my own.

Then there's the other side of the coin. The landscape is beautiful; the people are amazingly friendly. It's just a shame what's become of the country.

Bulawayo is like a city trapped in time. I haven't experienced anything quite like it. The closest memory I can find is that of the Liberian capital, Monrovia. There, as here, walking about gives you the sense that the city planners decided sometime in the mid-1980s that they just weren't going to bother building anything anymore. There are literally no modern buildings, nothing new and exciting, just cheap steel, cheaper concrete, and faded paint. You get this vibe like the cities' civil engineers just up and decided, "Meh...good enough"  and went on to do other things. 

In Monrovia, you could understand this. Other things included 'not dying,' as various rebel groups rampaged through the city. The bullet holes that pockmark nearly every building are a constant reminder of the country's civil war and the two decades of hell meted out by the various warring factions. In Bulawayo, there's no such evidence, nor, unless you study the country's economic history and the city's role in manufacturing for commercial agriculture, any overt reason as to why the city is a throwback to Margaret Thatcher, Live Aid, and early episodes of "MacGyver." 

Sometimes, this kind of 'stuck in time' atmosphere is appealing. The village center in my home town hasn't changed much since the turn of the century, and if you passed through, you might consider it 'quaint.' It's maintained its 'Americana' appeal through a series of family businesses - a pharmacy, a hardware store, a clock shop. Get anymore quaint and you'd expect to find a toffee shop next to a cobbler's. 

No one, on the other hand, sees architecture from the late 70s and thinks, "Oh that's quaint." Certainly not in a country's second-largest city. Instead, you have to sit back and wonder, "What happened? Why has this city died? Why has it suffered like this?"

And who designed those streetlamps?

Stop and think about it for a moment. We're so used to development and construction that it's difficult to imagine any prosperous urban landscape as anything other than what it is at our present moment. Memory is imperfect, and unless you're specially attuned to the creative destruction of the modern city, it's hard to remember that that Starbucks used to be a newspaper agent's, that that boutique used to be a hardware store, or that that ATM used to be a telephone booth that stank of hobo piss. Maybe you can remember specific examples of what used to be, but when an entire neighborhood has changed, it's difficult to piece together the previous landscape of the street.

Not so, Bulawayo. If you could travel back ten years, then twenty, you'd find the same buildings, maybe with a fresher coat of paint. Maybe the clock on city hall would still be working, instead of being stuck at 4:35 on one side and 11:22 on the other. Other than that, your only clues would be the current fashions and cell phones.

Doesn't matter. Africa time.

The city is haunted by a former prosperity and seems to manifest the old cliche 'down on its heels.' Sidewalks are cracked; the roads are filled with potholes. The streetlights are mostly broken, their faded blue paint wracked with rust and decay. You see a strange mix of cars that speak to the disparity of wealth in the country: a brand new Mercedes Benz next to a well cared for but worn Nissan Sunny, Toyota Landcruisers standing alongside ancient Mazdas, all of them parked behind meters that haven't worked for decades.

Probably for good reason..

The large park in the center of town has the feel of an abandoned Soviet-era amusement park. Weeds choke out any flowers that might have been, termites swarm over grass and tree, the playgrounds and monuments are littered with styrofoam takeaway containers, cans, and broken bottles.

Brought to you by Stalin's ghost...

the lovely people at Chernobyl...

and depressing monuments worldwide.

For me, Bulawayo may be synonymous with 'neglect' or 'decay,' and I have to wonder whether this city is indicative of what's happened in the rest of the country. I've heard that there haven't been any new roads built since independence, that sanitation, water, and electricity have all suffered from years of austerity, not the kind we speak of in the west, where politicians tell us we have to tighten our belts, but the kind of austerity that comes instead from literally having no money left in the bank. Recently, Zimbabwe's finance minister admitted that the entire country had $217 left in the treasury. That's less money to run a country than I pulled out of an ATM last week. I recently met an education official who confided that the Ministry of Education had $20,000 to spend for the entire month of May. That's supposed to cover books, teachers' salaries, infrastructure improvements, etc. It invariably doesn't.

It'd be easy to get down on Zimbabwe in general and Bulawayo in particular, but that's not my intent. I've loved the last few days I've spent here, in part because of the beautiful weather and the beautiful character of the people. 

There's another reason as well though, one that leaves me optimistic for the future. Everywhere I've gone in Bulawayo, I've seen people on bikes. You look alongside major roads, and there are cycle lanes running in every direction. Indeed, there are cycle lanes everywhere. They're ancient, for sure. Most of the signs are rusted and worn, but the paths are in great shape and can take you wherever you want to go. It's incredible to see so many people cycling, more than I'd see in most major American and even some European cities. Certainly more than I've seen anywhere else in Africa. At a time when Americans are introducing bike shares to cities like Chicago, DC, and New York, arguing over cycle lanes, traffic restrictions, helmets, and whether or not cyclists should be treated as pedestrians, vehicles, or some kind of hybrid motopeople, the people of Bulawayo are just cycling along to work and school without any thought as to whether they're being progressive, health conscious, or environmental. For them, it's just the best way to get around. 

And look like the f***ing boss while doing it.

And I know that many are on bikes because they can't afford cars, that if the city hadn't suffered through thirty years of mismanagement and neglect that the streets might be crammed with all manner of vehicles spitting out smog and carcinogens, but here's the thing: modern life is cyclical. We pick up new habits to save time or better our health, and then put them down again when we realize that, actually, the old ways were better. Our cities sprawl and we leave public transport for personal vehicles before we get tired of sitting in traffic for three hours and we start to wonder if maybe it'd be nicer to live closer to work in a revitalized downtown. We ditch butter for margarine before we realize that margarine tastes terrible and only kills you quicker. We eat more meat because we can afford it and it's cheaper before realizing that the meat industry is actually terrible and all that beef is clogging our arteries. We move to office jobs from the blue collar world of physical exhaustion at the end of the day only to realize that we need now to get some kind of exercise or risk turning into a soft, pasty pile of dough. Sometimes you just need to hit bottom before creative destruction kicks in and you can build yourself up again.

In that regard, Bulawayo may be well positioned to rise into a progressive, modern city. Don't make any mistake: Bulawayo will rebound. It's decline came about in part because of violence and instability, because of disastrous fiscal policies and hyperinflation, but like the rest of the country, it is well positioned for a renaissance. The only question is whether the economic and political climate will bless the city with rain after such a prolonged drought (metaphorically speaking). 

We can rebuild it...we have the technology.

I think it will come about. For some reason, the bike lanes give me hope. In this beautiful land, with brilliant, friendly people, you have to believe that the better angels of our nature can overcome the demons in office. I'm optimistic that can happen, and I'm looking forward to the day it does.

Stage Two: Headed North

I've been out of Internet range for a while now, but as of this writing, I've ridden over 1300 kilometers in just under one month. That's about 47 kilometers per day, though that average could be higher if it weren't for some extra days of rest with various hosts from Couch Surfing and Warm Showers.

Here's what I've got so far...


View Larger Map

So that's the first third of my journey out of the way. It's taken much longer than I'd initially planned, and my intentions of making it through Lesotho before the snows came have come to naught. The best laid plans of mice and men...I guess.

To be fair, the snows have come to the mountain kingdom much earlier than normal, but I never would have made it regardless. Cape Town to Port Elizabeth marked the first third of the journey, and I naively thought I'd be able to make it in two weeks. Two weeks, however, have quickly stretched into four, and a trip initially planned for six weeks is ballooning into a three month saga. 

Like a weapons program unsupervised, this project is sucking away time and money, but I've gone too far to quit now.

So from Port Elizabeth, I turn north. This is the truly masochistic section of my ride and one that I am both looking forward to and dreading with my entire being. From the coast, I will climb to over 3000 meters above sea level, winding my way up through the Winterberge and Stormberg ranges, mere foothills to the towering heights of the Drakensberg Mountains, the teeth of the dragon that separate me from the highveld and the final third of my journey. 

It is, quite literally, all uphill from here.

And I'm still not quite sure what has prompted all of this. Others have asked me, "Why not cycle along the coast and up through Mozambique?" I've heard the coast is beautiful, with sandy beaches warmed by the Benguela Current drawn from the Indian Ocean's equatorial waters.

But even with the difficulty of several thousand more kilometers, that trip would just be too easy, and thus, it's not for me. Even at the age of 28, there's still something to prove. Not to anyone else particularly, as I'm not sure who I'd be trying to impress. 

Instead, it's me. It's all for me. There's some critic hidden inside of me that's demanded more and more and isn't too impressed by any of my former travels and experiences. 

"An iron ore train through the Mauritanian desert?" he says' "Call me when you've spent 80 days with the salt caravans crossing the Sahara. Border posts in Cote d'Ivoire's Wild West? Yawn. I hear Kashmir is where the fun really is." 

Because these stories and experiences have been lived by me, they fail to impress, and I often overlook how adventurous they actually are. Instead, I devour stories of others' adventures, their experiences, the crazy things they've done, and I want more. I want to bike up and over the mountains. I want to struggle in the thin mountain air and fight it out in the Pass of the Jackals. It's only in the challenges and the suffering that I feel truly alive, and I don't know why that is or if it will ever go away.

I meet South Africans who hear my story and their first reaction is typically, "What possessed you? That takes some courage and strength." But it doesn't. It just takes getting on the bike. Some construe that as humility, but every day that I'm riding is just another day in the saddle. Clipping off seventy-five, eighty, ninety kilometers is something that is steadily becoming more and more routine, as innate as breathing, and just something that powers me through some of the most stunning scenery I've ever encountered.

And I'm beginning to wonder if I'll appreciate this climb after the fact. When I finally hit the Monontsa Pass and descend out of the mountain kingdom, will I truly think, "That was an accomplishment," or will I turn back to the mountain, shrug it off and think, "I wonder where the next challenge lies?"

I've never been an adrenaline junkie, but I'm starting to understand the mentality that goes into finding that next peak higher, that next gear faster, that depth unplumbed. I don't know if it ever ends, or if once you get a taste of adventure, you're left searching for the next great thing.

I'm not sure, but for now, all roads point north.

Time to climb.

Passes? We Don't Need No Stinking Passes!

I hate to start it with a quote, but when it's Hemingway, you get a little lee-way. Hemingway once said, about cycling,

"It is by riding a bicycle that you learn the contours of a country best, since you have to sweat up the hills and coast down them. Thus you remember them as they actually are, while in a motor car only a high hill impresses you, and you have no such accurate remembrance of the country you have driven through as you gain by riding a bicycle."

He wasn't half wrong, and in the past few days, I've learned this lesson through some very intense experiences with this stunning landscape.

In the previous five days of cycling, I have gone up and then down, or down and then up two mountain and ten river passes. Eleven if you count the Gouritsrivier, which we really should, because it looks like this:

See those cliffs? Fuck those cliffs.

So what have I learned from these beautiful, but beastly, roads?

Well, for one, the two are not created equal. Even if they're the same length and climb and descend the same distance, river passes are far preferable to mountain passes. I was due to stay with a host from Warm Showers who, I discovered after about ten kilometers, lived just off of "Seven Passes Road."

Dear Lord, I'd just spent the last three days battling with Tradouw, Cloete's, and du Plessis Passes on the back road from Barrydale to Herbertsdale. This would kill me.

Not at all, it turns out. It was actually one of the best days of riding I'd had yet. Unlike the mountain passes in the semi-desert of the Klein Karoo, the seven passes of the namesake road (actually eight: Black River, Kaaimansgat, Silver River, Touw River, Hoogekraal, Karatara, Homtini, and Phantom Pass) all dove down into valleys or gorges, completely shaded, cool, and wet. Moreover, they were amazing! Bombing down winding roads at 40 km/hr is just a ton of fun, and when you're doing about 100km per day, a mental boost, having fun on the bike, is one of the best ways to power you through a ride.

Mountain passes, on the other hand, give little indication of the terror that awaits. You hit the base of the pass, check the sign (Tradouw Pass - 14km), and start to climb. And climb. And CLIMB. AND HOLY FUCKING HELL WHEN WILL THIS EVER END?!

Okay, it looks like I'm almost, OH WHERE THE FUCK DID THAT COME FROM?!

Mountains hide mountains that hide even greater mountains. Worse, what seems like the end of the climb is often just a level stage that gives you just enough breathing room to curse your ancestors and all the stupidity that ever took you on this trip before HITTING YOU WITH ANOTHER MOUNTAIN.

When you've finally overcome the pass, and you're on your way down, you're too exhausted to really enjoy it. You've sweated it out, often under the full blaze of a noonday sun (I seem to be hitting mountain passes right in the middle of the day), and now you have this amazing view...and all you want to do is roll into the ditch and die.

But you can't, because you're clipped into the pedals, and you've still barely learned to unclip in high traffic areas. So even if you died, your body would just carry on down the hill, strapped to the bike, flopping about like some wacky, Weekend at Bernie's set piece.

Where was I? Ah yes, passes.

The longer I'm on the bike, the more existential the ride seems to get. Hit a river pass, and everything is golden on the way down. Even when you hit the climb, the energy you've built up and the fun you've had make the challenge a lot more manageable. The difficulties faced as a result of a hard uphill climb, on the other hand, can strip you of your ability to truly enjoy the great things in life (like getting a wicked downhill ride).

So you have to attack the hills. Seriously, it's the only way to get through it. Attack the most challenging parts that life (or landscape) throws your way, then pause to enjoy it once you've overcome it. Don't forget to stop and take a look from the top, but then carry on. You have many more miles to go.