Lost in Lesotho

This one was never going to be easy to write, but I have to document the journey, failure and all. 

Cycle touring is an endurance sport, and like all endurance sports, success and failure rely less on physical ability and more on mental stamina, toughness, and fortitude, and on some insignificant pass halfway between Katse and Ha Lejone, these failed me.

I gave up. Lesotho beat me. The landscape wore me down, and with my sprit brittle and drawn, I broke. Like a piece of rusted metal.

Perhaps the most painful thing about it all was that I've always prided myself on mental fortitude. I've never been the biggest, certainly never the strongest, and far from the fastest, but I've always been able to keep going, no matter what. 

This wasn't a case of injury either. Instead, it was the cumulative effect of built-up burdens, frustration, and fatigue slowly overwhelming my defences and tearing down my walls. 

I'd snapped a pannier bolt on the back roads from Malealea to Roma. While the tarred roads in Lesotho are in great condition, the secondary roads are packed with stones, ruts, ravines, and grades that are alternatively gruelling and dangerous. I'd snapped a bolt, but I'd replaced it. No worries, right? However, nowhere in Lesotho could I get the steel I needed. I'd replaced high-tensile steel with softer stuff that couldn't hold the weight of my panniers and gear. On the gravel from Thaba-Tseka to Katse, the bolts had bent again, so that by the time I reached the tarred road, I couldn't keep the pannier rack off the back tire on even the slightest of inclines. Not only did it buzz and rumble with any bump, but the constant friction robbed me of power with every stroke of the pedals.

That was bad enough, but I'd also lost a slimed tire, so I was running with tubes on the gravel road. For the uninitiated, that means punctures, and in this case, I had a lot of them. In one day, I had to fix five flats. FIVE. That left me with one patch and not a bike shop within 200 kilometers if I needed any more. Somewhere along the line, in my mounting frustration, I clipped the brake, offsetting it, so that it rubbed and squeaked with every rotation. 

Imagine a high-pitched squeak every second for about seven or eight hours. If you've ever driven a crap car, you know what I'm talking about. That's what I was dealing with on the bike. In addition, the brake rubbed, stealing even more power from my pedals as I fought both hills and my own equipment. 

It wasn't just equipment though. The people were fraying my nerves to no end. In every small town and village, I had children, calling from mountaintops and roadsides, "Sweets! Give me sweets!" They didn't speak any other English, so if I answered at all, they'd just shout again, "Sweets! Give me sweets!!!" The adults weren't any better, though I didn't hear "Give me my money!" as often as I heard children screaming for sweets. 

In all of my travels through West Africa, I heard similar cries, but there's just something so much more jarring about hearing these demands in your own language. Long story short: if you give anything to the children and adults who regularly beg white people for money or food solely because they're white, I will break off your arm and beat you with it.

In the end, I just couldn't take it anymore. Physically, I was fine. I'd conquered the highest of the mountains in the central region of Lesotho. It was all (mostly) downhill from there. But mentally, I was broken, and all it took was one hard pass to push me to the limit. "The next truck that goes by," I'd say, "the next truck that goes by." Then a truck would come rumbling up the tar, and I'd let it pass. 

This happened four, five, six times more. I knew my bike was pretty kaput, that I'd never make it to a bike shop with the state the bike was in, but I just couldn't give up.

Then, in my stubborn madness, I was reminded of an old joke. 

A great flood hits a small town, and as the water is rising, a man's neighbor drives by: "Get in the truck, let's get out of here!" The man declines, saying, "No, no. God will provide salvation." The water continues to rise, and pretty soon, he's stuck on the upper floor of his house. A man in a canoe rows by: "Get in the canoe, let's get out of here!" But again, the man declines, saying, "No, no. God will provide." The water continues to rise, and soon the man is stuck on his roof with the water inching ever higher. The Coast Guard swoops in with a helicopter: "Grab the ladder, we're here to save you!" But the man waves them off, shouting above the roar, "NO, NO! GOD WILL PROVIDE!!!" Shortly thereafter, the waters rush over the top of his house, sweeping the man away and drowning him. At the gates of heaven, he meets God, and he asks, "God, why didn't you save me? Why did you let me drown?" To which God replies, "I sent a truck, a canoe, and a helicopter! How much more salvation did you need?!"

I looked back and saw a cargo truck rumbling up the pass, and I waved it down. The driver stopped. He didn't speak much English, but he was on his way to Maseru, and he could take me to Leribe, where I had a place to stay for the night. He tossed my bike in the back, and we rumbled up and over the pass and through some of the most beautiful scenery I'd seen in Lesotho. 

It felt like a punishment. To see the blue waters around the Katse lake from the top of the pass, to sweep down into a valley brimming with sunshine, to climb again and touch the edge of the world. There was snow in the pass, melting and refreezing in the shadows of the cliffs. The road climbed and climbed and climbed, and suddenly, there was nothing. The road from Ha Lejone to Leribe meets the edge of the Central Mountains, and one sees nothing but sky as it drops off precipitously into the plains below. There are no foothills, no gradual descents. Instead, there's a sign: Dangerous Curves. Engage Lowest Gear. You crest the pass, and the whole world opens out before you: green land folded back on itself hundreds of times, trailing craggy fingers down into russet valleys. It's a sheer drop, probably six to eight hundred meters. The road, pinned to the side of the mountain as it hairpins back and forth down a path blasted out of solid rock, is like a thin ribbon of modernity consumed by the raw power of nature's ancient stone. 

I should have been on my bike. This was my reward for days of climbing, for all the hardship in the mountains, and all that both bike and rider had endured. 

But I was stuck in the cab of a truck, the bike broken, the mind burdened by doubt. 

I eventually fixed the bike enough to get it to Ficksburg, in South Africa, and from there on to Bethlehem, where a professional was able to find me real bolts and to fix the brake and the infuriating squeak in my front wheel. 

For a time, I thought about hitching my way back up to Ha Lejone, to save my pride and deny that Lesotho had truly beaten me, but I recognized it for a fool's errand. It wouldn't erase the failure, nor the feeling of doubt created by a challenge I hadn't met. 

Instead, I've decided to move on, knowing my limits and how to better account for them in the future. I could blame the equipment, the conditions, the fact that I was out of money and wouldn't be able to find much shelter along the route, but in the end, I know that I came up hard against a wall, and I failed to climb it.

It doesn't mean that all future walls will stifle me. I may meet greater challenges down the road and overcome them through sheer grit and determination. For now though, I've found a limit. 

We all fail occasionally, and in the grand scheme of things, this is a minor failure. No one but me will understand nor care overmuch about a bit of mental weakness in the mountains of Lesotho. I don't know if it's humility or braggadocio that I'm able to write this now, that I failed but managed to overcome a failure and move on. 

Some would say there's no shame in getting knocked down if you get back up again. Sometimes I struggle with that, and the fear of failure keeps me from trying my hand. 

In my life, I've undertaken very few challenges that I didn't think I could overcome. That includes this trip, actually. It's pride, it's egoism, it's the pure poisonous confidence of youth that believes it has little left to learn, and as long as one keeps setting winnable goals, one needs never remember defeat. 

Getting knocked on your ass is important, and it was past time I remembered that. 

I only hope that with this failure that failing comes a little easier.  

Cast of Characters: The Mad Cop

"Bicycle! Bicycle, Bicycle, BICYCLE!!!"

He called me over, a huge ox of a man. He'd been buying me beers all night, for no apparent reason other than that we'd spoken briefly the night before. 

"I expected you to be in Bethlehem!" I should have been, except I'd decided to spend an extra couple days in this dusty border town trying to fix the brakes on my bike on my own. I'd succeeded. 

"I'm a good cop, not a bad cop." He kept repeating this, in between occasional shouts of "Sieg Heil!"

I could not make this up if I tried.

He pulled me over, bought me a beer - Carling Black Label, the strongest bottle in the fridge, 5.4% they'd sold it in quarts in Lesotho - he bought a Castle Lite for himself. It appeared as if he'd already had several himself before he got to the bar.

"You tell your friends in America, you met me, the best cop in Free State. Seig Heil!" 

What the hell have I gotten myself into?

He pulled up his sleeve. Tattooed on his meaty forearm was a swastika, black, encircled in blood red. He could wrap his hand around my forearm. It would have taken both hands for me to get around his.

"It's for the gangs. You wouldn't know me four months ago. I had long hair. Long, long hair. My wife is an attorney. I was undercover, in the gangs. Thirty-four years! Ask anybody in Free State, they know me. You come to Ficksburg again, you look for me, or I'll fucking kill you."

What the fuck, how did I get here?

Well 'round here baby, 

I learned you get what you can get

So if you're rough and ready for love,

Honey I'm tougher than the rest.

The song had already played four times consecutively. The big man kept shouting at the bartender to play it again, he'd tip him fifty rand, one hundred. 

Springsteen's "Tougher Than the Rest"

"My best friend, the reason I play this," he shouted, "he was a biker like me. He played this song, and he left on his BMW. He was in a crash. He died." He's shouting like he has to explain this to me, like he's found some kindred soul because I'm on a bike, my brake was buggered and he'd had a similar problem with his motorbike. 

"I've killed 23 men. Shot them." He makes a gesture with his hand, universal for a pistol in any language. "Maybe that's why I'm mad. I'm a good cop. Not a bad cop."

"You're a mad cop."

"I'm a mad cop, not a bad cop. I hate corruption. You come to Ficksburg, you stay at mine next time, or else I'll kill you."

The bartender starts up Springsteen again, the fifth time in a row. Each time, the big man raises his beer, smacks the bar, takes a swig, and remembers his friend. "You know why I like this song? My friend, before he died, he played this song, got on his motorbike, and went off into the night. He played this song, and then he died. I've performed 500 post-mortems. You know post-mortems?"

"Autopsies."

"Autopisies. Him over there, with the beard, I performed the post-mortem on his father. He was killed when he was undercover in the gangs. You know I was 34 years with the gangs. I'm 54 now, but my grandchildren. They could kill my grandchildren. My wife has threats. She's an attorney. They say they'll kill her. I was 34 years undercover. I have eleven tattoos. The gangs. These drug gangs. I've put my friends in prison. Yah. Eight years for cocaine. My friends in these gangs. I was undercover for 34 years. I killed 23 men. Maybe that's why I'm mad."

He buys me another beer. This is all a lark for him, a cheery sadness, a convivial drunken joke remembering the past. "Until four months ago, hair down to here. I was in the gangs. I was undercover. Now I'm not. They could kill my grandchildren."

"I should be a major. Instead of a warrant officer. The new South Africa. I have 34 years undercover. They finish with you. Thirty-four years undercover, but they don't care, so you become an alcoholic! I should be a major, but it doesn't matter. I killed 23 people. Shot them. Maybe that's why I'm a bit mad." 

"BICYCLE!!! AMERICA!!! I'll see you on the road tomorrow!" He had tried to give me a lift to Bethlehem four times already. I needed to ride. "I'll see you on the road tomorrow, America." Someone cackled in the background, pool balls cracked and sank into various pockets. 

Springsteen is playing again. He smashes his hands on the bar, lifts them up, remembering his friend, lost to a song and the night. "I'm not in the gangs anymore. I got out, four months ago. It's dangerous, these gangs. But I'm a good cop, not a bad cop. You tell your friends in America. Tell them about me. Tell them about the best cop in Free State. It's not John Wayne. Tell them you met the best cop in Free State."

"Tell them about me. I'm a good cop, not a bad cop."

"I'm a mad cop. Tell them you met me. Tell them."

Lesotho Breaks, Lesotho Mends

I knew Lesotho would be hard. At 1600 meters, the country’s lowlands are still higher than almost any other place I’ve ever experienced, and at nearly 3000 meters, the mountains of the Central Region around Thaba-Tseka, have tested my lungs, my legs, and my tolerance for the cold. 

Maybe visiting this mountain kingdom in the dead of winter was a poor decision.

I’m not going to deny that this has been the most challenging leg of the journey so far. At 2800 meters, the air is always cold. At night, temperatures plummet, dashing any idea I had of camping my way through the country. Even indoors, without electric heating, the cold gnaws away at my bones, confining me to an early bedtime beneath layers and layers of blankets. It spills its way into everything, and at times I feel as if I shall never be warm again. On the bike, the sun keeps the cold at bay, but too much time dawdling in the shadows of a mountain quickly reminds one that the cold is real and that the ride must be completed before the night falls. Without the heat of an African sun, the wind bites, and the threat of rain or even snow can quickly ruin the prospects of a day’s ride.

I became painfully aware of this on the road to Thaba-Tseka, on a fifty kilometer stretch of gravel known as ‘The Pass of the Jackals.’ The day may have started out warm enough in the valley surrounding the town of Marakabeis, but it soon grew chill, as clouds blanketed the sky and hid even the dimmest rays of sunlight.

Five kilometers uphill, then ten, then fifteen; finally after twenty kilometers, you think it’s impossible to climb anymore, there’s nothing left but sky. You’re up on top the roof of Africa, above 2800 meters, but then you round the mountain, and there, in the distance, you can just make out that white bush taxi, the one that passed you over half an hour ago, a mere speck, climbing still and disappearing into the fog of a cloud. The weather here is dangerous. In these mountains, it can change in an instant, and the warm air that hung over the valley has risen, condensed, and now patters at your helmet, your jacket, your panniers, and the stones that make up a heavily pitted road.

The view is stunning. Somehow, the road manages to chart a course over the very tops of the mountains, at times staring down into immense chasms on either side: wide, fertile valleys reached only by foot or by horse. A herd boys moves with his cattle, goats, and sheep, a solitary figure in gum boots, a blanket wrapped around his shoulders, a woolen balaclava covering everything but his eyes, walking stick in hand, a mangy, but powerful, dog never far away. We see one another across kilometers of open space, both thinking the other is equally crazy: him for standing out in a field with virtually nothing to keep him safe and warm but a blanket from Pep, the South African equivalent of a shitty Wal-Mart, me for cycling through such terrible weather in a search for, what, a sense of adventure? A mark of pride that only I can carry with me, that only I may truly know?

I’ve had several people ask me what prompted this journey, and, especially here, they wonder, “Why Lesotho? Why Lesotho in winter?” The only answer I can come up with is pure, unadulterated masochism. It is a personal journey, one that I knew would challenge me, and one that I wanted to experience, to test myself and take a measure of my own character.

I anticipated a physical challenge, especially from the mountains. I’m from Indiana, a part of the United States that, when asked for a description, I will openly reply, “It’s about as flat as the table we’re sitting at.” I never even had stairs in my house, and when I ran cross country in high school, the only incline training we could get consisted of a set of bleachers overlooking the football field.

Here, in Lesotho, the altitude alone is enough to make you question the sanity of such an expedition, one undertaken with virtually no training other than zipping through London traffic on my way to work or school. Here, in Lesotho, your lungs simply never feel like they can get enough oxygen. Climbing these mountains, your body aches for a full breath of air, and every gasp feels like you’re drowning, clawing for an invisible lifeline you’ve always taken for granted.

Such is the environment I’ve entered into, but these are challenges that get easier with time. I’ve reached the highest mountains in Lesotho, and I’ve felt myself growing stronger with every passing day.

What I couldn’t have anticipated were the mental challenges that would await me, as the rugged landscape has tested, to the breaking point, both bike and rider. An early attempt to leave the pavement and take to the gravel roads from Mohale’s Hoek to Malealea proved more difficult than I could have imagined. In Lesotho, there is only one tarred road. Everything else is paved with, well…nothing. Cow shit, maybe, and rocks. The heavy summer rains carve ruts into the road that lead off the sides of mountains. Stones jut from all angles, some lodged in the earth, some free to slip and fly, forcing the rider to chart a haphazard course or risk damage to gears, spokes, wheels, and brakes.

I fear that the road has not at all been kind to the bike, and after a day and a half of riding on these back roads, forced to push the bike up hills too rocky and rugged to stay in the saddle, a bolt that held my pannier rack sheared off at the base, the result of a particularly brutal downhill jolt and a particularly large rock thrown up by the front wheel. A hitch and a trip to the hardware store fixed that problem, but only a few days later, I realized that the valve stem on my front tire had snapped, ruining the tube and leaving me with no backups until I reach South Africa. I’ve had to ride gingerly, regardless, as the pannier rack, bent from the incident with the broken bolt, touches the back wheel at even the slightest bump, and the risk of another broken bolt has been almost too much to bear. This frustration only compounds the mental exhaustion of long days in the saddle, and added to the physical toll of bad roads, high altitude, and inclement weather, these last few days of riding have been unbelievably difficult on both mind and body.

What Lesotho has broken, however, Lesotho will mend. The bike and I are currently taking some time apart. I’ve been fortunate enough to hook up with a Peace Corps Volunteer who teaches at a trade school, and her fellow teachers have been so good as to give the bike the care it needs. I, meanwhile, am taking the week off to experience Basotho culture in the remote highlands of the Central Range.

Some time apart has already done us some good, as, like a lover after a particularly petty argument, I realize that I miss the company my bike. I miss the freedom of the road and the thrill of feeling as if you’re on top of the world. We’ve come through some pretty tough challenges already and seen some pretty amazing things together, and I want to keep on going. Lesotho can bend, but it can’t break, and it may turn out that the country acts as a crucible, forging a stronger bond between us. Maybe it sounds silly to speak of an inanimate object in such a way, but I’ve found the longer that I’m on the bike, the more it becomes an extension of myself, just as a backpack, a water bottle, or a warm jacket becomes indispensable, and thus, invaluable on a long trip. Every item I carry with me carries with it the scars of experience, and thus become symbolic of everything I've overcome. The road may be hard, but it rewards those who suffer its challenges.

Cast of Characters: The Artist

Truth be told, this one could probably have been titled any of the following: The Artist, The Soldier, The Rebel, The Radical. Chris was one of those guys you meet that seems to have done it all and maintained a great sense of humor throughout an adventurous life. 

I met Chris and his wife Adelaide in Stanford, just outside of Hermanus, on my third day of riding. I pulled up to the farm stall for second breakfast, something that's become integral on days where I'm hitting upwards of 100 kilometers in the saddle. Before I'd even taken off my gloves, let alone dismounted, I was approached by an older couple, sweet as molasses, as they were leaving the shop. Where was I going? Where was I from? Such an adventure! Best of luck to you!

The conversation lasted less than five minutes, but within that time, I had an invite to stop and stay the night in Groot Braak River, halfway between Mossel Bay and George. They'd make sure I had a solid breakfast if I came through. It was about 400km away, but it was on my route, and they'd love to have me. 

I was floored. I had their address and their phone number and I hadn't even left the saddle. Who were these people? Why would they invite a complete stranger to stay with them after a two minute conversation? Were they planning to harvest my organs?

I arrived in Groot Braak about two weeks later, but the vagaries of the road being what they are, I did not have a chance to stop and spend the night with Chris and Adelaide. I did, however, pull Chris away from his work for an hour or two for brunch at one of his local haunts, a place so local that the only menus were printed entirely in Afrikaans.

Chris runs an art gallery, or, rather, Chris is an artist who sells his work through his gallery. But he isn't the typical artist that one is likely to find among the various hippy communities dotting South Africa's Garden Route. You know the type, the ones who sell various trinkets that only serve to clutter up your living room when you get home and realize that you wasted a few bucks on crap that you don't really want and never would have bought if you weren't on vacation. 

Instead, Chris paints beautiful works like these:

 

Chris's background in art stretches back to his youth, when he was one of the most daring up-and-coming artists in South Africa. At the age of 27, Chris's work was on display in 24 countries across world, including the US and Europe. 

At the height of his critical acclaim, Chris was approached by the Broederbond, Afrikaans for "The Brotherhood," a collection of the most powerful men in South Africa. These cultural, political, and economic elite were the architects of Apartheid, and they ruled almost every facet of South African life. 

They made Chris an offer typically unheard of for someone of his age, to join the Broederbond and gain access to South Africa's inner circle, the power brokers, the movers and the shakers, the godfathers. It was an offer he couldn't refuse.

But refuse it he did, and within months, his artistic career was over. He was blacklisted in South Africa, and the government made sure that his work couldn't reach the outside world. Chris told me, "Their attitude was one of, 'If you aren't with us, you're against us.' And that was it. I was out, and there wasn't anything I could do about it."

Like nearly every other South African man of his generation, Chris had been forced into military service, becoming a part of the behemoth that made up what was at the time the world's fourth best army. Many forget, or perhaps never fully realize, that South Africa, under apartheid, came as close as any government ever has to fully realizing an Orwellian vision of control and coercion. The army was one of the central pillars of the old South Africa, and every white man of a certain age was drafted into the machinery of oppression. 

Chris was no different, and it was in between marksmanship training, stick fighting, and jumping out of trucks eight to ten times a day that his rebellious spirit and his opposition to the Apartheid government grew. 

It wasn't that he couldn't handle military life. Indeed, he excelled at it, gaining notable recognition for his skill with a rifle. But the artist's spirit was strong within him, and he never lost his critical detachment from the powers that be. 

So when the Broederbond came knocking, he closed the door.

Chris would eventually go on to work for the government, in the Ministry of Information, rising high in the civil service, but on his own terms. As the political thaw that represented the end of apartheid was working it's way through the system, he happened to run into Cyril Ramaphosa, one of the ANC's most powerful figures in the transition and the current deputy president of the ANC, a man who has since gained immense wealth in mining, real estate, telecoms, energy, and banking. 

Chris, documents in hand, not knowing who he was speaking to, naively asked, "What happens to my position when the new government takes over?" The response? "Your previous service will be commended, but there will not be a place for you in the new South Africa."

So Chris jumped before he could be pushed, moving with his wife to Groot Braak to make a go of it with the career as an artist that he had let go so long before.

And it worked. Chris and Adelaide have lived very happily in Groot Braak for a number of years now. By his own admission, Chris doesn't make much, but it's enough for the lifestyle that they cherish. And that, according to Chris, is the most important thing in life: to lead the life that you want to lead. To live simply and appreciate what you have. 

Despite some of the hardship that he's faced in career and in life, Chris maintains a positively brilliant, or perhaps brilliantly positive, view on the world. He laughs easily and readily, a high pitched, infectious guffaw that carries its own vim and vigor. He's keyed in to many of the hardships faced by his fellow citizens, both in South Africa and throughout the world, but he somehow maintains an energy and an enthusiasm for life that is admirable beyond description.

While writing this entry, I keep coming back to the word life. Every adjective related to Chris: life, life, life. Perhaps that's what Chris represents for me. He's continued on and is doing what he loves in the place he wants to be. I think there's little more that one could ask from the world.

Plus he bought me breakfast. Small victories.

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.

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.