Linear Ambitions

Japanese cruiser bikes a-la-Africa proved all too fruitful despite tiny little 26 inch wheels and tiny little one-speed pedals. Not to mention tiny little way-too low seats. The silver wonders (complete with slanted crossbars so we might comfortably move in dresses or islamic gowns) set us back a mere 50,000 shillingi each; and that complete with worn tires, old inner tubes, broken bells, and fenders just to remind us why fenders are not standard features on all mountain bikes. After convincing the rental shops to let them change ownership, we hopped on Matt's all-too eager enthusiasm and skipped town. In the rain, of course.

That first night was to prove to us the idiocy of our plan. Nothing more than a thin line on an undetailed 1999 Footprint Guidebook Map landed us well short of our Pangani goal on an alternatively dirt and mud road as the sun fell past the horizon. But a few kilometers after a short respite from downpour on a porch alongside villagers and mudhuts, with the requisite screaming children, an oasis emerged in the form of Peponi. There, a little bit of over-budget extravagance led to surf and turf dinner (still five bucks) and a spot in a tent out of the rain. Not to mention brief interaction with brits cum Tanzanians since before colonialism came to its end. That's right, true blue colonists.

But the rainless haven was to prove the last of comfort on our road south, as the metallic wonders of Nombre and Dominicue brought us, very slowly, through rain, mud, and sand to Pangani where realization of ill-preparedness hit home to the not-quite-so-initiated Matthew (whereas I, I'd say, had already accepted our ill-preparedness and adopted something of an islamic enshallah attitude towards the whole adventure). A day was spent procuring the tools enough to pretend we'd have the capability to change a flat, at the least, and mingling with another one of those African-born-white-boy-colonists. This one only mildly sane as he guaranteed us of acquiring malarial parasites on our way south, interspersed with nonchalant dismissals of any risk. "You'll die." "You don't need to take food! Just go!" Kind of like me, but less rational still and on remnants of decades old drugs, perhaps.

So we pushed ahead, against all odds, and all rational advice. We hit sand, mud, dirt, stone as we prodded into remote villages otherwise inaccessible. We followed lion and elephant tracks to the town of Mkwaga where I scored the first goal in the soccer game at the school, and where we dined on pathetically small fish and heaping portions of unfilling rice as it was the only sustinance available. We trucked onwards the following day, into Sadani National Park and to Sadani town, where the Safari Lodge Burundi-born colonist pointed us toward the town secretary to procure a room in back of a local home (as well as advising us on how to avoid being eaten by the hippos, crocodiles, and lions - and being stepped on by elephants). The toilet was a hole covered by a cooler lid, the shower was the backyard and a bucket (but after dark "it's fine"), and dinner was a saucerplate full of beans and more of that non-energetic bland carbohydrate. Damnit. But it got the job done; with enough energy leftover to wander through crab holes and spiderwebs of the mangrove swamp before realizing that the beach simply did not exist.

The big push came after sadani, on the long haul through singletrack and the oxymoronic desert swamp to the roadless grasses and back to a track dead-ending in the Wami River. "Where the hell did we go wrong?" was rebutted as hopeless calls of "Jambo" actually yielded two men, and with them two dugout canoes from the bush of the far side of the water. Punting their way across, the four trips bring four mzungos, and four japanese-made kiddy bicycles across to a tea stall with Mandazis (fried bread). One shack composed pretty much the entire town of "Gama." But with the caffeine fix, we didn't care, and were ready again for the journey ahead.

A few flats that somehow fixed themselves, and a few chain issues that did likewise threatened to make cheetah food of us, but we persevered and rolled a very slow 70 kilometers to Bagamoyo. In that town of Dr. Livingstone and slave-trade history, we found not the new longed-for variety of sustinance, but scores and scores of food stalls serving nothing but eggs and french fries. We broke down for a good meal at a nearby beach hotel, which in hindsight can be called neither good nor a meal, really. We fought back inclinations to remain bedridden on a day of rest to instead marvel at the hand-made canoes pulling onto the historical zanzibar with seafood in tow, and to be thankful to have gone through the cracked dry dirt the day before, as the downpour underway surely would have made the going that much more tough.

One last push out of historical interest and into the swarming metropolis of Dar was required to reach our goal, and Matt and Kristy's demeanor shifted once more as they realized what it meant to be on tarmac on a bicycle in Africa. Right then, perhaps, I realized somewhat the futility of writing these words - as the spectator will not understand. He will not be able to picture the scene on streets of Hanoi. He will not be able to know just what it means to be clobbered by dust and dirt and sand and grit and grime as one is bounced around in the chaotic traffic of the third world. I don't know what Matt's mind saw when he read of my biking on the ring road in Kathmandu, but the look in his eyes as he trudged through the comparatively tame Dala Dala stations and dodged oncoming lorries told me that no one can understand until they ride on their own through an adventure that they choose.

And with that, we made it. 150 miles doesn't sound too far, perhaps, to the person who didn't have to ride it. Or to the one imagining the boulder creek path. But to us, the accomplishment was worthy of celebration indeed. But one day of rejoice was all that was allowed, as this morning the Matt Kristy duo donned their sailing hats in the rain and headed for the ferry to Zanzibar. Jenny and I remain in this spacious new city that defies every african stereotype save skin color; grateful for the three weeks of adventure as four, and wondering what will be next. For even we have no idea.