July 2017 | 59
‘ Oh right !’ ‘ Best of luck !’
A complimentary , ‘ You guys are strong !’
We entered what we thought at the time was “ the bush ” as we headed north from �rancistown , camping off the side of the road to prepare ourselves for the vast , lioninhabited , elephant-dominated wilderness that lay ahead
Or , �That�s an important thing to be doing , � in reference to our aim to raise awareness about rangers .
One thing we ’ re all wondering , is when will people be more gobsmacked by where we ’ ve come from , Johannesburg , than where we ’ re going ( Nairobi ). Something tells me we ’ ve got quite a while to go ...
Into the Wild
Charlie Rose
“ Hey mate , how are you ?!”, declaims Johnno with tremendous excitement , racing down the hill to greet the first fellow cycle-tourer we had come across so far .
“ Where have you cycled from ? How long have you been on the road ?”
“ Eight years . I started in New York in 2009 . How about you guys ?” replied Mike , without a hint of arrogance or pride .
Humbling experiences come ten a penny when you are touring through Africa , from facing off with bull elephants , to being out-manned by a veteran cyclist of the highest calibre . The last week or so of our �ourney has been a true test against the outdoors , a kind of purgatory before one is allowed through the pearly gates of the �ambi�i and sent on your merry way to a land of fifty cent beers and the fantastical waterfalls .
Upon leaving Francistown I was struck by the sense that we had passed our undergrad in African bicycle touring , some with �ying colours , and others , namely me , with another fu��ing � , � . The course consisted of overcoming a mountain-range in South Africa , twice , then making up for the slow ground with an epic ten days of nonstop cycling , in order to catch up with our targets again . Francistown was the rest that we needed , and on the subject of universities , Johnno discovered that he would be pursuing his masters at Cambridge which , while impressive , pales in comparison to our cycle-touring postgraduate at the university of Botswana . of us . We built our first fire , which ended up blinding us with smoke and going out within an hour , but we were at least learning from our mistakes and wouldn ’ t be using wet wood to ward off lions when we reached the park !
The next morning , we were faced with our next challenge � a robbery . This robber was a sly dog� he approached our camp at the crack of dawn while we were cosily sat around our stove cooking up some hot and spicy beans , which I highly recommend to anyone that wants to make their already raw behind considerably more uncomfortable . Anyway , his gear was fit for a ���s rave , in a mari�uana-decorated bucket hat and three stripes , and we were therefore on relatively high alert from the word go . He hustled about some gold that he wanted to sell us and then became extremely friendly , chatting about football and generally lowering our guard . He said his goodbye , his friend also , and they headed off . �t was not until we looked back up from our fire beans that we noticed he was nonchalantly swinging our loaf of bread in his hand while trying to get out of sight as quickly as possible .
The next few of days consisted of covering the couple of hundred kilometres that lay between us and the game reserve that we were to cycle through . One incident involving Johnno inadvertently wading through Wadi ’ s conveniently located bush dump aside , it was a relatively un-eventful passage , until inhabited areas became less and less frequent , and it became apparent that we had entered the land of beasts – the trial by wild had begun in earnest .