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The Final Week of Cycling - by Owy

Cycle to the Summit Part 19 The Final Week of Cycling - by Owy

Toby Hammond
2006-06-25 20:25:15

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source: http://www.cycletothesummit.org.uk

"I am a citizen of the World, all countries are alike to me" - Lord Byron

Well it's about seven months ago that I decided to fly to Cairo and meet the other three. It seemed like a crazy thing to do at the time, the sort of thing that you think about for 10 seconds, say YES, and deal with consequences later. Now I find myself camped behind a tollbooth on the highway that goes into South Africa and everything appears to me to be normal. It's been a hard day, pushing a heavy bike against a very strong headwind with a feeling inside that I want to go very much faster than my legs will carry me. It is difficult to imagine what my life is going to be like in about a months time as I roll up my sleeping bag, pack the tent and start today's riding, a rather pleasant kind of daily grind. There are times that I catch myself wondering off in thought to a very distant homeland, the dry grasses of Chapman Hill, collecting pine cones in the forest, the rough seas of Bateman's Bay. Or more recent memories of student life, lush rainforests, sailing trips on the reef, and of the red earth of outback Cunnamulla. All these Australian landscapes have swept through my mind at one point or another whilst traversing Africa. Even the cold and grey floodlit streets of Edinburgh have made a home in memory. A pint or two at the local pub, walking through the Pentlands, views from Arthur's Seat and the distinctive smell of the chippy wash through in daydreams. But what of Africa, what memories will I take from here?

I could write at length regarding the memories of Africa but apparently there is a limit to the virtual webspace we own, or don't own, depending on how you look at it. But the dichotomy of where we have lived for the past six months and what may lie but 30km down the road (South Africa) is what weighs heavy on my mind this morning, not storage capacity. A grass hut, a man dressed in rags with a machete, a woman with a bucket on her head, images of Africa that blend into one another and are no longer new to the senses. I will be returning to the life that I had before, no doubt about that. But now I am stained, both body and mind, with the colours of Africa. The harsh landscapes, beautiful people, diseased insects, aromatic cuisine, the struggle to survive, the contentment with being alive, the silence, crowds of staring eyeballs, the progress, the delusions, the right way the wrong way, the African way, have all claimed a piece of my body or soul. It is what appears to me to be a continent of extremes, with Africa at both ends and me somewhere in the middle on a bicycle. I'd like to pretend that I know a little of each country, but like all countries there is an infinite depth to the culture, people, landscapes, and secrets. I left my tyre prints, took some photos and tried to understand the best I could, but it is hard to get under the skin of Africa. It is a continent with pride, landscapes as varied as people, untamed fauna and flora, cultures that run deep in the time, elements that you can experience with your senses five, but never know intimately.
In thirty kilometres it will still be Africa, but another kind of Africa.

"I am a citizen of Australia, not of the world, all countries are very different to me!"
- Owy McGrath