As a little distraction during my lazy afternoons hiding from the sun in my hammock I would read Ernest Shackleton’s book “South” for a little irony in my shade at 40-45 degrees C . I considered myself lucky to have plenty of food and water with me, only be trapped by beaurocrats and pain rather than ice and sea. Those men really were tough; such different times we live in.
From November 2011 to November 2012 Shane travelled for 14,000km through Africa from Cape Town to Nairobi, 11,000km of which was by bicycle.
Read more about his journey via his website: http://www.shanecycles.com/africa or find him on Facebook or Twitter @ShaneCycles
The next couple of days were full of pain and misery and felt more like fighting for survival than a fun adventure. The gravel road was very rough with many deep sandbanks. My left arm could only be used at about 80% and my ribs hurt like hell at bumps, so I found myself puffing and panting like an F16 pilot in a G simulator tensing my chest muscles for every bump and grabbing breaths in between. If I hit a sandbank I was unable to power through so instead often just dropped the bike to save the pain in my ribs or arm. Though picking a 60kg+ bike up out the sand several times a day is a poor second choice and sometimes I almost passed out from the pain.
As a little distraction during my lazy afternoons hiding from the sun in my hammock I would read Ernest Shackleton’s book “South” for a little irony in my shade at 40-45 degrees C . I considered myself lucky to have plenty of food and water with me, only be trapped by beaurocrats and pain rather than ice and sea. Those men really were tough; such different times we live in.
After these few days of misery I once again came across a small village with a hotel. I was truly broken, miserable and when I started thinking “I wish I was back home now, in my simple life with my (ex)girlfriend to care for me.” I knew it was time for something drastic, so I blew my budget by booking a hotel and sent myself to bed for 3 days.
Still a little sore but rested and with only 2 days left on my South African visa it was time to get moving, pain or no pain. Once in Namibia the roads rapidly improved and I starting finally believing I’d make it to Keetmanshoop where I could complete my Kalahari challenge and rest before heading into the Namib desert.
Fate decided at this point that I was getting a little too happy with myself and threw in a curve ball in the form of food/water poisoning during my last night. Not the most pleasant of things at the best of times but after an unusually long day in the Kalahari I was very dehydrated so it hit twice as hard. The extra complication of trying to get out of a sleeping bag and tent and then dig a toilet in the middle of the desert (not forgetting to avoid the puddle of sick just outside the tent) made an already unpleasant situation even more tedious.
By the morning I was broken had no energy left and the only obvious and safe solution was to pack up and hope to get a lift the last 70km to town (on previous days I’d been passed by a car about once every hour or two).
“Come on get up!”, “I can’t I’m too tired.” I packed up my sleeping bag and got dressed then collapsed onto my bed again. “Come on mate if you’re still lying here when the sun gets out this is going to get a lot worse very quickly”. So the conversation with myself continued for the next hour and a half as I packed my gear up. “If you don’t get off your lazy arse and push that damn bike to the road you could well die here.” It was obvious to me that if I stayed put out of sight, that once the sun came out and got above 40 degrees things would get very bad very quickly. Slowly I mustered the strength and courage to push my bike the 20m to the road with the occasional stop to launch yellow/green energy drinks out of my mouth and nose at 100km/h.
At such a moment when travelling alone it is painfully obvious that one is walking on a knife edge, on one side just a bad day that costs a pair of underpants and a couple of recovery days; on the other the first in a series of events leading to becoming “that guy that died in the desert.” Luckily I had the tenacity and strength to get to the road, and was lucky that someone picked me up within half an hour, and the rest as they say is history...
Sometimes I wish I could sit next to a younger version of myself just after he has once again been beaten up for no good reason. Put my arm around him, dry his tears and say “don’t worry mate, you’re going to have a better life than these thugs, you’re going to grow up to be a nice guy and one day, just maybe you too will live a big adventure.”
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