Motorbiking trip from Mozambique to South Africa

Posted on 25 January 2010

It is a good thing the highs are high, because the lows are pretty low. Today I am not writing because it is about time I updated the blog; nor because there is a story to tell, or time to kill. Sometimes writing is the only way to process a situation.

I was asked yesterday, by someone from Durban living and working in Mozambique, what I think of the country. Off the top of my head I had no answer. Eventually what came out was, “I struggle with being white here.” And indeed I do. This morning encapsulated it all, and held a whole lot more.

My journey south started yesterday, and for the first time this morning I actually managed to get on the road early. For my first refueling stop, I pulled up into an unusually large petrol station, where there was a characteristically large South African 4×4 pulling a speed boat. The three occupants, characteristically large white guys, were milling around. One was pointing at the engine saying, in a progressively louder voice, “Oil…Oil…Oil!” I avoided eye contact and left, head down, and a tongue bitten on the unsaid words, “Shouting doesn’t make your Portuguese any better.”

The petrol station was just before the road works, where things get rough if you are on a motorbike. Tar disappears and is replaced by red sand, which is, in places, tamped down, in others thickly soft and slippery. Traffic from both directions moves across the road, and if you pass someone, or are passed, in either direction, you are left hoping that nothing is coming out of the dust, and that you are not about to hit an unseen soft spot. The best way to deal with this is to drop your wrist on the accelerator and go, which means you are less likely to fall, but, if you do, the falls are harder.

It is the kind of road on which your heart and throat become well acquainted. This not being my own bike, I decided to take it slowly and I was prepared to put my feet out on occasion. What I was not prepared for was the two old ladies in the middle of the road, only one of whom heard my hooting. She headed for the left. The other, slightly deaf, carried on straight, then took fright late and lurched to the right, straight in front of me. I don’t really know how it all happened next; simply put it was skid-thwack. One frail old lady, curled in the sand, a bike on its side. I had never expected that I would find myself bent over in the sand watching bloody tears running down the creases of an old face, listening to wheezing-gasping for breath (I hit her on her side, as she turned), and feeling the welling panic of not knowing how bad it all was.

The cars went by, and no-one stopped, not until that characteristically big white 4×4 pulling a speedboat passed. It was the occupants I hadn’t greeted who got my bike up, brought some water while we waited for the police and I cleaned the old lady’s wounds as best I could. It was they who, when things calmed, handed me a number saying, “We will drive slowly. Call if things get worse and we will be back.” The pain of my bitten tongue was more than worth it, and I was profoundly grateful.

The police arrived in a borrowed car, and they and the two bent ladies who had been quietly walking along the road piled into the car and sped off to the health post. This time I had no choice but to drop a wrist on the accelerator to follow.

The lady I had hit was ok. Not fine; sore, bruised, and scraped, but ok. Her son arrived, and we discussed the situation and he agreed that we had already resolved the situation as best we could. I don’t know what I would have done without fluent Portuguese. She hugged me as she got in the taxi home, touched my hair and gently pulled a stray stick off my shirt. And for that I was even more grateful.






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