Anna Versfeld motorbiking trip around southern Africa

Posted on 27 January 2010

Mozambique is famous for its prawns, but it is potato chips that reign supreme. The morning after the accident outside Xai Xai I had three breakfast options at the hotel where I had dropped in exhaustion the day before: chips and fried egg, chips and scrambled egg, or polony and chips. Having been on the road for six weeks, the majority of this spent in Mozambique, and I have had my fill of mishaps, bizarre coincidences, and of chips. (In a recent email my dad said, “I am sure you will need to get some meat on your bones when you get back.” Fat chance, Dad.)

I left the hotel that morning in search of a small star screw driver to open up the accelerator cable housing, which had become sticky to the point that the bike was riding, whether I asked her to or not. Now, ideally you want your bike to tap off when you do and home for my borrowed bike, Durban, was still another thousand kilometres away, so this situation needed a quick remedy.

I entered a shop piled to the ceiling with car and bike parts and tools. “I am looking for a star screw driver”, I said (in Portuguese).
“Do you want a wheel spanner, or a screw driver?” The man behind the counter asked (in English).
“I am looking for a screw driver, the thing you use to turn screws”, I replied (in Portuguese).
“I think it is actually a wheel spanner you want”, The man behind the counter replied (in English).
“No, I definitely need a star screw driver”, I asserted (in English).
“Please bring out a wheel spanner!” the shop attendant yelled into the back of the shop (in Portuguese).
“That is a wheel spanner”, I stated when it was handed to me. “I need a star screw driver.”
“Oh, well, we have run out of those, thought you might want a wheel spanner…” he said, a bit deflated (in Portuguese).

Once I had freed the accelerator cable, (having been more successful in the second shop) I went in search of a clinic. My right ear was feeling as jammed as the cable had been and I had lost hearing out of it a few days before and I would have welcomed a remedy. After an hour of searching, having followed seven different, and very varied, sets of directions to the clinic I gave up, and I turned back onto main road heading towards the hotel. And there, in the morning rush hour traffic, a woman laughing into her cell phone ran directly out into the road in front of me. SKID – no thwack.

I got off the bike, heart all a thump and, quite simply, lost it, “Yesterday someone did just that, and they are not too happy today! Are you crazy?” I yelled. “Look before you run into the road! What am I going to tell the police? Oops. Sorry. Got another one? This one is a bit younger than the last one!” She looked at me like I was certifiable, and I felt pretty close myself. Perhaps, if I had let loose a little more and a little longer, I would have found myself in that elusive clinic, anyway.

I left Mozambique, believing I was still sane, that afternoon, and before I knew it I was almost at the South African border, other side of Swaziland. I realised that I was just about done with the trip, and it just didn’t feel quite right to be home yet. There is a joy to simply being on a bike, to taking in the vistas, to swinging round the corners and to really feeling part of the changing environment in a way you simply don’t when encapsulated by a car. It is, however, a joy that is somewhat compromised when you are bombing from place to place, which, as a consequence of all the breakdowns on this trip, I have done too much of. I needed a different kind of a day before returning home.

I looked at a map and did some rough calculations. It looked like it would be about 600 kms to circumnavigate the whole of Swaziland. Not much, a good day’s ride. (Distance has shrunk in my mind.) I rounded that small mountainous jewel of a country the next day, and what a pleasure it was. My left hand cramped in a thumbs up position in response to all the waves from people on the roadside as I passed. Things had to get easier at some point.






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