Meanwhile, In East Africa…
I’ve blogged on several occasions the human-powered, trans-continental journey of Colin MacNeill—the wandering Irishman who woke up one day in London, decided quit his job at the Guinness brewery and pedal a bicycle across Europe and Africa. Colin’s been on the road for just over three years now. His remains one of the great unsung contemporary adventure stories on the continent, simply because he’s chosen to undertake his trip with an absolute minimum of fanfare or public exposure.
Since Buea often serves as a crossroads for those passing to and from Nigeria, I was fortunate to meet up with Colin as he crossed over the border en route to the southern half of Cameroon and, later, the Congo. Of course, Buea being the nice place it is, Colin was persuaded to cool his heels for a couple of weeks for a dash up Mt. Cameroon, followed by a soak in the warm tropical waters in Limbe, and later settled down long enough to sit for an interview at chez moi. We’ve stayed in touch over the intervening months via email, with a lengthy blackout period as he paddled his way in a canoe with a Japanese cyclist through darkest, mostly roadless Congo to Brazzaville. This may sound like fiction, but it is not.
For what he’s experienced over the last three years, he remains surprisingly humble and self-deprecating about his trip. Colin’s retelling of his adventures read like a cross between the reportage of Ryszard Kapuściński and the gonzo journalism of Hunter S. Thompson, softened with the poetic lyricism of Bob Dylan. It’s long overdue that a cycling magazine or blog devoted a profile to his odyssey.
Last month I received another dispatch from Colin (now in Kampala) with a selection of photos. Since we share a mutual love of cycling and he doesn’t maintain a blog, Flickr account, Facebook page or any such modern artifice, I’ve taken it upon myself to be his publicist. I couldn’t begin to do his epic story justice in this or any other post. Suffice it to say it involves mob rule in Kinshasa, evangelical preachers channeling the late James Brown, blue-turbaned UN peace keepers in Goma, volcanoes bubbling lava in deepest DR Congo, wild chimpanzees, rolling hills through Rwandan countryside and, finally, the Ugandan capital. From Kampala, it’s on to Kenya and Ethiopia.
Says Colin: “I feel excited about seeing Kenya and continuing the journey, so hopefully whilst you are reading this I will be peddling along a quiet Kenyan road with the sun shining and the wind blowing.”
With that, here’s some photos from Colin’s amazing ride (the captions are his):
I finally got the chance to take a look at the interview you did with Colin. It was really great to read. Inspiring. I read it slowly and liked how it was broken into sections I could digest at my own pace. I also liked the video of him and his bike.
This update sparked an interesting dicussion between me and my mom, on Monday afternoon, which went something like this.
Me: What do you think about a bike ride across Africa?
Mom: That is a very dumb idea. Why would anybody want to do that? And risk his life?
Me: Oh, ok. I see where you are coming from. Colin is definitely worth more alive than dead. But what if it is something he feels he has to do, in his heart?
Mom: Well, that’s fine, but it is like those people who climb Mt Everest. Why do they do it? There are other things you can do to find yourself.
Me: Yeah, true. And just think, could I as a woman do something like that, all alone, ride across Africa? Even though I’d really love to do something like that.
Mom: No. You wouldn’t get very far.
Me: Yeah. Maybe I could take a bodyguard. Or I could just get a plane and fly low over Cameroon. I’d love that. Oh, I’d like to walk. Walking across Africa, that could be fun. But if I did do this, would it make me a hero?
Mom: See that is what I was really thinking about. I don’t know what makes a person a hero. I really don’t. I mean, is John McCain a hero? Because he went through something very difficult, does that make him a hero?
Me: Good question, Mother. If Colin rides across Africa and makes it home, is he a hero? He seems to not want to be seen as a hero. That is nice of him. This makes his journey very special. Right? Maybe? Well, maybe all the people he meets, they are the heroes. The little people, humble and not engaged in big cross-continent adventures, just doing what they have to do to survive, just getting up everyday and living life, like us. We are all heroes, in our own way.
Mom: Yeah, I agree. (Phone rings, conversation interrupted. End of discussion.)
Anyone heard from Colin?
I hung out with him in Ghana for several weeks in Princes Town. Last email was the one containing the quote above. If so please contact me at
duncanfiddle@yahoo.com
here are some pics
http://picasaweb.google.com/duncan3/ColinMacNeill#
Duncan, I just forwarded my last email from Colin to you. He wrote it on Oct. 25th of last year from Nakuru in West Kenya en route to Nairobi. The good news is flew over DCR to Goma and left the country before the violence worsened there.
Let’s hope he’s taking it easy someplace in East Africa. I just dropped him an email.