Maverick Life

The Magical and the Mundane (Part Two) — A (Mostly) Solo Cycle Tour, the end of the road

Photo: Jake Thorpe

21 Nov 2024

My time in the Zimbabwean Slammer – or The Incident, as I’d now also come to refer to it – had a profound and unexpected effect on me.

Arriving at the end of a spell of compounding setbacks that had characterised my last few weeks on the road, it would have been all too easy to chuck this experience into the ring with all the others and go back to moping about my own misfortune. I could’ve painted it as the most significant blow of the lot; conclusive proof of my spree of bad luck; a convenient reason to throw in the towel.

But The Incident wasn’t a setback. Not even close. It was a display of intense human kindness in a moment of great need. It was a triumph of unconditional solidarity over abusive power. And, at the end of it all, it was freedom that prevailed, not restriction.

They say it’s only when you’re closest to death that you feel most alive. From my experience in Zimbabwe, I suggest a corollary: it’s only when you’re closest to imprisonment that you feel the most free.

Far from dampening my spirits, The Incident had acted as the sounding bell for my trip’s final lap. A signal to double down, ditch the complaints, and fuse the protesting head and stoic legs once more into a united, positive front.

It sparked a sense that the last month of this ride presented an opportunity to be enjoyed, rather than a task to be endured. The end, which I’d been willing ever closer for some time now, was finally beginning to yield to my wishes. And I imagined it wouldn’t be long before I’d be urging it to retreat again into soft focus. It was time to make the most of this journey, while there was still a journey to make the most of.

At James’ house in Masvingo, the following morning, we indulged in extended farewells. It was a ritual peppered with plenty more inadvertent references to The Incident—a subject whose compulsive introduction by my host was invariably followed by his hearty encouragement to forget all about it.

It seemed to me that the whole circus of the night was something he might have loved to discuss more, had he not been someone so well versed in the art of gracious hospitality, where airing the misfortune of an honoured guest is considered a cardinal faux pas.

With the final round of God-Bless-Yous ringing in my ears, I mounted my bike and set a course to reunite with another bike tourer traversing the African continent – a Dutchman, Thijs, whom I’d spent several spells with over the last 10 days – at the ruins of Great Zimbabwe: one of the continent’s last relics of ancient civilisation; the modern country’s namesake; and, allegedly, one of Zimbabwe’s must-sees.

A thoroughly documented farewell. Photo: Jake Thorpe

When it comes to the subject of must-sees, I can be more than a little contrarian. The well-trodden paths are often the ones I find least enticing. And the paths leading to the world’s must-sees tend to be very high-traffic indeed. I never, for instance, felt a particular attraction to the safaris of Kenya, or a great desire to chart a diversion to Victoria Falls; and for the very same reason, I took a decidedly non-ferrous stance in relation to the magnetic appeal of Great Zimbabwe. But the prospect of company was a force to which I was far more susceptible, and the Dutchman was a shameless enthusiast in the face of must-sees, so my resolve was quick to crumble.

Unfortunately, this concession also meant swallowing the premium demanded by the orbital opportunists who were lucky enough to set up shop on the fringes of a world wonder.

Coughing up the $20 for my night’s pitch, I did my best to ignore the fact that, in terms of square footage, my campsite bill was more than twice that of a penthouse suite at the Bellagio. The plan had been to stay two nights, with a visit to the ruins sandwiched between.

However, upon discovering that the whack I’d shelled out for my canvas suite didn’t even include access to the ground outside its front door, my pride prevailed over prospective company, and I decided to ride on the following day.

This wasn’t very in-keeping with my newfound joie de vivre, granted; but some things are sacred, and the bike tourer’s frugality is one of them.

The next day’s ride promised to be something of an epic: a 230km push, taking me to my final Zimbabwean refuge before the next Great Unknown: South Africa.

That night, in anticipation of the approaching effort – for me, a long ride; for Thijs, some no-nonsense sightseeing – we both indulged in the restaurant’s buffet dinner. Twenty-five dollars was about the most I’d spent on a meal in a year – if you exclude a five-course tasting menu I’d devoured at a McDonald’s in Western Sahara – but $25 goes a hell of a long way when you possess the trained appetite of a touring cyclist. Ten courses later – and feeling a little like Violet Beauregarde in late-stage metamorphosis – I rolled out of the restaurant and into the bar.

There, Thijs and I shared a final drink or two, regaling exuberant tales of our shared days on the road long into the evening. At some point during this merry affair, I landed on 5am as my departure time. As it turns out, the cocktail of a close friend and a cold beer leaves you feeling quite invincible.

Having spent most of the night tracking a pendulous course between my tent and the ablution block, by the early hours, the 5am start – though glamorous when first glimpsed through the fuzzy lens of last night’s merriment – had well and truly lost its sheen. Besides, long-distance cycling ultimately boils down to a simple input-output ratio; and, after last night’s outputs, the buffet carb-load had proven to be a real zero-sum game.

So, instead, I postponed departure and rejoined the Dutchman on his no-nonsense tour of Zimbabwe’s must-see. (Well, more accurately, I sat alone in the restaurant in silent protest of the $15 entry fee until FOMO, and a frank call from my mum – who’d been researching the ruins and sounded dreadfully enthusiastic – convinced me to foot the bill and catch up.) And I must say, Great Zimbabwe delivered.

Great Zimbabwe’s trailblazing architecture. Photo: Jake Thorpe

The day began with a tour, where we took great pleasure in requesting ever-more specificity – faces a picture of innocence – from our conservative local tour guide, as they wrestled with their explanation of 12th-century marital aids.

Then on to the museum we went – a modest affair whose collection consisted mostly of imitations of what might once have been there, had the British not stolen it all. Less susceptible to the sticky-fingered follies of the country’s colonisers were the king’s and queens’ quarters (plural) – vast edifices of intricate dry-stone-walling – that sat atop sheer granite cliffs.

Soaking in the view from a seat worn to a comfortable concave by centuries of royal behinds, it was easy for me to feel rather regal. That was until nature abruptly called and I had to abandon one throne for another, braving the treacherous scramble back down to the visitor centre at breakneck speed.

Not stairs to be taken at pace. Photo: Jake Thorpe

That night, I gave the buffet a wide berth. After a far more modest dinner – which, following a discreet conversation with the manager to explain the night’s events, was on the house – I suggested another round of farewell beers to Thijs; a final, final hurrah. After yet more merriment, and no doubt thanks to the potent cocktail that had spurred me on the night before, Thijs announced that the next day we’d be riding together. I wasn’t shot of the Dutchman just yet! And a good thing too; 230km passes far more quickly in company.

Carrying on in company. Photo: Jake Thorpe

As it happens, when that company is Thijs, this is true in reality, not just perception. We knocked off the day’s distance in a flash; an eight-hour time trial, of which I shouldered less than my fair share.

For the rest, I hung out in familiar territory – the patch of protected land behind Thijs’s back wheel – and cowered from the gusty gale. Clearly the dose of honest-to-God tourism had done the Dutchman well, who whooped and cheered as the kilometres disappeared beneath our wheels, dancing in his saddle to the beat pumping through his headphones. Even Zimbabwe’s Gonyethi (pronounced Gone-yet-i) – the two-trailer trucks named due to the question they prompt as they make their prolonged overtakes on the country’s narrow roads – received jubilant greetings from my companion.

The drivers honked their horns and beamed down from their cabs as they passed. We shared brief but heartening interactions with a host of friendly locals during our periodic petrol-station pauses. The road, and the country, opened its arms.

A stretch and some sugar cane. Photo: Jake Thorpe

We arrived at our night’s stopover wearing the day’s effort in a ruddy glow.

Bars and beasts

As I began to explore our prospective digs, I got the distinct impression its typical clientele might sport a similar complexion. The Lion & Elephant motel was a relic. The rooms were high-ceiling’d and broad-hearth’d. A profusion of smoking lounges branched off from a proportional excess of bars, the walls of which hung heavy with the stuffed remains of various once-majestic beasts – the sorts of animals that might have emerged victorious, had it been a fair fight.

Conclaves of carved furniture – mahogany, for the sake of theatre – wrapped in plush brocade, huddled discreetly beneath them, the taxidermic busts presiding over their furtive discussions. My wallet sighed.

The guests that arrived the following morning were an appropriate bunch. Adorned in broad-brimmed hats, pristine work boots and gilets, and each sporting the trademark blush, they arrived in a convoy of tricked-out bakkies, clearly returning from a backcountry expedition; though, by the looks of things, the bakkies had encountered more of the backcountry than their passengers.

The group filed into the restaurant and washed down substantial breakfasts with an equally substantial volume of beer, before piling back into their trucks and disappearing in a cloud of dust. Perhaps the designated drivers had hidden themselves away in another corner of the hotel and seamlessly reintegrated with the group as they’d departed. Perhaps.

As if to quell any doubts, the universe swiftly deployed a clarifying party in the form of another typecast arrival. The driver hopped out and shouted a cursory greeting my way before getting straight down to business.

Bar open? he asked. I hesitated, fighting the urge to glance down at a watchless wrist. Had a watch been in situ, it might’ve read “far too early for a drink”. Which one? I called back.

The notion of multiple bars seemed to animate my new acquaintance no end, who darted inside with expectant glee. Moments later, he reemerged, clutching a full-gauge bottle of vodka and a six-pack of Cokes. For the road, he winked, flashing me with a brazen smirk. This journey’s shit-dull if you’re sober. I watched as he spun his tyres on the gravel and hurtled back down the driveway, continuing the charge towards the South African border. Not for me, I thought, I’d bargain that it’s far more interesting in the land of the living.

The 90km ride to the border was a subdued affair. The same road that had, a day earlier, stirred Thijs to dance in his saddle and offer out greetings with the social incontinence of an American on the London Underground, had suddenly transformed.

No longer a yellow brick road of kindly companions, it now had teeth and the stench of booze on its breath. Clouds had drawn in. Grey skies, grey tarmac, grey cars. Glass lined the hard shoulder, enough for Thijs to pick up his first puncture of the week, and for me to pick up my 50th.

My post-imprisonment pep put up a good fight, but the truth was, I was scared. When we arrived, the border was eerily quiet. There was none of the reassuring chaos of the Africa I’d come to know.

South Africa lay beyond: a land of anxious warnings. Never let your bike out of sight. Never stop in town. Never ride at night. Or in the afternoon, for that matter. Trust no one. We funnelled through the empty zigzag of barriers, wondering if there ever was a crowd to be controlled, before emerging onto a lifeless stretch of tarmac – all high sides, gantries and security cameras. No time for feet-finding here. We both felt a quiet urge to keep moving.

Greyscale. Photo: Jake Thorpe

It was Thijs who pointed out the sign. Crime Area. Do Not Stop. For reassurance, we stopped—a real Catch-22, now I think of it—at one of the police cars dotted periodically in alcoves beside the road. The officer inside was not reassuring.

The road’s safe enough, he admitted, but don’t stray too far from it. In the bush, they’ll tear you apart. Of course, he neglected to mention who “they” were, allowing my own inherent prejudices to conduct the profiling, unchecked.

The warnings I’d received about South Africa often had racial nuance – some more pronounced than others. It’s easy to see how ideas like this spread. It felt shameful and vulgar to sense these prejudices seep through my layers of moral fibre and plant a small seed of doubt – tiny, but unmistakably there.

In a completely unfamiliar place, you can only go on the information you’re given. But when that information is the result of generations of ethnocentrism, segregation and racism, blind faith can be a dangerous tack.

Thijs and I parted ways for the final time at a retail park in Musina – a suitably dreary setting, given the circumstances.

It was early afternoon and I’d planned to push on, while Thijs had decided to stay put for the night and assimilate. As soon as the Dutchman slipped from view, I switched gears and upped the pace – eyes scanning skittishly, head on a swivel – until I’d returned to the safety of the highway. In a complete own-goal, my efforts to escape the imagined threat of the town’s smaller fish, had me swim straight into the jaws of something far deadlier.

So began my affair with the continent’s worst road.

Too close for comfort

The N1 sews a seam through South Africa, from the Zimbabwean border right down to Cape Town. It wasn’t my first run-in with a Big road, nor a busy one, but, so far, any I had encountered had either been too empty – like the coastal road sweeping through the Sahara – or too potholed – like Malawi’s lakeside route – to pose any real threat.

Even when the roads had improved, or the traffic thickened, the vehicles themselves had been so old that airborne debris, dislodged as they gradually lose integrity, seemed to pose a more credible threat to my safety than their speed.

But in a land of smooth tarmac and smoother bodywork, the 120km/h speed limit suddenly became a meaningful upper bound. And, in South Africa, I sensed it was one to which too few strictly adhered. The problem with the N1 was not just the speed, it was my proximity to it. The road has no hard shoulder. Two opposing lanes of traffic collide in a space scarcely sufficient for one. Add a single cyclist and the whole thing goes to shit.

Trucks thundered past, less than a foot from my shoulder, their drivers hurling abuse into the vacuum of their wake. Ninety kilometres passed in the present tense.

My hands fused to the bars, white-knuckled, while grime and tears streaked my cheeks – a mask of complete exhaustion, stricken fear and sorrow at the cheapness of life.

Hitting the road again solo. Photo: Jake Thorpe

The words of the South African from the Lion & Elephant played on a loop – a nonchalant fuck you to my very existence – as did the tragedy of a travelling cyclist, killed the week before by a reckless driver in Nigeria. The news had spread through our small community of African tourers, many of whom had met him on the road.

I felt close, so close, to sharing his fate – a life reduced to an article in the local news; a message forwarded around bands of acquaintances; and a gaping hole in the world of a small few.

But no cigar.

Zvakanaka Farm sat at the top of a 15km climb. A 15km climb takes a very long time when your mind’s securely anchored to the present.

The blind corners, my creeping pace and the unlit tunnels, which punctured the landscape’s otherwise impregnable peaks and ridges, compounded the effect. But even a long time eventually comes to an end.

The turn came just before the summit, and I took it, hauling myself from the sea of traffic like a shipwrecked sailor collapsing on a spit of dry land. I helped myself to greedy lungfuls of air, savouring sweet relief. It appeared I’d been holding my breath for the last four hours.

The farm’s gate slid open and I was greeted by Gracious, the groundsman.

Moments later, I was sitting among his family, huddled around a steaming pot of Rooibos tea suspended over glowing embers. We admired his son’s trainers – box-fresh again after a fastidious clean; we talked about the troubles in Zimbabwe and Gracious’s life before South Africa; and we drank our piping brews, whose warmth cut through the chill of dusk.

These moments obscured the rest; these connections were worth every second – the raw humanity of people embracing me as they would their own blood. That’s how it had been with James.

And it was a theme that was about to characterise my last month on the road. DM

Jake Thorpe is an enthusiast based in the UK. The focus of his enthusiasm varies, from heterodox economics to the world of plant-based energy drinks; though lately, it has settled on a year-long, 19,000km bike ride from London to Cape Town – a journey Jake completed in late September. He’s been documenting his experiences along the way in a blog, a raw account of life as a 25-year-old touring cyclist on a cross-continental quest. His back-catalogue can be found on Substack, with the final few episodes set to arrive over the coming weeks – provided, of course, the dreary British winter doesn’t send him into forced hibernation.

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Bars and beasts

Too close for comfort