KENYA TO CAPE TOWN
Two women, seven countries, 63 days … on bicycles. Jonathan Ancer tells the story
WHEN JONATHAN ANCER ENCOUNTERED IONA HASSAN AND ANNA KITLAR IN HIS LOCAL BIKE SHOP, HE KNEW THERE WAS AN EPIC ADVENTURE BEHIND THEIR SUN-KISSED FACES. HE WAS RIGHT. A DAY EARLIER, THE PAIR HAD PEDALLED INTO CAPE TOWN AFTER 63 DAYS OF ZIGZAGGING 6 469 KILOMETRES THROUGH SEVEN AFRICAN COUNTRIES. HE TELLS THEIR STORY
It was 6am on Botswana’s Elephant Highway between Nata and Kasane. There was nothing to see but grassland savannah, a spectacular sunrise and the road disappearing into the horizon.
Iona Hassan wasn’t used to the crackof-dawn starts but she and Anna Kitlar wanted to begin the day’s pedal before it became too hot.
A flock of birds flew into the air. Iona heard a roar. It was a lion. A shiver ran down her spine: her bike was painted in zebra stripes, and the lion was stalking her. She was now wide awake.
Iona didn’t have to outrun the lion; she just had to outpedal Anna but that never crossed her mind (so she claims). Instead, the intrepid travellers continued pedalling as if it was completely normal to cycle in the company of a hungry lion. Fortunately, the lion decided the birds would make a better meal.
With their hearts firmly in their mouths, #TeamZebra carried on, their bikes pointed south, destination Cape Town.
Five hours later they saw a second lion. This was Day 33 of their adventure. Iona, who lives in the UK, and Anna, from Germany, had met face-to-face for the first time four weeks earlier at Dubai airport. Iona had found Anna after an online search for a companion to join her on an audacious Kenya-to-Cape Town cycling safari. Anna, a bike-adventurer enthusiast, was also on a mission to raise awareness about climate change, and what better way to do this than by pedalling to drought-plagued Cape Town on a bike?
Iona, in turn, planned to raise funds for educational charity Inspire Malawi
(inspiremalawi.com) and Networks of Wellbeing (networksofwellbeing.org), a mental-health organisation in Scotland.
They flew to Kenya and began their cross-continental, wild-camping expedition. It was an ambitious adventure for Iona, a viola teacher and mountain-bike rookie, whose most daring bike trip to date had been a jaunt from Roscoff in France to Venice. Cycling through the benign countryside of Europe is one thing; Africa would be another kettle of goathead thorns altogether.
Anna, on a Ghost bike, had cycled solo through Asia and the Middle East. So Iona was expecting some harsh off-road riding lessons and hoping to pass, if not with flying colours, then at least with zebra colours. The stripy decals for Ziggy, her Orange P7 bike, had been bought two weeks before leaving England. She’d wanted to get out of her comfort zone – but wasn’t expecting to be yanked out quite so forcefully.
A day after their double-lion sighting, they encountered British tourists on the final night of a week-long safari to see lion. ‘They had paid a lot of sterling but hadn’t seen one, and we saw two lions on a fraction of the budget,’ says Iona. And that was exactly the point of their adventure.
‘It’s a cheap way to travel but it’s also about freedom,’ explains Anna. Because they were camping wild, they didn’t need to book accommodation but they did have to carry everything, a load of about 30 kilograms, including bikes.
‘We were treated with nothing but kindness on the road, eating in local villages and finding water along the way. We never felt unsafe; we never locked our bikes, except near the cities,’ says Iona.
After a day in the saddle they would find a spot to pitch their tents, sometimes
‘Iona didn’t have to outrun the lion; she just had to outpedal Anna but that never crossed her mind (so she claims)’
just on the side of the road. Supper was pasta with cheese-sauce powder, tomato-soup powder or fresh tomatoes if they could find. Then they’d indulge in their nightly tradition of tea and biscuits at the campfire.
‘It’s a different form of travelling,’ says Anna. ‘Every single person you meet will teach you something, if you allow them to.’ Often locals would accompany them. ‘A Maasai man cycled with us for 30 kilometres in Kenya,’ says Iona. ‘He didn’t speak much English but we had good fun anyway.’ In Zambia the pair were joined by a young deaf man for 70 kilometres. They communicated by making signs and texting.
One day in Malawi, they needed food and a villager went out of his way to find someone to prepare a meal for them. ‘A lovely woman cooked us five eggs each and a dish made of maize flour. We took shelter in her little restaurant until a storm passed,’ recalls Iona.
It was tricky camping in Malawi because they couldn’t find a quiet spot and didn’t want to eat in front of people who had so little. One afternoon, just before sunset, they started a long climb, only reaching the top after dark. But a woman took them in to stay with her. ‘It’s heart-warming to experience this kindness in one of the world’s poorest places,’ says Anna.
While preparing for the trip, Iona had sketched a rough route from Africa’s east coast to its southern tip, via Kenya, Tanzania, Malawi, Zambia, Botswana and South Africa. But their golden rule was to let the road surprise them. ‘You need to be flexible and have faith it will work out,’ says Anna. ‘We never knew where we were going to sleep, what we were going to eat, which road we were going to take … we roughly knew the direction, but we were happy to take detours.’
They weren’t tourists, they were detourists. And this philosophy resulted in the best days of their adventure.
‘Approaching Nata in Botswana there was a severe headwind towards Gaborone but a lovely tailwind to Namibia. So we let the tailwind blow us to Namibia. It was absolutely the best decision of the whole trip. Namibia is one of the least populated countries so there is masses of space, good wild camping and traffic-free roads.’
They crossed the Bosua Pass and camped under sparkling stars in the Namib Desert. The going was tough: about 400 kilometres of mountainous riding in the baking heat and, with few places to get rations, they had to carry enough food and about 12 litres of water each. ‘This was the most challenging period, and the most rewarding,’ says Iona.
Here they also saw humanity at its best. Motorists stopped to give them water, food and encouragement. On a particularly hot day, a motorist with a fridge in his car stopped to give them glasses of thirstquenching, ice-cold lime-and-soda.
For Iona, the great thing about biketouring was getting the insider track on each country. ‘You travel through villages, meet people, support communities by
‘There was a severe headwind towards Gaborone but a lovely tailwind to Namibia. So we let the tailwind blow us to Namibia!’
buying supplies in the little shops. You go over every bump on the road, up massive mountains and fly down the other side. This helps you understand how the people live. You experience the heat, lack of water, incredible wildlife, all the things you miss when travelling from resort to resort in an air-conditioned bus. And you stay fit. There was never a moment I wanted to go home, not even when my legs went aaarrrggghhh!’
Their strategy was to focus on small milestones, not the final destination: just 20 kilometres to the gas station or the next chocolate. ‘The little rewards kept us going,’ says Anna. When they needed extra motivation, they set their sights on the nearest Wimpy. ‘We’re vegetarians and you don’t find many meat-free meals in Africa. But Wimpy has a delicious vegetarian burger.’
Bike travelling has its disadvantages – like punctures. Iona’s tyres couldn’t handle the ubiquitous goathead thorns, although Anna didn’t have a single puncture on her Schwalbe Marathon Plus tyres.
They also had to navigate stretches of road that had been washed away. ‘The heavy bike load made climbing tough and going down sketchy,’ says Iona, pausing at memories of white-knuckle, teeth-chattering descents.
But nothing was as scary as riding from Swakopmund to Walvis Bay, where they encountered a threat deadlier than lions, elephants and snakes combined: the extremely dangerous animals behind steering wheels. ‘I’ve cycled on many dangerous roads but that was the most treacherous,’ says Anna. ‘There’s no shoulder and constant traffic. The trucks pass centimetres away at high speed, the wind-rush pushing you off balance.’
About three weeks after entering Namibia, they crossed into South Africa. Tired and cold, still an hour from Bitterfontein (where they’d planned to spend the night), a woman pulled over and offered them cupcakes. It was just the boost they needed. The kindness of strangers throughout the trip reinforced their faith in humanity and their African odyssey was an antidote to all the negativity in the world, says Iona.
A few days later, #TeamZebra approached Cape Town, completing an epic, two-month journey. Table Mountain loomed into view. ‘Yeah, that was emotional,’ says Iona. ‘I shed a tear or two.’
‘Their strategy was to focus on small milestones … just 20km to the gas station or the next chocolate’