BMW BOXERS IN AFRICA
We last met Daniel Rintz, and his partner Josephine, in Bike February, 2017. Back then they were enjoying close encounters with elephants in southern Africa. They’ve now moved on to northern and central Africa, and gorillas…
Wild gorillas, mad truck drivers, wacky tribal rituals, and dodging Boko Haram.
IT’S NOT THAT THERE IS A PARTICULAR challenge or insurmountable obstacle that makes travelling in Africa – central, southern and northern – a bit tougher than anywhere else in the world. It’s that everything that goes into making up a motorcycle traveller’s daily routine is much less straightforward than it could be. Buying food, finding accommodation, getting fuel, planning routes, obtaining visas and crossing borders all require a lot of patience and negotiating skills when you are riding in Africa. For example, no vendor anywhere from the Congo up to Ghana has any loose change… ever. So, when you buy something you either have to leave a tip, or you pick two more potatoes to get to the exact value of the bill you have. But learning patience is a great life lesson. At one point my partner Joey says to me: ‘we’ve worked hard to get this far, let’s treat ourselves to some memorable experiences. There aren’t many places left where you can see gorillas in the wild...’ I take too long to respond so she adds with a little less patience and a bit more vigour: ‘I’m not leaving Africa until I have seen gorillas!’ Gabon is one of the few places in the world where you can still find these gracious animals in the wild. In 2002, President Omar Bongo designated roughly 10% of the nation’s territory protected national parks. However, it is sobering to learn how expensive this initiative is. And the problems don’t stop there – these days tourists visiting Gabon are few and far between, and those who do can afford guides, helicopters, yachts and luxury camps in the middle of nowhere. We are not rich but we do get a hot tip about where we might be able to find gorillas. We set off with nothing more than a basic map, drawn on a piece of paper. And, surprise, surprise it isn’t long before we are in trouble;
our bikes get stuck in deep sand just half an hour off a secondary road. The heat is dry and we drain our Camelbaks in no time. The bikes’ clutches start to smell of burning as we fight to escape the sand, and we frequently drop our machines through the exhaustion of the effort and the heat of the day. Finally, we are forced to retreat, our chance of an encounter with our wild ancestors gone… for now. Days later we cross paths with a Frenchman who has lived in Central Africa for several decades. Through him we learn about special gorilla places, places he tells us few other people know about. Our hope of an encounter is rekindled and we set off, in a different direction. Thankfully this time the road isn’t sand. Instead it is clay. And as you would expect it is very slippery, especially in the dewy mornings. First and second gear are all we can use. Although there isn’t much traffic we have to watch out for Chinese trucks transporting huge tree trunks. We see as many lorries upside down in ditches as we see driving right side up. Setting this everpresent threat to one side we enjoy the days of riding through Gabon’s mesmerizing combination of blue skies, green jungle and clay red roads. Eventually we reach our destination in the middle of the jungle, and judging by their reactions the villagers haven’t seen big motorcycles before. Quickly the word gets around that we are in the area, and we are approached by the park authorities who ask if we are there to see wild animals. ‘Can we?’ We ask. The next day we are taken on a hike, and then a canoe ride downstream, to who knows where? Certainly not us. We sit patiently, enjoying the ride, then slowly and quietly the canoe is manoeuvered towards the river bank where our knowledgeable guide thinks we will find a gorilla family of three… Josephine sees them first. The baby gorilla immediately shows off, or at least that is what we think she is doing, by bounding up a tree while the mother seems totally unimpressed by our appearance and continues to do whatever it is she’s doing. The third member of the group, the silverback, sits impassively at the back playing it very cool indeed but also, somehow, making it clear he is most certainly the boss around here. His eyes seem to be saying: ‘OK take your photographs, don’t do anything stupid and then get out of here’. So we do. One of the great things about being a bike rider is the motorcycle community. The mere fact we ride on two wheels connects us to an intricate network of helping hands. A simple message on social media has saved us on many occasions. In fact, we are frequently given valuable information by riders who are weeks or months ahead of us on the same route. Though travellers, these days, are scarce along Africa’s west coast, there are some and they help us keep track of which embassy currently offers what visas. We approach embassies in several countries, all of which are reluctant to give us Nigerian visas: over recent years the situation in Nigeria has worsened, especially for travellers and restricting visas is one way of preventing incidents that may attract international attention. However, after much back and forth we finally get our Nigerian visas. At the same time we start to receive messages from fellow travellers about their experiences in the country, and the news isn’t good. We decide to press on… When we arrive in Lagos, Nigeria’s 20-somethingmillion capital, we are welcomed by a number of local riders some of whom helped us get our visas in the first place. We apprehensively ask our new friends about the stories we have been told, and they confirm the situation
is not good. One guy, who had been quiet up until now leans in and speaks in a calm yet pensive voice: ‘Well, Africa is behind Europe in many ways. We still have some catching up to do.’ Another guy adds: ‘yeah, there are a lot of desperate people out there now. For years the bad guys only targeted expats. Now, we have to look over our shoulders too.’ To add to everything else simply surviving the Nigerian traffic is a genuine achievement. We ask our new friends if it’s normal for cars to cross the highway’s central divide and drive into oncoming traffic… at high speeds? They laugh. It is a rhetorical question because we know it is normal, because it keeps happening to us every day for a week. The most memorable moment is when a line of cars coming towards us starts overtaking each other. Our only option is to get off the road very quickly. We have experience of this kind of thing in other countries, just not done at 70mph. Togo feels like a place where successful Nigerian businessmen go to relax. It’s just a couple of hours from Lagos, depending how quickly you can cross one of western Africa’s busiest borders. When we arrive a big but gentle looking customs officer is waiting for us. With him leading the way we have our paperwork processed in no time - one last favour from our Nigerian motorcycle friends. We stopped at Chez Alice, a travellers’ campsite and hostel just outside Lome, Togo – the Swiss lady who owns and runs the place has been hosting overland travellers for almost 40 years. Traveller relics including rusty motorcycles, a converted Unimog truck and several beaten-up Land Cruisers sit in her backyard. During the ’80s and ’90s she sometimes hosted close on one 100 travellers at a time, sadly it’s not the same today and she has all the time in the world to chat to us: ‘Visas are too hard to get and what the media say about Africa isn’t great. These days you can look at larger-than-life images of any place in the world using your smartphone. And the few people who still make the effort to come this far are armed with expensive 4x4s and all the gadgets money can buy. And when they arrive they just look at Facebook and chat online to people they wanted to get away from in the first place.’ After her little rant she looks at us and smiles. ‘You know what I mean.’ We certainly do know what she means. We are walking through the narrow and sandy streets on the outskirts of Lome when we hear chanting voices the like of which we have never heard before. We are immediately captivated. All the buildings here have tall walls to provide protection from the constant winds and merciless sand. Let into one of these walls is a large iron gate behind which is the source of the chanting. We push the gate open. The first thing that goes through my head as a large group of people comes into view is voodoo. We are spotted in seconds. Two teenage boys and a girl come up to us. They are smiling. I am relieved. Maybe we aren’t interfering after all. The kids grab Josephine and me by our hands and pull us inside. They invite us to stay and enjoy the ceremony. I look around
‘Is it normal for cars to cross the highway central divides and drive into oncoming traffic… at high speeds?’
AFRICAN to see if we also have approval from someone in authority, but no one seems to be paying us any attention. We take a seat in the crowd and start slow clapping like everyone else. We are mesmerized. A wildly decorated chief appears spewing fire from his mouth before mixing unidentifiable liquids in a bucket which he passes amongst the crowd who smear the potion on their foreheads. He then turns his attention to a halfnaked woman, theatrically whipping her back as he sings. And with every line of the song female members of the audience go into a frenzy. Next stop Ghana… I never thought there would be a time when I would welcome 45ºc heat. The coastal region of Ghana offers slightly lower temperatures than that, but the humidity is unbearably high. So the further away we ride inland the happier I become about the desert heat. In Burkina Faso, 800 miles from the coast we remind ourselves to breathe through our noses to minimise dehydration. Apparently there is a tipping point at which the airflow from riding a motorcycle will not cool you down anymore, worse still it actually heats you up. This is when we find out the hard way, that mesh riding gear isn’t always helpful in the heat. And that’s not our only problem because our next border crossing is into Mali. Mali’s struggle against Boko Haram is well reported and we are told that the whole of northern Mali is off limits to foreigners – even if you want to risk it the government friendly military will not let you pass. In fact, we are told our life expectancy anywhere north of Bamako is about ten minutes. We decide to rest in Burkina Faso for a while and then ride two, maximum three very long days through ‘safe’ areas of Mali in order to minimise the risk of getting in trouble. I have navigated hot-spots like this before and checking the news can be a double-edged sword – you want to make informed decisions but it can make you paranoid too. For whatever reason I keep my phone’s news ticker on and the day before we are set to leave for the Mali border a military base is attacked and several soldiers are killed. I keep this piece of information from Josephine so she doesn’t worry. We are up before sunrise, packed by dawn and on the bikes by sunrise. The border crossing is comparatively straightforward and we make good progress. At one point in the afternoon we decide to keep going until we reach Bamako. We know about a famous overland travel hub called the Sleeping Camel Hotel, think Chez Alice in Togo. Incredibly, when we arrive the Sleeping Camel seems to be doing a lot better that Chez Alice as we find a Land Rover, five more motorcycles and eight more travellers from all over the world all staying there. We hadn’t seen any other adventurers for months, let alone eight in one place and everyone else here tells a similar story. The Australian hostel owner says he hasn’t been this busy in years and immediately puts some meat on the BBQ and pulls out some welcome cold beers. We decide to stay an extra day, as does everyone else… The further north we ride through Senegal, Gambia, Mauritania and finally Morocco the more we feel the exhaustion of three years travelling. We are saturated with experiences and overwhelmed by the countless, wonderful encounters with strangers who all change our outlook on life. I swear it isn’t easy to make sense of all the small and big things you learn on a journey like this, but we try.
‘We are told our life
expectancy anywhere north of Bamako is about ten minutes’