Long Way Down Read online

  We got there around lunchtime; a wonderful city with the sun falling on wide streets and ancient buildings. Everywhere I looked there were classic cars. We started chatting to two English guys who had a 1932 Alfa painted in the traditional French blue parked up near the square. Historically every country has its racing colour: French blue, yellow in Belgium and of course British racing green. It turned out the guys were doing the Mille Miglia, a classic road race in pre-1950s cars that went from Brescia to Rome and back to Brescia again; a thousand miles. Or kilometres. I think. Don’t quote me.

  We made our way through the narrow streets where rozzers and ambulances tore around with sirens blaring while thousands of pedestrians wandered among the shops. The streets converged on the Piazza Del Campo in the centre of the old town. The buildings surround the piazza in a circular arena, and in July and August they stage the Palio Di Siena: horse races where the competitors gallop round watched by massive crowds cheering them on from the windows. Siena is a great city – ancient yet vibrant, full of life and colour and the architecture is absolutely stunning. We had lunch, chatted to a few people and wandered the town. We never made it to the hot spa but it didn’t matter. It was back to the bikes and the next leg, a big stint down to Rome.

  We got there later that afternoon and as we entered the city Charley spotted a white Rolls Royce just like the one his dad had owned when he was a kid, and he told me how one summer his mum, dad, he and his sisters trundled round Europe in it.

  We stayed the night at a really beautiful old hotel, the St Regis Grand, in the middle of the city. We were able to park the bikes off the road in a kind of enclosed courtyard in the hotel itself – they were up on centre stands and on either side of carpeted stone steps that led to the revolving door. Road-weary and unshaven, wearing bike gear and weathered T-shirts, we unloaded the bikes while the bellboy, a nervous-looking bloke, hopped about as if he thought he’d get fired any moment.

  We were a bit knackered now, and the Italian driving getting worse the further south we ventured, we’d still to get round Naples and that was nightmare alley apparently. Another big day tomorrow. We’d make our way round the Amalfi coast, camp again then head for the Sicily ferry. Only a couple of days to go and we’d be on the boat for Africa.

  CHARLEY: Siena was great and Rome too, but I got up on Sunday morning feeling a little bit blah. I think the hotel did it for me: a bit of luxury before we hit the cuds, and with the luxury comes the wine and I’d probably had too much. You know how it is.

  We waited while Russ and David sorted the Nissan vehicles. There was stuff they had to tie down and cameraman Jimmy Simak was already perched on the back of David’s truck (which they had named Fiona), with his legs wrapped round one of the spare wheels so he could film Ewan and me on the road for a while.

  Ewan was wiping his screen clear of insect guts when some guy came over and spoke to him. Ewan gave him an odd look and the man walked away. ‘Hey, Charley,’ Ewan called, ‘that American guy said: “You’re not doing it again, are you? Like a dog to its own vomit!”’ He shook his head in bemusement. ‘What the fuck does that mean?’

  We set off, winding our way through one of the most historic cities in the world. It was hot and slow going and given how I was feeling, not the best riding. I could hear Ewan whistling though, singing Italian songs, anthems, ice cream adverts. Jimmy was still in position and I noticed that whenever David braked hard or suddenly, his features would become a little contorted. Over the radio, David asked how he was doing: Jimmy was just fine apart from the chafing.

  We passed a pyramid. No, I’m serious; a full blown Egyptian pyramid. It reared up out of the trees and I heard Ewan wondering if it had been removed stone by stone from Egypt, maybe. In fact it turned out that this was the Pyramid of Cestius, a Roman who decided to be buried Pharoah-style after Rome had conquered Egypt. A fashion thing, you know.

  We rode for a while on the Via Appia, or Appian Way. This was the most important road in ancient Rome, stretching from the edge of the city to Brindisi down in the south-east. It had been the main thoroughfare for trade and the movement of soldiers. Romans used to build their roads by setting down a layer of dirt then a layer of mortar and small stones. After that the cobbles would be interlocked over the top of it. It was a very effective way of building because the road was still there, though many of the stones were missing now of course. But that didn’t hinder us: up on the foot pegs, Ewan and I rode our bikes along the same stretch of highway that the Roman Army marched thousands of years before.

  Out of the city we were on open roads and it was thankfully not so hot. We had two and a half hours to Naples and then we would be on the Amalfi coast. It’s a rugged peninsula with Sorrento as the main town and the island of Capri a couple of miles offshore. We were camping tonight and I’d be grateful to get there. I was hanging today, not myself; still feeling pretty blah; but once we’d got round Naples I was better. The coast road was stunning: really twisty, the sea on one side, sometimes close by, sometimes hundreds of feet below, with rocks and trees and buildings banked up on the other. In Sorrento I was still admiring it all when a car popped out of a junction right in front of me. Fortunately I was doing just a few miles an hour. The driver looked at me, lifted a hand and went on his merry way. I took a moment to gather myself and noticed that people were hanging out at ice cream parlours in the sun. It struck me as wonderfully old-fashioned. In Britain we hang out in pubs and get shit-faced. The place was humming, streets heaving with cars, scooters and bikes. I saw a horse appear as if from nowhere. It just came out from between the cars, ridden by a guy with an American saddle, nonchalant as you like.

  EWAN: The road was fantastic, a biker’s paradise, though some of those bends were horrific; one mistake on a corner and it would be the last corner you got wrong: little low walls that your bike would clatter into and you’d be flying hundreds of feet through the air before you got mashed on the rocks below. Great riding though – after hours and hours on dead straight motorways I was just loving it. The road seemed to be bolted onto the cliff, rock walls chiselled in great slabs and the houses built in clutches, clinging there like limpets.

  When we left Rome I realised that we’d covered more than 2500 miles now. Fantastic: I’d lost count of the days; in fact I barely knew what day it was any more – morning, afternoon, who the fuck cares? I loved this. Palm trees everywhere and little cobbled streets, orange and yellow buildings with terracotta roof tiles faded by a constant sun. The road was twisted around the coast, hugging like the coils of a snake; sometimes we’d pass through a crude tunnel where the stone had been hacked away leaving it ragged and kind of brutal above our heads.

  And the people: everyone seemed to be kissing. Everywhere I looked, every lay-by, couples were snogging. There seemed to be a great deal of love and affection going on in Italy. Sometimes Britain feels so bogged down in rules and regulations; here people were snogging, they were buzzing about on Vespas with no helmets; it all felt so vibrant and alive. Maybe it’s the sunshine. The scenery was stunning, a beautiful haze where the sky met the sea. I could smell the salt, and down by the shore fishing boats were up out of the water being repaired or rebuilt.

  Leaving the peninsula we continued south towards Reggio di Calabria where we’d make the crossing to Sicily. It was getting dark and we were tired now. ‘Charley and Ewan,’ I muttered into the video or the radio or maybe just to myself, ‘intrepid travellers, too tired to think, too scared to stretch out on the road.’

  We made the campsite and got the tents up, no longer any competition between us; too weary for that, though Charley still seemed to be ahead of me. It was dark and I had my head torch on, clipping the inner tent to the web of poles then unpacking the bike and sliding bags into the bell ends.

  There was a really nice taverna/café on the site and we sat down to dinner. Russ appeared with a sardonic grin as me and Charley set about stuffing ourselves on fresh melon and antipasto; salads of every kind.

&
nbsp; ‘Well,’ he said, ‘we might as well take it easy in Europe. You know it’s going to get tougher.’

  The next morning we set off for Palermo. It was another ten hours of driving, but it meant we had the following day to prepare for our crossing into Africa, do our laundry and get the bikes to a BMW dealer to change the tyres to knobblies. So we rode south, back on the big roads now with the sea on our right as we climbed high, crossing massive bridges with drops that set your hair curling. From the bridges we’d be in tunnels where the engine note was magnified and lights shone in your face: it was like a massive, crazy video game.

  Charley abreast of me, I waved him on with a smile. I could see the white rag I’d attached to his bike, flapping now in the wind. A bit of old T-shirt with Long Way Down on it. The trick was to get it onto his bike unnoticed and see how long it would stay there. It had started on Charley’s bike, had been on mine and now it was back with him. Silly games, but fun; it’s something we’d done when we rode round the world.

  CHARLEY: I knew where it was, I’d get him back, bury it somewhere so I could see it and he couldn’t. I felt better today, a breeze in the air, riding the coast with spectacular scenery to look at, a rugged coastline with a fort in the distance and the island of Sicily beyond. We were getting closer and I wondered again about Africa. My smile faded. What would go wrong? Something was bound to go wrong.

  Descending to sea level we made it to the boat and our crossing to Sicily. There seemed barely time to go up on deck before we were docking again. A half hour trip across the water and we were back in the saddle and gliding down the ramp into the port of Messina. Right in front of us was a massive, half-finished apartment block with the sun going down behind it. We burbled through town, stopping and starting; road works, the scene of a recent accident, a reminder of the dangers. I thought of the monster chopper I’d passed earlier; Captain America riding hard with ape hanger bars, the lack of aerodynamics creating a massive weave on the road.

  My helmet cam was now at right angles to my head so whatever I was filming was all but upside down. I didn’t care though – we were in Sicily, avoiding road works, and the day after tomorrow we were crossing to Africa.

  We could smell wood burning and, as Ewan suggested, school dinners. It was more barren here, less green; most of the way south it had remained pretty green. This was more deserty; dare I say more African.

  The next morning I was feeling nervous. I kept thinking about Africa and what could go wrong. Ewan came down and we got the bikes and as we pulled out from the underground car park this guy and his girlfriend stopped us. I don’t know if he was an American Italian living in Sicily or an Italian who’d spent time in America maybe, but he spoke English with an American accent and showed us the way to the BMW dealer.

  EWAN: We sat down and had a coffee and he explained that he was a BMW rider and at four thirty that morning he’d been trawling one of the BMW owners’ websites. As you do. He’d been told that Charley and I were in Sicily and he decided he wanted to meet us. So off he went down to the docks and asked about ships to Africa. Had any gone? Were any going? One had already gone but they assured him there had been no motorbikes on board, which meant we were still here. So back he went to his computer and after some more investigative work he came up with someone who’d seen us arrive at our hotel. They hooked up, two guys who didn’t know each other but had BMW trail bikes in common. A few hours later we were all having a coffee. It was brilliant; we’d met Dave and Clare in Britain when they came rushing out of their house waving their arms, we’d had Francine and Walther arriving with pasta, and now these two Italians who’d moved heaven and earth to hook up with us here in Palermo.

  There were a number of old bikes on display in the BMW shop. One in particular, this old black beast from the seventies, was similar to the ones the French police used to use. Again I was reminded of Marie. OK, I’ll tell you, some of it anyway. I had a romance with a girl called Marie and we spent three glorious weeks riding a bike just like this one. It was my first real experience of motorcycle touring and maybe that was when I got the bug. But I’d first been reminded in Dijon and now here again in Palermo. I’ll never forget riding pillion through the Riviera with Marie hunched at the bars in front of me. That relationship ran its course, but my love affair with the motorcycle had only just begun.

  CHARLEY: It was fantastic, the first time in ten days of riding that we’d actually arrived anywhere before about nine at night: it was the one thing that was bugging me about the trip. I liked to get to a place a little earlier, preferably when it was still light, so you could get your bearings and maybe see something of the place before you crashed for the night.

  We sorted our rooms, left the bikes and chilled out for a while, taking a moment to soak up some sun. We’d had no days off; Ewan said he didn’t think we had another till we were on a boat somewhere on Lake Nasser. We’d been riding hard, ten days from dawn to dusk yet even now all we talked about was bikes. We lay there discussing an idea of going to New York, building a couple of choppers and riding them to LA via Mexico City. It summed up our friendship: it began with motorbikes, it is motorbikes, it will always be motorbikes.

  A couple of hours later I was sitting on the shore in the sunshine, the wind in my hair and my back to a rocky outcrop, considering how crystal clear the Med was and talking to Russ about all that had happened since we left London. Bombs and planes and black eyes; John O’Groats, Robin House, camping on a race track. After that it had been France and the rain; the Guzzi factory and riding down here. Russ asked me if I had any fears about Africa and I wondered what fears I didn’t have: crashing, bandits, kidnapping; stuff getting nicked off the bikes in busy, built-up areas.

  I found it therapeutic talking through my hopes, fears and all the emotions. By the time I went to bed I was thinking about my wife, my children, the tremendous effort put in by everyone back in London, and instead of being nervous about the following day, I was calm, relaxed and contented. The night before Africa, the night I could have been the most nervous, I went to sleep a very happy man.

  8

  Sea Legs & Security

  EWAN: Much as I was excited about getting to Africa there was a part of me that was sorry to be saying goodbye to Italy. It was vibrant and vital and the further south we got, the more I’d fallen in love with it. We’d arrived at the hotel in Sicily in plenty of time to chill out, and Charley and I had taken some time out by the pool discussing yet another bike trip. Later David hired a boat to take us across the bay so I could buy some underpants that didn’t pinch my bum when I was riding.

  I was drinking coffee as thick as treacle, and when I mentioned as much it sparked a discussion about the relative merits of treacle and golden syrup; neither of which Jimmy Simak had ever come across. Charley and I took a dip in the Med which was much colder than it looked: the only thing that kept my heart going was the amount of really thick coffee I’d been drinking.

  It turned out to be a great last day in Europe and in the morning we rode the bikes down to the port at Trapani.

  The ship was tied off alongside the dock and we were able to ride right up to it. The roll-on roll-off doors were open, inviting almost, but there didn’t seem to be anyone about.

  We were first in the queue; not that many people appeared to be taking this particular boat today. Everything felt very quiet. I don’t know what I’d been expecting but it hadn’t been this. It was calm and tranquil and I suppose we had arrived pretty early but everyone seemed chilled and when the immigration and customs officials showed up Russ had all the relevant paperwork ready. It was the first time we’d needed to produce carnets for the vehicles and the lists of equipment we were carrying. A little while later our tickets were torn and we were riding up the ramp. Suddenly my heart beat faster. Africa was just a boat ride away.

  I parked my bike alongside a couple of scooters and the loading guy made me put it on the centre stand even though Charley had his on the side stand and was able to
keep it in gear. The bike was far more secure like that, but I didn’t argue: there’s no point getting into it with officialdom. I was concerned, though, any serious movement of the boat could result in the bike toppling over and that was the last thing I needed. Vividly, I recalled waiting for my previous GS to come off the plane at Anchorage when we flew over from Magadan. I watched in horror from a window as it came down the conveyor belt from the hold, on its side and rocking on one of the cylinders.

  Locating a hunk of cardboard I folded it over and stuffed it under the front wheel. That kind of wedged it at least, gave it a little more stability.

  On deck the sea was calm, the crossing ten hours or so and barely a white top to be seen; the sun was shining, it was a beautiful day and we were all together. I could scent a little tension in the air, we were all tired and none of us knew quite what to expect. As Jim Foster had told us, when things kick off in Africa they really kick off, go down hill very quickly and generally there’s no warning. Normally when a situation goes bad you get a sense of it before it happens: a change in the mood, the atmosphere; but not in Africa. Jim was one of our cameramen who’d worked in places like Beirut, Iraq and Afghanistan: he was with us not just to film but to offer a little security should we need it. Forty-five years old, he’d been born in Africa and there wasn’t much he couldn’t tell us about the politics. He also reminded us that life is cheap and what westerners considered brutality wasn’t the same in Africa, particularly Central Africa. It was sobering. We all had our fears and you could sense it now in the atmosphere. There was nothing overt, just a kind of easy unease: a jovial sort of nervousness I suppose you’d call it.

  I spoke to Eve on the phone, told her I loved her and we were truly on our way at last. She was going out for a ride and I imagined her on her bike on the busy streets of London. Wow, what a contrast. I took a last look across the empty dockside to the town beyond and the beautiful, renaissance-style buildings that were all pillars and arches. Then we were slipping away from the dock and heading out to sea; finally on our way to Africa.