Long Way Down Read online

  Russ told us that he’d spoken to the office and it looked as though David and Jimmy weren’t going to be able to get into Libya. It was a real disappointment but not unexpected. It appeared that our last hope, Charley’s mate Jacob, hadn’t, in the end, been able to exert any influence and visas for the two Americans would not be forthcoming. Jimmy was upset, David even more so – he had been absolutely determined to drive his truck every step of the way. He was certainly going to drive to the border: if they didn’t get in, then they didn’t get in and they’d have to go all the way back again.

  It had been an issue for months and sorry as I was for David and Jimmy, the way I looked at it was that this was all part of the inevitable adventure. The obstacles along the way were just part of the journey, frustrating as they might seem.

  Jim Foster had a few ideas for smuggling the two of them in and Charley suggested that Obi-Wan Kenobi use the ‘Force’. The reality was, however, that Friday and Saturday mark the weekend in Arab countries and the embassies would be closed. There was nothing more we could do.

  CHARLEY: The ferry was making its way along the northern shores of Africa: I could see it now, the Tunisian coast forming part of the peninsula. It was wonderful, Africa finally, almost.

  I was nervous, I had the collywobbles; the calm of yesterday was gone and in its place were nerves. Ewan pointed out what looked like a bunch of windmills, some kind of wind farm along the coast; the cliffs were a sandy white and the sea that stunning blue. Beautiful, all of it, but it didn’t make any difference to how I was feeling.

  As far as the Libyan situation was concerned Russ was a little worried about the carnet and getting everything from Tunisia to Libya. The documentation listed all our names and two of us wouldn’t be there. He wasn’t concerned about getting out of Tunisia, our fixer’s dad apparently knew the people who ran the country so that wouldn’t be a problem. No, it was more how the Libyans would react to us coming in when two of the proposed party weren’t there. It was a bridge we would have to cross when we came to it.

  We were all a little tense now; we’d just had a safety and security briefing: Jim and Dai talked us through the basics of what we had to consider. Dai was our medic; having trained with the army and also attached to the SAS, he now worked as a remote access paramedic and, like Jim, he’d served in some pretty serious war zones. Jim made it clear that unless it was absolutely unavoidable we wouldn’t be travelling during the hours of darkness; there were too many hazards, trucks without lights, pedestrians walking the roads, Bosnian motorbikes, as he called the one-eyed monster that’s a car with one headlamp out. We all agreed we’d get to a camp spot and recce at least an hour before darkness, make sure we had plenty of time to set up.

  Before we entered each country we’d have an up-to-date briefing on the situation from London; Jim was very conscious of the changing political landscapes. Again he reiterated how swiftly everything can go pear-shaped; we couldn’t leap out of the truck like drama queens (as he put it), cameras pointed, and hope to get away with it. We had to be calm and considered; he and Russ would deal with checkpoints and borders. The more people involved the more complicated things would get. That was fine by me, I’d like to avoid vehicle permits altogether after the mess Ewan and I got into the last time.

  Jim reiterated that Arab Africa was very different from Central Africa and we’d have to judge every situation on its own merits. We needed to work as a team and consider in advance where we would film and how spontaneous that filming could be. A lot of the areas in Sudan and Ethiopia were mined, and Jim cited a situation with the BBC where the crew jumped out of a truck to film something and found themselves smack in the middle of an unmarked minefield. Explosions started going off, the crew thought they were being mortared and dived into a bunker only to discover they were in a bigger minefield. It had been a disaster and the poor producer ended up losing a leg.

  Serious stuff: we talked through safety, what we’d do in given situations, like if we got separated or robbed or attacked. Russ suggested that if any of us were in trouble at any time, the word to use over the radio was ‘Magadan’. No one trying to con the rest of us would ever think to use it: it was our agreed Mayday signal. We talked through what we’d do if anyone went missing. Jim reminded us that since the British and American governments embarked on GWOT (their global war on terror), we were always going to be potential targets. Opportunity targets, he called it: we had to be prepared for people just taking offence regardless of any behaviour on our part.

  It got a little tense, even more so when the general safety issues were discussed. Dai was almost finished when he looked across at me, arms folded, a serious smile on his face.

  ‘Charley,’ he said, ‘you’re a big boy but I have to tell you you’re in real danger of having an RTA (road traffic accident) pulling wheelies all the time.’

  I sat there for a moment then glanced at David. I looked round at Russ, at Ewan; all eyes were on me.

  ‘What about blackberrying then?’ I said, turning again to David.

  ‘Me?’ he lifted his hands, hunched back in the seat.

  ‘If I’m pulling wheelies, you’re blackberrying, on the phone all the time using your knee to steer.’

  ‘But he hasn’t done it in traffic, Charley, or while driving at speed,’ Dai pointed out.

  ‘No, that’s right. I haven’t.’ David sat back, palms spread before him. ‘Not at speed and not in traffic. Hey, you know what, you can wheelie all you like. I don’t care.’

  ‘OK,’ I said. ‘How about this: you don’t use the BlackBerry and I don’t pull wheelies.’

  Russ sat forward now. ‘It’s a serious point, Charley. It’s all very well coming off the bike because someone bashes into you, you can’t do anything about that. But for fun, when you’ve got your wife and kids at home? I’m telling you, it ain’t worth it.’

  David cut in again. ‘I’m saying that you’re pulling wheelies and you’re talking about me on the telephone…’

  ‘Booking hotels for us,’ Ewan spoke for the first time. ‘So should we not…’

  ‘Not for you,’ David came back at him. ‘I didn’t say for you.’ He turned again to me. ‘You were having a go at me…’

  ‘I wasn’t.’ I was shaking my head; this was really kicking off now. ‘Dave, I absolutely wasn’t having a go at you. The point is I’m doing something that’s dangerous. Because everyone’s comments are directed at me I’m thinking, so what’s everyone else doing? That’s why I said what I said: don’t take it personally.’

  ‘Yeah, but Charley: wheelies and BlackBerry, it’s a separate point.’

  ‘No, it’s not. Because we’re talking about safety on the road. People are saying stop pulling wheelies and I’m saying, what about everyone else? Don’t take it personally.’

  He didn’t and I took on board what everyone was saying about wheelies. Not that I thought it would stop me necessarily; especially not when it came to border crossings. I recall popping a monster at the Russian border and the exhilaration of the moment will be with me forever. There was no real issue; I mean no deep seated grudges or irritations, we were probably just letting off steam. It hadn’t been helped by Libya and the fact that David and Jimmy looked likely to miss out. What I’d thought of as that kind of ‘smiling tension’ had bubbled over, that was all.

  EWAN: I understood the others’ concerns, but I wasn’t going to add my voice to the fray. There was enough tension around and though we’d been on the road ten days or so, it was still early in the trip. We were finding our feet as a team and everything that had been voiced was a legitimate safety concern. My biggest fear was knocking someone down – it twisted my gut just thinking about it. Having said that, it’s true you’re not in control of your bike pulling a huge wheelie. Charley does pull these big wheelies and very often the bike comes down sideways, scoots round and all but gets away from him. He feels he’s in control, I’m sure he does, but it looks very scary.

  The spat at t
he briefing notwithstanding, I really thought we were gelling; six of us had done this before, Dai and Jim were newcomers, but they were becoming an integral part of the whole. They were also specialists, which helped; both ex-military and I loved the military banter that passed between them. They bore no grudges, none of us did; and when there was a difference of opinion it was important to get it out in the open. Funnily enough I wasn’t really nervous. I just wanted to get going; but the security briefing reminded me that this wasn’t something to be taken lightly.

  Most of all I was excited about the prospect of riding through Africa and as the sun went down we steamed into Tunis. I don’t know what I expected, more of a hubbub maybe, noise and bustle, a market scene from a James Bond film or Indiana Jones, all baskets and snakes and swords. It was nothing like that of course, it was a port like any other; quiet really, but it was certainly a border crossing. We docked at around half past eight at night but weren’t on the road into town until eleven thirty. That was after we’d furnished the customs man with four, yes four, bottles of vodka which he ferreted away in the boot of his car. Oh, how it was all coming back to me.

  It was good to witness the reactions of the rest of the team. Jimmy for example, had never been to Africa before and he was quite emotional. It struck me that I’d ridden all the way from John O’Groats to Africa. There was Charley Boorman in front of me. ‘How’re you feeling, Charley?’ I asked across the radio.

  Charley’s voice came back: ‘Pretty good,’ he said, ‘I’m actually pretty relaxed. I had the collywobbles on the boat, but we’re here now and I’m feeling pretty good.’

  I was excited but relaxed. It was brilliant; the trucks behind, the road clear, tarmac good and lights lying low in the distance. There was a very distinctive smell to the place: what was it, eucalyptus maybe? Not quite, it was spicy, a dusty sort of smell. As we headed for the hotel I saw a billboard on the roadside; a girl in a bikini lying on a beach with a massive shark’s fin coming up behind her. A soft drink for men also enjoyed by women: ‘Shark Attack’, they called it. Yeah, right: Africa.

  9

  Under African Skies

  CHARLEY: Three days later I was in a hotel room in Tripoli squeezing the moisture out of my pillow. It was dark outside and from the balcony I could see a group of kids playing football. They weren’t the only ones out there, there were people everywhere. It was so hot in the daytime, this seemed to be the best time for everyone to congregate in the fresher air.

  Downstairs we had our Libyan fixer Nuri, his driver, someone from the ministry of tourism and a guy from the secret police. On top of that some other guy had turned up and we’d no clue who he was. Talk about entourage; I couldn’t see us being on our own again before we hit the Egyptian border. The bureaucracy felt sort of old school – I couldn’t remember how long Libya had been open but I did know they only had about thirty-five thousand visitors a year. It reminded me of being in Russia, or Kazakhstan maybe, back on Long Way Round.

  My boots stank: thank heaven this wasn’t a scratch and sniff movie or the viewers would be switching channels in droves. I was in danger of dying from the smell myself so I shuffled them out to the balcony. Every morning when I woke my foldaway pillow was soaked: the tent would sweat and the pillow seemed to absorb all the moisture. I was tired but happy; three days of good riding, a couple of nights camping, we’d had such a laugh and my wife sent me a really lovely text: I love you and miss you, she said: Try not to worry too much about the unknown. Remember, lots of people have walked, cycled and driven your journey before you, successfully. It’s a wonderful, exciting journey you’re on. We pray for you every night.

  That first night we’d got off the boat around 8.30 still not a hundred per cent certain that Jimmy and David wouldn’t get into Libya. But it didn’t seem likely. I was waved over by a policeman and so began the laborious task of getting through customs. By 11.30, though, we were on our way into town but glancing in my mirrors I saw Ewan pulling over, a cop with his hand out stepping into the road. Bloody hell, I thought, we’d only been here a few minutes and already one of us had been stopped. But a couple of minutes later Ewan was on the move again and he came up alongside.

  ‘What was that all about?’ I asked him.

  ‘Nothing: the bike, you and me. He was just wishing us luck.’

  We rode on and a short while later pulled into the grounds of a lovely hotel. I shook my head sadly. ‘Ewan,’ I said over the radio, ‘here we are in the slums again.’

  I took a shower. I was feeling good, and after the altercation on the boat everyone seemed pretty relaxed, almost as if the bubble of tension had needed bursting and now we were all up for it. I’d been edgy throughout the day but coming into port the nerves gave way to excitement and I looked on happily. Jim dealt with the customs men. He had been born here, brought up both in Tunisia and Libya and we were content to let him take care of this kind of bureaucracy. There was a discussion about the walkie-talkies listed on the carnet and we thought they might be confiscated. Some countries are nervous about why you have short wave radios: ours are primarily for filming purposes and we really do need them. Jim managed to convince customs that the walkie-talkies listed were actually the radios in our crash helmets so in the end it was only three of the satellite phones that were confiscated. The satellite phones were vital to our trip and our only lifeline when we were in the middle of the desert. A company called AST loaned all the satellite phones to us, so really they belonged to them: I hoped we’d get them back.

  EWAN: The following morning I woke up tired. I had bags under my eyes and no matter how much water I splashed on my face I still thought I looked bleary. It had been a strange boat trip; weird, really, the way it all kicked off. Subliminal nerves I think, the tension of what lay ahead getting to all of us. But that was over now and I was thrilled about being in Africa, even though the port and everything hadn’t been quite what I expected.

  It was very hot on the road; the tarmac good, really smooth and flat. As we left Tunis the buildings, white and clean and well spaced, fell away and the highway opened up. I was determined to soak up the sights, the sounds, the atmosphere. Palm trees sprang from the pavements and between the lanes the central reservation was sand, the verges the same; the fundamental difference, I suppose, to anything we’d seen in Europe. The sky was vast and empty – I kept thinking how everyone talked about the massive skies of Africa and they were right, a shimmering blue in the heat; a haze around the sun. We passed a truck overloaded with bolts of cloth, some of which were flapping in the wind. We passed a small pickup stacked with wooden crates that were stuffed with oranges and lemons: I could hear Charley singing the nursery rhyme through my helmet.

  The traffic leaving Tunis had been heavy yet orderly; one lorry, however, was dragging a sheet of plastic in its wake and I slipped into the other lane to avoid it. The bike felt good, though Charley had commented on the suspension, the front in particular being a little hard for the knobblies. It had been set up for the road and when we hit gravel it might not be forgiving enough.

  The two of us chatted away as we rode, wondering what the day would have in store. I wasn’t sure what to expect in Tunisia, what threats we might face, what adversities. I’d always considered it a sort of tourist destination, package holiday country, but there had been terrorist attacks here and Al-Qaeda had planted a bomb that killed a group of Germans a few years before. Historically I knew the country was pretty moderate, they’d gained independence from France in 1956, and the subsequent president kept a lid on Islamic fundamentalism and made sure that women had rights. I wasn’t certain what kind of wildlife we might see: someone told me that Hannibal had bred war elephants in centuries past and the Romans kept lions, of course, so two of the big five must have been here at one time. I think the country is renowned for birds more than anything, though.

  The road was so smooth I was really enjoying myself, and thinking it would be nice if it was like this all the way to Cape Town. I felt c
alm, everything felt calm, perfect for our first day on the continent, and I gabbled away merrily as the buildings dwindled and the road opened onto flattened landscape, scrubbed sand right and left of the tarmac.

  CHARLEY: We pulled into a town for lunch. The buildings were mostly single-storey and constructed from sandstone, canopies draped the windows and people waved and smiled as we passed. We found a cafe and followed the cars that seemed to use the chessboard concourse for parking. We eased the bikes right up to the tables, the orange plastic chairs, where we could keep an eye on them. Not that we necessarily needed to, Tunisia felt very peaceful. We could hear a kind of low wailing – music coming from inside. A waiter came over and we spoke to him in our limited French. He showed us a rack of lamb’s ribs then set to with a massive chopper, like some medieval axe. He barbecued the meat and we ate it with salads and this really spicy garlic sauce, washed down with bottles of water.

  ‘Nothing like a nicely hung lamb, Charley,’ Ewan observed.

  God it was hot. Our first day in Africa and I was melting already, my legs were roasting, the vents in my trousers not creating much airflow, all the air seemed to sweep over the tank. Even off the bike and sitting in the shade I could feel the sweat sticking to me.

  I tucked into the salad and dipped bread in the sauce. We’d been told to avoid salad and washed vegetables because of the water, but I figured we should eat what the locals eat and where; we’d probably more chance of getting sick in some fancy hotel or restaurant. All the time we were eating a solitary sheep tied to a large pink flowerpot looked on and baaed at us.