Long Way Down Read online

  ‘Hey, Charley,’ Ewan said. ‘There’s someone’s lunch or dinner right there, or the mother of what we’ve just eaten, maybe.’ He paused then for a moment. ‘I’m feeling a little lonely, you know what I mean? Maybe I’ll trot over after.’

  ‘Ewan,’ I said slowly, ‘maybe we ought to leave conversations about sheepage on the cutting room floor.’

  After lunch we headed south towards an ancient coliseum at a place called El Jem, some hundred and thirty miles south of the capital.

  We discovered an ancient amphitheatre with most of the seats intact. Climbing to the top it was fantastic to gaze across an arena that once had been host to the games. They claim the place seated up to thirty thousand people, more than the population of El Jem itself.

  ‘Can you imagine the noise, Charley?’ Ewan murmured. ‘Just imagine it.’

  We walked down the banks of stone seats and paused before massive ruined arches that still dominated the place. We could see the catacombs and passages below ground, where the gladiators would have waited, where the lions were kept together with the poor souls the Romans used to feed to them. The place was still in pretty good condition considering it was seventeen hundred years old, and we were told it would have been better still if it hadn’t been blasted by local tribesmen.

  It was baking now, I’d never felt anything like it. ‘You know, Ewan,’ I stated, ‘we need to leave really early every day because between three and five in the afternoon it just gets ridiculous.’

  He nodded. ‘You’re right. We need to be in the shade or else riding very quickly.’

  Back on the bikes we made our way through the town of El Jem where hundreds of people seemed to be on the street. Out of town we were back on smooth, flat carriageway and beetling south towards Libya. We fuelled the bikes at the next town where the people were very friendly and market stalls bulged with fruit and vegetables. We were looking for a place to camp, somewhere away from the road where we couldn’t be seen, where we could light a fire and find flat ground for the tents.

  We found what we thought was the right place, and leaving the bikes we scouted the area on foot. It was safety first; as Ewan pointed out we didn’t want to just wop our tents up anywhere. It was getting dark and we were still too close to the road. Then I noticed a clearing beyond a small hill. It was surrounded by narrow-trunked trees and low stubby bushes, a prickly kind of green. We walked over to take a look and found the ground baked as hard as concrete.

  ‘What do you think?’ I asked.

  ‘I reckon it’s all right. It’s clear of brush and that means less “buggage”, doesn’t it: less “snakeage”.’ Ewan was nodding. ‘I reckon we might have cracked it, Charley.’

  EWAN: We brought up the bikes, the track rutted with wheel marks. Charley was right, the front end was overly hard and we’d have to damp it down.

  ‘We can absorb much more if we do,’ Charley was saying. ‘And we won’t fall off as much.’

  ‘Which is nice,’ I added.

  My feet were killing me, sweating so badly they seemed to be vaporising. Taking the lid off one of my panniers I used it as a sort of tray to stand on, whipped my trousers off and washed my feet. The skin was broken and flaking, itchy; finding some powder in my medical kit I coated them.

  Charley was looking on: ‘That must feel nice,’ he said. ‘One of the pleasures of life out here in the cuds.’

  ‘Athletes foot powder, but good for any old foot rot.’

  Charley was kicking away stones and mussing the dirt to make our beds softer, bemoaning again the fact that he’d still not invented the half-rake, half-shovel he’d promised to patent after Long Way Round. Maybe by the time we did Long Way Up, he would. The ground was rock hard and breaking up the surface meant our beds would be a little softer.

  We couldn’t see the road from here, though we could hear traffic. The clearing was surrounded by tall trees, beyond them coarse looking bushes that drifted to a flattened horizon. I got my tent up and parked the bike right next to it, dragging all my gear inside. I left the inner zipped to keep creepy-crawlies out but opened the bell ends to generate some airflow. Then I gathered wood and set about making a campfire. It was our first fire since leaving home and it was brilliant. Charley made Bovril drinks to replace some of the salt we’d lost and we sat down to cook dinner with the sun sinking like a fireball, the sky a hazy gold and the trees casting insect-black shadows. I looked across at Charley. ‘Today was great, wasn’t it? I’m chilled out, relaxed. I’m not nervous about anything, Charley; dangerous combination really.’ I paused for a moment and added. ‘Having said that, I reckon the camera team must laugh at us fiddling around like we do: I mean they spend all their time in Iraq or Afghanistan, they must look at us like a couple of ninnies.’

  Charley shrugged. ‘Maybe, but at least we’re doing it.’

  The birds slowly stopped chirping and the sound of cicadas took over. I loved that sound, louder and louder the darker it got: the strains of the heat, the desert.

  Charley was sipping Bovril. ‘Have you ever camped in Africa before?’

  ‘Yes, once. I spent a night in the sand dunes in a Bedouin tent in Morocco with a bloke called Azadine; he drove me around when I was making Black Hawk Down.’ I was smiling now, remembering. ‘We went into the desert, just the two of us, and he drove like a maniac. All the way he was discussing Muslim belief and if Allah decided it was your time, it was your time. I was sitting there going: Oh God, but that means when it’s your time it’s also mine because you’re driving like a lunatic.’ I laughed. ‘Anyway, I survived the drive and we camped out and I left the tent door open. I remember Azadine telling me to close it. No, I said, I wanted to look at the stars. Charley, I woke up at four in the morning with sand up to my chin.’

  CHARLEY: It had been a brilliant first day, the two of us camping together and having a real laugh; we’d been to El Jem and seen ruins that were in much better condition than those in Rome because everything was so dry here. We’d been told that twice a year they held concerts, classical recitals, in the coliseum and I was trying to imagine what it must be like to play music, to listen to music in an arena where people had been thrown to the lions. We’d also had more opportunities to just sit and chat to people – we’d met a lovely guy who’d spoken to us about his life in the country. Kids came up to us all the time and if they got too much, which they rarely did, the older guys would sort of shoo them away. But they weren’t a hassle; we liked them coming over, they were generally interested and just sort of hung around.

  The next morning we were up early and on the road with every vent in our gear open and the jackets all but unzipped. Last night we’d spoken to the others and there was talk of maybe getting to Libya today instead of tomorrow, which we thought was pushing it. Ewan in particular was acutely aware of the desire to rush on all the time. It annoyed me too, but I was always conscious of the huge miles and the fact that we had to make the ferry next Saturday. Ewan and I are very different personalities; it’s the same with Russ and David and I suppose when the four of us are involved in something as complicated and hazardous as this it can become a little tense. Four strong-minded and very forthright people: Russ is a problem solver, he sees the situation and sets about finding whatever resolution is required, like making the time we needed and pressing on. I’m like that myself, seeking the destination so to speak; I suppose it’s the racer in me. Ewan, on the other hand, is more circumspect. He’s a thinker who comes to the table with a different mindset completely, as does David. Already that dynamic was becoming apparent and bringing with it the attendant tensions.

  EWAN: I didn’t come here just to get to Cape Town, I came to experience Africa on a motorbike, something I’m not likely to do again. The deadline was the ferry, however, at the bottom of Egypt, and we were committed to making it or we could lose a week. But I was worried about just pressing on and on and not seeing anything. I was determined to take the time to really soak up the experience.

  O
ur second day in Tunisia, we headed for Matmata. This was where George Lucas filmed the first Star Wars movie, what became episode IV, specifically Luke Skywalker’s house carved into the rock. The air was livid with the heat. I would have loved to have ridden in just T-shirt and jeans but you can’t do that, not on a long trip and not if you value skin and muscle tissue.

  Coming to Matmata we parked up and sat for a moment just gazing across an amazing desert vista of low hills and stunted bushes. Since the last town the road had been much more interesting, quite twisty and we’d been climbing. Low walls banked the asphalt and hills grew up in layers of sandstone like great piles of pancakes abutting the side of the road.

  We met this lad who spoke English while we were having a coffee and he offered to be our guide. Lots of people had made such an offer but he was mellow and laid-back. He took us to the caves, first pointing out a couple of flat rock slabs with metal hatches set into the surface. Opening one we realised it was a well. We could smell the water, see our reflections fifteen feet below. He explained that there were more than a hundred troglodyte houses dug into the soft sandstone, people had lived here for seven hundred years and they still collected their water. We gazed down on an amazing courtyard with arched portals cut into the rock; it must have been twenty or so feet below ground level and climbing down we found an old woman who invited us into her home.

  Inside it was light, airy and surprisingly spacious; flat bronze plates hung on the walls as ornaments and she sat us down in alcoves laid with ornamental blankets. She boiled tea in a large kettle, pouring it from a great height and finally stirred in spoonfuls of sugar. She told us that in summer the heat in town got to some fifty degrees and it was much cooler here. Our guide explained that the most ancient house was indeed seven centuries old, the original cave dwellers being Berbers, a race of people that dominated much of north Africa. The walls were pearlescent white and we drank tea in the relative cool, watching another elderly woman winding the handle on two enormous mill stones.

  We found the Star Wars set, which was effectively a replica of the place we’d just been, though more touristy. It was decked out with sections of old drainpipe that had been painted in terracotta, with the inners from hair dryers (would you believe) set into the walls. Just like the old woman’s house, the entrances were whitewashed arches cut into rock. There was a massive door with a seal and lean-to shelters for animals, the interwoven sticks of the roof faded grey by the sun.

  There were tourists all over the pink steps that led up to the entrance to Luke Skywalker’s house. There was a market selling Star Wars as well as Tunisian souvenirs, complete with old photographs showing how the place had looked thirty years before.

  CHARLEY: Ewan was really enjoying it. Star Wars was such a big thing to have done, although he’d not been involved in the original series, he’d been just a little too young. But he’d been in episodes I-III and to come back here where it all began was, for both of us, very impressive. Tongue in cheek, I have to mention he was a little miffed, mind you, that nobody recognised him despite the fact he was wandering around in a Long Way Down T-shirt with ‘McGregor’ emblazoned on the back. He told me that he ‘rather arrogantly’ thought he’d be mobbed.

  Normally I hate touristy things, especially on a trip like this, but today I didn’t mind. Star Wars was history and Ewan was a part of it: I was really glad that we’d come.

  We returned to the bikes and Ewan told me he fancied taking a teabag and squeezing it into the water bottle he carried on his back – he might as well have boiling tea to sip instead of boiling water. Leaving Matmata we rode out; the roads were great with plenty of sweeping bends where we could really get cranked over. The towns and the buildings we now passed looked almost biblical.

  The roads were pretty empty and we raced along tipping into the corners; speed was the only way to keep even vaguely cool. Pretty soon, however, we left the main road and headed onto a single track tarmac that became dirt and then gravel, some of which was pretty deep; it was littered with rocks and stones and was our first real off-road experience on these new bikes. We drove deep into the desert, drifting between the hills and heading eventually (we hoped) for the town of Medenine. We passed an old car and a tiny village: a cluster of buildings where people in traditional Arab dress waved to us. We came to a junction and didn’t know which way to go but then a couple of kids seemed to pop up from nowhere (something that we were to discover happened a lot in Africa) and we asked them in French and they gave us directions.

  Again we thought we were lost, so we stopped at a camp and an older guy came over and we talked to him as best we could but he spoke only Arabic. We tried to find out how many kilometres we had to go, but he pointed back the way we had come and we knew that wasn’t the way. We rode on and the deeper we got the less sandy the landscape became, the less desert-like, everything was suddenly greener. Finally we met a young guy with his son; he was carrying four or five baguettes, one of which he was chewing. We showed him Medenine on the map and he pointed us in the right direction.

  EWAN: We camped again and were up early and I was still thinking about that mountain section; it had been the first time we were off-road fully loaded with camping gear. There’d been a bit of deep gravel that could have been a bit dodgy but on the whole the bikes were fine. It had given us a real flavour of the country and we’d passed herders with their families, tents and livestock; real Bedouin stuff. We’d got lost and you know what, it had felt strangely good to be lost on a motorbike in North Africa. The Star Wars set had been great, though it had been weird to be there even though I’d not been involved when that episode was made. I had filmed at Tozer, however, and it had been funny walking round with nobody recognising me.

  We were heading for Libya and though it had been brief I’d really enjoyed Tunisia. Yesterday we’d mooted the idea of taking the dirt road that New Zealand forces had constructed in World War II and I’d been surprised when Charley initially plumped for the tarmac. He’s the one who’s really into the dirt biking. Apart from one day in Wales, the last time I was off-road was three years ago when we made Long Way Round. I told him, at the risk of sounding like his mother, he had to forget about pushing on and remember to enjoy this. It’s why we were here after all.

  But now we were pushing on. We had to. I was thinking about the border crossing and if it took a while I had my book and I’d try and find some shade. We were on asphalt again and drifting through small towns, where the sky was massive and the horizon low and dramatic. Town after town, squares and roundabouts, market stalls and mosques; every now and then we’d hear mullahs calling the faithful to prayer. There were children everywhere, wide-eyed and waving to us; people zipping about on mopeds. It was still very hot but the skies were no longer clear, instead they were laced with cloud. We seemed to have raced through Tunisia and yet we had seen some amazing sights: we’d been off-road, we’d been on the set of Star Wars, we’d visited troglodyte homes and we’d seen the ruins at El Jem. Now dead ahead were two white buildings, and strung between them a red and white barrier. I felt a shiver of anticipation. On the other side of the border was Colonel Kaddafi’s Libya.

  10

  Here’s Sand In Your Eye!

  EWAN: Six hours later we were beyond the border and riding into a sand storm. I could feel the heat, currents of hot air burning my throat. We seemed to have the world and his wife escorting us: whatever we wanted to do in Libya, we’d not be doing it alone.

  Leaving Tunisia had been complicated by the fact that David and Jimmy had gone off to catch a plane. They were flying to Geneva then Cairo and inadvertently they left us with a vehicle problem. David had the Tunisian authority for one Nissan stamped into his passport and therefore we’d nothing to certify that the truck had ever been allowed in. There was a mini drama, quite a bit of jiggery pokery, but between them Russ and Jim managed to smooth things over.

  In the end we were through and immediately everything altered. All we’d done was trav
el a little further down the same stretch of tarmac but the landscape looked different; it felt different, as if with the man-made boundary the land itself knew to change. The wind had picked up and it brought the sand, hot stinging grains; I’d never felt that kind of heat on a motorbike before. It was like driving into a blast heater.

  The people were friendly but the driving went rapidly down hill – most of the cars we encountered made even the Italians look careful. They seemed to stick to the back wheel, nosing us along; it was scary at first but after a while sort of fun, if challenging.

  This country was poorer, a dictatorship, an Islamic state with borders that had been closed to westerners for many years. There was a distinct military feel. We were in convoy, heading for Tripoli and we had no choice but to follow Nuri, our fixer.

  The land was flat, the sand still swirling around in the wind. I made out a passing truck loaded with onions, another packed with fruit. Charley was muttering in my ear about a ‘good set of melons’. Electricity pylons dominated the skyline; they drifted into the distance in a way I’d not noticed just a few hours before. The trees were short and looked half-grown and still sand filled the air.

  We followed the cars to some ruins – the ancient town of Sabrata. For a while it wasn’t clear whether we would be allowed to film – the guides seemed to want us there to help promote tourism, but at the same time they told us that filming was forbidden. The old shackles were very much in evidence, used to being yoked to an absolute system they now seemed weighed down by indecision. At one point they said we could only film from the cameras on our crash helmets, which would have meant keeping them on as we toured the site.

  In the end they overcame their concerns and we passed inside. It was worth the toing and froing with the guides – it really was magnificent; another massive Roman amphitheatre with huge pillars and what looked like Botticelli cupids scrolled into the stonework. Looking closely Charley reckoned much of the place had been restored with concrete though our guide insisted it was exactly as it had been. It did look restored, but it could have been from Roman times because as far as I remember they were the first people to use concrete. It was hard to figure out and our guide was the man from the ministry and not a local expert.