24. Rinse & Repeat.

14.04.24 – 21.04.24 : Banjul – Boké

Before I took the leap of faith, when the trip was still a pipe-dream that I was doing my best to speak into reality, I’d often be asked something along the lines of: how do you even prepare for something like that? My admittedly deflective response – you see, I was wondering precisely the same thing – was it’s simply a matter of Rinse & Repeat. As far as I was concerned, I’d done a few multi-day tours around the UK, and one stint of cycling abroad in rural Georgia while my friends Tom and Mike were on their Eurasian epic. This groundwork – finding the iterative cadence of days on the bike – would surely qualify me to tackle something on a larger scale. In hindsight, it did not. But, then again, nothing does. You see, Rinse & Repeat might do a good job in explaining the riding, but that’s only half the battle. In reality, the real challenge of an adventure like this lies in the unexpected, in everything that surrounds the riding; the unpredictability of being tied so intimately to your landscape. That’s the beauty of it, a journey of this variety renders everyone a punter; so what else is there to do but give it a punt? 

Before I could get back to my punting, however, there was the small matter of getting Madonna back on her wheels. At Footsteps, Ellie had graciously permitted me to spend some of our precious shared time tinkering. It was difficult to disguise my enthusiasm at the prospect, having just spent several weeks limping Madonna along – mirages of her replacement parts shimmering on the road ahead. With the help of a hacksaw, some super-glue, and a roll of electrical tape, I slowly patched her up until, like a phoenix from the ashes, she was reborn. Yet there still remained the small issue of her new wheels. These were set to arrive a week after Ellie’s departure, rendering me chief thumb-twiddler for a few days while I waited. In fact, I was rather looking forward to some more time off the bike. I had a backlog of blogs, and much more unglamorous admin besides, including the not inconsiderable task of scouring the capital, Banjul, for an elusive bike tool I needed to complete the work. After days of extensive Googling, I’d discovered no trace of a bike shop in the city. But, then again, little of Africa resides online. I’d heard, through my network of fellow tourers, about a well equipped bike mechanic located under a big tree somewhere along one of the city’s arterial roads. But that’s where the information ran dry… 

Madonna, and her unwieldy box… contain yourselves, please.

Just as I was cracking my knuckles and readying myself to put pen to paper – or tips to touchpad, more like – I received a call. Not only had the wheels arrived, but they’d breezed through customs with no charge and were sat waiting for me at the delivery office. This was unprecedented; the phenomenon I now know as African time occasionally allows things to happen punctually, mostly late, but never early… At the FedEx office, I crudely strapped up the unwieldy package and set off, navigating Madonna and her bulging box through the close heat and thronging traffic of Banjul. With my head on a swivel for the fabled mechanic, I soon clocked a potential match. A flock of children quickly gathered around me under the tree, each keen to give their two cents on what repairs were needed. Tiny hands reached out; squeezing the tires, testing the brakes, feeling the saddle – exchanging looks of incredulity at its firmness. Thankfully, the mechanic soon arrived, saving Madonna from further probing and, after some rummaging, produced the magic tool. I took Madonna to a quieter corner and set to work. Before long, I was on the road, pedaling away from Banjul into the quiet simplicity of rural Gambia once more.

A welcome sight: the shop that fit the bill!

Thanks to the remarkably convivial nature of this mostly solo cycle tour, stints of riding are squeezed into the cracks of my bustling social schedule. The section of riding that lay ahead – from The Gambia, to Abidjan, in Côte D’Ivoire: a 3000 kilometre stretch – was bookended by visits from Ellie. Scarcely five weeks after leaving the Africell airport, she is again hauling herself halfway across the world, this time to Tanzania, where we’ve made grand plans to ride a loop of Zanzibar. By my calculations, this left 25 days of Rinsing & Repeating to eat up the distance to Abidjan. More than enough time to settle into the rhythm of things – even when I’m crossing a border per week. And, as it happened, more than enough time for the road to throw up a few surprises…

The first border took me back into Senegal – the southern region of the country known as The Casamance. Just as I was preparing to serenely slip back into my Senegalese cadence, I was abruptly faced with the first of my surprises: something that Rinse & Repeat couldn’t hope to predict. As I pedalled hard into the late-afternoon light – idly thinking that the luscious green pastures around me would make for a wonderful campsite – a woman suddenly bolted across the road ahead. She was swiftly followed by several more people, all frantically running up the road towards me. As I scythed past, trying to compute the chaotic scene unfolding around me, I began to realise these people were fleeing something. But if they were running away… that meant I was barrelling towards.

I looked up just in time. 10 metres ahead of me stood a man, dressed head to toe in strange robes. The robes resembled the tattered, deforming rags of a Ghillie suit – a disguise often worn by soldiers or hunters looking to blend with their surroundings. The only difference was, this suit was far from camouflage. The robes were scarlet, and paired with an intricately carved mask, concealing the wearer’s face. What drew my attention however, more than the robes, were the two metre-long machete’s he held above his head. And the glistening clash that rang out as he struck the blades together before pointing them towards me. I pulled my brakes with all my might, skidding Madonna’s back wheel. Turning on a dime, I accelerated hard and retreated to a safe distance. I was soon joined by several motorcyclists who had employed similar tactics. We watched as the robed man bellowed, drew his swords across the tarmac, and ran towards passing cars, slashing furiously in their wake as they sped off. I was completely frozen, caught off guard by the frightening ferocity of the flurrying attacks. C’est rigolo, ou dangereux? (Is it funny, or dangerous?) I managed to ask my fellow companions. Dangereux, was the deadpan response. 

We stood, tense, primed for retreat. The performance continued for some time until, eventually, the man ducked off the road and into the woods. Unfortunately, this particular road was the only thoroughfare that would allow me to reach the Guinean border. Turning back was not an option. Swallowing my fear, I edged forwards, flanked by several of my motorised companions. We inched ever closer to the point the man had disappeared, scanning the treeline for any sign of scarlet. When we were sure he wasn’t set to pounce, the mopeds opened their throttles and I stamped on my pedals, not daring to turn back until I’d drained my anaerobic fuel tank. Surprisingly, not a kilometre up the road there was a police checkpoint where several officers lounged on the hood of their jeep, blaring reggae from a portable radio. Whether they were simply basking in the bliss of ignorance, or turning a deliberate blind eye, I couldn’t be sure.

I’ve since done some Googling around this strange phenomenon – the outfit seemed too considered, too ritualistic to be random. The UNESCO cultural heritage website explains that the get-up is traditionally worn in a tribal ceremony, the Kankurang: an initiation centred around a circumcision initiation among the Mandinka community of Senegal. The Kankurang – who wears an outfit made from the red fibres of the faara tree – is charged with the protection the initiates, warding off evil spirits with their machetes. Today, however, with the conversion of ever more sacred forest – where the ritual takes place – into cultivated farmland in The Casamance, the tradition has all but disappeared. Instead, the Kankurang has reemerged as a means of extortion or a symbol of anarchy. Since this Mandinka initiation usually takes place in September, and judging the reactions of the locals, I expect this particular Kankurang was operating under one of these more recent guises.

An image of a Kankurang on top of a car, machete in hand.

I pushed on late into the evening, eager to put as much distance as possible between the Red Devil and my camp. I crossed into Guinea the next day, anxious to settle into some good old Rinse & Repeat to soothe my jangling nerves. As it turned out, I got a little more Rinse than I’d bargained for. The heat since leaving the cooler coastal climes of The Casamance had been relentless. Each day, temperatures rose quickly to the mid-forties, and lingered there until dusk fell. Nights were an immensely sweaty affair. Rainy season was fast approaching, and the air hung heavy with prospective precipitation. Approaching the town of Gaoal, I leapt at the opportunity for a good soak in the town’s river. I was soon joined by a man who sat to watch as I prepared to bathe. Privacy, I was swiftly discovering, is a rare commodity in rural Africa. Luckily for me, I’ve long been comfortable with a little exhibitionism; it’d take more than a set of unwanted eyes to dissuade me from taking the refreshing dip I desired, and deserved. I discreetly bathed, and then set about cleaning my kit. At this point, the man decided – not so discreetly – to squat on the adjacent rock and begin washing his genitals. To say it was an industrial scrub would be a significant understatement. 40 minutes later – after I’d successfully washed, and even dried my kit – he was still at it. As I prepared to leave, he finally declared job done and followed me back to the road. I cycled off quickly, without a word, quietly hoping the whole thing wasn’t just for my benefit…

Just as I rolled out of town, wondering if I’d finally be back to some business-as-usual riding, the road disappeared. The tarmac simply stopped. In its place lay a weaving ribbon of bright orange gravel, whose surface more closely resembled a BMX pump-track than one of a country’s major interstate highways. A quick check of my satellite map confirmed my fears. For the next 300 kilometres, this was my reality. I soon found myself caked in a second skin of dust, thinking that the river dunk had been a real zero-sum game. Just like in Mauritania, when making the treacherous pilgrimage to the Amojjar pass, only a thin strip of the rutted surface of this road was ever rideable. Navigating this corridor demanded acute and exclusive concentration. Unlike in Mauritania, the penalty for misjudging your line wasn’t simply a brief boneshake on the washboard ridges, or the sickening twang of the rim as it bottomed out on a rock. Instead, it was a disastrous trip into the cavernous depths of one of the crevasses that scored the road’s surface – each as deep as Madonna. Calling the umpire’s cry of New Wheels, Please! wasn’t high on my agenda, especially given the considerable faff and expense in procuring this current set. 

Profoundly engaging riding.

Over the next three days, as the painfully slow progress curdled in the oppressive heat, my patience began to fray. This was some relentless Repeat, with far too little Rinse for my liking – especially given I finished each day resembling one of Tim Burton's Umpa Lumpas. Keeping a level head required just as much energy as the riding itself. It was a constant battle of Jekyll and Hyde, Angel and Devil. Sporadic castigations of the road, for having the audacity to call itself such, were met with the soothing reassurance that change is inevitable, and this too shall pass. Hard day, not a bad day, I’d mutter. Oh shut-up, I’d reply. Perhaps it would have been easier to blast Enya at full volume and drown out the ping-pong dialogue; or just resign to being grumpy. 

A glimpse of my usual colour beneath the sock line.

One night in particular pushed me past my limit. Just as I’d sent the last of my gloating Whatsapp messages to desk-bound friends, bragging about the serenity of my campsite, I looked up at the bare mesh of my tent to see the outline of hundreds of ants swarming across the surface. These weren’t your run-of-the-mill ants. Each was almost an inch long, and the silhouettes revealed hefty pincers protruding from their heads. My friend Jamie, who had also spent some months cycling in Africa, had told me about a night when some such ants had eaten through his groundsheet. He’d woken to find his skin crawling with the things, and admits he’s had countless nightmares about it since. As I lay looking at the imminent insectile intruders, I began to wonder if I should give him a call and ask: how many ants is too many ants? 

Instead, like any great adventurer does in a pinch, I called my mum. While practical advice isn’t her strong suit – especially when it comes to ant invasions in rural Guinea – she’s a great listener, and I hoped she might be able to gently reflect what I already knew deep down was my only option. And so, on my mother’s advice, I cut my losses and began the arduous task of repacking my kit in the dark. I vigorously shook each piece as I went, hoping to eject any unwanted passengers. As I packed, the beam of my head torch glanced across the ground around me to reveal that ants were not my only unfriendly companions. Enormous, palm-sized camel spiders scuttled frantically, around my feet. At this point, I began to wish that life might be so kind as to un-erupt again… I was sincerely missing the sterility of the Sahara. Remounting Madonna, I decided to cycle back the way I’d come; at least this way I had a better idea of the road ahead. If it was difficult to navigate by day, by night it felt almost suicidal. 

Disaster waits in the wings…

30 minutes of tense riding later, I found a small collection of huts and asked the village chief if I could pitch camp in the safety of their compound. In typically hospitable fashion, I was ushered to an insect-free patch of land and nourished with a steaming saucepan of rice. Sweet relief. I stretched out and switched off. Or, at least, tried to. The bustle of village life continued into the early hours, rendering deep sleep impossible. What little sleep I managed was fretful and uncomfortable. I dreamt itchy dreams. When the last of the villagers finally hit the hay, a new friend – the bull – came out to play. An enormous beast, clearly used to company, it stood mere feet from my tent and stared through the mesh at me, occasionally stooping down to give the fabric a lick, its horns gently brushing the fragile fabric by my head. I turned over and did my best to ignore it. As long as it didn’t scuttle, I could cope with its company. In the morning, I took a bucket shower, relieved to Rinse off the week’s surprises, hoping to God that they never Repeat.