Claude Marthaler left his native Switzerland in March 1994 with a plan to cycle around the world. His journey has taken him through East Europe, the Baltic States, India and Nepal (he loves mountains!), China, Japan and from the northern-most point of North America through the length of South America. He is now travelling north through Africa on his way home. Claude rides under no fixed itinerary or schedule. His mission was simply to travel the world, and to meet people along the way - something made easy by cycling. In a series of letters to Travel Africa readers, Claude is sharing his thoughts on the African continent and its people as he progresses through his unusual African safari. This is his third such letter, covering his journey from 14 December 1999 to 13 April 2000.

Kenya

There was nothing to do: she came straight from New York city, like a shooting star. One day, she simply landed at Nairobi airport with her red bicycle.
Ute Hardy, a pretty 34-year-old German woman I had met in Lhasa, Tibet, in 1995, had quit vertical Manhattan, a fast, precise, clean and organised world, her well established job in a publishing company, her friends, everything... to ride in Africa, a horizontal and unpredictable world. To ride with me, a kind of two-wheeler "Steppen Wolf".

Love makes you suddenly redraw the entire world map in a geopoetic perspective: "The roof of the world", "Big Apple" and "The cradle of humanity" after all might not be that distant. Once more, Africa was the continent of all dangers....

We left Nairobi, riding towards Mount Kenya. I looked back and said: "ça va?" Ute was pushing hard on the pedals, flooded in a river of uncontrollable matatus and diesel fumes from overloaded trucks whose drivers mixed up horns and brakes.

Leaving our bicycles in Embu, we started to walk towards the giant volcano, still masked by the misty weather. Three days later we eventually arrived at a stream. At 4300m the high stony towers gave an Alpine feature to Mt Kenya. Even the temperature dropped below zero. At 6pm we were already lying in our sleeping bags in Minto's hut, a shelter of corrugated iron.

At 7pm a group of Kenyan trekkers arrived. Africa was back: noisy and numerous. The hut was suddenly packed full like a matatu. By the middle of the night, kerosene stoves were in action to cook Indian "chapatis". Rain was pouring through holes in the roof. Hot, humid, deprived of oxygen, the tropics were back.

At 1am dinner was ready, interrupted by cries of panic. We woke up. A woman was lying half-unconscious in her wet sleeping bag onthe cold and muddy floor. Her body shivered, her hands and feet were numb, her face pale. She was clearly suffering from altitude sickness. We started to warm her extremities, putting some warm water in our flasks against her sick body. I gave her my sleeping bag. We were annoyed by the fatalist behaviour around us: hot water was given to us with reluctance; carelessly, people were eating or trying to sleep as one of their friends was suffering and might have even died. A few hours later, a woman offered to sleep beside her, checking her through the night.

In the morning, the sick woman felt slightly better, but the group decided wisely to walk down. The sky was bright. I felt tired from the night, but was moved by the magnificence of the mountain. Ute was extremely white and her legs, face and hands were unusually inflated, like those of the Michelin man. There was no doubt about the symptoms. But I was forgetting her determination, able to move mountains. We took a bath in the stream and camped one night, next to the hut.

The following day, we climbed to the Austrian hut, at 4800m almost as high as Mont-Blanc, "The Roof of Europe". Ute's health was obviously not better; but so close to the summit, she was even less ready to give up. It was 31 December. In the morning we finally reached Lenana peak at just below 5000m. Tired but content, we celebrated the millennium modestly at the foot of the mountain. A change of landscape for a change of lifescape? As we rode through a pass at 2140m, the other end of the Rift Valley was far and imprecise, almost invisible. The horizon was dancing from the heat. I passed my first 100,000km on bicycle.

Approaching Nakuru, huge advertising boards were announcing "The Nation - the Truth" (a newspaper); "Embassy - the smooth way" (cigarettes) and "Cure the blind, crippled, death by praying". I have never seen so many churches as in the USA and in Africa. A taste of faded "British Empire" was still marking the geography: train stations, railways, straight routes bordered by strong trees, cosy hotels and cottages, boarding schools with British curricula.

Antique cafés with wooden floors, French croissants and excellent coffees served with a glass of water by uniformed waiters. There were people selling maize grilled on charcoal, men carrying on their backs huge bags of garbage, hawkers, shoe polishers and barefoot, hungry street children sniffing glue from plastic bottles to betray their empty stomachs.

Hills of eucalyptus, maize fields, huts where farmers sell a few tomatoes, bananas, avocados or pineapples: after Nairobi, the Kenyan countryside seemed almost quiet.

Often, I stop to lend a hand to local cyclists. Today, one of them had broken the freewheel of his bicycle; my tools were little help, but I did enough to be invited to a milk-tea in a tiny hut made of wooden planks covered by old newspapers. Colourful posters of modern heroes like Rambo, Van Damme, Schwarzenneger, Bob Marley, Jesus, that transcended African daily life. Baignettes in used oil were served as the only food. A world of men (even the trucks are "Man"), playing at "Dames" with bottle caps; men who had eyes only for Ute's legs.

We reached the Kipkelion Cisterian monastery (one of the eight in Africa), at the end of a long stony trail. Under a red sky the wind was howling. One Ugandan brother welcomed us warmly. "I'm here since 18 years, it's little," he said. For me, as a nomad, the contemplative life represents the biggest challenge. Does such a reclusive existence have a role to play in modern life? Does one become a monk to get material security instead of spirituality?

Bernard the Abbot is an old, beautiful man, like the Greek definition of a monk. He took us to Emma, in charge of the dispensary. Short and dignified in his black dress, he is still radiant at 75, alive like a small child. "During the three months of the rainy season, we have welcomed some 700 people suffering from malaria," said Emma. She takes care of orphans, like a mother. From time to time, I meet people like her, devoted to others, and they always impress me more than anybody else by their goodness and simplicity.

That evening, I spoke about my journey in front of an assembly of attentive monks, "travellers of an inward journey". Among the questions: "What impact had your journey on your spiritual life?" As an agnostic, I felt a bit embarrassed to reply. As a traveller, having crossed so many different beliefs, I knew that a journey doesn't give you answers, but brings you more doubts and questions. Fortunately, I needed no more than the presence of Ute to fill up the austerity of the monastery. But the final answer came from the joyful Bernard who rode my bicycle in his cassock!

The greenness of smooth hills covered with tea plantations was an invitation to ride. Groups of small and identical houses remindedme of the Apartheid regime - too regularly aligned to inspire any feeling of happiness. We celebrated Ute's first 1000km by crossing the abstract Equatorial line. Is the rusted signpost the image of Africa? Regularly, policemen were stopping vehicles at roadblocks of nails. They chatted with us politely to kill time between two bribes...

Huge painted Aids Prevention slogans - "Let's talk Condom Trust" - covered entire façades of houses. Sometimes free condoms are available in the corridors of hotels where prostitutes operate. We would often stop in hotel bars for a drink or a night. The music was always pushed to full volume. Fencing in front instead of walls (to prevent humidity) made one think of a jail. Red British phone boxes took us back in time. Willow arm-chairs were packed with "Mama Benz" and well-dressed Kenyans drinking Tusker beer, the one with an Elephant label. Before their eyes, children in ragged T-shirts were washing their cars.

Often, rooms are named after cities of the world or African countries. Tonight, we were cooking the usual pasta on my stove in Egypt. Opposite, one man tried to open his door, but the key refused to turn. I looked at his door's name: "Zaire"! Water was scarce and therefore stored in a collection of buckets for showers.

Uganda

Entering Uganda there were suddenly hundreds of bicycles, sewing machines and colourfully dressed women. A flow of Boda Boda, bicycle-taxis carrying passengers across the border. First impressions of a country are often the best ones. Ugandans seem physically stronger, cleaner, less apathetic, sharper. Something more expressive comes out of their eyes.

If the luxuriant vegetation reminded us that we were still near the Equator, electricity reminded us discreetly that we were in fact just entering the northern hemisphere. Jack-fruit, papayas, bananas, all varieties of fruit seem to grow here - and all are giant.

Our journey could have finished in the early morning of 5 February, as dogs were barking madly in our campsite in Jinja. A violent storm broke a huge branch from a tree that fell down right beside our tent. Rain was pouring heavily like a pre-monsoon signal, one degree north of the Equator. A strange feeling. We stuck our noses out and our eyes couldn't believe it: our bicycles - the yak and the red gazelle - had simply vanished. Fortunately, the 80kg of the yak prevented the robbers from stealing it, but the gracious gazelle was gone, brutally bringing Ute's trip to an absolute end and with it a certain "Victorian" idea of a borderless African continent.

We reported the loss at the almost Kafka'esque Jinja police station, waking up some "Kings of clearly visible inefficiency", still sleeping on cardboard. "New Vision" (simply ironic?), the leading national daily and BBC World news spread out the word, but in the polygamist bicycle Mecca of East Africa, a mountain-bike is strongly desired, like an instant one-way ticket to the northern hemisphere.

Unexpectedly, it took only a few seconds to disturb our vision of Africa. After the "Black hole" of the robbery, we moved into action. That night, an epic man-hunt was on the go. We were two Muzungus (white people) and two bike mechanics packed on a yellow truck, heading into the night - a long night. Soon we literally "kidnapped" two bikers on the highway, just in front of an open market watched by hundreds of surprised eyes. Not the robbers themselves, but good informers.

We reached a tiny village where one man, Moses, was sitting on the ground right beside an armed policeman. Ute noticed immediately he wore my shoes, far too big for him. Our informers made us speed up on the highway and suddenly pointed to someone on the other side of the road. Charles, the robber, was walking quietly, pushing Ute's bicycle. We turned back and caught him victoriously.

"Have you organised transportation?" we were asked by one investigator at Jinja police station a few days later, as we were intending to drive to Charles' village. The only existing police car had no tyres and to buy fuel was too expensive. Meanwhile, the morning had vanished like our belongings, never to be recovered. Finally the head of Jinja's police, a brilliant woman, let us use her personal car. At the village, we first met its drunken chief (as is custom in Africa) and asked for permission to search some huts.

Unexpectedly, a woman came out of the bush carrying three empty bicycle bags. We wanted to ransack all the huts, but the policemen said we'd better leave immediately, otherwise the entire village would beat the robber to death. Our truck turned back and zig-zagged on the red trail to avoid potholes. One policeman pointed out two big round spots covered with ashes on the ground: "Last week, we came too late. The villagers had already set afire two thieves."
The austerity, the suspicious silence and apparent cleanliness of Jinja Court resembles a provincial hospital. Its strongly built wooden benches are those of a church. Sign in court: "Corruption is like a bush fire; it catches slowly, but spreads fast." "I have nothing in my brain," said Charles, one of the bike robbers, answering the judge's question "Do you have any questions to the complainers?"

For once in Africa, maintenance doesn't seem to be an alien notion. Nothing is broken here, nothing except men. Nothing except our hearts. The police had arrested a third suspect (among a supposed number of five). My wheels had brought me to numerous places - but never to a court. Today, I wished my yak could have talked wisely for all of us. Even the well-executed formalities could not bring back our stolen belongings and restore our darkened vision of Africa. After having been a victim of two attacks while riding in the Ukraine in 1994, it was the second time in my life that I had to put youngsters behind metal bars. Today we went back to the same village, affronting the same absurd, shameless, denying faces. The same lies.

Searching more huts we found some little items and immediately two suspects ran away into the bush. In Africa one never knows where reality finishes and where fantasy starts. We're extremely far from Karen Blixen's romantic vision in Out of Africa and very far from being pathfinders of the largest industry of the world (tourism).

Democratic Republic of Congo

Accompanied by Stephan, a Swedish cyclist, we decided to ride across DRC - Against All Odds.

Nothing is real at the Uganda-DRC border. Waiting a good hour for the Ugandan official for an elementary exit stamp, we didn't realise that we were drinking our last soda for a long while. He made us walk, ridiculously, under the Ugandan flag. Ready for the lions, cyclist-gladiators? From the very first second, we felt at war, trapped like hostages in a Congo which obviously had nothing, neither Democratic nor Republic.

It was Sunday, a hot day. The Congolese policemen were far too polite, unprofessional and well dressed, far too excited to see us to be trusted at all. "The visa is US$150 each!" said the chief in an office that needed more than just a fresh coat of paint to be named so - Congolese State employees haven't been paid for two and a half years.

All the same, I could finally speak French, my native language, for the first time in six years of travelling. However I did not feel at all at home, but the stupid prey of a rhetorical jail. "Your camera!" I first pretended we had none. They went through all our luggage as if we were terrorists, spies, anti-rebels or anything else useful. Eventually, triumphant, they found our cameras. "Where is your camera permit?" After hours of a threatening verbal ping-pong, we reached a US$75 agreement. Sucked to the bones. Welcome to the jungle!

In this African Far-West, you simply need a bamboo stick, a trail, a gun and a stamp and you immediately become a roadblock sheriff (a kind of local Mobutu replica, less the gold and diamonds). Literally a car-free zone, just Kadahuile (Kada from Gadaffi and Huile for Oil): hundreds of cyclists carrying up to 100kg of palm oil or kerosene in jerry cans on a 500-600km journey, one way. Nobody, except us, cyclists at heart.

Congo is essentially a cemetery: skeletons of trucks of the feared Mobutu army, Kabila's buses and military vehicles, lying black on their backs like giant prehistoric turtles; industrial buildings plundered for palm oil, cotton or soap, with no more roofs, windows or machines. Congo was definitely Barbarian. Here the forest had, until now, the last word, invading the destroyed buildings and the trail.

Riding through huge and dense bamboos, 25m-high trees, we felt purified, for a time, protected from the rapacious police. The people of the forest, hunting with bows and suffering from malnutrition, regularly brought us chairs to sit on, bananas, eggs, and water to wash ourselves. Until the openly-shameless police caught us again and again, politely delivering us an officially stamped bill in American dollars (one dollar = 1.8 million "Nouveaux Zaire"). In small towns, you could often see barefoot children wearing torn T-shirts and keeping a 20cm-high pile of 500 "Nouveaux Zaire" notes (some US$2) between their muddy hands.

Soon we learned from our enemies to hide our cameras, to hide ourselves, to pedal faster. But in the end, robbed again, we had only the sticky and undigestible manioca pasta to chew to express our anger. None of us wanted to buy dead monkeys sold along the road. Or even a live chimpanzee attached on a rear bicycle rack that fixed our eyes with a terribly resigned and human look.

Central African Republic

We arrived in CAR after 20 days (one-day stop), exhausted, but mentally light like the bubbles of our first sodas. Not for long: no more police harassment in CAR, but other national specialities like Sudanese poachers killing 50-60 elephants a week for ivory, which they would carry on camels through their desert towards the Middle East. Or the Zaraguinas or heavily armed Coupeurs de route (road cutters), stopping vehicles between Bangassou and Bangui. But in fact, worse was to come: Congo was following us like a soul-puncture, a parasite.

Stephan got vermins. I got malaria and amoebic cysts. Luckily enough, we also got well treated. Stephan took a bus towards the capital. Eight days later, I was back on the saddle, but on the trail some 20 chiggers (small blood-sucking parasites) suddenly swelled up my feet. Then the yak acted like a rodeo horse on a washboard and I fell over painfully. This Devil's "trailgramme" (a constantly interrupted incarnated message) was an all too perfect physical demonstration of Arthur's law - I simply lost my centre of gravity. Eventually I rode 75km south of Bakala, the geographical centre of gravity of Africa: Against All Odds.

Claude Marthaler, Bangui, Central African republic, 104,000km

Published in Travel Africa Edition Twelve: Summer 2000 Text is subject to Worldwide Copyright (c)