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Issue 36
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What’s it like to cycle the entire coast of a continent? Riaan Manser of South Africa, the first person ever to circumnavigate Africa by bicycle, tells Stephen Lord, himself an experienced adventure cyclist, about his epic 26-month journey.
 “I’m like everybody who sits at their job every day saying, hey, I don’t really like this but I’ve got to do it just to live. But then I looked at a map of Africa and said to myself, I’m going to go around this on a bicycle. It was that simple.”
Spending his evenings poring over a world atlas looking for a destination for a major adventure trip, Riaan Manser kept coming back to Africa, his home continent. He was almost certain that nobody had ever circumnavigated the continent under their own steam. Quickly ruling out the idea of swimming or walking the distance, Riaan chose to cycle right round the continent as close as he could to the coastline, a journey of some 36,500km, almost as great as the Earth’s circumference. It was to take him two years and two months.
First he needed some sponsors. Namibian beer brewer Windhoek Light chipped in with some funding and American bike company Mongoose gave him a mountain bike. Riaan spent months researching each country and applying for visas only to find that he had to name an entry and exit date for every country to get the visa. In the end he set off without a single visa in his passport.
Getting through border crossings without paying bribes tested Riaan’s diplomatic skills to the full and he learned to control what he admits is an attitude: “The important thing is to never challenge a person in authority. Putting your foot down in protest is necessary though.
How you do it is the secret. I never stopped smiling even when I felt highly frustrated. Many times a small bribe would have made my life easier and cheaper in the long run. Stubbornly, I never gave in.” On the Moroccan/Algerian border, Riaan’s charms failed to work and he backtracked for two weeks and took a ferry via Spain to get past a border post rather than pay a US$10 bribe.
Determination was key to the whole trip. On the one hand, Riaan never, ever, doubted he would get through nor considered giving up. Yet on the other hand, flexibility was vital: expecting the unexpected. “No amount of planning can rule out unexpected incidents. They are the fun of cycling the continent,” says Riaan. “If everything had gone according to plan, it would have deprived me of some of the amazing people I met and places I saw. Where my bike broke down was where I sat and socialised.”
Initially he planned on cooking his meals most of the time, but he learned on the road that eating out was the best way to meet people – the most exciting thing about Africa is its people, and dining is a big part of human interaction. “Monkey, camel, bat, they were all surprisingly tasty. North African cuisine was right up my alley. I like eating with my hands and it’s a very social activity. Eventually I think I tried everything that is eaten on African soil.”
Riaan grew his beard and his dark curly hair and tanned skin helped him look like a local in North Africa: “I spoke some Arabic too; the sounds are similar to our Afrikaans.” He found all the North African countries to be very friendly places except for Mauritania, where he met with a frosty reception throughout, perhaps because of impending political troubles there. A sign of the continent’s changing fortunes was Riaan’s remark that “these experiences [in Mauritania] helped me appreciate South Africa even more. The informal daily education we receive regarding other cultures is something unique and special. I guess that tolerance, though relative, is a luxury we as South Africans take for granted.”
Much more unnerving were the rebel soldiers he ran across in Liberia. Keen to make progress although fighting had only just ceased and UN troops had not yet entered the area ahead, Riaan was captured and held prisoner for a day by some twenty drugged and excitable teenage soldiers. Though they considered killing him they could not decide what to do and in the end, robbed him and told him: “Go before we kill you.”
Wildlife of the more exotic kind was more respectful. “Camping is great and also a very natural way to see the less developed parts of Africa. Animals such as hyenas and lions will respect territory you have marked out,” says Riaan, referring to advice given by a Namibian game ranger, to mark a camping spot by urinating around your tent before turning in for the evening.
When I asked about Ethiopia, a country with a reputation for stone-throwing against cyclists, Riaan gave me another of his gems, a measure of how much he gained from his two year trip. “The rule for successful travel,” he said, “is to throw your pre-conceived ideas out the window. Ethiopia is great. The kids are awesome. Attitude, attitude. That’s the secret.”
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