If you ever decide you want to ride through Africa, let me tell you, you’d better take Andrew Vaughan with you. There are many reasons for this, from his extensive knowledge of the local birdlife and his great way of lighting a fire [here’s a tip. Soak half a toilet roll in petrol], to his ability to laugh at almost anything. But first and foremost, you need him around for emergencies.
Like for example when your front brake locks up in the middle of one of Windhoek’s busiest intersections.
We had replaced the broken brake lever and were just riding away when the new one decided that without any help from me, it wanted to show just what it could do. Cue screeching locked front wheel, skidmarks of various kinds and serious burning smell. Fortunately I was just coming to a halt at a traffic light so it wasn't terminal. But it did mean I was stuck in the left turning lane unable to move the bike, with a lot of irate drivers making clear their displeasure in some very imaginative ways.
But cometh the hour, cometh the man. Andrew leapt from his bike. Diagnosing the problem in a split second, he ran back across the road, got his tool kit and whipped off the brake lever in 60 seconds, allowing me to get across the intersection and park up, so that he could put the old one back on in another 60 seconds. It was a full on Formula One Silverstone pit stop and I half expected two guys to run out and change my tires, while another gassed me up.
This is the same guy who, as we walked to the nearby gas station for breakfast bent down in excitement to pick up a nut and bolt on the side of the road “It’s a number 10 Andy. Never pass up a very usable nut and bolt”. Somehow I think he’ll find a use for it before the trip ends.
It’s been that kind of a day really, including a little adventure on a sandy track that had me doing a very unplanned and extremely exciting 10 seconds of off-roading before I got it back under control. We started the day in a guest house that we stayed in because it was so cold last night and we woke to find that due to the the freezing weather, the pipes had burst. They tell us the weather is very unusual, but It was that cold. In Africa!
We had a great day riding though as the weather heated up and this morning, crossed the Tropic of Capricorn. We've just camped by a beautiful lake and are having a brae under the stars. We’ve got 1,700Km under the belt now and tomorrow we’ll cross into Botswana, where we’ll spend the first night in a social enterprise project run by the San people, before heading into the world renowned Okavango Delta.
Namibia has been wild and wonderful. So deserted, it's hard to believe that places like this exist on the Earth. As I rode through sands and stones, over dried out river beds and past barren hills, I had these verses from Psalm 63 on my mind.
You God, are my God
Earnestly I seek you.
I thirst for you,
My whole being longs for you,
In a dry and parched land where there is no water.
This trip is a pilgrimage in a sense and I am enjoying talking with God as we ride along together. I have thirsted for Him and although Andrew and I are riding together, there are many stretches where one of us is way ahead of the other, and the sense of wild aloneness is almost surreal. It’s at those times God and I talk about all sorts of things and at those times He reminds me what this trip is all about. Not just for my personal pleasure and the sheer adventure, as wonderful as that is, but for the joy of discovering who He is and how He loves the people He has called us to serve.
I’m looking forward to more time with Him as we journey onwards.
And to a brake lever that behaves itself.
See you in Botswana!
