Readers will recall that I was about to set out from Mombasa after a dose of self indulgence and perhaps be wondering why these further adventures have not yet been related. The simple truth is that before I could plonk a leg over the BMW I was sent low with stomach troubles that had me perpetually attached to a toilet bowl for about three months. The Culler Diet plan perfected. In between bouts of diarrhoea I'd torn the BMW to pieces and rebuilt it completely. The landlord didn't seem to mind, as long as he got his paltry rent every month. Finally, my stomach had cured itself and I was ready to set out on the lone highway.
My normal blind optimism, or foolish fatalism, had deserted me. I loaded the reconstructed BMW with huge containers of water and fuel, enough tools to service an aeroplane and fitted myself out with heavy-duty army footwear that were like gravity boots and determined to wear a crash helmet all the time. All this was down to an extended period of sobriety brought on by my stomach’s refusal to tolerate alcohol. Fortunately, the night before I was due to leave town, I got drunk out of my head with a group of South African lunatics; when I didn't spew up over anyone I knew my recovery was complete.
Still, in the bright heat of the morning I was sober enough to feel the pain of the hang-over straining my head, not helped any by the straight through exhaust. Such delinquency, along with a couple of truck horns, mandatory in Africa. Without an excess of noise there was no way the traffic, a rollercoster chaos of rat-bags and rolling wrecks, would even think about giving way to a mere motorcycle. About the only thing I wasn’t willing to play chicken with were the army tanks. I always ride with a death wish when hung-over.
Bye, bye Mombasa, thought I, steam rising from my head as the morning heat burnt down upon my trembling form. The excessive mass of petrol, water and tools on the home-made side-racks meant the front wheel was untenably light, portending massive wheelies. Right then, I doubted if my heart could take it but my body demanded speed to dissipate the searing heat.
Any chance of more than 10mph looked implausible as I eyed the traffic jam. The only way the cages looked like they were going to move forward was by climbing over each other. That seemed to be what had happened with some Yank heap upon whose roof the front wheels of a Jap taxi rested. As I crawled past the old Nippon rust bucket slowly came apart at its seams, until the back half went vertical. It toppled over on my exhaust fumes and I shivered involuntarily; it would be just my luck to be thrown off before the mileometer had clocked a mile.
I damned the way the boxer’s cylinders stuck out. Apocalyptic Africans rode through tiny gaps on miniature mopeds that wavered below them. I was stuck on the BMW, working the horn and screaming abuse every time some clod got in the way, which was pretty much every second. A sort of solution consisted of riding along with one pot hanging over what passed for a pavement and taking off the sides of cars that got in the way on the other side. On a couple of occasions I actually hit 30mph, but that was way insufficient to produce a cooling breeze, temperatures soaring past 100 degrees and making most of the populace go into psychopath mode.
A raised sewer cover on the pavement caught the front of the cylinder, spun the BMW around viciously and nearly caused me to off-load my stomach. The cover was raised at least a foot off the ground in a fit of insane council planning. Whacking into the side of a car did nothing for my state of well being, my head suddenly full of visions of the sparks setting off the fuel containers, the whole rolling junker going up in a huge incandescent explosion. The remnants of my barbecued body would probably provide a tasty meal for thousands of starving peasants.
After turning off the main road down a dirt track, to avoid retribution, I pulled over, popped some pills, downed a few litres of water and emptied one of the smaller containers over my head, after throwing the red hot crash helmet away. By the time that was done I was surrounded by kids making obscene suggestions when they weren't demanding food, water or money. I tossed them a pile of loose change and cleared off before they turned nasty. They were a scrawny lot but I was in no fit state to see off hordes of desperate kids who looked like dying at 15 from AIDS would be a blessing in disguise.
I was actually heading back to Uganda, but taking a more obscure route that a huge Australian had laboriously written down. He reckoned it was mostly free of traffic but a bit rough going, nothing a BMW twin couldn't handle. I figured if things got seriously weird I could tie my hands to the bars and hold on for grim death. The track appeared quite smooth, hard packed grit burnt into a semblance of a road by. the heat. The back wheel still managed to throw up huge clouds of dust; I was mostly protected by all the gear stacked up behind me. The BMW growled all the way up to 60mph until the bars started twitching in my hands, the front end feeling very light due to all the mass out back. Trying to ride through it made the chassis feel like it was falling apart.
Rumbling through a shanty town of some sort, cardboard shacks so flimsy I backed off the throttle in case the pulse of the loud exhaust would cause them to fall apart. Yes, I’m all heart. I’d only done twenty miles, my tongue was hanging out, sweat was rolling off me in huge riverlets and the BMW's cylinders glowed red hot, sending up even more heat waves over my fried body. There didn't seem to be any hope of shade, so all I could do was roll the throttle open. The wobbles at 70mph were interesting, at 80mph it was like trying to control a camel gone berserk; at 90mph bits started falling off the bike and I could hardly see through the heat haze and dust. I let the speedo touch the ton, just to see if the wobbles would die out. They didn’t, so I got the speed down to 50mph as quickly as the brakes and wobbling chassis would allow.
40 miles later I pulled into a wooden shack that served as a bar. It seemed like paradise to me as I hit the ice cold beer. Until the alcohol touched my parched throat I feared that it might all be a mirage from a combination of too much heat and too many dubious pills. The place was full of the usual suspect young women, but the heat had so frazzled my brain and body that there was no way I could summon the energy for such doubtful antics. I thought I would hang out there until later in the day but rats as big as cats kept careering across the floor, taking no notice when I tried to kick them in the head with my heavyweight boots. They were as vicious faced and shady looking as the African customers.
I left while I could still walk and before the rats had started leaping at my neck. The BMW refused to start. I couldn't believe it, after all the effort I'd gone to. The starter churned the engine over and over, but the motor sounded as if there was no petrol getting through... some thieving reprobate had completely emptied the tank. After about fifty attempts I was told the only petrol was back in Mombasa. The only guy with a truck refused to syphon off any petrol but agreed to put the BMW in the truck and take me back the way I'd come.
It took six of us to haul the beast in the back and all the way to Mombasa I eyed the driver, a huge chap about twice my weight who stunk of petrol... I directed him to a hotel where I hadn't stayed before. At least I could pretend that I’d done a couple of thousand miles before the breakdown occurred. I wasn’t too amused when the BMW toppled over on my leg as we hauled it off the truck. Nor that the driver suddenly demanded twice the agreed amount and looked like he was going to tear me apart when I handed him the correct sum. I put on my maximum psychopath stare. It was only when looking at the dented BMW that | realised I had two huge containers full of petrol. The swearing fit went on for about an hour; talk about being out of my head!
In the hotel room the cockroaches were fighting the rats and the floorboards sounded so hollow they were more dust than wood. I could just imagine myself leaping out of bed, full of joy at yet another day alive, only to hit the floor and disappear rapidly down two storeys. The whole flimsy hotel would probably fall in like a pack of collapsing cards. It seemed like a good idea to hit a bar I'd spied across the road.
Some five hours later there seemed to be a riot in the street. Huge crowds of Africans were screaming at each other. In the midst of it was my BMW, which the hotel owner had refused to allow across his threshold. I couldn't see what was happening until the crowd had dispersed. The bike had been stripped down to its crankcases and frame. Just about everything that could be pulled off had disappeared.
I looked around the suddenly deserted street in wonder. I screamed a few obscenities but by the time I'd staggered into the hotel I figured I'd had an easy escape. I had the excuse I needed to return home with my tail between my legs. I'll be quite happy never to set foot in Africa again.
Al Culler
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