South Africa

The Build Up

The interest, reception and enthusiasm with which we have been greeted in South Africa has been amazing - particularly in the light of media indifference at home. Five national radio interviews and a national Sunday newspaper piece has given us a lot of popular support and recognition. Not only did we get lots of opportunities to talk about what we were doing, but the media were very eager to find out about what slavery we thought still existed and if it had anything to do with their communities. We have been on SAbc a few times and even got interviewed by the Sara Cox equivalent of South African breakfast radio who asked - "Surely because there are so many poor Africans they are queuing up to be slaves?"...wasn't really sure what to say so I half laughed and gave an example of 8 year old West African sex slaves murdered after they aren't useful as virgins, which I don't think he was expecting. We also weren't expecting it when Jonny arrived on the 22nd August slightly the worse for wear, without the bike, any insurance, or most of the things he needed for the trip - he did buy 2 Gameboys in the airport though. Before we start we would like to take this opportunity to thank every body in Cape Town and Jo'burg for all their help and time, particularly, Jono's mother Denise and step-father Richard, who made our arrival so easy, and Sue Wolf, who gave us our last bit of luxury before our departure.

Saturday 23rd August
Official Send-Off

Two stories currently in the news here, one about two boys, aged 9 and 10, who were found in the Randburg area of Jo'burg, after escaping from sex slavery into which they had been sold by their 17 year old brother and another about the discovery of a mass grave in Cape Town, with the remains of what have been identified as 18th century slaves, has provided timely context to our trip. When we arrived in Cape Town local news and national television continued their coverage, and on our launch date, 23rd August (International Day for the Remembrance of the Slave Trade and its Abolition) hundreds of people, including The South African Drummers and The Cape Town Minstrels, sang, beat and cheered us on our way. It was all organised in a blink by so many kind and open minded people.

Wednesday 27th August
The Departure

We finished all our organisation, administration and shopping for spares and essentials by lunch time and after a year of planning and fundraising and boring everyone about how great its going to be we were finally able to get on our bikes. Filmed by Jonny and followed by Jono, Rob, Becks and myself, we started our adventure next to the stunning mountains of Cape Town. We got lost even before we left Cape Town. We decided to stay off the N2 motorway as long as we could, and so follow the smaller parallel road out of Cape Town. We soon found that people were wondering what these idiot foreigners were doing setting off into some of the most dangerous townships in South Africa. A friendly policeman gave us the choice of "having everything stolen in the townships" or being "crushed by a lorry or a crazed taxi on the motorway". We thought for a while and went on the motorway, which proved stressful, but quick.

Wednesday 3rd September

The cycling has been very good this first week and we have covered almost 1000kms. Our biggest day has been 170km, and our smallest was a very hilly climb to Grahamstown from Port Elizabeth. We have been reminded on many occasions, however, that this is as easy as it gets. The sun isn't too hot, the hills are not yet mountains, the roads are good and there are lots of people to stay with. None of this will be true in a few weeks time, and we will be camping and living off Felix/Polonsky cuisine to boot! Its getting more obvious to Becks and I that everything that makes us fed up on our bikes, like huge hills, mountain ranges on the horizon and crappy roads, makes Rob's face light up with joy...but then again being cold, hungry and tired with 50km left to cycle in the dark seems to make Rob pretty happy too, so I think Becks and I are going to have to be whinge buddies throughout.

The route travelled so far

Friday 5th September
"Desmonds"

Today, our first day off, was also our most rewarding, as we finally met with Archbishop Desmond Tutu, who gave us a hugely warm welcome after we chased him to Port Elizabeth airport (thanks to Mike Loewe, a journalist from Grahamstown who got us there on time!) Archbishop Tutu was very happy to talk to us about our trip, our cause and even congratulated Rob and Jonny on their "Desmonds"!

His enthusiasm and kindness
made our efforts so far very worthwhile.