Marabou stalks in Tanzania’s Mikumi Nature Reserve
Forty-eight years ago, when I was riding through Tanzania on my way to Mbeya, I came across an elephant. *
“It stood a little way back from the road and facing me, arrested in the act of chewing a trunk-load of grass. The grass stuck out on either side of its mouth behind the trunk, like a cat’s whiskers, giving it an undignified and rather lugubrious look. We stared at each other for a while. Then I got the definite feeling that it was fed up with me and planning to do something about it. I kicked over the engine and rode on.”
“Farther along a small troop of zebras also stood grazing and again I stopped. All stood still as statues, heads turned to face me from whatever position they had been in. Their small, round ears strained upwards and seemed to tremble with the effort to pick up any slightest signal. Their markings were immaculate, as if freshly painted on with immense care. All wild animals gave this impression of sharpness and clarity that was new to me, and I began to remember zoo animals as having lost this edge and looking faded and grubby by comparison.”
“Nothing ever enchanted me so much as coming across wild animals. I thought often how human society had impoverished itself by driving this element out of its life. In Africa I began to see the human race, sometimes, as a cancerous growth so far out of equilibrium with its host, the earth, that it would inevitably bring about the destruction of both.”
Well, we’ve gone a lot farther down that road since then. I’m writing from one of those heat waves which are soon likely to become another word for summer. I shall leave this world long before the worst of it but how dismal to see it coming. Are any of you from West Virginia? Can’t you recall Joe Manchin? Is there anyone in Moscow? Can’t you plant a bomb under Putin? We’ve got rid of Boris, but not in a very useful way. If only my pen were really mightier than a sword. If only I were mighty enough to wield it.
So far life is still manageable. I rode my new MP3 a few hundred miles recently, just as the heat was coming on. I rode past grand vistas of green grassland and newly verdant vines, and plunged into aromatic forests of evergreens. It’s a 500cc machine and it gobbled up the miles with ease. So I still get these ideas . . .
Africa may be a bit too far for me now. Anyway, the second time I went, there were no elephants on the road. But the first time will always be an explosive experience.
I have to assume that if you are reading these words you have an interest in travel, probably by motorcycle, and that you are curious about those parts of the world you haven’t experienced. Even though the abundance of images from everywhere today can give the illusion of being there, you know that it is an illusion. You need to be there to know it and, more importantly, to know how you personally respond to it. Adventure travel, after all, just means getting out of your comfort zone and finding out what happens.
So, of course you would want the world, as it is, to survive, and you would want travel to be possible and unhindered by wars and dictators.
This is my clumsy way of establishing what it is that you and I have in common, regardless of age, nationality, politics, religion and gender: and I want to say that what we have in common is vastly more important than those other things. So, what are the biggest threats to our common interest? Well, I would say, first and foremost, climate change. Apart from making “normal” life abnormally uncomfortable, it will create dangerous, chaotic conditions in the most interesting parts of the world, like Africa and Asia – travel will become difficult and downright dangerous, but not in a very interesting way.
What is puzzling, and extremely aggravating, is that American voters, who have the power to turn the tide, are so concerned about their current discomfort that they are shutting the door on measures that must be taken now to avoid a dystopian future. Do they feel helpless? Why is the only charismatic leader around determined to make a bonfire of the environment?
I reckon I may be talking to a couple of thousand people who feel as I do. I keep coming back to it, I know, but are we helpless too?
* Jupiter’s Travels: P 153
I’ve had a wonderful week in England, right across the spectrum of motorcycle travel. First there was the enormous ABR meeting at Ragley Hall, and then, on my last night, an intimate evening in a pub with sixty fellow bikers.
I must admit I was nervous of the ABR. Huge meetings like that have never been my thing although I compromised for years in the States because it was the only way I could get to see my friends. But somehow something as big as that, attracting tens of thousands, didn’t seem right for little England. But I was wrong. Immaculately managed by Bryn Davies it was even better than the Overland Expos I used to go to in the USA. For one thing, there was acres of sitting room. And there were hi-tech tents I’ve never seen before covering huge areas. It was under one of those tents that I had the pleasure of being grilled by Billy “Bike Truck” Ward, and under another that the unstoppable Simon and Lisa got me flowing on a cold morning.
Thank you all for making it so easy for me. Billy has been especially generous to me. He is the man who arranged for me to fly to Dubai on a 380 in business class, my best stratospheric experience so far, until I go up one day with Elon. It almost hurt me to learn that Billy himself only flew coach.
XRW964M was parked up by Ragley Hall and it gave me great pleasure, as always, to be near it. The Hall itself disappointed me, a huge grey pile on a grey day, looking rather unfriendly, but perhaps in sunshine it does better, and I heard there are beautiful gardens behind it somewhere. Much more friendly and luxurious was the Arrow Mill hotel I stayed in very nearby, where my room looked out over swans, and the bathroom was like something out of pre-war Hollywood. Fortunately for me I didn’t have to pay.
The night before flying home I had dinner with sixty bikers in a splendid pub in Cranleigh, Surrey. Cranleigh is said to be the largest village in Britain, which doesn’t seem to be something to brag about, but the bit I saw looked pretty enough. The dinner was arranged by a super nice and efficient couple, Sara and Chris, who have a motorcycle apparel shop called Motolegends in Guildford. Everybody liked me. It may surprise you to know that it always comes as a bit of a surprise to me too. I’m very likely to go back, and I really want to visit their shop. The website is full of surprises. Next September maybe, when I go to the Overland Event at Oxford, which is the diametric opposite of the ABR. It’s a lovely small meeting I try not to miss, and I still hope against hope that XRW964M might find its way there again, as it has all these years.
A summer’s evening in Aspiran – where I live
SPOILER ALERT
I’m sorry, but there’s a question I have to ask. It’s not that I don’t care about guns, or abortions, or LGBTQ, but I care more about the survival of our species.
When will someone find a way to explain to Republican (whatever that means) Americans that their representatives are lighting the gas in the oven which is going to roast my grandsons?
Do those six sick Supreme Court justices (what’s justice got to do with it?) not know that there are already zones in the ocean that are 2 degrees hotter than normal and killing off their inhabitants?
Do they not know that desperate workers building football stadiums in Quatar are dropping like flies because working in fifty degree Celsius heat is lethal, which is what those sick justices and their enablers on the Hill are preparing for us all?
They must have, at the very least, the intelligence of your average working Josephine. The only explanation I can come up with is that they know the game is up, and that they might as well have some fun. Shall we join them? I’ve heard of Hanging Judges, but I’ve never seen one hung.
PS: Since only a miracle can save us, I bring you news of a miracle. The morning after I returned from England (via Easyjet, and that in itself was a minor miracle) our ancient water-heater packed up. We called a plumber.
He arrived at our door, young and enthusiastic, in under ten minutes.
He diagnosed the problem and returned twenty minutes later with a new heater. In no time at all we were fixed up and he took the old one way.
I consider that to be a miracle. Of course you may say it doesn’t count because it happened on a Thursday and true plumbing crises always happen on Saturday night. Well poo to you.
