The Backstory
This is the beginning of a new Substack series.
In 1986–87, I cycled 27,500 kilometres from Chile to Alaska, including an attempt to cross the Darién Gap. It was my first major bicycle journey and became my first book, På cykel från Chile till Alaska.
When I returned to Sweden, things moved quickly. For around eight months, I travelled around the country giving lectures almost every day. I also appeared on Packat och klart, then Sweden’s best-known television programme about travel.
But I was already thinking about another journey.
In September 1988, I left North Cape in northern Norway. This time I had a professional bicycle and some of the best expedition equipment available. A proper tent, sleeping mattress and clothing.
The plan was to cycle from North Cape to Cape Agulhas, the southern tip of Africa. The journey would eventually cover approximately 33,000 kilometres and take me through the Sahara, Central Africa, the equatorial rainforest, East Africa and southern Africa.
It became my second book, På cykel genom Afrika, first published in Swedish by Dalaförlaget in 1991.
The first 6,660 kilometres through Europe were cold, wet and almost entirely free of other cyclists. When I landed at the Spanish enclave of Ceuta, Morocco became my entrance to Africa.
It was not an easy beginning.
This English version is translated and lightly adapted from the original Swedish book. I have kept the events, thoughts and judgements of the young man I was at the time. Some of them are harsh. I have not rewritten that younger version of myself to make him sound wiser or more experienced than he was.
“A person may hate Africa or love Africa, but can never remain indifferent to that enormous continent.”
My friend Abraham’s truth about the continent and its many faces.
“Do Not Cross the Bridge!”
I am not exaggerating when I say that every poorly dressed and dirty villager who stopped me as I made my way up through the desert-like mountain landscape said the same four words after first asking me for cigarettes:
“Do not cross the bridge!”
At first, I thought this was another attempt to mess with me and cheat me, like so much of what had happened since the day I landed at Ceuta after cycling 6,660 cold and rapid kilometres from North Cape.
In fact, my troubled relationship with Morocco was one reason I had climbed into the desolate High Atlas. The main reason, however, was that I was determined to climb North Africa’s highest mountain, Jebel Toubkal.
I soon realised that the villagers were serious.
There really was a sacred bridge farther up the valley, and only Muslims were permitted to cross it. They said that the entire area on the other side was holy and guarded by a witch doctor who lived in the mountains throughout the year.
They warned me sharply about the unpleasant consequences that would follow if I ignored their advice.
Do I need to explain that this made me extremely curious?
I was excited, expectant and also slightly worried when, after many hours of walking alone, I finally reached the sacred bridge. During much of the climb, I had imagined meeting a witch doctor wearing a mask with a demonic face. I had convinced myself that this divine place and perhaps the witch doctor himself might help dispel the problems that had troubled me recently.
But, like so much else during my first weeks in Morocco, the discovery of the bridge was an anticlimax.
I do not know what I had expected, but I had certainly not imagined that the sacred bridge would be a simple construction of stones placed carelessly across an idyllic, murmuring stream.
The holy area on the other side was no more impressive. There were a few stone houses and a strangely whitewashed building from which numerous prayer flags fluttered in the freezing wind. But I saw no witch doctor and felt none of the magical atmosphere I had imagined.
For some reason, my disappointment was so great that I ignored every warning about death and torment of the soul.
Out of pure defiance, I crossed the bridge.
The Invisible Button
Only minutes later, it was as if someone above had pressed an invisible button.
Within half an hour, the beautiful surroundings disappeared. For several days, there had been a clear blue sky and strong sunlight. The snow-covered summits of the Atlas Mountains had glittered like diamonds.
Now everything vanished into thick fog and a violent snowstorm. I could not see farther than the end of my nose.
A person in full possession of his senses would have understood his mistake. He would not have challenged fate again. He would have descended to one of the villages in the valley below, villages that seemed to hang impossibly between two mountain walls.
But I was not in full possession of my senses.
Throughout my time in Morocco, I had been dominated by a feeling of loneliness whose origins I could not properly identify. It had drawn me into a negative way of thinking and brought me into constant conflict with the people of the country.
There was much about Morocco that had enchanted me from my first day on the continent.
I was fascinated by the exotic life in the old quarters of the Moroccan cities, the medinas. Their narrow, dark alleys offered smells, sounds and colours that overwhelmed the senses of an inexperienced Swede.
The country’s natural beauty was undeniable: the mysterious Rif Mountains covered in coniferous forest, the equally beautiful snow-covered Atlas Mountains, and the small groves of cedar and oak that occasionally appeared in an otherwise barren landscape.
The quiet villages I passed were inhabited mostly by peaceful and generous people.
Yet wherever I went, whether in villages, towns or out in the countryside, there also seemed to be people whose only purpose in life was to cheat, threaten, chase, insult or throw stones at foreigners.
My encounters with those individuals came to dominate my experience to such a degree that I became blind to almost everything positive.
I am not saying that they did not sometimes have reasons for behaving as they did. But after only two weeks in the country, someone had cheated me out of thousands of Swedish kronor in a carpet deal. Dogs and men armed with sticks had attacked my camp at night. One of my friends had been raped and deliberately beaten unconscious. I had been spat in the face twice. My mother had been called a whore countless times, and my dead father had been accused of homosexuality. Men had threatened to kill me with knives and slingshots when I refused to buy their hashish or supposedly genuine leather bags.
Most of those tormenting me were twelve-year-old boys or extremely persistent and aggressive salesmen. I assumed that the endless flow of tourists, and the money they brought, was the main reason for their behaviour.
But that damned, indefinable loneliness was wearing down my patience and my ability to accept things as they were. Instead of laughing at the insults, I answered them in kind.
A Private War
All the way along the beautifully surfaced road from Tétouan to Marrakech, I conducted what was almost a private war against any Moroccan I believed had threatened or insulted me.
I am not proud to admit that I knocked down several salesmen whom I felt had insulted me in the cruellest way imaginable. But I had entered the greatest crisis of my life.
I had not come to Morocco and Africa to dislike countries and their people.
Quite the opposite.
I had come to the continent to learn how people here lived and thought, and to grow as a human being. Since I was young, I had convinced myself that Africa, more than any other continent, might provide answers to my questions about life and death.
I had come to Morocco to experience the enchanting and fantastic side of a country that, in my imagination, represented the world of One Thousand and One Nights.
The problem was the loneliness. It stood in the way of what I believed would become the greatest bicycle adventure of all time.
When I reached Marrakech, I headed for the Atlas Mountains as quickly as possible. Mountains had always given me answers during my earlier journeys.
That was why I did not turn back when fog and snow darkened the world after I crossed the forbidden bridge. Instead, I took out my compass and set a course for the base camp.
I was convinced that the answer to my problems was waiting at the summit of Jebel Toubkal.
Seventeen Hours Through the Snow
After seventeen hours of struggling through waist-deep snow, I finally came upon the chimney of the base-camp hut in the darkness.
I was so exhausted that I cried. I had long since lost all feeling in my feet and nose.
Using the last of my strength, I dug a three-metre tunnel through the snow to the door of the stone hut. Shivering uncontrollably, I crawled into my sleeping bag and immediately sank into an eighteen-hour sleep.
The snow and cold had intensified when I opened my eyes again.
Snow had forced its way through the building’s cracked windows and covered a large part of the fifteen-square-metre floor. Panic-stricken, I kicked off my life-saving sleeping bag, packed my equipment and dug my way out of the building.
I crawled across the roof until I reached the snow-covered mound on its northeastern side.
According to the topographical map I carried, cliffs surrounded me to both the west and east. Between them was a valley leading towards the foot of the 4,185-metre summit.
But outside the hut, I could not even take out the map. The wind was so powerful that I had to walk leaning forwards to prevent myself from being thrown backwards into the metre-deep snow.
With my face turned north according to the compass, I gambled everything and stepped into the blinding storm.
I had convinced myself that the entire meaning of my journey—perhaps even the question of whether it should continue—depended on reaching the summit.
I was prepared to risk my life.
The Avalanche
An hour later, I had climbed approximately fifty metres up an almost vertical wall that I believed led towards the summit that would resolve all my existential problems.
Then I saw the crack racing towards me.
I had only enough time to think:
“Oh, no!”
The vertical wall of snow collapsed.
I fell around thirty metres and landed headfirst in the deep snow. Large masses of snow piled on top of me, locking my body in a vice-like grip.
Suddenly, I could hardly breathe.
With all the strength I had left, I fought to free myself before I suffocated. Then I realised that I could move my right arm. I pushed it upwards and unexpectedly felt the biting wind seize my hand.
I could breathe again.
Slowly and carefully, I dug out one part of my body after another, trying not to move too violently in case I triggered another avalanche.
When I finally stood again, my entire body was shaking with fear. I felt the warmth of excrement inside my trousers.
The smell of fear followed me all the way back to the base camp.
The snowstorm continued for another three days before I could descend to the village of Asni and take a bus back to Marrakech.
I arrived in that legendary city devastated and without any hope of finding a solution to my problems.
Abraham
Instead, I found the answer in Marrakech’s ancient and most famous square, Djemaa el-Fna—also known as the Square of the Entertainers.
The answer came in the shape of Abraham, a master thief.
Perhaps it was because, when I passed the sacred bridge on my way down from the base camp, I stood on the side of the stream reserved for non-believers, turned towards the higher powers and shouted:
“Forgive me! It will not happen again!”
At first glance, it was impossible to believe that Abraham was English.
Like most Moroccans who took pride in their religion and identity, he wore a simple kaftan and a small embroidered cap. His features looked Arabic, although his eyes slanted in an East Asian manner, and he spoke fluent Arabic.
At first, I thought he belonged to one of the performing groups that filled Djemaa el-Fna during the daytime.
Then I heard his voice.
I sat down beside him on a bench belonging to food stall number 25 and ordered the most expensive thing I could find in an attempt to feel happy again after the failure on Jebel Toubkal.
“Want some pastilla, mate? Celebrating something, mate? Though you look worn out and finished,” he said in a challenging Cockney accent.
That was my first encounter with Abraham: an Englishman fleeing the long arm of the law.
Hidden beneath his loose clothing was a money belt containing British pounds and gold coins worth half a million Swedish kronor. Bank fraud, he told me one evening as he led me through the darkest and narrowest alleys of the city and showed me the belt.
Abraham was certainly a large-scale criminal and fitted perfectly into the Ali Baba and the Forty Thieves atmosphere that I imagined governed the country.
But, like me, he had left on a long journey to find all the answers to existence.
He believed he had found God. He had converted to Islam so that he could make a pilgrimage by camel to the promised land of Yemen.
More importantly, Abraham identified my problem.
Africa Is Waiting
We met at food stall 25 for six consecutive evenings. Its dishes produced an exotic aroma that far surpassed those of the hundred surrounding stalls.
On the sixth evening, Abraham turned towards me.
“Mike, you and I have been sitting here talking for days without reaching the heart of the worry I can see tormenting you. You think Morocco is the problem or that breaking the taboo at the bridge caused everything, don’t you?
“But do you know what it really is? I recognise that look, and I understand what you are thinking because I feel exactly the same thing.
“It is fear, Mike. You, like me, are frightened deep inside by what is waiting beyond those mountains.”
He pointed into the darkness towards the Atlas Mountains, at whose feet Marrakech lay.
“Frightened? What should I be frightened of?” I answered, surprised and slightly offended.
“As I said, you are frightened of what is waiting on the other side of the mountains. Admit that you have felt miserable ever since the day you first saw the African continent on a world map. Admit that, deep down, you have never been motivated by Morocco because you have constantly been thinking about what is waiting on the other side. Admit it!
“Morocco is not Africa. The real Africa is waiting on the other side. You will never feel a moment’s peace until you leave Marrakech and cross those mountains. Get moving as quickly as you can. I know what will happen on the other side. You will fall in love with Africa. I have a feeling that Africa will place its hand upon you, and afterwards you will never forget its touch. I know because I lived in the real Africa for many years. So hurry and get away from this Morocco that is wearing you down before it is too late. Africa is waiting!”
Abraham shouted so loudly and passionately that the other customers at the food stall looked at us suspiciously.
“I have to admit that you are right,” I answered. “But if it is so urgent, why don’t you climb onto your camels and leave for Yemen tomorrow?”
“Don’t you understand, Mike? Before a person can create solid ground for a better life, he must accomplish three important things. First and foremost, he must conquer his own fear, which is the main problem for both you and me. Then—and I have achieved this, but you have not, he must master the painful loneliness that comes when a man has neither a God nor a woman.”
The Other Side of the Atlas Mountains
When night gave way to dawn, I shifted quickly into my highest gear and pedalled towards the Atlas Mountains with everything I had.
I had spent the night trying to motivate myself because everything Abraham said was true. I understood that I had to reach the other side.
An icy wind, steep climbs, frozen roads, a snowstorm and metre-deep snow could not stop me. In record time, I reached the concrete monument marking the Col de Tichka pass at 2,200 metres above sea level.
I could hardly have left that bewildering world behind me in a more dramatic way.
I crossed the Col de Tichka in the middle of a snowstorm. Only minutes later, I emerged into a sunlit landscape of reddish mountains, endless stone and almost no vegetation.
Europe was behind me.
To the east, the Sahara stretched uninterrupted for five thousand kilometres. Ahead waited enormous distances through what Abraham had called the real Africa.
Now, if ever, I would have the chance to conquer my fear.
Enjoyed reading this thanks. I had a similar experience in Morocco!