BREAKING

Lifestyle

Off To Africa: Part 10

Article And Photos By: Tim “Buzzy” Bussey

Originally Published In The May 2011 Issue Of Cycle Source Magazine

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Over the sound of my engine I heard a voice yelling, “Pull over!” A rider, wearing a florescent vest and helmet, had appeared beside my Wide Glide on a Vespa scooter. He was shouting and pointing to the side of the road. I thought it must be the police as I came to a stop. Saint Louis police have a reputation in motorcycle travel circles as being especially over-zealous in the pursuit of on-the-spot payments from bikers traveling through the area. In the three days I had been in the country, I was pulled over three times. Each time, the police were more interested in my bike than my passport. They would look at my passport and say, “American.” Then, looking at my bike, they would say, “Harley Davidson.” It seemed that everyone in Senegal knew what the bike was: a Harley. One time a couple of policemen began looking at the speedometer and asked, “How fast?” Smiling I answered, ‘200 m.p.h.’ Once the Vespa rider came over to my bike, I realized he was not the police. It turned out that Paul was from Antwerp, Belgium. On a bet, he was riding his 250cc Vespa from Belgium to Dakar. Someone had said that it would be impossible to make the journey on a scooter so Paul set out to see if it could be done. We rode together until the turnoff for Dakar. Paul was going to Dakar to make arrangement to ship his Vespa back home and I was heading further south to the oceanside town of Saly. Paul said he would be in Saly in a few days and we agreed to meet up, have a beer and share stories of riding alone from Europe to Senegal. Once in Saly, I looked up Yasin and Mikael. They had rented a place on the beach and offered me a place to stay. It was an offer too good to turn down. Saly was a small resort village that mostly caters to tourists coming from France and Belgium.

West Africa is to Europe as Central America is to the USA. Just as Americans will fly into the resort areas of Mexico for vacation, Europeans seeking a change from the ordinary will head to locations in West Africa such as Saly to enjoy the sun and beaches. Most fly in to stay at resorts and only venture out on guided tours. Other more adventurous travelers will make the journey overland and experience true interaction with other cultures and peoples. Yasin was a traveler and a seeker. He had left Sicily in the 1960s and spent 30 years living in India. Now in his early sixties, he was moving from France to Senegal to build a house and a bakery. Some years ago he had converted to Islam. His son had married a Muslim girl from a village outside of Saly and was also making plans to live life in Senegal. Mikael was a friend of Yasins’ son. Yasin had brought him along hoping that he would stay on and work for him as a baker. However, Mikael was just along for the adventure and wasn’t taking Yasin’s offer seriously. My time was spent riding or hanging out at the beach during the days. In the afternoons we would go to the fish market in M’Bour and buy freshly caught shrimp and fish for dinner. The lady who helped Yasin with his house would cook for us. After feasting on local dishes of fish and shrimp we would sit outside and have tea and mangos with the only light coming from the stars above. A ride to Africa would not be complete without seeing the wild animals we have come to associate with the continent. Sadly, years of poaching has decimated the wildlife in much of Africa. Now in West Africa most wildlife only survives in protected areas like Bandia Nature Reserve. Mikael and I hired a car to take us out to the park. Once there we paid to have a Jeep drive us through the reserve. Giraffes, white rhinos, zebras, antelopes, waterbucks, Oryx, impalas, West African forest buffalos, wart hogs, crocodiles and monkeys all roamed freely throughout the park. When it was time to leave, we found out that there was no transportation leaving the park so we began hitchhiking back to Saly. We had no luck catching a ride until a local bus came by. The buses here just slow down and a guy standing on the rear bumper will swing open the back door. Passengers jump in and pay a small amount to ride.

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I had been on the road now for a couple of months and it was time to figure out how to get back home. I had about three weeks left before I had to be back at work. My choices were limited. A two-week ride back to Europe to catch a plane to Canada then ride back to Arizona. This would require going back through Mauritania just after four Al-Qaeda members had been convicted there of murdering a French family in December of 2007. The murders had been the deciding factor for moving the Paris-Dakar race from West Africa to South America. It would be a lot of backtracking and I would have to decide once again if I wanted to get ripped off at the Rosso crossing or ride the desert back into Mauritania. Neither choice was very appealing at the time. My only other choice would be to head to Dakar and see if it was possible to ship a bike to the US. I looked up an affordable hotel in Dakar in the Lonely Planet Travel Guide. Paul knew Dakar well and drew up a map for me to follow. Dakar is a city of over a million people so finding anything can be difficult when you don’t know the area. After a few u-turns and stops to ask directions, I actually found the hotel I was looking for. The hotel was down a side street covered with sand not far from the ocean. The hotel only had seven rooms but it was a cheerful place, brightly painted with a bar and kitchen. The food was excellent and the staff was friendly. I awoke early and was having coffee when one of the girls told me there was a “crazy man” in the front of the hotel looking for me. ‘Looking for me?’ I said. I went up front and Gilberte, one of the staff, was confronting an older French man who was loudly speaking and waving his arms in the air. I recognized him right away. A week earlier he had rushed up to me as I was leaving a bar in Saly. He was riding a 125cc Chinese motorcycle with a local guy on the back. Neither of them spoke English. I couldn’t make out anything he was saying but the flyer he handed me showed that there was to be a motorcycle rally in Dakar the following week. I took the flyer and said that I would check out the rally.

Now here he was demanding that I go with him right away. How he found where I was staying I have no idea. Gilberte to a traffic circle the police would block it off and the group would ride around each circle four or five times with horns blasting and small crowds of people gathered to watch. At the end of the ride there was food and music. The rally had brought together people from all walks of life: rich and poor, locals and foreigners, Muslims and Christians, blacks and whites. With all the hate and finger pointing going on in the world today, it was very cool to see that bikers can put aside differences and respect each other while sharing a common love of freedom and brotherhood. The words to the Beatles song “Revolution” began to play in my head as I rode back to the hotel: “But when you want money for people with minds that hate, All I can tell is brother you have to wait, Don’t you know it’s gonna be all right…” After several emails and phone calls, I found a shipper who said they could send my bike to Houston from Dakar. The earliest flight would be in two weeks. That still gave me a week before I had to be back at work. With nothing else to do I began to check out the area around Dakar. Gilberte was a tour guide for the hotel. She suggested that I visit Gornee Island. Gornee Island sits a few miles off shore from Dakar; it flourished during the centuries of slave trading. Nearly two million people were brought to this small island and sold into slavery then put aboard ships sailing across the Atlantic to the New World. For centuries it was a warehouse of horror known as the “Door of no return.” Today it is a peaceful place inhabited by about 1000 people. Artists and craftsmen work here selling to the tourists who come to see this monument to the cruelty that man inflects upon man. While I was waiting to ship my bike home, the girls who worked at the hotel, Gilberte, Awa, Isabel, Mariana, Michelin, and Maguis, became friends and would find things for me to do.

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One afternoon, Gilberte and Isabel asked if I wanted to do something. I said sure and then found out we would be helping someone move. We took a cab about 35 miles then had to find someone with a truck to help. There wasn’t enough room for everyone in the truck so Gilberte and I took a cab back. We had a large glass coffee table top in the cab trunk. Everything was going okay until the police stopped the cab. The driver didn’t have a permit and the cop wanted money. The driver refused. The cop told us to get out and took the cabbie away. So there we were, late at night, standing on the side of the road in a not so good looking part of town with a large piece of glass resting on my foot. I thought to myself, ‘Bet you can’t get this on the guided tours.’ Gilberte is a charming woman and we spent time exploring the city and nearby beaches. When it was time to ship my bike, Gilberte went to the cargo company with me and helped make the arrangements. I paid the freight charges and dropped the bike off at the airport. Later that night the shipper called the hotel. He kept telling Gilberte that there was a “big problem.” I asked Gilberte what the problem was and she said not to worry, she would take care of it in the morning. I pressed her for an answer and she said that the paper for my bike was expired. I had bought 30 days of insurance when I entered the country but the temporary import paper for my bike was only for ten days. Not reading French, I didn’t realize it. The shippers saw a quick buck coming their way and said that my bike could not be shipped. I was okay but my bike had been an illegal import. They knew that they had me. They were saying that it would cost a thousand dollars to correct the “mistake.”

I stood there while Gilberte had a heated discussion with the shippers and after about 15 minutes, she told me to give them 40 dollars and then she told the guy to have the papers stamped. I had lucked out having Gilberte with me. If I had been alone with no knowledge of the language I would have had no choice but to pay whatever they demanded. They had my bike and without an export paper I would be stuck. When I thanked Gilberte she just laughed and said, “Don’t worry, you have Gillo here.” I waited until my bike was on a plane and out of Dakar before I ordered a ticket for myself. The only flights leaving Dakar are at night so I spent my last day in Senegal hanging out at the hotel bar. Before leaving, the girls from the hotel gave me a travel bag to carry my saddlebags in. They had all chipped in and bought it for me. Once again I was reminded that the world is full of beautiful people and it is well worth the risks to ride out and meet them. After saying good-bye to everyone, Gilberte rode in the cab with me to the airport. The police only let people with passports and tickets into the terminal so after I checked in, we said good-bye and I got on the plane. As I watched the lights of the city disappear into the darkness of the African night below, I thought of what a far-out ride it had been. I had seen places that I had only dreamed of, met people I will never forget and overcame many challenges along the way. Once again, my old Wide Glide had transported me into a world of dreams where anything is possible and brought me back home. I drifted off to sleep with the words to a John Lennon song playing in my head: “Instant Karma’s gonna get you, Gonna knock you off your feet, Better recognize your brothers, Ev’ryone you meet, Why in the world are we here, Surely not to live in pain and fear…Well we all shine on, Like the moon and the stars

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