Tales of mortars, rocks and blood
Maddened by speed
They came down the hill screaming and shouting and laughing. They rode their bikes over the rocks and the holes and through the channels cut by rain in the orange granite soil, their red-tartan shukas flying like flags behind them, their eyes wide with crazed adrenaline and they arrived at the bottom of the Loita Hills breathless, unable to speak for what they had done.
All the energy accrued over car borne days was released as we raced down the rough road track to the tree bushed plains, maddened by speed and the thrill of it. Into the forest we rode, more cactus than tree, where with breath back in our lungs, we rode over the soft green grass still wet from the morning’s rains. Thorns abounded, lying in wait for our rubber tyres, but with grace and skill we danced the bikes around them. The two bodies in front of me were richly pungent and exotic, full of smoke and mutton fat, spice and soured milk, leather and dust, and we three were thrilled to be alive.
Maji Moto, a Maasai camp, high in the Loita Hills has mountain bikes in good mechanical shape, helmets and young warriors as guides; John and the man with a lisp whose name I could not catch despite the three times of asking so I call him Sean as his voice has Connery’s slur.
Shukas and Rapha shorts
Once down upon the plains, the road is a muddle of tracks, animal and vehicle, that lead across the flatness and past farmsteads encircled by acacia thorns and barbed wire. We ride, two red shukas - the traditional Maasai cloak - and a pair of Rapha blue shorts across glades and pass the dense and silvered thorns shaped by names - candelabra, cow thorn, and whilsting thorn, which draw blood on thin white skin as they over reach the narrow paths.
Under the shade of the Fever tree
My companions are finding the work of riding, heavy.
”We stop for 6 minutes. Only 6 minutes ok?”
The air is busy with noise. Distorted sounds of African rock music, accompanied by a seme - the leaf shaped knife that all Maasai carry- reverberating against hard wood. In time, the music moves and two women appear from the bush; one ancient with a taught rough strip of cotton bound round her forehead which carried several trunks of trees and the other young carrying the seme in one hand and her smart phone turned up loud, in the other. Both were dressed in dirty worn clothes, their faces lined by work.
“Get up, John,” I said. “You need to help this poor lady. She is old and carrying a great weight”.
The woman stares at me uncomprehendingly. John laughs at us both.
“No it is the woman’s work. My back would break if I carried this. It is too heavy for me”.
The women walk on, after a brief exchange with Sean.
Blood and shells on the rock
We are back working the hill, which is steep and long up to the pass, tyres struggling with the loose chips of glistening quartz on the large granite slabs which stand proud of the grass. We reach the pass and way below a village of corrugated zinc huts glint in the sun. We ride fast down the hill, too fast for these inexperienced boys and John falls. Dark blood tartans his skin.
“It’s OK. The bike, it has no brakes, I must stop with my foot. The bike is not good’.
I tinker with the wheel nuts and play with the brakes and reassure him that all is well. We ride more cautiously now. Further down, on a giant slab of granite is a mortar shell. I was not anticipating war on this ride. Sean comes alongside and says,
“There are many. The army came here and used the hills as a firing range. Many of our people are killed by these because they don't always explode and the children, they pick them up…..” His unfinished sentence drifts into the blue sky. “We took the army to the court and they had to leave, but there are many like this. This one is OK I think, but you should not touch it”.
Lions I’d expected, even hoped for, but mortar shells?
‘You want more?
Finally after two hours, we arrive as the sun begins to wane, onto a large and nearly dry car track. Sean asks, “You want to go more, or to the camp? I think we go on. Maybe we find some animals’.
Nothing in me wants to stop. Go on, go on, into the fantasy of Africa, cycling on a dirt road, acacias against the sky, a zebra and some gnus grazing away to the left. The sky is very blue, the light harsh, the grass green. There is the purr of tyres, the sweet smell of sheep and goats, and dung plastered homes enclosed by thorns, breathing woodsmoke.
Breaking the rules of the cyclist’s code
I am waiting a lot now for my companions as I cycle through fields rough with bare mud, the grass overgrazed. My companions are too tired to ride, they walk, pushing their bikes wearily. I pass the time whilst waiting by snapping off a couple of Aloe leaves and rub the sticky juices on my thorn cuts and tuck a piece of the orange croton tree into my helmet as the flies are said to shy away from its spicy smell. By a sign pointing the way back to camp, I break the rule of the cyclist’s road and ride alone up the hill back to camp, unkindly leaving my companions to suffer alone.
Their noisy euphoria of thrill and fear which led us out of camp has been replaced by their silent bone tiredness. I go to welcome them, apologetic for leaving them, but they ignore me, their faces full of fallen pride mixed with exhaustion and they walk past me, eyes on the floor and put their bikes back on the rack. The sun finally sets far away and the night begins to howl.