The Nile at Mile One (cont.)

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The Nile at Mile One (cont.)
Following the path of Churchill on two shaky wheels and a bike with a broken pedal.

The next morning, determined to remain as faithful to Churchill's itinerary as I could, I rented a bike in Wanseko for the trip to Murchison Falls, praised by Churchill as the most spectacular waterfall to be found on the Nile's 4,037-mile journey from Lake Victoria to the Mediterranean. Churchill wrote that a bicycle was "the best of all methods of progression in Central Africa," for it offered both speed and mobility. In the process, he came up with what may be the first literary paean to the glories of singletrack riding: "Even when the track is only two feet wide, and when the densest jungle rises on either side and almost meets above the head, the bicycle skims along, swishing through the grass and brushing the encroaching bushes, at a fine pace."

How I managed, amidst such plenty, to select the singularly pitiful specimen of bicycle I ended up with is something I cannot easily explain. Some people just have a sixth sense about these things.

Actually, I had little choice but a bike if I hoped to reach Kabalega Falls, as Murchison Falls is also known. I had been told back in Kampala that I could catch a bus to the Falls from Wanseko, but that turned out to be false. Walking was not advisable; the distance was 27 miles, and the area was frequented by rhinos and other dangerous wildlife. There were also bandits; indeed, soldiers hunting them had boarded the chocolate bus the day before and aggressively questioned each of the male passengers (except me, the only white). Begging a ride from a passing vehicle was a possibility, but it could be anywhere from five minutes to five days before a vehicle passed. On the other hand, there were lots of bicycles around; the Ugandans seemed as fond of them as Churchill had been, and they almost never traveled without passengers or large quantities of goods perched over their back wheels.

How I managed, amidst such plenty, to select the singularly pitiful specimen of bicycle I ended up with is something I cannot easily explain. Some people just have a sixth sense about these things. After my test ride, I did tell the owner—a teenage boy with a round, eager face—that something was wrong with the left pedal; it was cocked at a funny angle, and my foot kept slipping off it. Besides that, the back tire was treadless, the front wheel had no brakes, and the rusted metal seat offered a standard of discomfort unknown since the Middle Ages. But the owner assured me that the pedal was no problem. And since it was already midmorning, I was in such a hurry—always a mistake in Africa—that I didn't doubt him.

The first six miles of hard dirt road passed quickly enough, and in half an hour I reached the turnoff to the Falls. I pedaled east, 21 miles to go. The road became a dusty track through clusters of thatch huts where children played in the shade beneath mothers' watchful eyes. A teenager in a torn white T-shirt who introduced himself as Robert began riding his bike alongside me and appointed himself my new best friend for life. The track soon began to climb through sparse, dry bush—and climb, and climb some more. After three or four miles on my one-speed stallion with a 30-pound rucksack on my back, I was feeling the strain. Robert was, too, I think, but the smile never left his face as he casually asked whether I had an extra T-shirt or notebook I could spare.

Suddenly, as if to mock my exertions, a white jeep barreled past us in a blizzard of dust. It was a chance in a thousand, but if I had waited at the turnoff with my thumb out, I could have been in that jeep. Instead, I faced another 16 miles of hard labor beneath a sun that, in Churchill's words, "even in the early morning . . . sits hard and heavy on the shoulders. At 10:00 its power is tremendous." It was now after 11; the sun was a huge, hazy white mass.

I had gone only another 200 yards or so when my bicycle's left pedal abruptly collapsed beneath my foot like a cliff after too much rain. The bike keeled over sideways, and my pack and I went sprawling. As I lay in the dust trying to collect my wits, Robert looked down and helpfully observed, "Your bike is faulty, I think."

I reassembled the pedal and banged it back into place, but I had no tools, so there was no means of securing it firmly. I climbed back on anyway and got about five feet before the pedal gave way again and I toppled over a second time. I banged it back into place again, climbed on, and toppled over again. After a couple more rounds of this sport, I devised a crabbed method of pedaling that took me another 500 yards or so before the pedal fell off and had to be reset. When the path turned from navigable clay to wheel-swallowing sand I was flung to the ground once more. By now, Robert had seen enough of my antics; he murmured good-bye and disappeared down the hill.

It was at this point that I began to suspect Churchill of grossly overstating the attraction of Murchison Falls, not to mention the virtues of bicycle travel in Africa. I covered the next five miles on foot, pushing my bike before me through the sand like a bedouin trudging along behind a reluctant camel. Finally I saw the gate to Kabalega Falls National Park, manned by a park ranger wearing ragged cutoffs and no shirt. He examined my bike, ducked inside his hut, and returned with one of the most beautiful pieces of technology I had ever seen: a pair of battered pliers. He took my park entrance fee—10 U.S. dollars—and for no extra charge restored my bike to semiworking order by binding the pedal together with a spare piece of wire.

When I finally arrived at the campsite an hour later, weak and light-headed, the first sight to greet me was the white jeep that had left me in the dust, now parked under a big tree next to a small party of lolling white tourists. I stumbled off the bike into the shade and collapsed on the ground, whereupon one of the jeep riders, who turned out to be an Englishman with uncommon powers of deduction and tact, gasped, "Was that you on the bike? We almost stopped to pick you up!"

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