Long Way Down

by Ewan McGregor

  ‘Except we have to think about the UNICEF visits,’ I put in. ‘Yes, of course we should try to make the ferry, I’m not upset about that. But if we hoof it like this all day long, we’re on the motorcycles all the time, and I’m afraid we’ll miss things.’

  Russ shook his head. ‘We just have to find the right balance between doing the miles and getting off the bikes. At least we’re talking it through here.’

  ‘What if we don’t get the ferry?’ I said. ‘Maybe there’s a possibility of renting our own boat. It’s such a rarity to be in a place like Libya at all, it’s a shame to blatter right through it.’

  Charley cut in again. ‘We’re going to have that issue of how much time we spend in each place the whole way down, aren’t we?’

  Russ pointed out that with minders around all the time, it was much harder to break free and meet people in Libya. He was also aware that simply riding 420 miles through the desert in the scorching heat would be a challenge in itself. ‘Ball breaking stuff,’ he added.

  I shrugged a little wearily. I had to concede that he had a point. ‘Well, we’ve got to try and make the ferry, I suppose, so we should just do it.’

  ‘Look, let’s talk about it tonight when we camp. If we decide then we’ll go for it tomorrow.’

  The discussion went on a little longer, I was knackered and we’d been riding without a rest for days. It’s hard to describe just how exhausting that was, particularly in the heat we were experiencing. We’d had a break on our boat-crossing to Tunisia but that had been a tense affair, what with everyone’s nerves and the altercation between David and Charley. I was reluctant, though I could see the logic in what they were saying. I kept worrying that we might miss out on the experience if we weren’t careful. But then again we had seen the coliseum, the caves at Matmata and now Leptis Magna. The other end of the desert road was Tobruk and war graves; and Russ was right – riding that way would be an experience in itself. We just had to hope the wind kept off: the last thing we needed was the kind of storm we’d ridden into yesterday.

  We headed off and still I was mulling it over, either miss the ferry or head across the desert in forty-five degrees of heat.

  Charley spoke to me over the radio: ‘Whatever happens there’ll be a story there, Ewan.’

  ‘Yeah, yeah. I know.’

  ‘Adventure whatever happens – that’s the spirit of the thing, isn’t it?’

  CHARLEY: We left Leptis Magna under dull and overcast skies, yet the heat was still ridiculous. It was hard to imagine what it would be like tomorrow if the wind really blew. Already it was beginning to pick up; it had been whistling through the ruins and that was ominous. It was busy, mad drivers everywhere, and still I was thinking of what lay ahead. It was a toughy, it really was; stupid ferry and only six days to get there. The thing was that if we missed it, then our trip to see Riders for Health, plus three UNICEF visits, would turn into a bit of a nightmare. It was crazy, but then again it was crazy following a white van all day and stopping every couple of miles at army checkpoints. It was crazy that we couldn’t read a single fucking signpost. And I have to admit the thought of rattling through the desert was pretty cool.

  The driving seemed even more erratic now it was getting dark. There were lorries all over the place, in the middle of the road, slowing down and speeding up, so we had to take great care overtaking. Every time we did we were buffeted hard by the wind. For a few seconds you’re protected and then it really gusts, hitting the bike so hard you can weave into a tank slap or completely lose traction. The land here was empty, desolate; a hell of a contrast after the splendour of Leptis Magna.

  We stopped for fuel and the attendant splashed petrol over Ewan. We exchanged a glance, both reminded of the last trip when twice petrol got in his eyes; once was my fault and I’ll never forget thinking I could’ve blinded him.

  ‘See that, did you?’ he said as he pulled alongside. ‘The old eye burn in Kazakhstan.’

  We nearly missed the campsite; well not so much a site as a collection of flat-roofed buildings – half a dozen maybe, just the door and one window in each of them – hugging a dirty beach. Ewan and I rode down a concrete causeway all the way to the water. We took a long look at the sea then, turning the bikes, we parked up and I grabbed my tent. The wind was howling, really loud, whipping my hair across my face and though our decision had now been made this didn’t bode well. We had a huge day ahead of us; really big miles and judging by tonight the conditions might not be that favourable. I wanted to get my tent up, have a swim and get something to eat. I found a spot close to the buildings and whipped up the inner. Fly sheet attached, I secured the ends by fastening the guys to a couple of massive blocks of stone.

  Ewan was still getting his gear from the bike, in good humour now. He told me he’d enjoyed the last stretch of highway. The driving was nuts, of course, but it made the ride interesting; you had to be on your mettle and that appealed to him.

  ‘How the fuck do you do it?’ he asked me.

  ‘Do what?’ I was securing the last of the guys.

  ‘Get your tent up like you do. I’m getting gear off my bike and yours is up already. It’s always the same, always has been. I’ve camped a million times more than you and always you’re ahead of me. It’s pace,’ he decided. ‘Your internal rhythm is much quicker than mine. It’s fucking irritating.’

  ‘Yeah, but Ewan,’ I was on my feet now, ‘I’m the guy who’s there at five to when everyone says we’ll meet at the pub for eight. I’m still sitting there on my own at eight thirty.’

  He was shaking his head. ‘Your tent’s up and I’m still unpacking and I don’t know how you do it. Fucking cut it out, yeah?’

  ‘Sorry, sir,’ I mumbled.

  I was looking for a quick-drying towel so I could take a dip. It was dark, but I didn’t care; there was no shower and I just needed to get wet. ‘So here we are again,’ I said. ‘From a silly talk in a pub a few years ago, here we are with our entourage of secret service men recording every word we’re saying.’

  ‘Like Russia and Kazakhstan, and to cap it all I’ve had a petrol flashback.’ Ewan looked at my tent. ‘Once,’ he said. ‘The only time I got mine up before you was at that Shadow Hawk training camp.’

  The wind didn’t let up all night and I doubted any one of us would get much sleep. My tent was flapping so hard I could feel the pegs pulling out. Lying there with my head torch on I could see how bent the poles were and I was worried about them snapping. I decided to move the tent, and shifted it between two of the square buildings. Earlier I’d noticed the door of one building was unlocked and I thought maybe I should just kip in there. I didn’t though. I moved the tent and as I set it down I swear I saw a huge black scorpion running across the sand. My heart was in my mouth – that would really put the lid on things getting stung by a scorpion. Anxious now, I shone my torch into every nook and cranny. I went through all my gear, boots, clothes, sleeping bag.

  No scorpion, maybe I’d been seeing things. I put it to the back of my mind and concentrated on getting the tent shifted. Using my boot I hammered in the pegs. I whacked the back of my hand but ignored it and carried on. A little while later I was still hunting scorpions when my hand began to hurt. It wasn’t like the pain of being whacked, it sort of stung, and now I convinced myself I’d been stung by a scorpion. It really got hold of me, the sand, the night, the howling wind. Tiredness, I think, and the prospect of our 420-mile slog tomorrow. For about five minutes I swore I’d been stung and it took all my powers of logic to work back to the moment when I’d hit my hand with the heel of my boot. That was why it was hurting. Scorpion or not I’d had enough, and taking down my tent I slipped into the open building.

  EWAN: All night the wind gusted and the tent would billow to the point of the poles almost breaking. I lay there with my feet pressed to the sides and my arms spread, using my weight and doing anything I could to stop the tent blowing away. The sides rattled, no longer a flap but a terrible racket as if so
meone was shaking stones in a can.

  It got louder and louder and, grabbing my head torch, I saw the bell end whipping wildly. My boots and tent bag were covered in sand. Sand had crept into the tent, the finest grains in a thin layer that coated my bedroll, sleeping bag and clothes.

  I had a bit of a tent emergency going on.

  Working my way round the outside I checked the pole footings and re-fixed elastic guys, burying the pegs while the hot wind dragged my hair so hard it hurt. I decided to check on the others. I made my way through the maelstrom to where I could see Russ’s dome literally squashed under the weight of the wind. As I got closer I could see his face peering into the lamplight from a partially unzipped inner. The sand swirled in a blizzard only it was hot and the particles stung when they hit you.

  ‘You all right, mate?’ I called, trying to make myself heard over the cacophony.

  ‘Fine,’ he said, ‘I’m just lying here trying to hold my tent down.’

  I could see the impression of his knuckles gripping the tent where the inner met the ground sheet, pressing his weight along the floor for all he was worth. ‘Sort of worked loose,’ he said, ‘and you know what?’

  ‘What?’

  ‘I was playing J J Cale. Can you believe that? Anyway the Wind Blows. That’s when the tent went flat.’

  I must have slept because I woke up. The first sound I heard was the wind, my first thought the fact that we had 420 miles to cover today. My face ached, eyes itchy and bleary. Everything was coated in sand – tent, sleeping bag, every stitch of clothing.

  We got going by eight, heading for Tobruk – a name that conjured images of war and war movies. We hoped to be there by about six or seven in the evening, but in this wind and with sand drifting on to the asphalt I wondered. In a way, though, I was exhilarated, looking forward to the challenge in the same way that I’d kind of enjoyed last night, lying in the tent, desperately trying to stop it blowing away with the wind screaming and sand flying, knowing the one thing I needed was sleep if I was going to cope with today.

  And what a day it turned out to be: hour after hour and the land didn’t alter; bleak to the point of depressing. Police checkpoints, military, always following the white van driven by Nuri and the man from the secret service. I was filthy, my stuff was filthy, sand everywhere. It’s funny how when you start out on a trip everything is meticulous, the way you pack your gear, tent, your clothes. After a few weeks everything was just stuffed into the bags whether it was dirty or not.

  Mercifully it was cooler. Yesterday it had been thirty-three degrees as we were rolling out of Tripoli, this morning it was a pleasant twenty-four. I prayed it would stay that way as I couldn’t imagine riding through this flying sand in temperatures hitting the forties. We rolled on and on, nothing but telegraph poles and desert, the perpetual wind that bent the bike to weird angles, pushing it down, willing it to tip over; a wind that came from behind and forced my head to the side so I had to strain every muscle to keep upright. The ache was dull; it was getting hard to concentrate.

  For the first time I passed a sign written in English: Africa constitutes one nation of a thousand tribes. I’d try to remember that.

  Camels wandered loose off to my left and I imagined what it would be like if one lumbered across the road in the swirl of nothingness created by this storm. Terrifying. As if to accentuate the point I saw something up ahead and slowed to a stop. Charley came alongside and together we inspected the carcass of one such beast shredded by the side of the road. Its flesh had been picked clean; the skull exposed and tipped back, the neck bent. We could see smashed ribs and where its stomach had been, a pile of half digested grass.

  We rode on and the road kill got worse; more camels, a cow, dogs, sheep…you name it, it had been killed on this road. That was the theme of the day: the flying sand and the amount of road kill. Sand was blowing across the pitted asphalt now, like some kind of whiteout, only this was a sandout or brownout – I don’t know what you’d call it. The desert seemed to close in as if it would envelop us completely, only a few low bushes demarcating the road. It was spooky and exhausting; my eyes stung, my neck ached, all my muscles were working. Whenever we passed trucks or trucks passed us it was all I could do to keep control of the bike.

  But despite all this, it was exhilarating, too. We passed an oil field, flames snaking skyward from some massive chimney. Against the sand it was bitter, stark, the kind of image I’d only seen on TV before, during the first Gulf War. We stopped at yet another checkpoint and as we pulled away, as if in defiance of the elements, Charley hoiked the front wheel. The sand swirled, wrapped around us, cutting the bikes off from each other so that even though he was only just in front of me I could barely make out the red of my mate’s tail lights.

  It was so cool though – almost mesmeric. With every gust of wind the bike would try to crash: wind would catch in the panniers, weigh against the massive fuel tank, swirling about the bars it would try to tip me off. Incredible, this desolate fantastic place that was Libya.

  CHARLEY: We passed a car lumbering along on the wrong side of the road, the driver with no idea what the fuck he was doing. We passed lorries with no lights that just appeared from the sand fog to create wind blast that shook the bikes and threatened to dump us on the tarmac. My neck ached, I was cranked over, the sand was everywhere: the crack of my arse, my scrotum. It was almost four and we hadn’t eaten since breakfast. I was hungry, tired, pissed off. All I could see was sand, dust and fucking plastic. The stench of rubbish carried on the wind. The fun of it, the challenge was dissipating and I was fed up with being battered. I was sick of sand getting under my visor and into my eyes, of cramping hands where I was gripping so hard my injuries from the Dakar plagued me. I’d had a gutful of the smell of garbage and dead animals.

  We were in and out of small, deserted towns. Nobody on the street, who could blame them in these conditions? But it was weird, as if they’d been abandoned – ghost towns from some mad sci-fi movie.

  It grew steadily darker: the sun just a hazy reddened ball. Most of the time I couldn’t see a fucking thing and this was getting dangerous. Yet I was picking up speed, blatting through with bugger-all visibility at speeds of more than seventy. I suppose when I think about it, it was some kind of fun. I thought, yeah, it’s ballsy and whatever happens, happens. We were in the lap of the gods; I just hoped they were shining on us.

  By seven o’clock it was almost dark and the world just seemed to shut down. Fuck a duck, this was crazy. The weather had closed in so badly now our speed had dropped to below 20 mph, at times no more than fifteen. What were we doing, riding this road in a sandstorm and possibly into the night? There was a petrol station ahead and we made for it, determined to stop there and camp if we had to. I passed a pile of broken toilets right by the side of the road. I couldn’t believe it: a great load of smashed porcelain that some trucker had just tipped out. I almost didn’t see it and in those conditions you crash into that and you’re toast.

  At the fuel stop we took shelter from the storm and debated what to do next. Ewan sat astride his bike, resting his arms on the tank bag.

  ‘Interesting weather, Charley. Shit, my eyes are scratchy.’

  ‘What are we going to do, carry on at night?’

  Jim Foster came alongside us. ‘Can’t,’ he said, ‘it’s too dangerous. We’re on the limit of danger now.’

  Ewan had his helmet off, his eyes bunched, and he shielded them from the wind. ‘Just have to stop here then,’ he said. ‘Or when it gets really dark pile in the trucks or something.’

  ‘We’ve still got two hundred miles to go,’ I said. ‘But we don’t know if it’s like this all the way, do we? We could ride ahead and flag down a car, ask them what it’s like further on.’

  We found out there was another petrol station a hundred clicks up the road and after a change of visor which took for ever, we were on our way again. By 8.15 it was pitch black, the wind still blowing but no sand. It was clear and for t
he first time that day luck seemed to be with us. But it didn’t last long. Dai noticed black smoke kicking out of Russ’s Nissan. They started losing power and we all pulled over. Within minutes Jim had his head torch on and was crawling over the engine. The air filter was clogged with sand – he knocked it clean against the running board. They had been using snorkels to ram air through the turbo but instead they were actually sucking the sand in. Ewan, neck tube half covering his face, twisted the snorkel round so the intake faced back instead of forward.

  We hoped a clear filter might do the trick and got going again. But it was short lived; they were still losing power and had to pull over a second time. Now ‘Mr Fix-it’ was working on the connections for the turbo.

  We’d been on this road for thirteen hours and after another thirty minutes we got moving a second time, though Russ and Jim could only pootle at forty-five. I heard that Russ had been on the phone to an RAC man back in London and he’d given them a few tips on what might be wrong. He wasn’t planning a roadside recovery mind you.

  EWAN: The adventure was wearing thin. I mean what are we doing this for? If a camel crossed the road now we’d plough right into it. Fuck, I thought, if I get hit by a camel someone make sure they tell my kids it was so very important that I get to Tobruk tonight.

  Nuri, our fixer, was trying to get a mechanic organised, someone who could come to the hotel when and if we finally got there. If the Nissan was out of action then this mad dash for the ferry would be in vain. I couldn’t believe the weather, so much sand. It was in my face, my hair, every orifice in my body. Charley was alongside me. ‘Did you hear Russ spoke to the RAC?’ he called across the radio.

  I nodded. It was weird to think of some RAC man back in England getting a call from Russ in a sandstorm in the Libyan desert.