Long Way Down

by Ewan McGregor

  Back in the lay-by we found the crew talking to an English couple who lived in Cairo. They’d been watching our progress on the internet and thought they’d try to find us. I loved the fact that people were interested enough to do that.

  We chatted for a while, and when they were gone David and Ramy came over. They were in fits of laughter, not about the English couple but what had happened just before they arrived. This was indeed a private beach – a military beach. Seeing the bikes, a couple of soldiers had come down to investigate. They wanted to know what was going on and when they saw cameras and two guys frolicking in the surf naked, they thought we were making gay porn movies. It took a while for Ramy to explain but they were eventually placated. Can you imagine the headlines, a whole new career for me and Charley?

  CHARLEY: The checkpoints pissed me off, there were hundreds of them all the way to Luxor and I saw no reason why we needed to be stopped and asked for papers or our gear inspected quite so often. It’s not as if we’d crossed any borders. I’d lost the licence thing they’d given me for the bike when we entered Egypt, though, and it was bothering me. I’d stopped to change the map on my tank bag and it must have fallen out. I’d need it to get my bike on the ferry at Aswan and the last thing I wanted to do was put any additional pressure on the team.

  We’d picked up a police escort (as all tourists have to in this part of Egypt) and I was reminded of being in Kazakhstan. We stopped for something to eat at 8.30 and didn’t hit Luxor until after midnight. I was shagged out, yawning, my eyelids drooping; at one point I almost barrelled into Ewan. The streets were heaving with cafes open and people going about their business as if it were the middle of the day, not the middle of the night. I passed a couple on a moped, weaving in and out of the traffic. The guy was driving; his wife sat side-saddle behind him holding a newborn baby.

  In the morning I woke to a fantastic view of the Nile and beyond it the slopes of pinkish rock that marked the Valley of the Kings. I was worried about Russ, he was still very quiet. Ewan had spoken to me about it and Russ leaving was the last thing he wanted. As we headed for the Valley of the Kings he told me it had been bothering him all night.

  EWAN: I’d thought of nothing else. I should never have spoken to him that way, but in my frustration I just lashed out and now I hoped to Christ he wouldn’t leave. There was no question there were significant psychological differences within the team. As with Long Way Round, it was always best when Charley and I set off on our own. But in Egypt, with a police escort, this was not only difficult, it was actually against the law. I was also aware that Charley and I often approached the journey in a fundamentally different way. Charley might say he was tired all the time and couldn’t carry on like this, but at the same time he was always thinking of getting to the next place. It’s the racer in him. And much as he says I can alter a mood when things don’t go my way, the fact is that more often than not Charley gets his way.

  And yet despite some of the frustrations, we had already enjoyed some amazing moments, like at the pyramids yesterday. And now we had another extraordinary experience ahead of us – the Valley of the Kings. For five hundred years the rulers of Egypt’s New Kingdom constructed their tombs there, west of the Nile in the Theban Hills. It’s most famous, of course, for the discovery of Tutankhamen and the curse of the pharaohs.

  We crossed the Nile in a small boat with the hills and dunes lifting before us, and that in itself was amazing. We walked pathways between the sloping hills, grey in shadow and pink in the sun; the burial chambers cut deep into the rock.

  Ramy took us to the tomb of Seti II, which gave us a great insight into the construction process. As a man, the Egyptian pharaoh was thought to be the embodiment of Horus, God of the heavens and protector of the Sun God. When he died he became Osiris, King of the Dead and the next pharaoh took on the mantle of Horus. Seti II only reigned for four years between 1203 and 1197 BC, and his tomb demonstrated as much; the square corridor to the burial chamber was only partially plastered and decorated with hieroglyphics. There hadn’t been enough time to complete everything before he died. As we made our way to the burial chamber, we saw unfinished walls and the chamber itself just hewn from the rock. There had been no time to personalise the place because as soon as the king died his path to the afterlife began and he had to be mummified right away. Ramy told us that the bodies were never cut; the organs were removed through the dead man’s nose.

  ‘Not his bottom?’ I whispered.

  ‘No, his nose.’

  ‘Are you sure? I would have thought it would be easier through his bottom.’

  ‘No,’ Ramy insisted, ‘it was always the nose.’

  Charley gestured. ‘I’d have thought…you know…if there’s a hole, use it.’

  Ramy explained that the first part of the king’s journey would be to stand before the judges, the Gods. Judgement was simple. The king’s heart was placed on a set of scales, with a feather on the other. If the heart was heavier than the feather then the king would go to hell. But if he had been a good king and the cares of his heart were few it would be lighter than the feather and he would go to heaven.

  Ramy showed us the burial chamber, the empty granite sarcophagus and in the lid the image of a beautiful goddess. ‘To look after him,’ he explained, ‘on his journey to the afterlife.’

  ‘Of course.’ I looked at Charley. ‘I think we should all have one, don’t you, a nice goddess to look after us in the next life?’

  Apparently when robbers raided the tombs they took away the mummies and kept them together carefully in a cave. They didn’t want to destroy them because whatever damage was done to the body in this world would be how that body would appear in the next. Not good for them then when it came to the afterlife, not if they snapped a king’s legs, or poked eyes out, or sliced off an ear by mistake.

  ‘So you had a cave full of kings all kicking around together?’ I shot a glance at Charley. ‘I imagine there were a lot of arguments, don’t you?’

  13

  Riding Bikes & Saving Lives

  CHARLEY: It’s true I am the sort of person who thinks about the destination, but at the same time I did feel aggrieved at the pace we were travelling. But you do get a sense of place on the bike, a sense of the people. Ewan knows what I mean. Riding through is riding through, you’re exposed to the elements, you smell things, hear and see things that you just don’t experience in a car.

  Leaving Luxor we managed to get to Aswan while it was still daylight. Even so I was yawning into my helmet, eyes as heavy as they’d ever been. The city is perched at the top of Lake Nasser and it’s from Nasser that we would cross to Sudan. I was a little apprehensive – another country and another set of circumstances. It was not knowing what to expect that always got to me; that and the fact that I’d lost my bike document.

  All I wanted to do was take a shower, eat and crash. But I had to file a report with the police which I could then give to customs. I went up to my room, dumped my gear on the bed and splashed cold water over my face. Ewan came in, looking relaxed and with that old sparkle back in his eyes.

  ‘You OK, Charley?’ he asked me.

  ‘Fine, mate. What about you?’

  ‘I’m good.’ He smiled now. ‘Have you seen your view?’

  ‘No, I’ve not had a chance.’

  ‘Take a look at your view, Charley.’

  Pulling back the curtains I opened the window and was greeted by one of the most beautiful sights I’ve ever seen. The dark waters of the lake sparkled in the sunshine; the hotel was perched on a rocky outcrop overlooking single-sail boats with canvas canopies. On the other side a dozen or so more boats were in the shelter of an inlet lined with palm trees. Beyond them I could see another massive ruin, pillars and sandy steps leading down to the water. I could make out ancient roads and walkways, and dominating the whole thing a mass of rolling sand dunes.

  Together we leant on the rail and Ewan started singing: ‘Ruins to the left of me, ruins to the right
, here I am, stuck in the middle with me!’

  We fell about.

  ‘You know what,’ he said, ‘we’ve been to the pyramids and the Valley of the Kings We’ve made it to Aswan and I’m determined we’re going to get over this little hump. For my part I’m not going to snap at people any more. I’m going to think before I speak and when I’m tired I’m just going to button up and get on with it.’

  ‘You’re right; if it gets bad it gets bad and we just have to suck it up.’

  ‘I’m sorry for my part, Charley.’

  ‘Yeah, so am I.’

  ‘From now on we just get on with it, make every effort to enjoy it. This is the trip of a lifetime and we’re not going to waste it.’

  Slipping my arm around his shoulders we hung out of the window, just gazing across the beauty of the lake. I noticed the open air restaurant on a little promontory where a table was set with a white cloth. ‘Let’s have dinner there,’ I suggested.

  We had a great dinner, a real laugh, and everything was back to normal, relaxed, happy; apologies offered and accepted. I still had to sort the paperwork for my bike, mind you, and after dinner Ramy and I went down to a tinpot police station with peeling walls and wires hanging from the ceiling. We had a cup of tea with the top man, decided which report we needed, filled it in and then Ramy ran down the road for a photocopy. While he was gone these younger cops were cracking on to me in English, about drugs and sex and whether I did drugs and was sex easy to find in England. Very strange.

  Still waiting for Ramy, I watched as first four people all handcuffed together were brought in, then a few minutes later three brothers who had been fighting. One of them had called the police and the sergeant was disgusted that they should be fighting in the first place and that they expected the police to sort it out. Three brothers – he told them they should be ashamed of themselves. By the time we had resolved everything it was past one o’clock in the morning, and I was due to be up again at five.

  EWAN: Saturday dawned a little cloudy and we piled into a minibus for the airport. We were headed for Kenya and Riders for Health, leaving Jim and Dai to repack the cars and get them and the bikes down to the ferry. We had a plane waiting, and though we were much more relaxed we still had a schedule to keep.

  I knew about the charity through the film director Mark Neale, who made the two Moto GP documentaries I narrated. This was Charley’s deal really, though; he’d been introduced to the organisation by racer Randy Mamola and was more involved than me. I was very interested in their work, however, and couldn’t wait to get down there.

  We got to the check-in desk only to find that customs wouldn’t let us fly out because according to our passports we had two Nissan trucks and three BMW motorbikes registered to us. We explained that we were coming back tomorrow but it wasn’t enough. As far as customs were concerned we could have sold the vehicles and they needed to physically set eyes on them before they’d let us board the plane to Kenya. We took it all in our stride and returned to the hotel, collected the vehicles and drove them back to the customs compound.

  I was really excited about Kenya. By making this flying visit we’d see some of the Masai Mara and then when we returned to Kenya after crossing the border from Ethiopia on the bikes, we would be able to take more time up in the north. Meanwhile Russ was talking about how he’d once been in a sort of plane crash. This was great timing: a ‘sort of’ crash when a 747 ‘sort of’ crash-landed. Inspiring really, as the ground fell away beneath us.

  We landed safely at a very lush and green-looking Nairobi airport – in fact much of the country we’d flown over had been green and I wasn’t sure if that was the way it always was or because we’d just come out of the rainy season.

  We were met by Andrea and Barry from Riders for Health who guided us to a puddle-jumper – a small plane that would take us to the unit we were visiting not far from Mount Kilimanjaro. We’d see for ourselves how motorcycles were taking life-saving resources to terribly sick people in remote places. Barry told us that this was the first facility of its kind and a groundbreaker in Kenya, a model for how the idea could work elsewhere.

  The plane landed on a red clay airstrip in the middle of the Masai Mara; lion country. Indeed a handout on the plane instructed us to remain in the compound at night and to always remember that plains animals such as zebra and antelope were prey to carnivores, and if we got close to them we might be also getting close to some predator lurking in the underbrush.

  From the plane we drove across green savannah and low scrub to the Mbirikani Group Ranch Clinic, a fenced compound where the seriously ill were treated. A series of water towers dominated the gates, and inside open sheds protected a line of 200 cc dirt bikes from the elements. They bore the Riders for Health emblem on the front mudguard, the same emblem I’d seen on leathers in the Moto GP paddock.

  We were met by Dr Mariti, tall and smiling and at thirty-two years old one of four doctors who worked full time at the clinic. Later he told me he’d actually wanted to be a pilot but the college he’d been sent to didn’t do flying lessons. He became a doctor instead, thankfully.

  The idea for some kind of bike outreach had started back in 1988 when Barry and Andrea, together with Randy Mamola, raised money for Save the Children. Invited to a project in Somalia they discovered a pile of disused motorcycles that they were told were out of commission. As bikers they saw that with a little care the bikes were anything but out of commission and could easily be put to good use, and it was from there the idea of remote access transportation was born. Cutting a very long story short the Mbirikani Unit opened in 2003 with a mobile caravan calling at five separate stations, but the HIV epidemic was so great the need for a permanent facility was obvious. Its permanence, though, is only half the story.

  CHARLEY: The idea was to use motorcycles as a method of transporting healthcare to people who’d otherwise die. The principal killer was AIDS but they also dealt with more easily remedied illnesses like dysentery and malaria. The advent of antiretroviral drugs and the fact that they were finally being manufactured in Africa meant that in principle more people could be treated. Not if they had to walk seventy kilometres to get the treatment, though, or, in the case of HIV, three hundred. Before Riders for Health got involved in this area, the nearest HIV treatment had been Nairobi, and most people were either too poor or too sick to get there.

  The sight of abandoned and rusting bikes in Somalia had eventually led here to Kenya where sixteen community health workers were trained to ride the most inhospitable roads in the world. Some of the health workers were lab technicians, some trained in public health, others were nurses, but all of them rode bikes and without them literally thousands of people would die. Their basic supplies are simple: mosquito bed nets, blood-testing equipment, the required drugs and a 70/30 corn and soya food supplement – it’s pointless administering life-saving medicine if the patient still suffers from malnutrition. The health workers are backed by fifteen nurses and the four doctors, as well as four full-time lab assistants. Mbirikani is totally self-contained, the compound made up of a number of Nissen huts with paths running between them, and the whole placed enclosed by a wire fence. We wandered over to the bikes and the workshop where they were maintained. This really cool guy in a white shirt and thick black braces was in charge and Ewan and I were in our element.

  These bikes had been modified slightly with twin side stands and crash bars on the engine casing and handlebars, as well as reinforced metal racks to carry the top boxes. The workshop carried every spare imaginable and all the riders were trained in basic maintenance.

  Mounting up we followed our guide out of the compound and a few miles up the dirt road to a small cluster of huts dwarfed by Mount Kilimanjaro. I’d never seen Kilimanjaro before and, as we pulled up, images of Hemingway and Stewart Granger movies filled my head.

  The huts had thatched roofs and the walls were made from mud or animal excrement. We were there to see Agnes and she came out to meet us, a
woman in her thirties, hair plaited; she was wearing a sand-coloured dress with a brightly coloured bracelet on her wrist. She was surrounded by half a dozen smiling women, all dressed in vivid colours with a mass of laughing children at their feet. Agnes was the first person to have been treated by the clinic at Mbirikani; infected with the HIV virus, she was bedridden and helpless. She weighed forty-six kilos when they found her and, like thousands of others in Africa, she had effectively been left to die. Now she weighed sixty-four kilos and looked terrific. She was happy to stand there with cameras and chat about what had happened to her. I thought she might have carried some stigma maybe with the other villagers but in fact the reverse was true. Most people had known her when she was dying and here she was, proof that the medical facility was working. Instead of being stigmatised she was the inspiration for hundreds of other people to come forward and be tested for HIV. She remains on antiretroviral drugs, of course, which are brought to her by a community health worker on a motorcycle. That means she doesn’t miss her dosage which is absolutely critical: if she did her blood levels would be affected and the virus would mutate and overcome the drug.

  Our guide was one of the community health workers who’d grown up in this village and he told us the unit dealt with five hundred outpatients, all of whom were visited on motorbikes. They don’t just treat HIV or tuberculosis – they also bring simple sanitation equipment that means the difference between life and death, like the plastic portaloo we could see under the shadow of the mountain. Ewan commented that this had to be the world’s most scenic toilet. ‘Imagine that view,’ he said, ‘Kilimanjaro in snowy splendour after your morning doings.’