One giant ride

Written by Eugene N. Nforngwa & Steven A. Ojong

Monday, 31 May 2010 13:44

Charity fundraiser on solo circumnavigation of Africa rides his way to Cameroon

YAOUNDE—The three men atop the hill in northern Kenya looked friendly. So, without thinking, Spencer Conway, a man going round Africa on a motorbike and little else, waved in greeting.

They waved back with a machinegun spray of bullets. Mr Conway’s Yamaha Tenere spun out of control as bullets splattered about, ripping off the back tyre and shattering spokes and back panels.

With a limping bike, a broken rib and bruised waist and back he lurched off, the men racing downhill and dishing out more gunfire. It was raining cats and dogs along a deserted path in a place okay to describe as middle-of-nowhere.

Down the road, a safe distance away, Mr Conway flung the bike into a thicket and lay there until everything seemed calm again. “God was with me,” he thought. He’d managed to escape without taking a bullet.

“They probably ran out of bullets,” said a soldier later on, at a Catholic hospital some 15 kilometres away. They had shot to kill, the soldier said before a small army on two trucks embarked on a fruitless manhunt.

The shooting incident by suspected Somali bandits, at Moyale on the Kenya-Ethiopia border in January was only the first major test of Mr Conway’s resolve. He was later robbed twice.

One hundred and sixty seven nights in the bush later, Mr Conway was sitting crossed-legs in a black leather sofa at the British High Commissioner in Yaounde, still undeterred.

“You can walk out of your house in London or New York and get shot at,” he said. “The amount of fantastic people I have met on this trip cancels all of that.”
Mr Convoy’s is a mission that’s been called extraordinary. He is compassing Africa on a bike—alone, unassisted and spending only $15 (about CFA8.000) a day on food, fuel and other needs.

He left the London on November 1, 2009. When he arrived in Cameroon just before the National Day, he’d made 32,500km and 18 countries.
He has neither GPS nor maps and relies on directions from local people to find his way. He buys food from local markets, rides all day on a specially built machine that can rev up to 240km/h and sets up a tent when night falls.
After his Cameroon stop, Mr Conway headed for Nigeria through northern Cameroon as he engages the West African coast. “It can’t describe how incredible it has been,” he said.
Partly a long time dream, his goal is to raise money for children’s welfare charity, Save the Children. By May 24, 2010, he had raised $45,000 (about CFA24 million) through online contributions.
“All children deserve proper healthcare, food, education and protection. I hope I can help in a small way,” the 42-year-old father of two daughters said.

“I didn’t want to do it just for the sake of it,” he added. “I wouldn’t want any of my daughters to find themselves in a situation like [that of many vulnerable children].”

Save the Children is calling him an “extraordinary fundraiser.”

In all, Mr Conway, an Anthropologist and school teacher, will go through 28 countries and cover more than 40,000km. He is paying for the trip from his pocket and plans to write a book about the experience.

Also, Mr Conway hopes the trip, which takes him to “the most difficult riding terrain and through some of the most unstable countries on earth” will earn him a place in the Guinness Book of Records.

His trip will double that of actors Ewan McGregore and Charlie Boorman who biked from London to Cape Town and back for a Hollywood production.

Part of Mr Conway’s ambition is also to do a television show for Discovery Channel. He has a camera on his helmet and the front of his bike. From time to time, a crew from Diesel Film joins him to shoot and retrieve footages.

Mr Conway has spent the greater part of his life in Africa. He says the adventure has “reinforced my love for Africa.” He plans to settle on the continent after the trip, which is expected to end in August.