Routine

Ramon Sagués

He suddenly turns around, looks at me, I look at him… the seconds seem like minutes. He doesn’t look away, I have him less than 20 meters away. He opens his enormous ears… I try to remember what to do when faced with an elephant attack. I don’t remember anything… 

The only solution that comes to mind is to turn around, although if he chases me he will catch me in a second. I make the movement to turn, he makes the pretense of coming. But suddenly, he starts running in the opposite direction. Uffff... How little can complicate a day that has barely begun.

There is no need for an alarm clock when you sleep in a tent. The first rays of sunlight act like those damn beeps on your phone. The last few days have been quiet, camping in a campsite on the banks of the Luangwa River. With no daily worries other than walking the 6 kilometres to the village to buy food and spending the rest of the day watching the hippos and elephants go about their daily business. 

The sound of the gasoline stove is deafening, a noise that ends up becoming a melody, a melody from a musical where I am performing a choreography while I am dismantling my entire camp. Meanwhile, the water is boiling to prepare my breakfast. 

Kakumi is a small village located in the Luangwa National Park, an increasingly popular tourist destination. It already has several luxury lodges, which serve as base camps for safaris. For me, it has meant a small oasis, a place to rest from a - somewhat wild - route following the Luangwa River. 

After 4 days of being stopped, the bike feels heavier and more clumsy. The broken and sandy track doesn't help, so I better avoid negative thoughts and focus on not stepping on any elephant dung. 

Luangwa National Park, located in the east of Zambia, follows the river that gives it its name. In these savannah latitudes, where there is water, there is life, and here there is a lot of life… Elephants, hippos, lions, zebras, impalas and so on, to fill the entire zoo. They basically live inside the park, but the animals don't understand parks, and even less so if they are not delimited by even a sad wire fence. 

At one of the park's "Gates" they warn me for the umpteenth time: 

-«Caution with the elephants!» 

They don't understand why I am there "alone" with a bicycle. Just five hundred meters after leaving the gate, I meet the elephant. 

The racing heart and that strange feeling of not knowing if you were lucky or if it was just a warning. 

I have noted that twenty kilometres away there is a lodge where it is possible to camp. Even with the fear in my body, the kilometres to get there seem eternal. It is a place on the edge of the river. The owner, a retired Scotsman, has built some small cabins with views of the river, or rather, with views of the animals. It is the typical place for white tourists on safari. 

-To camp?- I ask the Scotsman. 

-It's 20 dollars... He answers without thinking twice. 

I can't help but smile, an excessive price that I don't intend to pay to camp among tsetse flies.

These are the moments in life when someone ends up making the decision for you. In a second I don't feel like staying there anymore. 

He ends up lowering it to $10 but the decision has already been made. 

-There's nothing for 100 kilometers... - the Scotsman warns me. 

I tell him that I will now find a way to make a living, as I have every day for the past 8 months. 

The trail is not improving, I would almost say it is getting worse. Progress is slow, but at least the elephant dung is disappearing and small communities are appearing. They are simple places, with circular mud buildings with thatched roofs, surrounded by a "wire fence" of acacia branches and without livestock. 

In one of these settlements, I find a well with a water pump. It has a lever that, with an alternating up and down movement, in a few seconds the water comes out through a metal pipe. 

I start to move the lever and the water starts to come out. It is not an easy task to pump and hold the bottle by the spout. Knowing this problem, the family in the adjacent hut sends the boy to help me. 

The little boy, barely 8 years old, wearing a torn Spiderman T-shirt, starts pumping without saying anything. Filling 8 liters of water in 6 bottles is an easy task. Once finished, I search my pockets for a couple of sweets and give the boy some as payment for his work. He skips off to his clay house. 

The Spiderman fan boy and his family say goodbye to me. I continue on my way, now 8 kg heavier. 

Suddenly, a mirage appears out of nowhere. A rectangular metal construction that acts as a grocery store. Inside there is a counter and behind it there are shelves with the few products they have. Choosing is difficult. Not because of the great variety but because you have to point at what you want from more than two meters away. 

There is no electricity for miles around, but a solar panel powers the shop's fridge. A cold drink and some biscuits make for a delicacy that's hard to beat. 

In front of the store there is a tree with good shade, underneath it there are some neighbors sitting on a wooden bench. 

Among them is a soldier, who has a camp for military training nearby. He is from Lusaka - the capital - but is stationed in this corner of the world. 

As in any corner of the world, a question like: Where are you coming from? Where are you going? Barcelona or Real Madrid?… is useful for starting a conversation. 

-Don't worry, there are almost no elephants around here and lions only attack at night. - he tells me, trying to reassure me. I don't say anything about my intentions to camp... After this, I understand that I still have more kilometers to cover if I want to camp. 

At these times of the day and of the trip, when the body is already used to pedaling for many hours each day, day after day, kilometer after kilometer, I get a kind of Zen moment, a separation of the body from the mind. The body, on autopilot, moves its legs to the rhythm, changing speed without thinking, braking when necessary. On the other side is the mind, totally oblivious to any suffering, tiredness, bad thoughts. In one ear, a headset with a radio program, a podcast or music. The other side of the brain thinking about my things, organizing my ideas, my thoughts or what I hear through the other ear. A magical moment, I suppose it must be the closest thing to meditation for people who find it difficult to stay still. 

In this state, the hours go by, the sun goes down. Crossing small towns, savannah, uphills and downhills… Creating a film with a perfect soundtrack that enters through my senses. 

A shout of “Muzungu” wakes me from my sleep. It is a relatively large village. The sun is already setting, and people take advantage of this moment to go out into the street. Motorbikes go up and down acting as taxis, herds of overexcited children run up and down trying to use up the energy of so many hours sitting in a classroom learning things that in many cases do not interest them. Women and girls carry jugs full of water and elderly men who look older than their age sit in a circle discussing the problems of the day. With so much life it is evident that I have left the wildlife behind. 

The return to “normality” reminds me that there is only an hour left until nightfall and I have already been pedaling all day. It is time to look for a place to camp… Searching for a place to camp can become an art, finding the perfect, quiet and shady spot where you can spend the night without leaving a trace. 

Over time and after many camping trips, you develop an intuition for finding the almost perfect spot. 

I leave the village behind on a track with constant ups and downs. The vegetation has become thicker with some trees. It is time to turn right and disappear among the bushes. 

The ground is soft sand, impossible to pedal. Progress is slow, pushing a loaded bike through sand is an experience that is better never to have to experience. I leave behind the trace of my tire, if someone wants to find me it won't be too difficult. 

Just in case, I look for an area with harder ground. A dry mud area, which would be a trap during the rainy season, serves to make my trail disappear. 

The choice is easy, everything is flat and relatively open. I choose a tree at random and start to unfold my house. It seems incredible that a house can fit in 60 liters of capacity. A routine of about 30 minutes, of automated movements, without the need to even think, ends up turning a corner in the middle of nowhere into a small home. 

Disassemble bags, set up tent, inflate mattress, assemble ultralight chair and assemble stove and kitchen. 

Travelling by bike is not just pedalling. It is many other things. One of them is enjoying wildlife, even wild life. Melting into nature. Disappearing into the undergrowth, I suppose, looking a little for that way of life of our ancestors. Living with sunlight, a light that slowly fades, giving a spectacular sunset. Taking advantage of that crescent moon, not even using the headlamp to enter the tent. Two square meters that the mind already feels like a home. A house made of fabric, with hardly any protection but that unconsciously relaxes the body, disconnects and thanks to selective memory converts everything experienced during the day into more desire to continue the next day.

A selective memory that may have already modified my most immediate memory, remembering these last hours, writing these notes perhaps a little more optimistic. A selective memory that acts as resilience, adapting me to this environment - sometimes hostile, turning it into a fascinating life in what, seen from another point of view, is a miserable life. 

But for now, after turning a few pages on the Kindle, my eyes are closing, hoping that my instinct that there are no more wild animals around here will make tomorrow a new and exciting day of cycling and life.