Guinea - The Lions on the Road: Cycling London to Cape Town - page 121

getting very edgy.) I managed to do 40 kilometres to Faranah and began to look for a place
to camp. I happened across a single home off the main road and approached the owner.
Through body language (he didn't speak French), I communicated if I could camp next to
his house. He welcomed me inside and gestured for me to join him for dinner. After eating
together with no conversation but a lot of smiling, I thanked him again and went to bed.
The next day I was to have my first riding partner! I left my host's home at 6:00
a.m.withtheintentionofdoing150kilometresfortheday.Theroadwasingreatcondition
and without any traffic made for an incredibly peaceful cycle. However it was a bit diffi-
cult to maintain any sort of cycling rhythm for the road was rather hilly with several steep
climbs. At the 95 kilometre mark, I arrived in a village to take a rest. I stopped at the very
first stall and leaned my bike against it. A man approached me to tell me that my ' copain '
(my buddy) was resting up ahead. I told him that I didn't have a copain . He insisted that I
did and we went back and forth disagreeing with each other.Finally,he then explained that
therewasanother' porto '(whiteforeigner)cyclisthavinglunchuptheroad.Beingcurious,
I walked my bike over until I came to a group of people surrounding a foreign cyclist. We
greeted each other and chatted while we finished our lunch. We decided to cycle together
for the next couple of days.
Erik Lee Schoen was an American-black-belt-karate-musician-Japanese-speaking-
movie-actor-world-traveler-done-everythingperson.Hewastallinstaturewithverystrong
legs. I found it hard to keep pace with him. At first he would drop his pace to stay with me
and talk but I told him if he wanted to go at his own pace we could meet up at break. Then
the bastard sped off.
It was funny to hear his take on the exact same route I took from Dakar. He had
thesametrialsandtribulationsthatIdidincludingshouting/swearingattheattackinghorse
flies as he crossed into Guinea. He also told me that he was looking for me since Dakar.
Every time he arrived in a village, he was told that, and I quote, “a friendly and smiling
cyclist passed by not too long ago.” As it turned out, Erik was about a week behind me
and really pushed himself to catch up. My illness in Labé delayed me a week which led us
unknowingly to stay in the same village the night before. In the morning, when he started
his cycling, I was still having breakfast at David's house. As fate would have it, a stranger
directed me to Erik as he was having his lunch at the other end of the village.
Erik tackled the hills with energy and waited for me at the top as I nudged along on
my granny gear. Thankfully, as we covered more and more kilometres, the hills began to
taper off so he didn't need to wait as long. When we arrived near the airport, we stopped
at a police checkpoint and chatted with one of the officers. A couple of minutes later an-
other officer came running out of his shelter blowing his whistle for us to stop. Talk about