06 Oct An infinite and wild route

The explorer Isabela Bird used to say that travel gave one the privilege of doing the most improper things with total impunity and I, who have never done them, nor would I ever do them again, find myself, as a consequence of one of them, bedridden with a broken foot, purging my many, many sins.

Days before my occurrence, I had crossed Botswana through the Kalahari highlands, crossed the savannah of Zimbabwe, the Namib Desert, the Kaokoland, the Skeleton Coast, sailed the Zambezi and the Chobe, etc etc. Almost 6000 kilometres of open spaces, salt flats, deserts and mountains, soaked up every second of landscape and adventure on an infinite and wild track... So now, as I remain locked against all will in my golden cage, I look at the 17 staples that close my wound and it hurts... but not that much.

There's something about those endless tracks that draw me irresistibly and I need to get lost on them. And it's not that I'm running away from justice or a jilted ex-girlfriend, or that I've gone vegan and am looking to find myself, it's simply the pleasure of getting on the track and accelerating, accelerating until I disappear in the cloud of dust that we are raising, with no other map than our emotions and no other witnesses to the journey than a group of oryx or solitary giraffes.

Along the way I take in the incredible places that the route reveals to us, the hard road further south of Solitaire, the silence of the Deadvlei valley of dead acacias or that old diamond mine inhabited only by a group of sea lions.

I will forever own the chill of dawn among the white dunes of the Skeleton Coast or the soft shades of dusk on that lost Damaraland track as we searched for a place to camp before the day faded. Nor will I forget the nights in the sacred lands of Spitzkoppe and Kubu, when the warmth of fire, wine and good friends took us by the hand into that other world of old legends that stir the tent, drawn by the sighs of the wind and the distant howls of the night.

Boredom, a sad movie and mixing nolotil with wine are bringing these memories back to my couch in a disturbingly poetic way that affects my standing as a Cro-Magnon man, but as long as it lasts, I'll keep thinking of those endless trails. On them we saw the jackal prowl, the cheetah eat and the lion fight, we shared a meal with the herero in grimy bars in Kaokoland and dined in Botswana in the company of hundreds of elephants (shooting mmmmmm way up high).

We alternated between the luxury of the best lodges in Southern Africa and the perversity of some dingy bars with inexcusable toilets... We enjoyed the solitude of the dunes of Torra Bay as much as the Himba company in a remote village or the bustle of a blacksmith's market. They were days of great intensity that we always ended up exhausted, dreaming of a good hot shower, a good meal and a better wine, which were never lacking...

Now as I stand with my leg up, I remember the irresistible urge to go up the skeleton coast further north to Torra Bay in search of desert lions and elephants or continue south to Sandwich Harbour, where the dunes hug the sea. But that will have to wait for now and be part of the dreams that, like the crutches, will continue to haunt me for some time to come. Because if all dreams came true, how would we distinguish between dream and reality?