In one of the first articles on this site, I wrote that the reason I intend to cycle to Africa is the most banal possible – I have nowhere else to cycle in October, except the southern hemisphere.
About a month and a half has passed since then, and my reasons for traveling are becoming more and more complex day by day. While reading everything I can get my hands on about Africa, I am becoming more and more obsessed with it. To the extent that it doesn’t really matter to me anymore whether I will go by bike or as a backpacker. But I must go downwards. Don’t get me wrong, I still plan to go by bike, I just want to say that Africa itself has become my goal.
At first, I was swept off my feet by Bantustan, then I started reading Zoran Ćirjaković, who traveled all over Africa, targeting the most fucked-up areas at a given moment and writing exeptional texts about it. This was followed by some scientific works, such as Danilo D. Babić’s doctoral dissertation, and African literature, which I just devour these days. Not to mention Toma Damnjanović anymore, coffee with him is invaluable to me.
I also started following Facebook pages and many groups related to Africa. Although it turned out to be a rather barren affair, as it is mostly Africa seen through beautifying filters, in a way that appeals to Westerners.

I said I won’t do that anymore, but I’m reading all sorts of things about Africa these days. African literature, books about Africa that were not written by Africans and doctoral dissertations. It will be interesting to see what I think of all these books when I meet Africa face to face.
Right now, my focus is on the so-called “concern” of the white people, the descendants of the colonialists who brought Africa to the level it is at and are directly responsible for the hunger and diseases that are rampant there. Also, directly, or indirectly, for the conflicts that are happening right now in more than thirty locations in Africa.
At the same time, I follow the news related to the joke called environment and the protection of endangered species. There is not much difference in behavior of those who come from the East and offer help to the local population. Although the latter are much more honest. If nothing else, they are not trying to hide that their own interest comes first, and the benefit for African people comes as a collateral.

Did you know that the West has invested over 2.5 billion dollars in the last five decades in aid for Africa. And yet, they have not managed to provide cheap medicines which would cut in halve the mortality of children under five years of age?
For every ten billion dollars that come to Africa from the West, eleven come out of Africa. Westerners mostly justify that fact with the corruption mentality of Africans who are in charge of distribution, the only thing they are forgetting is that corruption has two ends. At one end are those receiving bribes, but at the start are those giving bribes.
Over a hundred organizations for the environment and endangered species protection are currently active in Africa. Mostly white people from Western countries who, of course, know how to do it. Black people have been living there for thousands of years and they haven’t screwed up the environment or exterminated any species, but heck, one can never tell.
Now let’s not get into aid for agriculture and industrialization, which are conditioned by changes that must be made in political systems, human rights, gender equality… And let’s skip “apolitical” NGOs, I’m sick of them.

The Chinese are at least building some roads and railways for Africans, building factories and opening mines. Of course, it is for its their own sake and their own earnings, but the Africans also have a real benefit. The infrastructure remains, if nothing else (although, that infrastructure needs to be maintained) and jobs are created. And they are not making any terms. They do exploit the labor force, people often work in impossible conditions, but the same applies to the Chinese workers they bring with them. Damn it, that’s how they built an empire and a force on the same level Americans are at (who also built an empire on the backs of others and their own unfortunates).

Sounds familiar?

Trust me, I’m going to paint myself with shoe polish when I go down there.

(I don’t have my photos yet, I have to borrow them. This one is from https://www.quora.com/)

I stopped burdening my mind, overloading it with information about the African countries I intend to travel through. It’s pointless.
I read a book called Bantustan, written by Uroš, Lazar and Marko, and that’s where I put a stop. Young men (young men at the time, now they’re not so young) wrote a great book, much more than just a travelogue. This book, among other things, confirmed what I have said many times before: you cannot follow someone else’s path, because that path ceases to exist the moment someone crosses it. That is exactly a detail that travel bloggers and those who feed on their reports (yes, reports, even though that word is too strong to describe the quality of their writing) don’t understand.
That’s the difference between a traveler and a tourist. A tourist goes somewhere because he wants to see or experience a specific place or a thing. A traveler goes to find something, not knowing at the beginning of the journey what he is looking for, or where to find it.
This time I will look for something in Africa. Not because Africa is the birthplace, in the anthropological sense, of modern man, not because it is insufficiently explored and geographically particularly interesting. Even though Africa is all that, my decision to visit it is, to be honest, guided by a much more prosaic reason. Due to family reasons, I will not be able to leave my village in Serbia until October. At that point autumn will start and immediately after – winter. So, if I want to travel by bike (and I do), I must head to the southern hemisphere.

The first idea was just to fly it over. From Jeddah in Saudi Arabia to Kampala in Uganda. I believed that Ethiopia was at war. How could I not, it seems like every news we hear is: thousands are dying of hunger due to the constant conflict.
However, in the meantime I was informed that, at this moment, there is no conflict in Ethiopia. Emphasizing this moment. Because if they are not in the state of war on Tuesday, doesn’t mean they won’t be on Thursday, let’s put it that way. And then I started online research wanting to know what was really going on. As I understand conflicts, when they happen, are based in the north of Ethiopia, in Tigray. For decades this region has been a reason for conflict with Eritrea (which also used to be a part of Ethiopia once). That means that, starting from Tigray up to Addis Ababa and further towards Kenya it is peaceful. There is no shooting, however there is hunger. Poverty, even by African standards. Furthermore, that means no infrastructure and that finding food supplies out of the cities is questionable. And you will not find many cities traveling from Ethiopia to Kenya. But you can encounter unfortunate people who get food by stealing.