August 12/13 - The Guy In Seat 29-I

I sat next to a rather interesting guy on my flight from Cape Town into London. He was pretty scruffy looking with long hair and a beard that I doubt has been trimmed in ages, a t-shirt, old pair of pants and flip flops and a couple of bags with him that were dirty and a little beat. At first I did not really give much thought to him.

The guy’s name is John and he had just spent the last 9 months riding a bicycle 15,000 kilometers from London down to Cape Town and was now flying back home. 60 miles to 100 kilometers, so that equals out to 9,000 miles or similar to riding from NY to LA and back.

Originally John is from Cape Town and as it turns out, was staying with family in Musienberg where my surfing project was, but moved to London sometime after school where he has been for the last 10 years. Like me he got tired and ready to do something different and left his accounting job. However, unlike me he shed everything, donating it to Good Will so everything he currently owns is on this plane. John has literally been living out of several messenger bags he attached to his bike and sleeping in a tent, often in people’s yards that he met along the way. Add that he has been doing this on a budget of 10 Pounds a day!

He had a bicycle custom made for the trip in Germany and said it was so reliable that he only got four flat tires and two broken spokes during the entire trip. I should be so lucky riding my bike on the lake front trail. He covered 16 countries and said that the entire time he was traveling he almost never felt threatened by anybody and that the worst parts of the trip tended to be in France, where everybody was rude to him and chase him away, and just outside of Cape Town where he had to traverse some dangerous areas on the road. This was in part due to gangs outside of Cape Town who have fried themselves on the South African version of heroine, but also due to a lack of a shoulder and the psychotic driving habits of many South Africans. It is somewhat ironic to me that with all the fears of safety in Africa people have, the two areas he had the most trouble were among the most westernized and one was in Europe. He said that everywhere he went in Africa people were friendly and ready to share with him what little they had.

He actually reminded me a lot of one of my former roommates at Kansas, also named John, who also was an accountant and took off for parts unknown after graduating and traveled the world. He even looked like John in a lot of ways. The last time I heard from Kansas John was around 1995 or 96 when he sent a post card from Katmandu where he was teaching English.

It is a little bit inspiring to meet somebody like that and frankly makes me feel very much the amateur with my trip. Sure I left my job but I really have not shed anything for wanting to come back to it. In some ways keeping my stuff is like putting down an anchor that I can return to but in other ways I wander too if it holds me back.

If you are wanting my stuff, keep waiting as I am not planning on turning it all loose. But it is a bit inspiring to see that in this day and age there are still people who have a bit of a hippy spirit to them, ready to cast off everything and just go where the road takes you in the spirit of On The Road or Into The Wild without the tragic end. I may not want to get rid of everything but it does makes me think I carry too much stuff.