ExpAfrica: Bad Medicine report

Most things in nature that are this beautiful, yet harsh and sometimes temperamental prove very difficult if not impossible to tame! Our motto was to slowly slowly eat the elephant, one bite at a time…

Slowly Slowly meets simple minds…

How does one go about putting into words the last 160 hours of extreme adventure we experienced as Team Bad Medicine made up of Mark ‘Sweep’ Human, Alex ‘Hellboy’ Jensen, Gavin ‘Chav’ Gower and Mike ‘Thehat’ de Haast, during our recent attempt to conquer the course that is Expedition Africa!

This ultra-endurance adventure race traversed some of South Africa’s most pristine yet undoubtedly harshest terrain in an area called the Wild Coast.

Leaving Port Edward on Sunday morning and charging through a ragging backline should have been a key to what was to come over the next 6 days. Carnage was a word I heard a lot, as boats people and paddles were tossed around in the surf like rag dolls in a washing machine, Finally we managed to get beyond the breakers and we were on our way, better than expected, as top teams came scurrying past us looking to make up lost ground on the racing teams at the sharp end.

Day 1 was fast and intense as the legs were short and hard, teams swapping places as you found your “racing space” as dusk settled on the race we found ourselves near the back at the abseil with a 3 hour wait, this proved to be a nice rest after the frantic start. We were right on track in terms of pace and happy with the first 12 hours of racing. The abseil proved to be difficult with tangled ropes, falling rocks and the dreaded Vee which Gavin managed to make a very rude acquaintance with! I also managed to get stuck on the line and had to manoeuvre myself out of a tricky situation with my prussic stuck in my figure of eight and my body stuck in a tree! This made for great discussion material over the long night so it was not all in vain…

We now had met up with the Luna Chicks and moved away from abseil and onto the beach, navigation of this section was tricky for us and we battled to find a path to the beach. Eventually we saw a light and this young man came walking up to us called Riaan, yes that’s correct, and offered us his boat to take us across the lagoon. We paid the Ferryman and soon found ourselves on a beach that stretched for miles and miles. Moving steadily we started to make inroads on this monster 80km leg.

Crossing a few rivers we eventually cam e to a large river that required us to wade, so we decided to strip off and wade across in order to have dry clothes for the remainder of the night. Then disaster struck for me, while crossing I slipped on a rock and ripped my ankle open with a deep cut the eventually would require over 20 stiches. I did not realise the extent of the injury until I was full dressed and putting my socks on and saw the blood pouring from this wound in my leg.

Luckily for us Mark is an Orthopaedic Surgeon and I said to him Mark you better come quickly I have some serious shit going on around my ankle. He quickly swung into action cleaning the wound and dressing it with the medical supplies we had, stating that we would need to stich it within 12 hours in order to avoid long term damage. I thought that this was it, race over, but did not say anything, sucking a few Myprodols and using a pole as a crutch we soldiered on!

Dawn and dusk are always emotional times in the race as the new day brings hope and the light makes moving so much quicker, we have now been racing for 24 hours and still moving slow and steady. We are happy with our progress, but my leg is a concern and Mark calls the Medic to arrange a stitching kit. Unfortunately he can only meet us at the lighthouse, between CP 12 and 13 which, is still a good 18-hours away for us.

Way down in Arizona where racers trek a leg, a racer stiches a needle through another racers leg. Said the racer to the racer, “we’re here to trek this leg and not to stitch a needle through another racers leg” became our theme song along the beautiful beach as we made our way to the lighthouse.

Moving with the Luna Chicks was good fun and the banter was always in the air. The mood was still good in the team despite the setbacks we had experienced and I was enjoying the company of my new best friend Myprodol. The vastness and nothingness that the countryside offered added to the magic feeling and simplistic nature (rawness) of what we were experiencing.

Finally we found our surgery and after a few hours and 20 odd stitches later in the back of the ‘Cruiser’ I was patched up and we moving again.

Night-time turned to day once again and we still had to finish the 80km trek leg. By lunchtime we were close to the end and looking for the entrance to the canyon for the 10km kloofing section. 10km. Aaaaggg how bad could that be?

Well this turned out to be my worst nightmare. 14 hours later we emerged at the transition area broken but not beaten. My ankle had taken an absolute pounding in the kloof; nothing was simple and I felt myself questioning every step I took. Crawling on all fours seemed to work best for me so I worked my way down the never ending tunnel of agony. My team mates were fantastic, supporting encouraging and helping me every step of the way, finally sleep monsters got the better of me and to be honest I can remember too much about the last four hours or so, but the stories I got afterwards are enough to make you howl with laughter!

Transition was welcome relief for us all and as dawn broke we arrived at Mbotyi, shower, repack and off on the bicycle with a renewed sense of commitment and steeliness. BOOM, a climb that was a rude awaking and a precursor to what was to come on this cycle leg. UP, UP, UP, UP, we rode moving inland and getting our first sense of the locals and the community we were to spend the next few days interacting with. At the top of the climb out of Mbotyi, we met The Stephan. It only took Seagate 18hours to do the last cycle leg he roars at us, you guys can make the finish, keep pushing. Great words of encouragement and we felt like we could complete our mission.

The Bike leg of 150km was interesting as we got to interact with the local population and for me this was a highlight of the race. People who in many ways were on their own adventure race on a daily basis. Simplistic in their ways, the uncluttered nature of life in rural South Africa was something I loved to experience. Young children playing unattended and unsupervised by adults, all the family members knowing and doing what was expected of them in terms of the chores and caring for others. Although life must be very hard day in and day out, smiles and laughter was the order of the day. People days and especially those of the children began very early, often having to walk many many kilometres to school.

Moving steadily through the villages we were always greeted by a greeting, mostly Goodbye from shrieking children, which I can only assume they thought meant Hallo! Stopping at shops was again a fantastic experience as the hospitality show to us was second to none, people open homes to us and were prepared to share what little they had with us no matter what. These Random Acts of Kindness touched my heart deeply and renewed my faith in human nature and the human race; we can learn so many lessons from these acts.

Often we are caught in the rat race of life chasing the things we believe are important. Adventure Racing strips us bare and allows us to experience ourselves in our rawest most venerable state, the world could stop turning while we are racing and it would not matter to us. The opportunity for me is to unclutter and uncomplicated the nature of how we live our lives, following this experience.

Where are you coming from, what are you doing Malungu? These are the questions we got all the time, cheering and encouragement was the order of the day especially for Alex, who always got an extra cheer from the ladies! Meeting Odwa was one such highlight and after a long chat and exchange of photos he proclaimed “it’s been a real privilege to meet you white people”. This constant support from the locals made the bike leg go quickly and it was not long before we found ourselves on the mother of all descents into paddle transition.

Paddling was a pleasure, once we had got our boats the approx. kilometre from the transition to the river. 16km to the next transition at Port St Johns. Off the feet was great respite for the ankle that now looked like a balloon on the side of my foot!

Arriving just after dark at transition we were greeted by a smiling bunch of marshals and the smell of fresh cooking pizza. The Stephan was on hand to make sure we didn’t dawdle… Telling us we had to get to Mbotyi 30km away by 12 noon the next day in order to do the last leg long cycle back to Port Edward. So what was planned as a sleep and rest, turned out to be a quick turn around and we were moving on foot again on what one could describe as a coastal hike.

Up to this point we had been pretty strong, starting the hike we looked in good shape with all of us feeling good.

Enter sleepmonster number 2 for Mark, who, as we left the TA, hit the proverbial wall. This proved to be a very hard leg for Mark as we nurtured him through this bad patch till we eventually had to take some rest at round 3am for three hours. Steven ‘the video guy’ accompanied us along this leg and it was good to have some different company to chat to and get some catch up on the race and war stories of other teams.

Always good to know that you are not the only ones suffering out there and as he recounted some of the stories it became apparent that the race was tough and hard and about to get tougher as the dreaded #mbotyibelly made its way through the field. Laura, my wife who was racing with Castle Lite, had managed to whack her face open at the abseil on the Vee. She left me a great note of encouragement at T5 and this lifted my spirits a lot. We caught and passed a few teams of this leg as fatigue and feet issues really started to play a major role in the race.

We arrived at Mbotyi at 12noon just as instructed by The Stephan, giving us 30 hours to complete the last leg of the cycle – difficult but possible!

Transition was like the casualty ward of a conflict area, except there was no conflict, this was a sporting event. The medics had basically run out of all supplies and my foot need to be redressed so we had to use duct tape to secure my wound. I did not hold out much hope that this would last as we started the bike with a beach ride at high tide! Three hours after we entered transition we left with one goal in mind the finish line!!!

The bike was hard and we were slow and tired. The first section was brutal, my leg killing me as we hiked our bikes from the beach up a 300m vertical ascent that was totally un-rideable. At this point I was really suffering; a combination of 40-plus Myprodols and sheer exhaustion from pushing my body beyond it threshold caused me to continuously fall off my bike. Sleep is what I need so we took a few hours to recover before the final push form home.

Friday night in rural Africa and the dynamic changes again as we encounter many drunk folks, drowning the weeks pain away in a bottle of so called Joy. Although this is a different dynamic never did we feel fear or threatened at all on the race. This is just one of the many consequences of the social, economic factors that rural communities have to deal with on an on-going basis and the so called ‘ugly side’ of poverty! For me it was interesting to see the demographic of who was affected by the drunkenness and unruly behaviour.

Soon darkness was overcome by the dawning of our last day and this was again a very emotional time as we realised we had done our last night in the rural, rugged untamed wilderness that is the Transkei Wild Coast. As night turned to day we arrived at the magnificent single track decent and I realised that what goes down must go up so we prepared ourselves for yet another epic hike ‘n bike out the George.

Moving slowly yet steady we kept our pace as best we could, however fatigue of over 150 hours of racing was apparent as our average speed on the bike slowed to just over 7km / hour. Making the finish (in time limit) was now beyond us, but we were adamant not to stop till we got the call, or we got to the finish. At just after 4 pm we met the Luna Chicks again and were told that The Stephan was on his way to collect us. Our Journey was over – 50km short of our final destination Port Edward.

To my team mates Alex, Gavin and Mark, I could not think of a better bunch of souls to spend seven days with. You guys were exceptional. Thank you for all the memories and all the hard but great times we shared over the last 500km.

To Heidi and Stephan and all the crew at Expedition Africa – thank you for allowing us to experience our truly remarkable country in the way that this race allows us to. It is a really humbling week that adds massive perspective to our lives. We (Bad Medicine) are not racers in the true sense of the word, we are adventurers looking to enrich our lives through unique and positive interactions and I can say that you guys have got an A+ in providing that platform to us through Expedition Africa.

As I sit here and write this my body is battered but not broken, my spirit soars at the thoughts and memories of what have transpired over the last week. To you the brotherhood of racers/ adventurers till we meet again let me leave you with my Mantra for last week – “You Don’t Know how Strong You Are, Until Being Strong is the Only Option!”.

Michael de Haast
Team Bad Medicine

Expedition Africa 2014