Words: Sarah Hearn | Expedition Africa 2015 participants go to bed tonight with the rousing drumbeat of the impressive opening ceremony held at the Royal Swazi Hotel in the Kingdom of Swaziland still reverberating in their heads and hearts.
Some of the international teams may lie there awake for some time thinking about what they would do if they came across any one of the fiercely proud and muscled African men who treated the teams and crew to an exuberant display of traditional warrior dancing.
“This really is the toughest race I’ve ever heard of.”
Greeted and welcomed by the Minister of Tourism, – who admitted he had previously never heard of this thing called Adventure Racing before being introduced to Kinetic organisers, Heidi and Stephan Muller – the teams were then given an overview of their 450km epic journey ahead of them.
Together with co-operation from Swazi Tourism and all authorities, the organisers have managed to procure unrestricted access across the race route, meaning no artificial barriers that will box racers in. The previously secret race start venue was announced to be Sibebe Rock from where a 33km trek will take them to a canyon.
Nervous gasps were heard following the news of a caving section, followed by a sharp Ah! and whoops of something between excitement and pre-emptive exhaustion when the long 155km cycle leg was rolled out along the Google map. The picture of the finish was greeted with relieved clapping.
Racers then got a cursory introduction to useful phrases in the local language. In the African manner, they were advised to slowly and politely greet first and then move on to necessities. ‘We need help’ involves a click sound which nobody could master and ‘We are lost’ became an indecipherable slur. So ‘Thank you’ was deemed most useful. In the event of going around in circles and coming across the same person.
More daunting to the foreigners than any long arduous leg or steep climb was the casual mention of crocodiles and hippos, who not only live in the water but wander about at night time without any reflective gear on. After several concerned questions where Stephan brushed off the issue, he said in exasperation “In your team, just don’t be in front or behind.”
This is Africa, shrug the locals. And this is the marvellous, magical and very mountainous, Kingdom of Swaziland. The race will be tough. Adventure racers don’t want it any other way.
Photo: Anthony Churchyard