listen to africa

Bex, cooking on a (non-flammable) windowsill in a trucker's stop near Narbonne, France. © Listen to Africa

After our leisurely stroll through France, we find ourselves in Béziers, a short hop from the Mediterranean. Our ferry to Tangiers leaves on Tuesday. Blimey.

One of the joys of travelling by bicycle is that your progress takes you by surprise. You travel so slowly (especially if you’re us) that you hardly notice the tiny changes that happen day by day – a night that’s a tad warmer than the previous night, or a landscape that’s a bit more rugged. Then suddenly, you’ve crossed a land mass and find yourself somewhere else altogether.

OK, in our case, it’s a country (France), not a land mass. But still, the humidity, Arabic-speaking voices and African influenced food around us now are a far cry from Brittany. It’s the factor that makes me feel a pang of regret for deciding to bypass Spain and catch the ferry straight from France to Morocco; we’ll miss a fair chunk of the gentle approach of Europe to North Africa. But, seeing as the alternative is to fry in the Saharan mid-summer, it’s a regret I can live with.

So here we are, about to step into Africa and looking back on France. I thought it would be rude to mention this before but I will now: secretly, we weren’t really looking forward to France. We were picturing the pain of getting fit, getting saddle sore, getting a hole in our pocket and possibly – considering Huw is travelling with Greenpeace-branded panniers – getting chased out of town.

Actually though, it’s been a joy – and the last stretch from the Midi-Pyrénées to the Mediterranean especially so (despite incidents with a mobile phone and a fingernail).

First there was our route. For a lot of this last stretch, we followed the Canal Du Midi, part of the canal system bisecting France from East to West. Not only is it flat (it would be an excellent route for any hill-averse, first-time cycle tourers by the way), it also takes you through some wonderful places including Carcassonne, a UNESCO World Heritage site.

Secondly, there was the roaring tailwind. For much of our last couple of days of cycling, we could pretty much put our feet on the handlebars and let the wind carry us. A rare gift, and one that made Huw briefly consider getting out his Cuban cigar to puff on as he pedalled along. (In the end, he decided to save it for the Congo.)

Finally there was the series of encounters with touring cyclists. We met three pairs in one day, including a couple from Coventry (UK) on their way to Japan. The next day, we met a German man pedalling uphill into a hellish headwind (our tailwind). He was cycling alone from Germany to Senegal on a reclining bicycle which was adapted to be arm- rather than leg-powered.

As we left, we told him we hoped to see him in Africa. He wished us “many, many wonderful experiences”. I cycled the rest of the way into Béziers a little awestruck, and with a new resolve never to complain about tired legs again.