by Simon Reeve
Simon Reeve has travelled through more than 120 countries, making multiple award-winning TV series for the BBC, including Mediterranean, Caribbean, Indian Ocean, Tropic of Cancer, Sacred Rivers, Greece, Tropic of Capricorn and Equator.
Simon has received a One World Broadcasting Trust Award for ‘an outstanding contribution to greater world understanding’, the Special Contribution Award at the Travel Media Awards, and the prestigious Ness Award from the Royal Geographical Society. He is also the New York Times bestselling author of several books.
Step By Step
The Life in My Journeys
Simon Reeve
www.hodder.co.uk
First published in Great Britain in 2018 by Hodder & Stoughton
An Hachette UK company
Copyright © Simon Reeve 2018
The right of Simon Reeve to be identified as the Author of the
Work has been asserted by him in accordance with
the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced,
stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any
means without the prior written permission of the publisher, nor be
otherwise circulated in any form of binding or cover other than that
in which it is published and without a similar condition being
imposed on the subsequent purchaser.
A CIP catalogue record for this title is available from the British Library
Hardback ISBN 9781473689107
eBook ISBN 9781473689138
Trade Paperback ISBN 9781473689114
Hodder & Stoughton Ltd
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For Jake
Contents
1 The A-Team
2 Mystery Tours
3 Mr G. Raffe
4 The Boy on the Bridge
5 The Lost Valley
6 Foot in the Door
7 Walkie-talkies and Binoculars
8 The Towers
9 Grief
10 9/11
11 Anthrax and Caviar
12 Polo with the Corpse of a Headless Goat
13 The Slave and the Tigers
14 The Kalon Minaret
15 Vodka Terrorism
16 Hostile Environments
17 Mr Big Beard
18 Fishing with the President
19 The ‘Golden Age’ of Travel
20 Exorcism at the Monastery
21 The Open Prison
Acknowledgements
Plate Section
CHAPTER ONE
The A-Team
Everything felt wrong. I was damp with sweat, my head was thumping, my limbs were aching as if I’d run a hard race, and I was lying face down on a bed in the early hours of the morning wearing my clothes and muddy boots. I opened my eyes. The room began to spin. I turned on my side and an overpowering sense of nausea welled within me. I staggered to my feet and half-fell against the wall of the hotel bedroom, my limbs now shaking and the room turning over and over in my head. I knew this was serious. Not a hangover, not the flu, not food poisoning, but much worse.
It was 2006, and I was in Gabon, West Africa, filming Equator, my first major television series and biggest adventure. For most people, the equator is just an imaginary line running for 25,000 miles around the middle of the world. But the equator is at the heart of the tropics, home to both the richest collection of wildlife on the planet and the greatest concentration of human suffering. Following the line would take me to utter extremes and parts of the world rarely seen on television. The journey was supposed to transform my life. Not end it.
This leg of my series had started on a beach on the coast of Gabon in the middle of nowhere, bang on zero degrees latitude. I had followed the imaginary line across Gabon to the remote east of the country, the wild forest home of impoverished communities and diseased apes suffering from Ebola, a desperate, eyeball-bleeding contagion that sounds like the stuff of science fiction. Now my limbs were aching, shaking and burning. I was feverish and sick. I knew I had to make it to the bathroom before my insides came tumbling out.
With one hand pressed to the wall I fixed my gaze on the outline of the bathroom door and tried to take a step. My feet wouldn’t move. I was requesting movement, but nothing was happening. Deep within my brain I was processing my thoughts, but other physical controls were shutting down. The inside of my mouth was burning, and the thudding in my temple was reaching a crescendo. I knew the only way to create momentum to reach the bathroom was to push off from the wall like a rock climber.
I swayed back and forth, fell against the bathroom door, collapsed onto my knees in front of the bath and vomited dramatically. Through the haze of sickness, the dim light and my spinning brain, my mind was still able to flash a stark warning signal. There was blood in my vomit. My first thought was a moment of complete clarity: it must be Ebola. Ye gods. I was screwed. Then I passed out.
It was hours before I came to, slumped on mouldy lino on the bathroom floor. I was shaking, my temperature was rising, and I was scared. But I was still alive. I remember thinking that if I hadn’t died, then I had to get up, and I had to carry on. Not make some noise, or call for help, or something sensible like that. Not drag myself back to my bags and my phone and try to ring one of my colleagues or the BBC safety number for a doctor. But get off the floor, rinse out the bloody bath, and get downstairs to see my colleagues, and carry on with my journey. We were supposed to be leaving little-known Gabon and heading east, flying across the neighbouring country, Congo-Brazzaville, and on into the vast Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC). There was an outbreak of Ebola, a viral haemorrhagic fever, on and around the equator in Congo-Brazzaville. There is no cure and a mortality rate of up to 90 per cent. Some victims bleed from every orifice until they die. It is horrific, terrifying, and international medical teams were being attacked by desperate villagers who accused them of spreading the disease. I had been keen to head along the equator into Congo-Brazzaville, but the BBC said it was too dangerous. So instead we were supposed to board a small plane that would leapfrog the insanely dangerous zone, and deliver us into the DRC, scene of perhaps the most violent conflict on the planet since the Second World War. So still not exactly safe, and lacking in advanced medical facilities to treat anyone suffering from Ebola.
Lying there on the bathroom floor, I half-knew all this. I should have called for a doctor. But this was supposed to be the beginning of a whole new chapter for me in television. The few series I had made for the BBC before Equator had been fascinating, life-changing and mind-altering, but they had been budget trips shown in the so-called graveyard shift after Newsnight, when people were switching on the telly after coming home from the pub. Equator had been a bigger idea, a more ambitious proposition, as TV people say, and we had more resources, planning time and dedicated, exceptional cameramen. The end result was supposed to be shown in a primetime slot on BBC Two.
I couldn’t let everyone down. The planning for our trip across the DRC alone had taken weeks. And I was excited about the journey. Following the equator around the world – who gets to do that? It was an adventure money could not buy, with the clear purpose of exploring the centre of the tropics, the most beautiful and benighted region on the planet. I might have Ebola, but I was still alive. If I was still alive I wanted to continue. I tried pushing myself away from the tub so I could get to my feet, but my hands wouldn’t work, let alone my feet. My mind was swimming in and out of consciousness. I could feel my temperature going through the roof.
With a monumental effort I managed to get up, but my head felt like it was on a sp
in cycle. Using walls, handles and banisters to remain upright, I dragged my bag out of my room and across the corridor to an ancient lift. When the doors opened I started dry-retching, to the alarm of a couple already inside. My eyes caught theirs and I glimpsed horror, then fear. Everyone in Gabon knew what was happening in Congo-Brazzaville. People were terrified of Ebola. They rushed out of the lift as I stumbled inside. How selfish of me to think only of my journey, or my programmes. If I was a walking Ebola petri dish I should have stayed in my room. Instead I spilled into the hotel lobby, where Sophie and Sam, director and cameraman on this leg of the Equator series, were waiting with our Gabonese guide Linel. They saw me sliding along the wall, pulling my bag along the floor, and I could see their mouths drop. I wasn’t sweating so much as dripping. Every millimetre of skin was alive with perspiration and yet I was shivering.
‘My God, Simon.’ It was Sam who spoke first. ‘You look like death.’
‘Bad night,’ I muttered. ‘I was sick in the bath and I slept on the floor. I didn’t have the strength to climb into bed.’ I was swaying back and forth, nothing in my legs but jelly. ‘I’ll be fine. What time is the flight?’
Sophie took a look at me then exchanged a glance with Sam. Taking my arm, she told me the only place I was going was back to bed. By this time I was shivering so badly my teeth were chattering. I was on the point of collapsing again, but the three of them managed to half-carry, half-drag me back upstairs to my room.
‘It’s Ebola, isn’t it?’ I mumbled. ‘You shouldn’t be touching me. You need to get me into quarantine.’
We had been travelling in Gabon for just over a week. Before starting research for the programme I knew next to nothing about the place, other than it was small, formerly French, and blessed – or cursed – with massive oil reserves. But the BBC team had found me an excellent guide. Linel was a local teacher with a patient but enthusiastic air.
I felt a real thrill filming the opening scenes for the series. We had hired a boat in Libreville, the capital of Gabon, and chugged down the coast. Using a GPS unit and a handful of satellites orbiting the Earth, we found a beautiful and unspoilt beach of pristine sand and palm trees. Yet it was unremarkable. There was no plaque, sign, beach bar or monument marking the point. But it was the stretch of land where the equator made landfall in Africa. It was the middle of the world.
The idea behind the series was simple. I was going to follow or track the equator line through a unique region of the planet, and countries suffering from war, poverty, disease, deforestation and corruption. Following the line would force us to go to remoter areas, to places rarely visited by outsiders, let alone TV crews.
Beyond Gabon months of travel were supposed to take me across Africa to Uganda and Kenya and on to the lawless border with chaotic Somalia. Indonesia, the Galapagos, Colombia’s interminable civil war and the vast Amazon all beckoned ahead.
We were expecting endless problems while following the equator. Even chugging to the start point had been eventful. Initially the captain ignored the plan we had agreed and tried to fob us off with a sightseeing trip into a huge lagoon.
‘Perhaps we can get to the sea and the line that way,’ he said, gesturing vaguely towards a peninsula that clearly offered no through-route. ‘Isn’t this good enough for you?’
He only agreed to turn back and out to sea when we at first politely and then sternly insisted we wanted to brave the ocean. Checks on the fuel reserves and life jackets he had assured us were stowed in bench seats revealed he had neither. Two hours were lost fuelling and finding jackets. Linel tied his tight. So did the two crewmen on the boat. None of them could swim, they much later admitted. We headed out to sea towards the zero degrees. The sea was certainly choppy, but the speed at which the boat started to take on quantities of water surprised me. I have a bad reputation among my colleagues for being a bit of a Jonah. Half the boats I travel in while filming seem to nearly sink. By the time we reached the equator we were bailing furiously using buckets and our own water bottles, and I was relieved to be first off the front, leaping into the water, reaching dry land and officially starting my journey. There was no bunting (there is never any bunting), but it was a moment to savour.
Tides and the wind were in our favour on the return journey, and we were soon out exploring Libreville, which boasts casinos, musty hotels, miles of sandy beaches and a handful of handsome seafront buildings with a passing resemblance to those of South Beach. Prior to independence in 1960, Gabon had been ruled from Paris as one of four territories known as French Equatorial Africa. The continuing presence of French soldiers had helped keep Gabon relatively stable, while oil had made a few well-connected locals extremely rich. At one point in the 1980s Gabon had the highest per capita consumption of champagne in the world.
Everywhere I looked the face of President Omar Bongo beamed out from billboards and posters. In power since 1967, he was the longest-serving leader in Africa, and globally second only to Fidel Castro. Critics would point out that perhaps Bongo had not spent Gabon’s vast oil revenues entirely wisely or fairly. But he seemed to wield absolute power from a vast and hideous presidential palace. Linel told us nervously that filming it might cause problems, particularly for him, so instead we turned the camera in the opposite direction and I just made sarcastic comments about the leader and the architecture.
Later that day as the team were filming elsewhere in the city, I was wandering the seafront with Linel when a phalanx of motorcycle outriders raced along the main road closing side streets. Five minutes later the President came down the road in a huge convoy of armoured cars, limos, army trucks and an ambulance as medical back-up. I counted forty-five vehicles. Even the US President manages with less. A French attack helicopter swooped low overhead, machine-gunners at the open doors, providing security and a clear sign the autocratic leader still had the backing of Paris. Gallic influence was pervasive in the former French colony. Restaurants were full of oil industry ex-pats drooling over young locals, while pricey supermarkets were stuffed with French wine and foie gras.
Linel told me Libreville was one of the most expensive cities to live anywhere in Africa. He took me to a local supermarket where I was amazed by the number of expensive cars parked outside. Mercedes, Lexus and Land Cruisers all had their slots. Inside the store was fruit imported from France and sold at exorbitant prices.
‘Isn’t this mad?’ I said to Linel. ‘We’re in Africa. The sun shines and fruit grows everywhere here.’
He shrugged his shoulders. ‘When you have oil, you can do anything,’ he said wryly.
But even for those rich enough to afford the supermarket prices, the party was coming to an end. Supplies of Gabon’s black gold were dwindling. After Bongo took power the once rich and profitable farming industry had slowly but surely collapsed. There was desperate poverty in Gabon and the supermarket had armed itself with three guards carrying pump-action shotguns to protect against robbery.
We headed to a more traditional street market just a mile from the supermarket, with basic stalls and hungry dogs running loose and hustling for a treat. It was risky for people to talk to us, but one brave middle-aged woman who had been shuffling along the street carrying a basket of vegetables on her head stopped to bemoan the state of the country and the dictator, as she called Bongo with disgust.
‘We have nothing. I pray for him to die,’ she said, before pausing. ‘But perhaps whoever follows will be worse.’
Such was the reality of Gabon. Some of the supermarkets might be stocked with French delicacies. But most people endured dirt roads and tin-roofed shacks.
Back in our dilapidated hotel I had a moment of terror stuck in the lift while the metal cables groaned and strained. Then I wandered outside and a battered Citroën racing along the coast road suddenly turned sharply and slammed into the thick wall right next to me, demolishing the front of the car, and the wall. The driver slid out of his seat, dusted himself with a dramatic flourish, and calmly walked into the hotel. �
��I’m fine, thank you, there is nothing to worry about,’ he said. I gave the car a wide berth as it began to smoulder and hailed a taxi. We drove 40 metres before hitting another car. My driver had been distracted by a completely naked man carrying a bicycle into a shop. Gabon was a weird place.
We packed our kit ready to continue the journey east and made a beeline for the train station. Three times a week trains would leave Libreville and head east, parallel with the equator, on the Transgabonais railway towards Lopé National Park, home to a large population of mandrills and several thousand western lowland gorillas.
With the oil running out, Bongo had decided to tap tourist dollars by exploiting other national assets. With apes, hippos splashing in the sea, pristine rainforest, and nearly 700 species of birds, Gabon is a paradise for naturalists. Absolute power can clearly speed decision-making. The President had recently ordered that 11 per cent of Gabon should be converted into national parks – almost overnight. It was a bold move: Voila! Gabon was being touted and promoted as the ‘Costa Rica of Africa’, an unspoiled high-end destination for wealthy eco-tourists.
I doubt they travelled on the railway. Our carriage was old, wooden, but charming and surprisingly empty. ‘It’s not cheap, and anyone with money drives,’ said Linel.
The train grumbled and rattled as we rolled slowly along, following, skirting and then crossing the equator in a narrow gulch surrounded by a blanket of bright-green foliage. Ahead was a rickety bridge with a pathetic barrier on one side and nothing but a void on the other. The driver slowed to a crawl. The stanchions sagged under the weight of the train and hairs climbed on my forearms. Linel whispered the obvious.
‘The bridge is very unstable,’ he said.
