Day 1 – Dublin: The Lines I Chose to Follow

The argument was about time. Lorena likes to reach the airport with about twenty minutes to spare before the gate closes. I like to arrive when everyone else does, early enough that no one has to run, panic or miss a flight. We have been having this same argument for years and neither of us has ever won it. That Saturday afternoon in July we had it again on the way out of the house.

Before we left, Lorena went through the instructions for the cat sitter one more time: feeding, doors, and the exact amount of affection owed to Luna, our fat, feral, faintly sociopathic cat. The bags had been ready since the night before. Mine were small on purpose, a yellow Samsonite Ecodiver of eighteen litres and a black North Face Base Camp duffel in the extra-small size, both cabin only. On earlier trips to Africa my checked luggage had turned up weeks after I did, so now I carry everything with me and wash clothes along the way. Lorena travels with a rucksack she has to check. The rule between us has not changed: each carries their own bags, and I am not a porter.

The flight left Dublin at 14:20, bound for Dubai. I had built the whole trip around three things I had wanted for a long time.

The first was trains. The Tazara, and the story behind it, had pulled at me for years, though that belongs to later posts. Where the pull itself comes from I am less sure. Maybe my grandfather, who was a stationmaster on the Ferrovie Complementari Sarde. Maybe being born on an island, where a train could never carry you very far. Maybe only a liking for slowness, for watching the ground go past at the speed it actually moves.

The second was Livingstone. I wanted to follow the main lines of his African journeys, and the route let me do it almost too neatly: beginning in Zanzibar, where his body was carried after his death, and ending on the last day in the town that took his name, at the museum dedicated to him.

The third is harder to say without sounding grandiose. I have a weakness for the maps people draw across Africa and never finish. Cecil Rhodes wanted a railway from Cape Town to Cairo, a single British line up the length of the continent; it was never built. Much later, the Trans-African Highway network set out nine roads, more than fifty-six thousand kilometres on paper, planned by the African Union and the development banks. The Great Africa Traverse was my idea of crossing this part of Africa today along infrastructure left behind by very different ambitions.

That was the journey I thought I was beginning as the plane lifted out of Dublin: three lines other people had drawn, and me trying to travel along them.

Practical Notes

Getting there

Emirates EK162, Dublin to Dubai, departing 14:20 on Saturday.

Packing

I travelled cabin only: a Samsonite Ecodiver (18L) and a North Face Base Camp Duffel (XS). On earlier Africa trips my checked bags arrived weeks late, so now I carry everything and do laundry on the road.