AROUND MADAGASCAR ON MY KAYAK
By Riaan Manser
(Jonathan Ball Publishers, R185)
Adventurer Riaan Manser is a surprise package. Nothing about him on the surface – the camaraderie, a kind of backslapping warmth and of course the accent and the slang – prepares you for the soft-as-down insides of the man.
With everything he has been through, he has to be tough; it’s the sensitive side that catches you unawares. That, and how he manages to twirl you twice around his pinky without breaking a sweat.
He is boyishly good-looking with laughing eyes but probably what really knocks everyone sideways is the sincerity of this local boykie.
In a way, he is almal se pêl (everybody’s pal) and it is difficult to imagine this gregarious lad paddling in a kayak around Madagascar, most of the time totally alone. But that is the dichotomy of Mr Manser.
He looks the kind of rugger-bugger type with his exclamation-type of talk and if, by any chance, you are someone who makes snap judgements, that would be it for this African conqueror.
Then you are suddenly reminded that he has circumnavigated Africa on a bicycle. And then swopped the solidness of terra firma to set off in a kayak.
We know he lives in Gordon’s Bay and that he must be somewhat familiar with the sea but there’s a stretch between knowing and rowing your way around an island. The mind boggles.
Loneliness was something that got him down on this last trip. While cycling, he was seeing people, travelling through villages and only had some stretches without human contact somewhere during the day.
But this was different. He was paddling, 20 000 strokes a day and sometimes at night. It was man and nature and nobody else.
For some reason, often the Madagascan people weren’t overwhelmingly friendly either.
In fact, Manser landed up in jail a few times. At the time, political turmoil broke out on the island and when he said he was from South Africa – complete with beard, wild white man and everything else that had an effect – he was usually shunned.
“It was awful,” says this man who is used to dealing with people and getting them in his corner. Not this time.
But that wasn’t the only dilemma. Think of spending a year on the water and what that would do to your body.
Just the water and its effects in the long term isn’t something that immediately comes to mind. And these were just some of the obstacles. Add to that rations and how little he could take with him in a kayak.
Also support. He had some, but it wasn’t immediate. Many times Manser could simply have drowned and no one would have known where to even start a search. The loneliness in these moments must have been overwhelming.
It sounds like something quite simple, circumnavigating Madagascar, until you delve more deeply. Most of us can sit for hours watching the whales in the bay at Hermanus or Mossel Bay. But can you imagine one popping up right next to you in the sea? Or being dwarfed by gigantic waves that we have all encountered from a safe distance. It’s dark, the waves are crashing all around you and it’s you and your kayak.
It’s dramatic-sounding stuff, but that’s exactly what Manser captures in his book and when he chats about this latest adventure.
It’s fascinating, if frightening, and captures the spirit of the adventure and adventurer.
To combat the loneliness, he had intelligent conversations with himself, says Manser chuckling.
Things didn’t get any easier with the often tough people he encountered on shore. Sometimes the situations were risky and he struggled to cope mentally and physically in trying circumstances.
Mentally and physically, both journeys were equally tough.
Foot sores, a tooth that had to be pulled, cuts exacerbated rather than healed by the sea water, constantly finding food or fishing for your supper but also having to pay your way wherever hostility surfaced, all these niggles added to the toughness of the task he had set himself.
And this was something he had promised a long-suffering girlfriend he wouldn’t do ever again. But loving her man and waiting for him on his long Africa trip, he knew he’d have to approach it differently this time. The sponsors would know that part of the deal would be to have Vasti-time along the journey. She would have to fly in and they would have to catch up and touch base.
Making all this possible is the fact that he turns his adventure into a commodity of a kind. He is constantly interviewed and photographed along the way. And once back, there’s the book and the promotion of the total package.
Manser is fully aware that he is his own best advertisement.
He’s a nice boy who likes to do outrageous things and while many are envious of his life choices, not many would pull it off with such obvious joie de vivre and aplomb.
He also knows that he cannot live this way forever. At some point, his responsibilities will change. Fortunately his mate has a professional career and life of her own or none of this would have been possible. But while the going is good, it probably won’t be too long before we hear about the next madcap Manser adventure.
In the meantime, catch up with this one. It’s well worth the ride.
l Riaan Manser was a guest speaker at the Pretoria News WritersSpeak literary lunch.