Virgil, romanian biker, somewhere in Somaliland Hes left with only two African countries to visit - Eritrea and Sudan -before moving on to another continent. What sounds to many of us like pure suicide (travelling to Sudan, or at least certain parts of Sudan) seems to be business as usual to him. After all, he has already travelled through parts of Somalia and Somaliland.
Although I didn't meet him myself, I believe that this guy is extraordinary enough to be posted on the web (its not the first entry - those of you who filter the web for a combination of "bike, africa, romanian" might find one or the other trace of him buzzling around in the www). Besides these traces on the web, he doesn't seem to leave any footprint during his journey. The plastic bags and bottles hanging from the bike are the only visible indications for his previous stays, but also these will one day be blurred by sun, wind and rain.
Although he is for sure not the first guy who travels through Africa on a bike, he somehow does not fit into any of the familiar "globetrotter" categories - he's defenitely not one of these school leavers who are up for some adventure before joining real life, and he's also not one of the modern explorers who wander around our world with GPS, the newest hightech equipment and a fancy camera. He also doesn't fit into the blogger generation (like me...) who keep track of each and every step they do in whichever corner of the world. His bike is rusty and half broken, and yet it apparently is the only item he calls his own. According to a friend of mine who came accross this romanian guy few days ago at a checkpoint somewhere outside Hargeisa, the only record he keeps of this travel through Africa (with some other continents to follow) is a book with stamps from the municipiality of the capitals he is passing along his travel. He sleep wherever he reaches at the end of the day, and eats whatever he finds at the end of the day (although, as this colleague mentioned, he is vegetarian and rather prefers to starve for days instead of eating meat!).
Its not really romantic, his tour, nor does it seem to bear any comfort and pleasure. What does it need for somebody to embark on such a kind of travel? Why does he do this kind of travel? Should one feel pity for this man on the rusty bike, or admiration? And what will happen once he has travelled through all the capitals of the world? Will he simply go home, like Forest Gump after years of running through the states? Whatever his goal is, I wish him all the best to reach it one day.
