My 33,000-kilometre bicycle journey through Africa is now being published in English

In September 1988, I left North Cape in northern Norway with the aim of cycling to Cape Agulhas, the southern tip of Africa.

The journey eventually covered approximately 33,000 kilometres and became my second book, På cykel genom Afrika, first published in Swedish in 1991.

I am now translating the book into English and publishing it as a new series of long articles on Substack.

The opening chapter begins in Morocco. After cycling 6,660 cold and wet kilometres through Europe, I entered Africa at Ceuta and headed towards the High Atlas.

Every villager I met on my way towards Jebel Toubkal warned me not to cross a sacred bridge.

I crossed it.

Within half an hour, the mountains disappeared into a violent snowstorm. It took me seventeen hours through waist-deep snow to find the base-camp hut. I later triggered an avalanche, fell around thirty metres and was buried beneath the snow.

The chapter also tells the story of Abraham, an English bank fraudster and convert to Islam whom I met at food stall number 25 in Marrakech. He was the first person to understand the fear and loneliness that had followed me into Morocco.

The article preserves the thoughts, mistakes and judgements of the 26-year-old man who made the journey. I have not rewritten him to make him appear wiser than he was.

READ THE FULL STORY ON SUBSTACK