This story is a few weeks old. Nonetheless it requires telling. Having taken possession of my bike, I set out to use it. Within days I had ridden what I thought was three quarters of the way to Gleno. Gleno is a town about fifty kilometres from Dili. What separates it from Dili is what I would describe as two mountain ranges (Tour de France participants might describe them as not even close to two sets of mini-alps, probably mere speed bumps to their professionally trained bodies). The thing of it is this though, at the time I was unaware that there were two mountains; in the flood of instructions on how to get there, I heard mention only of one. And so it was that, having done what I thought was all the hard yards, I turned back to Dili, content that I was a mere thirty minutes from Gleno. Oh the folly of it!
Puffed up with my achievement, a week later, I agreed to ride with a friend along the same route. Since he had to work in the morning, we set off in the afternoon. We wouldn’t get to Gleno he told me, it’s too far. Phfft! I thought, too far be damned. But I acquiesced to his greater knowledge.
The first part of the trip is a winding road out of Dili to a place called Tibar. It seems to have a bit of split personality because the road divides and Tibar seems to follow both forks. To head to Tibar resort, you take the right fork. To head to Gleno you head straight ahead and up. That’s it. It is basically up and winding until you reach the top of the first range. It’s so ‘up’ in places that the lesser inclines feel like they’re flat. They’re not, but it’s nice to kid yourself that they are; it tends to make the legs more willing to continue on, up, up, up and on. So, on we went.
My companion is a seasoned campaigner – he’s done the Tour for the last two years. And yet, I pedalled ahead. Surely he was just behind me. But when I got to the final peak – I wasn’t stopping before then – he was no where to be seen. I waited five minutes or so and he finally appeared. My gloating was short-lived when he admitted that he’d stopped for a dip in a creek and then for a chat with someone he hadn’t seen for a while. “But,” he assured me, “you beat me up the hills.” Yeah right.
We sailed down the other side of the range to the spot where I’d stopped and turned round on my last effort. And here, perhaps, was our first error of judgement. Well, I say error of judgement, can there be such an error if there was no judgement? Instead of truly evaluating time against distance to travel, we almost goaded each other into continuing.
Oh what the hell, I thought, Gleno’s only another thirty minutes away. Easy peasy. And so it puzzled me somewhat that we stopped for more water. Why bother, I thought, when we’re almost there? Surely Gleno has water. Then we came to a mountain range. It struck me then that perhaps I hadn’t been quite as close as I thought. At the end of that range we stopped.
The options were: Go into Gleno, which was now only twenty minutes away – I could see it and so could at least evaluate this as a potentially correct calculation – and meet up with some friends that live there or we could turn around. Of course we choose the social option and spent a lovely couple of hours sharing tea and good conversation.
The light was still bright when my riding buddy looked at his watch and almost screeched, “It’s half past five! We’ve got to go!”
We made hasty good-byes and pedalled – fast. The challenge was to beat the darkness. That wasn’t going to happen. To be honest, I was too naïve to be really concerned. I mean, so what if you ride in the dark . . . without lights. The Timorese do it all the time. Besides it’s not dark, dark. There’s lights and the moon and . . .did I mention I was naïve?
My legs burnt and my lungs weren’t too happy either. Still, I dragged myself up the hills. We passed the first ridge, and then the second, but the light was fading. Did I say fading? I mean someone flicked the switch and suddenly there was only blackness and about twenty-one kilometres still to go – down hill, on a winding road, with pot holes, lots and lots of pot holes, and cars and trucks and motorbikes that did little more than momentarily blind us.
The choices were, stop and do what I don’t know or keep going. As I had an 8am start the next day I didn’t quite know how my boss would take me calling up to say I was stuck in the darkness on the Tibar Road. Perhaps not entirely with good grace – and so I forced my body to keep going.
Then it happened. A motorbike came up the hill. I couldn’t see a thing – and then I could. A huge pot hole loomed in front and then underneath me. I braked. Hard. Too hard. One minute I was looking at the edge of what seemed like an abyss, the next I was on the ground with all sorts of bodily complaints. I’d landed on my hands and knees and left elbow. My bike was fine. I couldn’t see to inspect the damage, but since I could move, albeit gingerly, I decided nothing was broken. The worst part was that my hands were now peppered with gravel on the very parts I needed to apply the brakes. I grit my teeth and we trundled onwards.
Let me offer, at this point, a general observation. Dark in Timor is dark. There are few lights and if there was a moon that night, it was hidden behind the trees which lurked suspiciously close to the roadside. It was difficult to see anything, let alone my riding buddy . . . or the car with only one headlight that seemed to careen towards me, and then, seeing me, or perhaps hearing me scream, careened away again.
Finally a state ute passed and my riding buddy yelled out for him to stop. He did and after a brief conversation, our bikes and bodies were hauled into the back – on top of the logs and the tyres and boy I didn’t really give a rat’s what I was sitting on, all I cared was that I was sitting on something other than a bike that was moving me towards home.
And here is another wonderful thing about Timor. If you’re biking take small change to buy water and fruit and five and ten dollar bills to pay someone to give you a lift home. Most people are happy to and if you’re got a flat tyre and no spare or repair kit or two busted up hands, you’ll be willing to part with more than ten dollars on a dark, dark, night with a winding, pot-hole-filled road between you and a warm bed.
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