Long Way Down (2007) s01e06 Episode Script

Shashemene, Ethiopia to Laisamis, Kenya

1
Back in 2004,
my friend Charley Boorman and I
rode from London round to New York, east.
And we called the trip the Long Way Round.
We did it! New York!
It's Ewan and I living out a dream
on motorbikes.
Shortly after we got back,
we decided it was definitely something
that we wanted to do again.
We started talking about Africa.
And we're calling this trip Long Way Down.
We're gonna ride 15,000 miles
through 18 countries.
From John O'Groats,
through Europe and into Africa.
Across Libya to Egypt,
following the Nile south into the Sudan.
Crossing the equator
and over to the Skeleton Coast.
Arriving in Cape Town 85 days later.
We're gonna give these guys video cameras,
and they'll also have cameras
with microphones on their crash helmets,
so they can film as they're riding along.
There's a bit of tarmac.
Look at that!
A third motorcycle will travel with them,
and on that motorcycle will be Claudio,
a cameraman.
In addition, Russ and I will travel in
two 4x4s with Jimmy, another cameraman,
Dai, our medic, and Jim,
a cameraman who will help with security.
We'll be filming the guys
from the vehicles,
linking up with them at borders.
But otherwise,
the motorcycles will be on their own.
Got sun on my face ♪
Sleeping rough on the road ♪
I'll tell you all about it ♪
When I get home ♪
Comin' round to meet you ♪
The long way down ♪
Spectacular, spectacular scenery,
you know?
Everything's green. It's beautiful.
Shashemene is the area
where all the Rastas are.
We're coming up to our destination
which is the Rastafarian town.
I was in Jamaica at Christmas,
and I knew that there was
this big link with Ethiopia.
So we're going to find out here today.
My name is Gladstone Robinson.
I'm the oldest settler here.
Nice to meet you.
Of course, you know,
we believe his imperial majesty
is the reincarnation of Jesus Christ,
and we worship him as our savior.
I would love to come in. Thank you.
And, you see, the emperor gave us
this beautiful land as a gift.
What is the link
between Ethiopia and Jamaica?
The Bible even says
a small country far off
When they hear of me, they will bow
and worship me as God.
And we know that the emperor
was coronated "King of Kings,"
"Conquering Lion of the tribe of Judah."
He was coronated,
and 52 nations bowed.
So then we said
that's the royal connection.
I got a little girl running around here,
six years old.
And the Bible says when you have children
in your old age, you are blessed.
I'm 77.
And I'm still going strong.
Although, I'm a little sick today,
but God has blessed me.
I'm still none the wiser, really.
Need to find out a bit more.
Need to find out a bit more about it.
I still don't really understand.
Dai, what happened?
The guy has had severe diarrhea
for the last couple of days.
He fainted. I've given him
some rehydration solution, some tablets.
He went to the toilet,
and he's just fainted again on the toilet.
That's it, really.
I'm just trying to find my oxygen mask.
Robinson, this old bloke who was
showing us around, had a funny turn.
And Dai's in there.
Our medic's in there with Jim.
Giving you some oxygen, okay?
Just breathe normally,
and it'll come in quite good.
You'll feel more comfortable.
We're all very worried.
At one point, his wife started screaming,
you know, wailing like he had died.
Let me just take the oxygen off, Jim,
and see what it's like on air, mate.
Hang on a minute.
Ninety-seven on air is very good, okay?
Which is what you are on now.
When we found you, you were at 90.
That's not good.
We'll pack our stuff up 'cause
you seem pretty good now, Gladstone.
- I'm ready to run a race.
- No, you're not.
Take care. Bye-bye.
I checked his radial the pulse
in his wrist, and he didn't have one.
And he was very, very cold,
so we started suspecting the worst.
And it was due to his dehydration,
he had no radial pulse.
We're heading for the Kenyan border.
We've been in Ethiopia now
about 11 or 12 days.
I wonder what Kenya will be like.
We're going to the border now,
so hopefully it's later on today
that we'll be in Kenya.
It's just so African.
It's so African here!
It's a stunning ride. Stunning ride.
This is a road not to forget.
It's a long way down ♪
All the way to Cape Town ♪
Wheels are going round ♪
It's a long way down ♪
We're in Kenya, yeah.
And apparently we can't stop
until we get to this place,
which is five hours away.
Which it means more like seven hours
on bikes, so I don't know.
- What time is it now, 2:00?
- Three o'clock.
Three o'clock.
Great.
And it's all horrible off-road stuff.
How are you, old man?
This road down
from Moyale to about Turbi is not bad.
- It's good gravel.
- Okay.
But then we come to a rocky bit,
which is really rough.
So, I was hoping we'll get there
before dark because it's not very easy.
There was nowhere really to camp
in between here and there at this lodge
because it's all rocky
and, secondly, because of security.
If it comes worst to the worst,
then we possibly have to camp.
But it's not far. We'll get there.
- Okay.
- Yeah.
- Okay.
- We'll push you.
All right, we'll get some fuel then,
shall we?
We're definitely not going to make it to
this lodge. There's no question of that.
Smells right.
Fixer said it's five hours' drive.
And traditionally,
anything that's five hours' drive,
for us is seven hours, you know?
People get tired.
And we've had a long day already.
We've done 200-and-something miles
already today.
So why bother doing another 200 miles,
180 miles, you know, in the dark?
It's just stupid.
Are you gonna drive in the dark? No.
Exactly what I'm talking about.
I'm a bit worried about it, I suppose.
A bit trepidatious.
I mean, we've heard nothing but the first
part of Northern Kenya is just awful.
Sand, rocks.
Kenua. This gentleman is called Kenua.
Kenya police,
they are basically used as protection
for all vehicles moving up and down
this road, the Trans-African Highway.
That is the importance of the security,
which is to protect us.
They are well-trained for combat
between the chieftains.
So if anything should happen,
they will be the first people
to try and protect us.
So we are going to start the journey now.
- Yeah?
- Yeah.
Cheers, mate.
This time around it's me for a change.
It's again the rear shock is gone.
What do you do in this sort of situation?
You just wait for Charley and Ewan.
Which is it,
the front or the back, Claudio?
Back.
Look, the oil's come out of it. Look.
- Yeah.
- Yeah, it's completely gone.
With all that practice
in Ethiopia, this is
Up a little bit.
Not too
Down a bit, down a bit. Damn it.
This has expanded.
It's broken, so it's too big.
Do you see what I mean?
Twenty minutes already, look.
Claudio, we're meant
to be lifting the bike, mate.
Strike that.
I'm going in.
No. We haven't got any single ones,
have we? Pull it out.
I need the Can you give me
the bigger handle and the larger one?
A 12 for you.
I gave you Is that a ten?
- Yeah.
- Yeah, that's the right
The car's arrived,
and we managed to use their jack to
release the pressure on the spring.
We don't need to.
So now I'm putting all the stuff back on.
So, yeah. Please.
It's gonna be dark in about 45 minutes.
And we're basically
in that zone that we talked about
where they're saying it's bandit country,
so we do want to camp before it's dark.
But obviously, this bike isn't going
anywhere until they fix the shock.
We're just gonna see
if we can compress the spring a bit.
That's a very clever thing,
that spring compressor.
This will be another half hour
before that's fixed, I reckon.
Another half hour before then, that takes
it to 6:15 which is when it's dark.
If not, we just have to camp
on the road, eh?
Putting everything back on again now.
And then we can
put all this shit back together.
- Okay.
- Down again, Claudio?
You all right? You got the top?
See how quickly it is to put it back in.
Fifty minutes.
This is the road
that they told you not to stop on.
Of course, we've stopped, which is fine.
But it's about to be dark,
and we do need to camp.
Very well done. Thank you very much.
Thank you very much.
Thanks. My O-grade metalwork.
It made me slightly nervous
'cause the last time his broke,
mine broke, like, 20 minutes later.
This first bit of Kenya,
everyone says it's incredibly dangerous.
And the problem is, you know,
normally, we wouldn't pay
too much attention about it.
But people told us, "Don't camp.
Just stay in a village
or stay somewhere safe."
We've ridden about half an hour off-road.
I've camped right next to a tree
with something living in the tree.
I'm sure it's just a little bird.
But yeah,
we're right in the wilds of Africa.
Cool, huh? So we'll see what happens.
I have to say, the off-road riding here,
there's a stretch of about 100 miles
of quite good off-road riding
before it gets really bad.
And the good stuff, I've found really bad.
So I can't imagine
what the bad stuff's gonna be like.
We're in this northern frontier district.
We try and keep near
not very far from town or a settlement.
At least if there's an emergency,
we can get to them easily.
But it's more adventurous to be this way.
Camping is quite exciting in the wild.
We're preparing the fire, so that when
the goat comes, at least there's no smoke.
It's quite Welsh to eat
Are we seriously that hungry, chaps,
just before it
- I'm gonna have some goat.
- Okay.
Yeah. I'll eat it 'cause I eat meat.
I wouldn't like to kill it myself,
is the truth of the matter.
But I eat meat, so I don't have a problem
with the meat coming from an animal.
- That's where meat comes from, isn't it?
- Yeah.
Just because it's not packaged
in plastic trays and cellophane.
It's actually walking around on four legs.
I'm sure he'll kill it very quickly,
and it won't feel a thing.
- He's gone now, right? Yeah.
- He's not gone yet.
- It's just the nerves.
- The nerves.
I think I still prefer
to see it shrink-wrapped
in a shop
as opposed to killed in front of you.
But then don't you think, you know, we buy
meat that's just prepacked in plastic,
and we're so far away from the idea
that it even came from an animal?
Of course.
If we were brought up
with killing your own animals and pigs,
then we wouldn't be batting an eyelid now.
It's only that when it comes to us,
it comes in a packet,
- so we never, ever get to see this, do we?
- That's a good point.
And I think if it's done
professionally, like these guys did it,
- with a minimum of fuss
- Quickly, yeah.
The goat wasn't
in any apparent distress
then maybe it's
Maybe it's not a bad thing
for people to see.
- But the
- I still don't want to eat it.
But, you know, you ask some kids,
"Where does milk come from?"
And they say a shop.
They're so just removed from
all this kind of stuff. It's so clinical.
They're gonna solve
the food problems of nine men,
just not number ten.
I'm either going with the beef stew
and dumplings and gravy
There we go, look.
Here we go. This is the
The end product.
This is what you see in a supermarket.
This is what you get
in the butchers, right?
I mean, look at the effort
these guys put in, man.
It's hard work.
Changed my mind on the boil-in-bag.
Gotta go with the goat.
- How is it?
- It's bloody delicious.
- Very good.
- I must say, it's really
Which one's the liver?
The liver's over here.
- Do you want liver? Here.
- I had a bite of liver already.
Bits of him are quite tough.
I'm dropping stuff everywhere.
The hyenas will get them later.
What did you think of the goat, Charley?
Did you like it?
I thought it was delicious, actually.
I really did.
- It was good, wasn't it?
- It was really good. It's just
The first bite isn't
It was quite high and quite
a strong taste to start off with.
It tasted a bit like it smelled.
The first bite, the taste was
very reminiscent of the smell of the goat
when it jumped out the car, going
You have to get over that
and just get on with it.
- You can't get better than this, can you?
- Just killing goats and eating 'em.
The whole experience, goat, everything.
It was just amazing.
So what's the plan for tomorrow?
Mac, what do you want to do tomorrow?
The aim was to try and get to this lodge
tonight, which we haven't got to, clearly.
So we'll try and get there,
and apparently we can see elephants there.
And we'll just get there,
and then I think we've agreed
that we'll just stay there tomorrow.
'Cause it'll be quite difficult
to get there, I think.
The road is, by all accounts,
really difficult.
Our route takes us past a school
that was the scene of a horrific massacre
some years ago.
And as we're going right through,
we feel it's somewhere we should stop.
In Kenya, security forces
are trying to quell a vicious bout
of inter-clan fighting
in the north of the country.
It's claimed the lives of 82 people,
including 22 children.
This was among the worst episodes
of inter-clan violence in Kenya
since independence.
Blood stains the earth
throughout the village.
Raiders struck at dawn,
killing indiscriminately.
So we heard the gunshots,
and I rushed out of my office.
Gabriel has joined us.
He's the headmaster
of the local primary school here.
So he's gonna explain to us what happened.
So when I just came out of my office,
I saw people who are uniformed
and who are, you know, shooting.
So I told them, "Run, run, run."
So most of them, those who are
eight, nine, ten, yes, they understand
they started running.
The others were very young, five, three
years. They don't understand
and they were slaughtered.
So most of the other villagers who died
were mothers,
because they know that their children
are going to school
when they started to notice gunshot they
were running towards the school now
but they were caught in
between them and killed.
Hello. Jambo.
Jambo. Are you okay?
He's now
This keys is the keys to the class.
He is the class prefect.
- Very good.
- Yeah.
- He lost both his parents
- Right.
but he is a very good boy.
Good man.
I was studying in the class by 6 o'clock
in the morning when they came in.
So many gunshots
that I hide myself under the desk.
Then after they went away I came out.
I was under the desk for
more than three hours.
So you were there?
Yes, he was hiding there,
all those hours the battle was on.
- Three hours?
- Yes.
He was the first person to be shot, him.
The other three were shot on top of him.
So they shot them with a gun?
With a gun and also with a spear.
- Really?
- You can see spear here.
Okay, here.
And this was the gun? The bullet?
- Yes.
- Came in and out.
They also injured this small girl.
They killed her brother.
Her brother was in class too,
and then they started cutting, you know.
The scars are not very much visible
because they got attention very quickly
and they responded very well.
Her mother was also seriously injured,
but she is coming on now very well.
This is the mass grave.
All together around sixty people
were buried here all together.
Those two are for the school children
and these three are for the
parents who have died
and some of the villagers also.
Normally some of the belongings of
those people, are put here
like what you see there now.
Right.
It's difficult. You can't conceive
of what happened here.
You can't possibly
imagine what would drive people
to do that.
They killed 60 villagers
and 22 children or something,
attacking the school.
I mean, the most horrific thing is
that all the ones
who were old enough to understand
when the teacher
came out saying, "Run," ran.
And all the little totty ones
were just standing here,
didn't really understand,
so they didn't run.
I mean, that's just too much.
Killed like animals with machetes.
I found it very, very difficult.
You know,
when someone tells you a story like that,
you think, "How could someone do that?"
I mean, how could anybody
go to the school,
butcher children with machetes
and spears and guns,
and then take all the livestock,
kill other people as well?
You just
It's unbelievable
why anybody would do that.
It's about children being slaughtered,
and it's impossible
to process that, isn't it?
This is important to remember.
This is the hard bit, you know?
And the thing about the hard bits
is that you get through
to the other side of them and you go,
"That was a hard bit. Glad that's over.
I don't have to do it again."
And then you just feel pleased
with yourself that you did it, you know?
It's like trying to ride a bus
with two wheels down a loose gravel track.
They're so huge, these bikes, man.
Just huge.
I feel like I'm systematically destroying
my motorcycle
riding it over this washboard shit,
and it's just shaking
my whole bike to bits.
Not doing this again, that's for sure.
If I do another one,
I'll do it in a jeep or something.
I think that aircraft idea
is really clever, you know?
I think that's the way to do it.
Can't concentrate. I'm exhausted.
My fucking hands are numb.
I can't feel my feet.
Just absolute fucking misery
as far as I'm concerned.
Ah, dear. I also was trying not to swear
so much on this show, you know?
I was really making an effort
for my dad, mainly.
He doesn't like swearing, my dad.
So I was really trying to keep it clean.
Charley, stop a minute, will you?
Just gotta take five minutes again.
Can't concentrate on this anymore.
Long Way Down, Ewan McGregor bitches
and moans all the way to Cape Town.
Shit.
It's difficult
because this is an incredible scenery.
Every time you look to the left or right,
you go, bang!
Like that, and you think, "Oh, must look
at the road, must look at the road."
It's the kind of clunk that would turn
your front wheel from round to square.
You just think, "Oh, my wheel
can't possibly be round anymore."
But it is.
And then is this as bad as this?
I heard it's better,
but I can't imagine it's much better.
I like it about as much as
I like sticking needles in my eye.
There we are. That's better.
I had a couple of cereal bars there.
And I was just reminding myself
of one of the lessons learned:
always to eat breakfast,
always to eat lunch. Try, you know.
As soon as you don't,
your spirits can crash and you get low.
Anyway, that's what just happened,
so had a couple of cereal bars.
Ditch, ditch, ditch!
And now we're on the last 15-mile push
to Marsabit Lodge.
I hope there's something nice to see
to make all this pain worthwhile.
It was a tough one, actually.
Looks like we've made it.
Look at this.
Look what we're about to tackle now.
I've ridden my bike from John O'Groats
to somewhere where there are elephants.
That makes all that
horrible off-road worthwhile.
Oh, my God! Elephants!
What a gorgeous relief.
Come and have a look at the lodge.
Oh, my God.
Isn't it great?
Look, there's something really classic,
kind of '50s African lodge about it.
- I love this. Look.
- Totally.
Isn't it great? I'd like to come here
for a week. Charley.
Charley, will you show Claudio
the elephants, please?
I'm feeling quite good
about this, actually,
'cause I've never in my life
ever, ever have I
seen elephants wild,
and they're just there.
There they are, look.
There's a little family
with a baby, and a mommy and daddy,
and a sister and a brother,
and some cousins.
I'm completely and utterly blown away.
The elephants came
right up close to the restaurant,
and we crawled forward on our stomachs,
and we watched the elephants.
It was just an incredible privilege.
It was lovely.
We're about 20 feet
We're about 20 feet away
from wild elephants.
Twenty feet. Look at this.
It's raining pretty hard.
It's going to be an interesting route out.
Because it's all mud, isn't it?
The road back?
Yeah, very slippery now.
Because it's raining, it's wet.
And with a motorbike, it might be very
a little bit difficult.
We're off the bikes,
and we're heading up to Paradise Lake,
which is just up from our lodge.
We had a really good sleep last night.
So I'm in the car. I really like it.
I really, frighteningly like it a lot.
I think I'm going to get Jim Foster
to ride my bike to Cape Town,
and I'll just smuggle myself
in the back of the car.
iPod on, snacks,
no numb arse.
I'll be able to feel my hands.
I'll be able to feel my feet.
It'll be fantastic.
Let him worry
about falling off the fucking thing.
- Yeah.
- What you've been waiting for.
- Look at you.
- Jimmy.
- Wow!
- I've got your binos.
It's lovely. The air is amazing.
We've been just so lucky on this trip.
It's been amazing.
So, I'm going home
because I've had enough.
Elephant shit. Fucking hell. Loads of it.
Look, everywhere.
Plodding along elephants.
We're going off not too many miles today,
about 60, 70 miles today,
and then we're going to stay
with the Samburu tribe, apparently,
which is very nice.
Right now,
we're just looking for some petrol.
There's supposed to be a petrol station
in a few kilometers.
We have the diesel,
but we don't have the electricity.
That's the problem, the electricity.
And no hand-pumping for diesel?
No hand-pumping for diesel.
We are pumping petrol.
- We might have to wait, I think.
- Here?
- Back at the lodge?
- Until the
Or we might have to go back to
our lodge and spend another night there.
He said it shouldn't be any more
than eight or nine hours' wait.
So, I'll try to put in a can
to assist you to go on your journey.
From the tank to the can,
and then from the can to the car.
That's good, another 20.
This is 20?
By the way, that only looks
like 19 liters, but
I think we better not fight
for that extra liter, should we?
Where there's a will, there's a way, guys.
You don't get stranded in Marsabit.
Cholesterol-free,
pure vegetable oil for cooking and 4x4s.
- We are filling the car the cooking fuel.
- Thank you.
- We want the vehicles to be full.
- Okay, okay.
Let's get another 20 liters, huh?
- Until it is full.
- Until it's full, okay.
- Okay, that's good there.
- Can we get another 20?
- We are going to do this.
- We are going to fill it up.
If it hadn't had diesel on it,
we would have been stuck here
till the electricity came back,
which could have been tomorrow.
And I was looking forward
to another night at the lodge.
I quite liked that place. It's beautiful.
- Yeah.
- With the elephants.
Another chance to sit and watch
the elephants tonight would've been nice.
Here we are traveling south from there.
We're going to go down
to the Losai National Park,
stay there, maybe try and meet
some tribes people there,
which would be amazing.
And I feel much better today on the bike.
The roads are much easier.
I'm actually quite enjoying it today,
I have to say.
There's ladies with huge amounts
of wood on their back.
Hello!
Jambo, jambo, jambo!
Hello!
Imagine doing that every day, yeah?
Look how old that lady is.
She must be older than my mum.
This is the turnoff
for us to ride where this tribe is.
It's like cutting a corner.
It's a little shortcut.
I hope it's not sandy ♪
I hope it's like this ♪
It is a bit sandy. It's good, though.
Oh, dear. Is it gonna be
wobbly-wobbly all the way? It is.
Oh, well. Soft hands. Lean back.
Power through.
Most of it might be quite nice, like this.
Feel much more relaxed on this today.
Riding on the sand ♪
Not having a fall ♪
Oh, shit!
Caught the edge.
Just caught the edge, I saw that.
Are you okay?
- Are you all right?
- Yeah. Are you okay?
Sand is my favorite.
I really don't know what to do
with this fucking sand.
Once you hit it, once you catch it,
what do you do?
You usually go
The instinct is to throttle off.
I don't. I really give more speed.
But then it just throws me farther.
- Poor you, mate. Are you okay?
- I'm fine, yeah, yeah.
- You sure?
- Let's hope the bike is okay.
I nearly rode into you, yeah.
It's a classic example
of following too closely.
I'm always saying it, you know?
Do as I say, not as I do.
I was wondering what would happen
if a lion suddenly ran up, you know?
I had these visions of
when you're seeing wildlife programs
of lions kind of arcing in behind
some gazelle or antelope or something.
They come in from the side,
and then they pick up speed
and bend round behind you.
And I was wondering
I would have no idea
if that was happening behind me right now.
A big female lioness coming,
tearing in behind me, you know?
I suppose that would be the best way,
is not to know, you know?
Hello.
These are amazing here.
- Yeah.
- Beautiful.
Do you have these ones?
These are the Samburu people.
Now, the reason why
they are building this new village,
next month in July, there's a ceremony.
They are going to circumcise their boys.
So, they have moved
from their main villages.
They have put their location here.
They'll put up all this camp
and prepare for the ceremony.
Okay. He's one of the boys
that is going to be circumcised.
Next month?
Yes.
As you can see,
they're just setting up their tents.
They're just erecting the tents,
these frames,
and then they cover them in animal hides.
And But we rocked up,
and so we had to speak to the chief.
And through our fixer,
he negotiated to let us camp.
Part of the deal was,
he said his wife gave birth yesterday,
and she was in a great deal of pain.
And was there someone on our team
who could help his wife
to get rid of the pain?
So Dai, our medic, has gone up there
to see if he can help.
I hope we can.
I'd like to get the tents up, so that
we can get changed and then just
It's nice to get that done, isn't it?
And then we can start mixing
with these people.
It really is amazing. We're really
We're really out there, aren't we?
It's amazing. Just amazing.
This young girl, this is her fourth child,
and everything is normal.
She just bled heavily.
But the midwives The girls in there
have delivered so many babies.
I took their advice
on whether that was normal or not,
and apparently, she does this every time.
So, really, all we can do is give her
some multivits or some iron tablets
and some mild paracetamol for the pain.
It's one of those things that we just need
to sort of let them get used to us,
and then I think things will be fine.
They'll just get on.
At the moment, we're a big distraction,
I suppose, at the moment.
And it should be quite an experience,
I think, today and tonight.
It's just quite extraordinary.
Beautiful. Hello.
We will go somewhere maybe where there's
a water source just behind this hill.
We can put up camp near there.
When we spoke earlier to the tribesmen
to see if we could come and film here,
all the men got together
and they all decided,
"Let's stand by the tree
and talk about this."
And they were all very open,
and the discussion was open,
and they decided that it was a good idea.
Here.
You're a good-looking man, you see?
Look. We can go even closer.
Yes! Strong!
Yeah, yeah.
Dude, don't look at the donkey's nose.
It's kind of mad, look.
Seventy boys
will be circumcised next month.
Yeah, and that initiation
is quite sensitive
because the boy
should not embarrass his father
by twitching his eye or his toe
when they're doing the surgery.
He has to be, like, completely blank
or dead when they do the initiation.
Thank God that's not me.
I think I would have passed out.
They cut the skin, the foreskin, down
on all four sides of the penis,
- and then they split it.
- Okay.
They make a hole on the top of the skin,
and they pass the penis through the skin.
So the whole foreskin
hangs below the penis.
But the penis is now passed
through the foreskin,
so until it heals,
the foreskin just hangs.
- The pain.
- It heals eventually.
And the kids have not got
to show any pain or any
Nothing. He's gotta be strong.
He said if it's his son and he twitches,
he will kill him.
Wow.
Generally, they're quite healthy.
I've got some sweets
for these guys in a minute.
They think they're sweets,
but they're actually multivits as well.
They're great kids, aren't they?
Great kids.
They just If you take your eye
off them for a minute,
you find their hands
in your pockets, you know?
That is
You can see the stitching in it.
Look, it's like a big mat of
Yeah, there. You can see it here.
But it's all stuff of the earth.
It's wood and skins and bark.
Apart from the plastic bottles for water,
it's all natural stuff as you look around.
What strikes you is
there's not many man-made things.
Here we have baby bloaty sheep,
the like of which we saw earlier.
They've got goiters, chests and bums.
All fatty, bloaty things.
- Here, you can see
- They're the geep, aren't they?
- No, no.
- They must be related to them.
Maybe distant cousins.
But the geep have only got
big, fatty bums.
These guys have got
necks, chests and bums.
He's a sweetheart,
the little baby one there.
Yeah, but all babies are cute.
Yeah, they're gonna grow up
to be big, fat, bloaty sheep.
Yeah, with big, flabby arses.
But they make these pens
with the thorny bushes
to keep the sheep in. It's nice, isn't it?
So that they're not eaten by the hyenas.
What's in there?
Have you got goats in there?
You've got goats!
You have babies in there, have you?
- Can we see in here?
- Look there.
Yeah, look. Some baby goats.
Apparently, what they do is,
the babies are kept in here,
which then keeps the parents close by.
- Here, I'm gonna stick him back in. Ready?
- You're gonna stick him in.
- Open it up a little bit more.
- All right.
Oops, there we go.
But that is your baby goat
smuggling device, right there.
Smuggling goats. Hey, jambo.
Doing well.
Wow, look at this. It's lovely inside.
It's beautiful.
- This is amazing. It's so cozy, isn't it?
- It's so cozy!
Here? Is it okay? Yes.
But it's so cozy.
It's kind of like an igloo, but in
the heat. It's the same shape, isn't it?
I didn't expect it
to look like this at all.
And how long does it take her to build it?
Okay.
She said this is just temporary,
but to complete the whole house
would take four days.
- Four days?
- Yes.
I like it.
- It's cool, isn't it?
- It's so cool, yeah.
You can hear the animals, just the noise
of all those hundreds of animals.
- All these are made of leather.
- These are? What are these for?
This is for carrying luggage
on the donkey.
- Oh, I see.
- Like saddles.
I thought they were snowshoes.
And these are
for leading the donkey, or no?
- These are for tying the stuff.
- Tying stuff.
How many people live in this place?
Okay, up to six people.
- In this space?
- Yeah, in this space.
She's gorgeous, isn't she?
Do people in this tribe
have only one wife?
Or do they marry more than one lady?
They have more than one wife.
How many wives does the chief have?
- Two wives.
- Two wives. And how many children?
His first wife has six children.
His second wife has four children.
- Wow.
- That's ten children in total.
And does he think he'll get a third wife?
He said maybe.
I think if I asked my wife for
a second wife, I think she would beat me.
Thank you very much.
- Asante sana.
- Asante sana.
- Thank you very much.
- Asante sana.
Thank you. Thank you very much.
Oh, my God. He's too gorgeous.
We've gotta go. Jimmy, put the dog down.
Don't do it to yourself.
He's gonna get eaten by a lion
if I don't take him.
And how are you going
to get him back home?
Put the dog down, Jimmy.
Put the dog down, Jimmy.
- Here you go.
- Jimmy.
- There you go.
- Thank you, kid.
I'm sure he didn't mean that.
Do you think, Claudio, when he said that?
"If it was my son, I'd kill him," he said.
I'm sure that's just, like,
he's the chief so he has to say that.
- When is the ceremony?
- I don't know. Could be possible.
There's, like, an enormous amount of,
to us, crazy and insane
practices to prove that you're a man,
to come of age.
And this is just
I guess this is theirs.
I had an amazing time.
It was just a real extraordinary
It was like, "Oh, my God,
look where we are! Look where we are!"
Amazing.
Jambo. Thank you very much. Thank you.
Thank you. Thank you very much.
Thank you. I see, I see.
- It does get you going, doesn't it?
- Yeah.
You know, here in Kenya?
We came off the road here,
so we have to get back on this road,
down the gravel, onto some tarmac,
to here: Lewa Wildlife Conservancy.
- Shall we?
- Let's roll.
Claudio's down.
I think this stuff's beating him a bit.
One, two, three
I really don't know what to do.
Ewan's down in the fesh fesh.
Go.
One, two, three.
One, two, three!
There we go.
Look at that.
We haven't done three miles today,
and we've already had ten problems.
It's like inches deep.
It's not even sand. Look. It's like water.
That's weird stuff, isn't it?
This fesh look.
It's like soup.
The problem is the bikes weigh so much,
and in this, you have to go wherever
this stuff wants to take you.
And if you follow that bike
and it weighs 800 pounds,
it's going to take you out, you know?
When you watched Ewan ride this morning,
his style on the bike
is much more fluid now.
He's letting the bike do the work,
and he's got a good balance,
and you can see it.
Probably not quite as good as Charley,
but he's still very competent.
And I think we all noticed that
Claudio's quite sort of stiff on the bike
as opposed to the others.
So when he goes into stuff,
he locks up a bit,
and then he just drops it.
We're all coming off today.
But it's all right.
We're just carrying on.
We'll chip away at this,
and then we'll get back to that nice,
and I can't believe I'm saying this,
that really nice, gravelly road.
Good team spirit this morning.
Feels really good.
Everyone's helping each other out.
Charley, Claudio, me, all the boys.
Feels great.
I see this is the first river bit, then.
God. Yep.
It's interesting this morning, isn't it?
Fesh fesh,
which is like beige talcum powder,
and then all the rocks of yesterday,
and then a bit of mud.
How do you see this play?
It's very muddy.
- Will you make it?
- I don't know.
We'll try our level best to do it.
I hope that we are going to make it.
It would be interesting to see
if somebody does get stuck.
The vehicle may make it,
but I'm worried about the motorcycles.
Might be an idea just to clear
some of that surface mud.
- Tips for mud. High gear, third?
- Walk it across.
- Then just waddle across?
- Just walk across with the bike.
- Walk across?
- Yeah.
- Okay.
- That's what I reckon.
I'll bring my bike up.
We'll do mine first.
Always go for the easiest option.
Underneath.
Okay. You all right, mate?
You've got it. You got it.
We're going to get up the side
of all this mud by going through the bush,
and then we come to a river,
and then we've gotta get across
that river, which is difficult.
If we can't go through here,
it would mean having to go back
Just go back the same way we came.
Through all that soft sand
and all that shit.
And then all the way back around
the way we came yesterday.
- Yeah.
- I mean, it's like 100 miles.
I was laughing earlier
'cause I thought we had come
to the problem area,
and it was only about ten feet wide,
but look at this.
The key thing is to get one of our cars
over so the winch is on the other side.
'Cause if you drive it off the back wheel,
it's just gonna get stuck,
and it definitely will just carve itself
into the mud.
Right, that's definitely not
the way to go.
That's gnarly stuff.
We're never gonna get that one out. Fuck!
I think it's amazing
that such a small amount of mud
can cause such problems.
It's only, what, 80 meters
or something like that? That's it.
And it stops everything.
If we do go this way,
maybe that bit's okay.
With this bit, it was okay, wasn't it?
- Because it went through?
- Yeah.
Hold it.
At the moment, no one's going anywhere.
I've got this horrible feeling
we're going to have to turn back.
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