Clare adventurer back on the road for Africa challenge

ADVENTURER Declan McEvoy is back on the road for Stage Six of his Round-the-Word Motorcycle Journey. 

The much-travelled Quin native has already broken records on his global odyssey. Earlier this month, he set out from Lusaka in Zambia, with the aim to travelling along the West of the African continent, all the way to Dakar in Senegal.

His daring itinerary, which will involve diplomatic, navigational and mechanical skills. The 10,000km trek is set to take him through Namibia, Angola, Congo Kinshasa, Cabinda, Republic of Congo, Cameroon, Nigeria, Benin, Togo, Ghana, Côte d’Ivoire, Guinea, and Guinea-Bissau.

“Last year my efforts were thwarted in Oshakati due to the Angolan border being closed because of Covid,” Declan said.

“This year I’m feeling more optimistic of making better progress and the visa chasing game is currently in full swing.”

Arriving in Zambia, in the South of Africa, Declan was well prepared to make the most of local Irish contacts. “I immediately felt comfortable to be back here,” he said. “I can usually sense the vibe, good or otherwise, at the frontier to another country and I did instinctively feel the warm welcome here.”

Thanks to a neighbour back home who had worked in Africa for many years, Declan was able to connect with an SMA missionary priest, called Fr Paddy Barry, who is based close to Lusaka. 

“Fr Paddy duly meet me at the Airport and drove me to the SMA Missionary HQ where I was given food and a bed,” Declan said. 

From there, it was on to the Irish Embassy where Declan’s 19-year-old motorcycle was dusted off and taken out of a 40 foot storage container. “I’ve lost count of how many kms she has carried me but I estimate it to be over 74,000 since leaving Ireland in 2016,” Declan said. With a bit of TLC and a lot of persistence, the faithful motorcycle was eventually brought back to life.

“Nobody believes me when I tell them that I have an emotional bond to a pile of aluminium, plastic, steel and rubber worth only €400 but like all other stages of this journey she and I are in this together,” Declan said. 

Like Fr Paddy, the Irish Ambassador to Zambia, Bronagh Carr, was another guiding light on Declan’s epic journey, and invited him to dinner.

“What a pleasure that was and much conversation flowed about Ireland and Zambia, and the people that connect our two nations,” he said.

“It gave me great appreciation for the role that our Diplomatic Mission play right around the globe and the Ambassador herself assured me that if I needed help they are there for me. That felt reassuring.”<

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The support of the embassy was also essential in securing vital travel documentation. After unsuccessfully trying, for several weeks back at home in Quin, for a visa to cross the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), Declan was able to get the green light. “Here in Lusaka we nailed it in just one day,” Declan said.

“When I say we I mean Fr Paddy and I, using the influence of the Irish Embassy and a chunk of Irish charm thrown in. Well it was really more about name dropping to pull a interview with the senior DRC diplomat and it worked. Visa stamped in my passport by afternoon giving me 14 days to cross the DRC.”

Declan admitted that leaving the supportive environs of Lusaka to hit the road again was a wrench.

“The hospitality and the help is so genuine you begin to put down root and get comfortable and it then becomes harder to ultimately tear yourself away,” he said. In true Irish style, Declan left with with three boxes of Barrys tea and four bars of Cadburys chocolate.

Travelling on to Livingstone in Western Zambia, Declan arrived at his “super fancy hostel” before travelling on to Namibia, braced for the challenging experience of a border town. 

After travelling an atrocious road and being blocked at the border, over his documentation, Declan had to face one of his worst fears.

“Border towns are usually horrible places, money changers abound and with a white face it’s difficult to avoid unwanted attention.”

As a lone traveller, he admitted to experiencing a degree of fear. It is a topic he has had plenty of time to think about on his journey. 

“In the saddle you get a lot time to think about stuff,” he said. “So what exactly is fear? What causes fear? Is fear rightfully justified? Can I eliminate fear? If not can I somehow manage fear so that it doesn’t completely consume me?

“Well, I’m no expert but I seem to have acquired a perverse interest in the subject of fear and in my travels I’ve made some of my observations.

“I’ve always noticed that I’m fearful of what’s to come yet I smile at what went behind, no different than if someone did a bungie jump or something like that, fear before then smiling looking back. So was it perhaps that the perception was wrong?”

Declan arrived at the inspiring realisation that changing perception can manage the natural fear that his journey gives rise to.

“I believe that if you can properly manage your perception you can in turn manage your fear,” he said. “That ‘What If’ monkey on your shoulder wants to give you a million and one reasons why not to do it. He’s big time ‘Mr Perception’.”

“What if this? What if that? What if the other? If we can somehow understand that it’s the ‘What If’ monkey’s job to be our instinctive protection mechanism and therefore to go into complete overdrive and totally overcook our perception way beyond what the actual reality is, then we can also control our fear. Keep your perceptions in check and don’t let the ‘What if’ monkey run the show.

Declan McEvoy’s journey continues, with an estimated arrival date in Senagal of November.