Bikes, Bananas, and Goats - Oh My!

Last Friday, riding my bicycle, I drafted off a goat.  Yes, a goat.

It was only a few seconds, but I had a chance to study the black fuzz on its head, the resigned look in its eyes.

Drafting, for the reader not biking-inclined, is riding behind a fellow cyclist so close you enter their slipstream, or "draft."  This makes pedaling much easier as you are sucked along behind the leader.  Tucking yourself behind another biker in this way is like taking a quick snooze, resting up for hard riding ahead.

The goat was tied down to the back rack of a black, single-speed bicycle.  Together with a brown-fuzzy-headed twin, it nestled in a large, round, woven basket, moving down the road at approximately 15 miles per hour.

I'm guessing that goat had never gone so fast before in it's life.  The draft it created was restful, though smelly.

I was coming down the mountain from Bugarama, a town about 35 kilometers (22 miles) from Bujumbura city.  After leaving my house in the foothills on the edge of the city, I had climbed on a good, paved road for exactly three hours to reach my destination.

For most of those hours, I marveled less at the mountain scenery and more at the pedal-driven transport industry everywhere in evidence.  Undaunted by the mountainous terrain, young men careened down the steep road on loaded bicycles, taking products from the hills to markets in town.

A sample of goods speeding down: large bunches of bananas, huge sacks of homemade charcoal, crates of empty beer bottles, clumps of live chickens hanging from handlebars, an occasional wooden door strapped upright on the rear rack, and of course those goats.

Video: Racin' the bananas downhill to market.

While bicycles going down were fully loaded, those going up were mostly empty, and mostly being pushed instead of pedaled - not surprising given the steepness of the hill and the local cycle's lack of gears.

The lucky bikers, however, or perhaps simply those who were comfortable defying death, sped easily uphill by grabbing rides on the back of passing trucks.

Apparently, the road to Bugarama is like an amusement park for bicyclists.  Or, perhaps the Burundian version of mountain biking, extreme style!

Bugarama itself, when I got there, was socked in with clouds and full of street vendors selling fistfuls of kumquats - like little yellow cherry tomatoes - in clear plastic bags.  I got a bag, just for kicks, then bought three wooden monkeys from the row of carved-crafts shops at the edge of town.  The wooden drums and walking sticks tempted me, too, but I decided to wait on those till I have a real vehicle in which to stow them.  No Burundi-style extreme(ly loaded) mountain biking for me!

By the time it was my turn to descend, a light rain had begun to fall.  The moisture kept the bicycle transport guys from braving the road, so I didn't get to race any of them down, trying to match their 40-mile-per-hour speeds on the corners.

But I did get to draft that goat.

Video: Bunches of bananas careen downhill while climbing bikers get a fast ride up the steep road.