They are good to look at, Sonia and Alexandre Poussin, with their shining hair and tanned skin, beautiful bones and lean frames. One can be forgiven for thinking they’re simply Euro-bearing tourists – the sort we’re grateful still arrive – come to spend at our wine estates and game farms. But this duo, who co-authored Africa Trek, which was launched at The Book Lounge last week, are fantastic and refreshing eccentrics.
They have confounded people wherever they went as they walked on foot from Cape Point to Jerusalem, staying as they went on their way with some 1200 families, or “links” as they call the people who offered them shelter. In the audience were a couple, Patricia and Fernholdt Galant, from Riversdal, whose hospitality was memorable.
The notion of this epic 14 000 km journey started as a “big honeymoon (why just have a little one?)” and three years later, ended with the conception of their daughter on an Egyptian island some three months before their journey was complete.
Prior to this adventure, Alexandre had cycled around the world and, in a separate endeavour, he’d hiked the length of the Himalayas. The bug had bitten when he travelled through Ethiopia. He knew then that “a bicycle is too fast”. He wanted to return and trace his origins from the cradle of mankind. On foot.
Unlike most tourists who are drawn to the penguins on Boulder Beach, the Poussins actually bedded down there, making their own little nest on the beach, on the very first night of their journey.
Their second night was spent on a council worker’s camp where the new husband had a moment of anxiety about the wisdom of bedding down in a makeshift barracks. They were about to head on to a more suitable night’s rest when a youth in a t-shirt bearing the logo “Jesus is my rock” promised them a shower. This prompted their change of heart and while Sonia availed herself of the ablution facility, the t-shirt guy stood guard.
Another worker soon arrived and was told that a white lady was taking a shower. “Kak, man, jy rook te veel dagga!” said the worker and barged in. His rapid, surprised exit, is just one of a series of funny and fantastic tales of their trip, which included spending three nights in an isolated camp with Morgan and Susan Tsvangirai. It would take them another 451 days to arrive at Beit Bridge, via Lesotho.
The couple never accepted a ride, despite suffering malaria (and bed bugs!). They travelled light, with packs weighing a mere 7kg, including their video equipment, and wherever they found a French embassy, they asked that their films be sent back on their behalf. Miraculously, nothing ever got lost. No less impressive is the tale of their manuscript coming to print after 127 rejections. Wherever they went, through war torn areas, and in areas of desolate poverty, “people reached out their hands, not begging, but offering hospitality”.
This spirit of goodwill pervaded their walk and was alive as the Poussins shared their wonderful tales to the enthusiastic audience at The Book Lounge. It spilled out into the evening, where a car guard in Roeland Street, was soon assisting a distracted guest who had locked her car keys inside her vehicle!
Trekkies of the African variety
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