Part 1_Episode 1: Be someone stories happen around.


I'll tell you there is no easy way to buy a motorbike in Kampala. I once drove a 150cc Boxer Bajaj motorbike down the Rift Valley from Kampala to Lilongwe. In my early 20s I was drawn to adventures in the way that many young men are, by a combination of naivety and the unconscious longing for danger. A young man and a young woman must learn if they are strong. 


My friend Andrew had conceived of the idea a few months before in a cafe in Cape Town. I remember the clouds were curling off the top of Table Mountain when he burst into the cafe carrying a map of Africa, folded 50 times and a pack of Marlboro Reds. Andrew was a mountain of a man, well over 6'5", and he had the confidence that only comes from being consistently bigger than other people. Andrew's lead strategy for solving problems in life was saying We'll be fine. He unfolded the map and I remember him sticking a thick finger onto the Rift Valley. He started pointing out the route we would run from Kampala to Bwindi, impenetrable Forest, then on to Rwanda, then into the Burundi names of places that I had only heard associated with genocide. We would run a gauntlet through the eastern Congo if they let us in, and then the idea was to catch an old German ferry down Lake Tanganyika into Tanzania, eventually crossing into Malawi at the outpost of Mbeya. This road is f*%$d, he said. This area has a militia and a few warlords, but we'll be fine. 


Africa's rift valley is beautiful. It runs like a scar down the face of Africa from Syria to Maputu land in South Africa, and there is a myth in Africa that the Great Rift was caused when the Milky Way was pulled out of the continent. It's volcanic, it's tropical. It's unstable both in topography and politics. The risks of simply being on a motorbike in these types of roads is immense. The roads are a maze of goats, trucks, mud and potholes. And if we should have an accident out there, there will be no medical assistance. And it's true that as I've gotten older, I've become more risk averse. And yet there is a constant tension. There is a grave danger to life with no danger. To stay solely within the confines of what is known, on some level, is to court death. Certainly the death of lifeforce the death of spirit. 


‘Can we buy bikes in Kampala?’’ I remember asking. ‘Easy’, said Andrew. ‘We’ll be fine’. The trouble began when upon touching down in Kampala, we caught a taxi to a backpackers. I'd already lost Andrew for a while in the airport, as he had been detained on account of not having a visa. He had managed to wiggle his way out of that bureaucratic issue with a cunning use of a put on Irish accent and a second passport. Driving out of the airport into the smoky evening light of Kampala was like landing in another world. And I remember the first thing I saw was a Land Cruiser with a motorbike sticking out of the bonnet. ‘Sh*t dude, that Land Cruiser ate that motorbike’, I said to Andrew. "We'll be fine,’ he said quietly. 


The next morning, we wake in our sleeping bags to the sound of village roosters. It was time to go bike shopping. Now this was in the years just after university. And before I had any real financial resources.  We had budgeted $2,000 ror our bikes, $1,000 each, which we intended to buy in Kampala, and then sell at the end of the trip. The bikes were the major expense and the centre of our shoestring budgeting process. In the bustling streets of Kampala, we ran into our first Africa-specific issue. The bikes needed to be bought with cash, in this case, Ugandan shillings. Issue number one. Issue number two, you can't get more than $200 cash from the banks in a day in Uganda. We needed $1,000 then converted into shillings. For hours, we tried all sorts of things. We tried banks, Western Unions, we were trying to work out if we could get the wire money transferred. Everything was impossible. And I remember eventually asking a bank manager ‘How do people buy larger items in Kampala?’ ‘Oh’, he said, ‘You must draw the money over a few weeks, then you can buy.’ We didn't have a few weeks. The whole trip was only two weeks. 


The entire trip was in jeopardy now. We needed to be on the road by tomorrow to make it to the long way in order for us to be able to show up for our post college jobs. We checked around in the heat and traffic getting more despondent by the moment. Eventually, like one does in their 20s, we found a bar that looked out over Kampala. We ordered a few beers and lit a couple of cigarettes. At that time, I was experimenting with smoking as an identity. Out over the red roofs of Kampala in the distance, I saw a sign “Simba Casino Madrid”. I looked at Andrew and said as a joke, ‘maybe we just gamble for the money’. The minute I said it, I realised my mistake. Andrew’s eyes lit up. ‘Brilliant.’ He said. ‘Now you can't get $2,000 in cash, but you can get it in Simba casino chips.’ ‘Fuck Andrew,’ I said. ‘We can't gamble with the bike money. That's all we've got.’ ‘No worry. I can count cards,’ was his response. ‘We'll be fine’
Around Andrew, I found myself often along for the ride. His appetite for risk and his faith that things were going to work out always produced an adventure. And although it scared me I also loved it. On hikes with Andrew, we almost always left the trail to make our own path. ‘Let's go this way, it'll be more interesting.’ He would say.


At the Simba Casino, the woman behind the cage made a call upstairs. ‘I can give you $200 in chips, but you must play for an hour.’ A menacing looking bouncer in the corner cracked his knuckles and glared at us. And so it came to be that I found myself sitting at a blackjack table in a camp pala casino drinking while Andrew played cards with the entire budget of our motorbike trip. For about 30 minutes Andrew just lost money and I drank beers more heavily. And then what followed was an incredible hot streak, as if the gods were with us. Eventually, we went up $2,050 We even rolled the last 50 on the roulette table on black. We cashed in our chips into a duffel bag full of Ugandan shillings, and strolled out of the casino. ‘Told you,’ said Andrew, ‘no problems, we'll be fine’. 


By sunset we were the owners of two bikes. And by dawn the next day we were on the road. And as we rode out of Kampala, I had the feeling that Africa was swallowing us. So much had to go right for us to make it unscathed to the end of the trip, but I had a little more confidence now. We were riding very close to the edge. And there was an incredible aliveness there. 


If you are to become like me a Story Hunter, you must live a life of stories. You cannot become a storyteller, without living stories, and seeing how lived experience makes narrative, which makes meaning.  You have to find a way to say yes to life beyond the known, and this doesn't mean you have to go on grand adventures. I can guarantee you there is a story across town, if you can learn to say yes to life. 


The American entrepreneur Jesse Isla has this idea that time is undefeated, meaning that until you go for an experience, adventure, new opportunity, they live only as potential that time owns. And time is undefeated. The minute you take action towards it,  do it, time can't take it from you. Time wins until you take action, then it's yours forever. So what that means is to be a story hunter, you have to plan, you have to put it on the calendar now. You have to look for mountains and you have to look for long trips by foot or by car. You have to make friends with as many Andrews as you can. Someone who pulls your life into stories. 


Say yes to something you normally wouldn't. Follow your own interest. Curiosity will pull you into unknown circles. You have to be someone who pulls other lives into stories. You have to be someone stories happen around. Try not to plan where you will sleep on these adventures, book air tickets. be impulsive. Book things you talk about on the calendar today. Right now, go and book that time. If you like walking, go walk if you like flowers, follow blooms around the world as a way to find your way into adventures. In fact, I heard there's a bloom in Death Valley right now. If you like food, be in kitchens. Seek out people and places that resonate with things that you're naturally curious about and commit to being in those spaces. If you can be in the space, adventures will emerge out of it. 


A story hunter is a meaning maker. In order to take up that role, you must live in wild stories so that people can feel the authenticity on you when you talk. This is a strange and critical job for this time. Your first assignment is to make a friend who loves adventures. Cross off the dates on your calendar, book flights, drive across town. Make a friend at the local bird watching society. Seek out subcultures. Be someone stories happen around. Time is undefeated. You are the story hunter. Let the stories hunt you