Out of Africa

Actor Ewan McGregor and Charley Boorman traversed the globe in Long Way Round. Their next mission—captured in this summer’s documentary Long Way Down—took them from the top to the bottom of South Africa by motorcycle. Here, an exclusive taste of the turf.

McGregor, taking a break from his motorcycling, Simien Mountains, Ethiopia.

When we finished Long Way Round,” says Charley Boorman, son of Deliverance director John Boorman, “Ewan [McGregor] and I went back to our offices and pulled out a map of Africa. I think we had already decided before we came back from our trip that we were going to do Africa.” Says McGregor of their mission, “'One of the things that we wanted to do was to show the true and real side of Africa, all its many faces. We think of famine and we think of wildlife, and Africa’s got everything in between. What we found was that every country had its own identity, and is very, very different from the last.”

In May of last year, after 12 months of preparation, the duo set off from John O’ Groats, Scotland, along with director-producers David Alexanian and Russ Malkin, a small crew, and minimal provisions, to make their odyssey a reality.

“We were never in real danger, but very close to areas of conflict—like North Uganda, near Congo, and Northern Ethiopia, near the Eritrean border,” says Alexanian. “We traveled through Sudan, but were miles from Darfur.”

The journey—which lasted two months and ended in Cape Town, South Africa—took them through 15 countries, and a great deal of the sun-baked Simien Mountains. The Fox Reality channel will debut Long Way Down on August 2.

Looking back on the unlikely road trip, McGregor says, “It’s been incredible, a real privilege. You just don’t see some of the remote villages that we have ridden through, unless you are an aid worker. These are mud-hut, thatched-roof villages—not really places that tourists get to go.” Reflecting further, he continues, “We have had our ups and downs, though, as you would expect.”

Boorman, meeting the locals.

Boorman adds: “We know how lucky we are. Apart from anything else, it’s been great fun to have been able to see all of this around us every day, to be with your mate, to be riding bikes through Africa.”

“We have faced the complexity of Africa,” says McGregor. “Some of the places you pass through are beautiful, like something out of an Indiana Jones film or National Geographic.”

For a famous Hollywood movie star to be freed of excess baggage seemed a relief to him. “You only have what you can carry,” he says. “There is something liberating about just having what you need, on your bike. A tent, a roll mat, a little bit of food, a bit of petrol in your tank, and a vague idea of where you’re going. There is something beautiful about that.”

McGregor and Boorman taking a turn on a Simien Mountain pass in Ethiopia.

But Boorman is already feeling cabin fever, and wanderlust. “It’s been great,” he says, “but I’m starting to worry about stopping it, you know, because our lives for the last 12 weeks have been just riding the bikes, watching the landscape change around us, meeting people, and doing amazing things. And it’s going to stop. I’m starting to worry a little about that, you know? The idea of it ending is kind of sad. But it’s good: We’re here, and we’ve done it.”