EPISODE 51
Heinz Stücke: The World by Bike (Part 2)
Fifty-one is the number of years that Heinz Stücke spent on a bicycle away from home. Fittingly, Episode 51 provides the finale to the Heinz Stücke saga, where more keywords are pulled from the Christmas cookie tin. Heinz recounts how he stumbled his way into an audience with Ethiopian Emperor Haile Selassie, accidentally fired a gun in a crowded Zambian bar, charmed his way into a Saudi Arabian visa by procuring a fake airplane ticket, then smuggled his bike into the country on a confused donkey. Through it all, Heinz kept painstaking statistics, writing 18,000 pages of diaries and practically tracking every cup of coffee he consumed since 1962. Tune in to hear this whirlwind tour of obsession, survival, and the art of getting out of trouble with sheer audacity. From having his bicycle stolen and recovered six times to being woken up in a ditch by a friendly dog, “The Man Who Wanted to See It All” has compiled an unrivaled dictionary of bicycle adventure from A to Z – minus the word “regret.”
Episode Transcript
Gabriel: Previously on The Accidental Bicycle Tourist:
Heinz: For me, the life was not to end the journey. That was taboo because it was the success of my life.
Gabriel: That was Heinz Stücke, who has been called “The Man Who Wanted to See it All.” In Episode 50, the first part of this two-part interview, I traveled by train to meet Heinz in his home in Hövelhof, Germany, and brought along a Christmas cookie tin filled with 500 scraps of paper, each with a keyword or phrase on it. Heinz and I took turns randomly drawing papers to prompt each of his stories. If you have not already listened to Episode 50, you might want to do so before listening to this one. Or not, that’s okay too. Either way, I hope these two episodes will give you insights into Heinz’s complex personality, his encyclopaedic mind, and the world he inhabits.
Sandra: You’re listening to The Accidental Bicycle Tourist. In this podcast, you’ll meet people from all walks of life and learn about their most memorable bike touring experiences. This is your host, Gabriel Aldaz.
Gabriel: Hello bicycle touring enthusiasts! Welcome to Episode 51 of The Accidental Bicycle Tourist podcast. Fifty-one is a very appropriate number for this episode, because that’s the number of years that Heinz Stücke was away from Hövelhof, from 1962 until 2014. Capturing Heinz’s 51-year journey in two hours of podcasts is a bit like asking you to open your front door and walk to the top of Mount Everest – in two hours.
Gabriel: Dinner is done and we are ready to resume. By the way, I had a look at the map in your room. The one with all your routes drawn in different colors.
Heinz: You can’t really follow it. If you have the colors, every 10 years is another color.
Gabriel: Yeah.
Heinz: But sometimes it’s so crowded in Europe, I leave it out, you know.
Gabriel: It’s amazing.
Heinz: Well, it’s the reason for my existence. And so, if you can do it, you haven’t got other commitments, you follow it up.
Gabriel: Yeah. So I’m curious, there’s a few things I’d like to cover. We still have this many left. No, just kidding!
Heinz: Yeah, go ahead.
Gabriel: I’m very curious if, we draw one of these country ones, can we look at some of the associated keywords in your keywords book? Do you have keywords for every country?
Heinz: No, it’s not for one country. It’s for one year.
Gabriel: Okay, then for one year.
Heinz: It’s yearly.
Gabriel: Okay, then we choose a year and…
Heinz: It’s incomplete.
Gabriel: Inco… Well, it doesn’t matter. Just to give the idea.
Heinz: Because I’m… basically I’m starting it and I have to have… many of these things I have to go through the diaries. And so I stopped it much earlier. It starts ‘62, ‘63, but I have not the whole year because I was half a year in when I started out. But you won’t understand it because there’s Stichwörte. Every Stichwort has a story, but you won’t… I only is the one, and I have to write a story when I got the Stichwort. You tell me a Stichwort, I can tell you the story.
Gabriel: Okay, I’ve chosen 1962. I’d like to hear about “Audienz bei Kaiser Haile Selassie.” That is, “audience with the Emperor Haile Selassie.”
Heinz: I came into Ethiopia. They had a parliament, but it was at the will of the emperor, of course. Because he was the ruler of Ethiopia. I was in the newspapers. Then somebody told me to come to the parliament, to be presented in the parliament. First of all, they made a collection and they presented me with 302 pounds, or Ethiopian dollars. And then one in the parliament was the official documentarian, painter of the emperor. So he said, “You have seen the whole world with a bicycle.” I didn’t at that time, I was a beginner.
Gabriel: Right.
Heinz: You will meet the emperor and he is very generous, because I was getting money from the parliament because of the newspaper. First the newspapers and then the parliament. At that day it was his 72nd birthday, so he didn’t have time for private audiences. Everybody that was accredited in Ethiopia had to go to congratulate his 72nd birthday. All the ambassadors said there was a long line of cars, all with their flags of their country appearing at the palace where he was congratulated. So for me, there was no chance, you know. I wasn’t an official accredited person. So then the person who wanted to connect me with the emperor, he was the painter. But he had painted his likeness into my book. And he said, “Look, you present this to the emperor and he will sign it and he will give you a present.” But the painter was not the one who presents audiences. So it was the minister of interior. So he said, “Yeah, it depends on how busy he is.” So this guy said, “Come back tomorrow.” So I went back another day to the minister. And he said, “I think he’s busy. Come back tomorrow.” So I said, well, might as well forget about it. But there’s nothing better to do. And on the third or the fourth day he said, “Come. Let’s go!” So he went across the palace ground into the palace where he had his audiences. So we went into some, almost like a church-like building, where on both sides were kind of benches and full of people that were supposed to petitions whatever their problem was. And they were not sitting. They were kneeling on the ground, you know. And somewhere, whenever they were further towards through the middle Gang, I could see the throne or the chair where this guy was standing. Yeah, he’s my size, you know, 165. Very small guy, but he was the emperor. So we went through. The people were all prostrated on the ground and kissing the ground and bowing. And we went straight through there. We went straight through to him and he presented me. The emperor said, “Oh, you speak English.” He had been in exile in England briefly. So he spoke only some. And then he was translated into Amharic. But the minister translated and says, “Why don’t you come to Ethiopia? It’s a difficult country. Why do you come by bicycle? Are you traveling the world? Are you on good will?” And so it was like, bah, five minutes. And then he presented a dictate to the minister. We walked out again and the minister in his office said, “Well, the emperor, we have a…” How do you call it? A paper. How do you call it? When it’s an honorary paper.
Gabriel: Like a certificate?
Heinz: It’s like a certificate, but it’s more than a certificate. Paper of recognition.
Gabriel: Okay.
Heinz: Emperor of Ethiopia. A4. Stood something drinn. Heinz Stücke is entitled for 1,000 Ethiopian dollars, to be able to change at the bank. So I went back to my place and then what to do with the money? I could go to a bank and get American dollars for it, you know. So I got about 500 American dollars. A lot of money in those days. So, the audience was successful. And I bought a gun, because I thought in Africa, it’s wild in ‘63. You need a gun, you know, for hunting, for… bullshit. Anyway, I bought a gun and it wasn’t a good idea because I had a lot of difficulties later. I almost shot people in a bar once where I…
Gabriel: You almost shot somebody?
Heinz: I shot somebody, yeah. Because the gun went off without my knowledge.
Gabriel: Oh, gosh.
Heinz: Yeah, because there was a bullet in the barrel. I had a combination gun, 6mm. It had a long barrel and it had a short barrel. You could take the long barrel up and it was like a handgun, a small handgun. And I had that time. It was sometime later. I had a handgun in my pocket and it was hot. And I’d been drinking beer. It was a long time in the bush. No village, no nothing and hot, 40 degrees. And my water was finished and I finally got to a little hut on the side of the road and they had beer. And I drink beer. One, two, three, four, five. But four or fifth beer, I started to sweat, of course. The bar was full of Africans. It was the colonial time, eh? I was still a boss. This was in Zambia. Sweating all over, I put the gun on the table. I put the gun on the table, and the people were looking. Okay, okay, okay. So what I did was take off the magazine. There were about 13 bullets in there. So I put them out of the magazines. I put them all on the table. My hands, put them in my pocket. Magazine back in, pulled the trigger. Bang! And there’s a bullet in the barrel. I shot between two people into the wall, you know. I paid. I did as it was a joke or something like that. I behaved pretty good. And I paid generously. A big tip. And I walked out drunk. Up the hill, I barely made it up the hill. I said, look, forget about it. On the ditch, I put my bicycle down. I put myself down there. Closed the eyes and fall asleep, you know. And then suddenly something on my face. I look. There was a dog. The dog was licking on my face. Shit, bitch. I woke up as quickly as I could. Then I looked down. A white woman come up the hill, you know. She was one of the English in that village, or whether there was a village, I don’t know. She come to my place. She called the dog back and she says, “Hey, what’s wrong? Are you… Something wrong with you?” “No. Leave me alone.” Bloody hell.
Gabriel: How did the men react?
Heinz: There was 20 men in the bar. They did nothing. They didn’t talk. They didn’t shout or anything. I was the boss. I had a gun. They didn’t have any guns. The talking stopped. It was very quiet in the room. I didn’t even talk. I put the money. I look at the bill. Seven beers. Cold Castle. Castle comes from South Africa. I don’t know. It’s still there. I think they still have it.
Gabriel: Yeah.
Heinz: I have endless stories. I’m acting stupidly, you know.
Gabriel: Of you acting stupidly? Okay. New one. 1981.
Heinz: Yes. Oh, the whole year. Okay. Beginning of 1981, I flew to Mauritius. From Mauritius, I flew to La Réunion. From La Réunion, I flew to… back to Nairobi. From Nairobi, I had a long time. I got stuck there because I couldn’t get a visa for Somalia. Anyway, so eventually I left Nairobi. But the way to the border of Somalia was considered a no-no area. So you had to go and police, they wouldn’t let you go until you were on a convoy. So you have several cars together with the whole area between Nairobi to the border. And it was one of the convoys, I went to the Somali border. Then I left when I cycled through the bush. There was no marked route. But I knew where I was supposed to go. But I had a lot of interesting incidents. I came into an area where there was a lot of camels. And they had never seen a cyclist. And they got so upset that they stampeded. And they stampeded around, up and down the hill. And two of us, me, and down back again. And they stampeded each other. They stampeded each other. You know, it was too many. They were so upset. I was upset too. That was before you get to Kismayo. And so that was… We are in Somalia, or where were we?
Gabriel: Actually, we were in 1981.
Heinz: Oh, 1981. That was because it was all ’81. End of ’81, I was already in the Yemen. And in ’81 Christmas, I was in Jeddah in Saudi Arabia.
Gabriel: So how did you get a visa to Saudi Arabia?
Heinz: In the Yemen, somebody from the embassy said, we can do something for you. The guy who was friendly, the others are not friendly. I never met an ambassador anywhere in my journey. But usually I had to do with my passport extension. Sometimes they were friendly. And this man was friendly. And he said, “Oh, you want to go to Saudi Arabia? It’s very difficult to get a visa, but we can help you.” So he gave me an order to go to the German embassy in Jeddah, at the time. And you have to make a presentation there. With the letter of the embassy, I could go to the Saudi embassy to get a visa. But they said, “But how do you go there?” I could never say I want to go to my bicycle, you won’t get a visa. So I said, “I will go with public transport.” Dann sagt er… He says, “Public transport? We don’t have public transport.” “OK, by air.” “You have the ticket?” No, I didn’t have the ticket. So I went to the Yemen Airline. And said, “Look, I need a ticket to go from Sanaa to Jeddah to Damascus.” And I told them the story. So they issued me a ticket which was not valued, you know. I didn’t have to pay for it. So with the ticket, I went back to the embassy. And they said, oh, they gave me the visa. And then I entered the country on a very difficult route, where there’s extra… They destroyed the road. They didn’t want everybody to come to Saudi Arabia. Some desert areas in the Empty Quarter. You can go from there, from the Yemen. A lot of people, Yemenis, they work in Saudi Arabia, but they didn’t want them. So the last five kilometers were absolutely ridiculous. One hill, big rocks. And some people that came, they wanted to go to Saudi Arabia. They had the baggage. They had to stop. And there were people waiting down below. And to put them on a camel or on a donkey. And they were transported up to the last five kilometers to the entrance of Saudi Arabia. Which I did the same. My bike went on a donkey, and we went up the road. I carried stuff. The donkey carried my bicycle. Another partly luggage was on the donkey, on another donkey. Because first of all, I said, “I carry the bike.” But some other donkey came and he said, “It’s very stupid. Come on, put it up on the donkey.” Got pictures in the booklet with the donkey.
Gabriel: So how was the border control?
Heinz: I got the visa. “Good luck!” Stempel, finish. You went in the country. Never anybody come there with a bike on a donkey. But I was stopped all the time. I was 144 times stopped. And said, “Bike, where’s your permit?” Or sometimes on the road, they said, “You’re not allowed to go by bicycle. Put your bike on a pickup.” They wanted to… I said, “I refuse to go. I want to go by bicycle!” And in such cases, I’m getting angry. And I have my way. I just throw the bike on the ground. Stand in the middle of the road. They have to kill you. A car coming. Bremse! Out comes a Wahhabit Saudi. They have a long clothing on. He looks at me. He looks at the bicycle. “Oh! I read about you. I read about you.” Believe it or not, my agent in London had sold a story to the Saudi airline magazine. And the guy had just come back from America. He spoke good English. And he had seen it in the in-flight magazine. Because his in-flight magazine, he’s here. And he saw it. And he says, “What’s the problem?” He says, “this guy, he doesn’t let me ride his bicycle.” This guy talked to this guy. But this guy was a religious policeman. He said, he doesn’t want it, he doesn’t want it. So what was agreed upon? Okay. And he said, “You go front, I go in the back. And the cyclist goes in the middle.” So the next place we come to the authorities, you turn me over. So we rode about 20 kilometers. I in the middle. The guy behind. The other one in the front, the one who had forced me to put my bike on the pickup. And in the place, he turned me over to the official police. He was not a official. He was a policeman, but it was a plain-clothes policeman. And he saved his face. He went, “Okay, good luck, good luck.” And the policeman said, “What do you want here?” He didn’t have any intention to do anything with me, you know. And the guy who was behind me, the student, where I had stopped him, and he said, “let’s go and eat.” And then we ate at the same place. Then he said, “I’m living in Medina. You come and visit me.”
Gabriel: Wow.
Heinz: Okay. 200 kilometers further on. Two days later, I was at the place. He was right on the outskirts of Medina, so I didn’t have any controls or anything. So I went to the house. And then he drove me around Medina in his car with curtains on. We could look around, you know. Because he knew I wasn’t supposed to be there, you know. And then they had a big festival. They killed a sheep. And all around, you know, in a big room in this house, was eight men, bearded man. Keine women, you don’t see women, of course. And there was a plate in the middle, two meters in diameter. And in the middle was a heap of rice. And in the rice hidden was a, was a, a corpse of a sheep. An entire sheep da drinn, du. Burnt. And so the people, are just, no spoon, no knife or nothing. That was so well done that you can pluck what you want. And the guy who decided, opposite from me at the table, was decided what good pieces were from the head. And he, he threw this over to me.
Gabriel: Very good. Okay, time to draw a new one. I got a blue. Coffee.
Heinz: Coffee is coffee. Coffee is coffee. In the morning, I want a sip of coffee. In the evening, I made coffee in my tent, and I put it in a bottle or in a container. You know, my feet was usually cold. So I put it in this Sigg, the Sigg containers.
Gabriel: Yeah.
Heinz: And it’s hot inside. And you put it on my feet, but not with the metal. I made a leather cover on it. Soaked, sew it on, hot, drying. The leather dries, it ties itself on, and it’s completely… the bottle is covered by leather.
Gabriel: Insulated.
Heinz: Insulated, yeah. It’s a very good one. It’s…
Gabriel: Solid.
Heinz: You know, Petra, that’s in Jordan. But in Saudi Arabia, they have another Petra. But it’s off the main road. And I wanted to go and see there. But they didn’t let me inside, inside before. Maybe it’s not presented for tourists or something like that. But I could see some of it. So on that way, there were traditional Arab tents. I was invited to coffee. Green coffee. I’ve never had that before. It was coffee beans that were not roasted. And they’re mashed and put into a pot. And then added to it, water. And it was solidly caffeine, that. But I’ve never had a green coffee, you know.
Gabriel: Did it taste good?
Heinz: Yeah… because I was several times on coffee plantations. You’ve seen coffee trees?
Gabriel: Yeah.
Heinz: Sort of a red berry. And I noticed from people that work there, every so often, they put a bean, not roasted, just a fresh bean into their mouth and crushed it. And just spit it out. It is full of caffeine. It’s a drug. I spent some time on a coffee plantation with a German director on the slopes of Kilimanjaro. Very good coffee there. And he also did that. I tried it, of course, on the slopes of Kilimanjaro. The very good coffee comes from Arusha. Yeah, it’s just altitude coffee. There’s Arabica. Brazilian coffee is secondary. Arabica is more aromatic, stronger in smell. But coffee is coffee for me. Coffee is coffee.
Gabriel: Coffee is coffee. Okay, your turn.
Heinz: What’s a goat? It’s an animal.
Gabriel: Yes.
Heinz: I have nothing to do with goats.
Gabriel: Well, for example, sheep. You had a story about this sheep.
Heinz: We went hunting goat.
Gabriel: There you go.
Heinz: In Canada. Mountain goat. With really long and big horns. I met a guy in the Amazon. And he was looking for gold. But he was cheated by somebody who provided the… How do you call this? The claims.
Gabriel: Oh, yeah.
Heinz: Government claims where you can look for gold. But he was cheated by this guy, Paulik. I was also with them in the Amazon in a gold-hunting camp. But I met him briefly in our camp. And he was already angry about Paulik. Each one had paid 3,000 dollars for the claims. And the claims were staked out. But there was no gold. There was no gold. So it was rather as a Betrug. It was a…
Gabriel: A swindle.
Heinz: A crook. And he came to our place briefly one time. And I met, Sepp Reidl was his name. And then I left the camp. Because a geologo came from America. And he couldn’t deal with Paulik, the one who had the claim where I stayed for five weeks, you know. Everybody hated Paulik, who was actually cheating Sepp Reidl, you know. But I only knew about it later. So eventually we decided to leave the camp. And everybody left the camp. So at the airport, we had to go a long way on a canoe before we got to the small little airstrip. And there I met a Sepp Reidl. And he told me about the cheating. What’s the name? What’s the proper name? Come help me.
Gabriel: The swindler?
Heinz: The swindler, yeah. Second time around, when I was in Canada, there was a lot of German community in Vancouver. And I was among the German community. And I always make slideshows in the German clubs. And there was a guy who told about a Sepp Reidl. Who had a workshop on Wister. You know, that’s where now the skiing area is.
Gabriel: Oh, Whistler.
Heinz: Whistler, yeah. And he had a workshop there. He was a mechanic, And we met there. He said, “Come, I’m going to see a Sepp Reidl.” Sepp Reidl? I know this guy. So because it turned out that he was the guy that I met in the Amazon, you know. But he had in the meantime given up all of this and he was trying this, trying that, you know, so he had a workshop on the way to Whistler, in the valley. And I remember, Paulik was a cheater. A crook. A crook. A crook! And I was in his place. And I went with a guy from Vancouver and he said, “We are going hunting.” And I said, “Okay, we go hunting.” Well, they had plenty of rifles there. You got to have permission to do that. But at that time, it was pretty easy to hunt mountain goat, you know. So we started, we started hunting. We went up the mountain, up the mountain, up the mountain. We couldn’t look, just look at the… Wie sagt Man?
Gabriel: Oh, the binoculars.
Heinz: Binoculars to see where they were. Where there were the steep roads there, ice hanging up there. It was in the middle of winter. Of course you don’t get permission to hunt in the summertime, you know. So we went up the mountain, three of us. Eventually we came up on a point where they wanted to turn, where it was looking like an overhang, where there were a lot of icicles hanging down, because it was cold and normally you stick together, but I decided to go on my own. I go a while on my own, you know, but I see a mountain goat. First shot, missed. So a second shot. Pop! The goat fell, fell down a wall and looked down, stayed down 30 meters down below. And I tried to get there. My God! I tried to climb on strips of trees and things like that. I got to the goat and of course you have knife and things. I opened it, I cut it up and hang it around my neck. I came back to the camp. They had not shot nothing and they see me on the way down. Suddenly we joined, and I had that dead goat on my neck. “You bloody… how did you do that?” But the second day we went again hunting so they got one. So that was Sepp Reidl.
Gabriel: Good.
Heinz: What was the… that was a goat, yeah! And we ate it later. It was specially prepared. It was really good. All the wild animals have a strong taste.
Gabriel: Let’s get one more year. There we go, 1977.
Heinz: First time I put foot on the European continent. ‘77 in Istanbul and I was pissed off there because one magazine. The biggest magazine in Turkey is called Hayat. It’s an illustrated magazine, and I’ve never sold that many times in an illustrated magazine since succession. Five issues. On the front, always a pretty woman. In Istanbul I organised. He said he wanted my story. He gave me 200 dollars for it. But it was supposed to be one story. But because of that he used my booklet and he copied the whole booklet into Turkish and put four pages or five pages. One week later the next issue, again and again. And I couldn’t wait so long. So I went on and when I came back to get my pictures, he had mucked up my pictures. They disappeared. The pictures of the original slides that he had. So I had a quarrel with him in the office. But what can you do? The pictures were gone. But that was unique. I never… So many issues of a weekly paper that my story was word-for-word translated from the booklet that I had with me at the time all together for 200 paltry dollars, you know. You can see the magazines here. Hayat.
Gabriel: You have them too. So in Turkish.
Heinz: In Turkey, ja, ja. I got to finish that book, you know, but it’s a lot of work. I stopped since I’m bed-ridden.
Gabriel: Yeah.
Heinz: Because I need to write clear. I need to go additionally information of my diaries. Do you want to see it? There they are.
Gabriel: Oh, in the cabinet?
Heinz: In the cabinet you see all the back of it. I got endless books, endless books for statistics. For every day I make a book. You know, for every day in the whole journey. I got 13 books. A4, 98 pages. For every, every day I have an entrance. It’s a double page, the months, every day,
Gabriel: Sure.
Heinz: I’ll tell you where to look. Wait. Come on. There. Take one, it’s maybe 14. Or take three or four of them. And you put them back again. Give me, give me, give me. Then I can show you the one which has… Yes, some of these are completed and some that are not. Here we are. This is total, total, this book. Every year. And that is normally every day. Look here. There’s in Indonesia, first of December, the 58th country on my travels. Kilometers, very little, only 630 in one month, which is very little. I had other things to do. And there is by boat, 800, by air. And here is income. “R” is rent that I paid for. Expenses, remarks. And here is the other word is, look, tent, 28 times in rent, where I paid for. This is amazing, that I’ve paid the whole month in cheap hotels. I paid 28 days. Out, I slept in the bush three times. And there are the statistics. This month, which is December 2004, is here. The distances is 650 kilometers, very little for one month. And by car, 1,640. We can look at something else, because somewhere else is more interesting perhaps. Ich fange ja an auch zu umschreiben. Ich habe also auch die Notizbücher oder die Tagebücher, da habe ich geschrieben, was an Papier da war. Also, Spiralheft und so weiter und die sind alle verlumpt, verludert. Und jetzt schreibe ich die ja alle um. 18.000 Seiten umschreiben. Hier, da ist ein Buch, das ist schon angefangen.
Gabriel: The English translation of what Heinz just said is, “I’m starting to rewrite them too. So, those notebooks or the diaries there, I have written them on whatever paper was available. That is, spiral notebooks and so on. And they all look tattered and worn out. And now, I rewrite them all. 18,000 pages to rewrite. Look, I have already started that book.”
Gabriel: Back to English.
Heinz: Bloody, yeah. When I switch around, I can’t switch back around.
Gabriel: Sorry.
Heinz: I used to have exhibitions with the material of my journey. In a big hall, used up tires and broken rims. I keep everything, you know. And so, it’s very interesting. What I find on the side of the road. And so, I have a large room with all the rubbish of my journey.
Gabriel: Where is that?
Heinz: All over in Germany, in France, and all over. I did the exhibitions. I don’t talk on the stage, but I sit behind the table and the people look. And I have my book there. That’s English book. It’s 10 years since I’ve… and I sold every show. I get money for it. And I sold every time I get 1,500 euro. It starts with presentations. Most people have a video or have a film about their journey, you know. So, they are in halls. Those travelers show their films, you know. Or, in my case, I only talk. People ask questions and they get answers. And I have a hall of 800 people that… I replaced a famous guy. He was an Arctic, an Antarctic explorer. A German guy is called… He has his own boat. He’s going to the Polar Stern. He’s one of the famous explorers. Both going to the Arctic and Antarctic. Arved Fuchs has his name. Every German will know because he’s an explorer. And he’s together with… He walked across the Antarctic, walked across it from one end to the other with Reinhold Messner, the mountain climber. You know Reinhold Messner.
Gabriel: Yes.
Heinz: He climbed all 14 8-thousands without oxygen. He’s one of the most famous mountain climbers in the world, you know. Reinhold Messner.
Gabriel: But when you said walk, you mean on skis. They went across Antarctica on skis.
Heinz: They had a sledge where all the provisions were on. They walked.
Gabriel: No, but they were on skis. They skied.
Heinz: Skis or snowshoes.
Gabriel: Well, I think skis are much faster.
Heinz: I don’t know. But they are in the Guinness Book of Records, because there was the first one who did it alone. A Norwegian guy.
Gabriel: Oh, you mean Roald Amundsen.
Heinz: Amundsen, the Norwegian, the first one.
Gabriel: Yeah, yeah.
Heinz: And then Reinhold Messner and Arved Fuchs are also in the Guinness Book of Records. They got on the fourth place that they walked from one end across the South Pole to the other end. So that’s quite something. And the Amazon is the same. People go to the Amazon and disappear there. They’re still looking for Colonel Fawcett. I don’t know if you heard of him. An English guy who was traveling with the Geographical Society. He disappeared. Nobody knows where he disappeared. Nobody knows. They think it’s on one side which is almost past the part of the Amazon. But nobody knows. Nobody had found remnants of him. And he went alone, with one guy because he didn’t want a big expedition. My friend, this guy is James Stroud. You see the picture there? Down where he has a picture in his hand? Yeah. He tried to find him. He had an expedition in the Amazon, but he was attacked. He lost his canoe. And so it was a fracaso that he tried to find Fawcett, because he’s English and Fawcett is an English. Geographical Society, you know. Arved Fuchs was the one that went with Reinhold Messner across it. And he was the one in the show. And I replaced him because in our winter, he has to go in the summer. So he had a new idea to go to the Antarctic, when here it was winter, but in the Antarctic it’s summer. So he wasn’t available. So I replaced him and I had 800 people in the hall. They were expecting to listen to Arved Fuchs. Bad luck. And I had a discussion. And I had five minutes applause at the end. He said he had never had that. Any of his shows, you know.
Gabriel: That’s great. We want to look at this book of statistics. Take one more white one. Get a good one for the…
Heinz: All of them are good ones. Okay. Oh. Eritrea. It was Ethiopia at the time. So I don’t have separate figures. I have, but it’s not correct because it was Ethiopia at the time. Eritrea didn’t exist. And we put it another time.
Gabriel: Okay, let’s do a different one.
Heinz: But I had a good time in Ethiopia, because the women were very easy to get. A white man, you could sleep with many women as… and they are beautiful. They are Fulani. It’s a tribe. They are animal people. They have cows and drink milk and become tall and beautiful. They have not African faces. They have very narrow faces. Very, very different. Namibia.
Gabriel: Namibia.
Heinz: I have been a number of times there. And it’s a good country because it’s formerly Germany. And you meet a lot of Germans there. And I’ve did all kinds of things there. I cycled across, einmal through the desert, through the Kalahari. Then another route that was built. You can find out. I hope it’s there. All dates are there.
Gabriel: Let’s see. Namibia. Here we are.
Heinz: You got the entries?
Gabriel: Yeah. Oh, wow.
Heinz: Five, six entries.
Gabriel: Yeah, eight.
Heinz: Because I went back once and I went back to Cape Town because I had a girlfriend there. Stay a week and get back to Windhoek again. And, of course, lately I was there quite late. In 2012 or something like that.
Gabriel: Exactly. 2012. So this is incredible. Just in Namibia, 129 days and 5,800 kilometers.
Heinz: You can see. Because they’re long distances through the Kalahari. And they’re long distances. And I’m coming back from Cape Town with a lot of kilometers, you know. So it’s some better statistics than others.
Gabriel: Here it says, “Remarks: Midnight elephant.”
Heinz: Oh, yeah. I was sleeping on the side of the road. And there was a lot of elephants. They have signs, “Watch the elephants.” You know, but it’s the main road through the Caprivi Strip, which belongs to Namibia. It’s a long, 1,000 kilometers, a long stretch. Very narrow, very long. And it was all national park. Well, it was officially national park. But nobody stopped you from cycling or anything. And one night, I set up my tent. And there was sometimes little sort of side ways. How do you call it? Stopping for cars. With a little table. With a tree. A rest area.
Gabriel: Yeah, rest area.
Heinz: Immediately. Only a step from the road. There was the table, the tree was there, and it was three meters before the bush. And that was the bush behind. It was not a large rest area. The table was a solid rock table. And I always stopped in those places. Sometimes I put my tent there. Because there was no place otherwise. Because it’s a ditch on both sides. So that night, I heard… in the middle of the night, I heard the trumpet of an elephant. Well, get my flashlight. I had a very good flashlight. It was just pointed ones. You have pointed ones. For example. When you have this. When you have this. You have. You can go. It was strong enough to cross the road. And I had a special one. To see, because the trumpet came from the other side of the road. I was looking, looking, looking, couldn’t see anything. Then I looked on the other side, and the elephant stands behind my tent. And I blinded him. He didn’t like that. But, light. He didn’t know what to do, was waiting quite a while there. Then he retreated, you know. You don’t hear. Because they can walk in the bush. And you never hear them walking. Because they have a big, big foot. And, I don’t know, it’s a funny way of walking. I hardly ever heard them. So he retreated, and he was standing about 20, 30 yards distance. But he never moved for quite a long time. Until he disappeared. Well, if you make them angry, they wipe you out. I told him, my tent was a bit small for him to sleep in my tent.
Gabriel: All that’s left now is to look at one of the countries documented in your many, many filing cabinets that are behind me. I noticed now that you have also a filing cabinet labeled “podcast.”
Heinz: It was some people that wanted to make a podcast. They want you to make one hour for every year. 50 podcasts. So I started with it, and I said, “Look, I collect everything for those many years.” You also come with years. So I have started the archive to make the podcast into 50 years. They had all the equipment here. They spent 5,000 in cameras, in flashlights. But it was not even started. Those people were busy with other things. So they didn’t have the time to go into the podcast. So if you open the drawer. You will see the 50 years there. Look.
Gabriel: Oh wow! But all these podcasts that people make of you. You never actually listen to them.
Heinz: Well, I can if I want to.
Gabriel: Yeah, I know, but…
Heinz: Ah, was a Canadian one who had a couple of hours. I heard that one. I don’t complain about it.
Gabriel: No. Okay, so let’s figure out what country we’re going to search for in your file cabinet. I’m going to draw a white paper. Chad.
Heinz: Chad.
Gabriel: In the middle of Africa.
Heinz: I couldn’t get a visa for Algeria. And they went back to Niamey in Niger. So I applied again for the visa in Niamey. They said, “Six weeks. Come back in six weeks.” There was overlanders with the Bedford and these people were going to the South Africa. But Nigeria border, shut. Nobody could cross borders in Nigeria. The only way to get into Cameroon and to get further south was through war-torn Chad. A whole lot of cars congregated at the border from Niger to the Chad. And they were going in a convoy. I said, okay, I’m going with them. I leave the bicycle in Naimey and we went on by car. We had all together, probably seven vehicles and we started together. Shortly afterwards, already got stuck in the sand, you know. Although everybody had plaques. How do you call them? If you get stuck in the sand, you put it under the wheel. So he started and he grabs the steel. But the steel holes and it’s rough so that the wheels can grab on it, you know. All of them had those or some smaller ones. Small vehicles had smaller ones. But everybody had to have them.
Gabriel: Planks.
Heinz: Planks. Planks. He retreated and the plank lifted and tore away the tank.
Gabriel: Oh!
Heinz: All kerosene in the desert, you know. Well, we all stopped there but what can you do, you know, they gave this advice, this advice. Actually, they were left in the place. They later came. We met again in Chad, many days later. They made it through but they went first back and they got a new tank or whatever. And we went on and then there was a military stop. And the military, they banged on the cars. “Air down! Air down!” The Volkswagen Bulli was also there, which is a cult auto now. Everybody has a red-and-white Bulli. You know, it’s a famous car now. They were not going to let the air down, because you’re gonna damage the tires when the air was down. But the police said, “No, you don’t get through there.” The police, there was a military and they had to put the air down because the tires become bigger, so they get through the sand, you know. And they came with us with guns, Kalashnikovs. Three of the soldiers got in different cars and they banged around. Everything they saw in animals they shot at them. But they never hit, you know, because the Kalashnikov and the antelope, I mean they are in 300, 400 meters. You don’t hit them, you know. Anyway, a couple of times it happened when they just shot at some antelopes in the distance, you know. We got stuck because we followed the Lake Chad and the Lake Chad was dry, and it appeared to be dry and some on the edges where it was really dry. You could drive better because it was smooth. But you have to be careful, because one time we were almost on the other side, where there was a little bush area and our Bedford truck went down. Underneath the hard cover was the muddy ground, you know. There was water underneath, you know. And then we got stuck there a day and a half. Tried everything, digging and pulling and pushing and digging and pulling and pushing. Finally, the Gideon with the winch, they had to find a place where they can hold it on and then with everybody, we finally got the car out, but the car was already standing like this, you know. On one side it was hard but the other side was sunk into. And then we got… together we got to N’Djamena, and the city was shot up. Everywhere you look was bullet holes in the houses, you know. I took pictures.
Gabriel: So are those here, in the…?
Heinz: Some pictures are there.
Gabriel: I can look under “Chad” in your…
Heinz: Well, you can. They’re not completely done, because I’m selecting them and they get printed and they have pictures on them, but Chad would be there, which…
Gabriel: Should I look?
Heinz: I’ve lost the one set, because somebody wanted to copy them and they never returned. But you can see the cars and you can see the car that was sunk in the mud. You have to hold them against the light.
Gabriel: Yeah. Here’s Chad.
Heinz: Sit down, look at them all you want. Or you can have a viewer but you must not look at the light, because… let me have a look! Is it, what does it say on the…? Yeah this is the… I had them made. Four thousand euro for 5,000 view-packs and they used a wrong plastic, so if you look directly you see the plastic and nothing else, you know. But you can look at diffuse light. If you don’t look at the light, you look at the light ceiling, then you can see it the proper way. There are 100,000 pictures there.
Gabriel: In the file cabinet.
Heinz: plenty of work to do.
Gabriel: Let’s have a look.
Heinz: But I have done… about 80 countries already done, but I have 240 countries there. Countries and territories.
Gabriel: Wow, here’s a truck.
Heinz: You will see them all. These are lining up when they are starting. You are still at the border from Chad and we killed a sheep there and we ate… we barbecued a sheep before we went into the Chad.
Gabriel: Yeah, I see it. Okay that’s that one.
Heinz: I have a look.
Gabriel: Yeah.
Heinz: Oh, this is the car that had the breakdown.
Gabriel: Oh. Just one more. I get the idea.
Heinz: Well, you see them all now.
Gabriel: Yeah.
Heinz: This is James Stroud. We saw a friend, which we signed into the death.
Gabriel: But James is still alive now.
Heinz: yeah of course. Born in 1960. I was born in 1940. There’s one there with the sign in his hand. That’s James.
Gabriel: Really?
Heinz: You cannot recognize him of course.
Gabriel: No. I don’t recognize him, but his skin is so dark in this.
Heinz: He was a young student.
Gabriel: Yeah.
Heinz: Here’s the Gideon, the car, the best one of all. And we see the one that sunk in.
Gabriel: There was a lot of sand there.
Heinz: Sometimes the truck gets out of the sand, but the planks are back and so they have to come and bring the planks back, you know. Because once you get going you gotta keep going.
Gabriel: Yeah, you gotta go.
Heinz: Not stop again. You’re stuck again.
Gabriel: Exactly.
Heinz: Only a few more. When you want to see them, you want to see them all of course.
Gabriel: Yeah. There’s the bullets. Bullet marks on the walls.
Heinz: Well, I was a bit careful about it. James thought, don’t take pictures, we are all in trouble.
Gabriel: alright
Heinz: That was the Chad.
Gabriel: That was it your story, illustrated.
Heinz: Yeah, another one.
Gabriel: No, I’m gonna go to bed soon.
Heinz: What do you mean? Nobody sleeps here. More questions?
Gabriel: No, that’s it.
Heinz: You’re dead.
Gabriel: I’m shutting down.
Heinz: You’re shutting down. I’m just starting. Now the working starts.
Gabriel: So, in the morning you’ll be asleep?
Heinz: Not really, because I sleep four hours. That’s all I sleep.
Gabriel: Four hours?
Heinz: All my life. Well, not all my life. When I’m cycling 150 kilometers and I go into tent, and there’s no reason, so I fall asleep at 11 and I get up at 6 or 7 in the morning. So that’s like seven hours, you know.
Gabriel: In the morning, I got up and peeked into the living room from the hallway. Heinz was clearly getting some of his four hours of nightly rest. I stepped into the exhibition room, packed with Heinz’s memorabilia. There was his primary bicycle, the heavy, custom-built steel 3-speed machine with 26-inch wheels that he rode for 480,000 kilometers from 1962 until 2004. The bicycle had been stolen six times but was recovered each time. It featured leather saddlebags and a leather trunk in the back. Mounted in front of the custom double handlebar were two cylindrical bags, the larger one perhaps for a tent and the smaller one for a sleeping bag. Place names such as Lima, Mauritius, Prague, and Havana had been written in neat white capital letters on the black frame and fenders. And of course, there was a map of the world with the routes displayed within the triangle of the frame. The nine Brooks saddles that Heinz had used over the years were laid out in a circle under the bike. On another wall sections of some of the 150 tires and untold number of inner tubes that Heinz required during his journey were on display. Then there was the poster of the Christmases that he spent around the world. Of these, Heinz and I managed to discuss only his 1981 Christmas at the German embassy in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia. His 52nd and final Christmas on the road was spent in Paris, France, where he wrote, “alone in the bunker.” As I was wrapping up my visit of the exhibition room, Heinz woke up. After breakfast, I had one final question for him: You’ve probably heard this question many, many times, but do you have any regrets?
Heinz: There’s a song about “I have no regrets.” If you have decided that that’s your life, you work until the last minute and there’s no end to it. Basically, I oblige myself. I have no choice, because your self-discipline says, you know, this is what you want to do, this is what you get recognition for. Most people want recognition for what they’re doing, you know, but to get recognition for working on their assembly line is not much more recognition. But this guy who works 8 hours on an assembly line can have a hobby. Like a collector. Like somebody is collecting stamps. He wants to have all the stamps, and he’s fulfilled with an activity that he can decide that he puts all his free time into, and that’s a compensation. For the assembly line is you have to eat, you have to drink, you have to have money. And he accepts that. And if you have a family, of course, you have even bigger problems. In my case, I’m lucky because I’m a one-man person. I can decide for myself but if you have obligations like you have a family already, well, you’re stuck. But it’s only 8 hours. He can concentrate on whatever field of interest he has, but where he might not be able to make a living with it, that’s like a hobby. But if you can make a living with your hobby, you will do it full time. Artists are basically creative people, and if their art sells well, he will do it all day long. It’s the content of your life, you know. And you get your satisfaction out of it. There’s no moment where you don’t think about what you’re doing, and you need more than 24 hours. I, for example, I sleep 4 hours a night because the archive of the traveling, it’s an endless job. Until the last minute I will full-time be immersed in what I’ve been doing all my life, you know. You never ask these are going to do something else, because the world is big enough so I can always find a new country. It just doesn’t apply. The question doesn’t apply to me.
Gabriel: After interviewing Heinz Stucke, I was reminded of a hilarious novel by Swedish author Jonas Jonasson called The Hundred-Year-Old Man Who Climbed Out the Window and Disappeared. The main character, an explosives expert named Allan Karlsson, led an eventful life that intersected with numerous historical figures and events. For instance, Allan saved Franco’s life during the Spanish Civil War and worked with J. Robert Oppenheimer to develop the atomic bomb. Similarly, Heinz managed to get an audience with Ethiopian emperor Haile Selassie. While in Mexico, he witnessed the famous Black Power salute at the 1968 Olympics and worked as a photographer at the 1970 World Cup, gaining free access to the best games, including the final starring Pelé. At a presentation, he took the place of famous German explorer Arved Fuchs and spoke to an audience of 800, who then gave him a long applause. I learned all this about Heinz even though we went through only a small fraction of the 500 pieces of paper in my cookie tin. If you dug deep into the tin, you would find papers with words such as “leeches,” “Nauru,” “yacht,” “East Timor,” and “infected wound.” I am convinced that Heinz would have something to say about each and every one of these. And even though he is confined to his bed, I wouldn’t rule out that on his 100th birthday he would climb out the window, get on his bicycle, and disappear.
Gabriel: The transcript for this episode is available on The Accidental Bicycle Tourist website. I welcome feedback and suggestions for this and other episodes. You’ll find a link to all contact information in the show notes. If you would like to rate or review the show, you can do that on your favorite podcast platform. You can also follow the podcast on Instagram. Thank you to Anna Lindenmeier for the cover artwork and to Timothy Shortell for the original music. This podcast would not be possible without continuous support from my wife, Sandra. And thank you so much for listening. I hope the episode will inspire you to get out and see where the road leads you.
Heinz: What was the last one? Well, I didn’t even look at the last one.
Gabriel: That was the goat
Heinz: Goat. Goat? Isn’t that a disease also?
Gabriel: No.
Heinz: Gout.
Gabriel: Gout.
Heinz: You heard it.
Gabriel: Yeah.
Heinz: Gout.