Elsewhere - Alone in Africa (2018)

• 76%
• 2018
• Documentary
• Anselm Nathanael Pahnke

Cape Town. On his 25th birthday, Anselm starts a journey across Africa on a bicycle with two friends. After they arrive in the scorching Kalahari Desert, the trio suddenly splits. His friends fly home while Anselm decides to continue the ride up north - alone. Cautious at his vulnerability to his surroundings at first, he gains confidence and learns to adapt to the various cultures and their way of life. Step by step his incredible path unfolds and leads him through 15 countries of the African continent and to extraordinary encounters. His bicycle becomes his gateway to local life: it invites communication and enables him to found and support projects that promote rural youth. His conviction to travel by his own strength, camp in unimaginable places and rely on intuition, leads him to exceptional adventures, but also to acutely experience fundamental issues. Besides night-time encounters with lions or hippos and repeated malaria and typhus infections, he struggles with water provision, discrimination and corrupted officials. He still faces the ultimate challenge - riding 3.000 kilometers through the Sahara against the relentless North Wind. After a year, 15.000 kilometers and 15 travelled countries, having fallen in love with this multi-facetted world, his journey faces an unpleasant end - ironically by people that would protect him against the "dangerous" continent.