The bike toppled over and Heinz jumped clear.
"I said, `What do you want?' And he shot at me, just like that. I didn't even know the bullet had gone through my big toe. There was no pain or anything. But then they all closed in on me.''
It was only when they took his shoes that he realized he was bleeding from the wound. Then he was pushed into a ditch at the side of the road. Did he think the end had come?
"I had no idea. At that time, there was no thinking, no anything. All I was trying to do was not provoke them in any way.''
He was rescued after a passing German aid worker raised the alarm with the Zambian police. Fortunately, the bullet had just grazed the bone.
These days, he chiefly earns the money to finance his travels by selling an illustrated booklet about his experiences. He just sets his bike on its stand and that's his pitch. He is constantly meeting people yet it's a solitary road he travels. Is he never lonely?
"You need female companionship sometimes, but this is another person. And that's too bad because you have to deal with another person.''
In any case, he is not much of a catch these days, he says with a chuckle: "I've had many little affairs. Now, it's more complicated: I'm 66, and on a bicycle, and I sleep in a tent.
"The only woman I knew for a long time was my Russian girlfriend (Zoya), for eight years. Until one time I came back from a trip around the Caribbean, I called her and she said, `I'm married now.'"
Just like that. I didn't want to believe it really.
"But you have to understand her, as well, because a woman wants maybe more companionship than just every few months.''
Did he ever imagine when he set out, 44 years ago, that he would be on the road all this time?
"Nobody knows that far ahead. Ten years into the journey, it was `I don't want to go back to the factory.' But then it just becomes such a part of you.''
The freedom of travel is some-thing many people crave -- one reason they love his story and buy his brochure. But, he says, it takes special commitment.
"That dream is for everybody all the time, but unfortunately it can't be easily realized. You really have to cut all your relations, family, and be free. You have some saved-up money for a year or two, and then you have to find new money. Eventually, people wind up again where they started from. Or they get a good job somewhere else. And then the woman comes, you know. And then they buy a house and then, maybe, children come.
"And then only the dream stays.''
And with that, he pedals on his way.
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