A man chases a woman traveling on a bike in Kenya.. What is the truth about the clip that swept the Internet?

A video showing a man chasing a woman in a rural area in Kenya has gone viral online. The woman, the adventurer Maryam Belkahil, was traveling across the country as part of a three-year bicycle trip, which started from Morocco all the way to Ethiopia.

She said the man belonged to the local Samburu tribe, but what happened was taken out of context. The clip went viral after people reposted it, claiming the man was carrying a machete.

But Belkahil says, “People judge an entire country based on a few seconds of photography,” explaining: “I have been traveling for 3 years, 3 years of people helping me, so why don’t they see that?” Belkheel, known as Meghy Lost, is an adventurer and cyclist who spent 3 years cycling across Africa, crossing 33 countries.

She completed her journey in November 2025, but the incident shown in the viral video occurred shortly before her journey ended. Blackgill noted that she understood why the clip had gone viral, but the man was not actually carrying a machete.

“It was a wooden stick, a big wooden stick, and it was kind of close to the border with Ethiopia, which is an area that is known to not be the safest to cross,” she explained. The area is inhabited by the Samburu tribe, and locals advised Belkehel not to go there, but she ignored their advice.

I posted the clip as part of a much longer video on YouTube about a year ago. She says that she deliberately did not publish it on her social media accounts, because she feared it would be taken out of context.

It seems that this is exactly what happened last week, as the clip sparked what she described as racist comments about Kenya, while others blamed her for traveling alone, as she said: “People like drama, problems, and seeing bad things.” She also pointed out that the clip gives a misleading picture of her 3-year-long adventure, during which she met wonderful people.

She is currently backpacking around East Africa, and next year plans to travel by bike from Morocco to Cape Verde, the northernmost point in Europe.