Carlo, John Anthony and me in the BMW workshop in Sana'a, Yemen.

After the clutch problem with the BMW we managed to get the correct parts from Germany to Sana'a within 3 days with the help of the guys from BMW Sana'a and Reiner Zimmer in Milan, Italy. I would like to especially thank John who is the BMW workshop manager in Sana'a for his help and support and making all the necessary arrangements considering that the workshop in Sana'a do not normally deal with motorcycles.

Carlo has been travelling for 10 months and has covered 40 000 kms in his travels from Holland to Asia and the Middle East and we are travelling together for northern section of Africa.

Aboard cattle boat from Al Mocha to Djibouti.

The trip from Al Mocha to Djibouti aboard a cattle boat should have taken 12 hours but due to a strong head wind and stormy sea all the way it took 20 hours and as we were located on the foredeck and exposed to the elements it was a very uncomfortable ride.

At about midnight I noticed that the engine was starting to run a bit rough and when I saw crew members disappear into the engine room and a nervous looking captain, I was not too happy myself. The constant rocking of the boat by the huge swells had stirred up the dirt in the bottom of the diesel tank and had clogged up the filter and this was causing fuel starvation to the engine. The only way to resolve this was to switch off the engine and replace the filter which meant that we were without steerage while carrying out this repair.

The boat started rocking violently as it turned and the waves pounded it from the side. I was sure the next wave was going to come over the side when the engine started up again and the captain was able to turn it back into the wind. As you can well imagine we all breathed a sigh of relief when that engine started up.

The BMW being unloaded in Djibouti port.
The emigration and customs in the port was sorted quickly and we were soon heading into town. We had an expensive hamburger and made for the border and Ethiopia.

Trapped !!!!!!!!

We found a road leading to the beach but it soon became bad gravel and the KTM went down. No serious damage and we continued on.

Camping on the coast in Djibouti.