Africa, North to South

AFRICA NORTH TO SOUTH

Who: Michael Beckett

When: Start date: 2 of October 2007 - Finish 6 months as long as it takes

Where: UK to Cape town, Via: France, Spain, Morocco, Mauritania, Senegal, Gambia, Mali, Burkina Faso, Niger, Nigeria, Cameroon, Gabon, Congo, Angola, Namibia, Botswana, Zambia, Malawi, Mozambique.

The route is only roughly planned I’m taking it as it comes and just heading in a rough southerly direction.

The bike: A 2006 BMW R1200GS.

Senegal To Gambia

The French have certainly left there mark on the old capital of Senegal St Louis, the crumbling buildings from the eighteenth and nineteenth centaury are all in different stages of decay but this makes for an interesting city and the streets are lively and full of colour.

Senegal

Western Sahara

As I rode south through Western Sahara the settlements got fewer by the side of the road and it would be some time before seeing other vehicles. I filled up with fuel and to my surprise the fuel was about two-thirds the price than the previous stop. The reason for this is that Western Sahara is tax-free.

Mali

We left the Atlantic Ocean on Gambia’s coast and headed east following the river Gambia. There were now six of us in total Dan and Linz on their Suzuki DRZ 400’s, Dan and Ed on the Honda Africa twins and Chris on the CCM 400. It was good to be on the move again we all now had our Nigerian visas in hand although we checked the entry date when we left the embassy we only had a month to reach Nigeria.

In the last six days I’ve ridden thirteen hundred miles that’s from Timbuktu in Mali to Dongondutchi in Niger crossing Burkina Faso along the way. So I’ve mainly seen life in this part of Africa form the seat of my motorcycle, which is an excellent way to observe life. It’s easy to tell if there is a market in the next town, often I’ll pass or see coming in the opposite direction dozens of; people carrying things on their heads, bicycles loaded up, carts being pulled by donkey or cows or cars with animals on the roofs.

Nigeria

Nigeria’s repriation precedes it, according to the foreign office; since January 2006, 36 British nationals (including one child), and more than 180 other foreign national have been kidnapped. This is mainly in the south; in Cross River state well I don’t think I’ll go there then. Bribery, corruption, high risk of terrorism, and a country a wash with guns and more con artists than you can shake a stick at.

The three motorcycles, Chris, Nick and I made it safely across the river on the small wooden boats. As usual we were quite a spectacle to the local villagers of this small riverside village called Touroua. I sent up a rooster tail of sand as I rode up the riverbank and we parked up in front of a crowd, the police came to see us and stamped our passports into Cameroon. They also sorted us out with a patch of land behind the shack that served as the police station where we could pitch our tents for the night. We then went back down to the river Faro for a swim.

Congo

If they’re was one country that I was a little apprehensive about passing through it was Congo but as usual all any doubts about the country I left at the border. There were police and military checkpoints at the border and then we were free to pass into the country. We waited for someone to open the boom gate and waited some more. We’ve lost the key I was told by a one of the police. “So you’ve lost the key to Congo” “Oui” the policeman replied. Half an hour later the key was found in another policeman’s pocket he was having a kip.

We left Kribi on the second of December, Kribi had been an excellent place to relax and enjoy New Years Eve celebrations and a few comforts but now it was time to move on. Around four thousand miles to Namibia, which doesn’t feel that far seeing that I’ve covered eleven thousand miles so far on this trip. It was a rough dusty track through the jungle running east towards the road for Gabon and I could tell I had been off the bike for five days it didn’t quite seem as natural as it should and even though I had my new TKC 80’s (tyres) on it took me a while to get into it.

Getting out of Congo was time consuming and very bureaucratic it’s all part of the trip I know, but there is a lot of admin to cross Africa! We eventually rode onto the boat to cross the mighty Congo River. The boat left the dock and headed up river a way and rafted up to two other boats. When the vessels were secure we got underway once more, three boats chugging away at about one knot, it took us about an hour to get to the other side. When we arrived at Kinshasa there was a stampede as everyone fought to get back onto dry land.

The cockerels woke me at some ridiculously early hour as I slept on the front steps of the police station. While I was waiting for the immigration to open I sneaked back into The Democratic republic of Congo to find some breakfast; baguettes and La vache quirit that is a one of the good things the French did for Africa.

At eight o’clock the policeman came out with our passports, which he held in the police safe over night. The six passports had been stamped in using yesterdays date so we had already lost a day off the expensive and stingy five-day visa.

Once I was across the border into South Africa I decided to make a bolt for Cape Agulhas. I was so close now I just wanted to get there. Chris had gone on ahead to try to find a new front tyre and I was hoping to catch up with him. Although we now had no way of contacting each other as our Namibian mobiles didn’t work here in South Africa.

Namibian customs were friendly and efficient and in no time we were riding into a shabby frontier town. Shabby yes but with ATM’s, shops, petrol stations and under the tyres smooth tarmac. A swerve to the left was needed to avoid an oncoming car Namibia drives on the left hand side of the road. I hadn’t ridden on the left since England. There were also traffic lights I hadn’t seen any of those in a long while ether.