African Antics

As we sit here in our empty flat with 3 days to go before we set off on our "Paul and Zoe do Africa 2004" trip, it's with a mixture of happy and sad feelings that we look back over the last 3 years in Guildford. Sad, because we are leaving behind our friends, family and a happy home; happy, because we are about to set off on the adventure of a lifetime.
But that's enough deep reflection, it's with the great British "Chin-up Marther!" and "Onwards and upwards Henry!" that we will be entering the next chapter of our lives. Now where's that Pimms and lemonade?!

So here we are! France and Spain were just a distraction, but now we have made it to Africa.

Spain have managed to hold on to the very tip of the African continent and so you have to ride for about 3kms before you reach the Moroccan border, where you are helpfully stripped of all your cash by officials who sign, different officials who stamp and generally helpfull people who require payment for their helpfullness! After an hour of stamping, signing and paying we crossed the border (much lighter!!) and made our way south to Chefchouan.

Thankfully some genious had the presence of mind to build a motorway through the pyrenees, so I was spared the embarrassment of falling off the bike on endless hairpin bends (an unfortunate hobby of mine!), but i think Paul would have liked to take the 'scenic' route!

So here I am again in a hot country sitting in a dark sweaty internet cafe!!! Last time I wrote we were in Todra Gorge, so that seems as good a place as any to start.......I can't check what I wrote last time because this computer is soooo slow, but hopefully I won't repeat anything!
Todra Gorge, as its name suggests is a gorge! It is pretty amazing though, very narrow and extremely steep. We stayed on the roof of an Auberge at the mouth of the gorge and the stars were stunning.....we even saw a shooting star on our first night..aaah!

On the final leg to Mauritania, through the Western Sahara we have formed a convoy with a French family in a 4x4 and a couple of german students in a VW combi.Jan and family were going to be met by a friend at the Morroco/Mauritania border who would be their guide to the capital, Nouakchott, and they agreed to let us follow. Although the road from the northern border town, Nouadhibou, in Mauritania to the capital is now 2/3 asphalt, there is still some pretty tough offroading to be done so we were glad we were not doing it alone.

We left Nouakchott (NKT) early on Weds 1st September and headed south for Senegal. We wanted to get the border crossing out of the way as quickly as possible! First we need to get some petrol for the bikes, which proved to be a more difficult task than either of us had anticipated, when we eventually found the only 'Super' seller in NKT we realised I had spent all our oogs (the local currency) phoning home the night before.....ooops! Too lazy to ride back inot the city, we managed to get the worst exchange rate for dollars ever seen, since records began and we were on our way!

After a mammoth effort by my Mum and Dad and DHL we finally got our new spokes and after 3 weeks lazing around in St Louis, Paul fixed his wheel and we set of to Dakar.On our final night in St Louis Martin, the owner, invited us for dinner. Unfortunately this didn' t agree with Paul and he was up all night fertilizing the campsite!!! He was determined to get moving the next day though and so we packed up and set off.......although he didn't do up his helmet in case of a sudden bout of on-road nausea!!!

After the hell of the Senegal border, entering Mali was a breeze! Obviously it took most of the day, but time is free!Everything stops between 12 and 3pm, so we ended up eating lunch with the policeman at the Senegal side of the border before crossing to Mali later that afternoon.

We had a problem with our carnet and I had to go into the town to visit the house of the customs chief, but by 4pm we were through onto Mali soil.

Well, it feels like such a long time since we updated the weblog.....I think last time I wrote was in Mali's capital, Bamako, where we were enjoying a hotel room (with fan) and were recovering from a hellish ride on a non-existent road!!! Time is definately a healer because even I have been heard to recount the rocky track and dried up river bed experience as a good one!!!

As we crossed over into Ghana, we were faced with a huge sign...'Welcome to Ghana'. How fanatastic!

Last time I wrote we were in Ghana, about to head out along the coast to sample some beaches (.....for a change!) and now we are in Cameroon, doing much the same. Well rest assured it has been a very stressful month in the life of a professional traveller, I mean 'adventure motorcyclist'!!!
So, we headed out of Accra, to sample the 'Gold Coast' and see what beaches we could occupy for a couple of weeks!

For some reason I still feel apprehensive about crossing borders (...I think the Mauitania/Senegal border has scarred us for life) and as we prepared to leave Ghana, I had the prospect of 3 borders in as many days.....one of them being Nigeria!
But before that we had to cross Togo and Benin. Unfortunately because of time constraints ( we want to hit an elusive 'dry spell' in the Congo at Xmas) we didn't hang around in either of these countries. We had decided to 'nip' through into Nigeria and then get out of Nigeria as fast as we could so we could spend 2 or 3 weeks in Cameroon!

Well it is fair to say that we both heaved a big sigh of relief when we approached the Nigeria/ Cameroon border and entering Cameroon meant we were finally in Central Africa.....now we are really getting somewhere!!The Cameroon border was perfect, just what you would expect a border in the rainforest to look like..... a series of huts on either side of an old iron bridge which spans the river separating the two countries!

The bridge

Crossing into Namibia was a big change…tar roads without potholes, washing machines, supermarkets, English speaking, running water….. and did I mention washing machines! I was in heaven! On our first night we stayed at a campsite where each pitch had its very own water tap, I mean how wonderful is that… we filled all the receptacles we could find…just because we could! Namibia is known for its wildlife, so we decided to head south, straight for the famous Etosha Game Park.

Well the last time I wrote Paul and I were suffering from severe sea-sickness on the ferry from Cabinda to Luanda, Angola’s capital!Compared to the trauma of seeing our bikes being transported onto the ferry, getting back onto dry land was easy and after the inevitable 2 hour wait for immigration (well you see the immigration officer was ill, so we had to wait while they found someone else to do the tricky job of writing down our names from our passports) we were parked at the side of the road in Luanda wondering where to go!

Since Zoe has done such a sterling job writing our web journal entries I thought I should make some sort of contribution. I started a poem about our trip while we were waiting for our Angolan visas in Libreville and have now completed it. Although it is rough round the edges as I have the writing skills of a gorilla (no offence to gorillas), I think it captures some of the things we experienced and learnt on our trip.ODE TO AFRICA TRIP 2004
I remember how they started this rather daring trip,
Their confident walk betrayed by that shaky bottom lip;

Not long to go now.

Time of departure 3 March 2007...

Waiting, waiting, waiting...

So, here we both are in South Africa.

Paul came 3 weeks ahead of me to import the bikes, service them and prepare them for the trip....if only that had gone to plan! So, here we both are in South Africa.

So finally we were on the road – my frizzy hair blowing in the wind! (Eventually I do stop talking about leaving my hair straighteners behind…).