Day 1 (Dec 01/311km) Delaying tactics

Off to a slow start today. We had planned to leave Joburg at 9H00am and as fate would have it we had a couple of hiccups, firstly Tumi had to get a new phone, (can’t use the damn thing) to Thendo's amusement.  Then we had to stop at Trenic industries in Kyalami to sort out our communication devices i.e. phone Bluetooth, bike to bike communication and IPod player. That exercise took a while thanks to Thendo insisting that we hussle Trenics Wi-Fi to download Route 66Maps for Android devices.

As we left Kyalami at 12H30 we realized its lunchtime! So we made a stop at Nandos Centurion.

We departed at 13H30 and realized that Tumi’s helmet visor was washed with rough material that made it a bit blurry and decided to stop at Lynnwood Full Throttle.

Whilst Brad was sorting out Tumi’s helmet he realized that the helmet padding was the wrong way round, he took his time!! But did an excellent job in putting the helmet speakers and padding in the right place and making it very comfortable (you don’t wanna ride with an uncomfortable helmet its Hell!!).

Just after we crossed the first tollgate at 15H30 the site of a gathering storm ahead of us was unnerving, forcing us to make an abrupt stop for rain gear change.

By this time reaching our initial destination, Musina, was out of the question and decided to stay in Polokwane.  Thendo got to catch up with his long time friend, Charlie Nkadimeng, who fetched us from our abode for a good dinner.

Day 2 (Dec 02/215km) STUCK!!!

STUCK AT FNB for 2 hours (howcanwenothelpyou.com); STUCK AT BOARDER – another 3 hours; and EVENTUALLY REALLY STUCK WITH BIKE MECHANICS across Beitbridge!!

A bit on how the day started, Thendo decided to get up at 5H30am and cause a racket with his bike, he likes to fix things that are not broken! Woke up the entire neighborhood fixing Lord knows what? I think that set the tone for the day.

Charlie joined us for a scrumptious breakfast whilst we were waiting for the banks to open to get Forex.

That process took 3 hours!! to buy $1500 USD!!  We were given some excuse about the vault taking a while to open. Whatever…..I think they were calling Interpol.

We only got to Leave Polokwane at 11H00 to cross the border and ride to Harare. As our luck would have it, border gate formalities on the Zim side took 3 hours in the 42 degrees heat in our riding gear in a hall with no aircon. Wonder why we need the bloody borders anyway.

We once again realised that we won’t reach Harare and settled for Masvingo, halfway to Harare, Fully kitted ready and rearing to go Thendo’s Bike stalled and refused to start on the Zim entrance. We knew what the problem was, it happened before just after crossing into Mozambique on a separate trip. (with his fixing I wonder why he does not fix his battery!!!)

Anyway here we are at the Holiday Inn in Beitbridge and are coerced to watch a Beauty Contest! A Beauty Contest! They still have those?? We are not KEEN!!

Day 3 (Dec 03/580km) Zimbabwe Rises

Got up early to head for Harare crossing our fingers that Thendo’s bike would start and start it did,  it probably does not like crossing borders. As we rode up towards Masvingo we decided to stop on the side of the road for breakfast and a truck driver pulled up and urged us to pack up and move on for safety reasons. 30km down the road we were pulled off for speeding and had to pay a spot fine for doing 116 on a 60km zone. The strangest thing is that this was in the middle of a national road with no residential or any road hazards!

We were read our rights and placed under arrest! Funny thing is they had no vehicles to take us to prison! And now it was our turn to read them the logic act and continued to have breakfast with them right there. (Thendo managed to go for their breakfast scorns!!) they even shared the Intel on the whereabouts of their colleagues and what to look out for all the way to Harare.

Breakfast with Cops, pity we were not allowed to take pictures of them....wonder why.

We rode on to Masvingo and Thendo spotted his German friend Ralf whom he had met a few weeks earlier in the Vaal. Ralf has been travelling Africa for the last 4years on a modified Fire Truck.

After spending a few minutes looking for a battery we decided to move on to Harare and we stopped halfway in Chivhu for lunch.

As we entered Harare Thendo had yet another incident! He dropped his Galaxy Tab shuttering it into many pieces and now we don’t have Maps!! We have arrived safely in Harare and checked in at the Crowne Plaza. This City is buzzing with activity and it’s amazing that all the shops have re-opened and there’s a refreshing feel about the country. Even Masvingo that felt like a Ghost town 2 years ago is Alive! It’s a far cry to what we witnessed 2 years ago when we were in transit to Malawi and the people seem to have a positive outlook! Really amazing!! Wishing all the Zimbabweans a speedy return to a better life.

Day 4 (Dec 04/rest day) “im”Perfect day!

Where do we start… let’s back track a bit, on day 2 we met a gentlemen by the name of Dr Eddie Ngwezi from Harare at the Sasol garage just before Beitbrigde border post - our last refueling stop on the South African side. Eddie invited us to stay at his house in Harare as a fellow GS rider. Fast forward to Harare day3, we tried calling him when we arrived in Harare to no avail and we decided to book at a Hotel.

As Sunday was our rest day we only left the Hotel at 11H00 for breakfast and we received a call from Eddie offering to join us, he came with his motorbike same as ours after which we all rode together, Eddie taking us around Harare before heading to his house. As we rode, about a block away from his house a car infront of him suddenly hit the brakes, he grabbed his front brakes sending him and bike in different directions, luckily he got away with some bruises on his elbows and a sprained ankle.

We fetched his car from his house leaving ours and his bike at the house and took him to hospital, not a perfect start to what promised to be a very relaxed day. We must mention here that on our way to hospital we came across the head of state motorcade and when this happens all traffic must stop. You cannot drive whilst the President is been transported.

Anyway we spent about 2 hours at the hospital whist he was under observation. Meanwhile, two of his friends arrived, Namo and another Eddie, so we left him at the hospital and continued our joyride to a Shisanyama (Buy and Braai) owned by Eddie (not the injured one). Very nice place we might add, kinda reminds you of Midrand Shisanyama.

We later picked up Eddie discharged from the Hospital and headed back to his house. Hodes of well wishers and sympathizers started to arrive and this was the moment we realized that Dr Ngwezi has some high powered friends and so is he! amongst them the Honorable Minister of Enterprise Development. As you can imagine, the environment was condusive to "solving the world's problems".

Day 5 (Dec 05/585km) Bye to Zimbabwe and into Zambia

The day started with breakfast at the joint we had lunch the day before. After a not so inspiring meal we got up to search for a battery for Thendo’s bike as well as a GPS devise. As mentioned previously, the battery stopped working in Beit Bridge (but now works) and the GPS fell off the bike. To our disappointment both could not be found within the vicinity and we decided to get on the road.

Our friends from the previous day had given us directions out of Harare to the Chirundu border post. We unfortunately missed a crucial turn and wasted about an hour riding in the wrong direction to Mozambique and had to turn back.

Apparently this place sells the best Biltong in the world, we agree!

The road to Chirundu was good, bar yet another speeding fine. This time Tumi managed to plainly refuse to be given a fine. He convinced the police that because he was riding behind me, they did not catch him and in fact they did not stop him. We quickly learned a few tricks, including charming officers before they asked us for all manner of documents. Later Tumi learned another trick which has worked so far - he takes us to the head of the queue at a road block and when asked for papers (that’s if he stops) he simply refuses stating that we have a long way to go and getting off the bike to locate documents was such a laborious process that would hold up the queue behind us. Most of the time they just laugh it off and wish us a nice journey.

Approaching Chirundu, we rode through a beautiful mountain range and an escarpment called the Zambezi Escarpment which is actually a game park. We did not see any game except for a few sightings of elephant dung and too many carcasses of trucks that had fallen off the many sharp bends and cliffs. It was not until later in the evening at lodge near the border that we could fully comprehend the main causes of those accidents, when we shared a few drinks with two truck drivers. They had some truck war stories to tell.

We could not resist stopping for a quick pic at this beautiful escarpment. This is in the middle of a game park with wild animals including lions. The Locals say, "You dare not stop there".

At the Chirundu boarder we were delayed for over two hours due to us not possessing police clearance certificates for our bikes. Apparently we needed to have had our bikes physically inspected and cleared by SA Police before departing home. The police on both the Zimbabwe and Zambian side work as a “tight team”. They are all linked to Interpol but their network signal was apparently too low to call Interpol to confirm whether the bikes have been involved on any crime. Be that as it may, we managed to plead with them and they let us through just at the time the boarder had closed. At this point we were reluctant to ride the 140km stretch to Lusaka as there is a long mountain pass with trucks.

The Mighty Zambezi

Bridge over Zambezi in Chirundu

The lodge we stayed in was just ok and the dinner was descent enough. We were entertained by Vincent from Malawi - a well spoken 25 year old who started driving trucks when he was 15. From the stories he told us, we now have to say a little prayer each time we come across any of these long haule trucks on the road. We are seeing hundreds of them.

Today we went to bed early to get up at 05h00 the following morning.

Day 6 (Dec 06/770km): Hard Riding

At 05h00 am sharp we were up and quickly got ready to leave. We rode the 135km stretch to Lusaka only to hit the morning rush hour as we entered the city. The maverick Tumi decided to lead us out of the traffic jam on the pavement.

We had exhausted our kwachas and in desperate need of fuel, a bank was therefore the obvious first stop. The ever jinxed Thendo got his bank card swallowed by the ATM machine.

In no time we were back on the road headed for the Tanzanian border with 1004km ahead of us and 1900km to Dar es Salaam. 

Lunch and mapping in Serenje

We managed to ride 800km till Mpika where we set up camp and had a nice yet simple dinner. Mpika is a small district town hosting the Chitulika village where the current Zambian President grew up.

Setting up camp in Mpika

Tomorrow we face the next stretch of 1200km to Dar es Salaam. Given a border enroute, we might only manage 800kms. 

Day 7 (Dec 07/420km) Wet Wet Wet

We left Mpika with 1330km to reach Dar es Salaam - 330km to the border and 1000km to Dar. We planned to cover at least 800km for the day.40km into the ride we saw a storm gathering ahead of us and we quickly stopped and changed into rain gear and were thoroughly rained on!

Playing with a Chameleon at dawn

Just before we reached the Zambia/Tanzania border in Nakonde we were fast running out of fuel and there was no fuel station in site. We stopped at a village to ask where we could find petrol and were pointed to a little house. To our surprise they had all grades of fuel, from diesel to unleaded to normal high grade fuel all stacked in 25litre barrels. Apparently what happens in these parts of the world is that when the truck drivers run out of cash they sell their fuel to the locals!

Filling station - who knows with what, but it kept us going

Tumi started dishing out chewing gum to the village kids (Thendo was not impressed!! Said something about pathetic of him to appear a UN food security and aid worker). Tumi says: “all I wanted was to give the villagers something to chew on when we left!!”

Tumi's cousins, nephews and nieces

Dishing out gum

We got to the border and as usual we were swamped by the “border entrepreneurs” offering to show us this and that, help us to fill in the forms and sell us whatever currency you might imagine. When we walked into the border office to have our papers stamped, the official was busy with her lunch and Tumi walked straight up to her desk, grabbed the stamp and took matters into his own hands and off we went. (He is crazy!!!)

Given that the most powerful person in Africa is an official with a stamp, we wonder how she felt being temporarily stripped of her power. The look in Tumi's eyes showed that power, as for a moment he refused to stamp my papers.

Then it rained hard, like seriously hard, and we knew we weren’t gonna make our 800km journey. Whilst we were waiting for the rain to let up, we asked a guy how far the nearest town was, to which he answered “100 000km”. Thendo rephrased the question, to which he answered with a straight stern voice, “100 000km!”. We realized we have a long way to go and then we asked another guy when he thought the storm would stop, to which he answered, “around May but maybe April”. WTF!? so we geared up and started on our 100 000km ride with rain for the next 5 months!

Looking up to the heavens

We slept at the next B&B about 35km down the road….