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….

Day 8 (Dec 08/846km) Suicide Mission

This was yet another day of just pure hard riding. With 900km ahead of us, we were determined to reach Dar es Salaam on this day. So we rode as hard as we could only stopping to refuel and do some quick stretches on the way. The road was marvelous all the way except for a few odd potholes and sharp bends. We might just add here that of the 3600 odd km’s we rode, only about 5% of the roads are bad. As for drivers in Tanzania, truck drivers and especially bus drivers drive like maniacs. There are plenty of Louis Hamilton’s and Schumachers here. Truckers drive their big machines as if these were private cars, overtaking facing on-coming traffic, speeding down hill and just plainly being reckless. At one point we were riding at about 140km/hr when one of the famous Abood bus overtook us on a slightly uphill road. We just could not believe it.

We also found some amusement on the road. A young man on his bicycle decided that peddling along a long uphill road was just too much and he held his hand onto a truck going slowly up the mountain allowing the truck to tow him while he relaxed along the way. 

Finally we get to refuel at a proper filling station.

 

We stopped in Morogoro for petrol, the place which hosted the ANC and its famous Somafco school during exile. We both laughed without saying a word to each other when we saw two ladies who had striking resemblance to South Africans. We both thought to ourselves, some ANC cadres had clearly left some seeds in this village and there must be plenty of them in the little town.

We had about 200 km left to reach Dar and it was already 16H00. Little did we realise that Tanzania being on the far east of Africa falls under a different time zone, an hour ahead of SA. So we thought we had another 2 hours of sun and with our eagerness to reach Dar, we were heading for a suicide mission! When the sun sets in Tanzania, trucks and buses really come alive , they actually breathe and live!100km into the ride it got really dark and Thendo was literally pushed off the road and Tumi was squeezed between 2 trucks IT WAS WILD!!!! So we decided to find the nearest shanty and we put up there 70km away from Dar! We have never prayed so hard we promised God never to ride in the dark again. We found Jesus!

Day 9 (Dec 09/60km) SHOWER!!

Riding the 70km into Dar is taking your life into your own hands! Thought our taxi drivers can’t drive, they are extremely polite! We rode into Dar looking for a hotel only to be caught driving on a one way street and off-course the cops were more than happy to swindle us, an unfortunate welcome to Dar.

We then decided to find something to eat and stopped at a Steers outlet. Just as we were settling down a certain sharp Mr Morrison decided to join us for lunch and ask a few questions about us and our bikes. This is a very interesting guy, a teacher of English and Chinese in Dar. He helped point us to a couple of places to stay and we settled for the known Protea Hotel.

 

Morrison had some serious war stories to tell. He rides a BMW F800GS and has ridden solo to Maputo and back. He also told us that he’s ridden into the war torn eastern DRC district of Kivu and was captured by the rebels who wanted to kill him until somehow he managed to free himself. He said that he got onto his bike, started it through a remote control and because of the "soft exhaust" they could not immediately hear him and rode hard with military vehicles in chase. He says he rode for his life only to stop 600km later at the border with no identification. The only way they could identify him was his polio vaccination stamp on his shoulder - so he says.

 

Mr. Morrisson

We later met up with him for dinner and dance at a joint called Jollies, a very snazzy joint indeed. Surprisingly, our friend Morrison seemed to know all the Intelligence officers who hung around Jollies. He had earlier pointed out other intelligence officers at the hotels we were scouting for accommodation (apparently he knows all of this because his Father is a Chief of police in Tanzania)

 

We checked in at the Protea and after our ritual ale arrival toast we headed for our rooms and the first thing we looked for in the room was a SHOWER! Ok, we must confess here that the last time we washed was in Day 3 in Harare 6 days ago!

 

Day 10 (Dec 10/rest day) Updating blog

Tumi the blogger

Today was uneventful. Thendo got up to do yoga, we went for breakfast,  back updated blog and read local newspapers. Our arrival in Tanzania coincided with their 50 years celebration of independence and local papers were dominated by this jubilee.

                        

We had our laundry done by the hotel staff and they did a good job in removing all the sweat and grime generated by the avarage 38 degree heat we endured enroute Dar es Salaam.

Hotel Courtyard

Hotel courtyard

Day 11 (Dec 11/rest day)

Once more we spent this day resting in the hotel courtyard and decided to take a dip in the pool. 

The temperature must have been around 42 degrees when we dipped into the pool

Apparently a coconut drink has more use than simply quenching one's thirst. So we gunned for it.

Later we went to buy boat tickets for Zanzibar and enjoyed a Coconut fruit drink sold on the beach. We asked the driver to take us to a nice restaurant for a good meal and he took us to a fast food joint, yet another Steers. Tumi rephrased and asked him to take us to a restaurant better than a burger shop. When he still could not get it, Tumi asked where do the rich people in Dar eat and he was excited to take us to a slightly upgraded fast food joint, equivalent to Nandos. All that we wanted was a 5 star meal joint to compensate for the not so exciting meals we had on the way up to Dar. We realised we are not going to win and settled for that, WTF?! To top it all he pulled up a chair to join us, at which we politely asked him to take a hike.

Day 12 (Dec 12) Transport by Road, Sea and Air

Zanzibar

We set off to Zanzibar first thing in the morning. We arrived to board our scheduled boat and were received by one of the “officials” who told us to buy fresh tickets because our boat had apparently left an hour earlier. We later discovered that this is a scam from the boat companies to get you to buy another ticket. We quickly wised up to that and told the swindler to go to hell.

Violet excited to meet other South Africans

We boarded and as we sat we noticed a South African looking lady who settled in-front of us. It turned out she was and we broke into conversation with her. Violet was a city girl who got tired of the rat race. She and her husband decided to pack up and travel Africa for 2years (they rode on bicycles between Malawi and Tanzania) and that trip settled them in Zanzibar. Violet is involved in a project to bring African musicians to Zanzibar annually in February. Check them out on www.busaramusic.org

On our way to Zanzibar we were surprised how vast Dar is. It spans several kilometres visible from the sea. 

After 90min we got off the boat to a 40+ degrees heat and proceeded to do all the border formalities. Zanzibar and Tanzania are one country with duplicate political administrations like Hong Kong China and mainland China which we visited 2 months ago. We headed straight for a bar called Mercury that overlooks the sea for a quick lunch before a walkabout of Stone City. This is where the slaves from the mainland were kept before shipped out to Omar and other places. 

Zanzibar old town

 After a brief tour of the city in the smouldering 100 degree heat we headed back to Mercury to wait for our boat back to Dar and it was not to be, we were told our boat has just left and all along when we were at Mercury overlooking were boats come and go, there was no single boat that left, nonetheless we were told to go to the office and negotiate!! NEGOTIATE!?

Now picture this, we are right in front of it and we are told it’s gone! Can you believe that crap!

After fruitless negotiations at the office with no refund we decided to go to the airport. Onboard a taxi to the airport to try and catch the last flight out, to our shock, the taxi driver knocked down a cyclist with his side mirror and he carried on like nothing happened. We quizzed him and he suddenly could not speak English or understand what we were talking about.

The flight to Dar is 25minutes

The taxi we caught in Dar to our Hotel had a puncture and Tumi quickly got his hands dirty to replace the tyre while Thendo sat in the car waiting.

Dinner tonight was at a more appeasing place called Karambezi in Seacliff.

We enjoyed the food so much that we had to be the last people to leave the restuarant.

DAY 13 (Dec 13/210km) Homebound

Ready for the road

We spent a long time this morning pondering our next move. Our initial plan was to reach Mombasa in Kenya. A combination of the fun we had in Dar, home sickness, wanting to spend Christmas with our families, complications and unplanned interruptions you encounter travelling Africa settled the issue. We decided to head back home.

Tumi was not so impressed with Thendo taking his time to get on the bike

We left Dar at midday and getting out is as a nightmare as getting in. We rode for 200km and reached Morogoro 4 hours later with 80% of the ride in dense traffic and heavy rain.

Somafco

Thendo’s wife spent many years in Morogoro’s Mazimbu village at an ANC camp in exile.  She studied at the famous school named after Solomon Mahlangu, SOMAFCO. For this reason Thendo
insisted we could not pass this place without going in. The ANC Camp was donated to the Tanzanian government who have turned it into an Agricultural college. Most if not all the infrastructure is still intact, including buildings and street names. The street names are named after ANC struggle heroes.

We realised that we would have to put up in Morogoro and a certain gentleman who works for APOPO, a landmine demining organisation doing work in Mozambique, Angola, Thailand and Cambodia helped us to find accommodation at the local University. Dinner was at the University’s student cafeteria.

Day 14 (Dec 14/746km) Malawi not to be!

We got on the road at 5h30am aiming to reach Mzuzu in Malawi. This was yet another very wet day all the way up to the border. 700km later we were at the border about to cross into Malawi, and as we were negotiating currency for Malawi with the border entrepreneurs, a truck driver warned us that we would not have a pleasant trip in Malawi because there was no fuel! We verified that with several other truckers.

Taking a rest and admiring the beautiful mountains

Putting raingear on for the storm ahead

Off we went to Kyela, the nearest town to the border to find accommodation. Tumi’s bike clutch lever dismantled from its joint connecting to the gearbox. Thendo the fixer sorted it out immediately. Later whilst looking for internet connection we were approached by Mr Moses Kili, an apparent friend and business partner to Mr Cyril Ramaphosa and Mr Khulubuse Zuma. We were astonished to be shown pictures of his money in a briefcase and the Masserati he once owned when he was a kingpin of the famous Kilimanjaro chain of clubs in Melrose and Durban. We wished him well on the current negotiations with Cyril for the purchase of a copper mine in Tanzania.

Mr Moses Kili

Today we also spoke to our friends who had just recently returned from summiting mount Kilimanjaro (Tshilidzi Ratshitanga, Robinson Ramaite, Wiseman Khumalo and Leslie Mkhabela) check them out on http://www.sandtonhikingclub.blogspot.com/