Update Arusha, Tanzania: May 19, 2011

We’ve been on a boat up Lake Malawi and now well into Tanzania without internet or phone connection. I’m writing this in a dumpy little motel (reminds me of the old motels along Route 66 or old 99 in the Southwest of USA). We are about 400 km short of Arusha, Tanzania.

Dom's Blog - good writer, funny, informative....A couple of days ago we were in Iringa and tested the shortcut to Dodoma – 250 km of dirt (read rocky) road. We went about 40 km up the road from the Iringa Airport and then Pat decided it was too hard on the bikes to do it all and besides, once in Dodoma, we would likely have about 850 km more of the same to Kigali, Rwanda. Anyway, we turned around and are one day short now of Arusha on tarmac – very nice tarmac – a ribbon of road that maybe the Chinese are financing. It is new and in a couple of places so far still under construction. Pat took a spill today in a little village. There are lots of buses and trucks and every mile or so another village with a series of 2 to 5 big bumps across the road to make everyone slow down to protect the pedestrians. The place where Pat dropped the bike was particularly bad with deformation of the blacktop by the heat generated by the braking big vehicles and it was wet from light rain and bang; he and Chris and the bike are all fine after a little bike fixing on the side of the road. I didn’t get a picture of Pat down – for the second time. The first was in sand where we were heading toward a lodge on the beach in Monkey Bay the night before the boat. 

Anyway, it looks like we will get to Arusha tomorrow afternoon and find a place to stay – Tanzania is so cheap that we aren’t bothering to put up the tent here. Arusha is the city from which we will try to go on a 4 day safari into the Serengeti and the Ngorogoro Crater. After that, we will go on north to Nairobi where we will try and get the last Visa (for Sudan) and stop at the Jungle Junction for a little rest up, maintenance on the bike and new tires for both bikes – we’ll need good tires when we head up to Ethiopia on the worst road in Africa (about 400 km) – actually, I think it is probably similar to the shortcut to Dodoma. We will do it in one or two days and then it should be smooth tarmac from there on – except for the few hundred kms sidetrack to the Ethiopian hewn rock Churches.

For sure we will have internet in Nairobi and maybe in Arusha too (except for the days and nights in the bush on safari).  Maybe not much contact again until Nairobi.

Malawi was a nice trip – 3 days on a boat is a little more than enough though. The Captain of the Ilawa is a very nice man; he was very helpful with loading and unloading our bikes and made sure we had a safe place to spend the rest of the night when we ended the trip at 10:30 pm. He’s an “old man of 60” (he told me) and has been running the boat for 33 years.
We spent the first night in Columba (sp) near the top of Lake Malawi after leaving the boat in a VERY modest African “guest house” – out house with a hole in the ground, outdoor shower in a box, cold water from a faucet in the back yard, a small windowless room with just enough room for a rope under the mattress bed and too thin mattress with a holey mosquito net. It wasn’t a great night’s sleep, but kinda fun. Cost about $3.

In Monkey Bay (southern end of Lake Malawi where we started the boat ride), Dom and Daryll and Angela decided they wouldn’t take the boat. So, we have finally split up – just me and Pat and Chris on our own again. We are moving much faster with just the three of us – generally get on the road by 7 at the latest and we are moving nicely even though no shortcuts. I hope they all make it, but I think they move too cautiously and too slowly in traffic to be safe. The biggest danger in my opinion comes from buses and other drivers overtaking you from behind. A couple of Australian guys on ATVs lost their mate I think in Tanzania from just such a situation – a guy passed the rear ATV and cut in behind the front ATV, pushing the guy in the middle off the road – dead! In any event, it won’t be that kind of thing that gets us – we love passing people.
We came through a Tanzanian National Park this morning about 6:30 to 7:30 and saw lots of animals – giraffes, elephants, zebra, and something with horns that looked kinda like big deer. No lions, but we were warned not to get out of our cars! People here about speak Swahili and English – mostly as a distant second language. Some guys at a stop today for a coke enjoyed my “Mafrican Safarini” on the jacket, but three times now, I’ve been asked if I speak Swahili or just talked to as though I probably do! Some other guys asked me if I was Muslim because of the greeting on the top of the jacket. Getting the embroidery was worth doing. We are staying in a motel owned by a Muslim guy – no beer for sale and they wouldn’t let the three of us share a room….

We will see where we actually go from Nairobi depending on how long it takes to get the Sudanese Visa. If that is only a day or two, then we will likely go over to Uganda and Rwanda before coming back to Nairobi and then heading north for Ethiopia. I’m hoping that Jaki has set up a meeting with his family in Kampala – I likely have something from him when I get to internet to send this.

I’m not going to go see the gorillas in Rwanda or Uganda or go climb Kilimanjaro – too much walking. My foot is still improving, but not back to normal yet. I think it will get there though. It doesn’t hurt much now to walk on it, but it is still sore and bruised and the big toe still doesn’t work quite right.

We’ve been well over a week without phone or internet contact and I doubt that access to internet will get much better until we get to Europe. We are now pretty much resigned to taking a ferry from Alexandria to Italy and coming home on schedule in early August – if it all works out smoothly from here on. But, maybe Libya will pull itself together and we can get to Europe with a little excitement at the end.

Current Reflections:

This trip is a once in a lifetime kind of thing. It is a bit difficult physically (more so when you’ve run over your own foot!), but eminently doable – so far. However, it is also a bit of a strain on the spirit in that there is soooo much poverty about and such a long long way for most of the people you see along the way to better themselves (no one else is going to do it for them), that is seems hopeless. I watch guys pushing their overloaded with bags of charcoal bicycles along the roads and think that it must be impossible for them to be thinking, “Next year and the year after that, I’ll have achieved enough success in this business that I will have more means and the prospects on the horizon will be improved.”

There are men of all ages pushing charcoal (or bags of maize or enormous loads of pieces of wood or containers of kerosene for cooking, or …) up long hills along long roads to nowhere. And, there are women carrying enormous loads of just about anything on their heads along the same roads while toting a baby on their backs. Too many children and idle young men sit beside the roads watching the trucks and buses –and very occasional motorbike – go by; they often wave and smile.
When we stop and talk to people – beginning to be more difficult as we get further north as English gets more and more limited – they are all friendly and curious and helpful – even the cops and soldiers at road blocks have been pleasant to a man/woman, so far.

But, I’m only half way up Africa and I’m tired.

We’re just getting into serious Muslim country with more and more Mosques and dress that demonstrate the unfolding change in the religious landscape from wholly Christian to mixed. Already, we had one motel owner refuse to let us all sleep in the same room – for religious reasons. It will get more interesting as we proceed north.

Update from Harare, Zimbabwe May 5, 2011

Sitting around the fire at Dan’s Mavunje Camp 12 kilometers down a dirt road from the tarmac to Botswana and 2 kilometers off that road down a sandy car track to the camp site. Dan is a very gracious Englishman who came for a holiday 4 years ago and decided to become a permanent resident of Namibia. He was a contractor in England and now he is building up a camp site on the side of the Mashi Marsh/River which eventually feeds into the Okavango River system. Dan’s camp is not fully set up yet, but it is wonderfully comfortable in a primitive sort of way and his Mashi River Safari boat tour was fantastic.

We wound around thru the hippo paths in the marsh. We saw lots of hippos. We didn’t see any crocodiles, but they were there! We also came upon a lone male elephant along the bank who appeared to be about 12 or 13 years old and was perhaps just evicted from the heard of females and young elephants by the dominate male. We were about 40 feet away from him and he didn’t really seem to mind our presence. You can see the dark “tears” down his check which come from a gland that indicates stress. All that was Dan’s thinking about this photogenic fellow.

There were hippos in the campsite during the night and maybe elephants that cross the marsh regularly to raid the farmer’s fields of corn or sorghum and then go back along a trail that combines swimming, walking in marsh water, and traversing lone small islands back into a park like reserve. There are also lions, cheetahs, and leopards and lots of game animals that they eat in the swampy region – we didn’t see any of those big cats, but I think I heard either a lepard or a cheetah or maybe a lion (all present in this area) sneaking around by my tent at night.

One of the interesting things I notices as we sat around the fire at night, was the Big Dipper upside down and very clear just above Dom’s head as we sat in a circle around our little fire. The stars and Milky Way in the human light deprived marshy area of the Mashi outback are incredibly bright and clear. Don’t miss it.

Next day thru the Caprivi Strip, a long thin arm sticking out from the main body of Namibia to the east and then down into Botswana and around up into Zimbabwe and Victoria Falls. There are lots of elephants in Zimbabwe. I was on the trail and there were signs.

At the Chobe Lodge Safari we finally found our first lions and more elephants and Springbok and Wart Hogs and lots of other animals. Great day in the sand.

We have now gone on to Bulawayo and Harare, the capital of Zimbabwe and the home of all the Embassies we need to get Visas from for continued travel up to Egypt – we hope.

Ethiopian Embassay this morning and the lady met us at the gate and taught us a little song mother's sing to thier children before eating, before the Secratary arrived and all went very smoothly. At three this afternonn, we will have our "impossible to get" Visas for Ethiopia in hand.

Zimbabwe is not alone in having a very negative reputation inside and outside of Africa. We were expecting a very poor country  when we crossed the border into Zimbabwe with shortages of food and fuel and really bad roads and a corrupt military and police trying to take advantage of us poor travelers at every check point. Instead, we found from our observations only, of course, that we are in the second most prosperous country (next to South Africa) since we arrived in Africa, there are as elsewhere we’ve been, police check points along the highways, but they are manned by courteous cops with accurate functioning radar guns, we have not been harassed for small bribes to let us pass (even on a couple of occasions when we were speeding a bit). The roads are pretty good (for Africa) with not many unfilled pot holes. Fuel is available regularly – and a bit expensive. Food is not a problem in the grocery stores or in the sometimes uppity city restaurants. Meat is always a bit tough, but very well prepared – good cooks in Zimbabwe. And, there are lots of people looking very middle class in their suits and nice cars. Even in the rural areas, we found that everyone seems to be well dressed in clean colorful clothes, the grass or otherwise constructed traditional round homes in compounds similar to the other places we’ve so far been in Africa seem a bit larger and for the most part more well maintained that in those parts of Mozambique, Namibia, and Botswana that we’ve ridden through so far. There are more bicycles on the roads in the rural areas that we’ve seen elsewhere. There are here as in other parts we’ve been to, donkey carts and lots of women especially carrying large loads of stuff on their heads as they walk along the roadways to …. But, without doubt, Zimbabwe seems more prosperous than at least some of its neighbors.

We have had a few conversations about the politics and political life here in Zimbabwe. The “President for life”, Mugabe, is nearing the end of his life and people expect him to die in the next few short years. The favored sentiment that I’ve picked up is that a few more years of political repression under Mugabe and a peaceful transition to a less oppressive political course after is much preferable to an internationally forced hurry up transition with factions being created by the contest for the next would be African dictator – perhaps splitting the Army and Police into opposing armed camps and the instability which it would  create throughout the economy. The nastiness of the “land reform” where all the White Zimbabwean farmers were disposed at the end of a gun – or killed, is from my few conversations with middle class Zimbabweans, admittedly a blot on the country’s history. As one of my conversant put it, “Redistributing the land – sharing the wealth of Zimbabwe more equitably between the Blacks and Whites – was an absolute necessity. But, it should have been done without the loss of life and under a regimen of an appropriate structured settlement.” It was many years ago now and there seems to be a split of opinion between “let sleeping dogs lie” and “let’s find a way to reconcile the actions of the past with a bright future for all Zimbabweans”.

The Chinese are here. Mining, building roads and such. Americans? Haven’t seen the evidence of our presence or of any big interests from “the West”.

More later.

Oh! The foot is getting better. Still hurts to walk, but today I did about 8 kilometers in the sun – still standing at the end of the day, but very red headed!

Update: Otjiwarongo, Namibia April 23, 2011

As you probably all heard the screaming and crying, I managed to find a puddle of oil on the curve around a turn signal in Cape Town, South Africa about 2 weeks ago. As will happen when the front wheel hits oil, I went down and sort of ran over my right foot, ankle, leg and banged the left one a bit as well. This was about a week after banging up the left leg on rocks going up Sani Pass into Lesotho, but that leg was well on its way back to “good to go”. For the new injury on tarmac, I got only a little road rash at the knee in spite of the fact that I was wearing shorts at the time instead of my “crash pants”.

I have been limping along and thinking “maybe it’s getting better”.

There is a small town on the coast of Namibia called Luderitz; a tar (short for tarmac) road covers the 300 km over to it from Keetmanshoop. It was in Luderitz, where the present gang of 6 all came together. Patrice and Christianne with whom I traveled in South America and Dom an Englishman traveling the world alone (sometimes) and I were joined by Daryll and Angie late from Ushuaia having ridden down from their home in Vancouver, BC, Canada.

Six days ago, in Luderitz, I finally decided to get a second opinion about the leg situation – from a doctor! He seemed to know what he was doing and concluded that I was about 5 days from dead! Major infection –septicemia in the right foot, in the road rash, and in a spot about the size of a Namibian $10 coin on the left leg. He would send me into hospital for 10 days of intensive care, or if I didn’t want to do that, I could try healing it myself and get to Windhoek – where the best hospital in Namibia is located, just in case my self treatment didn’t work out.

There has been lots of soaking in anti-septic, fancy ointment and bandages, wrapping the swollen leg tightly, and elevating the leg – all while getting myself to Windhoek – 800 kilometers away – just in case I was still dying. Note: today is day 6 and I’m still hanging on.

I am taking the maximum allowed dosage of penicillin, soaking the foot in antiseptic solution morning and night (bought a plastic cake holder that my foot almost fits into for that), putting some ointment on all the open sores and bandaging them twice daily – and whenever I can, putting my leg up as well as wrapping the leg to add pressure on the swollen parts.

It is about 500 miles - from Luderitz to Windhoek. I made it in 2 days, but not much chance to put the leg up yet except at night. I stayed there for 2 days, but decided yesterday that the foot looked a lot better and I was not dying. I rode about 300 km north toward the Etosha National Park where I hope we will all reunite for a two day, one night visit inside the park. I am now in a nice little hotel in Otjiwarongo, Namibia and I’ll stay here at least for one more night. I hope to see a doctor today for a little follow-up on the infection, get the oil changed on the bike (over 6000 km already), do some laundry, and figure out how to go about renting a 4 wd van that will hold the 6 of us for our visit to the park – motorcycles aren’t allowed in; too many riders were chased down and eaten. 

The foot has gone from hurting a lot to very bad and this morning seems clearly to be heading toward good again. It is still painful all the time and except for the swelling, the bruises, and redness, it almost looks normal – except for the big toe which was bent under the foot and tore some muscle and cartilage but didn’t break or come off.

So where did everyone else go?

Many days ago, on the way from Cape Town to Springbok, Pat lead us (inadvertently he says) over a tortuous roundabout scenic route that included 40 kilometers of dirt road with 4 inches of dust on top and sand in places – not a great ride with a lame foot. It was on that 40 kilometers that I decided I was going to stay on tarmac until the foot was healed.

My friends went off-road from Aus (part way back between Luderitz and Keetmanshoop) to see a castle built and abandoned back around 1914 and the famous dunes that everyone but me will have their pictures taken in front of or riding down the face of, and eventually on to Swakopmund on the northern coast of Namibia. I stayed on tar back to Keet… and on to Windhoek and here. We plan to meet wherever I arrange for a van. After that, on to Zambia and Crocodile Creek.

Namibia never had as much rain as it’s getting now. In the Caprivi Strip along the border between Angola and Botswana reaching east to Zimbabwe and Zambia, the government has evacuated 20,000 people because of flooding and they have also declared many places in Namibia “Malaria Zones” because of all the standing water which was never there before. We are all taking Malaria pills now. The ones I bought at home for $25 each cost about $1 each here!

It is very weird here to see blacks and whites (and coloreds! – everyone else) all living and working together and wandering about in the mall etc. , but at night, almost all of the “not white” people go to a location just out of sight (like over the hill) to either their old shanty towns or the new government build modern (very small and very modest) new towns. Luderitz has about 500 white citizens and 20,000 black citizens and at night, the town is nearly all white; everyone else went over the hill to “the location” – what everyone calls the former “Black Township” where all black people had to be at night before 1994. There is no official segregation anymore here or in South Africa, but with significant exceptions of increasingly wealthy Black and Colored citizens, the large majority of Africans live separately at night. Everyone counts it as progress.

Unemployment is 63% among those over 18 years old in Namibia; only 43% in South Africa! But, people are generally upbeat about the future with the major worry being widespread government corruption which was present under the old White regimes, but seems to be expanding and more blatant under the new Black regimes. Everyone here is friendly.

Oh, did I mention that in Luderitz, you can pick up diamonds in the back yard, on the street, or strolling down the beach? Just don’t let anyone see you doing it – if you don’t turn yourself in for the 40% of wholesale value reward, you are a felon and might spend the rest of your life in a Namibian prison. Don’t tell anyone, but I got a small stash in my pocket which I hope will more than pay for this trip when I get them to Amsterdam.

Here are some pictures of stuff I’ve seen so far along the way to my possible end here in Namibia. Lots of ostriches strutting their stuff in the desert usually in groups of about 20 to 30. So far, only a couple of Oryx by the railroad tracks to Luderitz; they are very big and don’t seem like the kind of animal that should live in a barren desert.

The view back toward Cape Town from one end of Robin Island where Nelson Mandela spend many years a prisoner working in the rock quarry.

Me in front of Mandela’s cell – something like 5’ by 7’ with bucket, table, and blanket – that’s all.

OK, one shot of the ugly foot.

If you get a magnifying glass, you can clearly see there are two Oryx just across the railroad track.

One group of Ostriches also just across the tracks. There were dozens of small groups like this in the most barren parts of the Namibian deserts. What do they eat? Diamonds?

The port in Luderitz. There is no fresh water in the ground, no lakes, anywhere near Luderitz. They used to bring water for the workers and townfolk in kegs from Cape Town by ship. Now they have a 150 mile long pipe from an underground aquifer that will run dry in a short time – decade?

Downtown Luderitz. It is an example of the German style of architecture that is rampant in the town and which tourist come to see – mostly German tourists.

More desert.

More desert. I couldn’t figure out what the fence was for – only rarely did I see a cow or horse….

More desert – long straight roads to more desert over the hill.

The Namibian desert is very big and vegetation varies from absolutely nothing to thick grasslands and even trees. Other than 100s of ostriches, I haven’t yet seen many wild animals.

Both the landscape and the number and kinds of wild animals should change next week when we all gather together again up north to go into Namibia’s Etosha National Park for 2 days of the real thing  - snakes and all.

Bye, just for now - I hope.

On to Cape Town

Pat putting some of the bits and pieces back together again. You can  see the scraped up bit on the front fairing and the missing mirror where I exited to the street. Look closely at the helmet where it scrapped along on the road -- hate to think what my face would look like if I weren't wearing it. I really should have put on my riding gear pants this morning! Sprained ankle and big toe on the right, the left is almost getting back to normal size after the fall on Sani Pass which put a bump on the left leg a few days ago.

All that adventure just riding back to our "home" in the suburb of Cape Town where I rode out to this morning to pick up my Carnet de Passage for the trip up the rest of Africa. I almost made it back home without incident -- then an oil slick on the curve around a turn signal. 5 cars stopped (rather than run over me) to help pick up me and the bike and put us right and on my way the last few kilometers to "home". I am sitting here with foot up, a couple of pain pills in me and feeling no pain - almost.

We have been Couchsurfing our way along and everyone of our hosts have been terrific. In Sedgefield (between Durban and Cape Town, we met up with my Irish friend John - who came to ride for a while with us - and his sister and brother-in-law Anettee and Kevin. They have now become couchsurfers too!

Our Couchsurfing hosts here in Cape Town are fantastic! We are only the second CSers to stay with them and after us they may well rethink their invitations. There have been 7 of us bikers to show up in the last 3 days, John from Ireland left when Dom from England arrived and just now Daryll and Angela from Canada arrived -- 6 of us will enjoy another South Africa Braai this evening courtesy of our hosts, Marlies and Chris. The house is 5,000 square feet and we have been attended to like as though we were royalty. Wonderful people, but we are getting used to the idea that perhaps all South Africans are exceptionally hospitable and friendly toward foriegners like us.

There are penguins in South Africa - at the bottom of Africa - which are native only to this place in the world. There is a colony at Robin Island and another at Simon's Town up the coast a bit. In traveling all along in rural parts of South Africa, there are traditional round homes with conical roofs. They differ in size and construction (some stone, some reed, etc.) but everywhere (except cities) and very attractive to the passing tourists.

One of the changes in South Africa steming from the onset of democracy 17 years ago is the promise of a house for all South Africans. The Black South African population had been restriced to shanty towns (must be in the "Township" from night to morning). These are being replaced by new very small and modest, but well constructed homes in (depending on the population to be served) very large blocks of up to 1,000,000 ???? homes. They look much better than the old shanty towns, but to me, they look like the getthoes of ten years hence.

The government is building the new towns at a hectic pace (I think the number I heard was 1,000,000 per year for the next 5 years.) The people without homes are being given these homes without charge. They are basic small shells of homes, and the new owners have to furnish and finish the homes themselves. It is a very large undertaking by the new united "rainbow" country.

If you come to South Africa there are many interesting places to see, but Cape Town is a must. It has a very interesting history and lots of museums and places of local color. Of course, the back drop of the city is Table Mountain and we have been lucky to get perfect weather every day we've been here. The cable car ride to the top of the mountain provides great views of the city and sea beyond. The waterfront has been refurbished and is a great place to shop, eat, ride a ferris wheel, look at yatchs, etc. There is also where you catch the boat to Robin Island, where Nelson Mandela and thousands of other political (as well as criminal) prisoners spent many unpleasant years. Now the guides for the tours are the former inmates of the political inmates. It is a must do 3 hours for anyone visiting South Africa.