One World 2 Explore

Home Coming Ontario

2011-08-08T16:42:00.001-07:00

Angela writes:

We first arrived in Canada in St. John’s Newfoundland where we got used to Canada’s funny, colourful money again and of course Tim Horton’s coffee.

We then arrived in Toronto, Ontario where my Dad and Step-Mom Doreen picked us up at the airport. It was so great to see them after a whole year. Next we went to visit my Mom and my Step-Dad Terry who had kindly looked after our dog Echo while we’ve been on our adventure. Echo is in great health and spirits and we can’t wait to take her home – once we get one! Thanks Mommy for looking after our “baby”.

I suspect our next and final post on our blog will be when our motorcycles arrive in Toronto which we are expecting to pick up in October 2011. As always, thanks for reading - we will miss reporting on our adventure to you. We’ll keep you updated on the condition of the bikes when they arrive. Stay tuned:)

Count Down to an End

2011-08-08T16:28:00.001-07:00

Daryll writes:
As each day passes, it gets that much closer to us returning to Canada. Over the last month, the reality has started to set in and we have both started to send our resumes out; so keeping our fingers crossed that we don’t have to wait long to pick up work. Our last city on our Europe leg was going to be a visit to London to see the sights and that’s exactly what we did.

Us with London Eye & Big Ben London Bridge

Changing of the guard at Buckingham Palace

Angela writes:
We were lucky to be in the city for the “One year to Go” celebration for the London 2012 Summer Olympics. The new countdown clock and London City Hall below. I was also very excited to see my friends who I used to work with at the Vancouver Olympics - Dave, Norm, Mike, Cam and Brie who now work for LOCOG.

If you’re not Dutch you’re not Much!

2011-07-30T13:14:00.001-07:00

Angela writes:

If our visit to France was about us being tourists, and our visit to Germany was about visiting friends, than Holland was all about enjoying the company of our dear family! Although no trip to The Netherlands could be complete without a quick trip to Amsterdam.

We arrived via train to Den Bosch where my dad’s cousin Maria and her husband Hans greeted us with open arms and the customary triple kisses on the cheek. I last saw Hans and Maria in Ontario during the summer of 2009 but it was as if no time had passed at all. I guess that’s a luxury of being with family. After stopping off at their beautifully renovated heritage home in Erp, and meeting their 7 month old puppy Yarah, we were whisked away to the Uden fair for food and laughs and more family. We met my dad’s other cousin Hariet and her daughter’s Louisa and Simone a few days later.

We tried oliebollen (a deep fried dutch donut covered in icing sugar) and dubblesaut dropes (double salted black licorice) and washed it all down with some lovely port. I even ran into another cousin Barry who was also at the fair who didn’t know that I was in the country yet. I’m glad we recognized each other after 19 years! I’d like to think we haven’t changed much. I met another cousin of my dad’s, Maria’s brother Martin and his girlfriend Herma. We have now nick-named him “Juke-box Marty” after I asked him if he had learned to speak English after singing English songs.

In between the showers of rain we took a field trip to Kinderdyke for a lovely walk among the windmills. We also received a personalized tour of the mill that Hans works at that produces pig and chicken feed. A very high tech process all managed by machine and computers.

Hans & Maria
It was with a heavy heart that we parted company with Hans and Maria with promises of seeing each other in Canada soon. Daryll and I were warmly welcomed into our second home with Willy and Jose who I had last seen in Ontario in the fall of 2008. They had arranged to have their sons and their families home for a joyous Sunday night dinner. We laughed, told stories and shared photos well into the evening.

Willy & Jose, and dogs Triksy and Torsca

Barry, Karin & baby Minke Roel, Lizet & baby Teun

Next time we visit Holland we will have to make sure it coincides with a performance from my cousin Roel’s Metallica tribute band “The Unforgiven” http://www.theunforgiven.nl/index.php who plays throughout Europe.
We had a wonderful visit over a couple days and tried more yummy new foods like raw herring and bitterballen as we strolled through the quaint little city of Oss.

Willy and Jose kindly drove us to the airport in Eindhoven for our flight to London. It was a tearful good bye with promises of seeing each other in Canada soon.

“The Hills are Alive….”

2011-07-30T11:29:00.001-07:00

Angela writes:

Our visit with Paul made Daryll’s BWM dreams come true and on our final weekend with him, Paul made my dreams of visiting Salzburg, Austria come true. Not only did I want to see the beautiful Alps but I wanted to wander the streets of the city where my favourite movie “The Sound of Music” was filmed. I suspected that there would be hordes of tourists trying to invoke Maria while strolling through the city, like I secretly was, but the presence of the famous musical was subtle and only the bike tours offered through the country side really focused specifically on the Sound of Music sites.

The Alps “Climb Ev’ry Mountain”

The fountain Maria and the von Trappe children danced around singing the “Do-Re-Mi” song.

The garden where Maria and Captin von Trapp dance face-to-face, Schloss Mirabell Gardens.

The roads through the alps were every motorcyclist’s dream come true and next time we are there we vowed to be on two wheels! Although riding in Paul’s luxurious BWM was a close second in great experiences.

BMW Welt

2011-07-14T05:15:00.001-07:00

Daryll writes:

We’ve spent the last few days with Paul and his lovely wife Kathy and they have been absolutely incredible with their hospitality – another one of our extended families. Even though just returning from a weekend trip to Berlin, Paul has made the time to show us around Munich and some of the smaller towns in the area to see the sights. Germany is such a beautiful country and each day as we travel around by car, I wish I had our bikes with us as the roads are amazing, especially the smaller country roads. No potholes insight and some nice twisties. Well next time! The country side is lush with trees and agriculture and there are quaint little villages as far as the eye can see. There is so much history in this country that a few weeks isn’t enough to see everything and we would have to come back. The people we have met are just so nice and if I could only speak the language, would definitely rank high on somewhere were I’d settle. Spanish was so much easier to pick up listening to other’s, but German is another story all together.

No trip to Munich is completed without a tour of the BMW Museum, BMW World and the BMW Munich plant. Paul used to work for BMW and arranged everything for us. I was like a kid leading up to Christmas for a few days prior to us visiting BMW World and boy was it impressive.

We started in the Museum and even though the motorcycle part of the museum was closed due to some flood damage a few days prior, it was impressive. From seeing the Art Car’s painted by world famous artists to some of the cars from yester-year to the Hydrogen Car, it was impressive.

Our next stop was a tour of part of the Munich Manufacturing Plant to see how the cars are built. It was incredible to see all those robots moving around in such close quarters and handing parts to other robots to perform the tasks that they are programmed to do. As you would expect, no photography was permitted. As we walked through each of the different stages in the manufacturing process, I didn’t imagine the scale of production and the output of such plants. Even Angela enjoyed the 2 hour tour. It’s something that I won’t forget – thanks Paul! We were also fortunate to meet Paul’s and Kathy’s children (Claudia & Tobias) for dinner. Tobias has in my opinion the best job in the world – he is an engineer and developer for the motorcycle division with BMW. Part of his job is to test out the parts that he has designed and every so often will get new bikes to ride. He is leaving on a 3 week trip to the UK in about a weeks time on a 1200RT – tough life. I hope that some day the entire family travels to Canada so that we can show them part of our country.

An Extended Family in Germany

2011-07-14T02:25:00.001-07:00

Daryll writes:

I think I may have brought this up previously, but motorcycle travelers that meet on the road share a bond that is indescribable and exceptionally hard to explain. I think it is due mainly because only they understand the difficulties, the challenges, the hardships that one endures by being on the road for an extended period of time. It is this bond that brings fellow travelers together and regardless of how much time you may have spent with them, they become automatic family. It is this family that spurred our travel to Germany.

We left Paris on an overnight train to Berlin. We thought we were wise to choose the seat option cabin, but maybe we should have gone with the sleeper cabin as it wasn’t very comfortable sleeping sitting upright in a 6 seat cabin with 5 other people. There was one guy who tried to sleep and slipped completely off his seat. He later left and decided to lay down in the bicycle storage compartment. I’m sure he had a better sleep than us.
We were going to visit our friend Wolfgang in Potsdam, a town on the outskirts of Berlin. We had met him on our last day in Buenos Aires. He had arrived the night before to the hostel we were at so only spent the morning chatting about our different experiences and swapped contact details. Wolfgang was kind enough to meet us at the Berlin Hbf. train station as it would have been a confusing few hours for us to figure out the trains and subways to get to his place in Potsdam which used to be in East Germany till the unification. He works as a chef and worked a night shift the night before and hadn’t slept and had to wait an hour for us as our train was delayed and he even took the next 2 days off so that we could spend together. What an amazing guy.

The afternoon that we arrived, Wolfgang picked up his bike (a Honda Transalp) after having some work done on it in preparation for his next trip. He is hoping to leave in October to ride to India – what a lucky guy. He has his panniers already packed and gear ready to take off. It made us extremely envious as we don’t have our bikes with us anymore. Wolfgang explained the transport system to us and we managed to pick up a tourist map of the city and set out the next day to see the sights of Berlin.

Our first stop was the Reichstag, which now houses the German Parliament followed by the iconic symbol of East and West Germany, the Brandenburg Gate. Thousands of East Germans flocked over to the West in November 1989 when the Berlin Wall started to come down.

After visiting the National Holocaust Museum in the centre of Berlin which was a sombering experience to say the least. That afternoon, we took another train towards the East Side Gallery – a stretch of the former Berlin Wall where artists were given a section to express themselves.

That evening Wolfgang invited some friends over together with is son and prepared a lovely meal for all of us and we spent the evening going through his photos of his South America trip with lots of German beer. Seeing his photos brought back a lot of good memories.

From Potsdam, we booked a train to take us to Erfurt (in the country) to visit another friend of ours Lutz who spent a few weeks with us in Vancouver before heading south as well. We had last seen Lutz in Ensenada, Mexico for a day and had always known that we would visit him wherever he was in Germany. It was by pure coincidence that the weekend we had arranged to spend with him was also his birthday and he had some of his friends from his home town visiting to celebrate as well. So it was a filled house with lots of German/English translating going on together with German beer while we watched the women's world cup game between Germany & Japan. Germany unfortunately didn’t make it through to the semi’s. No riots in Germany though!

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While somewhat planning what we wanted to do in Germany and the family we wanted to visit, we had arranged with another biker friend of our’s Paul who we had first met in Quito, Ecuador to pick us up from Erfurt so that we could spend a few days with him and his wife Kathy in Munich. It was our first experience on the autobahn and cruising at a comfortable 160 km/hr didn’t seem that fast after all.

More Germany photos added to my facebook page.

J’adore Paris!!

2011-07-04T09:00:00.001-07:00

Angela writes:

As we flew to France via Dubai on Wednesday and looked out the window at the harsh desert terrain below us, we were thankful not to be riding our motorcycles in the unforgiving heat. Arriving in Paris we were welcomed by lush green fields and sweet smelling summer breezes as we walked off the airplane – can’t believe it didn’t get dark until 11 pm – j’adore summer! J’adore Pareeee!!!!

We have spent the last five days walking the streets of Paris, strolling along the Seine River, crossing over ancient bridges, visiting churches, palaces and entertainment districts while drinking in all the history and architecture of this incredible city. We have dodged Romanian pickpockets, have navigated miles and miles of underground subway and have gorged ourselves on baguettes and fine wine!

We visited the Eiffel Tower both day and night, but decided not to go up it as the line ups were several hours long. I did stand in line for an hour waiting for the Louve Museum to open and then I immediately made my way to the salon where the infamous Mona Lisa was on display. I was one of five people standing in front of her two minutes after the museum opened it’s doors and I had the liberty to see her from each angle, as her smirking eyes followed me in all directions right – center – left – center, up and down.

On Sunday we made our way to the Pere Lachaise Cemetery where a security guard handed us a map of all the famous grave sites. We started by visiting Oscar Wilde whose tomb was decorated in thousands of lip-sticked kiss prints from his fans.

We then made our way to the grave site of Jim Morrison, lead singer of the Doors where we discovered that it was the 40th anniversary to the day of his death! We squeezed our way through the crowd to the front of the barracked headstone where there were flowers, cards and lit candles on his grave. A group of guys were wearing black memorial t-shirts and most people stood there smoking an honourary cigarette. There were some police officers present trying to get people from sitting or standing on the graves surrounding Jim Morrison but for the most part it seemed to be a peaceful and sharing atmosphere.

Final Week in Africa

2011-06-28T05:56:00.001-07:00

Angela writes:

Upon returning to our “home” campsite at Jungle Junction (JJ’s) in Nairobi, Kenya we were welcomed back with open arms from our “old” riding friends Claudio (http://transafricabiketrip.blogspot.com/) and David (http://africabybike596.blogspot.com/), the South Africans who we had met up with in Dar and again in Arusha. We did miss having Dom around but were comforted by seeing his motorcycle that hadn’t left yet. It was nice to return to a familiar place and see some familiar faces. Jungle Junction is really a motorcycle utopia where 50 or more overland travelers come and go every week, exchanging route tips, motorcycle details and visa information. There are so many interesting conversations to join in on and so many different people to meet, from all over the world, who have amazing stories and adventures to share. Chris Handschuh, who runs JJ’s, is always friendly, hospitable and a wealth of information. He’s part mechanic, part philosopher, and part comedian, with the heart of an adventurer, he consistently has enough time and energy for all his needy guests. This week Chris helped us organize the crating of our motorcycles so that they can start their long journey back to Canada. From Nairobi they are going to get trucked to Mombasa, Kenya on the Indian Ocean then they will be loaded into a container, onto a ship, where they will sail to Toronto.

As I mentioned above, Jungle Junction is meeting place for overland travelers from all over the world. It is here that we had the fortunate coincidence of meeting up with Margaret (www.ridingtoextremes.com/index.htm), an accomplished Iron Butt Rally Rider who’s also featured on the Horizon Unlimited Achievable Dream DVD series. I met Margaret once before at a BC Horizons meeting back in 2008, three months after I started riding a motorcycle. She had just completed the “48 Plus” riding her motorcycle to all 48 lower US States, plus Canada and Hyder, Alaska in under 10 days! I was so inspired to meet such a determined and successful female rider when I was just starting out and I think it is amazing to have run into her again at the end of this motorcycle adventure and to again be inspired. She is picking up her motorcycle at the airport today and will soon begin her solo journey to South Africa. It is such a small world, and it just keeps getting smaller.

For Daryll’s 40th birthday Margaret joined us for steak lunch at a local Mediterranean restaurant. I was going to have the 20 or so odd staff members sing Daryll Happy Birthday during dessert like they did for another birthday boy (4 years old), but by then we were absolutely stuffed. As we finished off our drinks, we started to hear the sky rumbling with thunder. We suspected that we would have at least another hour before it started raining so we started our 15 minute walk back to Jungle Junction. Well we were wrong, and half way through our walk the sky opened up on us big time! The dirt track we were following turned into slippery mud, and cars drove by us splashing us with huge puddles. We were drenched. At the top of one steep hill we decided to take cover with some locals in a car wash and it also gave me the opportunity to check on the laptop I was carrying under my jacket. While in the car wash it started hailing – I guess this is pretty normal weather for being almost at the equator. Then the carwash guy says that he wants to recycle the water in his car wash apparatus which means that the shower jets started squirting water and the big blue spiny brushes started going round and round. It was kind of like being in a carwash nightmare without the protection of a car around us, but we laughed, moved off to the side and waited for a brake in the rain. When we finally got back to Jungle Junction we realized that the yard was starting to flood and our tent was slowly getting filled with water. We hurriedly moved clothes, gear, sleeping bags and mats inside and rented the last room in the hostel. It was a good thing that our flight to Paris was booked for Tuesday, 2 days later, as this is how long it’s taken for our tent to dry out – a VERY good thing since our tent is now inside our bike crate sailing to Canada for the next two months!

Tonight we are on our way to Paris, France via Dubai where we’ve already booked our luxury (well for us 2 star is luxury!) hotel rooms. C’est la vie!

Start of a New Adventure

2011-06-24T01:13:00.001-07:00

Daryll writes:

When we left home 10 months ago, Plan A was to travel up North Africa, cross from Egypt to Libya, then on to Tunisia and take a ferry across to Europe. Well that plan went south when Gaddafi decided to go into hiding and resist western forces. Plan B went into action and we luckily had our Carnet’s amended before leaving Canada to include Syria. Our intention was to take a ferry from Egypt to Jordan, then on to Syria, Turkey and into Europe. That proposed route plan didn’t last long before Syria erupted with civil protests and riots and now full scale unrest and all foreign vehicles weren’t being let into the country. Luckily, we had already thought of Plan C, which was to take a ferry from Alexandria, Egypt to Venice, Italy. Seemed easy enough till mid May when the ferry company that runs this ferry decided to cancel this sailing as it apparently did a loop via Syria and considered it unsafe to sail. There was a Plan D which most of the overlanders that we had met were taking - a ferry from Egypt to Jordan, then on to Israel and another ferry to Greece. This was now the only way out without having to fly both the bikes and ourselves out of Egypt.

While waiting in Uganda to get our gorilla permits, we did some soul searching and decided that we needed a break or needed a holiday from the holiday. It is pointless continuing when you are doing it for the sake of it and not enjoying every minute of the day. A change is needed. This is a common phenomena and most travelers go home for a few months before returning and continuing their trip. However most overland travelers that we have met so far are of the retired kind and have that flexibility with their time. We still need to think about our careers and settling down again. So instead of leaving our bikes here for a while till we take a break, we have decided to end our motorcycle trip here, 10 months after we left Vancouver and 44,473 km later and ship our bikes from Nairobi, Kenya back to Canada, Ontario to be specific. Yup, that is another entirely different blog post. Though our bikes are going back to Canada, we haven’t finished off our travel plans. We have booked our flights to Paris on Tues. June 29th before meeting friends in Germany, visiting Angela’s family in the Netherlands and making our way to the UK.

In speaking with a few of the travelers here at Jungle Junction, the place we are staying at in Nairobi, they had asked if it was a tough decision to make and to the contrary, we both were on the same page and are super excited to be off the bikes for a while. I’m sure that once we are in Europe, we would long to be riding our bikes again, but for now, it feels good to be starting a whole new adventure sans bikes and being able to backpack for a few months. We have enjoyed every minute of every day so far and don’t want to taint the rest of that motorcycle trip by being unhappy and forcing ourselves to continue. We will still continue to blog about our travels, so hope you will still follow along.

Angela writes:

Along with the issue of “How do we cross into Europe?” I’d like to note some of the other challenges that riding from Nairobi, Kenya to Egypt presents. To start with travelling through Northern Kenya leaves one to the mercy of armed bandits. Three weeks ago we learned about a couple that was travelling in their Landrover towards Ethiopia where an attempted robbery ended up with the guy being shot in the jaw. Their vehicle is currently sitting here at our Jungle Junction Hostel/Campground. I’m not saying that this would necessary happen to us but the stress of this possibility would weigh heavy on us as we struggled to eat up the kilometers on our motorcycles. Especially while we would be attempting to cross the Dida Galgalu Desert where the road is apparently an endless washboard of dirt and lava fields that shatters your body and vehicle for hour upon scorching hour. Not somewhere that I would want to outwit or outrun poverty stricken, armed and frustrated people. Secondly, travelling north would have had us crossing the country of Sudan which on July 9, 2011 is scheduled to break into two countries – South Sudan and the Sudan – due to a referendum. Although newspapers report that the split is meant to be a “peaceful” event we would have found ourselves right in the middle of the country on split day. I hope this division does go as peacefully as planned as the people in the Sudan are supposed to be absolutely lovely. The third challenge that personally made me ill was the fact that we would be crossing the Sudan and Egypt in the middle of summer, July/August where the temperatures are generally 50 degrees Celsius. As we discovered while riding though Baja, Mexico I do not do well in this kind of heat as my body and brain completely shuts down. This journey for me, at this time of year, would not be enjoyable in the slightest. Along with the other challenges of travelling in Muslim countries during Ramadan (starting Aug 1 this year), dealing with rock throwing children in Ethiopia, and organizing ferries that only sail weekly in the Sudan and Egypt there just didn’t seem much time for the wonderful part of our adventure – safely riding our motorcycles across the world.

I am painfully going to miss hoping up on my bike every morning, in the comfort of my familiar riding gear and having the freedom to ride down any continuous road of our choosing. I am however looking very much forward to seeing family and friends in Europe and getting to explore a whole new area of the world – in a whole new way!

Ride Back to Kenya

2011-06-23T07:01:00.001-07:00

Angela writes:
After leaving Rwanda we spent about 4 days getting back to Nairobi, Kenya. As Daryll explained in his earlier posts the pavement on the roads was dangerously grooved which made for some tough passing, brutal speed bumps and slippery surfaces. The drivers in Uganda and parts of Kenya were also horrendous so even though the roads on the way back were familiar to us, we always had to pay very close attention and stay alert to all traffic. The worst part was the transport trucks coming towards us that decided to pass someone while using our lane. I think they assumed that we could just hit the shoulder and get out of their way, like all other smaller bikes in the country seem to do regardless of the amount of people/animals/vendors using the shoulder at the time. The trucks just didn’t seem to realize that we were also traveling at 100 km/hr towards them and that we were fully loaded motorcycles. Sometimes we could slow down enough to let them complete their asinine passing and then shake our fists and swear at them to show our frustration. Then there were times however that the passing was so close that all we could do was focus on getting out of danger – priority number one. At one point Daryll stopped dead in the middle of the highway while a semi-truck was coming towards him to show the driver that we were not moving from our lane and that he would have to maneuver back into his to get by us. The truck was traveling uphill at about 20 km/hr at the time so the speeds weren’t too dramatic but it was really funny because the truck driver was so mad and we were all yelling, gesturing and swearing and all the other truck drivers in their proper lanes surrounding him were laughing and supporting us. Oh good times!

Another annoyance that happened on the way back through Uganda was being stopped by some army guys in the middle of a desolate marsh. As Daryll and I approached a “Police Blockade” sign standing in the middle of the road, we didn’t think too much of it as these stops are quite common. The only difference with this one was that these guys at the side of the road were dressed in army fatigues and one was actually curled up on the ground napping. The situation just seemed unusual and unprofessional. They did not carry radios or clipboards or even seem to have their own transportation out of the area. Anyway Daryll stopped and talked to an army guy and I talked to a different army guy and neither of us turned off the engine on the bikes. With a big toothy grin my guy says “Are you a journalist?” I said “No, no, heavens no, I’m a tourist”. He says “And what did you bring for me from your country?” At that moment Daryll had finished a similar conversation with his guy and started taking off which allowed me to get off by answering “oh, my husband is leaving. I’d better go” rather than have to search for some token to give him. I then took off behind Daryll without issue. I do think their “road block” was an abuse of power though to solicite “gifts” and it was just sad to see army guys reduced to this.

On the border of Uganda and Kenya I did have a nice conversation with a young 22 year old guy named Mabonga. He was actually a fixer, who I normally just ignore, but he was super nice and he told me about how he was working to save money to go to college to become an Agricultural Project Manager. He taught me about the different crops in Uganda (beans, potatoes, cassavas), the growing seasons and about the education system. He explained to me that sometimes he has access to the internet when he is at his friend’s house and when his friend can afford to pay the bill. Then he tried to convince me that Daryll and I should move to Uganda and open a school to teach computers because there are so many people willing to learn in Uganda and that labor in the country is very cheap – he was quite ambitious. When I said to him that I wanted to live in Canada because I would miss my Mom otherwise, he said that I was old enough to be away from my Mom. I laughed and said to him “but I like my Mom” and he said “Well you should just have her as a friend on Facebook!” I laughed so hard!

A Hotel in Rwanda

2011-06-23T06:56:00.001-07:00

Angela writes:
As we entered Rwanda we got a whole different vibe from the country compared to any of the East African countries we’ve visited so far. After a thorough check of our luggage from the border patrol, we needed to go to Immigration and Customs. Lately our experience at borders involves pulling over onto any garbage-filled dirt patch that would allow our bikes to balance on their side stands. We were very impressed that in Rwanda they actually provided flat, paved parking spots, delineated with painted lines!   As we approached the window we noticed that it was the cleanest, most organized Immigration office that we have seen in Africa and that the office even had computers! All papers are stacked neatly and nothing was littering the floor! Prior to arriving at the border, we had applied for our Rwandan visas online and had received our permission response within hours. At the window we presented our permission print out, paid our $60 each and had our visas and passports back within 15 minutes – good thing too as a bus load of people arrived just after us and had to line up for their passport processing. I did observe however, how straight and lovely the lineup of people was to get into Rwanda without pushing or people standing more than 2 abreast. It was a wonderfully organized sight. As was the money exchange counters set up at the Rwandan border. Normally there are groups of loud-mouth touts waving fists full of money at us. This border experience was just so pleasantly timely and civilized!

Immediately after crossing the border Daryll and I had to start getting used to driving on the right side of the road again. It was a bit of a trip but the habits came back very easily. As we passed the lush, green, hilly tea fields beside us, we observed the signs that read “Welcome and drink Rwanda tea!” There were also numerous signs reminding readers that “Corruption is wrong. Only you can stop it”. As we passed through the villages along the way to the capital city of Kigali, many people young and old, gave us hearty waves and thumbs up.

Upon our arrival in Kigali Daryll’s trusty GPS lead us to the hotel we were looking for and he went in to give it a look. As I was waiting with the bikes parked on the side of the street, a curious but polite mob of onlookers gathered around me pointing at the bikes and talking only to each other. They seemed shy and I suspected that their English might not be great as nobody was talking to me directly. I quietly asked a guy beside me if he spoke English and he said “a little”, confirmed they were speaking Swahili to each other, and then he also told me he also spoke French. After that he and I communicated in broken French and English. A boy selling laminated maps came up to me and tried to interest me in a map of Rwanda. When I told him I already had a map and pointed to the map outlining our trip on the side of my pannier, he pulled out his detailed map of the world and the crowd urged me name and show them on the map exactly each country we had visited. I explained that it was 25,000 km from Vancouver to the bottom of Argentina. When one guy didn’t believe me that we had rode our bikes that far, I brought him over to the odometer to show him the 62,000 km on it. Eventually Daryll returned with a thumbs-up for the hotel and we continued to engage the mob that now started blocking the street as they parked their motorcycles beside us, in the middle of the road. This brought some angry honking from a Mercedes driver and finally the attention of some army guys in the back of a truck. We realized it was now time to move it along.

Since South America most of our traveling nights have been spent sleeping in our tent. Upon arriving in Kigali we did check out one campsite but it wasn’t very nice so we have opted for staying a couple of nights in hotel (sigh of relief). Our room cost $50 a night and let me tell you folks it’s just the basics but to me, it’s so much lovely luxury! It has running water, hot water, a flushing toilet, electricity that works (so far), a mosquito net, a wastebasket, a chair and table, a mirror, a bright window that actually opens, toilet paper AND soap, a locking door, pillows, a soft, clean mattress and a complimentary buffet breakfast. I will never take these luxuries for granted again!

The Kigali Memorial Centre

The next day we decided to go and visit The Kigali Memorial Centre. It had been built to commemorate genocide around the world and to explain the 100 days of genocide that had occurred in Rwanda in 1994 where 800,000 people were systematically massacred. The exhibits explained the history and conflicts behind the slaughter, showed the atrocities performed on the victims and told heroic stories of civilians who risked their lives hiding the persecuted. One statistic suggested that if the amount of money spent on evacuating diplomats from Rwanda during the genocide had been redirected into preventing the genocide, the mass killings would never have occurred. There were displays of crude weapons and hundreds of crushed human skulls. Our Lonely Planet told us that the amount of dead and decaying bodies in the streets of Kigali was so great that dogs had to be killed en masse as they had developed the taste for human flesh. After we were finished the displays inside the Memorial Centre we were invited to walk the gardens outside the centre where more than 250,000 victims of the genocide had been laid to rest.

As we walked outside we noticed a group of about 100 or so local college students carrying huge baskets of flowers who had come to pay their respects. In my head I calculated that their ages at the time of the genocide would have been about 4 or 5 years old. Not too young to have been effected or to have lost someone close to them. We let the students go into the garden by themselves to give them some privacy and waited until they came out before we tourists decided to go in. Some of the girls leaving the graves were crying so hard they had to be supported by people walking on either side them and one girl in particular haunts me with her crying because she couldn’t catch her breath. The visual sorrow of these kids was just too much for me to bear and my tears turned on like a tap. By the time our morning tour of the The Kigali Memorial Centre was over, Daryll and I were both physically and emotionally exhausted. That day we had planned on visiting 2 other genocide memorials in churches about 30 km outside the city (as seen in Long Way Down by Ewan and Charlie) but we were simply spent. After returning to our hotel and having a good rest, we did decide to go for a walk around the city and went to see the hotel featured in the movie “Hotel Rwanda”. The real name of the hotel in Kigali is called “Hotel des Mille Collines” located on top of one of the beautiful rolling hills of the city, surrounded by lovely gardens. It was very peaceful to see.

Tracking the Mountain Gorillas of Uganda

2011-06-20T10:46:00.001-07:00

Daryll writes:

On our ride into the Overland Camp on Lake Buyoni which is also Uganda’s deepest lake at 6,200m, we met a German rider (Rita) on a Transalp. She had visited the gorillas the day before and had warned us against taking our bikes as it had taken her 5 hours to do just 100km, over and above the fact that it rained heavily in the area the night before and the roads would be all churned up by now. Together with our permits, we also arranged for a driver to take us to the starting point of the hike and once we were on the road, we were glad that we paid the extra. We were in a little 4 wheel drive Toyota and Able the driver was very good in controlling the vehicle from sliding over the edge of the steep cliffs as we headed towards Bwindi National Park.

There are around 700 Mountain Gorillas in the wild and 345 of them live in the Bwindi Impenetrable Forest in Uganda. The other half live in Rwanda and roam between the borders of Rwanda and the DRC. Due to poaching and encroachment of their habitat, they are slowly disappearing. We were up at 4am, had our staple breakfast of oatmeal (which is getting old now) followed by coffee and were on the road by 5am. We finally got to the briefing point at 7:30am and had to wait around so that we could pay and get our trek briefing from the guides. Only 8 people are allowed to see a particular group/family per day and you are only allowed an hour with them. The family that we were allocated to was the Mashia Group, so we set off to find them with a guide in the front and a ranger with a loaded AK-47 picking up the rear. Charley the Ranger was a friendly guy and had advised us that he was there to protect us against the wild mountain elephants as well as from the gorillas if they attacked. He was only allowed to fire warning shots in the air though in case of an attack and could only fire open an animal if the animal had a human in their clasp. Interesting information.

Prior to us setting off with our guide, 2 trackers set off 2 hours earlier to find the specific group and radio their location in to the guide. At the briefing, we were warned that we could find the gorillas within an hour of hiking or it could take up to 8 or 9 hours before they were found. As we climbed the hills leaving the little village of where we had started behind, I silently hoped that we would stumble upon them within a few minutes of entering the forest. It’s not called the Impenetrable Forest for no reason. As we followed our guide, we entered a thick mass of jungle. I couldn’t see beyond the person in front of me. The guide cut a path using his machete as we moved forward. We stopped for a few breaks, but they were kept short as the guide had heard from his trackers and the family was close, so he wanted to push on. Once we got to the trackers, all radio’s were turned off and you could only hear the machete cutting down the branches to make a path for the 8 enthusiastic tourists. As we got closer, you could hear the chomping sound of a gorilla feeding and as the branches in front of us were cleared, the mighty male silverback came into view. It was incredible seeing him in his natural habitat. He knew that we were there as he turned around suspiciously a few times. This particular silverback was in a fight with another male and hence the scars and bruised on his face. After a few more tears of the foliage around him, he was on the move again and we started to follow and find the rest of his family. A mother feeding on the ground and her baby high up in the tree. Normally a male will eat up to 30kg of foliage a day before resting. We followed the group deeper into the forest and it made it difficult to maintain a proper foothold as the undergrowth was wet and mushy. The trees around us were thorny and at times, I was forced to hang up to the prickly branches just to stay upright. Suffice to say, I have several bruises on my hands. This is as close we we could get with an unobstructed view.

We watched the family for our allocated 60 minutes and then it was time to say goodbye and head back down the mountain. I was so looking forward to seeing the gorillas as I hadn’t come this way on my previous trip to East Africa and this was going to be the highlight for me. It didn’t disappoint and despite the huge expense of the permits, it was an absolutely amazing experience. I would do it again in a heartbeat. Probably this time, get the permits in advance as compared to just turning up.

Nairobi

2011-06-20T10:20:00.001-07:00

Daryll writes:

The traffic entering Nairobi was horrendous. We arrived on a Saturday afternoon thinking that there won’t be as much traffic as compared to a weekday, but we were wrong. There was mini-bus taxis trying to cut us off, motorcycle taxis trying to squeeze into every gap possible and will pass us on the right when we were trying to turn right. The dust in the city was unbearable. I had my visor open so that I could get some air flow on my face as we crawled along in traffic, but instead of getting some cool air, all I got was a mouthful of dust. Several of the roads were under construction and the detours were actually a dusty gravel side road. Thank god for the GPS and it pointed us in the right direction to Jungle Junction, a must stopover for all overlanders.

Chris the owner used to be a troubleshooting mechanic for BMW Motorcycles and lived in Nairobi before deciding to go on his own and open a hostel/camping/workshop of his own in one of the nicer suburbs of the city. He also stores vehicles for travelers that have returned home before continuing their trip. The yard was filled with some very expensive toys.

We also met up with Tom, Pat & Chris who had arrived a few days earlier and were having Chris look at a few items on their bikes. Our time in Nairobi was purely business as well. We needed to get our visa for the Sudan before we could move on. Dom on the other hand was making arrangements to have his bike flown home as Nairobi was the end of his trip.

Even though Nairobi has a bad reputation and has been nick-named “Night-Robbery”, there is a lot of money in this city. We walked to the nearby mall and it seemed as if we were back home complete with a Walmart owned chain supermarket and a food court. There are also a lot of expats that live here and you know when labor is cheap when you see all the expats being driven around.

After saying a sad farewell to Dom the night before, we set off early in the morning to try and avoid the traffic congestion to get out of the city. It wasn’t that bad after all, but our early start hadn’t been a good idea after all. As we climbed out of Nairobi, we road into a cloud of thick fog. My visor was misting up badly and I was forced to open it, but I could only have it open for a minute before I had to close it again because the cold air against my eyes caused them to tear. I couldn’t see after all. As the sun burnt the fog off, the road heading west was one of the worst paved roads so far. Combined with the heat and the heavy trucks that use this route, the road had formed troughs in each lane the size of car tires. These troughs were fine when we had an open road in front of us as we could just sit in them and ride along comfortably. It got tricky though when we came up on an 18 wheeler semi or a slower moving vehicle and needed to pass. We had to slow the bike down, so much so that our passing vehicle got further away from us, then gently ride out of the trough, speed up to pass the vehicle and then immediately brake to slow down again so that we could gently go back into the trough. Very tricky around corners.

As soon as we crossed into Uganda, we left the southern hemisphere and crossed into the northern hemisphere, but that did last long as we crossed back into the southern hemisphere the very next day. The last time we had crossed the Equator was back in Ecuador.

We skipped Kampala as we heard that the traffic here was worse than Nairobi. We were able to find a ring road that by-passed Kampala completely and were quiet happy with the few extra kilometers that it took us. I couldn’t bear sitting in congestion, breathing in buckets of dust in this heat. Yes, it was getting warm again. The main reason to come to Uganda was to see the mountain gorillas and as we hadn’t pre-arranged permits, we made our way to another well known overlander stopover – Lake Buyoni Overland Camp to see if someone could help us get some permits. We asked around the campsite and were in luck when the reception guy found 2 permits for a days time. We were off to see the Mountain Gorillas of Uganda.

The Ngorongoro Crater

2011-06-03T02:48:00.001-07:00

Daryll writes:

The Ngorongoro Crater was formed 4,5 million years ago when the volcano erupted and then caved in on it’s self. It’s called the Ngorongoro Crater Conservation Area as the Masai are the only tribe that are allowed to live on the rim of the crater raising their domestic animals in close proximity to the deadliest predators. All the endangered animals in the crater are also closely monitored and the rhino in particular are counted daily. There are only 21 rhino in the crater; 40 lions; 8 cheetah; 40 elephants together with several wildebeest, zebra, hyena, jackal, fox, water buffalo, hippo; springbok and other game.
We camped on the rim of the crater the night before and at 2300m, it was a cold evening and morning. Day 4 started with us descending into the crater and I will leave you with a photo summary of the day.

We did the tour with Tropical Safari’s and they were excellent. The cook and driver/guide were great ensuring that all our needs were met and that we were always happy. I highly recommend them. In total, between the Serengeti and the Ngorongoro Crater, we saw 31 lions, which included 6 male lions; 6 cheetah; 2 leopards and 1 rhino together with elephant and water buffalo (all of the big 5). If you ever want to go on safari, these 2 parks are the place to be. We had an incredible 4 days of game drives and I would do it again in a heart beat. It was a magical experience.

The Serengeti

2011-06-03T02:44:00.001-07:00

Daryll writes:

The campground (Masai Camp) that we stayed at had a tour office on site, so we enquired to get an idea of pricing. We were going to shop around, but quickly found out that there weren’t many tourists around enabling us to join a group. As we spoke to the sales lady, she had suggested that we may have to wait a few days in Arusha before more individual tourists showed up so that we could form our own group. As we were leaving the tour office, a Dutch couple had just arrived and were asking the same questions we had, so kept my fingers crossed that we could work something out. An hour later, as we were getting ready for dinner, the Dutch couple (Ivon & Martijn) had approached us and asked us whether we were looking for a safari and wondered if we could all go together. It was going to be a considerable saving for the 4 of us to join up as compared to all of us going it alone. We settled on a 4 day tour and managed to get a bit of a discount and once we told Dom what we were doing, he finally relented and decided to join us as well.

Serengeti means “Endless Views” in Swahili and at 14, 751 sq/km the views do go on forever. It’s not the largest park in Africa, but National Geographic and other wildlife shows have made it hugely popular for the variety of wildlife that survive here and the annual wildebeest migration.

Day 1 was primarily a driving day. We left Arusha at 7am and passed several Masai communities along the way. The Masai are nomadic people and still lead a subsistence lifestyle. We entered the park mid-afternoon for at least 2hr’s worth of game viewing and it was an amazing 2 hours of that. Within a short space of time, we spotted our first lion laying under a tree and soon thereafter, a pair of lions sitting high up in a tree. Along the way, we saw the usual of giraffe, zebra, springbok, dik-dik, topi, warthog and a few wildebeest. After a while, seeing giraffe, zebra or wildebeest aren’t that exciting anymore and the focus is trying to find the cats (lion, cheetah & leopard).

Our driver/guide wanted to get us to our campsite before dark so that we could put up our tents while it was still light but we couldn’t resist spending some time at the base of the tree where we had spotted 2 leopards perched high up. The light wasn’t the best due to our positioning, but a leopard sighting is a leopard sighting and the pic below was taken just before he made a leap to another branch.

At dinner, Martin (our driver/guide) offered us an option of going and seeing the wildebeest migration; however warned us that it would take up most of the day to drive to the western corridor of the Serengeti to see the wildebeest as they leave Tanzania and migrate towards Kenya in search of greener pastures and water. It was a unanimous yes to watch the wildebeest migration. A once in a lifetime opportunity.

2,5 million wildebeest make the annual migration from the Serengeti (Tanzania) to the Masai Mara (Kenya). Zebra also make this annual migration together with the wildebeest, but not in the same numbers. As our guide maneuvered the landcruiser through the several herds that all join and form a train as far as the eye can see and more. The sound of these wild animals grant and snort as we drove through was comical and a few tried to charge towards the vehicle as it moved, but once the vehicle stopped, they chickened out and ran the other way. There were thousands around us. The air was filled with dust as they followed each other around and stayed together.

We had about an hour rest that afternoon before we headed out for the afternoon and it didn’t disappoint either. I have video footage of a croc coming face to face with a hippo. The hippo won this battle as the croc got out of it’s way – wouldn’t you?

Day 3 in the Serengeti started with an early game drive. The 5 of us were pretty quiet for the first hour and a half as we peered out the roof trying to spot anything that moved in the long grass. Our guide would stop and talk to other guides to see if they had spotted something and apparently it was a quiet morning and then we stumbled upon a male lion feasting on a recent kill.

He was extremely afraid and kept on moving further away from us. It wasn’t till we stumbled upon a pair of cheetah did we realize that he could have stolen this kill from them as this pair had fresh blood on their faces and licked each other clean as cats do.

Some animals stats on the Serengeti. Together with several other wildlife, it has the following:-

2400 lions
900 cheetah
700 leopards
14 rhino

and all are monitored to keep the poachers away.

Due to slow internet and time constraints, I have yet to upload photos of the Serengeti & Ngorongoro Crater to the Photobucket account. I hope to have this done in Nairobi. Stay tuned for more photos.

Zanzibar - The Spice Island

2011-06-03T02:37:00.001-07:00

Daryll writes:

We didn’t want to inconvenience Aisha as she was heading off for work the next day, so decided to head to the beach to camp and arrange our way to Zanzibar. We didn’t have far to go and the it took longer to both pack and unpack the bikes than it took to ride the mere 2km down the road to the Makadi Beach Camp, a popular stopover for the overland crowd. The husband & wife team of Lucho & Jo that owned the place were great and reserved us a place on the ferry to Zanzibar for 2 days later. We wanted to chill out on the beach of the Indian Ocean again.

Despite the warning signs all over the campground, we ventured out to the village to try & find something for dinner. It was about a 20min walk and was perfectly safe, but couldn’t find anything suitable as Dom is a vegetarian and all we saw was chicken and chips (french fries) so ended up having a few beers and dinner in the restaurant at the campground.

Before we could board the ferry to Zanzibar, Ang visited the National Museum and though it interesting while I sat in some shade and made notes for this blog post. We are at the tail end of the rainy season in Tanzania and it rains without fail for about 2 hours daily and we got caught in the thundershower on our way to the ferry terminal. Many of the locals that were on the streets stopped what they were doing and found shelter till the storm passed, but us, we continued the walk to the terminal and arrived sopping wet. It wasn’t too long till the sun came out again and we had boarded the fast ferry to Zanzibar. At US$70 return, there were a few tourists, but the ferry was filled with mostly locals, guess there must be a higher charge for tourists. The ferry left later than scheduled, but this is Africa after all, and arrived 2 hours later in Zanzibar. The water was calm, so the journey wasn’t too bad. I remember the last time I had taken the ferry to Zanzibar, I tried to save some money and took the slow overnight ferry and ended up getting sea sick on the way back. That trip wasn’t much fun.

Once we stepped off the ferry though, all hell broke loose as the touts were all over us trying to sell us a tour and take us to a hotel they knew off and indirectly get a commission off the hotel. Dom had gotten off the ferry a few minutes before us and had already started taking to a guy that offered to take us to look at a few hotels for free but when the taxi drivers heard him make the offer, they were all over us saying that the guy we were talking to was a criminal and that we shouldn’t go with him. I had about 3 guys in my face yelling and indicating that we should come with them and I just wanted to get out of there as soon as possible, so I simply yelled back saying that we would find our own hotel and for them to leave us alone. As we started walking away, the so called “criminal” was still sticking to Dom, so decided to trust him and let him lead us to a place that he knew off. Stone Town (the downtown part of Zanzibar) is filled with old, run down and dilapidated buildings with narrow dirty pedestrian only streets. It is a maze if you didn’t know where you were going. The first hotel the guy took us to seemed ok, but we had nothing to compare it to, so knew off a hostel that the Lonely Planet had recommended and asked him to take us there. The Jambo Guest House was a lot nicer, the room had a fan and an aircon and included breakfast and for the same price as the hotel that we first saw, decided to stay at Jambo and took a triple room.

For the last few days, Dom wouldn’t stop talking about Mercury’s Pizza place in Zanzibar, so we had to stop there for dinner. Did you know – Freddie Mercury was actually born in Zanzibar. The pizza was amazing and with the view of the ocean, it was another remarkable day in Africa.

We spent 3 days in Stone Town and found it to be a photographers paradise with the old decaying buildings and the numerous wooden doors, each with it’s own unique design. Dom went diving for 2 days while Ang did a Spice Tour and I watched the locals go about their daily routine. We ended up going out to Indian restaurants for the next 2 evenings as we couldn’t resist the local spices.

I had booked us on the 9:30am ferry back to Dar which wasn’t as busy, but the sea wasn’t that calm either and I wasn’t feeling too well. I tried to close my eyes and focus on not being sick and the ferry docking couldn’t have come at a better time. Any longer on that 2hr ferry, I think I would have lost the battle with breakfast. While on Zanzibar, we had left our bikes at the Makadi Beach Camp, so stayed there for another night before leaving Dar Es Salaam. That night, 2 South African bikers showed up on a DR and a Dakar. They were also hoping to get to Ethiopia before returning to South Africa. As we headed out of town the next day and stopped for a break, we noticed 2 KLR’s pass by and waved. Both the riders immediately made a u-turn and came back to talk to us. They were a couple from Durban, South Africa. Nick and Kristine (www.africa2anywhere.blogspot.com) started their RTW trip in SA and were making their way to Europe to find some work, before continuing across Asia, Russia and then down the America’s. We stayed and chatted for a bit as we haven’t seen a whole lot of travelers heading either south or north. We met a German couple on 2 KTM’s in Namibia, and then now these 4 South Africans. So hope to meet up with Nick and Kristine again.

The campground that we intended to stay at for the night ended up being closed, so we had to continue for another 50km to the next town and decided to stop at a Motel. There wasn’t any camping around and it was getting late, so decided to bite the bullet and spend the US$26 for a room for the night. Ang was just too happy to be sleeping off the ground for another night and safely tucked away from the mosquitoes under the mosquito netting. Our destination the next day, May 28th (our 6th wedding anniversary) was Arusha – the world capital of Safari’s as it is the hub for safari’s to the Serengeti and Ngorongoro Crater where we were hoping that we could join up with a few people to go on safari.

A Quick Update

2011-05-29T02:59:00.000-07:00

Daryll writes:

Yup, we have been slow in updating the blog over the last few days, but finding wi-fi now is few and far between. We are currently in Arusha, Tanzania and going out on Safari for the next 4 days to the Serengeti and Ngorogoro Crater and should have a few more blog posts picking up from Dar Es Salaam when we get back. We are doing well, bikes are fine, just need a few basic maintenance items done once in Nairobi.

Just Another Day in Africa

2011-05-21T08:38:00.001-07:00

Daryll writes:

The next morning, we spent some time posing for photos in front of a boabab tree before riding through the Mikumi National Park.

After riding through 2 other parks and not seeing too many wild animals, I wasn’t expecting too much from this park. The sign didn’t convince me either.

Boy was I wrong. It wasn’t too long when we stopped after spotting some Springbok and Wildebeest, the first Wildebeest we’ve seen thus far. Going on safari is always spectacular, but when you can see wildlife wandering around from the saddle of our motorcycles reminds me how amazing this trip is becoming. Just Another Day in Africa!

On the opposite side of the road, there were a few Giraffe looking curiously at us. We pulled the bikes over immediately and tried to get the post card perfect shot of bike and wildlife together. Dom, Ang and I were parked on the side of the road, helmets & gloves off and walking around and not giving the possible dangers a second thought.

After watching the giraffe and zebra cross the road, we moved on and spotted a baby elephant in the distance. There wasn’t much else, however as we passed the main gate to the park, Dom slows down and yells that he remembered staying there a few years ago within minutes of going on safari in this park, they had spotted a bunch of lions. Glad that we were back on the bikes when he decided to bring this up.

As we slowly got closer to Dar Es Salaam, the more people we saw wearing traditional outfits whilst the traffic got heavier and there were more and more people at the side of the road that had set up little stalls selling their goods. Tanzanian drivers are insanely crazy as well and don’t hesitate when it comes to cutting corners or passing when they can see that there is oncoming traffic. We literally had to brake and move right over for a truck coming in the opposite direction. On this occasion, our timing sucked, we approached Dar on a Friday afternoon during rush hour; however after talking to a local later that evening, the traffic was normal. When the traffic lights work, they stay on for a really long time, fine when it’s green, but sitting on a red in the heat wasn’t fun and we had switched off the bikes a few times.

Photo courtesy of Dom Giles

The camping spots that we had found were on the other side of town and we had to take a ferry to get across. The GPS navigated us to the ferry terminal and after cutting through the line-up as I couldn’t bear to wait the 2-3 hours that one of the drivers had mentioned when I had asked whether the lineup was for the ferry. As we got closer, a police officer had directed us around the corners to another lane. I prayed that he wasn’t going to pull us over for cutting the queue as he was pulling cars over that tried to butt in. It turned out to be a designated lane for motorcycles and tuk-tuks. We paid the .25c for bike and person and lined up with the locals. There were people everywhere and after enquring, there were 2 ferries, one that mainly took foot passengers while the other took vehicles. When it was time to get on, we moved forward and I just followed the local bikes as they pushed their way on board as people hurried to secure a spot for themselves. It was insane. I stopped at the top of the ramp, reluctant on whether to actually get on as I wasn’t sure if we would all fit. I probably stopped for a few seconds, but the local bikes continued to honk and pass us and they were getting on fine. I didn’t want to wait for the next one, so dropped down the ramp and onto the ferry. As the foot passengers gave way, we barely squeezed all 3 bikes on and at one point I had to get some locals to get a tuk-tuk driver to move a bit, so that I could find more space. Ang wasn’t sure if this was a good idea as we were squeezed in. It was such a tight fit that there wasn’t enough space to get off the bike and leave it on the side stand, so we just sat on them and held them up.

Photo courtesy of Dom Giles

The M.V. Magogoni survived the 15 minutes that it took for us to get to the other side. Whilst on the ferry, I started talking to a young lady on the tuk-tuk that I had moved and she was impressed with how far we had come. The other locals gave us a weird look as we took photos and video of the experience. Getting off the ferry on the other side wasn’t easier either. Everyone gets off at the same time. So together with the 200 odd foot passengers that are walking off the ramp, the bikes are trying to weave through the crowds. We all get off unscathed and I stop to wait for the others when the lady in the tuk-tuk stops as well and invites us over to he place to spend the night. It was an amazing gesture from a someone I had just met. Aisha lived a few minutes away from the ferry terminal so we followed her tuk-tuk driver to her new home that she just finish build. She had only been living in it for a week and made us feel at home. Thank you Aisha!

Aisha our wonderful host for an evening

Currency on the Black Market

2011-05-21T08:36:00.001-07:00

Daryll writes:

After spending 6 nights along Lake Malawi, it was time to leave tranquil Malawi behind us and cross into Tanzania. Our last campsite though along the lake proved to be another amazing site where we were the only ones – we did luck out again. The downside though was the 4km of sand, deep only in some spots where I walked the bike through. I almost lost it getting to the campsite, but managed to keep the bike upright. We had some Quecha (Malawi currency) left over and desperately tried to change it into Shillings (Tanzania currency) at various banks at the last town before the TZ border. The 3 banks we stopped at didn’t have any Shillings and suggested that we change it at the border on the black market. While in the parking lot at one of the banks, we met a group of 4 English overlanders in a landrover that had just entered into Malawi. They had tried to enter Libya in February and were turned bank and had to backtrack to Italy and take the ferry directly to Egypt to continue their trip south. This option is becoming more and more the plan for us once we get to Egypt as things aren’t looking good in Syria at the moment.

At the Malawi border, once we processed ourselves and the bikes, we needed to change the Malawi currency that we had. Even though the banks that we had visited earlier in the day had suggested us use the black market at the border, it is still illegal and the police that patrol the border keep an eye on the suspected money changers. We discreetly spoke to a few guys while standing at the bikes and settled on a rate for the exchange and then had to walk down an alley to a small shop where we will do the transaction. I was a bit nervous as I wasn’t too sure what was going to happen. Ang stayed with the bikes while Dom and I went down the alley passing little shops and everyone looking at us strangely. It was stinking hot, but I kept my riding jacket on as I had cash in various of the pockets, so I was dripping with perspiration. When we got to the little soda shop – yup that’s all they sold, I had to pretend to buy some water as a policeman walked by – really, he just thought that these 2 tourists walked all the way passed all the other shops to buy a coke. Dom literally had my back as we did the transaction as a groups of guys sat around the shop watching us. The guy that I was dealing with went to another guy who pulled out a wad of cash from his sock and started counting the money out. We were almost done and they had owed me a remaining 6,000 shillings and gave me 600 shillings instead. it was so obvious that they were trying to rip me off and I said no. He apologized and said it was a mistake and gave me the correct money back. Really, they do try to rip you off point blank.

Once we got back to the bikes, it was time to get to the Tanzanian side which was the easiest so far. The border officials were joking with us and it was pretty quick for us to exit the border and stop just past the gates to sort out our insurance. I ended up getting the COMESA Insurance (Yellow Card) that will be good till we exit Egypt. Dom had decided to use the guys that had surrounded the bikes to change a bit more money and all hell broke loose. The guy that he was using was shorting him 90,000 shillings and counted really fast and was rushing Dom. With the heat bearing down on all of us, Dom handed me the cash and asked for me to re-count. I came up with the same figure and we were still 90,000 shillings short. I was starting to loose it. I had more guys yelling at me and trying to convince me that the amount was right. I shoved the money back to the changer and said that we aren’t going to change our money with him. As soon as I did that, the crowd seemed to have disappeared and then another guy handed us cash to count. Dom agreed on a rate and we counted it out and it was correct this time round. Dom handed him the US currency and we started to put our gear back on. The money changer came back to us and said that we owed him change. More guys started approaching us and started shoving the US currency back to Dom. We stuck to our guns and continued getting ready to leave. It wasn’t looking good. Dom asked Ang to start her bike and get going and we will follow as we weren’t sure if they would chase us down. We continued saying that we had agreed on a rate and refused to give them the US currency back said that we were going to leave, started the bikes and hit the road. The guys didn’t follow us, good thing.

Gang of money changers

As we rode into Tanzania, we climbed to an elevation of 2200m. The temperature dropped, so much so that I was forced to zip up all my vents while riding and then descended to about 1700m onto a plateau of tea plantations. There was tea growing as far as the eye can see. From the research we had done, there wasn’t any formal camping near the town of Mbeya, the first town we would have got to after the Tanzanian border. There was however a mission (The Karibuni Centre) that offered camping on the lush grass of their volleyball court for a small fee. The downside was that it was right next to the Church so we got the full effect of the church service both in the evening and in the morning. The singing was good though, so I shouldn’t complain. There were lots of foreign missionaries busying them around the property; I greeted a few, but they didn’t reciprocate – possibly bikers were associated with Satin.

The Karibuni Centre

From Mbeya, we were making our way to Dar Es Salaam but had to stop midway for the night. It wasn’t a particularly exciting day. We were in the saddle for most of the day covering 475km with lots of rest and fuel stops in-between. We passed through several small villages where the speed limit dropped to 50km/hr and after my ticket in Malawi, I slowed right down. There were speed humps on either side of the villages and there would be police with radar guns every so often, so we were forced to slow down. More good luck when we arrived at our camping spot for the night in the middle of a Boabab forest. We were the only ones there yet again. After eating our own dinner, the staff made us a fire and we spent the rest of the evening around a campfire.

Photo courtesy of Dom Giles

New photos added to the Malawi photo album.

A Day in the Life

2011-05-16T03:48:00.001-07:00

Angela writes:

I decided to write a blog post that simply describes things that happen to us in one day since we might often forget to describe the little things of our adventure.

Today I woke up voluntarily just after 5 am to watch the sunrise over Lake Malawi. I walked past the sand pit where we had had our camp fire last night and had polished off a couple cold Carlsberg beer (price $1.50 each). This morning I sat down in the cool white sand on the beach and swatted away a few stray mosquitoes that would soon disappear after the sun appeared. I watched the black and orange sky subtlety change moment by moment until it became blue again. Watching the sunrise always brings a good start to a day.

Afterwards I climbed back into our tent to begin the day’s gentle and unhurried routine of packing up my sleep mat, sleeping bag and sleep sheet. Then I got dressed into my bike t-shirt and shorts that I wear under my motorcycle gear. I slipped on my motorcycle pants, socks and motorcycle boots (after dumping them upside down to make sure that creatures hadn’t found their way into my boots during the night) and moved my other things close to the door of the tent so that they would be easy to grab and pack later. The other items in my tent include my ipod, head flashlight, travel alarm clock, bag of clothes and my motorcycle helmet. I used to keep my motorcycle helmet outside our tent in the “vestibule” but once I got up to find that a spider had spun a web inside of it and the spider was still in it! Dom kindly removed the evidence of the creature before I freaked out! I have also found a gecko in my helmet previously so now I’ve decided that only my head should ever go in there and keep it safely in the tent.

After our breakfast of oatmeal with chocolate milk powder, coffee and rusks (hard, sweet bread thing kind of like a scone), we packed up our camping dishes, stove, and the rest of our belongings on to our bike. Packing our bike is not difficult at all any more (except when trying to find spaces for food after a trip to the grocery store) as everything has it’s place on the bikes. We leave our waterfront campsite just after 7 am and we are glad to do much of our riding in the morning to beat the heat of the day. I ride my bike to the beginning of the campground and then Daryll gets on it to bring it through the 10 feet of deep sand that for some reason has been dumped in front of the gate. Security opens the door for us and we ride out and up a dirt/gravelly path for a couple of kilometers before reaching the main paved road that will take us to our next destinations along Lake Malawi.

During the day’s ride we stop every hour or so for a break. It’s nice to stand up after sitting on the bike for so long. We drink some water, eat some peanuts and grab our cameras for any photo opportunities that come up during the break. On this morning’s ride we met a local guy who was riding his bicycle by us and stopped to talk. Dom decided to take a photo of this guy with Daryll and then Dom printed out a copy of the picture on his travel photo printer – a Polaroid Pogo (I need to get one of these) and gave the photo to the guy. The guy was super excited about being able to keep this little memento and photo of himself and was Praising Jesus!

Once or twice a day, depending on how long our ride is that day, we have to stop at a gas station to fill up our tanks and lately we’ve been having to specify to the attendants that we need unleaded fuel. Today we only rode for 207 km but when we stopped for gas in our destination town we discovered that the power was out and that they could not pump fuel for us. Oh well, we are here in Nkhata Bay for 2 days so I’m sure in that time the power will come back on and we will get fuel on the day we leave. We are camping at a hostel on Lake Malawi and the cool breeze off the lake is lovely. I would love to go swimming in the clear, blue water but apparently there is a parasite in the water called Bilharzia. From all the bathing and laundry I’ve seen being done in this lake over the last few days I am going to play it safe and avoid swimming – go ahead call me conservative.

Cops & Lake Malawi

2011-05-16T01:05:00.001-07:00

Angela & Daryll write:

We spent six days at the Small World Backpackers in Harare and we were glad to finally leave the partiers and disgustingly dirty kitchen behind with our Ethiopian AND Egyptian visas stamped safely in our passports. We made a “run for the border” and crossed from Zimbabwe into Mozambique for the night. Even though we were told that we did not need a carnet for Mozambique the border guards filled it out anyway and we and the bikes made it safely into our new country.

Although we only stayed in Mozambique for about 24 hours, the people seemed very friendly and everyone, old and young waved at us as we rode through their villages. There were many beautiful boabab trees and the little grass huts seemed like a little romantic enchanted forest, although I’m sure reality for these very poor but happy people was very different. We camped in a secure campground along the banks of the Zambezi River (a river that Travel Canada warned was flooding it banks and to proceed there with extreme caution) and had hot showers where the water had been heated by a wood fire. The smell of campfire was lovely.

The next day we crossed another border into the tiny country of Malawi and made our way to Blantryre, the second largest city in Malawi. A few days earlier, a politician had been killed in a road accident and hence the police where out in full force with road blocks every so often and some with radar. As we passed through smaller villages on the way to Blantyre, the speed limit dropped to 50km/hr and with just under 40,000km on the road, it was about to happen – as I (Daryll) came around a corner, I noticed the neon green vests of the police officers a head off me and braked really hard. I thought I got the better off the radar gun and as I approached the officer in the middle of the road, he waved me to pull over and waved Angela and Dom who where behind me on their way. Shit! He took took his time to walk over to where I was and asked for my drivers license and not saying anything else. I switched the bike off and walked over to the police vehicle where another officer sat. The officer in the vehicle said that I was speeding and the radar had got me at 57km/hr in a 50 zone. I knew I braked hard, but wasn’t certain what I was doing so questioned the fact that I was speeding and asked to see the video which they had rigged to the radar gun. In the mean time, Tom who had already been pulled over had paid his fine and a few more drivers where lining up next to the police car waiting to pay their fine. Guess I wasn’t the only one and those officers had hit the jackpot for the day with the number of drivers they had pulled over. The on the spot fine was 5,000 Quecha (US$30). and a lot more than I wanted to pay. I begged and pleaded making up excuses that I didn’t have that much money on me, but they weren’t having anything of it. After a few minutes, I relented and coughed up the fine, still mad as well. Once back on the bikes, I took up the rear position and slowed down to 40km/hr in to 50 zones to make sure I was slow as I didn’t want another ticket that day.

Trying to talk my way out of a ticket.

Our stop in Blantyre was merely administrative as we needed to change some money and stock up on groceries. For the night, we camped at Doogles Lodge across the street from the local bus terminal. I remember this spot as I had stayed here the last time I traveled to Malawai; however it was a lot nicer then. It seemed run down and the common areas where old and dusty. We had read that the little towns along Lake Malawi didn’t have any banks or means of exchanging money and didn’t want to trust the smaller grocery stores on what we had needed. We were given directions to a cash & carry place on the main street. It wasn’t too difficult to find and seemed like a wholesale grocery store. We found a few items, but still weren’t able to find items like oatmeal, crackers and other vital items that we would normally snack on during the day. There was a stark contrast between this Malawi grocery store and the last one we visited in Zimbabwe and I’m sure the food items that we were so used to having would be difficult to find further north we went.

Our direction in Malawi was to ride north up Lake Malawi, the third largest freshwater lake in Africa after Lake Victoria and Lake Tanganika. At one stop, Pat decided to stop in a village and as usual, the entire village where around our bikes. At first it is a bit nerve wrecking as you are concerned that someone is going to pich something of the bike as the children point and touch things on the bike. I really wanted to get something to eat, but just didn't feel right about taking some cookies out and eating it in front of all these children, so I just waited for the others to be ready to move on again.

Angela surrounded at a rest stop

While in Buenos Aires, we had met a South African couple at the hostel we were staying at and they had suggested Fat Monkey’s at a village called Monkey Bay on the southern shores of the lake and suggested that it was a spectacular spot to chill out for a few days. We had also learnt that there was a ferry running north up the lake that left every Friday from Monkey Bay. The others were interested in taking this ferry north and we were considering taking the ferry half way to make some time. After arriving at the ferry port in Monkey Bay early afternoon and talking with the ferry officials, Pat, Chris and Tom decided to take the 3 day ferry the whole way. Dom was still undecided, but was thinking of taking it half way up and we decided not to take the ferry at all. The beaches along the lake are spectacular, and we wanted some R&R beach time along the lake. We had all been together for just over a month, a long time for a large group to be riding together and it was time to bid farewell for now. Pat, Chris & Tom decided to stay at a campsite closer to the ferry while Dom and us decided to stay at the Fat Monkeys that was recommended to us. Dom was still thinking about returning early the next morning to catch his ferry.

We had 18km of some steep gravel and washboard to get to Fat Monkeys so it was slow going. About 7km before the campsite, we came to a junction and weren’t sure which way to go. The sign posting wasn’t very clear, so took what we thought was the right way and ended up having to ride through a little village to get to the campsite. There were little huts on either side of the gravel bumpy road as we rode along with kids running out and waving at us. We were going really slow not to hit the children or the chickens running around and greeted and waved back to the people that thought we were just mental riding through their narrow streets. The campsite was worth the ride and after the 45min of washboard in getting there, decided to spend 2 nights. Dom decided against catching the ferry and decided to continue riding north with us. Our decision not to take the ferry was mainly due to us missing all of Malawi by spending 3 days on a ferry, sleeping on an open deck and having a crane lift our bike up and strapped to an open deck and was proving to be a good decision after seeing to what we had arrived to. Monkey Bay was situated on an inlet and would be the only spot where we could watch the sun set over the lake. Nothing can prepare you for an African Sunset and every one is different and magnificent in it’s own way.

Fat Monkeys

Sunset over Lake Malawi

During the night, I heard something hit the tent, like little plopping sounds, but didn't think anything of it and thought that it was leaves hitting the tent. In the morning, we awoke to a tent covered in bat poo. It was aweful, so we spent the next hour moving the tent to another spot and washing the poo off. Thinking that we would avoid the bats for the next night, it seemed they had a vendetta against me and poo'd on the tent during the night again. Darn bats! After relaxing at Monkey Bay, we continued north again along the lake and found another amazing spot at a Pottery Lodge. We were the only campers and think the only patrons at the lodge as well and got all the staff’s attention. That evening, we made a camp fire on the beach and spent the rest of the evening with a few beers watching another sunset over Lake Malawi. As we sat next to the fire, 3 different security guards came by and introduced themselves saying that they will be taking care of us for the evening. We were the only ones on the property and guess we had all the security that we needed. Wasn't sure if we should really be scared.

Camping at the Pottery Lodge

We didn't have too far to go the next day and stopped a few times for breaks. At one stop, a little girl came over and just watched us for a while. She moved towards Angela and had taken up a spot just behind her bike. I gave her a cookie as we ate, but the stranges thing happened next - she held the cookie and instead of eating it, she licked it a few times and then held it in her hand till the heat of her hand and the mid-day sun started to melt the cream in the middle of the cookie. I walked away towards my bike and the girl then braved it and started talking to Angela. He name was Emily and then started asking for money and then Ang's sun glasses - brave girl.

Emily with the cookie still in her hand

Most of the camping spots along the lake are off the main road and are always down a gravel, sandy road. The short 50m of the steep boulder filled path to our campsite the Big Blue Star in Nkhata Bay wasn’t that different. We were on the lake though and it had free wifi which was the draw card. Nkhata Bay is over rated and the camping spot we are at isn’t anything compared to where we were for the last 2 nights, though we decided to stay an extra night to catch up on emails and blog updates. The next morning Angela and I were up at 5am to watch the sunrise.

Sunrise at Nkhata Bay

New photos added to the Malawi photo album.

Embassy Contrasts

2011-05-09T05:55:00.001-07:00

Daryll writes:

Angela and I walked to the Ethiopian Embassy while the others rode their bikes, but got their at almost the same time. It was 7:45am and the Embassy wasn’t to open till 8am. We patiently waited at the security gate on the edge of the property. Just after 8am though, a very friendly lady walked out, shook our hands and introduced herself. She was Agfa, a Zimbabwean who was the Administrator for the Embassy. She explained what we needed to do, however said that we had to wait for the lady in charge of issuing visas to arrive which wouldn’t be too long. We chatted with Agfa while we waited and got her to sing a song for us. She had such a lovely voice. The lady that issued the visas was Ethiopian and once she arrived, she also introduced herself to us and led us onto the property. We walked through the security gate, not being searched, not signing in and into the Embassy into an office where we filled out the necessary forms. Agfa sat behind a large desk in a small office and suggested that we get a 90 day visa instead of a 30 day visa and instructed us on how to complete the form, took payment together with our passports and asked us to return at 3pm that afternoon to pick them up. That’s how easy the whole process was. No mention of an invitation letter and no scary stories of waiting days or weeks to be issued the sought after visa for Ethiopia. All the stories that we had read about getting this visa was very far from what we had experienced.

A day earlier, we visited the Canadian Embassy at at the security booth to enter the property, we had to sign in, show our passports, leave all electronics in a security box and go through a metal detector before entering the compound. Once we entered the building, we spoke to a Zimbabwean through bullet proof glass and then set in a waiting room to be served which had security cameras around the room. The contrast between these two Embassies were shocking as later that afternoon when we went back to pick up our Ethiopian visa, the key for the security gate was in the lock, the guard wasn’t around, so I stuck my hand in, turned the key and opened the gate. As I opened the gate, the guard peered from behind a building, recognizing me, gave me the thumbs up and went back to what he was doing and let us enter on our own.

We had to wait for the Counselor lady to run an errand before signing off on our visas, but chatted to Agfa in the mean time. She was one of the friendliest Embassy workers we have dealt with and finally when she handed our passports over, we all posed for our photo with her. She was so ecstatic that we enjoyed her company and wished us luck for the rest of our travels.

                     Agfa handing over our passports

Now with our Ethiopian visas in hand and being Friday, we were going to patiently wait out the weekend to visit the Egyptian Embassy on Monday. We decided to get our Egyptian visas in Harare instead of Nairobi as we were comfortable camping at the Small World Backpackers, the Embassy was close by and we had all the amenities accessible to us.   To kill the weekend. a few of us took a ride out to the Bally Vaughan Wildlife Sanctuary, about 45 km outside of Harare. The sanctuary takes in all kinds of animals that have been injured and rehabilitates them to be released back to the wild and is solely funded by donations.

It was a nice pleasant ride out on Saturday morning, not too much traffic as we navigated through downtown Harare as people started setting up their market stalls. Once we hit the outskirts of town, we started hitting the police road blocks. We were stopped at one and waved through a few others. Just a friendly chat and we were off again. As we rode into the Sanctuary, we passed a few monkeys playing around, a few horses, a zebra and a zorse – a combination of a zebra and horse.

          Zorse & Zebra

As soon as we parked the bikes and locked our gear to the bikes, we were in close proximity to the lion enclosure. There were 2 lion enclosures, the very first one held 2 female lions and the second one further into the sanctuary held 2 more females and a male and apparently the owner was in the process of building another enclosure for 4 more lions that were due to arrive in a week. It was midday and the big cats were taking their afternoon siesta as we walked through the sanctuary. The predators were in enclosures while the zebra’s, horses, goats, cows, donkey’s, chickens and ducks freely wondered around the grounds.



Sarah the owner of the facility takes on volunteers from around the world to help her with the daily tasks in rearing these wild animals and getting them ready to be released back into the wild. I forget the guy’s name, but we met a guy from Fort St. Johns, BC that was on the volunteer program for 3 weeks before returning to Canada.

We spent a couple hours walking through the sanctuary oggling over the parrots, bunnies, turtles and tried hard to spot the leopard who was in hiding. Had some lunch at the cafe and I took a nap sitting and listening to the sound of the animals while the others ventured to the small creatures area. If you are in Harare, the Bally Vaughan Wildlife Sanctuary is definitely worth a visit.

Embassy Hunt

2011-05-05T10:10:00.001-07:00

Daryll writes:

The main reason for coming to Zimbabwe was not only to stop off at Victoria Falls, but to also head for Harare, the capital city and try to sort out our Ethiopian visas. Prior to us leaving Canada, we learnt that the elusive Ethiopian visa can no longer be issued in Nairobi, Kenya and Harare was the best place where we could pick them up beside having our passports sent to the Ethiopian embassy back in Canada. I didn’t really want to have our passports sent via courier service back home and us being stuck in an African country without our ticket out basically.

From the small tourist town of Victoria Falls, we headed to Bulawayo, our first big African city. The roads leading to Bulawayo were in good condition and as usual, the radar guns and traffic cops were out in full force. It helps as Ang and I tend to stick to the posted speed limit regardless of how slow it is and how painful it can become, but the others that we are with, tend to go slight over. Pat on the Africa Twin was triggered at 87km/hr in a 80 zone, but apparently was going to fast for the officer to safely stop him, so got away this time. Dom who followed in his tracks was triggered at 86km/hr and by this time the officers were already on the road and stopped him dead in his tracks. Apparently the fine had started off being US$10, but Dom gave the officer a really true sad story of how he was fleeced of US$20 earlier that morning from a t-shirt guy that he had ordered a custom t-shirt from who never showed up, so the officer felt sorry for him and had to pay a $5 fine instead and he even got a valid receipt as well. We spent the night in a Municipal Campground in Bulawayo that barely had any hot water for a shower, so we were quick to leave the next morning and do another 440km day to get to Harare.

I envisioned Harare or even Zimbabwe as a whole to be a dark, scary place and to the contrary, we have found the people to be incredibly nice, polite and friendly to us. Everyone smiles, greets us and always courteous when approached for directions. We set off the day after we arrived in Harare to see if we could get our Ethiopian visa. We all decided to walk from the backpackers we were staying at as we were told that it wasn’t too far. Most of the embassies are all situated in close proximity to each other and thought that it would be easier without the bikes. We got to the Ethiopian Embassy only to find it closed as it was a National holiday in Ethiopia and learnt from the security guard that it would be open tomorrow (Friday, May 6th). Info on the internet had indicated that Ethiopia will only issue a visa, if our Embassy issued an invitation letter, so we headed to the Canadian Embassy. This is now the second Canadian Embassy we visited on our trip so far. We visited the Canadian Embassy in Buenos Aires to tried to get some document notarized but were told to come back later that afternoon. We never went back though and managed without the notarized documents. The lady that was assisting us said that they have received strict instructions from Ottawa and are not allowed to issue such later for Canadian travelers. We pleaded with her and she relented and said that she would contact Ottawa and also copy the Canadian Embassy in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia to see if how she could assist us and for us to return the next day. Without this invitation letter, we could possibly be refused entry into Ethiopia, which means our trip ends in Kenya or we fly over to Sudan. Our plans change all the time and we trying to keep an eye on the situation of Syria as well. I think we are on Plan C at the moment and may have to resort to a Plan D to get ourselves and the bikes to Europe.

We were still hopeful as we left and as we passed through the security gate to leave the property, a gentleman came up to us and introduced himself as the First Secretary to the Ambassador (can’t remember his name). He had heard about these 4 crazy Canadians trying to get an invitation letter and had seen our passports and also owned a bike, so wanted to come and meet us. We chatted a bit and said that he would have one of his staff call the Ethiopian Embassy tomorrow to let them know that we will be coming and gave us directions to a few other embassies we wanted to visit viz the Kenyan Embassy and the Sudanese Embassy.

We received an email from the Canadian Embassy this afternoon letting us know that they had contacted Ottawa and the official response was that the Canadian Government does not approve of any travel within Ethiopia or Sudan and thus won’t issue the letter of invitation for us. We are going to the Ethiopian Embassy tomorrow anyway and try our luck. Wish us luck. On a side note though, we did go to both the Kenyan and Sudanese Embassies and everyone that we spoke to were extremely helpful and gave us the information that we were seeking and asked for us to send them pictures once we are in their respective countries.

“The Smoke that Thunders”

2011-05-05T09:30:00.001-07:00

Daryll writes:

Another one of Dan’s suggestions was to cross from Kasane, Botswana to Zimbabwe instead of going into Zambia as the Falls are better viewed from the Zimbabwe side. Our timing wasn’t great when we got to the Zimbabwe border and got stuck behind 2 tour groups so waited about an hour before we were allowed to enter. Entering Namibia and Botswana was plain sailing compared to this one and I expect border crossings to be similar to the ones in Central America from now on. Canada must charge a hefty fee for Zimbabweans to enter Canada if they were ever granted a visa as we had to pay a hefty US$75 each for a visa to enter. Once the formalities of paying for our visa and paying for insurance, carbon tax and road tax were completed, we were allowed to ride into Zimbabwe.

Judging by the roads, you automatically knew that you were in a new country. The roads here were much narrower, no shoulders were present and the tall grass along the roadside ran directly up to where the pavement started. Some stretches had really good pavement and there was only a small stretch with potholes but the signs warned us of the potholes coming up by signs that indicated “Deadly Hazard Ahead”. Zimbabwe drivers are definitely on the same level as the drivers in Peru who I still consider to be the worst. Here the drivers come speeding up behind us, tailgate for an extended period of time, not sure why and when they do eventually pass, don’t realize how wide our bikes are and come extremely close when they want to get back into their lane. The good thing about Zimbabwe though is the number of speed traps and police that are present. In a stretch of about 100km, from the border to Victoria Falls, we went through 3 police checkpoints. We were only stopped once and the officer asked us where we were from and where we were headed and then ushered us through. They do use their radar gun in and out of little villages when the speed limit drops to 60km/hr. We haven’t been fined yet, not that we speed though.

After arriving in the little town of Victoria Falls which was primarily developed because for the tourism that the might Zambezi River attracted, we wandered over to a Pizza place. Even though the camp ground we were at was a few hundred meters away from the Pizza place, we were accompanied by two vendors that first trip to sell us some souvenirs and once they realized that we weren’t going to buy anything, turned their attention to trying to trade for our t-shirts and hiking shoes. Even though they were a bother, they were pleasant and respectful and friendly all at the same time, so we enjoying talking with them.

The next morning, we took a walk to view the Falls. We were warned to take our rain jackets with us, but nothing could protect us from the rainstorm that we were to endure. The morning started off well. We wandered into the town and met a wonderful Tourist Police Officer who showed us the way to the lookout with a spectacular view of the gorge and the Zambezi that ran between Zambia and Zimbabwe. As we wandered back to view the main falls, we spotted some elephant tracks and several warthogs. No elephants in sight though, but lots of poo on the road.

Victoria Falls Gorge

Entry to the Victoria Falls NP was a bit steep at US$30 per person and noticed that it was cheaper for South Africans, which I told the lady I was together with Angela. She asked to see some ID and I politely said that I didn’t have any on me at the moment and she charged us the lower local rate. I also used the South African card at Soussesvlei which worked there as well. As we entered, I could see that the people walking out were drenched. With all the rain, the Zambezi was at its high and water gushed off the edge of the falls creating a rainstorm that engulfed us as we walked through the park. It was awesome seeing the power of mother nature at its best and the shear velocity of the water coming off the falls.

Victoria Falls or Mosi-Oa-Tunya which is taken from the Lozi language and means “The Smoke that Thunders” is one of the Seven Natural Wonders of the World which also include the Northern Lights (Aurora Borealis); the Grand Canyon; the Paricutin Volcano; the Harbour of Rio de Janeiro; Mount Everest and the Great Barrier Reef. All worthy tourist destinations in it’s own right. Victoria Falls, Niagara Falls and Iguazu Falls in Brazil/Argentina are the 3 of the world’s largest waterfalls in terms of height (Iguazu Falls); width (Victoria Falls) and volume (Niagara Falls).

Photo taken by Dom Giles

Standing in front of one of the might waterfalls in the world gave me goose pimples or it could have been because we were dripping wet by the time we had left the park. The area is a natural rain forest and during the dry season, one can see the rock formations both on the edge and at the bottom of the canyon. We got to see a glimpse of the falls and the rest was covered in a cloud of mist.

New photos added to the Zimbabwe photo album.

King of the Jungle

2011-05-05T07:44:00.001-07:00

Daryll writes:

On Dan’s suggestion, we skipped crossing into Zambia and crossed into Botswana instead and headed for Kasane, a town close to Chobe National Park. Chobe is meant to have the highest concentration of elephants in the world and as we drove to the little town, we had an elephant cross in front of us. Pat, Tom and Dom were ahead of us while Ang and I hung back as not to scare the big guy.

Elephant Crossing

There wasn’t much camping in Kasane, as many of the campgrounds were a part of fancy lodges, so we couldn’t resist and camped at the Chobe Safari Lodge. In the car park of the lodge, there was over 10 overland vehicles with roof top tents – guess all of them just wanted some comfort for a few nights.

Chobe Safari Lodge

We bit the bullet and booked for a game drive early the next morning. I was so excited before going to bed that I was up at 3am even though we only had to meet our Guide for 5:45am. The 6 of us were all together in a landcruiser and were joined by a South African couple that weren’t interested in speaking to us and just spoke Afrikaans to each other. The vehicle we were in had open sides and just a canvas roof, ideal for game viewing, but not much fun to be in at 6am on a paved road going at 80km/hr. We were soon through the gates of the park and it wasn’t barely 10 minutes into our drive when we spotted 2 female lions and 2 cubs playing with each other and following along. The light this early in the morning wasn’t that great, so no great photos. We watched these 4 for a few minutes and then decided to move on and it was only another 20 minutes later that we spotted the King of the Jungle.

King of the Jungle

I’ve been on a few game safari’s now and this was the first time I saw a male lion out in the wild. He was majestic as he lazily wandered towards us, totally oblivious of the numerous vehicles with tourists gawking at him. Everyone was so silent as he approached our vehicle. All you could hear was shutter clicks from the numerous camera’s that were firing off. It was a magical experience watching him for those short few minutes before he gently drifted back into the bush and out of sight again.

Chobe National Park is meant to have the highest concentration of elephants in the world, so we were expecting to see more families of these gentle giants. The sun was still rising and most of the elephants hadn’t come down to the side of the park we were on, so only spotted one male elephant snacking on some foliage.

Lonely male

As the morning went on, we saw a few more animals and a family of giraffe. The rest of the morning wasn’t as exciting as the first 30mins, but I guess everything will be a let down after seeing the King of the Jungle close up.

New photos added to the Botswana photo album.

The Caprivi

2011-05-02T07:45:00.001-07:00

Daryll writes:

Since leaving home, now 8 months ago, we’ve always traveled on our own, so being in a group of 3 other riders is all new to us. Each one of us has our own rhythm, but we seem to blend with each other. We normally plan a few days ahead of where we want to be and what we want to see, set a start time for the mornings and normally stop along the way a few times for breaks so that all riders can catch up. Pat is always up ahead while Ang and I or Dom and Tom follow at our own pace, so Pat & Chris end up being really patient and waiting for all of us.

More and more of the campgrounds that we are finding now are of the rustic kind as compared to the ones we stayed in while in South Africa and Namibia and they tend to be near rivers with lots of warning signs. The funny thing about these warning signs though is that people tend to just ignore them and camp right next to the sign. We have been guilty a few times as well.

Not sure where to camp

While in Swakopmund, we started taking our Malaria pills as the mosquitoes are starting to get really bad in the evenings. We haven’t noticed any side effects yet, so hope that we can stay on them without any side effects later after a few weeks on them. After leaving Swakopmund and entering into northern Namibia, we were concerned about the conditions of the roads as the northern parts of Namibia had received record amounts of rain over the last few weeks. The rains just seem to follow us regardless of which continent we are on. We stopped to talk to several overland travelers and they confirmed that the roads we were planning to take were passable, so we headed for the Caprivi Strip. 200km of highway runs through the Caprivi National Park, one of the few parks that we can actually ride our motorcycles through and heard that we could spot wildlife as we traveled through the park. We were all excited and planned our route so that we hit the Caprivi early in the morning when it was cooler, so the chances of seeing wildlife were greater. The speed limit through the park was 80km/hr, however we sat on about 60km/hr for most of the 200km and peered left and right as we rode to get a glimpse of an elephant or possibly a lion. To our disappointment though, the only elephants we saw were on the road signs warning us of elephant crossings, so when we got to the end, we were tired and grumpy. The one consolation though were the children from the small villages located in the park. I was surprised as well. The children would hear the roar of the engines and come running out of their kraals with waving hands and the broadest smiles I’ve seen and their white teeth glisten in the sun against their dark skin. Most kids would wave as we passed through their villages but we did encounter a few that held their hand out as to beg.

Local kids keeping an eye on us

The Caprivi Strip was a big disappointment for us, so we decided that we would continue to the next town (Katima Molelio), even though it was a border town with Zambia and Botswana and cross early the next morning into Zambia to see Victoria Falls. At our last rest stop before heading to the border town, I started up a conversation with a few locals who had suggested that we rather stay in their little town vs. going up ahead as many of the campgrounds along the Zambezi were flooded. Dan, who conveniently owned a campground and ran river safaris offered us a good price and suggested that we would be the only ones on his property for the evening, so we followed him to his piece of land. We followed Dan in his bakkie (4x4), while his friend Lisa followed us at the back in her bakkie. I later learnt that Lisa was studying Hyena behavior patterns in the Caprivi and lived on a piece of land next to Dan. We followed Dan for about 12km down a dirt road and then we turned off, thinking that we were there, but we had another 2km of sand, our favorite riding conditions. Again, our hosts were patient with us and it took a while for all of us to finally get to his place.

Photo courtesy of Dom Giles

Dan, an Englishman came to Namibia to do a tracking course 4 years ago and decided to stay and now leases some land for his campground that he runs in partnership with the local community and does his own river safaris. Prior to us getting there, he did mention that he had a group of orphaned children there the night prior, but they were packing up and would be gone that evening. The children were from an orphanage from Katima Molelio whose parents had died from HIV Aids. It is estimated that 51% of the population of Katima has HIV. The kids were out when we arrived, so we ended up having a nice cup of tea in the mean time, before we could set up our tents. A few minutes later, the children arrived and were all curious when they saw us and the bikes. I can’t imagine their hardships, but they seemed so happy to be there. Dan had taken them out on a river safari earlier that day and he said that’s his way of giving back to the community.

Children from the orphanage

Dan also managed to convince us to go out on his boat for the afternoon/evening which was a magical experience. We were on the Okovango River that flowed into the Okovango Delta and with the rain, the river was higher than normal. As Dan maneuvered his boat through the papyrus reeds, we came across our first group of hippos as they waddled in the water. We kept our distance as hippos are extremely unpredictable and do not mock charge like elephants or lions but attack voraciously. It is estimated that hippos are the cause of death of more humans than any other animal in Africa.

Hippos

As we ventured deeper through the waterways of the Caprivi, we came up close and personal with a male elephant. I’ve seen elephants before, but being in a boat and watching them from the water’s edge gives a different perspective of game viewing.

Young male elephant

We didn’t see too much more that evening, but Dan was extremely helpful and gave us a ton of suggestions of where we should go and places to stay. We caught another brilliant sunset as we made our way back to camp while he had his staff get the hot water heated by a wood fire for our showers and had the dinner table laid out with a nice warm fire going as well. He had to go out that evening, so we stayed up sitting around a fire into the night whilst listening to hippos in the distance. Dan did warn us though that elephants usually wander through camp in the evenings and early mornings and if we do stumble upon these giants, give them the space they need and back away. We heard hippos and elephants all night, but didn’t catch a glimpse of any. If you ever in the Caprivi Strip, look Dan up as he has a wonderful camp, runs amazing river safaris and is really passionate about what he does and it was a pleasure meeting and spending some time with him.

Sunset over the Caprivi

New photos added to the Namibia photo album.

Everything Can be Mended with Duct Tape

2011-04-26T05:13:00.001-07:00

Angela writes:

So now I must explain the duct tape across the windshield of my bike that is holding the plastic together. It happened during our 500 km + of dirt/sand off road riding in order to see the sand dunes of Soussesvlei, Namibia. For the most part the road was hard packed dirt that sometimes had small piles of gravel on it’s surface. The road also had piles of slippery sand across it that lasted anywhere from a meter to a kilometer and varied in depth from a few inches to a few feet. For the really deep sand I would slow down to first gear and paddle my bike with my feet to get across it. Back in Cape Town I had had Zimpeeway the cobbler add about 6 inches of rubber to the bottom of my riding boots so that now I can touch the ground better on my tall bike. The obvious sand patches were not a problem but I found that it was the sand patches that weren’t as deep that could really sneak up on you. During the first day of our dirt riding I was concentrating very hard on riding slow and careful. When I approached sand I made sure that I was going slow enough upon approach so that I could speed up in the sand to make my front tire skip over the sand and let my back tire with it’s thick, solid tread carry me through it. I was glad to make it to our campsite that night after 100km. On the second day with my confidence boosted from the success of day one, I decided to ride a bit faster. This is when I hit a sand patch and fished tailed four times before I landed on the ground. I cracked my windshield in half and ripped my pannier off the bike (the opposite one from my gravel fall back in Argentina– yay!). I wasn’t hurt, just surprised and Daryll and Pat came to my rescue with duct tape and a huge metal pole to straighten out the frame for my bike’s panniers. Days 3, 4 & 5 of this Namibia dirt adventure were uneventful as I watched out for sand, controlled my speed and stood up on my pegs almost the entire rest of the way! I looked well ahead in the distance while riding and when I arrived at any sand patches I took Pat’s advice and said convincingly to myself “I’ve already done this bit of sand!” which has successfully helped me ride it upright on two wheels:) For now our riding has turned back to tarmac but I am anticipating more dirt days to come.

After our stunning visit to Soussesvlei as per Daryll’s previous post, we rode on to the Atlantic Ocean at Swakomund – a German town in what feels like the middle of nowhere. This is the second largest city in Namibia and we were content to have internet access to catch up on emailing and our blogs. It was also Easter weekend so we indulged in some chocolate treats which would never have lasted in the desert due to the heat so we had to eat them all and quick! Upon arrival in Swakomund we noticed a dirty, fast flowing river about 100 meters across, draining into the ocean. Prior to the week before the “river bed” was a dry valley that hadn’t seen water in over 30 years! Due to the rains in the northern part of Namibia (the most in about 80 years apparently) there is a great deal of water flowing to the middle of the country and then out into the ocean. The ocean waves were brown with sand, dirt and sticks. Nobody ventured into the water.

Currently we are camping in Tsumeb – roughing it with our Olympic sized swimming pool, internet cafe, and full laundry facilities. We have again met up with our friend Tom who has healed his foot and is ready to ride with us again which we make us a pack of 6 on 5 bikes. Right now Daryll is doing an oil change on both the bikes and I periodically return to camp to dry out some of our stuff that got wet in the tent during last night’s thunderstorm. I keep having to chase frogs away from climbing under our tent as they are attracted to the cool, moist shade under there. So far the bugs haven’t been too bad but there are lots of them and so many different kinds - 6 inch grasshoppers and praying mantis’s, huge cockroach/spider things basking in the sunshine on the road (as per Daryll’s last post). We are starting to get into malaria areas so we have started taking our daily malaria pills as of yesterday. As for animals, so far we’ve seen a crocodile basking in the sunshine on the highway, baboons and springbok running across the roads, monkey’s swinging in the trees, herds of ostridge running through the fields, and two giraffes walking through a private game park along side the highway.

The Dunes of Namibia

2011-04-24T04:28:00.001-07:00

Daryll writes:

Our ride towards Soussesvlei was going to be a long tedious ride as the only road to get there was a gravel/sandy road. Since January, Namibia has had more rain than the entire of last year, but we were in luck, as it hadn’t rained for the last few days and with the baking sun during the day, the road was hard packed and baked solid in some spots. Pat and Dom where up front and after every 30km or so, would stop for a break as Angela and I joined them. At one of the rest stops, Dom had taken a photo of a local farm worker and his family and printed it out on his small polaroid printer. The farm worker was ecstatic as Dom gave him the photo of all of us together.

The road was good, however there were a few sandy spots which got a bit tricky and had us slowing down to almost a crawl. We spent 4 days riding in the dirt and had a few water crossings enroute and thanks to Dom, got a few amazing pics of us along the way.

Photo courtesy of Dom Giles

We camped in a few small town and got in our first few real Africa sunsets and sunrises. At one of our campsites, we met an Australian couple coming from the opposite direction that gave us some tips on road conditions and the heads up that we weren’t able to ride our bikes into the Soussesvlei National Park

Sunset in Helminghausen, Namibia

Sunrise in Helminghausen, Namibia

Even though we weren’t able to ride into the park, we decided to camp there nonetheless and take a shuttle into the park the next morning to watch the sunrise and spend some time in the Dunes of Namibia. Our shuttle driver took us to Dune 17, which was fortunate for us, we where the only ones there and away from the hordes of tourists that had already started climbing the more popular dunes. As the sun rises, the colors of the dune changes and goes from a deep red to an orange tone.

Dune 17, Namibia

We also stopped off at Dead Vlei (Dead Pan), where the river was cut off by the dunes surrounding the pan, which later dried up leaving behind 900 year old trees still being preserved as there is no moisture in the air.

Dead Vlei

Our last stop was at the most photographed Dune in the world, Dune 45 and those that have visited us at our home in Vancouver would have seen this photo that I had taken 11 years old. As it started to warm up, we hit the road yet again to another small town (Solitaire) which is known for it’s apple pie. So even before setting up our campsite, it was time to indulge in some divine apple pie, yum!

Dune 45

As we left Solitaire and headed towards to touristy dune town of Swakopmund, we crossed the Tropic of Capricorn again.

Namibia

New photos added to the Namibia photo album.

Riding into Real Africa

2011-04-24T04:10:00.001-07:00

Daryll writes:

We spent four wonderful evenings with our couchsurf hosts (Marlies & Chris) in Cape Town. There were so generous and hospitable to us and it was a sad farewell as we rode off to try to catch up with our friends who where waiting for us in Luderitz, Namibia. We hadn’t planned to see much of South Africa as we would always come back. South Africa for us was a stop over point to visit family, get some R&R in and have a few things looked at on the bikes. We had two long riding days and headed for Springbok in the Northern Cape about 550km from Cape Town. It was an uneventful ride, but the ride reminded us so much of the harsh Patagonia conditions with the fierce wind beating on us. For some reason, we failed to fill up in Springbok thinking that there would be a gas station at the South African border town of Voolsdrift, but with the wind, Angela’s bike went into reserve 50km before the border. Not wanting to take any chances, we stopped off on the side of the road and transferred 2,5 liters from my bike into her bike and kept our fingers crossed that the gas station would be close.

As we rode up to the South African side and no gas station in sight, Angela’s bike went into reserve for the 2nd time that morning. We quickly learnt that the gas station was about 3 km into the Namibian side. Lesson learnt and we have been filling up whenever we see a gas station. It is going to be a long road ahead. Our passports were stamped out of South Africa and the Immigration guy questioned why I was entered into the country as a citizen vs. a tourist, so had to explain about the problem I had arriving in Johannesburg. Once that was taken care off, we went over to the tax refund office to see if we could get our VAT back on some of our purchases. We hope that once we arrive back in Vancouver, we will have a cheque waiting for us. We crossed the border into Namibia and it now seemed that our Africa trip was really starting.

Crossing into Namibia was a relatively easy process, but we did have to pay US$20 each for a road tax. After a few miles into the barren landscape, we started coming across the most gigantic bugs on the road and at first I tried to avoid them, but after a while got tired and just ran right over them as the road was littered with these bugs.

Giant Bug

After the border, we headed for a small non-descript town called Keetmanshoop where we camped at a Municipal Campground where we where the only ones in the campground. It was a little unnerving as the entire campground was surrounded with barbed wire, but a security guard had come by to let us know that he will be around the campground that night and keep an eye on us. Some service. We set up our tent on a grassy bit and after dinner, as the clouds rolled in, had a spectacular lightening display.

We left Keetmanshoop the next morning and headed west to Luderitz to meet up with Tom, Pat, Chris and Dom who had arranged for us to stay with Brad, another couchsurfer. Brad was with the US peace Corp and was assisting at the local school by teaching English.

Pat (Africa Twin); Dom (BMW 1200GS); Tom (V-Strom 650)

Luderitz is a small town stuck on the edge of nothingness and was developed to sustain the diamond mines close by. Nothing much happens here, but the church overlooking the town gave some spectacular views.

Luderitz

On the way into Luderitz, we stopped at a ghost town, Kolmanskop. This town was abandoned when the mining companies pulled out and now sand fills in the homes. There are a few mines still in operation and there are several signs all over the dunes warning people not to enter.

Kolmanskop

Tom, had a fall the day before leaving Cape Town and had visited a doctor in Luderitz who had suggested that he needed a few more days of rest before riding, so he decided to head towards Windhoek and the rest of us towards Soussesvlei. The others had stopped off for breakfast while Ang & I stopped off at the bank and upon our return I found I had a flat. Upon inspection, I found a 2 inch metal spike embedded into my new tire. Pat noticed it from the restaurant and came to help change the tube. 30mins later and with several onlookers, the tire was removed, tube replaced and tire re-fitted and we were all hitting the road.

Tire repair on the streets of Luderitz

New photos added to the Namibia photo album.

The Mother City

2011-04-24T03:55:00.001-07:00

Daryll writes:

Our friends (Tom, Pat, Chris and Dom) had decided to leave Cape Town and head north a day after we arrived, but had agreed to go slow so that we can finally catch up with them. With our free time in the “Mother City”, we took in a few of the tourist sites, Robben Island being the main attraction and had a set of tires (TKC 80’s) fitted to both bikes.

New TKC 80's

I also picked up a spare rear for each bike which we have strapped to the back. It’s extra weight, but we would probably need new rear’s around Kenya.

Vancouver - 16,912km

Robben Island sits 11km from the Victoria & Alfred Waterfront from downtown Cape Town and gained notoriety for it’s imprisonment of South African political prisoners and the incarceration of former President Nelson Mandela during the apartheid years.

V&A Waterfront

Table Mountain

With spectacular views of the city and Table Mountain, the prison was a harsh climate for prisoners though. Our tour guide was a former prisoner himself and gave a candid insight of what life was like inside the prison.

Entrance to Robben Island Prison

Many prisoners were sent here for speaking out against the then National Party of South Africa and the inequalities against Blacks, Coloureds and Indians. I can go on about Robben Island and the years of apartheid, but this isn’t a blog about South African politics, so will shorten it to a few pics.

Mandela's Cell

The Rainbow Nation

New photos added to the South African photo album.

Coastal South Africa

2011-04-13T09:35:00.001-07:00

Daryll writes:

After spending a few days in Durban catching up with family and a few close friend and running around looking for a stove as our’s decided to pack up, we made our way down the south coast. The stove saga started in Piet Retief when I tried to use it for breakfast and realized that it didn’t work. Even after taking the stove apart and fiddling around with it, we had no luck and decided to give up on it. I really like the Coleman 442 stove that we had, but alas it failed after 7 months of daily use.

All the store attendants of the camping stores that we visited looked at me funnily when I asked for a stove that ran off gasoline or was multi-fuel as they’ve never heard of such thing, yup, they’ve never heard of the MSR brand of stoves. I’m still shocked. We finally gave up hope of trying to find a stove in South Africa and got our friend Harry back in Vancouver to purchase a MSR multi-fuel stove and courier it out to Cape Town, Thanks Harry – you are a life saver.

Durban's World Cup Soccer Stadium

We wanted to go up the Sani Pass and into Lesotho or even do a part of the Drakensburg range after leaving Durban, but with the daily rain, and the knowledge that our friends, Tom, Pat & Christine where already a few days ahead of us and wanted to catch up to them so that we could ride together into Africa, we decided against it and continued down the coast. I did however stop in Umzinto, the little town that I grew up in, stopped outside my old high school and went onto the one main road of the town and stop by our old home. The town still has one main street, but boy have things changed. I couldn’t wait to get out of there again. There were people everywhere, the traffic was insane and it was a dusty old town that wasn’t anything like what it was when I lived there. I was probably last there about 23 years ago, and things have changed. It was definitely nice growing up in a small town, but feel sorry for any teenager that now lives there. We had an early stop that day as the heavens opened up on us as it did everyday whilst we were in Durban. We had passed a caravan park, so as it started to rain, decided to turn around a go back a few km’s and hunker down for the afternoon/evening. It was a bit pricey, but once we had our tent set-up, we stationed ourselves in the entertainment room for the rest of the evening and planned out our route for the next few days, so a productive day after all.

Dusty Umzinto

As we were forced to shorten our riding day on our first day out of Durban due to the rain, it made our ride to East London a 530km day the next day. We meandered through the former Transkei and everyone in Durban had warned us about the dangers of this area. It seemed peaceful enough during the day, but not somewhere I’d want to drive or let alone ride through at night. There were animals all over the road. This is meant to be the main highway that runs down the coast to some of the most beautiful coastline of South Africa and it had animals all over the place. The road was in fairly good condition and bad sections were being worked on, but it puts Central America to shame with the lawlessness of the farmers letting their cattle and goats wonder the highway. So it was slow going at times and especially when we were stuck in traffic as the main road went through many small villages along the way.

We finally got to East London around 5:30pm and gone are the days when the sun sets at 8:30-9pm. Here it sets around 6pm. After a few wrong turns, we managed to find the Hostel that we were planning on camping at and learnt that the only parking that they had was on the main beachfront road. They did suggest that they had a security guard to watch over the vehicles/bikes that were there. I wasn’t too comfortable with the idea and after such a long day, the thought of having now to put up the tent in the dark, lug all our stuff from the road up into the camping area wasn’t appealing and had learnt about a Backpackers that wasn’t too far from us that had secure parking for the bikes from a local fisherman, so decided that we will settle there for the night. It didn’t take us too long to be seated at a local restaurant as well and we were in bed soon after.

The next few days were to be short days as we stopped off in Port Elizabeth to visit family for the night, then on to Mossel Bay were we stayed at one of the nicest caravan parks with the most amazing sea view from our tent which wasn’t expensive either, and then on to Cape Agulhas, the most southerly tip of Africa. Our visit to Ushuaia was just over two months ago and was still fresh in our minds, and now to be at the most southerly tip of Africa was another tick off our checklist. It wasn’t the same feeling though as we had ridden almost 25,000km to get to Ushuaia, and had only done about 2,500km after arriving in Johannesburg to get to Cape Agulhas. We had our customary picture with the sign which also demarcated the meeting point of both the Indian and Atlantic Oceans. One is meant to see a color difference as the Indian Ocean brings a warm current to the shores of South Africa while the Atlantic is the “cold” ocean.

Cape Agulhas

We were keeping tabs on our friends Tom, Pat and Christine, and now Dom an Englishman that spent the last 6 months between Alaska and Panama and was also setting his sights on his ride north (The Dom Way Round), so arranged to stay with the same couchsurfing host and touch base with them for the evening as they were planning to head out the next day. Our hosts in Cape Town are Marlies & Chris and have extended their home to not one biker, but a family of bikers over the last few days. On our first evening here, they treated us to the most amazing snook (local fish) on a braai (bbq). The others have left, so we hope to catch up with them over the next few weeks as we still need to do our sightseeing around Cape Town, have new tires put on our bikes (TKC80’s, just fitted today) and patiently wait for our Mountain Equipment Co-Op stove to arrive.

New photos added to the South Africa album.

Hit the Road Jack

2011-04-05T07:25:00.001-07:00

Angela writes:

The weekend before departing Johannesburg Daryll’s sister, brother-in-law, and nephew took us to the Ann van Dyk Cheetah Centre where we were loaded onto a large safari truck to drive through the enclosure amongst the 60 or so resident cheetahs. Cheetahs are the fastest running creatures on earth and reach speeds of up to120 km/hr. They are each beautifully decorated with their own unique pattern of spots. In the wild cheetahs often get their food stolen by lions because after they run so fast to catch their prey, they have to rest from exhaustion for like 15 minutes before they are able to consume their food. This is where the lazy lions come in and muscle the meal away from the cheetahs. As fascinating as it was to watch all these exotic animals, it was equally enjoyable to watch our 2 year old nephew Kuval embark on his this wild adventure. He held on tight to the bars of the seat in front of him while we bumped along in the truck and he watched the big cats enthusiastically. Later when we were allowed to walk on the ground in front of 3 fenced-in cheetahs, these young cats started stalking Kuval! They realized he was tiny, young and most likely easy prey and they would not take their eyes off of him. We were all perfectly safe from attack however it was really scary watching these wild cats hissing and sizing up our baby boy!

While maintaining our bikes in Johannesburg we were lucky to meet with local rider Andy and his wife Michelle who were very helpful with local tips and tricks. They were also hosting another group of friends that we must introduce you to - Tom, Pat and Chris as they are fellow motorcycle riders from North America, who will be travelling the same route up Africa as us and we expect to meet up with them often on our journey north. Tom is from Bellingham, Washington and is riding his Suzuki V-Strom 650 http://tomrinbellingham.blogspot.com/ and Chris & Pat are from Montreal, Quebec riding two-up on their Honda Africa Twin 750 www.sur2roues.blogspot.com .

During the hours spent throughout our stay in Johannesburg watching World Cup Cricket, news reports on North African politics and eating delicious home-cooked meals, we also visited with many family and friends. This was only my second time in South Africa and the first time since we’ve been married, so it was great to meet and reacquaint myself with so many family members on Daryll’s side. Time flies while you’re having fun and it was very quick that our departure day from Johannesburg had arrived on Thursday March 31st. Our bikes were packed and our panniers were full with as much food from Daryll’s mom and sister as we could possibly carry and we hit the road on a sunny morning heading for Piet Retief, South Africa.

After weaving our way out of the big city, the day’s ride was peaceful as we sped by windy fields of long grasses and cosmos flowers.

We were stopped several times for road construction but passed the odd town and speeding train, and eventually arrived without incident at our first campsite or “Caravan Park” as they are called here, in the town of Piet Retief. The caravan park was home to some of the managers of the road construction crew that we had passed during the day and the first character to welcome us to the park was Dani. Dani came over to our site to look at our motorcycles and in about 15 minutes told us his very interesting but difficult life story. He explained that he used to be in the Special Forces in Angola and that many of his army friends in the past few years had committed suicide. He said he had recently stopped drinking, he was close to being 50 years of age and was still trying to deal with the experiences he had had as a 16 year old soldier fighting in the Angola war. Later that evening as he was preparing to drive to his permanent home for the weekend, he came back over to our site to say goodbye. Since his last visit he had also strapped a semi-automatic rifle across his back to ensure his safety for his nighttime drive! I sure am glad he liked motorcycles and called us friends.

As Dani exited stage left, our second welcoming character came by our site and proceeded to give us unsolicited travel recommendations for the whole of southern Africa! Ross, of the “Hop-On-Hop-Off Bus South Africa” fame, had the best intentions of providing good travel advice to us but for an hour he touted off vague details about a guy he knows who he can’t remember the name of, in such-and-such town located by the gas station, who may or may not be retired, who back in the day ran a good tour/restaurant/hotel business. I understand Ross simply wanted companionship while walking down his memory lane, but the worst part of this one-way conversation was that he kept insisting that I write all the details down on paper! Just when I couldn’t take it anymore Ross went back to his cabin with the promise of returning later that evening with a letter of introduction for us to show to his friends when we caught up with them. He very kindly called on us several hours later while Daryll was asleep and I was reading by flashlight in the tent. As much as we missed the comfort of our home-sweet-home tent that we hadn’t been in for six weeks, it was impossible to hide at night from late callers!

The next day of riding was along the border of South Africa and another country called Swaziland where we were stopped often in the baking sun for road construction.

That afternoon we arrived at the third ocean of our adventure, the Indian Ocean, beside a breezy little city called Richard’s Bay. Driving along in Richard’s Bay we found signs warning of hippos crossing along the main roads and signs asking us not to feed the monkeys. We were happy to arrive in Richard’s Bay to visit Daryll’s friends Ashnee & Wayne and their children Tyra and Aiden. That night we went for a lovely water-front tour and dinner beside the bay. The morning was spent unpacking and blowing up a big bright pink & purple bouncy castle for Tyra’s birthday party that afternoon. Definitely a fun first for us!

Featured in RidersWest Magazine :)

2011-03-25T04:27:00.001-07:00

Angela writes:

Sending a big “shout out” to our dear friend Lisa for hooking us up to be interviewed by the talented Glynis Fediuk who has recently written about our adventure in an article for RidersWest Magazine!

RidersWest magazine is published five times a year so for those of you in Western Canada you should be able to find this issue on shelves in a week or so. Otherwise here is a link to our story online called “Borders? What borders?”:

http://www.riderswestmag.com/motorcyclezone/borders-what-borders/

Happy reading and thanks for your continued interest!

Ang & Daryll

Driving, Living, and Internet Connection in South Africa

2011-03-24T03:25:00.001-07:00

Angela writes:
We have arrived. Arrived on the third continent of our journey, “The Dark Continent” of Africa. The transition from living in Latin America to living in Black-Africa has begun. Apparently we will have another transition once we reach the north of Africa, Muslim-Africa, but we’ll let you know about that once we get there.

When driving the roads in South Africa, you drive on the left hand side of the road. My first experience doing this was on our way from the airport to Daryll’s parent’s house. Our bikes had just been released from customs and we were operating on 30 hours without sleep, so I just had to hope we’d get there without incident as my attention span was dangerously short. When I was riding the roads, it felt like I was looking into a mirror. All the merging onto the highway was to the right, the slow lanes were on the left, and the dominant lane position for riding a motorcycle changed to the right side of the lane. When making a right turn at an intersection, I would often come nose-to-nose with another vehicle also making a right turn in the opposite direction. The unconscious internal messages to my brain needed some serious updating and my mantra has become “stay left, look right”. I actually had to think about whether or not my motorcycle would operation the same – would the clutch and break be reversed? Like I said, I was pretty tired. Now after 3 or 4 rides I have actually become quite accustomed to the changes however, it still requires extra concentration on my part.

For the last 6 months we have been living, breathing, and dreaming in Spanish so it came as no surprise upon arriving at the Johannesburg airport that Daryll would respond to people with si’s and gracias’es, a habit which we have quickly un-learned in the last week. After spending 6 weeks in friendly, open and relaxed Argentina, we were quite accustomed to having lengthy conversations with people at gas stations inquiring about our trip. Upon arrival in South Africa the vibe about conversing with “Mr. Stranger” comes with great warnings fraught with suspicion and concern for safety. While driving in a car around the city, the doors are always locked. I do however hope and suspect this paranoia will lessen after we leave the city. We are currently in Johannesburg, a large international city where carjacking, and shooting trespassers are common neighbourhood lore. We’ve heard stories of how the extremely poor of this city have stolen live electrical wires right out of the ground using pickup trucks, also known as “bakkies”, to pull the wires out and we’ve had first hand accounts from residents of nearby condos who had to go without power for a week until the wires could be replaced. We’ve heard stories of how people have stolen the SIM cards out of the traffic lights, also known as “the robots”, to use in their own phones to make free international phone calls. Every outing we have had there have been at least 3 or 4 major traffic intersections that have become 20-lane, four-way stops.

In Latin America we became used to reliable and frequent sources of unlimited internet connections. Within a day of arriving in Johannesburg we exhausted the monthly plan that Daryll’s parents had for internet as they commonly only do a small amount of emailing or Skyping. Telkom South Africa has a monopoly on internet services here and without much competition, charges users by the amount of data uploaded, downloaded, or viewed. Since we were “greedily” trying to download GPS maps and upload photos with this service provider, we ended up having to upgrade our internet package for the month. This comes to a very important point about updates to our blog dear readers. Across this African leg of our journey we will have even more limited amount of internet service available to us. This means updates to our blog may come every couple of weeks and unfortunately we will have to be very selective on the photos we upload. We are currently in Johannesburg, South Africa, arguable the most advanced city in Africa and we still are experiencing data limits on our internet service. I’ve read once we reach a country like Ethiopia, internet might be available only in the capital city and it might take an hour to open a 2 line email! Our blog updates will be limited in the next 6 months – sorry!

Staying here in Johannesburg with Daryll’s parents has been wonderful. After 6 months on the road it is so great to be with family. Daryll’s Mom and Dad are bending over backwards to ensure we have everything we need to prepare us for our next 6 months and are making us very comfortable in the process. The food has been fantastic and Daryll’s Mom tries to feed us 4 or 5 times a day with treats and fresh fruit that I can rarely say no to. We’ve had dinner parties, birthday parties (we’ve become seriously smitten with our “new” nephew who just turned 2) and gatherings with some new motorcycle friends where we’ve received help with the bikes and great route planning advice. We’ve done mountains of laundry (sleeping bags, riding gear, helmet pads etc), cleaned out the tent, and completed maintenance on the motorcycles. For Daryll’s cousin I’ve promised an update on how our dog Echo is doing at my Mom’s in Ontario. My Mom says:

Echo has certainly become part of the dog pack.
She has made herself comfortable and likes to run with Max (one of her other dogs).
She loves to play and she gets down on her two front paws a lot to show us she's
ready to rumble but she’s such a “big horse” she’ll knock you down and keep going!!!
No problem with her appetite. She has many food bowls to choose from and likes to
make sure all taste the same.She is slumming it right now - laying on the floor by my feet, usually it’s the
couch.”

Thank you Mommy for taking such good care of our girl! And thank you to Daryll’s family for taking such wonderful care of us!

It’s Time for Africa

2011-03-19T05:35:00.001-07:00

Daryll writes:

After two magnificent weeks, we bid a sad farewell to all our new friends in Buenos Aires. We had arranged with our shipping company to drop off our bikes at the cargo terminal on the Wednesday and for the bikes to fly to Johannesburg on the Friday, knowing that we were to fly out on the Sunday. So if there were to be problems with any of the paperwork, we would still have time to sort it out before we left the country. We’ve heard some horror stories of bikers leaving before their bikes could be shipped only to find out that customs hadn’t cleared the bikes to be exported.

Our departure from Argentina though was not without drama. A short clip of our bikes being packed and ready for shipping.

It's Time for Africa from One World 2 Explore on Vimeo.

Having arrived in Johannesburg with little sleep, we spent the entire day moving from one office to the other and trying to have our bikes processed and cleared through South African customs. Thanks to Shalan, my brother in-law who met us as we disembarked our flight and dropped us off at the air cargo terminal together with a jerry can of gas. I was amazed how helpful people were. Once we had customs sign off for our bikes to be released, a forklift brought them out into the parking lot. We both were relieved to see them in tact and the way we had seen them taken away a few days prior. As we unwrapped the several layers of plastic, we had several onlookers as everyone was eager to see what was under all that wrapping. As we worked to get the bikes on the road again, we had several offers of help and one guy went off and made a funnel and brought it back so that I could fill the tanks with gas.

I’ve never lived in Johannesburg and was shocked at the traffic. It was rush hour and we had to get to my parent’s home. I purchased the Tracks 4 Africa mapping software for my GPS prior to leaving Canada, however just realized that it doesn’t auto-route in and around the Johannesburg area. So we were glad when Shalan arrived at the cargo terminal to lead us home. As we inched forward in traffic, we got a few stares as it is common practice for bikes to lane-split, so the locals must have wondered why we were sitting in traffic.

It’s nice being at home, having a warm bed to sleep in and especially taking advantage of my mothers cooking. The last week was spent catching up with family and friends and I need to spend the next few days going over the bikes. It is good being at home, but we are also itching to get going again as it is now 3 weeks since we’ve really ridden our bikes. We’ve purchased a new guidebook and now the planning begins for the start of the next leg of our adventure. Stay tuned!

Thank You Latin America

2011-03-11T11:43:00.001-08:00

Daryll writes:

We had such an amazing time in Latin America and wish that we had more time to explore the areas we missed and is definitely a place we will come back to. The people that we met along our journey were extraordinary, the landscapes breathtaking and the food divine - Latin America holds a special place in our hearts.

Thank You Latin America from One World 2 Explore on Vimeo.

Why we do It!

2011-03-08T04:19:00.000-08:00

Daryll writes:

Our friend Paul had sent us this link of another biker explaining why he travels on motorcycle and it explains exactly how we feel when on the road.

Home of Tango

2011-03-08T03:32:00.001-08:00

Daryll writes:

Our focus for our first week in Buenos Aires was to arrange shipping of our bikes to Johannesburg and were glad that we dedicated all our time to it. We drop off the bikes on Wed. March 9th and if all goes well with customs, they will fly out on a South African Airways flight on Fri. March 11th and we will follow on Sun. March 13th. Now that we got the logistics taken care off, we are making more time for sightseeing.

Wall mural in La Boca

We are staying at Kilca Hostel and upon arriving last week, we met a South African couple (David & Ewa) that were awaiting the arrival of their Moto Guzzi from Cape Town I had also told our friends (Michael, Jing & Sean) about the hostel and they arrived a few days later. So we ended up being one big biker family at the hostel and thanks to Michael who prepared a lovely pasta dish for us.

Evening dinner

Buenos Aires is a large city with an excellent network of public transport that includes both an underground subway system and efficient bus network and also has one of the widest streets in the world eminating from the Oblisque. On our way back from La Boca, we missed our stop and ended up at the end of the line and the bus we were on had terminated, so had to get off the bus and get onto another one going back in the direction we had wanted. It gave us a good sightseeing tour of the city though. We had heard so many different stories of how dangerous the city is and that pick-pockets are all over the place. In the short time that we have been here, we have only met friendly people that always offered their help when asked for directions.

Oblisque

It’s Mardi Gras and there where small Carnivals all over the city this past weekend. It’s the first time that Buenos Aires was having celebrations, so it is still new for the locals; however it didn’t take too long for everyone to get into the spirit of spraying foam on each other. Our friend David was the worst and the little kids would chase him around as he retaliated.

Angela and I decided to spread out our sightseeing over a few days, so not to get tired in the heat. Our first stop "Recoletta" to visit the grave of Eva Peron who served as First Lady of Argentina from 1946 until her death in 1952 and became popular for speaking on behalf of labor rights for trade unions.

Recoletta

As we walked around, we came across a few dog walkers and found a few that herded over 18 dogs, simply talented as all the dogs were so well behaved under their control. Don't know how Echo would have done? In the La Boca district, where the famous soccer club has it’s stadium, the restaurants on the quaint colorful streets have free tango shows to draw patrons to their restaurants.

Maradonna

We also headed to the old part of town, San Telmo District with cobblestone streets and found Casa Minima, the narrowest building in BA.

Casa Minima

Our German friend Paul had also arrived in BA, so we had arranged to meet for coffee one afternoon. While we headed south to Ushuaia, he spent some time in Paraguay, Uruguay and Brazil and still has another month in Argentina and Chile before shipping back home. We had spent Christmas evening with Paul in Quito, Ecuador and it was nice catching up with him and have arranged to see each other again once we get to Europe.

Wall mural in the San Telmo District

National Congress

Old guy in Church

New photos added to the Argentina photo album.

Some Bike Stats

2011-02-28T14:21:00.001-08:00

Daryll writes:

We are now safely in Buenos Aires, and our timing couldn’t have been better with us arriving at our Hostel around 1pm on Sunday afternoon. I’ve been looking forward to a bed in days and couldn’t wait to put my head on an actual pillow – it’s the little things that make the difference.

Some bike stats. for all those bike geeks after arriving in Buenos Aires and 30,030km after leaving Vancouver:-

Angela’s Bike:
Tires
The bike had a set of Avon Gripsters that had about 2000km on them before we left.
The rear was changed to a Pirelli MT60 after 16,520 km.
The front was changed to a Michelin Sirac after 23,988 km. This is what the store had in a 90/90 21” size.
The second rear was changed to another Pirelli MT60 after 11,817 km. We could have pushed it for another 1500km, but had some time in Ushuaia, so had it changed.

Daryll’s Bike:
Tires
Also started with a set of Avon Gripsters.
The rear was changed to a Michelin Sirac after 22,148 km.
The front has just over 31,000 km and needs to be replaced. I’ve been nursing it to Buenos Aires and plan on changing it out in South Africa.

Comments:
As you can see, we got some amazing mileage out of the Avon Gripsters and will definitely use them again as a multi-purpose tire. They do well in the dirt and stick in the wet.

Oil
Both bikes have had 4 oil changes each and I’ve tried to stick to the 6000 km schedule. They are now due for an oil change, but plan on doing that in South Africa. I have used 15w40, 10w40 and even 20w50 as it’s all I could find for the oil changes. The air filter was cleaned at every oil change, but I alternated changing the oil filter at every other oil change. So only went through 2 oil filters per bike.

Chain & Sprockets
Angela’s bike started with a new set of sprockets and chain, so has just over 31,000 km and I plan on replacing these in South Africa as well.
My bike still has the original chain and sprockets on, so has about 38,000 km and is in desperate need for a change. I have a set to change them out, but hoped that this can also be done in South Africa.
I’ve lubed the chains every other day with Teflon wax that we carried and once that was done, started using engine oil. It tends to make a mess, but our chains stay lubed.

Comments:
I’ve kept up with regular maintenance of the bikes, but I do have to take them in to a shop in South Africa to have the valves checked and adjusted. Still haven’t learnt how to do that, but hope that once they are checked and adjusted in South Africa, I needn’t worry about them for a while. I will also change out the fuel filters and replace the air filter to a new one. If we had to repeat this leg of the trip, the DR650 is definitely the bike I will choose for these conditions. The bike performed well for us and was flawless. I may consider switching to soft luggage to save on the weight vs.. hard luggage; however this is just personal preference.

The People we Meet

2011-02-25T11:35:00.001-08:00

Daryll writes:

As we continue on our journey north to Buenos Aires, we spent a few days riding and camping in the rain. After a few days of being wet and the tent damp, my mood took a downward turn as it wasn’t fun anymore. At one of the rest stops, we went inside the service station to warm up with a glass of hot chocolate each. As we sat there contemplating on how long we wait and if the rain and biting cold wind will ever stop, we met a German couple (Drogbar & Dieter) who were traveling in their overland truck. We got chatting and learnt that they were on the road for the last 10 years and have had various vehicles over that time.

Dieter explains that this is their life and that they normally go back to Germany for their 6 week “vacation” every year. It so happened that we were both headed for the same coastal town, we were planning on camping at the Municipal Campground and they were just going to park on the beach. We decided to meet later that evening. It was going to be 70km to this little beach town and we had to backtrack to get back onto the main route to continue north the next day so decided that we will fill up when we come back the following day. Big mistake!

That evening, we fought with the tent to get it into the ground as the fierce wind blew in off the Atlantic. Later that evening, Dieter had found us and had suggested that we join them for a drink in their truck after dinner as the only Restaurant in the town was closed. We had a quick bite to eat and wondered over to the warmth of their overland truck and watched one of the DVD’s that Dieter had made off their trip across Russia, Mongolia, China and Tibet. It was inspiring stuff to chat to the both of them over some fine boxed red wine.

The next morning, we packed up early and headed to the gas station to re-fuel for the day’s ride; only to learn that the YPF was out of gas and wasn’t expecting any for another day. So we had another hot chocolate to warm up and asses how far we could go on the gas we had. Another customer had suggested that there was a gas station 60km north of where we were. We could do 60km, but the next town was 170km away, and we certainly couldn’t get both bikes the 170km. I drained about 3 liters of gas from my bike and added it to Angela’s bike to make sure that we didn’t have to stop on the highway in the rain and wind and try and transfer gas from my bike over. We rode slowly hoping that the gas station was open and had the precious liquid that we were looking for and it did and once we filled up, the fear of being stranded in the wind and rain had disappeared and we were in full riding mode.

Over the next 2 days, we made good time and decided to push on to a town called Viedma. This one is to all those bikers that are reading this that are planning a similar trip in the future. Don’t stay in Viedma as there isn’t a Municipal Campground there anymore. We found this out around 5pm, after doing about 500km that day. It took a while to find the spot and after asking for directions twice, both a police officer and a cyclist directed us to an open lot, that resembled a campground, but was now a construction site for a new highway going through the town. Darn it! I asked a few kid riding their bicycles in the open lot if there was an alternate camping spot, and they had suggested that there was one 30km back the way we had come. I was reluctant to give up that quickly as I would have noticed camping as we entered the town. This campground used to be along the river, and there was two rowing clubs in the vicinity, so I decided to venture over to one of the clubs as there was people milling around to see if we could camp on the grass surrounding their club house. I ended up speaking to the President of the club and the Coach and they were reluctant to let us camp and also suggested the camping 30km south of where we were. They had said that they will get into trouble with the police if they let us camp on their property – weird, oh well.

As I walked towards Angela and the bikes to give her the bad news, that we need to come up with a new plan, they called me back and offered us a spot where we could set-up the tent for the night. It was perfect, the club was shutting down for the evening, so we had the entire area to ourselves and watching the sun set over the river was peaceful. The Coach, I think he was said that he lives at the back of the building and was leaving and will come back around 10pm. I thought fine, we would be asleep by then.

As we were preparing dinner, a biker pulls up and comes to talk to us. As it turns out,m he was one of the rowers that was there earlier in the evening and had come back to talk to us and offered to take us for a ride around the town. As we had a long day, we declined, but we spent some time chatting non the less. Guston had purchased his Honda 250cc 4 months ago and it was shining, so you know he took pride in his ride. Before he left, I gave him a sticker and in return, he took off his bike key from his key chain and handed his key chain of a saint (not sure what saint it is) to me as a gift. That’s just the type of people we meet every day.

After dinner, we watched a movie on the laptop and called it a night. It must have been a couple hours later, I hear a rattling on the tent and a guy yelling at us. Oh no – could it be someone yelling at us for camping here. As I open the tent, Angela hands me her headlamp and I realize that it’s the Coach. It’s now 11pm, he’s just got back and wants us to move our bikes inside the building were the kayaks and canoes are as he says that they will be safer. I really wasn’t going to argue with him, so we quickly pushed both bikes inside the building and he had said that he will leave the door unlocked so we could get them out in the morning. Yup, that’s going to be safer. He was really nice and asked if we already had dinner and then suggested that we could use the stove in the club house for breakfast. The next morning, I pull the bikes out and bid farewell to another new friend.

Gravel N’ Guns

2011-02-25T04:47:00.001-08:00

Angela writes:

So apparently deep gravel and I are not the best of friends either…
While riding through southern Argentina we have ridden several hundred kilometers of dirt roads without issue – through Chile on Tierra del Fuego, to Torres del Paine, up Ruta 40 to El Calafate - yet we had heard from other riders about some atrocious gravel roads further north. When we decided to take a 200 km dirt “short cut” from El Chalten to HWY 3 we learned what these other guys were talking about.

The dirt and gravel road we began taking had 3 dirt tracks on it. The track were the width of car tires. Surrounding these tracks on either side was 6 inches of piled gravel and the shoulders of the road were 6 inches of piled gravel as well. Not a lot of room for error! The first 10 kilometers that we travelled on this road went well, we concentrated hard on staying on the narrow dirt tracks. Of the 3 tracks Daryll was riding the middle and I was riding the far right track. When I noticed some deeper gravel covering my track I decided that as soon as I could manage it, I would switch to riding in the middle track behind Daryll. When I hit this bit of gravel it bumped me up into the 6 inch pile of gravel and I decided well now is my chance to get in the middle track. Instead of smoothly transferring into the middle, I fish-trailed deep into the gravel pile and ended up swerving onto the far left track but not under control! I think my bike swerved from left to right a few more times and eventually I ended up on the ground on the right side of my bike and ripped the right pannier off before I came to a stop. I tried to get up from under the bike but my right leg was stuck. I waited for something to start hurting on my body but luckily I was complete okay, just had to look over the bike. I was only going about 35km/hour so it wasn’t too bad of a crash. Daryll noticed my wipeout in his rearview mirror, stopped his bike in the middle of the road and came running back to me. I gave him 2 thumbs up letting him know I was okay but his adrenaline had already started pumping. He lifted the bike off my leg so I could slide it out and then we both struggled to heave my bike up out of the gravel and on to it’s kick stand. Since the bolts holding my pannier had bent as it got ripped off the bike, Daryll had to strap it back in place to ensure it wouldn’t rattle too much and slip off the bike. Then when we tried to start the bike it wouldn’t start. While I had been lying on the ground I checked to see if gas was leaking from the tank, it wasn’t but I did notice air bubbles going into the tank. Daryll figured out that gas had been leaking into my air box so after he drained the gas from the vent hole, the bike thankfully ended up starting again. Since we still had 190 km to go on this terrible road and the wind hadn’t even started to push us around yet, we decided to take the longer way around to HWY 3, a paved 450 km road. I’m glad we had the experience on this type of road so that we understand the perils that other riders talk about when they don’t have alternative routes. I’m glad we had another option.

The next couple of days were back on pavement, following the highway along the Atlantic coast took us back up north fairly quickly. We camped in some sites we had used on the way down to Ushuaia so it was nice to be in some familiar towns. It made finding the gas stations, the grocery stores and the municipal camping – our stable destinations- much easier after a long days ride.

When we arrived at a campsite in Rada Tilly we met a nice local couple who appeared to be packing up their campsite even though it was late in the afternoon. Daryll and he talked about the bikes for a while, while the guy poured cups of cerveza for both of them. Later the lady came over to talk to me and told me how she used to work making fishing nets. Then she explained in broken English that she, her boyfriend and her 5 year old son were leaving the campsite and were going to find another one. The reason that they were leaving was because her husband was coming from a nearby city, after he discovered their location, and he was bringing his gun. She had contacted her lawyer and he suggested that they flee to another campground immediately. I was going to ask where they were headed as we have become quite the experts on Argentinean campsites but I figured the less information I had the better! After another 30 minutes of pleasantries, while her son watched cartoons on their laptop in the truck, they departed for their next “safe haven”. That night Daryll and I watched for a “man with a gun” to wander through the campground but all we saw thankfully was a “man with sunglasses”. We often wonder what happened to the trio and wish them well.

New photos added to the Argentina photo album.

North to Buenos Aires

2011-02-23T09:16:00.001-08:00

Daryll writes:

Sorry to keep everyone in suspense over the last 2 weeks; however we are still camping (30 consecutive nights and counting) and find wifi few and far between. We have been updating our little map and stats section though if you wanted to check up on us.

While in Ushuaia, we stayed at Camping Los Andinos that overlooked the city and had it's own ski hill. Angela drummed up the energy to walk up to the top while I lazed around.

The campsite also happened to be the hang-out for many overlanders including cyclists, motorcyclists and 4x4’s and we were fortunate to meet Andy and Gosha (www.journeyfarbeyond.com), a Polish couple riding 2-up on a Suzuki V-Strom 650. They flew to Buenos Aires and were heading north after Ushuaia to Alaska and then across Asia back to Poland. We spent a few wonderful evenings with them and another biker from Venezuela.

Gosha & Andy

After 4 glories warm and sunny days (unusual for Ushuaia), we bid farewell to our new friends and Ushuaia to make our way north. It is 3079km from Ushuaia to Buenos Aires; however we were planning a few side trips in between and headed to Puerto Natales, Chile on our way to Torres del Paine National Park. There are two different ferries that one can take to leave the island of Teirra del Fuego, the apparently free ferry that we took coming onto the island or the paid ferry that lands in Punta Arenas. We took the apparently free ferry – or that’s what I like to think. It rained for our night in Puerto Natales and a thick mist hung over the air as we packed up the next morning and were hesitant of spending two nights camping in a National Park based on the current weather conditions. We decided to take the risk and gamble on the weather improving and boy it did. As we rode into the park, we were greeted with some of the most magnificent views of the Torres (Towers). We camped for the two nights with warm days and cool chilly evenings with some of the most amazing scenery around.

After resting up for a day, we headed on to El Calafate to visit the Perrito Merino Glacier. At the campsite, we met Dan and his wife who we had originally met in Bariloche and a South African biker (Pieter) who had purchased a little 250cc bike and was riding around Argentina for a month before selling it and heading back home. Hope to see him in East London when we travel through. El Calafate is a quaint little tourist town, with the main attraction being the Los Glaciers National Park and the Perrito Merino Glacier being the feature attraction. The day after arriving, we were up early and rode our bikes to view the Glacier. The entrance to the park was pretty steep at US$25 per person, however was well worth it. We got there pretty early (our trademark at touristy sites) and beat the tour bus’s. In the park, there are walk-ways that run along the face of the Glacier. It is 5km wide and 60m high above the surface of the water and is constantly advancing and spectacular to see up close and personal. We walked around for at least 3 hours and it was like being in a freezer. It was chilling to the bone. We were lucky, we had our motorcycle gear to keep us warm and as we walked along the walk-ways, the cracking sound of the Glacier breaking off could be heard. The Colombian Icefields in the Rockies (Canada) is no comparison to this monster.

New Photos of Chile and Argentina added to the photo albums.

The End of the World

2011-02-10T07:51:00.001-08:00

Daryll writes:

After leaving the dusty roads of Chile behind us, we were back in Argentina and on the paved Ruta 3 on the island of Tierra del Fuego and had about 200km to go before reaching Ushuaia, the southerly most city in the world. The road literally ends here. Riding to Ushuaia is one of the goals for many adventure bikers as it is as far as the road goes.

After spending several days seeing the same flat, dry pampa, we were very surprised as we were about 100km away from Ushuaia. We climbed a bit, enough for it to get cold again and with snow capped peaks, half green forests and turquoise colored lakes, our goal had come into view. It seemed to be just a port town at first, however as we approached the towns Centro, it’s charm and character became evident. Located alongside a calm bay and surrounded by snow capped mountains, we had reached the southerly most city in the world. It had taken us 5 months and just over 25,000km. We found a nice campsite overlooking the town and set-up camp knowing that we would be here for a few days to take it all in.

We rested for a day, before taking a short ride into the National Park of Teirra del Fuego to where the road ends. We had learnt that it’s best to enter the park prior to 7am as there isn’t any guard on duty, and thus saving the $16 per person entry fee – we are on a budget you know. So we were up at 5:30am and as we rode into the park, the sun started to rise and lit up the mountains surrounding the park. We past one biker on his way out, as we got closer to the end of the road and the famous sign that is must do on every travelers list that comes here.

We spent some time both in the park and taking a ton of pictures, but it hadn’t really sunk in on where we had ridden and what we had accomplished. We were excited on our achievement, but that’s as far as it had gone. It was only after I made this short clip did the emotions kick in and me choking up as I watched it and Angela breaking down into tears. We were really at “The End of the World”.

The End of the World from One World 2 Explore on Vimeo.

Winds of Patagonia

2011-02-09T09:12:00.001-08:00

Daryll writes:

San Carlos de Bariloche is one of those towns that anyone visiting will fall in love with. We did! It reminded me of being in the Swiss Alps. The town resembles any small town you would find in the Alps. We wondered around the town on one of our rest days and tried some of the amazing chocolate that can be found here as well. The camp ground that we stayed at also had it’s resident St. Bernard to entertain the campers and after spending three warm sunny days, having steak and wine for dinner for three consecutive nights, we had to say goodbye to Bariloche and continue our journey south through Patagonia. Before we left though, we did manage a short side trip to admire some of the amazing lakes southern Argentina has to offer.

Many of the YPF Gas Stations have free wi-fi; however we’ve just been having bad luck in trying to connect to these and in probably 9 out of 10 attempts we are able to connect to quickly check emails before having to get back on the road. Hence the lack of response’s via email and failure to update our blog.

We’ve been riding solid for seven consecutive days and only managed to cover a distance of about 2,250km. We would be up at 6am, have breakfast, pack up the tent, pack the bikes and be on the road by 8am. We found that the earlier we got going, the more distance we could cover in the morning as come afternoon, the wind would pick up and we would barely get anywhere. It was slow going and the wind at times was brutal and many times I had to fight with the bike to stay on my side of the road as the wind would push me into the oncoming lane. I could safely cross the yellow line and steer the bike back onto my side but it was a different story when there was a semi-trailer heading towards me. Off the throttle and brake and pray that I can get the bike back onto my side before the semi. creates another wind blast pushing me off in the opposite direction. We’ve been on Ruta 3 coming south, so most of it has been paved , except for 110km of ripio (gravel) in Chile. Steering the bike back onto my side of the road on pavement is slightly easier as compared to trying to do it on a gravel road with distinct tracks. We were down to 20km/hr at times on the dirt section just trying to stay upright. We had been warned by other travelers that had done similar trip’s that the wind can be bad, but nothing can prepare you for the relentless wind and cold. For the past week, I’ve been wearing the following:- base layer thermal pants; Gore-Tex pants liner, riding pants and on my upper body: short sleeve wicking t-shirt; long sleeve wicking t-shirt; heated jacket; fleece; Gore-Tex jacket liner; riding jacket – yup, that’s 6 layers on my upper body and I would still be cold on my hands. Even with the heated grips, my fingers would get numb after a while and when we would stop for a break, I would try and warm them up against the bike’s engine.

Winds of Patagonia from One World 2 Explore on Vimeo.

After the first day or two, the scenery was the same, just open fields of pampa with lots of sheep grazing the lands. At one point we had to stop in the middle of the road to wait for a herd of sheep to cross the road. The funny part is that the sheep were being herded by a guy on a dirt bike and and dog in the back of a pick-up truck – how things have changed. We are in the height of summer and I can’t imagine how these small towns survive over the long winter with all the snow and wind that they would get. It is cold in summer and I really don’t want to be here over the winter. We are lucky to live in Vancouver with such a moderate climate. As we left the open plains and headed towards the coast, the Atlantic Ocean came into view. The wind continued to be merciless. Our fuel economy was dropping so much so that Ang can normally do 440km before switching to reserve, on one afternoon, she went into reserve at 320km and almost ran out of gas. Thankfully, there was a gas station a few meters away.

Along the road, there are road signs warning of strong winds that are depicted by a tree blown over. I am yet to get a picture of this because it is just too dangerous to stop of fear of having the bike blown over. We’ve been camping since leaving Mendoza, normally staying at municipal camp grounds. We had to stop in a small town (Caleta Olivia) as the next town was too far to continue for the night, so were forced to stay at one of the most expensive private camp grounds thus far. I guess the benefit was that we set up our tent next to some vines and we met two Welsh couples in their overland vehicles, so we had a good chat to them about their decked our trucks. I’ve decided the next trip we are going to take is going to be in one of these.

We had to take a ferry to get onto the island of Tierra del Fuego and part of the island belongs to Argentina and another to Chile. We spent most of the day on ripio and even though the Argentinean border was 500m away, the next town was another 88km away, we decided to set-up our tent behind a barn – free camping is always good. Alberto and Naomi – you would be proud of us, dedicated campers now.

Between a year and a half or two years ago, I met Michael Madill from Alberta on the HUBB as he was prepping 3 DR650’s for his wife, son and himself for a similar trip. Our bikes are set up almost identical. We had communicated several times whilst traveling; however had never met up as they had left two months prior to us and were always ahead. As we crossed onto the island of Tierra del Fuego a few days ago, I see 2 DR650’s coming towards us. Really didn’t think it would be them, as there should have been 3 bikes; but as they passed, we knew that we had finally met. We all quickly made u-turns and stopped safely for hugs all around. We had never met before, but we were like old friends. Michael, Jing and Sean were heading north after spending a few days in Ushuaia. Jing had encountered horrible headwind a few days earlier and had crashed, but not too seriously injured and was riding 2-up with Michael. Her bike needed some work done before they headed north again. We spent about 45 mins chatting, and could have spent the entire afternoon sharing stories about our journeys south. We hope to run into them again over the next week.

New photos added to both the Chile and Argentina photo albums.

Due South

2011-01-31T10:15:00.001-08:00

Angela writes:
I think while in Argentina Daryll and I are experiencing our “15 minutes of fame”. Here we are treated like celebrities. So many people kindly want to talk to us, wave to us and take our photo. We are in mid-summer here in Argentina and we’ve been meeting many people touring their own country while on vacation. People are very outdoorsy and camping is widely available. Everywhere we go we have segments of the following conversation, all in Spanish of course!

Where are you from? (They guess that Daryll is from Brazil and I am from Germany) How long did it take?

Where are you going? How long will it take?

What is the make of your bikes? Are they the same? How much gas in your tanks? How much did it cost?

Are you married? Do you have babies?

During our more lengthy conversations, usually with those who speak English to our delight, we’ve discovered that so many Argentineans have recent European backgrounds, very similar to Canada. So many people have told us that their grandparents are from Belgium, Poland, Germany, Spain ect. You can witness this in people features as well as many are fair haired and blued eyed. Here in Argentina, a custom we’ve come across on the road is that before a long journey you are suppose to place a plastic bottle full of water at a little shrine outside of town to ensure safety during the trip. Since we have a lot of ground to cover, we decided to place our own bottle so as not take any chances for the coming days. Another thing we’ve recognized about Argentineans is their love for a long, leisure, enormous BBQ called Asado. At all the campgrounds we’ve been to all of the sites have their own Asado “altar” – basically a cement oven, 5 feet off the ground with an iron grill.

Using wood or sometimes charcoal they will spend two hours tending cooking meat and toasting bread over the open flame. They will cook steak, chicken, sausage, ribs, and pork and sometimes a combination of all for one meal. It is very hot during the middle of the day to have these BBQs so often they don’t start their fires until 9 or 10 pm. Being around all these lovely smelling cook-outs prompted Daryll and I to go to an all you can eat buffet while in the city of Mendoza to see what all the fuss was about. Now of course with an all you can eat buffet you have to strategize how you are going to attack it. We decided not to eat all day and since the restaurant didn’t actually open until 8:30 pm it was a challenge. It was well worth the wait though as the food was very good. My first stop was the asado meat counter for a steaming piece of steak. It was cooked to perfection and melted in my mouth. I did try a few other things for dinner – the chicken was divine – and for dessert I indulged in another local delicacy – dulce de leche. It’s a thick, milk based caramel-like creamy topping that looks like butterscotch pudding. I had dulce de leche flavored ice cream and crème Brule with a scoop of dulce de leche on top. Yummy! And last but not least since vineyards are plentiful and wine is cheaper than water at $1/liter, no meal is complete without a healthy dose of white or red.

After leaving Mendoza we decided to take a side trip west towards the Chilean border to see Mount Aconcagua (elevation 22,841 feet / 6,962 meters) the highest peak in the America's. It was a beautiful site to see the white snow-covered mountain in the middle of the dry, brown mountain range. Our plan was to camp in the National Park surrounding it as our guidebook indicated it was possible, but upon our arrival we were informed that camping at that park was cancelled last year. No worries, the wind was pretty fierce at the site anyway. It was still mid-day so we rode to find a campsite elsewhere.

Our next camping destination was Canyon de Atuel which we had chosen because Daryll’s GPS indicated some campsites in the vicinity. After talking to people and upon arrival we then realized the area was a local adventure hotspot with whitewater rafting, rock climbing, river kayaking, tubing, and general river fun. We found a free municipal campsite, most of the cities and towns have them but usually you pay a couple dollars to stay, and frolicked in the river.

The next day on our way to Barrancas we met a motorcycling Argentinean couple Jorge and Paula also on their way to Ushuaia. They introduced us to another local favorite – mate – which we see everyone drinking out of fancy cups. We tasted the bitter tea and decided it must be an acquired taste but for now we liked the pot cups and fancy silver metal straws the best. We ended up riding with Jorge and Paula on and off throughout the day but after losing his license plate on some bumpy dirt roads and losing power in his engine, Jorge decided to stop somewhere to have a mechanic look at this bike. I suspect we will meet them again along the way.

As we ride southbound towns are becoming few and far between so while in them we have to make sure we fill up on water, food, wine and especially gas. In Chow Malal we decided to fuel up as the next gas station was another 300km away. I’m sure we could have made it but we would rather be cautious than have to limp into the next town to maybe discover a fuel shortage. In Chow Malal there was only one gas station and they were just filling up their underground tanks. The attendants informed us that it would be an hour before they would be ready to give us gas. We tried to wait right beside the pumps but were told that they need the room to maneuver the big tanker around the station. They asked us to wait across the street and we made them commit to serving us first once the pumps were back open. We weren’t too concerned about the hour wait but we didn’t want to “lose our spot in line” once other people started to come and lineup too. During the hour wait Daryll talked and joked with the gas attendants and thankfully they remembered us when the pumps opened again and we were ushered up to the pump and were ready to go within minutes which was great as another 20 cars had lined up in the meantime!

After 300 km of some more straight road riding through beautiful mountain scenery we arrived in Zapala. While riding around town looking for a grocery store, we noticed another foreign motorcycle rider weaving around town who then pulled up next to us at a traffic light. Here we were introduced to Francis, from France who had ridden from Paris, across Mongolia, Russia, Korea, Japan, Australia and Southern Argentina. He was now making his way up to Canada. Upon meeting us Francis decided to call it a day, although normally he would ride many more kilometers, and decided to budget camp with us. While looking for our site among some paths of puddles, sand and mud I dropped my bike in a mud puddle while making a sharp right turn. The fall was really insignificant but I wanted to mention it as it was my first dump on the trip. My instincts kicked in to turn off the engine and turn off the battery but I forgot to grab the camera! There was no damage to me or the bike just a bit to my pride as when I tried to lift the bike, even after turning the handlebars so my tire was pointing to the sky, I could not lift it upright, only enough to keep the gas from leaking out of the tank. I figured in this circumstance my adrenaline would kick in to give me super strength to lift it, but this was not the case and Francis came around the corner to my rescue to help me lift upright. Thanks Francis! Once we found a campsite we met two more friends Nicolas and Inaki from Argentina who were cycling from the Atlantic east coast of Argentina to the Pacific west coast of Chile. They had been on the rode for 18 days, riding about 70 km per day, and had approximately 10 days left of their trip. Boy did they have will power and we were very impressed with their efforts and the description of their joy after summiting their first of many mountains. After their long riding day they still had the stamina to ride back into the town and grocery shop for dinner and at 10 pm at night began making an asado BBQ to cook their sausages. They gave us tips to slow cook using wood and Daryll and I took notes as we aspired to one night grill our own – if we can wait that long for dinner! It was a great night for the five of us and a lovely chance encounter of “ships passing in the night” since we were heading due south, Francis due north and the boys due west.

After a quick night of municipal camping in beautiful San Martin de Los Andes where the most exciting thing we did was watch a movie in our tent on the laptop, we arrived in Bariloche via the “mostly dirt and gravel” Seven Lakes road. The scenery on the Seven Lakes road was beautiful and worth the extra effort but would have been much more impressive without the fog and rain we encountered.

We are now camping near Bariloche in small hippie town Los Cohiues, beside a babbling brook with the cleanest, clearest water I have ever seen. I don’t think I’ll be venturing into the river as the temperature today is probably about 10 – 18 degrees Celsius with a chilly wind blowing. The hot showers at the campground are definitely appreciated. We are going to rest here for a couple more days, explore a bit and Daryll is doing an oil change on both bikes right now as I type. But the most thrilling activity we’ve begun here is cooking our own asado (BBQ) of steak and sausages! After many days of canned tuna and packaged soups, freshly grilled meat is the best! Huge thanks to Nicolas and Inaki for teaching us the Argentinean way of having an asado. Last night we started a big wood fire on the left side of the concrete/brick fireplace and when we created coals hot enough we moved it over to the right side of the fireplace, under the grill, where our freshly butchered meat sizzled to perfection. Then as we were taught, we toasted some buns of freshly baked bread and grilled some potatoes. Our feast was so good we are going to repeat this again tonight and tomorrow! Yum, yum can’t wait and oh, we are properly washing it down with some fine boxed wine:)

New photos added to the Argentina photo album.

The Dwarf Road

2011-01-24T18:53:00.001-08:00

Daryll writes:

So after being hyped up about the possibility of crossing into Argentina sooner than later, we headed for the Paso de Jama pass that leaves the Atacama Desert in Chile and climbs to 4800m / 15,748ft and crosses into Argentina. The funny thing was that the Chilean Migracion and Customs were in San Pedro de Atacama and the Argentina Migracion and Customs wasn’t for another 160km. We were literally in no-man’s land. At the Chilean exit, we met 2 Brazilian riders that were doing a trip around Argentina and Chile. They were travelling a lot faster than us and passed us after the border.

On the way up the pass, the temperature changed drastically and we had to stop to put on a few more layers and plug in our heated jackets. The landscape was incredible along the way as we rode towards a dormant volcano, a few Laguna's stocked with their own resident flamingos and vicuna’s. I just wonder how anything can survive at this altitude. We had stopped to take a few pic’s of the flamingos and I had to walk down an embankment to get a better shot and was totally out of breath and breathing heavily by the time I got back to the bike. I hadn’t even gone 20 steps. At this stop, one of the Brazilian riders that we had met earlier had left their notebook – apparently it had all his notes about his travels for a future book. Another tourist had found it and gave it to us, thinking that we would run into them again. As they were already ahead of us, I didn’t think that we would catch up to them again but as we got to the Argentinean border, they were frantically asking all the passers-by if anyone had found their book and as Angela passed the notebook to the one rider, we could see the joy and relief in their faces and they hugged both of us, before posing for the customary photo opp.

As we continued into Argentina and descended the valley, the weather warmed up to warrant another stop to take off all those layers added on a few hours ago. One of the highlights that our Argentinean friends had told us about was a salt flats that we would pass through. So this warranted a stop for a few pics and a walk onto the flats.

Thus far with just over a week in Argentina, Argentina has delivered some of the best roads we have ridden on and one of the worst. More on that later. Our destination for our first night in Argentina was Purmamarca, a small town located in the middle of no where and surrounded by mountains with an array of colors that will have any Geologist in heaven. The road that led to this small town came down a mountain pass with over 25 switchbacks. The one thing that our Argentinean friends didn’t warn us about was that Argentineans take their siesta very seriously and rightly so as it is in the high 30’s during the day. As we arrived in Purmamarca, it was deserted and looked more like a ghost town. Everything was closed and there was hardly anybody on the streets. Normal trading hours are from 8am-1pm and then again from 5pm-9pm and the good restaurants don’t open till 9pm and some as late as 10pm. It was about 6pm, we had set up our tent and after a long riding day, a border crossing, we were starving and trying to find a place to eat was yet another challenge. We managed to find something that had Empenadas and beer as the daily special which we settled on and then watched the sun go down behind the gorgeous mountains. The sun doesn’t go down till around 8:30pm and it is hot well into the night.

On the way out of Purmamarca, we had to backtrack about 25km’s to find a gas station to fill up to get us to our next campsite for the night. Camping in Argentina seems to be well organized and there are several campgrounds to choose from, either private or normally every town will have a municipal campground. The one thing that has struck me is that Argentineans love to backpack, hitch-hike and camp around their lovely country. There are backpackers everywhere and they are not always foreigners. Our next destination was going to be a municipal campground in Salta and true to form, the road was another that was designed for bikers in mind as it snaked alongside a lush green mountain and later descended into an urban environment. The only problem with this road was that both opposing lanes were the width of maybe a single country lane. Not that much space to carve those corners. It reminded us of Chuckanuat Dr. in Washington but throw in some cows, and take away all the guard-rails.

It’s summer holidays here, so families are out camping and the campsite was busy and our neighbors were as curious as 5 yr olds and wouldn’t leave me alone to set-up the tent. From Salta, the scenery changed again from the lush green vegetation of the previous day to the most incredible rock formations that we’ve seen as we rode towards Cafayete. It wasn’t a long day and we arrived in Cafayete by noon and as usual, everything was closed so decided to stop at a gas station that sold food and supposedly offered wifi. After ordering, we found out that the wifi didn’t work, but the lomo (steak) sandwich that we had was so good. Before leaving, I ended up having a argument with the guy behind the cash for the lack of internet and the fact that our lunch worked out more expensive than was advertised. As we were planning on camping for the rest of the week and weren’t going to have internet access, Ang found an internet cafe to email home while I watched over the bikes, all still parked at the gas station. While there, I noticed several cars stopping to fill up without any problems. When Ang returned, we decided to fill up as we were at the station. As we rode the bikes close to the pump, the attendant starting saying no and that we should go elsewhere and there wasn’t any gas here. What the hell! So I went off at him, in English or course and he didn’t understand a word of my rant. My guess was that the guy inside told him not to sell us gas. Ang was nicer to him than I was and he explained that there wasn’t any gas and we should return tomorrow. We did return the next morning, found a different attendant and filled up. I kept my mouth shut the whole time.

At the campsite in Cafayete, we camped next to two families and where I met Martin, a young 10 year old that spent the entire evening sitting at our campsite asking me a million and one questions about our trip. Every so often he would go off back to his tent and bring candy or cookies back to us. He wanted to learn a few English words and I had a good opportunity to practice my Spanish as well. It was getting late and I had said that we are leaving early tomorrow morning, so I had to go to bed. It was about 10pm – that is late for me and he said that he would get up early to say goodbye the next morning. During the evening, I had given him one of our stickers, I guess he felt that he needed to return the favor and give me something and he pulled out a toy soldier from his pocket and offered it to me – it is times like these that really make this trip. I declined his toy soldier as I really couldn’t take his toy. As promised, Martin was up just before we could leave, and I noticed that his mom brushed his hair before he came over with his dad for some photos.

We were headed for Catamarca and during the morning stopped off at a few wineries for some photos of Argentineans famous vineyards and the rain clouds that loomed ahead. As we continued, it started to rain, and we could see in the distance that we were headed towards the eye of the storm, so decided to stop at a gas station for a break and hope that the storm will pass before we got back on the road. We must have waited an hour and thought that the storm had moved along. To our dismay, as we started back up, we headed up another mountain pass and we started to ride right into the rain. It was too bad to start, but then the wind picked up and it was the worst wind we have driven in. It was a biting cold wind and neither of us wanted to stop to add on more layers as we didn’t think we could hold up the bikes if we had stopped as the wind was so strong. The road had some potholes, which was bearable, but as we would pass a mountain, and it would shield us from the wind for a moment, the instant we came out of it’s shelter, we were blasted again. I’m sure that this was just preparation of what’s too come in Patagonia. I held my handle bars with a death grip for the next 100km’s. From the rain, to the wind, then came the fog and when we thought that it couldn’t get any worse, parts of the pass were under construction and there were dirt sections that turned in a slippery nightmare for me. I’m still running the original tire that I had left Canada with, so there isn’t much traction on dirt and as we came down a hill, the back-end would slip and slide all over the place. An hour and a half later, we descended into the most peaceful little community (Tafi de Valle) and then on to our campsite. Most of the camping we have been doing thus far have been in full service sites with a bbq, pool and hot showers, all for about $5. Well worth it for our budget.

The next major stop for us was Mendoza were we needed to catch up on blog, emails, change my rear tire and have a few good meals and sleep in some comfort for a change. Mendoza is a nice town, big city with small town feel. it was destroyed in an earthquake and when the city was rebuilt, it was designed with wide side-walks and streets that are lined with trees. Definitely worth a visit.

New photos of Chile and Argentina added to the respective photo albums. I had mixed some of the photos and have now resorted them into their correct locations.

We plan on camping for the next week as we make our way to Bariloche so will be out of contact till next weekend.

The Desert’s Been a Friend to Me

2011-01-23T09:56:00.001-08:00

Angela writes:

Since entering Peru we’ve mostly been living in a desert climate. Hot sun, sand dunes and scarce vegetation is mostly what we’ve been encountering on our daily rides. It’s nice when the scenery changes and we are riding along the Pacific Ocean. The wind on the coast however seems to pick up which causes us to ride at an angle. At times we’ve actually seen little dust tornadoes on the horizon and a few times these swirling dust visions have crossed the highway in front of us but I’ve never ridden through one as I really do not want to know how this would mess up my steering. Often during our riding we are passed by huge tourist buses, sometimes even double-decker ones, looking like “ships of the desert”. These tour buses are forever passing us - even on up hill highway. Years ago when we came to Peru we took an overnight bus from Lima to Arequipa a distance of 1020 km and it lasted about 14 hours. This time while we’ve been riding between these 2 cities we did the distance in 3 days. These buses are travelling super fast!

From Arequipa we travelled to our last destination in Peru before crossing into Chile – a small city called Moquegua. Since we heard that travel in Chile was much more expensive, we decided to economize and stay at a basic hotel without wifi which ended up costing us the equivalent of $12 CND. For dinner we had a meal of rice, chicken, salad, a drink and soup for $ 2.25 – for both of us. With full tanks of gas our last night in Peru made us and our budget very happy. To top off a perfect night at our hotel we met a British motorcycling couple, Kev & Lorrain (http://www.takingthelongwayhome.co.uk/) who had just come from southern South America and Africa. We sat on the roof top of our hotel sharing beer, stories and gazed at the glowing starry sky. Thanks guys for your great tips for the rest of our journey.

After a non-eventful border crossing into Chile which lasted the average 2 hours, (I am surprised that it didn’t take longer as Chile is obsessed about people bringing fruit/veg, meat, honey and dairy products into their country) we were on our way to Arica where we had Big Mac combos for dinner. Only our second stop at McDonald’s on our journey so far (our first was in Xela, Guatemala). Anyway the burger and fries tasted exactly like they were supposed to, only the service sucked. With this border crossing we encountered a 2 hour time change so we are now on Nova Scotia time, 2 hours ahead of Ontario and 5 hours ahead of BC.

In Arica we found out that we had missed seeing the 2011 Dakar rally by like 4 days so we started to spend our riding days scouting for crazy tire tracks in the desert. The resources in this desert area are extremely limited and gas stations are few and far between. Things are very expensive – gas has been $1.50/litre and we bought a 3 L jug of water for the equivalent of $4 CND. Considering that we rode though what claims to be the driest town on earth (Quillagua) I suspect the prices are warranted. Even in the hostels we’ve been staying at have had notices in the bathroom reminding us about water consumption “Please conserve water. Remember we are surrounded by the driest desert on earth”. The next city we stayed in was Iquique which was dramatically situated at the bottom of a desert cliff, shadowed by a sand dune the size of a 50 story building, along the coast of the turquoise Pacific.

We’re lucky the roads have been good and have been able to travel at 100km/hr which allowed us to have our longest riding day so far of 500 km. This has brought us to San Pedro de Atacama on the outskirts of the Atacama desert. We are surrounded by salt flats, lagunas and Moon-like terrained valleys. We went for a leisure ride around the outskirts of town and the scenery was amazing. It was like being in a Salvador Dali painting where the volcanoes were a warm brown, the sky was a brilliant blue, the clouds were as white as I have ever seen, the sparse vegetation was one of 10 shades of green, orange and yellow. I think there was even a smiling sun! This little outing however has made me realize how much I detest riding in sand! Sand is NOT my friend! In my mind I know the trick to sand riding is to go fast and keep weight on my back tire so that my front tire just skips over the sand but doing this in reality when I’m fish-tailing in the sand, trying to balance my 300 lb bike and not being able to have my toes touch the ground, makes this theory difficult to practice. I’m sure though that I will have plenty of opportunities to practice coming up in South America and Africa. (I’ll keep you updated on my progress.)

While we were in San Pedro de Atacama we decided to camp in the town. This is where we met 2 wonderful guys from Buenos Aires (Fredrico & Marino) who are doing a motorcycle adventure around Chile and Argentina. They fed us some great propaganda about their home country so we have now decided to cross into Argentina for awhile. Within the next day or two we will also pass into the Tropic of Capricorn.

The Nazca Lines

2011-01-11T06:47:00.001-08:00

Daryll writes:

One of the highlights of Peru which we missed the first time round was the Nazca Lines. We opted out of doing the flight, but decided to stop at the platform along the PanAm Hwy. I am sure that taking a flight over the Nazca lines is the way to see them, however going up in a small aircraft and with it flying at weird angles and making sharp turns wasn't appealing to us so we paid our 2 soles and climbed the platform to view the few formations that were close by instead.

The lines are a series of ancient geoglyphs located in the Nazca Desert and were designated a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 1994. The plateau that the lines are on stretches over 80 kilometers. Researchers believe the Nazca Lines were created by the Nazca culture between 400 and 650 AD and consist of individual figures that range in complexity from simple lines to stylized hummingbirds, spiders, monkeys, fish, sharks or orcas, llamas, and lizards. Of course, many of these we did not get to see, but got the gist of it.

The lines are shallow designs and were made in the ground by removing the ubiquitous reddish pebbles and uncovering the whitish ground beneath. The largest figures are over 200 meters across. Due to the dry, windless and stable climate of the plateau and its isolation, for the most part the lines have been preserved.

Once we were done viewing the lines, we headed for our camp spot for the evening. Down a dirt road in a little cove with it’s own Inka Ruins. The camping was part of a resort, so we got a few stares as we pulled up on our dirty bikes and eyed a good camping spot. We were the only campers for the evening and set up tent on a little ridge overlooking the ocean. The sunset was breathtaking as we took in the view and relaxed for the evening and going to sleep with the sound of the waves crashing onto the beach.

Puerto Inka

As we continued along the coast, the wind picked up and would blast us with sand. There were times when the bikes were pointed at a 15° angle so that we could ride in a straight line. On the long straight stretches, we would try to pass a semi-truck and as soon as we got out from the left lane (passing) back into the right lane, we were blasted again and took some concentration and focus to stay upright. I'm sure this is all preparation of what's to come on the notorious Ruta 40 in Argentina. On some twisties along the coast, a truck had lost it and went into a dune to the right. Lucky for him, the as the truck hit the sand, it sunk and stopped completely or else he would have gone over the cliff.

We headed on to Arequipa where we were going to stop for 2 days to catch up on internet stuff and plan our next course of action.

Arequipa Square

New photos of Peru added to the photo album.

From the Andes to the Coast

2011-01-11T06:20:00.001-08:00

Daryll writes:

We ended up spending a few extra nights in Huaraz as I needed to do an oil change and both Angela and I needed the comfort of having a toilet in our room. Our next destination was to be Lima. On our trip to Peru 5 years ago, we spent a few nights in Lima, so were just using it as a stop over point before we continued down the coast.

I think we were at about 3200m / 10,170ft but as we climbed the pass out of Huaraz we reached an altitude of 4100m / 13,451ft, the highest we’ve been so far and were rewarded with spectacular views of the Ancash Mountain Range. The region is crossed by two mountain ranges: on the western side, the Cordillera Negra (the Black Mountain Range), which has peaks without glaciers, and on the eastern side, it's the Cordillera Blanca (the White Mountain Range), which has many peaks covered with snow and ice. Between these two mountain ranges, the Santa River flows to form the Cañon del Pato from where we had just come.

Ancash Range

As we started to descend, the road turned into any bikers dream ride. We twisted and snaked our way down the pass from 4100m down to 1600m. It was an unbelievable ride that took most of the morning but the views and landscape was exhilarating. As we descended into the valley, we had to stop a few times to take off a layer or two as it started to warm up closer to the bottom.

Altitude - 4100m

Ancash Region from One World 2 Explore on Vimeo.

There is something about Peruvian dogs; they are the worst we have encountered so far. As we ride by small villagers,the dogs start to attack us and run after the bikes. It’s fine for Angela as she leads, so they tend to go after her, realize they can’t catch her and then stop in the middle of the road waiting for the next victim to pass by. I really don’t care for them too much and just increase my speed, rev the engine and bolt through. Once we got down to the coast, we continued into Lima and rode into afternoon Lima traffic. There are no rules in Latin America and Peruvian drivers are by far the worst as well. They drive with God on their side. They will pass on blind corners only to stop a few minutes later and then have to pass us again.

After Lima, we headed to Huachina, a small oasis town surrounded by gigantic sand dunes. On the way, we met Ian and Tony riding two-up on an 1150GS and planned to meet once we got to the town. They are also riding south, but taking a bit more time than us. After settling into the hotel, Angela found a new friend, apparently there were 6 of these guys at the hotel, but we only saw 2 of them.

Tortuga

The big draw for backpackers is the sand boarding down the dunes and the dune buggy’s that you can take onto the dunes. We had enough of riding for the day, so just wandered around the lagoon and met up with our new friends for an evening beer.

New photos added to the Peru photo album.

Caňon del Pato

2011-01-04T16:09:00.001-08:00

Daryll writes:

We left the coast and headed towards the mountains – the Cordillera Blanca. Several riders had told us that the ride through the Caňon del Pato (Duck Canyon) is not to be missed. The road through the canyon passes under walls of bare rock and through almost 40 tunnels. The downside was that it was going to be about a 320km day with 80km of that on a gravel road.

Even though we were up early, it was a slow start as we had to pack up our campsite and we haven’t camped for some time, so we were kind of slow in getting going. We need to camp more often. The coastal road started of with some spectacular scenery and then turned into absolute nothingness, just barren land with a whole lot of sand. Since entering Peru, we headed straight for the coast and now were going back into the mountains and it was a welcome change.

As we left the highway and turned towards the mountains, the windy paved road was in good condition with a few potholes and lots of livestock being herded down the road. The landscape was breathtaking as the road ran alongside the Rio Serena River as the myriad of colors of rock shone in the sunlight. Once we hit the gravel section, I thought that it wasn’t that bad, just slow going as it was loose gravel with large rocks. As I bounced around, the vibration ran through my bones and I thought that my bike was going to vibrate apart. I flirted with 2nd gear, but was in 1st gear for most of the time. I could feel the heat come up from my engine and warm my legs so stopped every hour for a break and tried to find a shady spot to hide from the beating sun. The road twisted and turned and hugged the cliff side and as we went through our first tunnel, I thought to myself – this is so cool.

80km of pavement goes by quickly. 80km of gravel is slow and after about half dozen canyon twisties, tunnels and over-hanging wall rock, I wanted it to end. At the start, we were stopping a lot for photos, but towards the end, we just wanted to get to Caraz, our planned destination to spend the night. The road just went on and on and wouldn’t end. The road will improve for a few kilometers, and then as quick as it improved, it would deteriorate again. I wouldn’t consider the road technically difficult and would have loved to have done it again with an unloaded bike. My body though was getting a good workout in handling the bike through the sharp blind corners and not forgetting the blind tunnels. Yup, I came through a blind corner to enter a tunnel, only to find someone in a pick-up exiting the tunnel and didn’t even slow down or make room for me to pass.

Once we got through the canyon, and reached the Cordillera Blanca’s, the snow covered peaks made it all worth while. I don’t think I can do justice to the scenery, landscape and type of riding we did, so I will leave you with this video. I warn you though, this video is longer than the previous ones. Enjoy!

Caňon del Pato from One World 2 Explore on Vimeo.

New photos added to the Peru photo album.

Penthouse Camping

2011-01-02T11:57:00.001-08:00

Daryll writes:

We wanted to be on the Peruvian coast for New Years however couldn’t find accommodation at the well known beach town of Mãncora, so decided in the end that we would spend New Years Eve wherever we found ourselves (Chiclayo) and then try and get to the coast thereafter. We visited Peru 5 years ago, but spent most of our time in the southern parts and hadn’t ventured up north, so wanted to see some of the sights we missed the first time round. Crossing into Peru was uneventful and we soon found ourselves in Piura, Peru. The town was bland, but was the closest biggest town we could find to spend the night after the border. I had forgotten how insane drivers in Peru are as compared to Central America – they honk for everything, try to squeeze their way in between other vehicles and will cut across traffic without any notice.

We were warned that the ride from Piura to Chiclayo was through a desert with nothing but sand and true to form, it was barren with the odd house/restaurant catering to truckers. So far, I haven’t seen any billboards, just brick walls with the advertising painted onto the wall. Peru had it’s elections a few months ago, so every wall facing the highway advertised a political candidate.

Our aim was now to get to Huanchaco (another beach town) for Jan 1st for the weekend for some R&R. We didn’t have any accommodation pre-booked, so were just going to wing it. We got into Huanchaco around midday on Sat. Jan 1st and the streets were chaotic with people coming in to the beach. We pulled into a resort hotel that our guide book said had camping as we knew we were going to find any hotels on the holiday weekend and managed to convince the owner to let us camp. It was expensive camping, but well worth it. We camped on the roof terrace overlooking the resort, pool, beach and the rest of the town and even got our own private washroom with hot water. We did get a few stares as we rode our bikes into the resort parking lot and set up our tent as we were the only campers.

Penthouse Camping

We took the bikes into the town in the afternoon to find a grocery store for dinner and had to ask a few people along the way only to be directed to the general market where Ang found a few items to sustain life. The traffic was insane and there was people everywhere. Most people were trying to get back home and both taxis and bus’s were overcrowded with people trying to get home after spending a day at the beach.

Caballitos deTotora (Little Horses)

These reed boats are used by fisherman and are left out in the sun to be dried out; however I hadn't seen anyone take them out. Guess they were there just for the tourists. Visiting a Peruvian beach town isn't complete without one of the traditional dishes of Ceviche (made from fresh raw fish and other seafood marinated in citrus juices such as lemon or lime and spiced with hot peppers) and Inca Kola which tastes like cream soda.

Happy with Inca Kola

Ceviche Mixto

New photos added to the Peru photo album.

Ecuador Video Clips

2011-01-02T09:24:00.001-08:00

Daryll writes:

The weirdest things you see whilst at a traffic light.

Jugglers at a Traffic Light from Daryll Naidu on Vimeo.

Ecuador Mountains from One World 2 Explore on Vimeo.

Ecuador Fogged In

2011-01-02T07:44:00.001-08:00

Daryll writes:

Since the last update, we’ve been riding for 6 consecutive days and the last time we did that was back in Mexico while on the Baja and trying to escape the 40°C before catching the ferry to the mainland. We needed to make up some time and decided that we wanted to get to Peru for the New Year. Hence the lack of blog posts over the last week, as we’ve been riding every day.

After catching up on emails and blog updates on Dec. 26th, we met Shane and Paul for coffee to say goodbye as we were leaving the next day and they needed to get some bike maintenance done in Quito. We were honored when Paul handed us a Bavarian Coat of Arms Flag which we needed to carry with us for the rest of the trip and bring back to his home town of Furth, Germany when we get to Europe. That’s the kind of people you meet.

Bavarian flag changing hands

We decided to take the Avenue of Volcanoes route to Baños vs. a route that ran along the jungle. On this particular route, one is meant to see several Volcanoes as you pass by, Cotopaxi being the most famous. For a change, it didn’t rain on us that morning, but we rode through a blanket of fog all day and could barely see the road ahead of us, let alone a series of Volcanoes that we were riding amongst. We were at an altitude of 3,600 m/11,811 ft and it was cold. There were two items that I’ve been carrying that I hadn’t used since reaching Ecuador i.e. the tripod and my heated jacket. Well, the tripod was used at the Equator monument and my heated jacket got plugged in on this ride. Riding in thick fog is worse than riding in rain as you can barely see the edge of the cliff or oncoming traffic as drivers here fail to turn on their headlights.

We finally reached Baños and found good cheap accommodation at $16 per night. Baños is located at the foot of Volcan Tungurahua and has erupted as recently as August 2010, so there wasn’t too many tourists and the hotels hurting. Even though it could be dangerous, I was hoping for some volcanic action, but alas, was only able to get a glimpse of the Volcano on our way out of town the next morning. We did spend the afternoon in the town’s thermal springs together with every other local resident.

Volcan Tungurahua

From Baños, we headed for Cuenca, another UNESCO World heritage city. We twisted through the mountains and the dense fog which was slow going and managed to get to Cuenca late afternoon. Once settled into an expensive (to our standards) Hostel, we walked around a bit together with trying to find a grocery store to find some miel (honey) and a lemon as I was starting to develop a sore throat. Breakfast was included together with the view, which made up for it.

View from Hostel

New photos added to the Ecuador photo album.

Feliz Aňo Nuevo!

2010-12-31T13:11:00.000-08:00

We are safe and sound and are in Peru now. We have been going non-stop for the last few days and hence no blog update since Quito. Planning on stopping for a few days this weekend, so will bring everyone up to speed of what we have been up to.

Wishing everyone everything of the best for the New Year and wish we could be with you celebrating.

Christmas in the Southern Hemisphere

2010-12-26T07:04:00.001-08:00

Daryll writes:

We had a fairly short ride from Ibarra, Ecuador to Quito where we were going to spend Christmas. On the way to Quito we crossed a milestone in our journey – the Equator, moving from the Northern Hemisphere to the Southern Hemisphere so we had to stop off at one of the monuments in Ecuador – apparently there are 3 in total. We got to the monument around 9am, and were fortunate as we were the only ones there so had the entire place to ourselves and the young lady was nice enough to let us take our bikes in for a few photo’s. The next time we will cross the Equator back into the Northern Hemisphere will be in Africa. Even though we are now in the Southern Hemisphere, we are still high up in the Andes and the last few days have been a bit chilly in the mornings and evenings. The sun comes out during the day, and without fail, it pours every afternoon for a few hours.

Angela (northern) & Daryll (southern) hemisphere

We wandered around the Old Town of Quito on Christmas day and the city was buzzing with people with most of the stores open. Christmas is celebrated on Dec. 24th, so everyone was out shopping and enjoying the brilliant sunshine. Just to make those in Canada jealous, it was a balmy 24°C. The two churches we stumbled upon before getting to the square had a very much gothic feel to it and reminded me of the Sagrada Familia in Barcelona.

Basillica in Quito

It was almost lunch time, and we weren’t sure on whether we wanted to have a large Christmas lunch or Christmas dinner, so wondered around till we found something that we saw locals eating at. Those are the best restaurants and we were in luck, they had a special of the day that included a soup, main and a cold drink of some sort for all of $2 p/p; we couldn’t resist and for dessert we found some ice cream in the Square.

Ice cream in the Square on Christmas Day

Before arriving in Quito, I had been communicating with a local rider in the area, Daniel and we had arranged to meet up later that afternoon at our hostel and decided to go to a local pub for a few beers. Daniel and his girlfriend on a Kawaski Versys was leaving the next day on a 3 week trip to Colombia and Mario had just returned from a 3 week trip to Peru on his F650GS, so we had a lot to talk about. On the way to the pub, we met up with another two riders, Paul Kage and Shane Kost. Paul is from Germany and riding a R100GS and Shane is from the US riding a F650GS. We all ended up spending the evening together over a few beers and later Paul, Shane and us decided to go out for Christmas dinner. Even though we had all just met, we shared a common passion and it was like spending the evening with family.
By the way, Paul used to work for BMW Corporate and is kind of semi-retired at the moment and gets a new BMW 1200GS every season to ride and returns it during the off season only to get another new bike the following season. Tough, I know.

Daniel & Mario - Quito riders

Christmas dinner with Shane & Paul

New photos added to the Ecuador photo album.

Riding the Colombian Highlands

2010-12-25T08:13:00.001-08:00

Daryll writes:

A short clip of our police escort out of Manizales.

Riding the Colombian Highlands from Daryll Naidu on Vimeo.

We stayed at the Casa Blanca Hostel in Cali, a well visited hostel by bike travelers; so much so they have their very own Wall of Fame of photos of many of the bike travelers that have passed through here. Three doors down from the hostel, was a bike shop where I had the rear tire on Angela’s bike replaced and a new set of brake pads put on my bike. Bikes are almost ready to go for South America, an oil change is due in another 2K km. We also met Sammy, another biker from Montreal that is finishing off a year motoring around South America before heading back home. Sammy joined us to the grocery store where we had something quick to eat. Our favorite food in Colombia has been Empenada de Pollo, so that’s what we had and Sammy ordered a 1/4 chicken and instead of cutlery got a pair of plastic gloves to eat the chicken with.

As we were leaving Cali, a local biker pulled up alongside us and went through the usual questions (where are you from, where are you going, what bikes are those etc.) He then offered to lead us out of the city. We talked whilst in traffic and he mentioned that he owned a bike shop and if we needed anything done to the bikes. I thanked him for the offer but declined, however he took us by his shop and offered us breakfast. We had just eaten, so had some freshly squeezed orange juice instead. That’s Colombian hospitality for you. It was on to Popayan and we went through some breathtaking scenery once again. Colombia’s roads are well maintained as many of the roads are tolled and fortunate for us, motorcycles don’t have to pay and ride straight through on the side. As usual, it rained for the morning, but dried out in the afternoon.

Chasing Colombian Police from Daryll Naidu on Vimeo.

On the way into Popayan, we stopped at a gas station to get some directions to our Hostel and Darren an Australian guy with his partner Alexandria pull up and start chatting. Darren did a trip around South America 2 years ago so we chatted about bikes for a bit. Popayan is an interesting little town – all of the buildings around the Centro are all painted white, with the odd beige building thrown in. Christmas shopping was in full swing and the square was buzzing with life. After dinner, we wondered around to get a bit of the festive feel.

Church in Popayan

In Cali we had learnt that the road between Popayan and Pasto (our next destination) was closed for several days due to a landslide but light vehicles were able to get through. We would only know for sure, once we got there and saw for ourselves if we could pass. As we road out of Pasto that morning, there was a long line up of trucks on the highway. The police were stopping heavy vehicles from entering the windy mountain pass where the landslide occurred. As we got closer, we understood why, there were about 100 heavy trucks, bus’s and mini-vans all at a stand-still going up the mountain and people everywhere. The odd vehicle came down the mountain, however the left side was taken up my motorcycles running people up to the landslide area, where they would walk across a mud pit where other motorcycles would take them down again on the other side. We had to maneuver the bikes between all the people milling around, their holiday luggage lying all over the place and the trucks parked at odd angles. Angela at one point starting yelling at a guy in English to get out of the way so that she could pass – guess he just heard yelling and moved (Angela's edit: My exact words were "Excuse me please! Can you move? I have a really big box!! lol). Once at the top, we were stopped as the crew was busy fixing the road adding more sand to the mix and a grader was trying to compact it down. We waited for about 30mins before only letting small vehicles through. This was going to make for an interesting crossing. There were a few large rocks in a small section, but it wasn’t too bad after all. I just felt bad for all the mothers that had to carry their babies through the mud pit to cross this section.

Playing in mud

Before leaving Colombia, there was one more item on our sightseeing list – the Sanctuary de Las Lajas. The cathedral is of Gothic architecture and was built from 1916 to 1949 and built into the side of a canyon. This was definitely a feat of engineering in the day and one of the most gorgeous churches I’ve seen. As we got into the parking lot, getting our stuff ready to walk down to the church, we met two Colombian riders from Bogota on their 1200GS’s who were headed to Peru for the holidays to meet their family who where flying in.

Las Lajas

New photos added to the Colombia photo album.

Merry Christmas

2010-12-23T16:35:00.001-08:00

Daryll writes:

We crossed into Ecuador today and will be heading to Quito to spend Christmas. We’ve had a few big riding days thus far and hence haven’t had time to put everything down onto the blog. We have a few free days in Quito, so will get back on track. We wanted to wish all our family and friends and ardent followers a Merry Christmas and everything of the best for the New Year. Hope you enjoy the turkey.

“Let me see you move like you come from Colombia….”

2010-12-20T06:29:00.001-08:00

Angela writes:

It was sad to say goodbye to our new friends (Beatriz & family, Andre) and to our “old” friends (Naomi & Alberto heading North) in Bogota after such intense days filled with side-splitting laughter and fun. We went to bed laughing in our sleep and believed that even our toes were smiling for these photos. We were however eager to start riding again and to explore the great outdoors of Colombia.

So far Colombia seems like “bike heaven”. There are so many motorcycles here and not just small 150cc bikes but big, beautiful, powerful bikes. Yesterday we met a cardiologist and his shiny new Yamaha Super Tenere – a hot new 1200cc not yet available in North America. Everyone in Colombia so far have been wearing helmets (unlike Mexico & Central America) and most seem to wear gear. In the last couple days of riding we have encountered about 10 toll roads but the fees do not apply for motorcyclists and there are convenient little alleyways built up the right hand side of the toll booths to escape any lineup or obligation. According to law your license plate number needs to appear in stickers on the back of your motorcycle helmet and most people also wear vests with these numbers imprinted on it as well.

It came as no surprise to us then when on our way out of Bogota we were stopped on the side of the highway by a motorcycle traffic police officer. He was super nice and pointed out that we did not have our numbers on the back of our helmets. When Daryll cheerfully explained that we were tourists and didn’t have numbers the officer just smiled, and tilted his head like he had no arguments (especially with us poor-Spanish speaking foreigners) and motioned us on our way. At the next gas station Daryll pulled out our dollar store stickers (which we used previously to “extend” the date on our license plates) and added our license plate numbers to the back of our helmets. It will at least give police one less reason to pull us over.

We had a long, windy, painfully slow but beautiful, full-day ride to Manizales. There was a great deal of construction on the roads and clean up from recent mud slides. The roads were always climbing or descending huge green mountains and we often got stuck behind semi trailers and dump trucks. I bustled up my courage several times to pass these mammoth vehicles on yellow solid-line curves, starting while barely moving forward in first gear. Likewise traffic coming in the opposite direction would do the same thing and a couple of times I rounded a corner only to find a bus or semi trailer coming towards me, in my lane, passing another vehicle. Only once did I have to come to a complete stop to give a truck enough space to finish it’s pass and I always focused on finding the bit of pavement to the outside of the truck. “Where you look is where you go” and I did not want to become part of the truck. Just to ease the potential heart attacks my parents may have while reading this, it wasn’t actually all that dangerous as we were mostly moving in slower speeds 20 – 40 km in these situations and it was all very “controlled”. I think we rode through every type of climate and temperature that day. Several times throughout the day I had to turn on my heated grips to keep warm in the dense mountain mist and then on the flip side sometimes the sun beat down so hard I had to open every vent in my gear and looked for more layers of clothing to remove. The mountainous scenery was absolutely spectacular. The height of the mountains and the depth of the valleys were unbelievable and I often couldn’t see to the bottom - kind of like Avatar in 3D.

Coffee Plantations as far as the eye can see

During the day we also passed by numerous police check points which we rode through without incident. I attribute our good fortune to the fact that upon approach to these traffic stations, I pretend to be invisible (I recently watched the movie “Men Who Stare At Goats). That’s my story and I’m sticking to it but my strategy failed upon approaching the city of Manizales where about 8 bored police officers decided to pull us over. Everyone in Colombia has been so super friendly and interested in us so I was not overly concerned about this stop and when the young man asked me for my papers I directed him to Daryll. He announced to the other officers standing by that “HER HUSBAND has their paperwork” like he was revealing to them the plot of some scandalous drama. Another officer approached me to ask where I was from, where I was going, and asked to try on my sunglasses which he kindly returned to me afterwards, much to my relief. When they hovered curiously around Daryll asking for paperwork he showed them our bike import documents and our international drivers licenses and since they seemed to simply be looking to us as a source of entertainment, Daryll just brushed them off when they asked for our passports and then we were allowed to continue.

When we arrived in Manizales Daryll had to stop at a Tour, Travel & Logistics company called Colombia57 so that he could pick up some replacement parts he had had shipped to them and we had to locate their office before they closed for the weekend. This is where we met Simon who graciously offered to let us park our bikes at his condo for the night, reserved us a room at a local hostel and organized a cab to whisk us away for some much needed showers, a solid sleep and some hot food. For dinner I had the best Hawaiian pizza I have ever consumed (I attribute it to the fresh yummy pineapple here) and for breakfast delicious coffee and a pastry-like, light cheese bagel. When we returned the next morning to pick up our bikes, we took photos of the snow covered mountains that surrounded Simon’s condo in the distance.

On our way out of Manizales we stopped for gas and air and confirmed with the attendant the direction we needed to travel to reach our next destination. When three motorcycle police officers on 2 bikes pulled into the gas station, I tried to act invisible again because I didn’t want any hassle about not wearing proper vests or having unofficial stickers on our helmets. The gas guy mentioned to the cops that we were heading towards Cali and they came over and offered to show us out of town! We began to snake our way down the switch-backed highway through the middle of the city, weaving in and out of traffic and whirling through traffic circles. I felt rather lawless and reckless as the posted speed limit was 40 km/hr, we traveled at about 60 km/hr and the officers were at least doing 80 km/hr. Suddenly I looked in my rear-view mirror and noticed flashing red and blue lights coming from another motorcycle cop behind me, and I frantically pointed to the police bike in the distance in front of me. I got a “thumbs up” from the officer with the flashing lights behind me and then realized one of the original police bikes had dropped back behind me and wasn’t trying to pull me over but instead created a little speeding parade! We swerved down the mountains, slowing only for construction detours to the other side of the highway and gravel patches. I felt like we were a political convoy riding straight into the middle of the earth as we were traveling down so far. I thought the officers were going to ride us all the way to Cali and realized why they had offered to take us out of town – because the road leading there was so much fun! After 25 km they stopped at a gas station and pointed us in the right direction. We thanked them immensely for their lead and their curved highway and they explained that the road to Cali was straight from there on out. I guess that’s why they decided to “get back to work”. I was so impressed with their kindness.

Once reaching the PanAm highway the officers were right about it being straight to Cali but since the road was pot-hole and animal free the speed limits went all the way up to 100 km/hr. We definitely took advantage and liberated our throttles with some speed since we had been so constrained in our last few countries and clearly in Colombia police did not take issue with speed.

When we arrived in Cali we navigated our way, thanks to Daryll’s GPS, to the infamous biker hostel of Casa Blanca where Daryll was whisked away by cliental of the adjacent motorcycle mechanic shop, and made appointments to change my reaR tire and replace both brake pads on his bike. We decided to chill here for 3 days, catch up on our blog, make some future travel plans and Skype with some dear friends and family. At night we had dinner at the neighbouring motorcycle themed restaurant called Roosters where for the first time in Colombia we were disappointed by the food. Our order of nachos literally turned out to be a handful of Doritos with melted cheese on top. The 2 for 1 beer however did make up for this minor disappointment.

Riding on a New Continent

2010-12-19T12:00:00.001-08:00

Daryll writes:

It has been a week since our last update and we are now safely in Colombia, South America. After the failed attempts on reaching our boat, we had decided to fly the bikes and ourselves from Panama City to Bogota, Colombia. Flying is the most expensive option of getting the bikes across the Darien Gap. We always had budgeted to fly and if we managed to get a sail boat, the saving was going to be a bonus for our budget; however it is always good to have a Plan B.

As we had only decided to fly both the bikes and ourselves at the last minute, we hadn’t made any arrangements for the bikes or booked flights for ourselves. The four of us (Naomi, Alberto included) were literally going to wing it. I had read that in order to have the bikes air shipped, one would have to drain the gas and disconnect the battery. So on the day before, I decided to drain some gas out of both bikes and thought that I had left a sufficient amount to get us to the air cargo terminal, close to the airport. Well you know were this is going. On the way to the airport, Angela’s bike runs out of gas and she pulls over into a bus stop area. Naomi had given her gas away that she had in the jerry can that she carries, so I borrow the jerry can and go back a few km’s to the gas station that we just past and fill up $1.00 worth of gas. The attendant looked strangely at me for filling up a $1.00 and wished I had filled up $2.00 worth. So back I go and empty the gas into Ang’s bike and leave a bit in the jerry can as I had a nagging feeling that I was going to need it soon. We only went a few km’s further when my bike stops. Yup, that 35L gas tank of mine was now out. So I empty the few milliliters from the jerry can into my tank and prey that we make it to the Girag offices. Lesson to oneself – drain gas at the shipping place instead of prior. Once there, the waiting game began. We had to wait for the lady that takes care of shipping bikes to arrive.

Patiently waiting

Once she arrived, we got confirmation that the bikes will be able to be shipped the next day (Tuesday) and will arrive later that afternoon. That was a relief. I didn’t bother disconnecting the battery, but we did take some time shrink wrapping everything that was strapped to the bikes, removing the mirrors and windscreen, filled out some paperwork and left the bikes in their hands. While we were taking care of all of this, another biker arrived. André was from Quebec and riding a 1150GS, and had pre-booked his bike for Tuesday already. He left home 6 weeks ago and once in Bogota, he was going to store his bike for a month, fly back home later in the week for xmas and return mid-January to continue his ride south. He also had a flight booked for Tuesday, however was going to join us to the airport to see if he could get on an early flight with us. On the way out, we had to stop at the Customs booth to have the bikes stamped out the country and once that formality was done, we tried to get a cab to the airport, about a km away. Remember there are five of us now and we didn’t want to take 2 separate cabs, so tried to get a cab driver to take 5 passengers and it was not happening. In the mean time, André managed to stop a cargo van and they offered to take us, so we pile into the back.

Angela shrink wrapping her bike

Once at the airport, we tried at the different airline service desks and weren’t able to get confirmation for a flight out for the Monday. It was about 2pm by now and there were flights leaving around 3pm, 7pm and 8pm and the best we could get would be stand-by tickets for those flights. We were all determined to get on a flight that same day/night so Alberto and I tried via the internet to see if we could book on Expedia as it was showing availability. We were using free Wi-Fi, and it was painstakingly slow, while our new friend André was going to use his French charm on the lady at the Copa Airlines counter to convince her to get us on one of those flights. It seemed like we were on the Amazing Race all frantically trying to book flights at the last minute. In the end, the French charisma paid off and we were on two separate flights (three on the 7:20pm flight and Ang and I on the 8:20pm flight). Now we have a few hours to kill and what better way to relieve the stress’s of the day by sampling different liquors'.

Killing time with alcohol

Alberto had a friend in Bogota who had offered them an empty apartment for their stay in Bogota and he generously extended that offer to all of us as well. It was a life-saver as both our flights were delayed and Ang and I got into Bogota close to 11pm that night; historically not a city where you want to be trying to find a hotel that late at night. Beatriz and her bother Felipe (Alberto’s friends) met us at the airport and took us to their aunt’s empty apartment. Even though we slept on the floor that first night as all our camping gear was still on the bikes, it was a god-sent. Our bikes were to arrive mid-morning the next day so we took a cab to the Girag offices and arrived by 11:30am the following day, only to learn that our bikes hadn’t arrived and would arrive about 3pm that afternoon. We really wanted to get our bikes so none of us wanted to leave and come back, so we just hung around waiting for the next few hours.

Once we had confirmation that the bikes had landed, we had to have them cleared through customs and finally we were able to get them ready to leave which was an ordeal in itself. Cargo warehouses are set-up for cargo going from a loading dock directly onto the back of a truck and not for motorcycles. The staff set-up a make shift ramp for us to ride down to get onto street level. Clip courtesy of André - I ride both our bikes down the ramp.

Exiting Air Cargo Terminal from Daryll Naidu on Vimeo.

Our bikes were totally out of gas, so André headed off in the dark to find us a gas station and bring us a gallon of gas in the jerry can. He had gone a long time but finally returned with some gas for us to get going again. We were all really worried as it was now dark. While waiting at the terminal, another gentleman was also waiting for his goods and offered to lead us back to our apartment as Bogota traffic is a nightmare, let alone trying to navigate in the dark.

We decided to stay for a few more days in Bogota to recover from the last week and managed to visit the Plaza and Palace area. Xmas is in full swing and there is an ice-rink set up in the Plaza. Colombia has a reputation, however whilst walking around, we never felt threatened or in fear of our safety. The downtown core was bustling and the comfort of police officers and army officers on every corner put us at ease. As we wondered around the Palace, we came across a bomb explosive guy with his golden retriever and we couldn’t help ourselves but stop and take photos of the two of them. Beatriz and her family were extremely generous and hospitable and her cousin Alejandro took me to a bike shop where I had the brake pads on Ang’s bike replaced one of our free days. Following him through traffic was insane as he weaved his Honda Veradero through downtown Bogota traffic. Beatriz, her brother Felipe and her sister Virginia also took us to an upscale mall where we walked through one of the famous restaurants Andres de Res. It was on 4 floors with each floor decorated in a different theme and all the fittings were hand-made at their own workshop. We ended up having dinner at a market place and it was the most amazing meal I’ve had. Colombian food is amazing and it is about the best so we’ve had so far.

A well trained Golden

New photos added to the Panama and Colombia photo albums.

P.S. If anyone reading this has a Cardo Scala Q2 bike-to-bike communicator or can help us, we need some help. One of our units isn’t taking a charge and therefore cannot be used. Communication with each other is so vital for us and we cannot do without it.