Africa | GlobeRiders Africa Adventure 2

Globrider's Africa adventure, we will start going through South Africa to Lesotho, Swaziland, Botswana into Zambia and then we head over to the west coast through the deserts of Namibia and then back to Cape Town after 37 days with 16 bikes, 18 people and we have a chase vehicle to go with us. Okavango Delta waterways, they are still seen to be very healthy for birds to come and breed there, for animals to still live around there, but mostly it's for the for its uniqueness. So it's not only the big animals that we used about here, even the smallest tiny little creatures that you never knew about, we still have them around here. Coming to Okavango Delta you can see zebras, giraffe, elephants, lions, leopard, cheetah, you name them. The Botswana wildlife parks and game reserves, they are much more diverse if when it comes in terms of ecology. We park the bikes, we fly into Okavango Delta for three nights. This is supposed to be the best part of the trip, we'll find out. Next stop Kakanaka, flight time one hour 10. I always want to come in here because my father had a National Geographic and there they wrote about the last Eden on earth, the Okavango Delta, and it's always been a dream of mine and after I started doing the Globe Riders Africa adventures in 2003, that was the first time I was down here and I just can never get enough of it. I could live in here and just take pictures and do safaris every day for the rest of my life and I'll be happy. Unfortunately with motorbikes, they are not included into the categories of what you can use in terms of transport. The only thing that you can use is a high-raised vehicle four by four in the national parks and the game reserves. If you are out in a motorbike, I'd say to me you are like a moving bacon to the lions. The first day out of the plane we got some very very good pictures of lions. There was a male, female and a young boy and they're just having a good time with the buffalo. Finding a male in an open area like this and finding an active male lion in the day it's something that I mean it's not usual we see the tail outside like this. Most of the time they pull it in the bushes. This will be again just to try and discourage the vulture to come as close and to start feeding while he's still around. We had a lot of time to just spend there and take pictures and drive around them and look at them from different perspectives and and it was really good for photography because it was out in the open and there were no obstructions and we just had plenty of time to to be there. The animals here they see us as one complete object. They know that we are here, they hear our voices, they see our small movements in the vehicle but that's what they are used to. Standing up too quick makes them divert their attention and they might probably stop all the activity that they are doing and they might just come and inspecting the vehicle. If you are not welcomed the first thing that you see is to see their ears flipping back then they start snarling, fangs exposed or teeth exposed, tail wagging and in the cat's family that crouch or that sitting position that will be a defensive position and once you start seeing his tail wagging from left to right then he's making his point. Okavango itself is the name of the river and when it comes into Botswana that's when the river splits from the Chobe, the Zambezi and then the Okavango river itself which now it has been diverted or it has been changed into an inland delta. Botswana itself has got a very big population of elephants as a fact. There is something which made them to come into this area which is their main favourite thing, water. Water became a poor factor for them so they started finding water here and finding food closer by and they started feeding closer to the water up until they extended their way out into the other foraging places. If he was angry, if he was angry he would have just scooped all the water and coming straight to us and that's when I would have told him you know what we shouldn't be here. So that was to say I'm here, I still need to be respected so give me space, you need space and that was okay with me. Well we got the point. We as people on safari have seen things that most people in Botswana have never seen. The delta is kind of like a perfect ecosystem. I can understand now why people come out here and don't ever leave. They just stay here. This is what life is all about right here. Our main course are going to have grilled kudu and rump steak. Okay, who's having fun? So we have providers that put up the tent with beds in and stuff and sometimes it's kind of rustic, other times it's really luxury. I think anybody that comes on these trips, this type of a trip has similar interests. Adventurous type people, pretty self-reliant type people and have similar things in common in terms of liking to ride motorcycles and see the world and then it just comes down to maybe personalities. I don't think anybody didn't gel on the trip. Everybody got along but you just over time it was it just you ended up riding with people that were maybe more like you it seems like. On the safari we had two trucks. What we called the paparazzi or the photojournalists, those guys that were really into photography occupied one truck and then the rest of us occupied the other truck and we were what I'll call the amateur photographers. I was calling the paparazzi truck the alpha males and with Lynn as kind of the the mother hen of the alpha males and then I was calling the other truck not the beta truck but the better truck and it was interesting because it appears to me that what I call the alpha male truck was full of not only the people who were really into photography but the people who like to ride fast. We're at a standoff here with the elephant and the elephant doesn't know which way to go. He's supposed to go on the left in this country I think he's on the right that's the problem. I think he's coming after us now. There's a border between between Namibia and Botswana that's basically a river and on one side of the border Botswana has the programs for the wildlife and and the the wild animals is very important to Botswana's picture of itself its economy and where it wants to go in the world. On the other side of the river is Namibia. Namibia also has wonderful places for animals but at this particular place it has agriculture it has wild it has it has livestock so on the Botswana side we have wildlife on the Namibia side we have livestock and today we saw that that interaction we saw zebras and and other animals on one side we saw cattle on this side. The problem is that the elephants and the lions and the other animals don't know that boundary they can cross that river it's not too deep and so when the elephants and the lions cross that boundary and they kill the cattle in the next country then the owners of that cattle want to kill the elephants and the lion and they will poison or trap or shoot the elephants and the lion and so politically and culturally I've observed how how it's important that the Botswanian government and the Namibian government work together and decide how they want to do it. The problem with the coexistence of this wonderful ecological area is a political problem it's a man-made problem it's a it's a it's a cultural problem it's an economic problem the animals are not the problem the land is not the problem the land is perfect God created this wonderful place and men are finding ways to screw it up and and I've seen that more clearly here in Africa than anywhere else in the world. My takeaway from the trip so far has been the the God created perfection of this place and watching how man screws it up. I think three days in the delta was perfect I'm actually ready to get back on the bike. The riding's become you know I mean it's routine but it's never routine the roads are in very you know pretty good condition traffic's reasonable to handle the scenery's changed we're more into the plains and stuff like that. Then we come to Zambia and that's when I said to the people to first know you're really seeing the real Africa it is much more primitive if you will it was really I would say the real black Africa the way I see it. We are going to go down to the river cross the Zambezi river and then we come over to hell in the matter of customs and immigration and insurance and papers and they're going to be tossing us left and right. I think it took the group more than four hours just to get through it was a hassle and I thought the group were going to be a little more irritated on this long wait and the feedback after it was no this was fun just seeing the activities and all the hustle and bustle and the haggling on the border this was fantastic and that kind of surprised me in a positive way because very colorful borders can be quite interesting. It's a busy third world border where you've got young kids anywhere from you know eight years old up to 30 years old that are selling you know coca-colas and waters and brass bracelets and what have you you could spend your time talking to the kids that are that are working the border and you find out that they come there every day and they're there for 14 to 16 hours a day every day of the week and most of them didn't even have a pair of shoes. Border crossings are a unique experience for everybody including the guide. Every country is different they have different requirements for fees and taxes and I think the thing that's unique here in Africa is a lot of these little countries are taxing you for road use. Be skeptical and also be smart about it don't wave a lot of money have your paper in order don't give away your passport because that can be held hostage that's happened to me before. Borders are borders everywhere there are always interesting people hanging around borders. My name is Simon I come from Zimbabwe and as you can see this money is no longer working there is 50 billion dollars and one million dollars and the 10 billion dollars and there is 100 billion dollars. 100 billion wow okay how do you make a living? I will normally sell this souvenir and sell copper bracelets. So you sell the the copper bracelets and the old currency yes and how is the the business? The business is not at all people there are very few people to support us. Okay yes all right thank you. Then we came to Victoria Falls which is an attraction in itself. We went to the bridge where the bungee jumping is and several members of the crew you know had to attempt themselves to jump off a perfectly good bridge attached to elastic band. Hello my name is George Imbo and I'm the chief construction engineer from the Cleveland Bridge Company. I'm the engineer who supervised the construction of this bridge 105 years ago but things have changed a bit since then. For one thing they now make more money by throwing people off my bridge and they do from traffic going across it. Well I guess this is what we call progress. This this little number here that's kilograms that means I'm the big fat guy and that means that rubber band stretches further so I got more rides than everyone else. Just leap and go and hope for the best. Thank you very much I have to get back to work. Get back to work now. All right bye-bye. Well we're just heading out for our start of our day out of Livingston Zambia and we just stopped a few kilometers out of town by the police. I had a block up and wanted to pay us all pay a ten dollar tax. Their one is to produce a piece of paper for a road tax or something and they had no guns they had no cars so I smiled waved wove my way through the group kept on going thinking that if if they wanted me and came after me I just say well you know my I'm just a poor woman my husband father brother uncle will take care of things if there's a problem and I'm very sorry. I hear somebody want ten dollar tax. Typically in Zambia quite a lot of corruption in this country so you have to watch out. I told him that I didn't believe him and that we weren't going to pay anything and in the meantime I'm going to call tourism and I'm going to call the embassy because we think what he's doing is wrong. I want to know why my clients are asked to pay ten dollar tax. It's just bullshit it's corruption and we have billboards here in this town against corruption. I thought corruption The police here are looking for ways to supplement their income and you just have to be firm and polite. Don't do that again. Just sit and wait and it'll all work out. The next biker down the road or the next tourist that come I don't want them to take advantage like that because if you feed into the corruption it's just going to make it worse. Zambia is a corrupt country. Don't feed the corruption machine. We're at the Zambia Namibia border now we're going to go do some paperwork maybe pay some fees whatever it takes to get through the border and head into Namibia. Namibia is a very sparsely populated country. I think it's 2.2 million people and 800 000 living in the capital of winter but we came in the Caprivi street and continued towards Swakopmund to the coast. We drove through a lot of desert flats, desolated places, small towns, townships here and there and a lot of nothing but it's very very beautiful and I think what people liked seeing there was the lonely open spaces, the big sand dunes, the big vistas. The part of the riding I'm looking forward to the most is Namibia. People that I've talked to who've done you know remote traveling in that area say it's just there's very no place they've ever been that's like it. Today we had this great opportunity with some people that had just slaughtered a cow and they had it on these stakes and they're carrying between the two of them and they were walking across the highway and we stopped and talked and looked at the head of the cow and the leg of the cow all hanging off the sticks that they were carrying on their backs and they looked like they had very limited stuff. Again it just makes me realize how much we have and how blessed we are and how much we take for granted so often. Thank you so much. These are for your children. These are my toys. I'll get them for her, okay? Okay. The highlight of this trip has been actually since we got out of South Africa, we're in kind of a more primitive setting. The women are in a very different status than they were in South Africa and I have enjoyed interacting with those women. A different viewpoint for those women because I ride a motorcycle. I usually at this point I tell them a widow because that's easier for them to understand. Of course all the children that have to come around too. More babies. All your babies? Your baby? Yes. Your baby? Yes. Your baby? Yes. Your baby? We're able to communicate. We were able to, you know, sing, laugh, make eye contact. I felt that was a cool thing and I'm not young. I'm not a young woman either which I think is even more helpful for these women to see some sort of a future besides what their husband wants them to do. I'm having a blast and I feel, you know, I'd love to keep on doing this forever. From all of the trips that Globe Riders have, Africa is the most demanding when it comes for technical riding because especially at the end of it, when we come into Namibia, we're going to hit a lot of dirt and sand and people just hate sand. I would just encourage someone to make sure that they've done some off-road riding in terms of graded dirt gravel roads. Make sure they feel comfortable going on some two-track before they show up on a trip like this. So here comes the truck again that we're going to have to pass shortly. Largest meteorite in the world. This is the world's biggest meteorite. Was it worth the journey? It was. It's very cool. It was definitely worth the journey. It wasn't too tough getting in so it's worth stopping by. My name is Andrew. I'm from Namibia. I'm born in Namibia and I'm staying in this place Ocho, this place called Ocho. Tell me what is this nut? This nut is called makalani. Makalani, you got it in far north. It's a kind of a fruit that you got it from the trees. People also juice it for making liquor also from that fruit. Very good. It's an African fruit but you just got it in Namibia, not in every African country, just in Namibia. I remember him too. What was her name? Bonita. And you are Monica? What is your name? Maria. And you? Lion. Elephant. I'm Helge. How you say that? Helge. How old are you guys? 15. 15, all of you? Peoples across the street are Himba peoples and they are living in Kaukland. The way how they living in Kaukland is not the same how they living here in Ocho. That's why they moved to Ocho because they are coming here to sell their grass because it's handmade grass and that's why they come to here to Ocho because they want to earn some money to buy some bread and to do for a living. Good money today? Yes. Good business? Got some new tires, Continental TKC 80 and they're just so wonderful to have on this. Ready for the dirt. Here we are out in the middle of Namibia on the way to Rhino Reserve. It's pretty awesome, really. Ben Jack is our in-house paramedic young guy. He's 17 years younger than me, which is an important fact to note. Ben and I have been riding together. He rides at a very good pace. Tom's a little disappointed because he's out of shape and old. I am. I like fast cars and I like fast motorcycles and I enjoy being competitive. I don't want to be left behind. I don't want to be in second. It's just I'm not as accustomed to doing it on a big motorcycle like we're riding these days. I think it's a great idea and appropriate to travel together, especially out in the middle of Africa where there's miles and miles between people and or buildings and or cars in some cases. You know, you could go 15, 20 minutes easily without seeing a vehicle. So I think the traveling together is very important. Well, as far as I can see on this sign here and this is the place out there. So when they go empty, you hang around to the fuel truck. It's not much out there, but we have a beautiful lodge just four kilometers over there and go take a shower, get ready again and go out and take some more video. This is fantastic. The route today, we're starting here in Twyfelfontein and we are going to go down Koplo intersection hanging right up to Burnt Mountain. And from Burnt Mountain, that's the last we see of the road. Do your own run. Even if you have to paddle walk through some sand or whatever, it's not about showing off. It's about making it to Swakopmund. It's a wonderful road. I've never imagined being able to do this on my motorcycle. I was one of those guys that bought it and thought I could ride off road and never did. It's amazing what the machines can do. It's amazing what we can do if we just allow ourselves to. Another wonderful day in the middle of nowhere. I've been looking for rocks to bring home for my Aunt Sheila. And what do I find but a guy selling rocks. She said she wanted a rock from the middle of the desert. So lo and behold, I now found a place to buy a rock and I can make her happy. It's a cakewalk. I mean it's not much different than tar except for all the rocks and sand and ruts and brush and heat and pretty sweet ride if you're a mountain goat. Definitely glad I came on the ride today. I have to admit I was getting a little squeamish last night thinking about it but just keep it in a gear that gives you enough power that when you need to get on it you can get on it but at the same time will let you brake a little bit using the engine compression. It's been great. We are looking for the book hidden in the middle of Namibian desert. December 10, 2002. Congratulations on finding this book. I'm sure you had a fantastic journey to this beautiful spot. Have a continuous great journey and please write me a line when you are safe back home. Enjoy the book and ride far. I think we all should write the message in it. We found it on this day and then we are going to put it on the DVD and then somebody will make that request to come out there. So the book is here in Namibia on an awesome trail through rhino camp. I wish somebody that see this DVD that they can come here to this beautiful ride. You need to be a good rider to get there. Enjoy the deep sand and all the rocks and flies and heat and the book is yours. But I ask you one favor. Please bring something precious of your own and bury it here and we can keep the tradition. Write us at info at globe riders dot com and we will publicize who has been here and keep it up. Going through the technical hard pack and stone stuff was fine but as we got to the sand I tried to you know power through it and you know it's difficult. The bikes are very heavy. They're heavy weighted on the back. My strategy don't fall down and if I do fall down don't break anything especially the bike. As you get into the groove of traveling on the BMW and you have your luggage on you know you get a little bit more aggressive and you get a little more competitive with the guys and and uh I took a fall going maybe 30 miles an hour and a handlebar fell right on the top of my head. I don't know if anything's wrong with it or not. I think that's just looks like a hematoma. What is a hematoma? It's the pocket of blood. Yeah things have hurt worse. So you think you will be able to ride? Yeah I think you have to. I was gonna say you can't. There's no decision I have to ride. We are just reaching Rhino Camp now. This is the last stretch in. The last sand bank coming in here. A little tough river crossing but it's all good. Three of us are what is left of the premier team that did the Rhino Camp ride today. A couple of them left us though because they forgot about the partner system. The sand is very difficult for me personally to ride. It only fell twice so I feel pretty fortunate there. Yeah it's just really neat to to end up realizing that the four of us can do this stuff near these big heavy bikes. It's day 27 of the Africa Adventure and I'm alone here in the desert of Namibia and I spent the entire day riding all by myself. I went out riding taking pictures of flamingos and scenery today but sometimes you just need to get away from the group and ride your own ride. So that's what I'm doing today. I picked this little hilltop vista to sit down and take in the sunset and it's a good thing. As always I wish we had 10 times more time to take pictures, to stop places. You come to a place and you know shoot we are way behind schedule. We are not going to make it before dark so we had to abort. You have to be patient and compromise is definitely the thing of the day and just keep going even if it didn't go the way we wanted it. Just you have to press on and press on and keep the positive energy going. Spare drop that's what the sign says. Spare drop for the plant because this is probably the only plant I see for probably 20 or 30 miles as far as you can see. Oh there it is. Priscilla, the Priscilla travel bug. This particular one says it wants to travel the deserts of the world. So I'll try to take this back into the states probably and try to leave it somewhere out in the desert. I'm going to leave this little crocodile in here. Steal it back up. Put it back in its little hidey place. Hopefully that plant will thrive now. It's probably the first water it's seen in a long time based on the area around. Pretty dry. The last days we've been riding through some really rough terrain, a lot of sand and that's what Namibia is famous for. All the sand and dirt road. That was a good ride. What a change going through the Namibian desert just flat flat bumpity bump and then coming into this canyon here. It was fun. We are coming into the sand dunes of Namibia. It's dry dry climate and a lot of dust. Today it's like 85 degrees. Just a beautiful gorgeous day. We've been riding on some awesome roads. Some people had some problems and it's the people that doesn't have the confidence yet to negotiate the deep sand pockets. They go too slow and then they have problems. But if they were going too fast they would have bigger problems because they still wouldn't have the confidence. Going from Sossusvlei down to Fish River Canyon two bikes crashed and one blew a rear wheel bearing. The rear wheel bearing was from a modification of the hub on the F800GS and apparently this had been a problem with the F800 but this was also from a modification. We got spare parts but unfortunately those spare parts didn't fit on the modification and the problem was that we thought it was the same hub as the BMW. So our partner here in Africa Harry went from Johannesburg all the way over here to Okiep to deliver new bearings and what do we find out? We are middle of the job and the bearings are too small. I think it's very very important when you do aftermarket stuff have the spares or know what size of spare parts you will need when you need it. We had another accident and this time it was Jeff that went down. They were able to get his bike loaded on the trailer and Jeff is now in the chase vehicle on his way to a hospital here in Namibia. So I'm left here following the group on my own. I just crossed the Fish River and we're heading into the Fish River Canyon area of Namibia. It just goes to show that these dirt roads that we're traveling on out here they seem pretty smooth and like you can go pretty fast which you can but in any case things can happen and you can lose control and have an accident like what happened to Jeff. Unfortunately it looks like we've had another rider go down. This time it's Tom's bike here on the side of the road. Vincent and I were just driving by and we saw this 1200 GS parked on the side of the road with no one else around. I walked off the bike at I don't know 60-70 miles an hour whatever it was and then we see fluid leaks on the ground, broken parts, some skid marks so obviously Tom had a little accident here. The last thing I remember thinking about before I actually walked off the bike was I got to make sure that I don't get knocked unconscious because I'm all by myself. Left the keys in there no one's going to be stealing this one. The only thing worth saving on this bike is the pivot pegs. Both my panniers came off my bike, my windshield broke, my mirrors broke off, my blinkers, all my stuff was sort of spread out on the street. Look at this rock strap this bike was upside down. As it all turned out I didn't get knocked out, banged up my arms and stuff my wrist and my hand. I mean it's almost funny except that we don't know how Tom's doing so you know we're not gonna laugh too hard until we... Well one thing I know he's a hard ass but he's a hard ass and he's a good rider but he pushes it a little a little bit to the limit. Wow what a crazy day let's get back on the road and see what everyone's doing. During that probably mile before that I was just thinking to myself I only got probably 35 or 40 kilometers I should probably slow down start taking it easy and it wasn't you know a couple of five minutes later that I that I took the fall. The more time you spend on the road the more your confidence goes up and it's a bit of a double-edged sword as your confidence goes up you can relax a little bit you can absorb the bumps you can flow with the sand but the other end of the stick is that your confidence goes up so you think you can really ride so you take it up in speed and of course that's when it'll bite you sometimes. I've been able to go through the entire trip ride you know 95 percent of the trip and the last five percent I have to sort of bow out on. We went out to the Fish River Canyon the next day and got to do some good good riding and do some off-road riding and reminded me a lot of southern Utah which was very surprising to me. I wasn't expecting that at all I was expecting like the desert the Kalahari Desert but not the Red Rock and the canyons and what was really nice was that it's just not so commercialized you know it's still relatively untouched and so that was great. Coming down to the coast all of a sudden it was done like in the 70s and it was just felt so good to relax on the beach for a couple of days. We're down only a couple days left and it seems like we just started a week ago you know going back home will be sort of nice getting to your own bed your own shower and having coffee with my wife instead of uh you know a bunch of guys. Watching the cultural the political the economic challenges of these developing countries in Africa that to me has been the highlight of the trip. We've had some fabulous twisty roads some great gravel pleasantly surprised at just how fabulous the people are so friendly so welcoming I've really enjoyed that a lot. I suspected the accommodations would be good and they've been excellent the food's been excellent I love the buffets because I can eat whatever I'd like. The highlights of the trip for me was the Okavango Delta. I wanted to see the people I wanted to see the animals and and the terrain and we got to see everything it was just great. Being able to ride up the river on a riverboat got to see many birds and the camping and being right out there I have to say that was the highlight of the trip was being up in the Okavango Delta. It's overwhelming to to see a lion eating a cape buffalo and it's you know literally you know 10 feet from your car. And then just coming over into Namibia all the off-road riding in Namibia is unbelievable. I like these sorts of open you know just incredibly you know wide open spaces it's pretty impressive. No matter what people have told me it's just it's even more amazing to be seen it doing it in person. All of these six countries they had something different to offer it's a little culture it's a little nature it's just it's different to be in Africa. This Globe Riders Africa Adventure 2010 I would say broke every record when it came to accidents. I'm not proud to say that we had the most accidents it was really unfortunate and stuff and it always put a damper on everything and it's very unfortunate for the people that happened. But what surprised me was it was the most experienced it's the ones that I would never even think about would have an accident when we started. There were some people that was fresh to this riding fresh to motorcycling in general just had a few years behind them. They did absolutely fine so it kind of showed again that sometimes you get a little overconfident and I think several of these accidents were caused because of people got a little overconfident had too much speed for the conditions if they had been slower it would never have happened. So when I ask everybody to wash the bike at the end of the tour people don't want to wash them anymore because they look rugged they look full of dust and mud and they look like they've been places. You almost have to twist arms to get people to take off this hard-earned dirt and dust all over the place and I think people in reality every time they get a little bang they should sign it and date it you know. Like I said to Jeff he's a geocache guy he should put the coordinates on where everything happened to that bike it could be quite a good conversation piece when you come back to the local BMW club.