From Kampala we were heading north to see the Murchision Falls. The road was perfect tarmac and we could do the ca. 400 km in one rush. On the way we came along the Karuma Falls. They are directly next to the street, so nothing to pay here, and you even cross a bridge from where you have a really good view. We entered the Murchison national park with our bikes, which is allowed, but they charge you 40 $ per person and 30 $ per bike… but it was fun to ride there. The park is quite different to the last two we visited. It has not so much wild life and seems kind of quiet and asleep. A big part of the road is surrounded by 2 m high grass, so we drove standing to get a look at the landscape and the animals.
After a while a car came from the behind and when we gave way to let it pass it stopped and we heard a cheerful “Hey Deutsche in Uganda”. That was Ingbert, he works for the Cap Anamur and was on a short trip to the falls, so we joined forces ;). Since we entered the park from the Tangi Gate in the north we had to take a ferry across the Nile to get further south to the view point of the falls. Ferries a somehow always fun to take with a bike.
We stayed the night in the Red Chili campsite (yes, it belongs to the Red Chili in Kampala) and had a really boozy evening with Ingbert and some third-generation-indian ugandan guys. Late in the night there was a little agitation, cause a hippo was standing in the middle of the camp. So we got quiet and took a cautious look, these ones can be quiet dangerous. The next day was very hot and on the way to the falls there were hundreds of tsetse flies on the road. Whenever we wanted to stop or to get a little bit slower these pearls of mother nature were trying to eat us up alive. That was especially unpleasant, because the road condition wasn’t that good anymore. But we reached the falls with only a few bites and they were amazing. The power with which the Nile goes through this narrowness is just unbelievable.
South of the falls the landscape changed again and suddenly we were driving through a (rain)forest from a fairytale. It was so beautiful with butterflies of every color all over and some hawks flying directly in front of us. At some time we were wondering why there are so many cables spanning over the road. Then we saw the spiders, which had the sizes of a small hand… well why not drive a little faster, keep the head down and the visor shut.
When we left the park we had two options to reach Fort Portal, take the direct dirt road or take the tarmac back to Kampala and from there to Fort Portal. We went for the dirt road, but after 10 km it started to pour down like in a rain forest 😉 The red dirt roads get very slippery when wet so we turned back and drove the 500 km tarmac.
From Fort Portal we did a fabulous day trip to Bundibugyo and back. Just to enjoy riding the beautiful mountain road and passes over the Ruwenzori Mountains and to have a look at the breathtaking landscape and had a look into DR Congo.
obviously size does matter some times
The next day we started south and crossed the equator for the third and last time of our trip. After an overnight stay at a camping site in the Queen Elisabeth national park we headed on direction Kisoro, passed it and reached Cyanika, the border town to Rwanda. The road to get there was again great fun to ride, with countless curves.
Heavy thinking with some biltong
The crossing was quite easy and the customs officer could fix the mess with the carnets his colleague had done when we entered Uganda. We were a bit nervous because we had heard it is not allowed to bring plastic bags to Rwanda and that they would search for them at the entry. Nearly everything we transport is wrapped in a plastic bag. But no one wanted to have a look at the bikes, they even didn’t check the chassis numbers. The only new thing was, that they took our temperature and asked if we’d been to west Africa…
We went on to Ruhengeri, it’s about 25 km from the border. Here in Rwanda the streets are full of people walking on the road again. You find much less cars and boda bodas than in Uganda or Kenia but more bicycles. The traffic is quite moderate and it seems that they stick to some rules, which we can’t remember anymore ;). So far Rwanda has been really lovely from the beginning. The landscape is still tremendous and everything feels very friendly. We stayed the night at the Red Rocks backpackers inn and campsite (redrocks-rwanda.com). It’s a cool place with super delicious food you’ll have a great time when you go there. Unfortunately we had to move on the next day to Kigali the capital of Rwanda.
After the great time at the Kilima Camp we had to push on. The next days we wanted to drive to Lake Victoria. From there we planned to take a short ferry trip from Mbita and drive towards the Ugandan border. The gravel road from Masai Mara started out great and we reached the lake around midday.
At this pace we were sure to reach Mbita in one day. But of course this didn’t work out. The roads on the maps and GPS weren’t existing, but since we knew if we keep the lake to our left we will go north and eventually reach Mbita. The “road” was hardly existing and mostly loose stones and rock formations with steep ascending and descending parts. Very tough to drive on. On one descend David hit a rock and we heard Daniel over the intercom “David, you are leaking”. From the impact Davids BMW took a hole in its oil pan and lost all its engine oil. This could have very well meant the end of the trip for David and the start of some proper type III fun.
David leaving a trail
We were still on a hill and David rolled without engine power to the bottom where some fisher huts where. Lacking any alternative we asked the locals if we can pitch our tents near their village and work on the bike. Unfortunately, the majority of the adult population was drunk but friendly and we could stay the night. Daniel and David removed the oil pan while I entertained the 50 kids gathering around the bike so the guys had some little space to work.
Hole in the oil pan
We had some liquid metal epoxide glue from home. With this we got the oil pan tight again and could reattach it. One sober guy got David some new engine oil. He drove the hill at night on his small chinese bike… But, David is now leak free! The drunken villagers were a bit of a pain and we didn’t sleep much that night. Also thanks to the kids who came around 6 in the morning again to tell us “Wake up muzungo! Good morning muzungo!”…
The rest to Mbita promised to be a rough ride again but it was worse than we thought. It was probably the most challenging ride we had so far at a very high temperature and we promised our self to do less off road in the future since we all want to get the bikes (and the riders) to the Cape in one piece.
The 50 minute ferry ride from Mbita was a nice change in pace and we had a fun time with the ferry stuff. They told us we were the nicest white people they ever met. We think they don’t meet many white people around here 😀 Plus it was only some 2 € for us with the piki pikis (motorbike in Kiswahili)
Mbita II, don’t want to know what happend to the first one…
From the ferry port the road was supposed to be all tarmac up to the Ugandan border, except for one unknown stretch of around 25 km. Since it was starting to rain we were uncertain about the road condition. We asked some locals and a very helpful lady explained us the way. Confronted with the question about the road condition she just replied ‘”The road can be disturbing”. We liked that. The morning wasn’t disturbing enough… She also told us that we actually will pass the village where Presidents Obama family is from. How cool. Their home is right north of the equator (we crossed the equator again). The disturbing road was in no way disturbing and maybe only 2 km gravel. A good end of the day!
On the equator again. This time no road sign
We slept some 40 km before the border and entered Uganda the next day. The border was pretty annoying. For some reason you’ll find the biggest idiots of one country working at the customs. After 3 hours the ugandan customs rocket brain managed to wrongly stamp our carnets. Not again… Let’s hope it’s not going to cause problems on the way out.
From the border we made our way direction Kampala. On the way we crossed the Nile, again, that river is everywhere! We went to see the source of the white Nile in Jinja.
The source of the white nile
The highways in Uganda are mostly in a perfect condition, but the bit between Jinja and Kampala is quite heavily frequented and you have the crazy minibus drivers again. Kampala city traffic was madness as well, but we got used to third world capital traffic. It’s just full of boda bodas (motorbikes in Ugandan). There are no traffic laws for motorbikes. It’s strange in the beginning but once you got used to it actually pretty cool! We often race past the traffic police, wave politely, they are happy and wave back 😀 We really have to take care not to drive like jack asses once we are back in Europe 😀
We stayed two nights at the Red Chili in Kampala and made good use of their pool while David had his rear suspension checked. He established contact with a very nice Danish guy, Micky, who fixes bikes in his spare time and is currently rebuilding an Africa Twin. Micky told us about the great Ugandan road side fast food “chicken in your face”. Basically, when you stop at an intersection you instantly have 10 guys waving grilled chicken on a stick in your face. It also comes as “beef in your face”, “liver in your face” and, if you’re near the lakes “fish in your face”. That stuff is super tasty and we frequently stuff our faces with all kinds of grilled “whatever”.
We stayed the night at the wonderful Tawi Lodge near the Kimana gate at the north east part of the park. Here you have a wonderful sight over the Kilimanjaro, from everywhere … even from the toilette :). It’s a very beautiful place to be and we enjoyed every moment in this piece of paradise.
Kilimanjaro
As you know we already paid the entrance fee for the Amboseli national park, so why not go for a real and legal game drive in a 4×4 😉 That’s what we did the next morning and it was good fun. You just can see a lot more when you’re not riding a bike and don’t have to watch the street 😉
Cheetas and a few tourists
pure elegance
two lions … really
Happy and flashed from all the wild life we went back to the jungle junction in Nairobi to pick up our luggage and to stay for another night before head on to the lake Victoria. We heard that the Maasai Mara national park, which we would pass anyway, would be even more fascinating. So we decided to go there and to take Axel’s offer and visit his second lodge, the Kilima Camp. And what should I say it was tremendous. The lodge itself is situated on a cliff so that you have an amazing view over the Maasai Mara plane. This time we pitched our tents and were allowed to use the shower and toilette of one of the big bungalow like tents.
We went for a full day game drive and were so lucky. The Maasai Mara is the kenian part of the better known Serengeti (Tanzania). And just now the migration took place. It’s the biggest migration of land living animals in the world, so they were all over the place.
We’ve been a bit behind with our updates. Sorry for that. We just did too much every day and hardly find time to write the blog entries.
From Marsabit in northern Kenia we still had a lot of gravel to go. We spent the night in a very small place along the road by the name of Laisamis. A very hot place with our first (warm) kenian beer.
We left early the next day heading towards Nairobi. The tarmac was supposed to start some 20 km after the town. The gravel roads here can be quite tricky. If you stay in the line where the cars drive you’ll find relative solid gravel. OK to drive on. Between those tracks the gravel is forming small hills and is very loose. Getting into that leads to terrible swimming of the front wheel. To get out you must not get slower but get the weight into the back of the bike and accelerate. 3 km out of town Daniel got in the loose gravel and even with trying these tricks couldn’t get out anymore. I drove behind him and saw him wobbling badly until he crashed. Luckily he wasn’t hurt, even though we were doing around 50-60 km/h. The bike though took some beating since it landed on the left and flipped to the right. The right mirror was broken off, the break leaver badly bended, the wind shield and plastic body cracked in some parts and the luggage rack broken again. So another welding it will be… Daniel took it quit alright and I think seeing this happening left me more shocked than him. After this we continued at a slower pace until the perfect tarmac started.
The wobble trail
Every day we like Kenia more and more. We stopped at the first gas stations asking if they might have petrol, still working in the Ethiopia mind set. They just look at us as if we are idiots and said “of course we have petrol, this is a gas station.” Great! Also you don’t get very often forengi or muzungo prices, as white people are called here. And if they ask for too much we were told that these prices are “very open to negotiation”, which is definitely the case.
On the way to Nairobi we passed the 5200 m high Mount Kenia and crossed the equator for the first time during this trip. We decided to take a detour on the way south around Lake Victoria, thus crossing Uganda and Rwanda, where we will cross the equator several more times.
We also decided to allow us more time. I will meet with my parents and Vanessa in Windhoek on the 11th of December and we will spent Christmas and New Years in Africa. Daniel right now plans to be back shortly before Christmas but this still can change.
Due to the events in the morning and the decision not to enter African capital cities at night anymore (remember Addis?) we stopped for the night before reaching Nairobi at a small hotel along the road. They served great mbuzi (goat) and we celebrated the equator crossing with some good Tusker Lager, this time even cold! Here you have to specifically order a cold beer, I guess that’s one of the negative aspects of the British colonization.
One choma sausage and off to bed
The next morning I found my front wheel flat. We took it apart and checked for a hole in the tube but couldn’t find any. So we put it back on and were off to Nairobi.
With reaching the outskirts of this massive city the traffic got really bad. Especially the bus and mini bus drivers here are totally insane. They overtake everywhere, but especially love overtaking before corners and hills. When they see traffic coming ahead they don’t attempt to get back into their line. We often have to break until stop and get the bikes to the side of the road in order to not get hit. There are times were we just want to pull these guys out of there busses and teach them some manners.
We reached the famous overlander camp Jungle Junction in Nairobi in the afternoon. A great place to camp with a proper garage. Chris, the owner of this place is a motorbike mechanic and one of the few people along the trans Africa track who has suitable tires in stock, which were badly needed by David. We also met other motorbike travelers for the first time since leaving Khartoum. They were a bit stranded here since it apparently got very difficult to get Ethiopia and especially Sudan visa out of the home countries. Good thing we left those countries already behind us. One couple was waiting already for a month to get their Ethiopia visa sorted out.
The next days we had to do a lot on the bikes. My front wheel was flat again and this time I found the hole and could fix it. My left pannier was still badly bended by the crash I had with the tree stump along the Moyale road. Using highly sophisticated technics involving the biggest hammer Chris has in his workshop I could get it back to almost its original shape. Good enough to get me to Cape Town. Daniel worked all day on his bike and did a magnificent job getting it back into shape! Unfortunately his carburetor was leaking petrol and the gas pump stopped working, so we had to take pretty much everything apart but now the bike runs like clockwork again.
Diagnosis with Chris and work on Daniels bike
Nairobi has a lot to offer. This might sound strange to you at home but we were stunned by the shopping malls. You can buy everything! We forgot about this during our time in Sudan and Ethiopia.
We took an idle day and visited the David Sheldrick Elephant Orphanage in Nairobi. Jung elephants who lose their mother before the age of three are doomed to die out in the bush. Many lose their mothers due to ivory poachers, who sadly still have a marked to sell the ivory the other common reason are so called “human animal conflicts” which basically means villagers killing the elephants when they get too close to their settlement. If the calves are lucky they get rescued by the orphanage and brought to Nairobi where they are hand fed every day until the age of three before they slowly get reintegrated into wild elephant herds.
After some good days at the Jungle Junction we were anxious to get back on the bikes and see more of Kenia. The plan was to leave almost all of our luggage at Chris place and do a two day trip to the Amboseli National Park in Southern Kenia facing the Kilimanjaro. We wanted to do some offroad driving but weren’t certain about the rout and where to stay at the park. The normal Safari Lodges are with 300 USD per night (not including park entrance fees) slightly over our usual price range. As so often the best things in live just happen. I went to the neighbor table at the Jungle Junction and asked the guys if they have experience with the Amboseli Park. One replied “Sure, I own a lodge there”. Axel, also a German, offered us to pitch our tents for free at his lodge and showed us a good way through the Masai land where are almost no roads are and it’s supposed to be like Kenia a 100 years ago! Perfect! So we left towards the Tawi Lodge the next day. We could only leave at 1 pm since Davids tire still wasn’t there and needed to be mounted.
After some hours in the bush it became clear that we won’t make it to the lodge in one day and we had to look for a bush camp. We found a Masai farm and asked the guys if we could build our tents on their land. They were extremely friendly and hospitable and we had some protection from the hyenas. Like many Masai they are cattle farmers. The one guy asked me if I could help them getting a pregnant cow out of the bush which was too tired to get up again. This promised to be interesting. So I went with them, we found the cow, the one guy put the tail of the cow in my hand and said “pull”. I remarked that I have no particular experience in pulling up pregnant cows on the tail but that was regarded as insignificant. So we pulled the cow up. As soon as she stood she could walk, just getting up was impossible to her. Leaving her out in the bush would render her an easy prey for the hyenas and leopards. They asked me how it was and my response “not much different from lifting the fully loaded motorbike” was well received.
The next morning we left early and the road got from bad to total nightmare. Remember the liquid dust in Ethiopia? It’s called “fech fech” and we had plenty of it. In addition the road was extremely bumpy under the fech fech, not making the ride any easier. Thus started the 3 hours of the first gear where we only covered 20 km. The road just never got better. David had a wobble, put his food down and got stuck between a rock and his left pannier. His food was bended and hurt. Luckily nothing seemed to be broken, still he had a limp for a few days and a good brusing.
dusty dayAt least no donkys on the roadHi there!
At some point we were really fed up and saw a good gravel road pointing south. The direction we needed to go. It wasn’t on either our GPS or paper maps but definitely preferable to the fech fech. So we made our way south along the magnificent kenian country side. We climbed a hill and after that lay the Amboseli plain with the gigantic snow topped Kilimanjaro!
The Ambosoli plain
We continued south, knowing that we can’t enter the park with the motorbikes. We were looking for the entrance gate or signs. Worst case would be that we have to turn back. Approaching the park the wildlife got pretty impressive. Plenty of Zebras, Gazelle, Gnus, Giraffes and Elephants were to be seen along the road. We had a brilliant time and joked “who would pay the 80 USD entrance fee when you can see all the wildlife outside the park for free?” Well, this is where we’ve been wrong. Soon after we were flacked down by the armed parked rangers who very polite and explained to us that we are infect in the park, illegal trespassed, went their against the law on motorbikes and didn’t pay the entrance fee. Ups… But he added, “no big problem ,you might have to go to court and might go to jail, but no big problem” I guess it was no big problem to him…
We were escorted to the ranger HQ with a certain “shit hit the fan” feeling. There our luggage was searched for illegal things, I don’t know if they thought we are poachers. Our passports were collected and the penalty discussed by the bosses. Luckily Axel gave us his mobile number back in Nairobi and we called him for help. He immediately pulled some strings and we got off with paying the entrance fee and around 3 € fee for using a private vehicle in the park 😀 Many thanks Axel!!! The entrance ticket was valid for 24 h so we decided to do a real guided safari the next day with the Tawi guys. We went to the lodge and can’t explain the greatness of this place. Honestly, if you want to go to Amboseli visit this lodge. You don’t even have to enter the park since all the animals just show up at the lodge waterhole!
At the lodges waterholethe poolSun downer after a hard day
Axel also runs a lodge in the Masai Mara, guess our next destination
The safaris we did in Amboseli and Masai Mara will come in a different post mostly consisting of photos and videos. We saw A LOT of great wildlife. Just fantastic. Kenia is amazing!
Addis Abeba was the first big city we saw after leaving Khartoum. The thousands of peoples, cars, minibuses, tuktuks, bicycles and animals just merge together in a big humming something. I think they still call it traffic. It’s like driving in Istanbul just double the amount of vehicles, throw in some animals, destroy some roads and remove the last traffic rules there are… but again after a while you get used to it and it works just fine. The first nights we spent at Wim’s Holland house. Topher and I had to get the visa for Kenia and an extension of our Ethiopian visa. It expires on the 30th what would be ok, but we wanted to have some extra time, if something should go wrong. So we got that done and another very important thing. We got our first hair cut since we left 🙂 For dinner we went to a small restaurant called African queen. The restaurant is run by an ethiopian lady who lived for over 30 years in Freiburg and learned cooking there. Unfortunately they couldn’t make the Sauerbrauten, which is on the menu, but we got some very good food and some Spätzle 🙂 It was a very nice time at Wim’s and we met a lot of interesting peoples and learned some good advices and stories. We got in contact with Seid because my luggage system was broken … again and needed to be welded. Seid, an overlander himself, is a very friendly guy and known for helping and supporting overlanders that come nearby Addis. We moved over to Seid’s place and he offered us to help us with some maintenance on the bikes. So we changed the oil, cleaned my carbonator, got the welding done and wanted to change the spark plugs on my bike. That worked fine with the first one, but the second came in wrong and messed up the thread… A broken spark plug thread could definitely be the end of your journey. The next morning a friend of Seid with more experience came over and with him we got the spark plug in, slowly forcing it in and out, bit for bit. It worked and I really hope it lasts till I am home again 😉 We headed on and had a look at the stele in Tyia, before we found a small hotel a little further down the road. Today was a big ethiopian holyday, the day of the cross. At night everywhere small bundles of bush where set on fire. We took a walk around and it was just a beautiful atmosphere. Our next stop was the paradise lodge in Arba Minch and yes it’s like a small paradise 🙂 From the bar you have a gigantic view over the Nechisar national park, the lake Abaya and the lake Chamo.
These two little guys were very interested in or digital equipment and answered every explanation with a big Wooooow 😀
The food was also really good and we could spent some time at the pool. We took the bikes and visited the local crocodile farm. Here they breed Nile crocodiles for their skin and you can see them in different ages and sizes. After two nights the paradise time was done and we were on the way to Moyale, to cross the border to Kenia and to take the so called hell road to Marsabit. The last 50 km to Moyale coming from Mega, where we spent the night, were already quite tough because there were constructions everywhere. So every 500 m there is a diversion from the tar mark which consist mainly of sand. Very very soft and light red sand that behaves more like a fluid than something solid. It took us awhile to master this part of the track, but I think with a smaller bike and without luggage it can be a lot of fun.Roter Sand from David on Vimeo. Road Closed from David on Vimeo. The border crossing was no problem and we were on the hell road. The first 70 km were as promised tough. A mixture of loose gravel, sand, wash board, pot holes and stones was demanding a lot from the bikes and from us. But we made it without any loss ;). Then out of nowhere it came … tar mark, for the next 50 km. The road was in a perfect condition and we just blasted over it. Tonight’s accommodation was bush camping at a nice remote place near the road. On the way through the bush Topher unfortunately hit a tree stump with his left side case. The case got deformed and tore up at the bottom, but we managed to bend it back to a certain level and closed the gap with tape. That should work till we find a better place to work on it. The rest of the Moyale road was a short run on gravel and 100 km tar mark all the way to Marsabit. Seems like this hell is slowly freezing in. So in the end we were glad about all the tar mark but also a bit disappointed. At least we got a taste of what it used to be 😉
There are two ostriches to be found in this picture 😉
After working an entire day on the motorbikes I couldn’t see a screw driver anymore, which is not a problem at the beautiful Tim and Kim village since there are plenty of other things to do. I brought some fishing equipment from Germany and thus we went to the lake for a nice and relaxed fishing day. Apparently they have only Catfish, Tilapia and Brasses in this lake (except of course for the Hippos, Snakes and giant Warans, also known as Dragons or Monitors).
the catch of the day
The plan was to first catch some Brasses and use them as a bait for the Catfish and Tilapia. Catching the Brasses was easy but we got nothing else. Kim said she could make fish cakes from the 8 Brasses we caught. Nice! It was a great spot at the lake and we were visited every now and then by a rather large Snake in the water which checked out if we were still around, saw us and left again. I guess we were in its favorite exit spot. Kim said it was probably a Cobra, which are found in this area.
It rains alot around here…
As the only guests we had every evening dinner with Kim and Mabratu, who does a lot around this place.
The next day David was supposed to come, but we didn’t know exactly when so the two of us scheduled a canoe trip around the lake with Mabratu. Just when we were about to leave David arrived and joined us for the trip. We saw some Warans on the rocks and visited one of the twenty monastery’s on the lake Tana. Only males are allowed to set food on this island, this goes to the extent that only male animals are kept on the island, so now omelet for breakfast. They are still not sure what to do about the birds flying over the island. The low living standard of the monks was impressive. No electricity, not a single machine, their church bell is an old artillery shell from the days of the italian occupation. People in Europe pay thousands to escape civilization. They should spent two weeks working on one of these islands. One of the monks told us he was attacked by two Hippos an hour earlier on the way in. We (luckily) didn’t see a Hippo.
Daniel with Marbatu
A dragon! They get up to 2 m in lentgh
The next morning we left the village direction Gonder. We had a great time at this place. If you are ever near Gorgora make sure to drop by the Tim and Kim village.
Fare well with Kim.
We took a longer but way better maintained dirt road over Aykel which was pretty easy except for one deep river crossing. It is still rainy season in the north, so there is a lot of water and we certainly get wet at least once a day on the bikes.
We reached Gonder on the 15th of September, the day before my birthday but on this trip we go to bed so early that we weren’t able to stay up until midnight 😀
The next day was fully packed. We went to see the old castle in Gonder, build by the Amharic kings some 400 years ago. After that we mounted our bikes and headed direction Lalibela, which I liked to see on my birthday. But, the ride was too long and the last 60 km were offroad of unknown quality. The opinions ranged from easy going to close to impossible. So we decided to spent the night in an hotel completely occupied by Chinese workers. They build the roads in Ethiopia and are all over the place (which will come in handy at some point, but more later). The road took us up to 3300 m and we even had some snow along the road. A nice birthday present, with the amazing winding roads and breathtaking views in the Ethiopian highlands. Just the engines lose a lot of power in the thin air.
Castle in Gonder.
We pretty much only average 50 km/h on the good roads. We always have to search a lot for fuel, most gas stations have non or only sell it to locals. Forengis (this is how white people are called here) are directed to the black market to pay up to 3 times the regular price. This is very unnerving. In general we are considered as a wallet on wheels. Everybody asks for ridicules prices and most don’t haggle, so no deal. We have been approached countless times by completely healthy, well-dressed man in their twenties demanding money because we are white. This attitude is unfortunately tainting our in general good view on this beautiful country. The second, even worse habit here is the throwing of things at forengi vehicles. There are many people along the street and many pick up stones and sticks and either pretend to throw them, which is scary enough, or actually throw them at us. Daniel and I got hit already once each, luckily nothing serious, since we always wear the protective gear. I never thought it will protect me from mentally insane Ethiopians… Another “sport” is to pretend to jump in front of the bike. This is always a bit shocking. The weirdest thing is, they are super happy, laughing, smiling, waving and the next second they do these things. It’s very hard for us to understand.
Black market refuel. Not happy 😉
There are very much children in Ethiopia, many stand along the street, watching the cattle or doing work on the fields (or just throw stuff at motorbikes). You honestly cannot stop in this gigantic country without a second later having a bunch of kids jumping out of the next bush screaming “youyouyou” and “give me money”.
The next morning we challenged the unknown 60 km off road to Lalibela. They were just super fun and we blasted along the dirt track, which was in general in a good condition, taking us from 3000 m, down to 1800 m and up to 2500 m again.
We reached Lalibela quite early and did the tour around the rock churches. Its 50 USD for forengis and free for Ethiopians (they are a bit racist around here). Anyway worth every penny. These 11 buildings, carved out of the rock during the reign of king Lalibela with the help of angels almost a 1000 years ago definitely belong to the most impressive things I’ve ever seen. And they are all in use, still every day services are hold in every church. A very special place. Since back in the days of King Lalibela the voyage to the Holy Land was very dangerous the smart King decided to rebuild the Holy Land in Ethiopia. You find everything significant symbolized, like the river Jordan, Nazareth, Jerusalem or Mount Ararat here.
Bet Georgis, probably the most famous church in Lalibla.People vistiting the churches sleep in those wholes if they can’t afford a hotel.
The roofes are there to protect the buildings. They are not too pretty…The church benches are rather relaxed.
A monestry next to the churches
Our guide in Lalibela strongly suggested us to also visit the oldest church around here, Yemrehanna Kristos, some 40 km north. So the next day we took the dirt road there and it was worth it. Again a very nice and spiritual place in the mountains. Around 500 human skeletons of people who wanted to be buried here are scattered around the church.
We had to take the same road again, plus the 60 km from Lalibela to the main road. We start to really like the dirt tracks 🙂 Our next destination was Bahir Dar, at the south end of the Lake Tana, but this couldn’t be done in one day so we slept in a Hotel on the road again. While unloading the bikes Daniel noticed a broken connection of his luggage system. That’s what you get from the fun on the dirt tracks 😀 Luckily we found a guy who get this part welded and he charged only 30 Birr (around 1 €, finally not a forengi price). With the fixed rack we made it to Bahir Dar where we found a nice place to sleep directly next to the lake.
Welding, interessting stuff.
From Bahir Dar it’s not far to the Blue Nile Falls. Surprisingly this was a very bad road again and on the way back it started to heavily rain, thus making the road not any better… We are very happy about our nice off road tires. They do a pretty good job. Who ever said you can mostly travel through Africa on tarmac must have used a different route.
Shelter from the rain.
From the falls we headed in the direction Addis Ababa, since we only left at 2 in the afternoon it would have been impossible to reach there in one go. The area was pretty remote and only dirt roads for the next 200 km. Luckily Daniel hat a hotel along the route in his Tracks4Africa GPS system. Like I said, bush camping is very difficult with all these people around. We reached the location of the hotel some 30 min before sunset. Unfortunately there was no trace of any hotel or anything comparable, just corn fields. Bummer… Opportunities were running out with the setting sun. Driving at night on the dirt roads is suicidal and the next hotel was some 80 km away. We continued riding in the hope to find anyplace suitable for a bush camp. Than we passed a Chinese road workers camp. They didn’t speak any English but we could make them understand that we would like to pitch our tent in their compound and that was ok. Daniel and I slept in a small hut and David preferred to pitch his tent. At night the gates were closed and only some prostitutes came in and out but obviously they knew the way to which rooms they want to go. At night a strong thunder storm hit us rendering the small hut as not the most suitable place to sleep since the rain found its way through the roof. Daniel and I quickly pitched a tent inside the hut and could get some rather uncomfortable sleep.
China Camp
We left pretty early the next morning to reach Addis. First we had to tackle some 170 km of dirt road with changing grades of badness. Additionally, plenty of animals and people were on the road again. I said over our radio intercom, which we all use, that at this point I just want to get out of Ethiopia without killing someone or something. 10 min later David hit a rooster. That poor guy was done. No chance to avoid the animal. We stopped, the locals were just shrugging their shoulders. Seamed to be no big deal. David gave the owner 100 Birr, apparently more than its value and everything was fine. Sadly, this animal died for nothing. If an animal is not killed in the religious right way it will not be eaten.
The road got worse, at some point we reached a pretty deep river. Daniel just blasted through while David and I watched. Daniel somehow made it through and got almost stuck on the underwater rocks. It looked in no way like we would like to do the same. We found a way on to the bridge which was constructed over the river and crossed the river on that bridge. Not easy either, but still better than going through the river and get stuck there.
Finally we found some tarmac and continued towards Addis along the Nile Gorge. An amazing place. The road descents from 3000 m to 1200 m up to 3200 m again. At the bottom it’s pretty warm and baboons are all over the place.
The drive took a lot of time and 100 km out of Addis we had two hours before sunset. Doable, right? Nope. We should have just called it a day and find a place outside Addis to sleep. But we were so eager to make it to Addis that we pushed on. We reached the city boundaries at sunset and it started to rain (of course). We were looking for the “Wim’s Holland House”, a famous overlander place in Addis. The city is a mess right now since they build a new train track crossing the whole town. Many streets were not existing anymore or in an even worse condition than any off road we’ve done so far. That’s not a joke. So in the rain, the pitch dark, on the worst streets ever with no proper navigation and after 13 hours on the bikes, in an 7 million city we managed to find Wim’s at some point. What a great moment! We had a good dinner and a beer and went to bed right away. My advice, enter Addis at daylight!
Here in Addis we have some stuff to do and try to leave towards Kenya on Friday the 26th.taking the infamous Moyale route. Supposed to be the hardest off road on this trip. Let’s see if this holds true against Addis at night. Internet is hard to come by here and mostly too slow to update the blog. You’ll find some additional infos, pictures and even videos on our friends site www.motorrad-tour.info
We wanted to stay a couple of days in the youth hostel in Khartoum to get some rest and to meet up with David. Unfortunately the power supply shot down in the first night so the fans weren’t working anymore. Like with everything else there are to side of the story. For us it was a very sweaty and sleepless night, but for the mosquitos it was a feast… big time.
David had some trouble to get his bike off the ferry in Wadi Halfa and it was not quite clear how long it would take in the end. So we decided to hit the road again and wait for him a little bit more downstream in Ethiopia. The landscape changes a lot while crossing Sudan vertically. When you leave Khartoum you’re still in a desert, but 100 km to the south it suddenly starts to get green. At first there is very light green colored grass, that makes the whole landscape look like it was in pastels. The green gets darker with every km you travel south and more and more plants appear. (Some nice pictures from the Afri Pi)
We had a good run (10.09.14) and stopped 60 km in front of the border for our first “bush camping” in Africa, next to a field 😉 of cause we asked for permission before we put up the tents. In the evening our camping site was visited by some ethiopian guys who were walking all the way from Ethiopia to Khartoum. We didn’t find a common language so we don’t know exactly why, maybe to find a job. It is a tough thing for them to do, because it is a really long way with a climate getting hotter and hotter and the only thing they were carrying was a wooden stick. No equipment, no supplies, no water… we shared some food and water with them, gave them some pounts and whished them good luck for the rest of their journey .
A truck “parking” in the middle of the street in Ethiopia
The border crossing in the morning was surprisingly easy without any hassle and after less than 3 h we were good to go. Maybe it helped that one of the customs guys thought that Topher was looking like Thomas Müller :p ( I, Topher, was not happy with that) or because it was the first day of the new year in the ethiopian calender. With a “Melkam Adis Amet” (happy new year in amharic) you had all smiles on your side 😉
Our next stop should be the Tim&Kim village in Gorgora at the lake Tana, but because we were already low on fuel and didn’t want to use the black market gas on the road we took a detour over Gonder to find a proper gas station. This was unfortunately not a good idea. Although we did get benzin (the third gas station had it) the gravel road from Gonder to Gorgora (50 km) was in a really bad condition due to the raining season. There were many ups and downs and we had to cross many deep mud puddles and small rivers which were over floating the street. At some time I got stuck with my front wheel in knee deep mud while trying to cross a mound. Pulling the bike out again was a mayor pain in the a… One puddle got Topher, cause it was a lot deeper than expected. He went through it and shot out on the other side (dribbdemudpuddle) up a small hill. There he wanted to lay the bike to the side but it still had too much momentum. It turned over and came to rest standing upside down. Luckily Topher had no problems getting off the bike right in time. He then pushed the bike back to the side and with the help of some locals we were able to get it upright and on the road again. The result of this maneuver was a broken windshield, a missing right mirror, a damaged mounting of the toolbox in front of the engine and a not so amused Topher. But there were no injuries and the bike was still working perfectly so we kept on going. We mastered the whole 50 km in 3 h and arrived 20 min before sunset totally exhausted but very happy at Tim&Kims village and were welcomed with an ice cold beer. Probably one of the best in our lives.
After a refreshing night in a bungalow we cleaned the bikes and started the operation on Topher’s bike. As you can see she survived and is almost as good as new. The toolbox was easily reattached, the two parts of the windshield are held together by three big screws and the mirror got some tapeing. In the end it wasn’t too bad, just pure type two fun.
Coming soon: Days at the lake Tana, meeting David, getting to Lalibela and hopefully some fast WiFi…
The Sudanese make you jump through a lot of hoops before you’re good to go for an overland travel. After the registration with the police we had to get a travel and photo permission, which was not possible since Friday and Saturday are weekend days here. Luckily, our fixer Midhat could help us out with that as well. Perfect! So on Saturday morning we headed off with Grant to Midhats place to get the permit, since Grant also needed one we could do it all in one go.
We also had not paid Midhat so far and did it while we were there. I have to say this guy is amazing. He moved mountains to get our bikes and paperwork in order. If you ever find you self in need of what ever in Sudan, call Midhat Mahir (www.tour-sudan.com). Great guy!
Midhat and Grant
Back when we were in Turkey I was chatting with Simon, a friend from Frankfurt and he asked me what will happen to our transport crates once we are in Sudan. Jokingly, I said they probably warm some once home or become some once home. Turns out that wasn’t all that wrong. Midhat bought our transport crates to build a partition in his flat.
After this pleasant morning we hit the road, but first stopping at the merging of the white and blue Nil in Khartoum and taking the obligatory picture.
The merging of the Nils. The white color comes from the White Nil, the dark color from the Blue Nil
We rode up along the Nil towards the Meroe pyramids, some 250 km out of Khartoum. It was a pretty easy ride apart from the unmarked speed bumps on the road which really wake you up. Also, while riding in the dessert you often face strong winds. You have to lean into the wind and drive always in an angle which results in the funny effect that you sometimes have to lean to the right in a left corner.
What is really annoying here are the frequent checkpoints along the road. Usually the guys are just bored out and see some bikes coming and want to have a chat, so you always get pulled over. In most cases they want a copy of the travel permit and or passport. God knows what they are doing with them. But they collect them like little kids collect stickers (or whatever kids collect these days).
There is no road from the highway to the pyramids in the dessert, which meant some off road action with the loaded bikes through some deep sand. I dropped my bike when I hit some deep sand that disguised itself as a solid surface. No problem, just the lifting of the bike in the dessert heat is a toughy. Grant had a brilliant definition for this kind of endeavor and we have his permission to steal it. He calls this “type II fun”. Type I fun are things that are fun planning, fun doing and fun remembering. Type II fun are things that are fun planning, no fun at all doing and fun remembering. Spot on! Type III fun would be something that is no fun planning, no fun doing and no fun remembering, commonly known as “no fun”.
After some more type II fun we reached the pyramids. They are in the middle of nowhere, no tourists nothing. But still, there is a small building with two souvenir sellers and one official to whom you give 50 Sudanese pounds each, get a recede and then can walk around the pyramids. As the name might give it away, they are from the Meroe kingdom which reigned from 800 BC to 350 AD in this region. They look different than the once in Egypt, especially due to their steeper angle.
It was fairly late once we finished our tour around the pyramids and we still had to find a place to camp/sleep before sunset. Problem was the very strong wind and the lack of wind protection, which rendered sleeping in the dessert close to impossible unless we wanted to be sand blasted.
Leaving the pyramids
We found a “truck stop” nearby and they let us pitch our tents inside some walls. Due to the heat we only set up the inner tent. We were quite relieved to have found a place to sleep without much searching. Yet, after a lot of trying with their satellite dish they unfortunately got a signal. The truckers and sheep herders from the dessert all gathered around the old TV and we watched with them the probably trashiest TV show ever made. It was a Bollywood adaptation of Aladin poorly dubbed to Arabic. We know some people back home love trash movies. They will have a blast if they can ever get hold of this Aladin production.
We were pretty tiered and called it an early day. Problem was that our tents were rather close to the TV which was still roaring on sound level “deaf granny”. On top of this was the lack of air movement behind the walls (yeah I know we wanted wind protection). What followed was the worst night of our lives, we all agreed on that. It was crazy hot and with the TV no sleep was possible. We have never sweated this much in our lives. Whoever claimed its getting freezing cold at night in the dessert has clearly never tried to sleep in the Sudanese dessert.
The next morning at the truck stop
On the upside, we left the truck stop the next day fairly early and did a lot of riding before the midday heat kicked in. We drove 250 something km along the dessert highway to Karima in northern Sudan. Just a great ride. No civilization or traffic, just dessert, mountains, camels and strong wind. Luckily we started with full gasoline tanks. We even had some rain in the dessert, which is fairly rare around here. The Wadis, the dried river beds in the dessert, were bursting with water. Amazing view.
Wadi
During a photo stop two Land Cruisers pulled over and a bunch of people came pouring out all wanting to take a photo with us, including some ladies. I mention this because we read a lot about the situation in Sudan where you won’t find women in public life and if you see some they are completely covered. We don’t know what you would have to do to see no women around here. but we see women everywhere on the street, bus or wherever and many just wear a loose scarf around the back of the head (some also without scarf), many man by the way cover their heads as well, which is a smart idea with the burning sun.
In Karima we visited some more pyramids, this time for free. We could even drive the bikes directly up to the pyramids, which included some more type II fun in the sand. We found a cheap hotel to stay and shared one room with air conditioning, which was highly appreciated. The owner proudly told us that the water in the shower is directly coming from the Nil. The very brown and muddy liquid though is to our opinion not the best selling point for a hotel room.
More pyramids
The next morning Grant parted very early. He had to do a long run up to Wadi Halfa in order to catch the ferry to take him to Egypt. We had a brilliant time with that guy! We rode back to Khartoum. On the way in the middle of the dessert we got into a speed control! Apparently we were speeding with 108 km/h (which was definitely not the case) on a road where only 80 km/h was allowed, not that there was any sign… They had top modern equipment, color photos from front and back of the bikes wireless transmitted to their laptop. Just like home… It would have been a 100 pounds penalty each but they let us of the hook and we cruised down to Khartoum (now at 80 km/h.). We were running pretty low on sudanse pounds and needed the cash we had to gas up. So they let us go. Interesting experience, I guess they were just very friendly people!
We see a lot of broken tires along the road. wonder why…
We reached Khartoum in the midday heat and had to cross the big central marked. That was definitely type III fun. The outside air was around 55°C, the bikes got so steaming hot we could burn our legs on the tank. It was crazy. We both where pretty close to a heat stroke. At some point Daniels bike ran out of gas and I went to the next gas station to get some fuel, all easy since we are in the city.
Extra fuel to go
We reached the youth hostel and had to lay down a few minutes next to the bikes before we could do anything. This heat cannot be described by words. Sudan is great but we are now at the point where we long for a colder place and thus look very much forward to the Ethiopian highlands (they also have beer!)
We are now in Khartoum/Sudan. A lot happened and had to be done to get here. But let me start from the beginning. Again, this will be a longer entry. Read it our just enjoy the pictures 🙂
The last days in Istanbul were filled with the preparation of the airfreight and organizing the arrival in Khartoum. On Saturday, the 30th of August we went back to the motorium guys (we are actually now linked on their homepage 🙂 ) and met Daniels relative Yakup who lives in Istanbul. Funny story, they didn’t knew each other but when Daniel mentioned his last name to Tolga, the shop owner, he said he knew another guy by this name. Small world.
Yakup with his 1200 GS and Daniel
After that we went to Kadir, the carpenter preparing our transport boxes and had a look at them. They looked great and we tried them on with my bike J . Getting such boxes in Istanbul was a big problem so it was quite a relive to see that they are of good quality and will be ready in time for the loading on Monday.
We met with Kadir on Monday morning at the Atatürk Cargo Terminal to load the bikes into the boxes. We got the OK for the Cargo company to do the preparations of the bikes at the Cargo Terminal, which meant to empty the fuel tank, drain the engine oil, remove the battery and remove windshield and mirrors. The latter two are for size reasons to fit the bikes into the boxes. In airfreight you pay by volumen, unless you exceed 167 kg per m3, which you won’t do with a motorbike, unless you use a metal press…
Communication with the cargo company was a mess. We never got clear answers via mail or telephone, very tedious. And thus we weren’t able to meet the cargo guys at the terminal. They kept on saying they will sent someone to pick us up. Nothing happened. After 2 h Daniel found a guy of the company who took us to the loading bay were we could do our work. The guy, Hamit, was super nice and helpful, he even invited us for lunch. He had the things under control and with his supervision and “can do” attitude the loading worked smoothly.
Luckily we were allowed to pack our luggage with the bikes into the transport crates, which made our flight the next day a lot easier.
After loading things got a bit messy. Remember when we wrote “Yay, they didn’t need our carnet for the Turkey entry”? Yeah, those dopes at the border should have written into our passport that we entered with the bikes. Which, even though we had to show the passports three different officers, no one did. This fired back now. Without an import you can’t export. Solution? Blame the Greek! We entered from Greece to Turkey so the cargo guys prepared a letter saying the Greek should have written something in our passports, what they didn’t. Well Greece is in the EU, why should they write anything into the passports? Well neverminde, it worked out that way.
Draining fuel while phoning with the cargo head officeReady to go!
Kadir, the great carpenter!Bye Bye Bikes
While packing the bikes no one wanted to check them. Which puzzled us, but hey, why not? Well they should have controlled the chassis number. Now the crates were closed. The Turkish Cargo officer gave us the option that for a 100 € each he would not check the number and we are good to go. No way! With Kadir we opened the boxes again and let them check the number for free. Now the bikes were ready and after almost 9 h at the Cargo Terminal Kadir was so nice to take us along with his moving van. We arrived very tiered at the house and went for a very nice farewell dinner with Daniels aunts.
Daniel with his aunts. Thanks guys for the great time in Istanbul!
The next morning we had to catch a taxi at 4 am to get to the airport and fly via Cairo to Khartoum. In Cairo we touched African ground for the first time in our travel 🙂 and had 8 h of transit, super boring. But, with the slowest wifi in the world we passed the time. We did see the egyptian football national team though! Unfortunately no photo.
The flight to Khartoum was eventless, except that we never had to show our passports and visa this many times ever when taking a flight.
We arrived in Khartoum after sunset, after immigration and screening of my luggage by the police we entered the country. Funny story with the screening. When my bag came on the luggage belt it was marked with several blue chalk crosses. I had the chalk all over my pants and the police officer kept on apologizing for the mess :D. That’s something about Sudan. You will have to look very hard to find as polite and friendly people as the Sudanese are. They have a very high level of dignity in their public life, something many other countries including Germany can learn a lot from.
At the airport we directly met with our fixer Mithad and Mohamed who would drive us to the guesthouse. What is a fixer? A fixer is someone who helps you with customs and the official paperwork, which means finding the right people and negotiating the “fee”. Since no one imports motorbikes via Khartoum airport it would be close to impossible to get the bikes without the service of a fixer. So we discussed the strategy with Midhat and agreed to meet the next day at the airport.
By the way, Sudan is hot. Not the “oh it’s a hot day, let’s have a day at the lake” kind of hot, but the “OMG I am burning alive” kind of hot. At night it’s still 35°C, thank god for the air-condition in our room (as long as there is power, which works quite ok)! The direct sun during day really feels like sitting in a fire. Great place for wearing all the motorcycle gear J. By the way, shorts in public are frowned upon, so you have to wear long trousers.
The next two days were spent sitting in front of the “Cargo Terminal” in Khartoum in the heat and waiting for the forms to be filled. We sat next to a lady making tea and coffee and as the only white people around we were a bit of an attraction. We talked with countless people. All very nice. Everybody loves Germany since the world cup J. We got invited to tee and coffee all day long, and by this I mean of course a cup of sugar with traces of liquid. When they offered us orange juice they wanted to know if we want sugar in the juice. I am sure they put extra sugar in their Coca Cola as well.
Well in the end we got the bikes yesterday evening! It was not easy and it’s probably too much to go into detail but of course a lot more people needed to be paid. Which is ok, the rates are quite low here. You get a dinner for two with four drinks (obviously no alcohol) for under 3 € all together.
Typically Africa, we got the bikes some 15 min after closing of the customs and everything was “hurry hurry” after sitting for 8 h around doing nothing. We weren’t allowed to unpack the bikes in the customs area. It had to happen outside on the street in the scorching sun with plenty of people being very interested in our work.
Everybody was happy when the bikes were ready again. After 11 h and an crazy ride with Midhat on the back of my bike to fetch engine oil for Daniel we were off on African roads on our bikes! The fun lasted for about 1 km until we ran into a police check point, but everything was fine. We guess the officer wanted to show off with his (bad) English skills.
We read a lot about the terrible Khartoum traffic. But honestly, after two weeks in Istanbul Khartoum traffic feels like a walk in the park, except maybe for the massive potholes in the street.
Today we met an Canadian traveler, Grant, on his Africa Twin totally by accident during the registration with the police. He started in Cape Town and drives north. We will ride out of Khartoum together, since he is heading for Egypt and we want to do a tour along the Nile to see some of the pyramids here. After this we will finally meet David (www.motorrad-tour.info) who is right now waiting for his ferry in Aswan.
