The last entry saw me waiting in Porto Novo, Benin, for my new wheel to arrive. I had checked in to the Da Silva Museum of Afro-Brazilian culture as they had a couple of rooms and it seemed like an interesting place to stay. In the end though it turned into a form of beningn prison. I've got to say that Africa seems to be turning me into a right Tory as every community project enterprise I've come across with has been sloppily run by couldn't care less staff. And alas the Musee Da S was the same. The room was dirty and staff occassionally tried to stiff me for unwarranted tips. With an immobile bike I had little choice but to stay. It was made less joyfull still by the fact that they refused to let me leave bags and bike there as left luggage whilst I explored the rest of Benin. So when the wheel arrived I was overjoyed.

Or I should say when I went and collected the wheel, for having paid almost as much as to fly home and pick the thing up myself I had to chase Fedex up and they were most surprised at the notion that they should have called me when it arrived and that they might actually be expected to deliver it. Being a Friday afternoon and with the office to close for the weekend I had to hotfoot it to the major city of Cotonou to pick up. So delighted was I that I celebrated in a nice restaurant with a side of beef in roquefort sauce, a pastis and several ales. I arrived back to the room half cut, carrying my large box of wheel in component form and at midnight decided the best thing to do was to build it there and then.

I've never built a motorcycle wheel though I used to work as a cycle mechanic and have laced a few of those together, so thought it couldn't be too difficult. I guess normally it's not but in a mild state of innebriation it was trickier than expected. The difference between a bicycle and a motorcycle wheel build seems to be that the bicycle one is easy to lace up and hard to true whereas the opposite is true of a motorcycle. Several half builds and then dismantlings later it was three am and the wheel was ready to put in the bike to true up.

The next day with beers slept off all was easy and the bike got a good service too. And the next morning after that it was au revoir to my friends at the museum and on the road to Abomey.

All went well on the ride bar a minor starting difficulty. Abomey was one of the ancient kingdoms of Benin and known for their human sacrifices, slave trading and general fearsome ways. Having visited the largest palace and museum there I can attest that they were indeed bloodthirsty, cruel and gratuitous. The king's throne mounted on four skulls of enemy chiefs is one of the famous exhibits there. The Abomey Kingdom also resisted French rule for a number of years which has made them national symbols of resistance to this day. That they killed and enslaved many of their neighbours in modern day Benin seems to pass by unoticed! Sadly though no museum in Benin allows photos, either inside or out, even if it just a mudbrick building so I can bring you no pictures of the treasures therein. I asked why and was told that photography damaged the exhibits; I decided it wasn't an argument worth having. So instead of photos of the great imperial structures I give you two images of the local woodcarving tradition. The chap above with a large member, devils horns and a very simple look on his face is supposed to be placed at the entrance of your house and will ward away evil. Not sure how but I'm told he will. The bird I don't know the function of but it is mildly disturbing and would be more likely to scare me off if I had evil intent.

Riding North the ignition trouble got worse. In the town of Natitingou right in the North, close to the Burkinese border it became evident that carrying on as was was not an option. On top of this the bike was blowing exhaust gas past the piston into the crankcase. I stayed for a couple of days, perplexed and somewhat demoralised having just spent so long in Porto Novo. Then decided to ship back down to Cotonou to sort things out. A couple of days in a nice hotel with a pool and good food and I had inspiration, shifted to a cheapy and fixed the bike. At this point I had been considering shipping home and got Sascha's hopes up that I would be home soon, only to dash them by fixing the bike (sorry Sasch....)

An email to magneto wizard Sean Hawker and the synopsis was weakened magnets and a suggestion for rigging up an auxiliary ignition system through the battery. Thus I created a veritable Frankenstien's monster of an ignition system. Many thanks for the rapid help Sean......

Bike nerds note the exhaust blowing past the piston was caused by a pattern points set with a different to original-profiled cam follower which advanced the timing slightly.

With a fresh sparking plug I headed back up to Natitingou and made it in a day. The longest yet at 540km. One more day and I was in Ougadougou. This was really motoring. A day to get the Mali visa and then on to Bobo Dialosso for a spot of sightseeing. The city is noted for its mud-brick mosque.

The old quarter is also fascinating with it's Muslim and animist quarters. I was shown the sorgum beer brewery. It looked unpalatable but had a great nutty aroma. Sadly or perhaps luckily a batch wasn't ready for me to sample. In the old quarter I bought the first souvenir since South Africa, a scarey voudou figure of a man with several flat nails through him and bound in cotton. I was told it gave good luck....

I checked the spark plug before I left and found that the electrode had burnt out. I looked at it and realised it was a dodgy fake and I had thrown away my old and worn but still working plugs. So off to the market to find some fresh ones. A Bosch and it looked OK so off we went.

My voudou protector was obviously crap because after a couple of hundred kms the bike made a loud bang and I was hit in the arm by half a spark plug. It was still attached to the HT lead and like a tazer gun the remains of the bare electrode delivered a serious of sharp shocks.

I was worried that the other half of the plug might still be in the engine but a new one fitted and all seemed well. Except then the exhaust gas past the piston problem came back with a vengeance. The next day with a mildly limping bike I was in Bamako. A few days left before my pledge to be home at Easter expired and still a long way to go. I went through it all in my mind. Glazed cylinder bore, dodgey spark plugs and an absolutely worn out chain and sprocket. I would have to get parts from England. Another week at least and then at least four to get back and that if there were no further problems. To set off as it was, even though the problems were minor and easily sorted with a few parts, for a ten day ride across the Sahara would be foolhardy.

The decision arrived at was ship home. I had really looked forward to turning up back at home on the bike but with a pining fiancee on the verge of mutiny, several bike problems and to be honest a real wish to be home myself, flying looked like a good option. Crating the bike up at Bamako airport was a real chore but happened in the end, though not cheap, and I fly home myself tomorrow.

I've been left with a few days to explore Bamako. To be honest there's not a great deal here for the tourist. The Grand Market by the Grand Mosque has a gruesome witchcraft fetish section bizarrely situated right in front of the mosque. The stalls are not for the feint hearted with every variety of animal head and pelt represented along with a fearsome stench that embraces you if you linger too long. Sadly even rarer species are there. It opens a whole debate about conservation, exploitation and preservation. Many of the species are endangered but that doesn't prevent them being there. There're a series of issues around preservation and exploitation and the efficacy of outright hunting bans, but perhaps this is for another time and place. The sad fact though is that hunting obviously goes on extensively, wildlife is diminishing and people resort to traditional medicine because 'scientific modern' medicine in the region is scarce and expensive and counterfeit drugs useless and manifest.

A whole year in Africa, sixteen months on the road and some 30,000 kilometers covered. I shalln't go into a mawkish 'how it has changed me and what I've learnt' diatribe (that can be saved for anyone sharing a beer with me over the next few months!) but it's been an incredible ride, tough at times a real holiday at others and I wouldn't have changed a thing.

Hopefully though the story is not over. I'm treating shipping the bike back to the UK the same as the time it was shipped on from Malawi to South Africa. I'll return sometime in the near future and ride that last 8000kms!

To be continued..........................

The last entry left me in Limbe, Cameroun, waiting for a boat ride to Calabar in Nigeria. Well, it didn't happen. The service was delayed in Calabar for unspecified reasons, which didn't really sound very positive, and might not be back in Cameroun for another five days. For which you could probably read at least a week..... Then someone at the hotel dangled the carrot of a European style high speed catermaran that plied the same route but did it in three hours rather than overnight. I went to the company's office and found out that the service was temporarily suspended. There had been something romantic sounding about arriving to Calabar by boat, pulling in to a steamy hot tropical harbour....

With the only options left of taking a 'stick boat' (narrow and small motorised craft with a dubious reputation for safety even amongst locals) or riding I chose to ride. The road between Mamfe, near the border with Nigeria, and the Nigerian border town of Ekok has a reputation as being one of the roughest on the West Coast route. What no-one said is that the road from Limbe to Mamfe is in fact equally bad in sections. With the back wheel still decidedly oval I tried to arrange to take a dugout canoe down the Cross River, parallel to the road. That also sounded like a nice way to enter Nigeria, in a dugout along a river through the jungle. The previous evening I had been told that there were two boats leaving in the morning, both at ten. I rode down to the riverbank and found out that one had left at nine and the other had decided not to bother after all. Fate was really stacked against me on the boat into Nigeria front so I set off down the road.

It being the dry season the road was a breeze, in fact good fun. The 80 odd km took just over three hours with plenty of photo stops. I got stuck once but only because I took the wrong route - when a track gets too bad people just forge through the jungle and create a better parallel one until they have got past the difficult section. The road is famous for deep potholes and with just cause, there are some that would literally swallow a lorry. They are created each rainy season: a lorry gets stuck, spins its wheels and creates a hole, the crew dig it out and leave the hole behind. The next lorry gets stuck. Repeat the process and before too long the hole can be a couple of meters deep and the length of the lorry. Going down the road in rainy season must be carnage.

Arriving in Nigeria and all was mellow at the border. It had been my intention to spend a while site-seeing in Nigeria to find out what it is all about but the egg shaped wheel put paid to that and I ended up passing through the country in four days. Despite the reputation of Nigeria it was a really easy and friendly place to be. I didn't get stopped at any police checkpoints, asked for any bribes or get any hassle of any sort. What was actually refreshing about Nigeria was how people were very low key about my presence, there was very very little staring and shouting out at me as in most places I've been in the last month or so, but if I went up and asked someone something or greeted them they were warm and helpful.

Despite Nigeria being a pleasant and easy going place I had a fairly unenjoyable time there on account of bike-related woes. At the first hotel I stopped at I found the night watchman, who was to be fair a friendly and well meaning fellow, giving the dirty Enfield a good wash with a hose. When I had loaded the bike up, it wouldn't start and I realised he had given the magneto a thorough dousing resulting in a severe shortage of sparks. A two hour magneto strip later and I was on my way only to have the bike intermitently cut out and refuse to start for most of the rest of the day until I fitted a new HT lead.

Having fixed the sparking problem the next day I had a rear wheel puncture on the motorway. I fixed it and carried on but the rear tyre had now matched the eggy profile of the rim and forward progress was very bumpy. This caused the tyre to overheat and another puncture shortly after was the result. An advantage of Nigeria being so heavily populated and the road filled with unroadworthy vehicles is that you are never far from a puncture repair guy. Repairing punctures is easy but never fun so I utilised the services of these professionals whenever I could. It was clear that I would now have to replace the rear wheel but rather than go to Lagos, the closet large city, I decided to push on to Porto Novo in Benin. Thus began my three day punture-a-thon. For the next 600 km I averaged somewhere around 80 to 100km between puntures and rode along at 50kmh to avoid more.

Being away from home on such a big extended holiday you can't expect that every day will be a bed of roses but these three days were truly miserable and morale sapping.

The day I crossed the border into Benin I thought I could make the 60km on to Porto Novo. I was proved wrong as another puncture drew me to a halt in the dark just outside a small mud-brick residence. Throughout the trip I had assured myself that the hospiality of simple village folk would be forthcoming if ever I needed to stop and couldn't find a hotel. So I explained to the man of the house that I had had a very long day, was exhausted, it was dark and I could repair the bike tomorrow. I had a tent and would not trouble them for anything save a little water to cook with. I was totally wrong, he didn' say no but made it very clear that I could repair the bike and continue to the next town. Which with no choice but to do so I did and found a room at the local bar.

Benin has been somewhere that has held a facination since having a job ten odd years ago in Saville Row and regularly visiting the now disappeared Museum of Mankind at the end of the road. They had an exhibition on of the Dahomey Kingdom and their achievements and riches. At the time it was such an eye opener that there were kingdoms of that wealth and power in West Africa that I had been curious to visit since.

Indeed Benin has many fantastic sights to see and a rich culture. Voudoo is one of the main religions, there are a wealth of artistic treasures to be seen, ancient palaces and African and European slaving relics. But.... a lot of the time the country is just a pain in the arse to be in as the level of attention is pretty relentless. Walking down the street there are endless cries of 'yevo! yevo!' (white man, white man) and request for 'presents'. You have to tell yourself that it is still a minority and the vast majority, even those who shout out to you, are well meaning. It wasn't that long ago that a black man wouldn't have been able to walk the streets of an English town without having paople shout out 'darkie' and worse at him, and like here the majority not really realising how very wearing they are being.

It's been a mystery of the trip how some countries are so relaxed and welcoming and some so much more hard work. I mean, how come I didn't see another white man in the whole of Nigeria but no-one stared at me but come to Benin where folk of my skin tone are a regular sight and there is hassle aplenty. Maybe it is the result of tourism? But then how come Egypt gets a lot of tourists and was a real chore in many places but Jordan also gets a lot of visitors but was friendly all the way. The only theory I have been able to come up with so far is that the hasslesome places are all ex-French colonies but that might not be a popular or provable theory!

So, here I am in Porto Novo waiting for a new rim, hub and spokes to arrive for me to lace together. I had hoped to get in a lot of site-seeing whilst waiting but the place I checked into and committed to with my immobile bike is refusing to offer left luggage so I've been on day trips with just one night spent away from Porto Novo. But an excellent night away- to the stilt village of Ganvie. Most of the coastline of Benin is flanked by an inland lagoon. The lagoon is seldom deeper than six foot deep. When the European slave traders put pressure on local slave trading kingdoms to supply ever greater quantities those fleeing persecution took to a life on the lagoon. The African slave traders had a taboo against entering water so to live in the middle of the lagoon offered sanctuary. As time has gone on the aquatic life has flourished and in Ganvie alone there are more than 30,000 living on the water. I stayed the night in a stilt hotel in Ganvie and then the next day chartered a boat across the lagoon to get back to Porto Novo some 45km away. An exellent adventure.

So, crossed fingers and I'll be mobile again in a couple of days and then heading up to Burkina Faso and Mali. Hopefully with the bike roadworthy once more things will look up and Burkina and Mali will offer more laid back experiences.

Brazzaville was an unexpected pleasure of the trip with a nice laid back atmosphere, good food and of course the benefit of a free air-conned room at the 'Hippo Campe' didn't hurt either. In Brazza I met up with the four Norwegian guys who are travelling in a 4wd that I had met first of all back in Windhoek applying for the Angolan visa.

We decided to travel together. Or rather I asked if I could go with them as I knew the route to Gabon would be remote, rough and pretty much traffic free. In return I offered them my services as a French translator. Anyone who knows my French could testify that it wasn't much of a deal.

We set off North to the town of Oyo along the only decent long stretch of tar road in the Republic of Congo. Even the road out to the second city, Point Noire, is a mess. Funnily enough the President of Congo lives in Oyo.... Getting to Oyo it was evident that there was money there and that it had been spent on ameneties. Street lights, pavements, lawns; all quite unfamiliar luxuries in the region. It's a great African leader's ruse though. Misspend the nation's wealth but make sure you look after your own and you'll be OK. Or at least when the rebel troops come in you'll have somewhere safe to hide.

So it was that we had chosen this route through Congo and Gabon as by coincidence President Omar Bongo lives just across the other side of the border from Oyo and there is a good stretch of road around Bongoville too. Separating the two towns lie some 200km of jungle tracks and amazingly this is the best route between the two countries. The other route through Point Noire and North from there is, if you would believe those who had passed through, a mess of bad roads and threat of danger from the 'Ninja' rebel groups in the area.

The track started off fun. A lot more fun than the potholed roads of Angola, light sand across narrow tracks. Easy enough to ride, slightly technical and smooth. Then at the Congo Customs post which was some 100km before the actual border the Officer told us that we had a bad stretch of 5 or so kms and then it was good all the way. As it happened it did indeed get worse, but it stayed worse and then perhaps got worse still. The landscape became more hilly and the track became two deep ruts in soft sand. Keeping up speed I could ride it but every so often the ruts narrowed, I stopped, and then I got bogged. The Norwegian lads really helped me out here, though possible to get out alone, having two pushers was a marvellous luxury.

It got worse as 50ish kms before the border the gear change mechanism return spring broke. On most bikes this would mean no gear changes but a fellow Bullet rider will know that the neutral finder can be used to crash into gear in an emergency, though missing the gear is a more likely occurence. The point is that at least you can maintain forward motion after a fashion. So I rode along, kept a pace through the deeper sand sections, then lost pace a bit with a hill, needed to change down, missed the gear, slowed quickly, missed the next down, started to weave and then fell off. Repeat this several times and you get a picture of the journey.

We made it across the border the same day but found that customs had closed, the officer wasn't at home and our planned stop of Franceville was still 100kms away. The customs post was in a nice enough place so we pitched up tents there and waited to the following morning. When the customs guy turned up late in the evening he was charming and let us cook our food on the office veranda and even offered to sort out the paperwork that evening if we wanted. This was the way it went on in Gabon, people were extremely friendly, most waved as I passed by on the bike and all were easy going and helpful.

A short day the next and we stopped at Franceville. I spent the day fixing the bike's gear change issues and giving it a general service. The guest house had a wide, varied and slightly alarming selction of bush meat on offer on their menu. As my French didn't run to exotic species the chef kindly brought out a sample of each to our table. Porcupine, Genet, Boar or Pygmy Deer anyone? I settled for fish. You have to assume that in Gabon there is so much jungle and so few people that away from inhabitation wildlife thrives but anywhere there are people there is not an animal to be seen save hanging on a stick being touted roadside.

We were told in Franceville that the roads onwards to Lobe were in excellent condition and tarred. They were for 100km but after that it was more jungle tracks. Thankfully not deep sand as before but slightly rough none-the-less. We were extremely grateful to make it between tar roads in Congo and Gabon in the rainy season without seeing any rain at all. With a bit of water things could have really turned messy. It was dark when we arrived in Lobe, but riding with a Land Cruiser with multiple 500 watt search lights takes some of the edge off of night riding on the dirt roads.... Arriving late had been caused by another woe for the Bullet. The new chain I had bought in Windhoek (made in Thailand - beautiful country but not exactly noted for manufacture of quality engineered spares) had streched quite radically to the point that it was regularly falling off on bumps. Eventually it mangled the chain guard too. The chain guard was dumped and the following morning the chain shortened with a lot of filing.

After all the excitement of the previous few days the next two to get up to Yaounde in Cameroun were mostly on tar roads. A jungle bush camp saw the Norwegians' roof tents invaded by sandflies with unpleasant results though the 'coffin', as my tent is known, proved to be impregnable. I however had a fly that looked like a housefly on steroids (literally five times as large as) fly up my sleeve and bite me. Though it felt like my arm had been pentrated by a needle made to break through rhino skin nothing more happened than acute pain for the next half hour.

The Norse lads seemed to have a penchant for moving in the dark, maybe they're missing their winters, so instead of stopping before Yaounde we pushed on through and arrived into terrible traffic in the dark. My previous coveting of their GPS was less as were were led in an hour long circuitous route through a warren of stinking, polluted and busy streets to arrive somewhere we could have found using my map within ten minutes.

Though the roads in Cameroun have so far been generally good actual conditions are appalling with some of the dodgiest driving on the trip so far. After a while I came to think that most of those comedy motoring idiocy picture emails that get sent around must have all been taken in Cameroun. Four passengers (two adults, two babies) on a 100cc motorcycle taxi. A small motorcycle carrying an upright fridge freezer on the luggage carrier, a minibus that had been rolled so that the roof was of a level with the dash with a guy driving it managing to poke his head out of the side window which was now at a near horizontal. It's kind of comical but then ludicrously dangerous too.

In Yaounde we split company. Though we had a great time together we had plans to head in different directions. They are heading North and I to the Southern border with Nigeria. I'm hoping for another boat journey as I seem to have developed something of a fetish for getting the Bullet onto boats it should not really go on. The plan is to take it on the ferry from Limbe, here on the Camerounian coast, to Calabar just up the water in Nigeria. The decision to take the boat has been pretty much sealed by the fact that, with all the crashing potholes of late, my rear rim and hub have started to disintegrate and the road to the border is notoriously rough.

Next stop Nigeria. There's a nice chap I've been in touch with I've been meaning to meet for a while. His late father was a Colonel in the previous regime and he's been having terrible difficulties getting the money out of the country.

Hopefully Nigeria will in fact prove to be an extemely pleasant place populated by friendly folks. Will let you know...

After what feels like it has been the hardest section of the trip so far I've made it through Angola, Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) and am into the Republic of Congo.

Although Luanda wasn't the easiest of places to like I had gotten used to hanging around the Club Nautico and frequenting the bar there along with the regulars. Leaving Luanda though and there was a further and grottier side to it as one passed through a shanty town of truly demoralising grimness. Getting out was almost as bad a getting in. Traffic was awful and even a bike couldn't squeeze through most of it.

The first 50 or so kms up the road were fine and then we reverted to the roads that had once been tarred and still are on my Michelin map. Clinging fairly close to the coast there wasn't much around in the way of inhabitation. I got off to have a rest and a munch on some dried fruit and within seconds I was being buzzed by tetsi flies (kind of like Horseflies for those at home unfamiliar..) and within a minute I was being positively swarmed. So that was why no-one else stops here or even lives here. I escaped with just the one bite on the finger.

Heading inland and the road actually got better. I stopped at the town of Tomboco and found the Catholic Mission there (they usually have a bed for passing travellers). It was positive luxury, Papa Paul and Marcelo were very welcoming, I got an en-suite room, fresh made pumpkin soup and sat and watched the Zambia - Cameroun game with the guys. Next morning was Sunday, their work day so no-one was around but a loaf of fresh bread, a plate of local jamon and a pot of fresh coffee awaited me. I stitched up the panniers which had split again whilst waiting for the lads to return from Mass. Though you can stay for free and there is no obligation it seems very wrong to expect to stay as a tourist for free and divert their resources away from their good work. Whatever your opinions on the Catholic church and the AIDS / contraception debate the bottom line is that they are often the onle people concerned with welfare and education work in really remote areas. So with a donation left I continued on my way.

Papa Paul had recommended a route North that crossed the less used Matadi border. I always ask for local knowledge and though given in good faith often find it to be none-too-acccurate. I should have been suspect when Marcelo claimed it was 80 kms to the border, Papa Paul 130 and then the signpost said 180. After about 25 kms down a narrow jungle path I encountered a spot where it had rained recently and things where starting to get nasty so rather than risk getting stuck alone I turned back.

Onwards to Mbanza Congo was 150kms of good road and then you turn off. Then I realised that maybe the advice of the lads at the mission might have been good. For if this road to Songololo in DRC was the better one then the other must have been truly shocking. At least there were plenty of other people around who were also stuck to lend a helping hand. Here the local bus service is in massive 6 wheel drive converted army lorries.

Though I was lucky and there hadn't been a heavy rain for a couple of days there were still massive puddles across the width of the road. Some you could go around but if you had to go through extreme care was to be taken. Some could literally swallow the bike. It was only 50kms or so and given the situation 3 hours wasn't a bad time to make it in.

I arrived at the border at dusk. I think I made the quickest crossing ever between Angola and DRC as Angola were playing Senegal in the cup and were unexpectedly ahead. I asked how far to Songololo and if the road was better. It's not far and the road is good was the answer. So armed with the power of local knowledge again I found myself riding in first gear in the dark for 25kms along a rough potholed and puddled road....

The chaps at the Songololo mission didn't provide quite the same quality of accommodation as at Tomboco but they were very hospitable and a bed is a bed. Onwards the next day and I aimed to ride straight through DRC and Kinshasa to catch the boat to Brazzaville on the other side of the Congo River.

Riding through DRC was a strange experience. Whenever I stopped to ask directions people were incredibly friendly and in towns I drew a huge crowd. In the countryside I almost got the impression that people didn't know how to receive me. I usually waved, some waved back, some looked confused and a small minority hostile. If I stopped in the countryside people on foot would stay their distance and wait till I had left before moving on. It seems that really most of their experience of white faces is from passing UN armoured cars with guns trained out of the windows..

The ride through Kinshasa was a relative breeze. After the communications problems in Angola it was good to be somewhere I could communicate with people again and ask directions, albeit in my shakey French. I reached the ferry crossing to Brazzaville and as expected was crowded out by hustlers, ripped off on the ferry price and had plenty of arguments. I was told that the last ferry had left which could have been true as I was led to believe that 3pm was the last one. So I had to pay more for the 'VIP' ferry and pay extra for my bike and then pay extra to dockworkers to manhandle it onto the boat....

Arriving in Brazzaville all was a lot calmer and passing customs was a breeze. I had a tip for somewhere to stay (the Hippo Campe) and asked a customs guy who got in a taxi and led me there. I landed on my feet as being the first motorcyclist they have had arrive at the Campe I've got a nice room for free which leaves me cash to scoff good food at their excellent Vietnamese restaurant. Thank you guys.

Finally a couple of apologies.... Sorry for the lower quality of pictures. Another camera has rattled itself out of focus. Looks like I am going to have to live with it rather than cough up for a new one only to have it bust as well. Also the entries are suddenly coming thick and fast which some may like, some may not. It's just that I wanted to try and do one for each country and as I am suddenly upping the pace so out pour the blogs.

Next one Gabon or maybe Cameroun!

A 3 day palm blistering marathon ride through Angola and I´m in the capital Luanda. All those `land of contrasts` cliches apply here more than anywhere. It has the worst roads I´ve encountered in Africa and the best. Terrible poverty and incredible wealth.

My Angolan visa appeared and it seems I was lucky as a couple of foreigners were rejected at the same time. I even got a full month instead of the usual five day transit. It seems a waste to head through the country quickly given this stroke of fortune, but if I am to get home as planned for Easter I´ve got to press on. I´ve decided that with ten odd weeks to make it back whilst hopefully enjoying myself and seeing some sights as well I´ll have to concentrate on some countries and skip through others. So, the plan is to ride quick until Nigeria where I´ll do a spot of sight seeing away from the Niger Delta to hopefully disprove some of the stereotypes the country has and then amble through Benin, Togo, Burkina Faso and Mali and then gas it again ´till I reach home....

I headed off from Windhoek and ran up into the rainy season just as it began in the North of Namibia. In Tsumeb I waited one day and then gave up and got a thorough day long soaking the next. The Angolan border was easy and someone senior helped me through. I had thought it was in the hope of a tip but it was just in the name of helpfullnes in the end. I´ve decided to make another challenge of the trip a mission to see if I can go through all Africa without paying a single bribe!

The road up to the first major town of Lubango was truly a shocker. Monsieur Michelin´s ´most recently updated map of Africa´ has it down as an asphalted major highway. He lies! If having the odd spot of lumpy asphalt every few kilometers which does no more than bottom out the suspension when you run into it qualify a road as a paved one then OK, M. Michelin you are right. A ten hour bone crunching ride and I fractured the poor Bullet´s sub-frame, bent the rear wheel rim, split a pannier and wore out the swinging arm thrust washers (yes really bike nerds!). I had GPS coordinates for the Catholic Mission to pitch my tent up at but Lubango was somewhat larger than expected and just asking didn´t give me a location. Angola is the first time I´ve wished I had a GPS on the whole trip and this not because I can´t find the roads but that all other travellers seem to only give coordinates when they pass on tips for places to stay now rather than addresses. In the end I tipped the security guard at a 24 hour garage and pitched my tent up on their lawn next to their diesel generator. Not that it mattered, dead to the world as soon as my head hit the pillow.

The next day and on to Lobito and more of M. Michelin`s asphalt. Not as bad as the previous day but still not great. On the way I had a chance encounter on the road with a bunch of 5 guys on bikes who gave me a great tip for a place to stay in Lobito. So towards dusk I rocked up to Lobito having enjoyed the last 50kms or so on new glass smooth road and got lost again. Then a kindly guy on a bike stopped, asked where I was going and then led me all the way to the ´Zulu Beach Bar´ where owner Louis let me put up my tent. A couple of beers and dorado and chips later and once again lights out.

Another great surprise in Angola is that prices are just about on a par with Switzerland or indeed higher. Common with a lot of other African countries there seem to be two parallel economies going on. Those who haven´t who live at subsistance level and those who have who really do have, and tons of it. The next day riding out of Lobito in the morning light and I was amazed by just how many luxury villas there are dotted amongst the bombed out and decaying Portugese relics. There must be more Hummers per square mile than almost anywhere else, Arnie would be proud and George Bush delighted that the commies are so eagerly buying into civilianised American war machines. Angola´s national flag is a take on the hammer and sickle with a 3/4 cog wheel replacing the sickle and a machete the hammer. Luanda´s streets are unusual in that every one is named after a revolutionary hero. There are absolutely no Bougainvillea Boulevards or Rue de Christos´s just Commandante Che Gueveras and Friedrich Engels Streets. My favourite is Commandante Dangereux though. Don´t mess with him gringo! So, Angola´s regime is dedicatedly Communist and has one of the greatest disparities in incomes around where some can pay 3 US Dollars for a bottle of water and some don´t earn that in a week. Nice one lads! Still, in the tried and tested formula for keeping the masses happy of dictatorships worldwide, beer, bread and petrol are cheap.

If Lobito had a funky vibe to it with its Havana style architecture and beach culture then Luanda is just funky and that´s in the nasty funky rather than hip funky sense. Angola´s infrastructure is still in early days of recovery after years of war. Remnants of mined armoured personel carriers and tanks dot the roadside, almost every brick structure in each village bears the scars of gun battles and traffic signs are non-existant. Meaning, when I reached Luanda I got very lost again. To my relief the journey here had been a smooth one, with a beautifully surfaced new road almost all the way. I did have the address of a campsite about 100kms before Luanda but couldn´t find it so pushed on. Yes, again I arrived at dusk and got very lost. Traffic was terrible, roads crap and dust and pollution closed visibility down to about 100 metres. On the verge of losing the will to live altogether I asked a motorcycle cop for directions. Seeing the despair in my face he then led me to my destination with blue lights flashing. Despite all that has happened to them Angolan people have been fantastic, overwhelmingly friendly and helpful.

I´m sleeping at another freebie (you´ve got to when even a grotty hotel charges at least 50 US), the Club Nautico. A few fellow travellers had recommended this highly. In terms of facilities it doesn´t quite hit the hype as it is essentially a pitch in a car park but it´s a nice mellow place and you can´t knock the hospitality of the guys there who have been great. The view from my tent is wonderfully Angolan with the yatch club´s gin palaces in the foreground and guys fishing in dug-out canoes in the background.

It´s quite hard to like Luanda but I´m trying. Humidity must be near 100% and every action is accompanied by profuse sweating. To get to the Gabon Embassy for my visa application I walked along the Marginal (harbour / beach road) and almost wretched from the fetid stench coming up from the waters whilst a middle aged woman in a vest and hot pants speed walked past me for her daily exercise routine and a vagrant lay on the pavement next to his own filth. But after coughing up a steep 150 US for my Gabon visa I had a tortilla and coffee in a nice cafe and then strolled to the commercial centre and admired the crumbling colonial architecture, modern high rises and the sights and sounds of the folk from the barrios in town to hawk their wares and earn a kwanza or two.

I´ll be here a couple of days to recover and patch the bike and then on through DRC and Congo to Libreville in Gabon to get the Camerounian visa. It looks like being a tough week or two but I´m assured that from Gabon on it´s smooth going all the way if that´s what I want....

Seems strange to think that it is now 2008 and we left home back in 2006. It's now been 14 months, 19 countries and 25,000 odd kms on the bike.

I'd like to say that I am now well into the journey home but I've got as far as Namibia and seem to be held up....

Sascha came out to Cape Town for Christmas and we marked the distance half way point of the trip by having a wonderful three weeks together hanging out in Cape Town and exploring around and about in a hire car. Oh, and we got engaged on her last day!

The day Sascha flew home I started heading North immediately. There are some very long, very flat and very straight roads in the Northern Cape, and it's very hot too!

The plan is to ride up the West Coast and cut in round about Nigera way and then ride across Burkina Faso, Mali, Senegal and Mauretania to Morocco. And to get home by Easter. Perhaps a tall order.... I got the bit between my teeth to start with and started heading straight for Windhoek to pick up visas tout-suite. Then I realised that none of the embassies would be open for a few days until the end of their Christmas breaks so I decided to take a few detours.

I had been planning to do a minimum mileage and take it as easy on the bike as possible but in the end I've done more miles on dirt roads in Namibia (more than 1000km) than in any other country.

Namibia is a big country, there're a lot of long straights, on the tar as above, and on the dirt, as below...

The sunsets can be quite amazing too. I wouldn't normally put a sunset pic in the blog but this was something. Even taken with the crappy cheap digital camera we bought after the beloved Canon rattled to bits it looks pretty special....

It's quite a special feeling to be heading out by yourself, loaded up with spare fuel and water, along a dirt road into the desert. Philippe, ex of Top Bike mag had recommended a few routes from his Chinese bikes in Namibia marathon ride and I've got to say that at the beginning I was cursing him. Dirt roads in Namibia are normally very well maintained but at the end of the Christmas holidays on the road to Namibia's top tourist attraction (Sossus Vlei) the route had been well and truly pounded by legions of South Africa SUV driving holiday makers. They even have SUV caravans (SUCS?) and heavy duty off-road trailers for when they feel that their Land Cruisers are not causing quite enough damage!

Getting to Sossus Vlei and then riding through the Namib Naukluft Park past red sand dunes and smashed-up rock outcrops I had forgiven Philippe.

The ride from Sossus Vlei to Swakopmund took me through Solitaire. An evocatively named place that is a local by-word for out of the way-ness. It is indeed a long way from anywhere and very small but the feeling of solitude has gone as an enterprising type has converted his homestead into a middle-of-the-desert service station with petrol pumps, campsite, restaurant, bar and shop. You can't deny it's nice to stop and have a cold drink but seeing as everyone thinks the same it's actually quite busy and that feeling of remote-ness just isn't quite there!

Swakopmund was heaving with South Africa holiday makers. Many of the quad bike fraternity. After my near brush with severe quad bike induced injury at Ryan's motorcross park in Brakpan near Joburg it was no surprise to see local papers full of quad bike death and injury stories and sadly of the environmental damage caused by multitudes of them free-riding across the desert and protected areas. A weird place Swakopmund. Kind of like Bournemouth but a tenth of the size, surrounded by desert, with a few quaint German buildings, Bockwurst, socks and sandals and a few Africans thrown in.

Back through the Namib Naukluft Park again to get to Windhoek and on the first day of opening I'm there knocking on the door of the Angolan Embassy. After no response I spoke to the security guard and it turned out that no-one was there and it seems they had decided to have just one more day of Christmas hols! The Democratic Republic of Congo and Republic of Congo visas were a sinch with quick turnaround and charming staff but the Angolan one seems like it's going to be a bit tougher. There are worse places to be stuck in than Windhoek but it's not really brimming over with entertainments. I've seen their shopping mall several times, I tried the transport museum and it's closed. That leaves the cinema (there's one) and the national museum. Please please please Angolans give me a visa and quick!

In South Africa many folks had warned me about police check points in Mozambique where poorly paid officers would stop me and find an excuse to 'fine' me as I went through. In reality as with the rest of the trip all I got were smiles. But as I drove along with minimal traffic apart from the odd South African registered SUV flying past me at 150kph or so it became pretty obvious why they stop South Africans and fine them... Then leaving the country to enter Swaziland I was stiffed well and truly by the border guard who had insisted that my visa wasn't properly valid, I was in the country illegally and if I didn't want to give hime the money for a new one then I would have to go back to where I entered Mozambique and sort it out there. Heated discussions followed and off course with him holding my passport and threatening to confiscate it it ended up with me coughing up for a new visa. Then of course no visa appeared, he stamped me out and I guess the money went into his pocket.

I had a great ride across Swaziland on dirt roads and rode the old dirt road pass from Piggs Peak to Barberton. Then I got stiffed again by the South African customs officer. Not for money but there was a mistake on my visa and it actually ended ten days after had been written on it. I thought I would get a new one but he just corrected the mistake, said I would have to visit the Home Affairs Office for an extension and then studiously turned his back on me and made a point of shuffling papers around on a desk.

This made the weeks' stay in Joburg stressful. A three hour queue in the Home Affairs visa renewal office and all I got was told that I didn't have the right documents and they wouldn't even speak to me until I had, not even to tell me what the right documents might be. This was delivered by who I thought was the rudest person in all South Africa (that's you Lietze baby!) until I went to Graff Reinet. A day to get the documents I needed and then back in for a long wait and to drop them off. Then a week's wait before the decision..

In the meantime I rebuilt the Bullet's gearbox, gave it a good service and enjoyed the hospitality of the guys at the Royal Enfield SA shop again.

All this left me about 8 days to get down to Cape Town and I wanted to ride through Lesotho.

First stop was Clarens, a really beautiful place and hugely friendly locals. Everywhere I've been in South Africa the Bullet has turned peoples heads and served as a fanstastic vehicle to get to know some great folks.

Lesotho was noticably poorer than South Africa and the Northern part I went through was a bleakly beautiful place, yes it was another spot that looked a lot like the Scottish Highlands. At the top of the first major pass I met Elliot. Locals seem to make a habit of trying to cadge food off of passing tourists but Elliot was a nice guy and I couldn't scoff a bar of chocolate without sharing it. He's a shepherd but supplements his income by taking his sheep every morning to a nearby view point and essentially begs from passers by in a friendly way. I said I would post his picture on to him but as his address was basically, 'Elliot, behind Oxbow, Lesotho' I'm not confident it would get there. If by the miracle of the internet anyone reads this who is passing by that way, how about printing off the picture, passing it on and sending my regards!

I exited Lesotho down the Sani Pass. It's a route that holds mystique with South African off-roaders. It's beautiful and an amazing drop from 2800 meters to rounds about 1000. It wasn't easy but then it wasn't too tough either.

I congratulated myself on the descent and then for the next two days wondered why the bike was handling strangely. I tried everything, tyre pressures, wheel alignment and then noticed the lower fork yoke had snapped. Whoops.

I had been thinking of riding down the coast but then heeding Brit Bike enthusiast of Barberton Camp Ground Wayne's advice to 'just remember Prince Albert!' (PA is a town in the Karoo) and getting tired of the identikit beach fun party backpackers hostels on the coast I headed into the Karoo and stopped at Graff Reinet. Here I stayed a couple of days, stripped the forks and got the yoke welded up and then met definitely South Africa's rudest person. Please, I hope to God no-one outdoes him. I had seen a sign saying vintage tractors, cars and other miscellany for sale. This is the sort of thing that gets my interest so I wondered to the outskirts of town to take a look. I walked in and saw a very fat old man moulded into a deck chair barking out order to his sweating workers.
'Good morning, I'd like to have a look at your vintage cars.', I said.
'Are you a buyer?' He then barked.
'Maybe'
'Well only buyers can look'
'How do I know if I'm a buyer if I can't even see what you've got'
'Are you going to buy something. Only buyers look'.
Then I kicked him in the bollocks and said buy that you old toad. In my head at least but the reality was I shrugged, said thank you in a vaguely sarcastic tone that had no effect at all and slouched off.

The guys at Clarens had said that I must ride into Cape Town down Route 62 as it is one of the premier bike roads in the country. I took the advice. It was a nice route but probably only a premier route if your machine has a turn of speed considerably more than the Bullet's 80kph. One of the stops on the way is the famous 'Ronnies Sex Shop' It is in fact a cafe and one of the stops for all motorcyclists on the route. The story goes that it was called 'Ronnies Shop' and then in a prank someone painted in 'Sex'. It was judged to be humerous and the name stuck. Friends, South Africa is not a place noted for subtle humour or gentle irony. I had a cup of luke warm tea and a pretty tastey slice of carrot cake served up by a sullen waitress. Or 'waitron' as they seem to like to call them here in a non-gender stereotyped but weirdly 1950's futuristic 'Dane Dare meets the waitrons' kind of way.

Now I'm in Cape Town. I've finally made it after one year on the road and Sascha flies in for a three week holiday tomorrow.

Three weeks of holiday to get ready for the ride home..

Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year to all.

By the standards of the pace we have kept during this trip a huge number of miles have passed beneath the wheels of the Bullet in a very short time since the last entry.

There's been some tough roads since leaving Lilongwe. If I'm honest tougher than expected. I didn't really bite off more than I could chew, just that leaving Lilongwe my appetite wasn't quite that hearty.

Until this point still one step ahead of the rains I went through the aftermath on a sand road going along the bottom of Lake Malawi. A couple of days relaxing at the beach in rather intense heat was a cure. The next night I was on the Zomba Plateau and in the tent by 6.30 in the evening to escape the cold. In my obsession not to cover ground already ridden I planned to use the border from Malawi to Mozambique in the very South of the country and go the scenic route there. As is the way it seems with a lot of African minor roads it started as asphalt. Then was pretty good dirt. Then it rained and I dropped the bike (slowly) in claggy mud giong downhill. Should have seen that one coming as even locals on bicycles had dismounted and were treating the slope gingerly. It was in a village and gave the locals plenty entertainment. Restarting the bike the silencer dropped off and made the local kids run for cover.

Traffic got less and less and then the reason why became apparent. A big river (the Shire) and no bridge. Plenty of small row boats though and boatmen willing to rise to the challenge.

It seemed pretty improbable to get the bike me and all the luggage into the boat which was just a few feet longer than the bike. But then three extra passengers and the boatman jumped in and we punted across with the water lapping the gunnels.

Despite the worry of having to conduct a salvage dive to get the bike back from the bottom of the river all went smooth, it was cheap and took only about 20 minutes from arriving one side to pulling away at the other.

I had wanted to well into Mozambique that night but with the slow going I was still 25kms from the border. And to top it all just before pulling into town the rear mudguard brackets collapsed dropping the mudguard and saddle down onto the back tyre just as I was pulling into town. The new luggage system is neat but obviously not quite tough enough to cope with corrugations... The bracket had fractured at the mounting point for the new rear carrier.

Somewhere also on this road Sheepy (sheepskin purchased in Jordan as general comfort item - saddle cover, pillow and matress all in one) decided to ditch the ride and go it alone.

The next morning a pretty decent weld job was procurred without too much delay and we were off. Half an hour and we were at the border. Not much of a border. Surely the quietest in all Africa? Good news for me though as there wasn't much of a queue to get through. There was an ox cart coming the other way but I just managed to race in and get there first! had a sneak look at the log of crossing whilst I was in there and there seemed to be about three motorised vehicles coming through each month on average.

It was another half hour of so along a narrow dirtroad before we hit the Mozambiquan border check. I had a nasty thought suddenly that they might not issue visas on this boder but it was no worry. In fact it was really cheap. Mozambiquans charge a different price wherever you get the visa or cross in and the good news seems to be that the more remote the border is the cheaper it is.

Down here it was quite brutally hot and humidity was running close to the 100% mark. I had to stop pretty regularly to eat salty things and have a drink. There's not many places where you can have a moment to yourself in these parts and normally a few kids would come along. Throughout the South of Malawi and North of Mozambique I saw malnourished children in a way that I hadn't seen before. I shared some crisps with them which obviously didn't help the malnourishment problem at all (they were barbeque flavour crunchy nacks, yes really - the Malawian equivilent of Nic Nacs for those into their crisps) but raised a few smiles. I really couldn't work out if the malnourishment is completely to do with lack of food or mainly poor diet. There's not a lot of variety of food on offer here and even when vegetables are around people don't eat many. Maize is the thing, cooked in a huge variety of manners but in the end just the same startchy lack of any particular goodness. Lots of energy there, not much else. Typically there's not many aid agencies working around here. You've got to go to large cities to spy them and then preferably hang around nice cafes and hotels....

Further on we crossed the Zambezi on the Donna Ana Railway Bridge. 1931 and still the longest railway bridge in Africa. Easy enough to get to by train but a dog to find if you are driving. It's big enough so you wouldn't think so but take it fro mme. I rode along the river bank and then took a Steve McQueen style run up the road bank and nearly went over the other side. Supressing surprise and laughter the locals pointed that I should ride down the 3 or so kms of pedestrian bridge. A bit of a pain to keep avoiding people on bicycles, though they actually avoided me pretty quick given the situation. Good advice to ride the pedestrian section in case of passing trains but they didn't say that there was a flight of steps at the other side. The bike was manhandled down and off we went again. Another 100kms and we were back on asphalt.

Being on the tar again was of course great. Except that Mozambique is very big and very flat. A local told me that Gorongoza, my destination, was 90kms away. I rode 30 and then saw a sign for 200. Thus I found myself breaking the rules of African travel and saying to myself I'll go for it and should make it before nightfall. And thus in turn I found myself in a thunderstorm in the dark at the side of the road rewiring the bike with a torch to bypass the fuse that had gone during the morning's welding session.

Not such a long ride the next day. Inhambane on the coast was the destination. You can ride round but I saved the last 70kms by loading the bike up on to a Dhow and crossing the 4kms of water between Maxixe and Inhambane.

Arrived just in time as literally the moment the bike and luggage were unloaded onto the beach a tropical storm of great intensity came in and soaked me in the 200 metre ride to the closest cheap hotel.

A day in Inhambane and then a couple at Tofo beach to fulfill the ambitions to dive with Manta Rays and snorkel with Whale Sharks (well they've been ambitions since I found out that you could actually do that six months ago) and then we racked up the longest distance day yet of 500kms to get down to Maputo.

Like a lot of African capitals seem to be it is quite a well off pleasant place to be. Maputo probably more so than most with it's Portugese style pavement cafes, great seafood and beach location. So nice that you couldn't really imagine that the same country has people a few hundred kilometers away living in mud huts, malnourished and quite probably in worse conditions that they lived pre-colonial times.

So now, my little Southern Africa loop is nearly over. It should be two days more to Joburg transiting Swaziland. The bike has developed a massive oil leak due to a stripped cylinder head stud. Earlier on before we left as we were having trouble with our Iranian visa application (which in the end was refused) a friend suggested that we call the trip the 'Ride for Middle East Peace and friendly use of the atom'. The most suitable now is ' Ride to raise awareness in Africa of the dangers of oil spills'. Most hotels seem to be really gratefull that the Bullet is the only 50 year old bike that has come their way for a while.

I'll patch her up again and then on to Cape Town for Christmas and then the long ride home...

I've made the journey back up to Lilongwe in 7 days of riding with one day relaxing in the middle at Great Zimbabwe.

As the Bullet is still running in I've been riding slow to bed it all down nicely. The road up to the Zimbabwe border is long at the best of times, at running in speeds it was veeeerrrrryyy long. Had a great overnight stop at Polokwane Municipal Game Reserve though. I had never known that such things existed and finding it was just by chance. What a great idea, a council run game park with free entry. I pitched the tent up the evening I arrived and then the next morning was free to enter. In both senses - it is free of charge and the only game park I have ever come across that just allows you to wander around at will. The warden had said there were White Rhinos in the park. I thought that they would be pretty elusive but as I got a kilometer or so into the park I started encountering giant mounds of rhino poo. Even encountering a kudu (like a big cow / deer cross for those at home!) standing in front of you whilst you are alone on foot is pretty exciting but a rhino is something else. Gets the heart racing a bit and the immediate reaction is to start looking for escape routes!

Just before the border with Zimbabwe the bike started to leak oil a fair bit so the morning before crossing the border there was a quick head gasket change. The border was smooth but with numerous taxes. Is Mad Dog Mugabe really bothered enough by environmental destruction to impose a carbon tax on passing vehicles or is it just another ruse to squeeze some more hard currrency out of visitors....

The first part of the ride was steamy hot, through flat bush on great roads with virtually no traffic, but we soon started to get into the hills. British colonialists of times past were keen to compare anywhere with hills to Scotland. But here they were fairly spot on though perhaps giving local villages names like Glen Garry and Glenlivet was taking things a bit far.

Getting to Great Zimbabwe I was the only visitor at this world heritage site. It is the largest pre-colonial structure in sub-sahran Africa. Again the Highlands comparison comes in because the builders were expert dry stone wall makers. The site is massive and the most famous building is a huge circular compound nearly 200m in diameter with walls some 3m thick and 10m high.

Getting up the next morning the whole place was covered in cloud and drizzle everywhere. Another Scottish likeness. Here's the view from the tent in the morning:

Despite dire warnings from some South Africans everyone I encountered in Zimbabwe was hugely friendly, from the folks roadside waving to the chief of security at Great Zimabwe who insisted on giving me a free tour of the site when I said I didn't really have the cash to pay twenty dollars for a guide.

Great Zimabwe was amazing though I'm ashamed to say that I was equally fascinated by this unbelievably huge snail. As big as my hand!

Leaving Great Zimbabwe we set off into the incessant drizzle towards the Eastern Highlands and Bvumba valley for the promise of heavier rain still. It didn't disappoint. I had to get petrol on the way and with some sweet talking at a garage they reluctantly revealed that they had some around the back. It was expensive, I got conned on the exchange rate and when I filled the bike with it and started up there was the unmistakable smell of parafin in the air. Still, when the bike warmed up it ran OK on it.

On the subject of shortages it seems that most things are available black market but there's little in shops and as always in situations like these it's the poor folk who are really hurt by it all. Thousands are going to Soth Africa, mostly illegally, to look for work. Mugabe is messing things up yet further. The South African government refuses to criticise him. And then they deport all the poor job seekers back to further misery. Congratulations in order all round then there guys.

I've got to keep on about the rain as folks at home keep saying how jealous they are of the hot weather I must be enjoying. Here's coming in to the Bvumba region.

I arrived at the end of the day only to find out that the cheap lodge I had in mind had just burnt down. So I was reduced to crawling through the fog in the dark looking for anywhere. I found a nice lodge. In fact as I walked in I was sure I didn't quite belong there. Five Star style service in a beautiful stone cottage guest house. The rate was about fifteen dollars a night with dinner and breakfast. Despite shortages I had a delicious olive and feta slad for starters that night with a t-bone steak for main and and decent fry-up in the morning. All the time I coulnd't believe it was so cheap. In the end it wasn't. It turns out that if you tick the non-resident box on the arrival registration form then you are levied with a rate that bears no resemblance to the local one. All the same even at 65 dollars for full board it was still pretty good value. Here's a tip for anyone else planning to visit Zimbabwe - just tick the residents' box and bring along plenty of Zim Dollars. They never check!

Having been stung so heavily on accommodation and petrol the only thing was to get out to Mozambique and hot foot it up to Lilongwe. It was only three days but who would have thought that Zimbabwe would provide one of the higlights of the trip so far. Amazing scenery, great roads, really friendly locals and seemingly the only foreign tourist there.

Quite frankly there's not been a great deal in the way of exciting travel stories since the last instalment. It almost feels as if I've become a Johannesburg resident. But we all want to be remembered so just as I'm about to hit the road again here are a few pictures and a what's been happening and what will hopefully happen in the near future.

Firstly, the Bullet is all ship shape and Bristol fashion once again. It's had a full rebuild of pretty much all moving parts, though still manages to look a right old heap. The work has probably taken a fortnight but the crank and cylinder head were farmed out to other guys to sort out and they weren't rushing... So five weeks and about twelve hundred quid later the Bullet is once again motoring. I did think about putting up a picture of the new shiny steel heavy duty conrod from Hitchcocks motorcycles. It's so shiny it's almost sexy. But perhaps that's a sign that the bike has pre-occupied me a little too much of late.

Whilst waiting I've been making a nuisance of myself at the Royal Enfield SA workshop and helpig out with the odd repair. The RE guys have been gnerous in their hospitality and I've had demonstrator bikes to trundle around Joburg on. Plus there was a weekend trip with the 'Joburg Bulleteers' to the preserved Gold Rush town of Pilgrims Rest. To add to the fun the guys at Top Bike invited me out on another road test.

A couple of views of Pilgrims Rest below...

And here's a chicken like bird that likes to nest in Rhino cakka.

A big hippo.

And baboons are always good for a laugh.

A 1940 Cord at 'Cars in the Park', Germiston

A more coherant entry should be along soon. I'm about to ride back to Malawi, where we broke down (though I shalln't be as anal as to go to the exact spot..) via Zimbabwe and the top of Mozambique. Then it'll be back down to Joburg again via Mozambique and Swaziland.

The day we left the shores of Lake Malawi was one of those days. Our first ride on the bike for over three weeks after the dive course and lengthy relax by the Lake and within 50 kilometers we were stopped at the side of the road with a broken throttle cable. No problems we had a spare. Except the spare packed was for the wrong bike. Very clever. Several bodges were attempted to fix the thing but none lasted longer than a few miles. Eventually we hit on one that worked. We rode on again and then the rattle that had been around since Ethiopia started to get louder still. We'd been riding on a wing and prayer for the last couple of thousand kilometers not really believing that we would make it to Johannesburg for our intended re-fit. But crossing the border into Malawi and with less than 2000kms to go it had started to seem a possibility. Our hopes were scuppered with a quiet pop from the engine department and we cruised to a halt.

Continuing our 'you meet the nicest people with a breakdown' theme a pick-up had pulled over within five minutes and the driver asked us what was up and where we were heading. In a small world coincidence it turned out that the driver, MacDonald, had studied at Bournemouth University at the same time that I had worked there. In another five we were loaded up and motoring it on to Lilongwe (Malawi's capital). Not only did MacDonald drive us all the way to Lilongwe refusing all payment but we were treated to dinner and dropped off at a campsite afterwards. Thank you MacDonald!

Stripping the engine down at the campsite revealed the above. As far as I know it all started in Sudan when the extreme temperatures broke down the lubricating power of the engine oil and 1000kms later it was like water when drained out. We probably got at least 30 times as much wear in that short distance as we should have.

With Sascha's holiday coming to an end in four weeks and having to catch a flight from Johannesburg we decided that it would be all round better to get the bike down to South Africa. A fortnight in a workshop followed by a quick rush to Jo'burg airport wouldn't have been the best way to end the trip. In our search around to find a way to ship the bike on someone suggested trying one of the bus companies that ply the Lilongwe to Jo'burg route. Amazingly they said, yes no problem, and the bike was booked on the bus for a token fee. The bike slipped nicely into the luggage compartment underneath the seats and 24 hours later we were in Jo'burg. Beat that National Express who once refused to take my bicycle from Bournemouth to Heathrow Airport in an empty bus!

We were kindly picked up a the station by Godfrey from Royal Enfield SA and the bike dropped off at their swanky showroom. Over the next couple of days the bike was stripped down and parts put on order. In the meantime a cheapy hire car was procurred and off we set on our SA road trip.

Shamed as I am to say it, four wheels was a bit of a treat after leading a completely minimalist lifestyle on two for the last 9 months. First stop was the supermarket and the boot was loaded of with boxes of wine and all the culinary goodies South Africa has to offer. In our quick loop around we went through Swaziland and arrived at the same time as the annual reed dance when all young maidens of the country dance in front of the king after which he chooses a bride from amongst the loveliest. (Yes, he has a lot of wives!). Sasch was suspicious that our timing in Swaziland, arriving just when 15,000 semi-naked chicks parade around a field, was somehow planned. It was in fact complete fluke. Honest!

Sascha flew home just over a week ago and the feeling of suddenly being alone after 10 months of continual 24/7 company has been weird. There's been plenty to keep me occupied though with rebuilding the bike at the Royal Enfield workshop. The guys have been not just tolerant in my dirtying the workshop with the 9 months of grease and road dirt on the bike but downright hospitable in taking me out to dinner, lending me a bicycle to commute to the shop and helping out no-end with the job. Thank you Jeff, Terry, Dave, Godfrey, Jackie & Gertrude!

It's not all been hard work repairing the bike in Jo'burg. Jeff of RE introduced me to Philippe of Top Bike magazine who invited me to take part in their Bike of the Year article. Philippe kindly lent me a bike for the weekend enabling me to ride along with the Jo'burg 'Bulleteers' weekly Sunday breakfast run. Then come Monday morning off I rode with four other guys and a photographer back to Swaziland for the road test and pictures. Of course there was some hard work but overall it was a hoot and great to be back in the saddle again after a month off the bike.

Spending so much time in Jo'burg and at the RE shop has allowed me to mingle so much more with local people than you normally would as a tourist and get a decent insight into SA culture. So, one more time: viva breakdowns!

The Nairobi broken frame saga made us stay longer than planned. The stay was made comfortable and directions given to the best repair shops by Chris at Jungle Junction, who also allowed me to bodge weld up the errant pannier frames and generally abuse his workshop for free. So we can't really thank him enough for that. I have to stick by our mantra that mechanical woes can provide some of the most interesting travel situations and, though finding out that the bike was near mortally wounded was a huge pain in the arse, the welding shop in downtown Nairobi was a gem. The elderly Indian / Kenyan owner, croaky with tracheotomy, was dewey eyed at the sight and sound of the incoming Bullet and through the repair he regaled me of his tales of riding a Triumph Thunderbird from Nairobi to London back in '61. He had gone through Uganda and then the South of Sudan before there were any roads to speak of there at all. As an arch bike enthusiast he had taken part in street circuit racing in Nairobi back in the 50s and 60s with a Manx Norton and earlier on had raced an Excelsior-JAP in local speedway.

Heading North out of Nairobi into the highlands towards Lake Naivasha we had any final illusions that Africa is a continent of sunshine completely beaten out of us by incessant drizzle, fog and general coldness. Our quick diversion North before heading South was mainly down to the possibility of seeing hippos by the Lake and to have a stroll around Hell's Gate National Park. The hippos didn't disappoint but the stars of the show were a rowdy bunch of Marabou Stork, clacking their beaks and revelling in their status as possibly the ugliest creatures in all creation.

With time pressing us to get to Jo'burg for Sascha's flight home we decided to ride straight on through Tanzania to spend a little while in Malawi before motoring on again. Hitting the main asphalt roads through we probably didn't see the best of the country. Big distances and straight, smooth roads didn't make for exciting travel. Our plans to miss the rainy season were pretty much spot on for Tanzania but what no-one had told us is that the rainy season is followed by the windy season and we had four days of battling against morale sapping headwinds. Of course it wasn't all bad, the road took us through Mikumi National Park. It's the only National Park in East Africa that you can officially enter by motorcycle - having a major highway carve through it they can hardly stop you. Our first sight of elephants had us hopping off the bike for photo opps. Then we were told off by a passing warden. On the face of it fair enough as you can't really have people wandering around when lions are on the loose, but were we mauled it could have provided some good 'stupid tourist' stories in papers local and worldwide.

The ying of frenetic pace through Tanzania has had to be tempered with a yang of langour in Malawi. The lure of beach life lakeside has been too much to resist and we have found ourselves staying at the same village by the lake for nearly three weeks. The time hasn't been totally wasted as we've completed a dive course and Sascha has fullfilled an ambition to see cychlids (the freshwater tropical fish found only in Lake Malawi) in their natural habitat. Our stay here has also seemed to mark the end of the 'gappers' season as they have finished their placements and now loll on the beach all day and get rowdy in bars by night. This temporary importation of young Wills, Harrys, Anushkas and Francescas seems like it may actually be Malawi's biggest source of foreign trade balance. Whole 'upper sixes' of the nation's Public School output seem to be in the country at once busily adding to their curriculum vitaes before entering St Andrews or Durham Universities. Kids pay for their placements and bring the wealth of daddy's credit cards to the country but it's hard to see what benfit they bring in front of training up locals to do the same job.. For the UK however the temporary export of over-confident teenagers can only be good.

Malawi so far has been hugely enjoyable. On the bike the old 'waving' muscles are being heavily exercised once more and saying hello to everyone on the street and going through the niceties of 'how are you', 'fine thanks and you' means progess through crowds can be slow. Great as it is, with one month now before Sascha flies home, we must press on to Mozambique asap and then to Jo'burg. A stop both rider and machine are eagerly awaiting as we will be hitting the workshop and transforming a slightly twisted, wrong steering and rattly pup back into the gallant steed she once was. Hopefully the next blog will contain glorious before and after shots, and hopefully you will be able to tell the difference...

After spending nearly a fortnight in Addis we were happy to leave. Not that it was bad there at all, though the sagging mattresses in our hotel and increased incursions by the bed bugs was beginning to get a bit wearing. Our joy to leave was in anticipation of heading South and in relief of some light tinkering which made the Bullet's rattling engine sound mildly better and which saved us from an expensive and time consuming rebuild...

So off South we set. We decided not to head direct to the Kenyan border but to do a quick loop which took in the Rift Valley Lakes and allowed us to oggle local tribesfolk from the 'comfort' of the bike. Our plan to skirt under the rainy season went well on the first couple of days of riding. Leaving Arba Minch and heading off the asphalt for a 120km ride to Konso, (the Gateway to the famous Omo Valley, most known for women in the Mursi tribe wearing large lip plates), we discovered what the rainy season can do to an earthen road. The ride started off good and local folk didn't disappoint with the carrying of large spears, pangas and the occasional Kalashnikov. This is for protection against cattle rustling and the occassional tribal war that flares up rather than to scare tourists! It shortly became evident that it had recently rained, a lot.

The road had been washed away in several places with rivers appearing where none had been and large and very deep puddles in the middle of the road. Having blasted through a couple and got covered in brown water from head to toe it seemed a good idea to skirt around the next one. A mistake as we discovered to Sascha's consternation that the ground next to the large puddles is in fact glutinous mud. The bike could stand up by itself in the bog, it was harder for us as the consistency combined intense stickiness with an equal measure of slippyness. After heaving and struggling to keep boots on feet for a while a group of locals turned up. Given promises to cross their palms with silver they were happy to use their combined strength to heave it on to dry land.

The Ethiopian / Kenyan border can't really be described as anything more than a dump. At least on the Ethiopian side there is a tarred road. Cross into Kenya and it's dirt roads for the next 500 odd kms. Throughout Ethiopia the chewing of 'qat' is a popular past time. It is a mildly narcotic leaf. Down South and in the North of Kenya there seem however to be a good few professional qat chewers, such that you could consider it a bit of an epidemic. Still, there is not a lot else to do around there. Curious as to what it is all about we gave it a go in Arba Minch and were pretty disappointed. Two hours of chewing bitter leaves and keeping them in a pouch in our cheeks gave less effect than an expresso followed by a pint of lager. Locals had told us that Arba Minch has the best qat in all Ethiopia but then someone else from Addis told us that they were wrong and their qat is little better than cabbage, so maybe that was the problem.

The road from the Kenyan border town (Moyale) to Isiolo, just more than 500kms South, carries a bad reputation. It's dirt road all the way and some coming up had promised us tyre shredding volcanic stones and unfriendly locals. True, there has been banditry on the road but not much in the last couple of years according to the police there. There are checkpoints all along the road and they've mostly given up driving in convoys with armed escorts. In fact we found people to be only friendly and kept exercising the waving muscles we had developed in Ethiopia.

The area is very tribal and tribes change in the space of just a few kilometers. Whereas in Ethiopia some seemed to be happy waving tribes and some were scowlers (not so nice when they carry big machetes and spears) all in Kenya were happy wavers. It was absolutely amazing to ride along a road where people looked much as they must have or millenia, men and women wearing loin cloths, lots of jewelry and ear plugs. Wildlife was a treat too with gazelles running across the road and in the distance ostriches were spotted.

Not that the road was plain sailing. There were stones aplenty. Lots of people described it as like driving on broken bricks. We would describe it as more like driving on stones. Some large, some small. It was wearing being bumped around so much and there's yet more welding to do on the now very patched up Bullet but ultimately we did 500kms in two days, each of about 7 hours so it can't have been that bad can it?

Now we find ourselves in Nairobi. After more than two months in Ethiopia and Sudan we've been luxing out in the shopping malls and buying plenty of cheese and other homely goodies. There's more remedial work to be done on the Bullet - firstly worn out swinging arm bushes were remade and replaced and then in doing so we discovered that the frame had fractured. It seems that this is mainly down to the pannier frames fracturing and flapping around combined with the swinging arm giving an affective hinge to the back end of the bike oscillated the frame more than it could cope with! But like the Black Knight in Monty Python's Quest for the Holy Grail we declare 'tis but a flesh wound'.

With all this time working on the bike and relaxing in Nairobi enjoying the leafy suburbs and cafes we were beginning to think that the 'Nairobbery' epithet that it has gained to be without base but then my wallet was pickpocketed today so it's all true! You've got to hand it to them though, an amazing piece of fingersmithery saw the wallet disappear from a zipped up pocket of a clip-fronted bag sitting on my lap whilst sitting on the front seat of a minibus. True professionalism! Though it's always a bummer to be thieved from at least we only lost about 50 quid with no harm, let alone awareness, to the person.

Our extended time in Nairobi has given us opportunity to think about route and Sascha has now booked her flight home from Jo'burg early September so we've got about ten weeks to ride through Tanzania, Malawi and Mozambique and our pace needs to up a wee bit!

Little mileage has passed under the Bullet's wheels since the last blog entry. Just a two day ride since the last entry in Bahir Dar. Despite the little distance Addis is however a world apart. An immediate first impression is that there is a lot more money here than in the provinces. This is evident in the flash cars driven around, numerous swanky restaurants, well stocked supermarkets and portly waistlines of many locals compared to their lithe country cousins.

Riding down from Bahir Dar, down South that is rather than literally as we've gained 500 metres, has provided a headfull of memorable images in itself. Riding the roads of Ethiopia you get the impression that the whole country is on the move. Each different village has a different market day and everyone from round and abouts walks in for the fun. The roadsides are a constant stream of women carrying heavy burdens in sacks tied to their backs, men with large staffs, cheeky children, oxen and donkeys. The children have a rotten reputation for stone throwing at passing vehicles containing passing foreigners. This is part-true, the falsity lies in the fact that they will pelt anyone who takes their facy, locals and foreigners alike. We have devloped a tactic of waving frantically and grinning like morons; it usually stops them in their tracks, they drop the stones and are as happy to wave back as to pelt us. Our two-wheeled cycling brethren are not so lucky and we've met several whose lives have been made hell. Moving so much slower they are sitting ducks to a thorough stoning and the odd stick between the wheels. Again locals as much as foreigners. We met the wonderfully and aptly named Spanish 'bicyclown', a childrens entertainer on a 13 year round the world ride. Speaking a little amharic he at one time stopped to try to reason with the kids and tell them why throwing stones at people is a bad thing. They said they understood and then as soon as he rode on a barrage of pebbles made contact with his back....

Ethiopia seems to be an incredibly youthful country, in the countryside kids herding cattle run amok together and throw stones at passing travellers. In the cities the huge numbers of street kids are highly visible. In Addis alone it is estimated that there are some 100,000 children on the streets. Some are orphaned (many from parents who have died from AIDS) and some boys are put onto the street by parents who cannot afford to look after them. The problem in Addis is such that it is hard to see an answer. How do you build the infrastructure to house so many, not just homes but orphanages and kitchens? But if you patch the problem in this way maybe more parents will send their children to orphanages because they will offer a better life than they could have at home? In the end you realise it's just a sympton but just cannot strain yourself to think of a practical cure.

Through all the gloom of the above we did find some light in Gondar in the form of 26 year old local girl Ngisti who decided 6 years ago to dedicate herself to looking after the street children there. Over the six years she has slowly built up her charity to include an orpahnage, projects to feed street kids and to get them back with their close family or relatives. We had planned to stop a few days to help her with fundraising but our erstwhile Belgian cycling buddies Kobe and Leah with whom we trekked in the Simian Mountains decided to stop for a few months and see what could be done in Gondar. As they have previous experience of helping at orphanges in Africa we left it to the experts and promised a small donation from our travel funds. Ngisti's charity is called Yene Getesfa, look at the website if you want to find out more.

Back on to bike stuff and our travels... The road down to Addis was wonderful and took us through the Blue Nile Gorge, someone said it was a 1500 metre plunge down and then back up. It didn't quite seem this much but it was deep, the scenery was marvellous, the road was rough and the Bullet was cooking away in fine style by the time we reached the other side. We seem to have hit the beginning of the rainy season and most afternoons there has been a mighty thunderstorm and torrential rain; we're hoping to steer away from the worse of it and if our cunning plan works out we will skip under it as we lose altitude towards Kenya. Thankfully roadside there are lots of shelters locals have made to hide in and they've come in useful for us. In response to requests (at least one) I've compiled a bike nerds' list of mechanical mishaps that have befallen the Bullet on our travels so far. And gratifyingly it's really not that many yet, though the old girl is rattling like a good 'un at the moment. We're hoping it will make it onwards and at least to South Africa. Fingers crossed and tomorrow we set off Nairobi bound towards the South of Ethiopia and across the other notorious stretch of road on the trip - the Moyale-Nairobi highway.

Fantastic as Sudan was in many ways, Ethiopia had been looming in front of us drawing us in as moths to the light with its promises of verdant pastures and cool mountain air. Despite forgoing the majority of attractions Khartoum has to offer (and actually that's not really many) we did manage to haul ourselves through the heat to see the weekly Friday evening Sufi ceremony at the tomb of Sheikh Hamad al-Neil. We'd been excited about this and it didn't disappoint. People begin to gather a couple of hours before sunset, a strange mix of onlookers and the devout. Some participants are deadly serious in expression, some are there for the party and there are a good number who are frankly completely out of it. The crowd forms into a large circle and the music begins. A few people come into the centre and start to fall into trances. Of these some spin round and round, one guy takes on glazed expression and starts biting his hand and one stands tranfixed on the spot dribbling and ranting. After a while they get the big base drums out and the music begins to get more intense. The whole scene begins to take on the air of a warped early 90's hippy-traveller free party. Then suddenly off goes the evening call to prayer and it all stops just like that and everyone drifts off home. It's kind of hard to put the whole event in words, but believe us it was an absolute highlight and if you ever find yourself in Khartoum with time to spare on a Friday evening make sure to visit....

Riding out from Khartoum we slowly, slowly gained height and the landscape began to change. Dwellings changed to circular straw built huts, there were trees and it was all begining to conform to our steotypes of Africa. For the first time in nearly four months we were not in a desert! Two days on and we reached the border. The entry to Ethiopia marked an immediate change, suddenly greenery was all around and every other shop seemed to be a bar or bordello, frequently both. Shortly up the road all manner of exotic birdlife appeared and monkeys sprinted across our path. Unfortunately slightly further up the road our German riding companion, Jason, having made it all the way through Sudan without dropping his bike, took a tumble on the fresh, deep gravel that had been laid along the road. We lost sight of him in the mirrors and doubled back to find him standing in the middle of the road looking dazed with his bike lying down the embankment. Damage to the shoulder was the diagnosis and there began a long saga to get him to hospital in the next big town, Gondar (180km away). The whole story doesn't warrant repeating but suffice to say it involved two trucks, much waiting and also much money but ten hours later Jason was experiencing the delights of Gondar University Hospital. A fractured collar bone was the verdict with two months recovery time needed so with this several days later Jason parted our company and flew home to Berlin to recuperate.

Despite the very inauspicious start to Ethiopia, as is often the way, there were magical moments to be had in the journey to Gondar. Sitting in the back of a cattle truck trying to stop an inadequately roped-down BMW and Royal Enfield from tipping over on a rough unmade road we slowly climbed altitude. The air got cooler and for the first time in a long time we did not feel too hot. This was a blissful ten minutes as quickly night drew in and the cool became downright cold. The mountains became greener and tighter and we passed simple villages with no electric lighting. In this complete cover of dark the stars were amazing and distant electric storms gave us a great light show. Dotted across the mountains were patches of fire where lightning had stuck and the flames slowly burned their course. Yes, it was all great for a short while but after 8 hours of being battered around in the back of a shitty cattle truck in the cold one begins to lose hope. If there was one thing that could have made the journey more miserable it would have been for one of the storms to pass overhead. Thankfully it didn't.

The next morning with Jason diagnosed and us well rested we were able to take stock of where we were. Ethiopia is truly a marvellous place. Defying sterotypes from it's recent long history of troubles it has an amazingly individual culture. It has its own calendar with 13 months in the year and this year is about to celebrate the milenium. Daily time starts at sunrise meaning that clcoks are about 6 hours out of kilter with the rest of the worlds time-keeping. The language, Amharic, has a unique script an ancient and individual form of Christianity is practised. There are even extra 'bible' stories like the picture below about the man who was a cannibal and ate everyone in his village, so in all he was a pretty bad guy. Then he met a leper and was going to eat him but decided he wouldn't be so tasty and then the leper asked him for a glass of water in the name of the virgin Mary, which he gave. Shortly after this the cannibal died and was sent to hell for his sins. However, everyone who gives a favour in the name of the Virgin Mary should go to Heaven; so up in Heaven Mary has an argument with Jesus and says that really the cannibal should be in Heaven for the favour he gave to the leper in her name. Jesus can't argue with that logic so up the cannibal is scooped from Hell and placed in Heaven. Go figure! and check out the monastery mural telling the story below....

A long stay in Gondar was split with a 5 day trek into the Simian Mountains. High altitudes, amazing scenery and hanging out with large troops of Gelada Baboons. These are unique to the Simians and hang around in large packs, eat grass and chatter to each other. They're not too shy and sitting in the middle of a couple of hundred of them gossiping away to each other was one of life's great experiences.

We loved Gondar, despite it seeming like a grotty part of Dickensian London. Beggars proliferated, street urchins abound and dodging gin-sopped raving lunatics was an integral part of a wander through town. All the same it had a character of its' own and amazing 'fairy-tale' 17th and 18th century castles. Seriously, the poverty there was quite something else and it really sets you wandering what can be done about it. There are already tons of projects going on here, seemingly without much coordination between them and people really need to be steered away from a charity mentality to a self-sufficient positive outlook. More on this in future blogs...

We've just heard that Charlie Boorman and Ewan McGregor have embarked on a 'Long Way Down' trip to Capetown. They've obviously been inspired by our blog but have chosen to do the trip on girls' bikes! Anyone we know at home who now says, 'oh you're doing the same trip as Ewan McGregor' will be slapped no questions asked.

Arrived in Khartoum yesterday. After 400kms of desert road and 600kms off road in temperatures up to 50 degrees rarely have we been so happy to arrive somewhere! Not that the journey was so bad, just hard hard work and unrelenting heat. Plus after a week out in the desert the thought of a shower was a very nice one...

Here's a bit of a travelogue plus some hopefully helpful info for fellow travellers - we couldn't find much info about this route so thought we'd put some down.

Visas and tickets:
Getting the Sudanese visas from Cairo was a sinch in our case. Just drop your documents in in the morning when they open and pick them up one hour later. The cost was a bit more painful - 100 US each... Apparently you can get the visa a lot cheaper from your home country but then you have to wait a lot longer as well and it is only valid for three months from issue.
Tickets are a bit more of a pain. There are ticket offices in Cairo (by the main train station) and in Aswan. Snag is that you can only buy them max one week before departure (ferries leave Mondays). Seems to be that motorcycles can pretty much always be fitted on but it's not the same case for cars. You would think that getting the ticket and getting on the ferry would be pretty easy but you'd be wrong. It's a farcical process and takes a woefully long time! The chap in Aswan who controls all foreigner tickets is a Mr Salah. We heard that he'd been operating foreigner tickets for 15 years. Plenty of time to get some decent procedures and rules in place. No! This is Egypt, rules are fluid and procedures were left behind by the Byzantines. You can call him in advance to reserve a ticket and this seems to work. He'll reserve a place but not a cabin. A 2nd class seat is 262.50 Egyptian Pounds and a 2 birth cabin more (they weren't available so we didn't ask), this seems to be about 5 times Egyptian price. Tickets for bikes are 372 Egyptian.

Loading the bike:
This was the painful bit. As far as we could work out, how the bike travels depends on what other vehicles are going along. It's only foreigners' vehicles on board as the land border is easier to use but closed to foreigners so don't expect a lot of traffic. If there are less than a couple of cars plus bikes they go on a pontoon that follows the ferry and arrives a day after the ferry. If more then there is a separate pontoon leaving the Saturday before. This is the option we had to take as we had a lorry and four four wheel drives as companions.
The 'Day of Loading' started with everyone meeting at the Nile Navigation Company's office (next door to the Aswan Tourist Police hq on the Corniche) at 9am. There followed a briefing followed by an argument - the four wheel drivers wanted to sleep with their vehicles on the pontoon but weren't allowed to. This took a good hour, apparently you can do so if coming up from Sudan but not going the other way - someone fell off a few months ago. After this all drove to the Traffic Police office to give up our Egyptian number plates and get a clearance letter. This done it was on to the port just at the top of the High Dam on Lake Nasser.
First stage at the port was a police inspection (we thought it was customs but a customs one came later and customs told us that the revious check had been a police one!?) Next picking up and paying for the vehicle tickets from an office on the other side of the compound. Sounds simple enough but allow for a lot of time. Back to the other side of the port for getting carnets stamped out and then on to the pontoon. By about 2.30 all was finished (that's 5 and a half hours to get a bike on a fery folks!)

The ferry trip:
We were pretty much told to turn up at the ferry on Monday morning at 9 and ask for a long wait. We got it. After loading the pontoon that follows the ferry with unfeasible amounts of Egyptian produce we set sail at about 6.30. Best advice for the ferry is to do all you can to book a cabin. It is crowded and for some reason best known to themselves the ferry crew wash the second class compartment floors with diesel. Nice. Sleeping-wise it is every man for himself. We managed to find a nice-ish spot on the prow of the boat but the prow was mysteriously and rapidly flooded at about 2am promting a mass evacuation. Eventually we settled on the roof of the bridge and managed a few hours kip. Highlight of the trip was seeing the Abu Simbel collosal figures at about 7am making us very grateful that we hadn't bothered to get up early and make the long trip through the desert from Aswan to see them.

Arriving in Wadi Halfa:
Guess what? There were a few delays getting off too! Still it wasn't all bad, the boat arrived in at one-ish in the afternoon and we were unloaded and got the vehicles through customs by about 5.30 after being stung for a few dollars by a 'carnet fixer' in the customs office.
Great news for us was that as well as Jason the German BMW-ist there were four 4wds and a lorry and we all pretty much decided to do the route in convoy so that evening we exited Wadi Halfa for the first desert camp.

Day 1:
Having exited Wadi Halfa we entered once more and sorted out police registration. Three hours later we hit the road!
It's hot but not too bad as a North wind is blowing us along and keeping the temperature down a bit. First impressions are that the piste isn't too bad. Plenty of sand but all doable enough. Then us bikes take a wrong turn and manage to plow on through 10 kms of sand before we realise we've gone wrong... Back on the proper track things take a turn for the worse as the track turns to the most brutal corrugations with deep sand either side so no way of escape. This stretch of the road is pretty desolate, well away from the Nile, but stunning craggy, sandy desert. All in we manage 100kms down the road today.

Day 2:
An early start and off we go. After 50 or so kms we reach the first village of the route (Firka). From here on in petrol is avalable at most villages as is water (not bottled though!). The track today is a mix of sand and corrugations with the odd decent hard-packed section in between. The road has been away from the Nile for most of the day but we're back at it for tonights camp. Great to camp Nile-side but the night is blighted by an absolute plague of small black flies. We wake in the morning to the gentle patter of millions of flies headbutting our tent. Out here even some locals wear fly-nets over their heads. About 100kms covered again today. A quick check over the bike shows a broken rear shocker.

Day 3:
After 30kms or so we finally hit the Nile and stay there. The Nubian villages along the Nile were what really made the trip. Everyone waving and smiling, women in wonderful colouful clothes and fantastic mud-brick houses. The track takes a turn for the better though still pretty sandy in places. The North wind has left us and the temperature is up. Around 45 degrees most of the day. It's just about tolerable riding in this temperature but getting bogged in the sand and lifting out really wipes you out for a good while. We're getting through nearly 15 litres of water a day. This has been the great thing about riding with the 4wd-ers - they've made life easier for us and carried most of the bikes spare water and fuel. We stop for a long lunch under some palm trees Nile-Side and carry on again after a couple of hours. Everyone we've heard from who's done the route hs come off multiple times. We had been congratulating ourselves for a clean sheet so far but then disaster struck and we were bounced into a very deep and soft sand pit and came to a quick stop. No more serious injury than a slight squashing of the tackle against the petrol tank but the bikes forks are bent. With the wheel straight the 'bars are pointing about 25 degrees to the right. We dig out and catch up with the others. Once again the Land Rovers come in and give Sascha a lift and take the luggage of the bike. We bed down after nearly 150kms. The flies are still there but less.

Day 4:
Dongola or bust! The thought of a hotel room and a shower is spurring us on. Despite the wonky steering the bike is a lot easier to handle without passenger and luggage. They're building a new tarmac road to connect Khartoum with Wadi Halfa and from here on in there's a few sections rideable on a bike. Not many of them are tarred or go on for more than a couple of kms but it's still a lot more preferable to being shaken to pieces on the corrugations or digging into soft sand. When we can't take the bits of new road this section is tough as it's the sandiest of the route. Still we clear nearly 200kms today and take the ferry across the Nile to the long awaited town of Dongola. It's a bit of a let down. Very dodgy hotels and not a lot going on. Still the exhaustion and lure of a shower, at least when the water is working, make us stay 2 nights. Down here the nightime temperatures are higher and sleep is fitful.

Day 6:
We wake up to a heavy dust storm but decide to go anyway, in the end it keeps temperatures down a bit. There's black top stretching for 60kms South of Dongola. When you hit the sand again it seems like a cruel joke. Even the most intrepid off-roaders would be eager for some relief at this point. The new road building is continuing though and it's possible to get a bike up the embankment to ride along it. They really don't want you too though and stretches are like an obstacle course. It started off quite funny, we had oil drum slaloms, limbo poles and narrow gaps between rocks to negotiate but then as we went on it got crueler with hidden ditches, some fillled with soft sand and bridges with a sly section missing. About 120kms of this and we hit proper asphalt again (about 30kms North of Abu Junction). The road is smooth as a babys bottom and straight as you like. We give up the push for Khartoum about 220kms short and camp down in the desert.
Day 7:
Into Khartoum just after midday. Would have cracked open a bottle champagne is Sudan wasn't a dry country.

That's us then. In Khartoum, slowly roasting in 45 degrees. Sudan has been a great place, some amazing scenery and friendly people but the first thought now is leaving and heading for the lush highlands of Ethiopia, three days ride away. In this temperature everything you touch is hotter than you. Going to bed in the heat on a heated mattress and waking up in the morning to put on hot clothes is not a lot of fun. First though we're got to fix up a very battered and slightly bent bike, and that's not just us, even the BMW of Jason took a beating too with ignition problems, quickly detachable mirrors and panniers bouncing down the road..

Africa at last after four months on the road! Or so we thought when arriving in to Nuweiba in Egypt from Aqaba in Jordan. Apparently not so, the Sinai is still the Middle East. As the cliche goes, it's not a race. Just as well too for us..

Getting to Egypt necessitated more boat travel. There's a 10 odd kilometer stretch of Israel between the two countries that pretty much prohibits transit, if not in practice then in the prohibition on Israeli passport stamps from some countries. Entering Egypt not much had changed to the landscape but it was suddenly weirdly warmer. It seems as if on our trip there is no middle ground of pleasant weather: we've gone from moaning about being too cold to being too hot in the space of a couple of days.

We were expecting the worst with Egyptian customs as the bureacracy seems to be some of the most notorious out there. Indeed Kafka would have been happy to state his name to the process but we were guided through by a helpful tourist police guy. The whole process took about two hours including registering the bike in Egypt and getting Egytian plates. More galling was that it cost about seventy quid. Still, we had company through it all though as we met a fellow motorcyclist in the form of fully kitted out German BMW rider, Jason. Better news still is that he is heading to Sudan as well so we have company for the notorious stretch of road down to Khartoum.

A couple of days snorkelling in Red Sea was great and then off we went across the Sinai Cairo-wards. April in Egypt is marked by strong winds, for us they are remarkable in the fact that they abide completely by the law of sod and are headwinds regardless of which way you yourself head. This resulted in several long third gear slogs with the poor old bike labouring away only to turn a corner supposedly to run with the wind only to find that it was not so. An overnight at St Catherine's monastery allowed us to meet the monks of gloom there who didn't like the look of us and wouldn't let us stay in their guest rooms. The next morning we saw the reason for their misery as we queued up at 9am to get in to have a look around in the comany of 500 or so other tourists. Eventually tired of it all we turned around and left without going in. The burning bush can quite likely be guaranteed to look like any other bush after all.

That same day we made it to Cairo, our longest ride so far at about 400km in the day. Doesn't really sound that dramatic when written down but the infamous winds and parched desert made it seem so. Crossing the Suez Canal we really were finally in Africa. Pleased to have arrived in Cairo in one day we then discovered that it has probably the maddest traffic in the world, worst than any Indian city or anywhere else I've ridden. One of the world's biggest cities with 20 million or so people and seemingly all of them have a car. With petrol at just over 10p a litre there's no reason not to put your foot down. We made it to the downtown area pretty quick but then finding a hotel resulted in a serious loss of humour moment for both of us. About an hour of cruising the one way systems to find any hotel. Another hour to find one that had rooms and then when we did it was at the end of a one way. Another hour was consumed riding around trying to find some way to the hotel only to end up where we started. Then, having decided to hotfoot it up the one way system a policeman appeared which meant that the bike had to ignominiously be pushed along the pavement to the amusement of all around to the hotel entrance.

Cairo didn't leave the greatest of impressions on us. Overcrowded, full of hustlers and rip off merchants at every corner. To be fair this can't be representative of all Egypt or Egyptians it's just that the sleazy ones find the tourists and the nice guys keep themselves to themselves. None-the-less we stayed long enough to get our visas for Sudan and Ethiopia sorted easily. Great news as the Sudan one carries a reputation for being a lengthy process. We had it back in an hour.

Heading South we chose to ride down the Nile. There's apparently a great route through the desert but the thought of those winds again made our minds up for us. In the end it the Nile route was a good one. Once again leaving Cairo we got lost and rode through a multitude of villages. Some really beautiful but some showing some of the most grindingly awful poverty.

Since the terrorist attacks against tourists in the late 90's the Egyptian regime has gotten very jumpy about tourists travelling around 'unprotected'. This means that in their percieved danger zones they insist on giving a police escort or making tourists travel in convoys. In practice these were a farce and slightly embarassing. After all what could draw more attention to the fact that a tourist is passing through your village than a screaming police siren accompanying their progress. And then half the time on leaving town the police screamed off and let us chug along at our own speed having drawn everyone's attention to our presence. On those few times we managed to avoid an escort we found that peoples reactions to us got a lot better and friendlier and the apparent hot-bed city of all discontent, Asyut, was the friendliest place of all we have been in Egypt. No overcharging or short changing, no harassment just regular people going about life.

Going to Sudan will mean yet another ferry journey. Not too sure why, there is a land border but I guess getting the foreigners over on the boat brings in the cash and is easier to police. We've booked our place for this coming Monday and then we face the infamous road to Khartoum. Sascha has been worrying about this one rather a lot and envisaged every malevolent scenario short of being hit by a whale falling from the sky having been sucked from the ocean floor by a tornado. Thankfully we've met a couple of people now who have come up from the other direction and have said it's not too bad. All the same we're expecting to take nearly a week over the 600 kilometer trip.

Another slow ride to bed in our new piston saw us cross the border from Syria to Jordan and arrive in Amman late afternoon. Riding from one capital city to another in one day was pretty stressful and gave plenty of opportunity for map reading arguments. If anyone is wandering whether spending so much time on the road covering unfamiliar territory means a couple has less map-reading related discussions think again. At times it's like Sunday outing after Sunday outing.

A really great couple of days were spent in Amman catching up with a friend on business there and luxing out in expensive cafes (good to have seen you Stephen and thanks again for the slap-up meal!). With both Sascha and the bike both in a Bristol Fashion state of funtion we decided to head out into the Eastern Desert and check out where Lawrence of Arabia hung out for a while back in the day.

We set out imagining a picturesque and lonely road out into the Middle of the desert but soon found out that we were on the main trucking route to Saudi. Not quite the romantic solitude of the desert. The heat slowly cranked up all the way out there and in a fit of great excitement we binned our ex-army long johns which had been unwelcome co passengers on each of our rides to that point. Heading back to central Jordan we realised that this had been slightly rash as the temperature dropped and dropped. It carried on dropping to the point that when we arrived at the Dana nature reserve a couple of days later it was to a foot of snow and freezing fog in the dark.

A side trip down to the Dead Sea gave us the realisation that we had ridden both highest and lowest roads together on Royal Enfields. 'Scuse me as I don my anorak and ride off into the distance... The trip to the Dead Sea gave us one of life's great experiences, not floating around reading a newspaper but at Ma'in Hot Springs. There's a 40 meter waterfall there that pours out water that's somewhere around 60 degrees at source. Standing under it is probably something akin to having ten thousand people throw bucket after bucket of boiling water over you from the top of a sky scraper would be. It's actually rather good.

One of the really great things about travel is the eccentric people you meet along the way. At Petra we think maybe we met the travel character to end all. A Slovenian guy who lives on the road and is funding his travels by busking; playing baroque recorder music with a page boy haircut and court-jesteresque attire. You've got to admire the train of thought that has seen someone end up doing that and having the belief to carry it through. We were pretty impressed and coughed up enough for a night's sleep in a hostel for him. If you ever read this Slovenian baroque recorder man, we salute you!

There's been some amazing vistas from roads in Jordan that swoop down along desert wadis from 1800 meters above to 400 below sea level. It's been so great to be properly back on the bike after the problems in Syria and enforced bus travel and has served as a good reminder about why we chose to travel by bike and the joys of freedom on the road. Despite beakdowns opening up a whole load of great social situations a bike that works well is equally virtuous. Long may it be so!

Off to Egypt in a couple of days and with any luck we'll get our visa for Sudan and next posting will be just before leaving Egypt.

We've seen a number of high and low points the last month.

Entering Syria the scenery underwent a dramatic change from Turkey. The mountains became hills and the bike was grateful to be pulling us along flat roads after day after day of mountain bashing. The joy of flat roads seemed to provoke machine culture shock and it responded by breaking down. More of this anon....

To celebrate entering a new country, we also suffered a health breakdown. Our first stop in Syria was the sea-side town of Tartous, a good laid back place, ideal for spending a few relaxing days. Unfortunately the few days turned into a week after consumption of an octopus stew of dubious heritage. Sascha spent several days bed bound before deciding that a course of anti-biotics was the best course of action. Myself, I suffered mildly by comparison and inflicted suffering on others in equal amounts as Sascha assured me that the bug was manifesting itself in a vicious case of halitosis.

Health restored we headed on to the city of Hama. Noticing a strange and ominous 'death rattle' from the engine we decided to strip it down for inspection. This revealed a broken piston and the replacement had to be ordered from home. It was rather disappointing to suffer severe mechanical failure so soon into the trip but as mitigating evidence in favour of the Bullet the piston was an e-bay purchase of uncertain origin and by the time of leaving home had already ridden from Lands End to John o Groats and back and seen action on a track day. This before pulling us two folk and luggage around for three months.

The breakdown however happily proved my axiom that some of the best travel experiences happen through breakdowns. A supplier cock up resulted in the piston being sent to us via standard air mail rather than courier and took two weeks to arrive. Special mention has to be made to the guys at the Cairo Hotel in Hama who allowed us to keep the bike and work on it at their home. And who also followed the delay in the parcel arriving up through a contact in the Syrian post office, called our hotel in Damascus (they had to call several as they didn't know where we were staying!) to let us know they had found it and went to the post office with us to ensure we got it without paying too much import tax. And then the guys at the machine shop who did a fantasticly careful job of the rebore and then refused payment and instead invited us to their home for drinks!

The time spent waiting for the piston was used fruitfully in taking bus trips out of Hama and seeing the sites of Syria and not so fruitfully by Sascha's stomach which acquired another bug needing a doctors visit and more antibiotics!

Bike now fixed and tested we are in Damascus on the cusp of crossing into Jordan. Syria has been a wonderful experience; so much sincere hospitality that gives you faith in human nature once more. At risk of sounding like an awards ceremony we've got to mention the guys who have been so kind to us - the guy at the wedding banquet hall roadside on the way to Tartous who gave us a slap up meal for free after we walked into his business hq as feckless tourists thinking it was a restaurant. The guys at Expresso coffee shop in Tartous. Cairo Hotel management who helped us so much with sorting the bike. The guys at the machine shop who rebored the cylinder and fed and watered us! And Issam whom we met in Palmyra who took us out to a really great Bedouin style knees-up.

As we will be in Arabic speaking countries for the next couple of months we are making concerted attempts to learn more Arabic than the usual ps and qs. The guidebook has been of some help, though the phrases 'can I breastfeed here' and 'is this a gay-friendly bar' have not been so useful. People have been delighted to help us with our rather feeble efforts but progress has been made...

That's all for now, next posting from Jordan enshallah!

Success on getting the Syrian visa has sealed our route for the next couple of months. A brief burst of energy from our previous tortoise pace of travel has seen us arrive in Antakya, the closest Turkish city to the Syrian border. Perhaps causal to this change of pace has been a change in the weather. Hanging around enjoying some winter sun hasn`t really been on the cards for the last couple of weeks and we`ve had a couple of right royal soakings on the bike in recent days. This probably will be a source of some schadenfreude to friends at home working through the dreary British winter but of course for us it is rubbish. The cold and rain has rather neatly coincided with us moving on to geographically colder climes too. Clever eh! The one saving grace of being in places that are used to the cold is that hotels tend to have decent heating and hot water on tap. Coastal Turkey is environmentally excellent in having hot water completely powered by solar energy but there's a catch.. Summers are really hot and a cold shower is just the ticket then, but when it is cold and cloudy and hot water would really come in then cold is what you`ve got. Such is life.

As with the last entry we now move on to selected highlights, observations and outrageous stereotyping:

Greek TV: Totally forgot to mention this in writings about Greece but it deserves highlighting for its unparalleled poor quality. To be fair this is probably down to having a small and spread out population but special mention must go to the following: Kisamos TV - seems to just be a bloke who has been given a camcorder for Christmas and patrols the countryside by day experimenting with the zoom feature and by night drops in on Cretian booze ups. Also to the chanel that showed a ten year old British school play during prime time and had actually bothered to subtitle it.

The leather tank panniers debacle: We've been beset by issues caused by the sheer weight of two quite large people and all their personal junk plus cooking and camping equipment being carried by one motorcycle. One small inspiration has been front tank panniers. Inspired by Ted Simons' legendary front panniers in 'Jupiters Travels' we had been on the lookout for a saddlemaker of repute for some time. Arriving in Side we thought we had found him in a cheery old chap sitting outside a shoe shop with a vintage Singer leather sewing machine. We asked him, he said yes and there began a downward spiral ending in us paying out forty quid for a couple of bags that are of lamentably poor quality and so poorly designed as to be an actual impediment to our load carrying abilities. He didn't even make them himself but took us over to a place that specialised in stitching together outdoor beanbags. All the same it took up a rainy day and getting back to our room and setting to them with the Swiss army knife and a couple of spare shoelaces has resulted in something more worthwhile. The moral seems to be that nowadays proper craftsmen are few and far between and having the right kit doesn't make you any more able...

The gaming phase: Arriving back to Antalya from our visa run to Istanbul saw us with a week or so to kill. We were awaiting throw over panniers to arrive from home (thanks dad!) in another attempt to ease the burden on the overloaded Bullet. The last couple of weeks in Turkey have been half term and we've noticed that the internet cafes are chocka with kids playing games. In an attempt to keep up with the kids we decided to have a go. That was it. Hooked. When we decided to spend another day in Antalya just to play on we knew things were getting out of control. In those glorious few days I became a motorcross world champion, street raced around Miami and captained an army of Cyclops against the walls of Troy. Makes you wonder why we bothered to leave home at all!

Alevi faith: As well as spending quality time in internet cafes in Antalya we did also have a good few chats and backgammon sessions with the guy running our guest house. He explained to us about the Alevis, a branch of Islam unknown to us before. The topic came up as his brother was fasting in the 12 days before Ashura (the date of Hussein's death - son of the fourth Caliph). This wasn't a don't eat during daylight hours but a full-on don't eat or drink at all one. We last saw him on the tenth day and he seemed to be losing the plot a little. Alevis are a branch of Shia Islam and a significant minority in Turkey. Men and women pray together and they meet in assembly halls rather than mosques. More on wikipedia...

The u-bend: Growing up in the UK we are taught to believe that this is a British invention. We still have no question to doubt it. What is strange however is how little it seems to have caught on around the world. Since first travelling as a teenager it seems that cheap hotels now have en-suite bathrooms a lot more than at previous times. This makes it even more unpleasant when a neighbour flushes their lav and a waft of sewage comes drifting up through your shower drain.

Political assassinations and Turkish Armenian relations: In Istanbul we met and had a good chat with a Turkish Armenian guy. On the same day Turkish Armenian journalist Hrant Dink was murdered. No connection of course just a coicidence that had little more relevance than provoking lines of thought in our heads. He was murdered in Taksim Square by a Tukish ultra-nationalist from Trabzon who was only a teenager. The whole issue has sparked a lot of debate here and thousands turned up to the funeral. In conversation with the guy we met we found out that the Armenian population in Turkey is growing as more Armenians come here to seek work.

That's all for now. Again Sascha has put up lots more photos on fotki. The weather has been forecast to be reasonable the next few days so with any luck we cross to Syria and head to Latakia in a couple of days....

Finally we are in Turkey and it feels like we are some distance from home. Having only intended to spend a week or so in Greece we ended up being there for five.

As the blog is already somewhat behind it seems fine to hold on a lengthy 'What we did in Greece' and come out with the highlights and observations...
The memorable bits:
- Great free camping opportunities at beaches and by churches
- Having the place nearly to ourselves with no other tourists around
- Home made products on sale in Crete. Coming from the UK, a nation that has willingly submitted to the most blanding of EU regulations and glossed over the good bits, it's really great to get a different side of Europe. One where they sell home made wine and spirits in supermarkets in unlabelled second hand mineral water bottles. And of course cheap booze is good however it is packaged!
- They sell fish that looks just like kippers but is a joke played on British folk partial to a kipper for breakfast. It looks like a kipper, it smells like one but cook it up and you get a nasty surprise tucking in and finding that it is part-smoked, semi-raw and in need of gutting. These fish have no logical use apart from as a practical joke.
- Great roads and amazing scenery. And some really fine dirt roads for motorcycling along too
- The 'Grand Masters Palace' in Rhodes old town. Built by Crusaders and restored by Mussolini in the 30s. It must have been grand enough before restoration but Il Duce decided a monumental fascist gothic style was more in order. To celebrate the new Italian empire just about every mosaic in Kos was pulled up and put into place in the Palace (except for the smutty ones as Satyrs and rapes appear to have been a popular subject for flooring and household ornaments in ancient Rome).

Observations and sweeping generalisations
- Booze is very popular in Greece
- So is fly-tipping
- Smoking is a national past time
- Oranges are ready to pick by mid-December. Obvious enough but I had never clicked before just why they are traditional at Christmas
- Must go back some time in the future for a holiday

Adventure motorcycling at it's peak. Faliraki

So, since the last blog a satisfying three weeks were spent in Crete before taking the boat to Rhodes. Christmas saw us cooking up a decent venison based Christmas dinner substitute in Hania (Crete) and New Year partying with a mix of Serbs and Brits from Rethymno Youth Hostel (Crete). Whereas Crete had a good bit of life Rhodes did seem to have closed down a good bit for winter. The old town is stunning - Europe's biggest medieval walled city and amazingly intact but it was a strange place with everything closed. We still didn't know if we could get a boat to Turkey from Rhodes until we arrived and as luck would have it there is a small ferry leaves twice a week.

Strangely enough in the short hop from Rhodes to Marmaris the temperature seemed to have picked up a couple of degrees and better still our budget could stretch further. No more camping stove cooked meals everynight for us, instead we are now on a 3 meal a day kebab-fest.

On the road between Fethiye and Kas

We've been ambling along the Mediterranean coast from Marmaris onwards. Having had our original plan of heading through Iran scuppered by their reluctance to issue us with visas we're trying for a new route through Syria instead. Our new route should take us through Syria, Jordan, Egypt and Sudan instead of Iran, UAE, Oman and Yemen. The cold weather and distance has meant that we've relaxed in the luxury of bus travel and have left the bike in Antalya for a holiday within a holiday as we've had to come up to Istanbul to pursue visas.

Anyone who's interested and hasn't yet seen them our photos can be found here: http://members.fotki.com/enfieldtravels/about/

Here we are in Crete, finally on the road!

After a quick-ish ride down the back roads of France, Italy and Switzerland a ferry has taken us to Greece where the pace has slowed to the way it should be, the sun is shining like it should and all is well with the world.

We finally set off at the end of November. Four days took us through France. Living so close to the cross chanel ferry we usually make several visits a year so our love of the country is proven and there's no real need to justify a highlight being a particularly good Doner Kebab in Gien in the Loire Valley. What marked this kebab apart from others was that eating it one could have really sworn that it was a bacon doner. But surely not in a Turkish kebab shop surrounded by the Muslim youth of Gien? Perhaps there was a secret code of pork eaters that we had unwittingly uttered... Surrupticiously checking with the chef what we had just eaten revealed that it was a clever combination of goose and veal. Veal would not normally be on the menu for me but for this one time it was the tastiest thing on earth. The popularity of a muslim kebab joint serving up fake bacon doners as well as the existance of non-alcoholic beer and vegetarian sausages brings up plenty of interesting questions about human nature, but these can be explored another time....

France was also noted by a bone-chilling coldness that could only be cured by hot baths and hearty food. Switzerland continued in the same manner apart from a couple of nights in Andermatt that were marked by the majesty of the mountain scenery, quaintness of the mountain villages and a day of glorious sunshine to go out hiking in. The Swiss road system necessitates the occasional foray onto motorway, best avoided on a bike that cruises at 50mph and with half the truckers of Eastern Europe bearing down on you through tunnels that take 20 minutes to get through. With this experience fresh in memory we decided to exit Andermatt across the old passes. First the Oberalp and then the Splugel to Italy. The plan went well until halfway up the Splugel we encountered the first snows of the season. It settled at a remarkable rate and by the time we had managed to turn the lumbering bike around on the narrow road it was already an inch deep. Thankfully we lost altitude quickly and the snow retreated to be replaced by a miserable cold drizzle that accompanied us for the rest of Switzerland and right across Italy.

At the top of the Oberalp Pass

Italy, what can we say. Motorways lined by grim factories. Rain Cold. Fog. A glimmer of light provided by a cheap bed in a swanky hotel and a cheap and tasty take-away pizza. The arrival in Venice confirmed that hotels there are indeed overpriced. Folks at home had said that it would be cold and wet in December and it was. A lucky break came with the discovery that the ferry to Greece left in 2 hours so without getting off the bike save to ask hotel keepers how much it cost to stay in their miserable hovels we left.

What glory to arrive in Greece. Sunshine and heat. Direct boats to Turkey being lacking we decided to Island hop to Rhodes where apparently a boat crosses the line between the ancient enemies. Within minutes of arriving at the port in Patras we had come to the conclusion that Greece is A Good Place. Two weeks later this conclusion stands. Fantastic roads and scenery. Everything is deserted off-season and gives us the impression of having discovered somewhere wonderful all by ourselves. We've traversed quite stunning mountain passes, ridden coast roads winding their way along the bottoms of mountains and overlooking sparkling blue waters and ridden dirt roads free of traffic. Costs have been kept down with liberal use of the camping stove and being introduced to some great free-camping spots by a German cyclist we met, Stefan on a winter tour of Greece and demonstrating scary levels of fitness.

Free-camp on Elefonisi beach in Crete

The dirt road going up out of Elefonisi, just before a puncture...

From now it should be Christmas in Crete, New Year in Rhodes and then on to Turkey.

Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year to all.

Dammit! Delays galore. Everyone says that in planning a trip such as this preparation takes a lot longer than you expect and they are not wrong... From packing everything up at home and cleaning it up to rent out to sorting out the paperwork and getting the bike in order all has guzzled up precious money and time away....

Our scheduled departure was back at the end of October and now a month later we are still here whittling down our travel budget. The Iranians have not yet obliged us with a visa and the bike is having more teething problems than Jaws as a child. Hmmm.. maybe I should have suspected that resurrecting a 50 year old bike that has been off the road for more than 20 years and preparing it for a two up trip through Africa would be a task that would take slightly longer that 3 weeks. But still, if it weren't for a strong sense of optimism we wouldn't attempt such ventures would we? Actually, all on the bike was sorted fairly early on. It is just that is has shown itself to be a keen smoker and really reluctant to break the habit. No amount of fettling and new parts has persuaded it that giving up is the best option. Normally one could live with a little wisp of smoke tailing us from the exhaust but this machine has a real 40 a day habit and the thought of slating its thirst with a pint of oil a day seems a bit over the top. We had been planning to carbon offset our trip but at this rate instead of purchasing a few trees we would have to be investing in the entire treelife of Borneo.

Still, we remain optimistic and all going to plan we should be off this weekend. Sorry to those friends we haven't managed to catch up with before leaving. Hopefully the next posting will be from Turkey in a couple of weeks' time...

The noble steed itself in its natural habitat, the workshop, being dismantled for the umpteenth time. Not looking too good to depart in a couple of days' time!

The plan has been long in hatching and slow in execution. For the last couple of years we have talked about doing this trip but finally, with Sascha finishing studying and me reaching a point in my job where I was happy to have a change of scene, all has come together.

The trip:
We are setting off from home with the intention of getting down to South Africa. Once there we'll take a rain check and decide what looks to be the best move next. We've got about 10 months to make it there before Sascha flies home and I continue alone... If all goes to plan the route should take us through Europe, Turkey, Iran, UAE, Oman and Yemen and then into Africa through Djibouti and head South from there.

Richard:
Having been working recruiting students from overseas to British Universities for the past 6 or so years, I have been lucky enough to have a job that nourishes my passion for travel. My other great passion (apart from Sascha of course!) is for vintage motorcycles. Combining the two is, if logic follows through, the finest thing I can spend my time doing. Previous big trips have included riding a '58 Bullet back from India and taking a '97 Bullet to the Sahara in Morroco. My experience of Africa has so far been quite limited and I'm really looking forward to finding out more...

Sascha:
I came to travelling a bit later than Rich with a trip a few years ago around Asia. Suffice to say I am not the hardy outdoors type so managed a fair few injuries, misshaps, robberies and a lot of moaning. Since meeting Rich I have discovered the joys of sitting pillion on a motorbike but steer well clear of the mechanics. So with all that in mind you may (as I am) be asking why am I doing this trip? I feel that as my experience of Africa has been limited to the news and I want to find out another view of things.

The two of us nearly ready to go...

The bike:
Is a 1955 Royal Enfield Bullet, made in Redditch and for most of its life an inhabitant of Liverpool. This makes it a scouse bike, what that means in bike terms, I'm not too sure. Time will tell. The first question for many would be, why choose an old bike? I shall spare the cod philosophy I may usually spout forth about this but in simple terms in my mind there are several distinct advantages to travelling with an old bike:

1. It's cheap - parts are cheap, it was cheap to buy and you guys with a new BMW just think how much money you would have saved on your carnet if your bike had a value of 500 quid

2. I know how to fix it. That could turn out to be a rash statement as the trip progresses but suffice to say I can fix it better than I can a new bike with such horrors as electronic engine management sytems

3. It goes slowly. This of course to many would be a major turn-off but I'm travelling to meet people and see places, not to race. And slower is safer..

4. Old bikes open doors. It's pretty amazing how much more interest and hospitality you get with an old junker compared to a modern plastic rocket. Somehow too it blends into the environment more in developing countries. It is still worth way more than many will earn in several years but that's a scale more can relate to than a bike that many wouldn't be able to afford in a lifetime

5. Breakdowns are fun. Yes, really. Thought I'd leave that to last as it may seem the least convincing part of the argument. Some of the best experiences I have had and most I've got to know people travelling have been through breakdowns.

That's pretty much all on the bike. For those wearing vintage bike anoraks it's best to just say that the bike has been very modified and looks like something the cat has dragged in. Mail me if you are interested in it more than that and I'll happily bore you for hours..

Get in touch with us:
Of course we want to hear from friends and family but anyone else who is interested please do contact us. We'd really like to hear from anyone who has done a similar route to us and has any sage advice. Equally if you are planning something similar we'll be happy to help however we can. You can sign up to the blog and get notification of new entries and our email is on the footer of the page.