Cape 2 Cairo 2 Cape Blog

We left Senga bay at around 7:15 in the morning. The deal was that breakfast started at 6: 30 and that we were to head out no later than 7:30. We had a long day ahead of us but what turned out to be a day that a lot of the guys considered “the best day so far”.

Using the same narrow road as before, the sports started as soon as we left the hotel. Pounding away at the hooter usually has it’s benefits but sometimes backfires when you blow it a little too late. Archie fell victim to this situation (or really a bicyclist did) when he blew the hooter and the man turned around to see how far the car was. As he twisted his head to his right to see behind him he also managed to vere right into the middle of the lane with Archie and an oncoming vehicle heading his way. Archie had no where to avoid him because the other lane was occupied. From my perspective I thought the guy was surely going to be struck and cursed out and threw my hands onto my head. But between the mans quick thinking and Archies good handling skills, they somehow managed to ward off a collision by milimeters.Looking very nerve wrecked he moved completely off of the road as we drove by- a good choice on his part i think.

Quick refuel beside the lake

Malawi was quite lush in comparison to the other countries that we have visited so far. The stretch from Lilongwe to Koronga yeilded nothing less than some of the most beautiful motorcycle roads that I have ever seen. Even our necessary fuel stop after about 200+ km was more of a pleasure than a burden. The bikes pulled over on a good straight stretch that sat about 20 meters from the edge of Lake Malawi. It was a spectacular place to build up a sweat from filling up 19 bikes. As we arrived there was already a crowd watching the motorcycles which has become quite typical on this trip. “Where is the Pee Pee?! Where is the Pee Pee?!” was the most used phrase of the day which I guess soemone dubbed the long nozzle that fits over the Jerry cans for pouring fuel. I’m kinda glad the locals probably didn’t understand the association because it could cause for a confusing situation when trying to decipher why 24 men are screaming for a “pee pee”.

After we saw the bikes then we were pretty much out of their sight for the rest of the day. The trip took us all the way around the Lake on a road that hugged its west end. The final few hours were spent driving over this pass that look over the countours of the beaches from thousands of feet above. Les and Ryan were probably the only motorcyclists that were within our sites because they were taking photos at all the view points accompanied by many baboons playing on the road. We pulled out the rubber snake and watched them scatter when they saw it…we just wanted to make sure that cars don’t hit them…not for our own PERSONAL amusement! I mean why else would you carry a rubber snake in your car?

After managing to talk our way out of several fines which has become a daily occurance we finally made it to Koronga which lay about 40 km away from the Tangzania border. We filled our tanks as usual and went over the the Club Marina hotel which was the kind of place you’d expect to sleep in, in Africa. Only 3 rooms had running water in the whole place, and after an hour of getting there the power went out. There was a slight glimmer of hope when they turned on a generator but it powered nothing more than the bar lights and the loud music. The first thing we did when we got there and it was dark by then- was fill up the bikes once again but of course this time in the dark because of the power situation. “Get me a pee pee!” was once again shamelessly used in public throughout the ordeal.

Ryan pulling around one of the many hair pin turns of the pass

Later on in the night when a few of us went to the restuarant (either chicken and chips or fish and chips) to relax and prepare the tables for the group, we were pleasantly greeted by rat droppings on the table. No big deal though, we just brushed it off to the side and continued our festivity. Not every hand will be a win but every day has certainly been an adventure so far.

Tomorrow we’re off to Tanzania which everybody is defintely excited about. Early morning border crossing and off to Kilimanjaro we go!

It was the first full day of rest that all of the group got to NOT spend together. I think today everyone just did exactly what they wanted to do. Some went and snorkled, and then watched the fishermen feed the fish eagles while others talked of going on Kayaks to the neighboring Lizard Island. I saw a lot of guys just filling out their journals or just laying in the sun reading a book for a little bit. One thing that everyone had to do was check over their bikes and fill up their tanks with the spare fuel that we had purchased. Malawi had no fuel, that was certain.

Ray, Doc, Alain

Ig organized a tour from a man named Willy, who looked more like he should live in Jamaica than in Malawi. At first glance all you thought was that this guy sells drugs, in fact Ray called him “Ganja Man” and it turns out that he can sell you anything you want. ANYthing. He was a skinny black man with one tuff of hair in the middle of his head blowing in the wind, while the rest hair was braided into little 8 cm spikes. He looked like the Rasta version of Coolio if that gives a better impression of him. As unique of a style that he had, he was actually a really nice guy who I can tribute to making my day very interesting.

Jacci is a child magnet

The reason this man even crossed our line of sight was because some of the guys in the group had their names carved into little wooden keychains with “Cape 2 Cairo” written on the back. It takes the guy carving about 10 minutes to do and it’s quite remarkable that you only pay about 35 rand for it. I’m usually not one for curios, but I’ll be honest- these things were pretty unique so I spoiled myself a little. Go big or go home, right?

So as the group came back in from their aquatic adventures, Ganja Man waited on the beach for them in order to give back their tags. Apparently sometime inbetween Ig organized for him to also take us to the village and to show us all the things the villagers do on a day to day basis to get by. When he first invited me, my first reaction was “who’s going” because I was really not THAT excited to go walk around a sandy village getting dirty looks from the locals. I mean how would I feel if a group of really comparitively wealthy people come prancing through my neighborhood, taking photos of my house, taking photos of my kids, all while muttering a language that I did not understand? Or why they have these nice linens on their person but I’m in my barefeet dressed in clothes that my mother had given me years ago?

Either way I decided to man up and go because apparently Ig got this sweet deal of only 250 kwachas per person. This village adventure must have sounded enticing to both Rolf and Jacci because both were ready to go 3:30 pm sharp. As all four of us were joined with Willy we defintely didn’t fall short from looking like the movie portrayal of “tourists in a foreign country”. The bright colored accesories, sunglasses, big cameras around the necks and backpacks on our backs did little to let us blend in with the crowd. Rolf even had one of those little hats with the sunshade hanging down to cover your neck which he must have gotten out of the book “touring 101″. I did my personal best to blend by wearing all black … but my outfit failed just like this joke. I actually had nothing else to wear so I ended up looking more like a body guard than anything else. But off we went like the brady bunch ready for some village action.

The village was completely next to the water. Sandy and dusty with garbage littered all over, typical of most from an outsiders perspective.Regardless of how dirty it was around the village the inside of the homes and the near vicinity of the homes were kept clean as a whistle. The huts were skillfully built with clay and grass houses that were lined with plastic on the inside for further waterproofing. Willy told us that every two years the grass had to be replaced in order to keep the house dry inside. As soon as we enetered the village we were stormed by a group of 15 or so kids who in all honesty just wanted to strike a pose infront of the camera, and then see what it looked like on the playback screen. At different parts of the “tour” and by that I mean willy showing us around his village we just collected more and more kids as we went.

One little girl in particular who I think wanted to be a model when she grew up would come up and say, ” a peeksha of one” and stand and pose. Then she’d come up again and say “a peeksha of two” grabbed her friend and posded again. Then she paused a little bit and counted on her fingers and showed five but said “a peeksha of six” and grabbed all the kids around her and started pulling funny faces. I’d do the typical old photographers “3…2…1…okay, smile!” and as soon as i released the shutter button they’d come running across the sand to see.

1KG of meat is defintely not enough to be a snack..

Willy even showed us how they made alcohol and let us taste some of it from this old pink, dirt encrusted stay soft cap which had “red flag” screaming all over it. I figured I’d go ahead anyway if Rolf and Ig did and insulting a kind local is not on my to do list anyway. He even took us to the woman who made bread in an outdoor oven and as quickly as he went into the dark hut, he came out with a handful of bread rolls for all of us to try. For some odd reason he took this humongous bite out of the first one and then handed it to me. I figured it was just his way of sharing but I watched intensely to see if he did the same to all the others. The bread was quite good but was a little on the dry side. For what it was though I can’t complain-home made is always better than store bought.

We spent the rest of the afternoon waking through the fisherman’s boats and watched them pour fuel into their lanterns for their night time fishing. They use two lanterns and at least 2 boats to fish in Lake Malawi. The light isn’t as much for seeing as it is for attracting the fish to the surface, then the net is attached to one of the boats and does a semi circle back to the other. After a long walk we had a drink at the local bar and then caught a lift on some bicycle taxis which struggled back to the hotel. Obviously thses guy’s aren’t used to 3 big men sitting that back tire deep into the ground. Before we headed back to the hotel the guys let Rolf and I ride their taxi bicycles around for a little bit. We had a little bit of a race which Rolf won with luck both up the hill and down (everyone gets lucky once ina while).

Ig, "Ganja Man", Jacci, and Rolf

While we ate dinner that night all you could see on the horizon were about 100 lights sparkeling far off on the dark horizon from all of the fisherman. The day of rest was a good one for everybody but just as in life, it was time to move on. Tomorrow we drive around to the northern tip of Lake Malawi and I hear that this is where Africa starts getting REAL.

Day 6 Bridge camp- Senga Bay 700km Waking up without coffee has become a dreadful way to start the day. As the sun rose early the morning across the Luanga river everyone prepped themselves for another border crossing day. As we move north east the days are getting longer, the weather warmer, and the scenery much greener.

The drive from Bridge Camp was an incredible road which took it’s course zipping up through the mountains and then winding down into the valleys. The back up crew was driving slowly as usual, and for the day Ig was driving the truck for the first time. I think back to how I complain about drivers in the states and had to come all the way to rural Africa to appreciate what I have back in Orlando, Florida. There were three different occasions in the day that our little truck almost bit the dust from on coming traffic. Around one very sharp bend we almost got ran off the road by a passenger bus! It came around a corner so fast that it’s tires were screaming in agony as it’s back end was about to fish tail. It was a near miss but as far as we could tell that this kind of stuff happened a lot. Since we had left camp we’d seen two trucks that had flipped their loads and at least half a dozen car remains that have crashed and burned on that particular road.

The more that we drive, the more I’m starting to see this trend of unwritten rules that drivers use in attempt to make things easier on the road. I guess due to very poor road conditions or their lack of warnings and signage, drivers have developed their own language as a way of getting all kinds of messages across. A very interesting thing that people do in Africa is cut three or four branches off of a tree and leave them spaced about 50 meters apart on the road so that you know you are approaching a wreck or broken down vehicle. I guess the basic reflector just doesn’t do any justice around this neck of the woods. Another interesting thing that a lot of vehicles do here is put their indicator on when they pass you on a two way road. This helps you to see how much clearance you have when passing oncoming vehicles on many of the very narrow roads. The third thing is that when you are driving on the left hand side of a two way road with a big truck in front of you, they use their indicators to signal when it’s safe for you to go around them. The right one means “danger” the left one means “gun it”.

When we arrived at a petrol station right before Chipata we spent about and hour and a half waiting for a man to physically pump the petrol from one tank to the other. After we got petrol we got shafted by the locals who were cutting in front of us like it was no bodies business. I guess you can’t really argue or fight with them, that’s just a bad situation waiting to happen with 4 of us and about a hundred of them.

Archie helping the guy along pumping petrol

Around 300 km after leaving Bridge Camp we finally go to a town called Chipata which lay very close to the Malawi/ Zambia border post. The big event for the day was situating 800 liters of spare fuel onto the trailer for transport into Malawi for the bikes because news got to us that Malawi had a petrol shortage on their hands. As Archie and Doc worked at filling the 4 blue tanks of fuel the Ig and I went to the local spar to shoppe our little buns off because it was the first time since South Africa that we had been to one. After a good deal of shopping and meeting a woman working for the peace corps who looked like the typical American “I’m just a feather in the wind” hippy, we walked out and found that EVERYBODY had left to the border. After 10 minutes of calling on the radio we finally got in touch with the other vehicle who was still busy filling up the tanks. Our next step before the border was to change our Zambian Kwacha back into Malawian Kwacha which as anyone who’s been through a border post in Africa would know is one of the most chaotic experiences you could have.

Apparently it is illegal to exchange money with the guys who aren’t official currency exchange dealers. Sometimes there’s nothing you can do but break the rule and exchange with them anyway but on this day we actually had a legitimate guy who we knew would not try to scam us by giving us a horrible exchange or miss counting the money. As we stopped at the exchange bureau the usual swarm of dealers stormed the car which can be quite aggravting because “no” defintely doesn’t mean “no” in this situation. Just as you swat one guy away another comes from a different direction and so you fight your way to where you need to go (and then all the way back to your car again) if you’re anywhere near a border. “No” just means being offered yet another “special price” which I hope no body ever falls for. Every price is a special price, myth busted ladies and gentlemen. Never fall for the first price quote they give you, Afric is a professional at predator vs prey. One guy whom I told with all the honesty in my face that I could muster “we’re NOT going to exchange with you, our company only exchanges with Farook” he turned around and cursed my uncle telling him that he’s doing business with a muslim and all kinds of other junk. All I would have said to that guy was that “Farooks money is the same color as my money” because theres no room for predjiduce in business as anything any good business man should know.

As I walked out the room with my freshly exchanged money, Archie and Doc pulled up to which we relayed the message that we’d be going through the border and Senga Bay on our own. The nice thing about these trips is that almost on any road that we go on, the rule of thumb is to just go straight which makes it almost impossible to get lost. I wasn’t worried about our trip to Senga Bay, but one of the guys, Bruce, found himself without 3rd party insurance AND in the wrong town. After contacting Cytech back in South Africa who called Ig in our vehicle to get directions to the hotel Bruce was back on his way to the Livingstonia Beach Hotel. I think Bruce made one vital error…he took a right, but I guess it’s only the first week.

Carrying fuel down in Malawi's busy roads

Once we got into Malawi the huge mass of people on the road in comparison to Zambia was incredible. Everyone was trying to share the road with the cars- bicycles, pedestrians, animal drawn carts and people in wheel chairs. The hooter got a lot of action once we got into Malawi just to serve as a warning sign to people as you go by to no suddently pull right, or try to run across the street. I’d hate to compare this to Moses parting the Red Sea with his staff but on some scale such a comparison is justified. On the way to Lilongwe the road at some points is so narrow that only one vehicle can safely go at a time because the road was so eroded on either side that there was a good foot drop on either end. My biggest worry was sending a poor cyclist flying off the edge because we either bumped or scared them.

The highlight of my day came as we neared Senga Bay. By now we had gotten very liberal at blasting away at the hooter and were firing off warnings left and right like it was no body’s business. As you drive from country to country you start noticing the different mode of transport that people engineer for themselves and Malawi has this unique hand-crank powered wheel chair. It’s pretty fancy considering someone some where had to mcgyver this rig up with just metal and some some welding ability. So as we drove we noticed a girl pushing what im sure was her dad or grandfather in the wheel chair,on the road, which is the last place that I think you should find one. Either way, as we picked up speed we just sent another warning hoooonnkk their way and like a bolt of lightning the girl shot off into a full sprint away from the road and left her poor father barreling down the road torquing his little crank at a million miles per hour by himself ! Ig and I almost grounded the vehicle from the intense laughter that erupted from the car. We were squeeling like little school girls at her inconsiderate sacrifice to save her own skin! I know that dinner table conversation was going to be an awkward one for that family when the mother asks the father and daughter how their day went.

On a last note, we observed 2 people picking up road kill in Zambia and slaughtering on the side of the road. Is that acceptable or just wrong?