Yet another welding

The road up to Maweni is mostly hair pins. And what happens then? Of course I have to go as fast as I can, race the poor retirement-ready bike so the sidecar lifts in the right curves and it slides through the left curves. Not too funny for a 74 year old heavy loaded bike, but to big amusement for me.

Besides the normal broken spokes after the stint, it followed a big bonus. The prime Russian/Colombian/Paraguayan weld under the steering head gave in. How that bird-shit looking solid piece of weld could give in is hard to understand, but it did.

Anyhow, to find a really good African welder (I only stick to the really good ones) working on boxing day didn´t prove too easy so I had to idle 50 kilometers before I could find one. But he did such a beautiful job so it will at least hold up to North Kenya. Now I´m only missing to get this particular weld job done in Australia, North America and Europe, then they all have gotten a shot to fix the same thing. All the king’s horses and men, couldn´t put Humpty back again…



Tormod

Endnu et stelbrud...

Vejen op til Maweni består mest af hårnålesving. Og hvad sker der så? Selvfølgelig skal jeg tage den så hurtigt jeg kan, pine den stakkels pensionsmodne motorcykel så sidevognen letter i højresving og den skrider med bagenden når vejen drejer til venstre. Ikke så sjovt for en overlæsset dame på 74, men jeg har det skideskægt.

Udover de sædvanlige knækkede eger efter sådan et stunt, er der denne gang bonus i form af endnu et stelbrud: Den fine russisk-colombianske-peruvianske svejsning under styrhovedet opgav ævred. Hvordan den enorme klump mågeklatter kunne knække er ikke til at fatte, men knækkede gjorde den.

Nå, det viser sig at være svært at finde en god afrikansk svejser (jeg holder mig til kun at bruge de rigtig gode) her lillejuleaften, så jeg kører de næste 50 km i tomgang før en af slagsen dukker op. Han lavede til gengæld så fint et stykke arbejde at den nok vil holde helt op til det nordlige Kenya. Nu mangler jeg bare at få samme sted svejset i Australien, Nordamerika og Europa, så alle får chancen....

This is the nice kind of curves to stress your frame and break spokes

Yes, finally again. Note there’s traces of previous welding jobs if you look carefully at the picture

A big crowd of competent advisors is required to the job well

And here we go. This repair will at least last up to North Kenya, another amazing job done!

Christmas at Maweni Farm

We were stuck in a small town north west of the Masai Steppes after dark. We could not move on, and had only US dollars which didn´t help too much. We were probably the first white men that the town had seen in hours.

Then another white man appears with a girl, so we kindly ask them to change some currency with us. He turns out to be a Swedish documentary film maker living in Tanzania, and his girlfriend was Norwegian.

Not only did they help us out with local money, they also invited us to his resort farm from the colony time for Christmas. We hit the Maweni Farm Lodge the next day and caught up with them. We planned to have just lunch there, or stay one night, but it was so lovely that we ended up 3 nights.

A highly recommended place for some days for resting and getting refreshed. Very good food, beautiful surroundings and perfect climate. Good service and beds. I actually couldn´t find anything to complain about which troubled me a bit. Check it out at www.maweni.com

Tormod

Jul på Maweni Farm

Efter mørket faldt på var vi strandet i en lille by nordvest for Masaisteppen. Vi kunne ikke køre videre og havde kun amerikanske dollars, hvilket ikke var til megen hjælp. Vi var sandsynligvis de føraste hvide mænd de havde set i flere timer.

Så dukker en anden hvid man op med en pige, og vi spørger venligt om de kan veksle noget valuta med os. Det viser sig at han er svensk dokumentarfilmmager, og hans kæreste er norsk.

Ikke bare hjælper de os med lokale mønt, men inviterer os op at tilbringe jul på hans gamle landsted fra kolonitiden. Vi når hen til Maweni farm næste dag, med planer om bare at blive der til frokost, eller en enkelt overnatning, men det er så hyggeligt at vi ender med at blive der hele tre nætter.

Et meget anbefalelsesværdigt sted for at komme lidt til hægterne: Rigtig god mad, smukke omgivelser og perfekt klima. God service og senge. Jeg var faktisk ude af stand til at finde noget at klage over, hvilket bekymrede mig lidt. Tjek det på www.maweni.com.

The road up to Maweni farm

Maweni Farm´s luxury tents with attached bathrooms and good beds, more luxurious than most other places i´ve stayed the last few months

Lars´girlfriend Linda, from Tronheim in Norway

Lars, the owner of the place and documentary film maker. He´s currently working on a very interesting project in Nigeria, check the teaser at youtube: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fd4EgZnWujY

Christmas time means Wehrmacht Loff (Marzipan bread) and Akvavit

When the Akvavit is finished, then Christmas is over

Tanzania

Tanzania has been a tourist destination for quite a long time, and for most westerners’ it´s probably the first country they´d associate with Africa. The most remarkable thing you notice is the speed bumps, which they must have been in Mexico to study. Tanzania probably even beats Mexico in terrible speed bumps. It´s indeed world class, and totally unpredictable how fast you can go over them.

Second, the frequency of accidents is also by far the best I´ve seen in Africa so far. What makes it even better is that you see wrecks so damaged that they look like they´ve fallen from the moon, on places where the only likely way to make an accident is to actually fall down from the moon.

If you want real African accident safari, then Tanzania is highly recommended.


Tormod

Tanzania har længe været et turistland, og for de fleste vesterlændinge er det nok de første land de forbinder med Afrika. Det mest bemærkelsesværdige man bemærker er fartbumpene, som de må have været i Mexiko for at studere nærmere. Her må selv Mexico se sig slået af Tanzania. De er i verdensklasse, og det er aldeles umuligt at regne ud hvor stærkt man kan køre over dem.

Og så er der ulykkesfrekvensen, der er den bedste jeg indtil nu har set her på kontinentet. Hvad der er endu bedre, er bilvragene der ser så ødelagte at man skulle tro de var faldet fra Månen, på steder hvor det kun synes muligt at lave ulykker hvis de rent faktisk var faldet ned fra Månen.

Vil du på en ægte afrikansk ulykkes-safari, kan Tanzania varmt anbefaldes.

A nice Flemmish dude we met at the border

This guy is nothing less than our first encounter with the civilian population, and such an intriguing character! He had obviously started with a suit with west, that had undergone several modifications. Notice that he has made shorts out of the trouser, then he has sewed the front of the west straight onto the white shirt. Pragmatic, and very stylish. And the best of all: Now he can even wear sandals with the suit without looking funny! We met him at this restaurant/pub where we ate, and he was here having a few beers and preaching God´s good word as he put it himself. It should have been more people around

Klaus, Norwegian guy I met that travels the world on an old Danish motorcycle with sidecar. Nice guy, but what makes people want to travel with that kind of outfit is beyond my understanding

Hun her ville selge hoena si, men jeg sa hun fikk heller forsoeke seg I Ghana

The famous and luxurious Thailand Hotel and Bar

This lot was empty when Klaus stopped to repair his bike. 4 minutes later this picture was taken. You get quite bad consciousness when you stop like this, because you know they will stand and watch you until you leave, and they will get delayed for school and work, all because of you

Traffic accidents are very popular in Tanzania. Here you can see the boys are already busy saving the tomatoes, the driver was not much left of, but the tomatoes were still savable. This is from a very steep mountain pass, and 3 hairpins down the road I met a truck overtaking another one in a blind curve. I managed to throw my bike over the 20 cm concrete edge of the road (and luckily it was just a cliff at this curve) and then the overtaking truck touched my sidecar wheel. In this cases it´s not too funny to have the

Malawi

There’s not so much for me to say about Malawi as we just blasted through. What was remarkable was that it´s one of the poorest countries in the world, and despite this it was no corruption at the border, it was free to get in, no problems with the police and the people was incredibly relaxed and friendly.

Also, the road is good, and the nature is beautiful. They seems to utilize the land for farming more than the other countries we been to, and the Lake Malawi is spectacular. We also saw Lake Flies, but we actually thought it was smoke from a burning ship. It was just a black cloud, and these small flies exist only here and lives for only 48 hours.

Well, so to summarize, if you want real Africa, in a pleasant way, Malawi would be a good choice.


T

Der er ikke så meget at sige om Malawi, for vi drønede bare igennem. Det var dog bemærkelsesværdigt, at trods at det er et af kontinentets fattigste lande, var der ingen korruption ved grænsen, det kostede ikke noget at komme ind, der var ingen problemer med politiet og folk var aldeles venlige og afslappede.

Tilmed var vejen god og naturen smuk. De synes at bruge mere af landet til landbrug end de andre lande vi har besøgt. Og Malavi-søen er spektakulær. Vi så også noget vi troede var røg fra et brændende skib, men det var blot en sort sky af små fluer, som kun lever her, og kun i 48 timer.

Så for at summere det op, hvis du vil opleve det rigtige Afrika, men på behageligste vis, så er Malawi stedet.

T

We had to buy insurance in Malawi, and that was the only thing the police checked along the road. However, they checked it many times. I would be very surprised if there is no connection between the insurance companies and the traffic police.

Vi måtte tegne forsikring i Malawi, og det var det eneste politiet tjekkede undervejs. Det tjekkede de til gengæld ret ofte. jeg skulle undre mig meget om der ikke var en-eller-anden forbindelse med politi og forsikringsindustri.

Nimbus at Senga Bay, Lake Malawi

Sugar cane loading, didn´t matter if they blocked the road for an hour or so. Time is cheap in Africa, despite short life expectancy.

Læsning af sukkerrør. Det syntes ikke at gøre noget de blokerede vejen omkring en time. Tid er billig i Afrika, trods kort forventet levealder.

Camping Nkunda Bay or something, north Lake Malawi

Martine and Bram from the Netherlands. Good people, and probably very patient as they travel with a Land Rover.

Martine & Bram fra Holland. Gode mennesker, og sandsynligvis ret tålmodige, siden de rejste i en Land Rover.

Lazy Boyz, the Buell dealer in Oslo sent with me some Christmas cards and calendars for distributing in Africa. Despite the recession in the industry they have not even seen a slight decrease in their export to Africa. The guys loved the calendars and Christmas cards, so maybe it comes an order from Malawi soon.

'Lazy Boyz', Buell forhandleren i Oslo, sendte mig nogle julekort og kalendere, til uddeling i Afrika. Trods finanskrisen har de ikke oplevet nogen nedgang i deres eksport til Afrika. Fyene her var vilde med tingene, så hvem ved, måske der snart kommer en bestilling fra Malawi.

Zambia, the real Africa begins

Botswana shouldn´t have been in Africa, it´s not enough corruption and chaos. Good thing though that when you cross the Zambezi river you get into the real Africa in Zambia. They know much more about running an African country here.
In fact, it starts already when you leave the shoreline and roll into the ferry. The ferry is a beautiful piece of African engineering, and they got totally three ferries of which one sometimes work.

When we cross over one works a little, so we has to wait just a few hours. We bypass the entire queue, which is a couple of kilometers long, with mostly trucks. Obviously it will take some time for those poor fellas, the ferry takes one truck at the time.

Everybody just wrestles their way into the ferry, including the pedestrians and our self. The result is that the ferry get stuffed by only half of what it could carry, but in return it is a fantastic disorder. The ferry uses 15 minutes, and cost 20 dollars for a passenger car. Quite a good business considering the ferry was written off some time back in the sixties.

It doesn´t lack drugged down clowns that will “guide” you through the customs. We fight them off, and concentrate on getting looted by the authorities. The visa has went up from 25 to 50 USD, and we need insurance, pay the police a levy, pay the road authorities tax, and finally a carbon tax, that goes straight to saving the environment without a cent getting lost on the way.

All this is more than expected, but we get to borrow some money from a very nice dude from South Africa, Johan. Without his help we´d have to get me in first, then drive 70 kilometers to the nearest ATM and then release Klaus. Good there is some people in the world that is full of trust and will to help out fellow travelers.

Roads are good and we stay over in Livingstone at the Victoria Falls before pushing on to Lusaka. We need to get our self to town before darkness as we had an appointment there with Ginty, a old school motorcycle racer and enthusiast.

Not a problem, until Klaus get a flat tyre. With the delay we´re 30 kilometers away from Lusaka when it´s pitch black. Time to abandon the rule about not driving in the darkness, which comes at a certain cost. The road gets worse, with some heavy duty pot holes, lack of vision due to dust and heavy diesel smoke. To stay alive you need all your skills, and top it up with good luck.

You sit and focus on the road a very few meters ahead, and every time you notice a pot hole you got a fraction of a second to look over your shoulder, check if you got free space and throw the bike in one or another direction to avoid getting thrown over the handlebars and into eternity.

All goes well until we got a kilometer left. I just avoid a pothole, and look back just to see Klaus falls down in it. The bike makes a big jump and comes to stop. Turning around I learn that Klaus was able to keep himself in the saddle, the front end was ok but the rim on the rear wheel was gone.

Ginty comes out and saves us with a trailer, so all in all it is good luck. No injuries on the rider, close to help and a new rim. Could have been a lot worse with a 20 cm deep pot hole that trapped 5 cars the half hour we were at the crime scene.
The planned night in Lusaka becomes two, but it´s utilized well with rebuilding the wheel and socializing with Ginty, his wife Kate and other friends. Big thanks to Ginty, Kate and the others we met in Lusaka!


Tormod

Zambia – det rigtige Afrika begynder

Botswana burde ikke ligge i Afrika, for der er alt for lidt korruption og kaos. Men det er udmærket, for først når du har krydset Zambezi-floden havner du i det rigtige Afrika: Zambia. De ved meget mere om hvordan man klarer den slags. Det starter faktisk allerede når man border færgen, som er et smukt stykke afrikansk ingeniørarbejde; de har tre færger, hvoraf én af og til virker.

På denne side af floden går det ikke så stærkt, så vi må vente et par timer. Vi kører forbi en kilometerlang kø, der mest består af lastbiler. De stakler kommer tydeligvis til at vente nogle timer, for færgen har kun plads til én lastbil ad gangen.

Alle mokker sig bare ned på færgen, inklusive fodgængere og vi selv. Resultatet er at der kun kommer halvt så mange med som der er plads til, men til gengæld er her et pragtfult rod. Turen tager et kvarter, og billetten koster 15 US$ for en bil. Fin forretning, når man tager i betragtning at færgen var afskrevet en gang tilbage i tresserne.

Der mangler heller ikke stenede fjolser der vil 'guide' dig gennem tolden. Vi fejer dem af, og koncentrerer os om at blive plyndret af myndighederne i stedet. Prisen på et visa fordobles hurtigt til 50 US$, og der skal købes forsikring, politiet vil have deres andel til kaffekassen, vejskat opkræves også og til slut er der en CO2-afgift som går direkte til at redde miljøet, uden at der går en cent tabt undervejs.

Det er meget mere end vi havde regnet med, men vi får lov at låne penge af Johan fra Sydafrika. Uden hans hjælp havde vi måtte sende mig afsted alene 70 km til den nærmeste kontantautomat, og derefter tilbage for at købe Klaus fri. Godt der er nogen i denne verden som er tilidsfulde og som vil hjælpe andre rejsende.

Vejene er gode og vi overnatter i Livingstone ved Victoria-vanfaldene før det går videre mod Lusaka. Vi skal være der inden solen går ned, for vi har en aftale dér med Ginty, en veteran-mc racer og entusiast. Intet problem, i hvert fald ikke før Klaus punkterer. Med den forsinkelse er det bælgravende mørkt da vi er 30 km fra byen. Så er det tid at droppe reglen om ikke at køre i mørke, hvilket har sin pris. Vejen bliver dårligere, med nogle slemme huller, og det er svært at se pga. dieselrøg og støv. Dit liv afhænger af at du bruger alle dine færdigheder, samt en god portion held.

Du sidder og fokuserer på vejen bare et par meter frem, og hver gang du ser et hul har du en brøkdel af et sekund til at kigge over skulderen og tjekke at der er fri bane, og derefter kaste maskinen i den ene eller anden retning, for ikke at ryge over styret og ind i evigheden.

Det går fint indtil der bare er en kilometer tilbage. Jeg undgår et hul, og ser tilbage netop som Klaus ryger i det. Motorcyklen laver et ordentligt hop og standser så. Jeg kører tilbage for at konstatere at Klaus formåede at blive i sadlen, at forhjulet er ok, men at baghjulet er færdigt.

Ginty møder op og redder os med en trailer, så dér er vi i det mindste heldige. Ingen skader på køreren, tæt på hjælpen og vi har en ekstra fælg. Det kunne have været meget værre, for det 20 cm dybe hul fangede fem biler i den halve time vi var på gerningsstedet.

Den planlagte overnatning i Lusaka bliver til to, med bruges fornuftigt med at genopbygge baghjulet og hænge ud med Ginty, hans kone Kate og nogle andre venner. Tusind tak til Ginty, Kate og de andre vi mødte i Lusaka!

Tormod

Victoria Falls

Kobil is just like Mobil, only different and much much better.

Kobil er ligesom Mobil, bare meget, meget bedre.

“….wishes you a good drive in Jesus name” says the sign. While the devil is out to steal souls, Jesus was out to steal rims that day.

"....øsnker dig god rejse i Jesu navn" sagde skiltet. Mens Satan var ude at stjæle sjæle den dag, var Jesus ude at stjæle fælge.

Ginty said no sane people drives a bike at night here. We couldn´t argue.

Ginty sagde at ingen ved deres fulde fem ville køre mc om natten her. Vi sagde ham ikke imod.

A bit tired of building wheels now, or “rimming” as the experts call it. Sixth time on the trip I have to do it, which is once every third month.

Lidt træt af at genopbygge hjul. Det er sjette gang på turen jeg må gøre det, ca. en gang i kvartalet.

Time to say goodbye to Ginty, which was such a great and helpful dude. Unfortunately, his equally nice wife Kate was not present for the picture.

Tid til at sige farvel til Ginty, som var en virkelig fin og hjælpsom fyr. Desværre var hans lige så fine kone ikke tilstede da der skulle fotograferes.

At this bridge we were stopped by the police and asked if we could give them money or something, and when we said we were sorry, but couldn´t, they said “No problem, have a safe journey!”. No hard feeling there.

Ved denne bro blev vi stoppet af politiet, som spurgte om vi kunne give dem penge eller noget andet. Da vi sagde det desværre ikke kunne lade sig gøre, sagde de "No problem, kør sikkert!" Der var ingen 'hard feelings' her.

Coke-smuggling bull at the border to Malawi.

Coke-smugling ved grænsen til Malavi.