Lions around the tent

After Ruacana, famous for its waterfalls, we turn south and ride back to Damaraland over the flat gravel pistes. Caro has clearly learned a lot and has gained loads of confidence: her average speed is way above 100 kms/h and a sporadic weaving of the bike is now countered with her standing up and letting go on the throttle for an instance without any sign of panic. Way to go baby! From time to time I peek to 150 kms/h or more just to keep my adrenaline at an acceptable level. Standing up on the pegs, the wind in my face and open goes that throttle with an enthusiastic audience at the side of the road. Damaraland also means we have a second chance of spotting elephants. We saw giraffe, zebra, springbok, ostritch, kudu, oryx and even a very rare rhino at a distance. But we would have liked to add some trunk to that list as well.

Trip report: Namibia 2010. Near Etosha - Motomorgana, nomads riding around the world on a motorbike adventure.
Near Etosha
We spend the night at only a couple of kms from the Etosha National Park, at a campsite in the middle of the marvelous Namibian nature. There is a drinking well for wildlife very near which obviously attracts wild animals so there is hope. At night we hear the strangest sounds around the tent and Caro doesn’t really trust it. Everyone we meet around here has a tent on the roof of their 4×4 vehicle while we pitch our lightweight mini tent on the ground next to the bikes. There is some roaring next to the tent? What shall we do? Take a look? We choose not to do so and we’re glad we did as a camping attendant shows us the lion footprints at a mere 2 meters from our tent in the morning. Ooops. It’s getting even better as the next day, we open our tent in the morning on a campsite near Twyfelfontyn, just to find hundreds of elephant footprints near the tent. Why are these animals so damned quiet? Or was it us sleeping so deep again, totally wrecked from a long days riding… The fatigue after thousands of kilometers of off road riding is definitely noticeable.

All shredded to chips sir!

From Damaraland we further continue our trip on nice flat gravel, back to South Africa. This time we opt for a more eastern route where we don’t see a single tourist. It is only now that the Michelin desert rear tyre of the 990 is totally worn out. It has taken some serious beating the last 5000 kms after all. But the tyre performance is far from when it were new. The rear breaks out with every corner and the tyre has lost a major deal of its grip.

Trip report: Namibia 2010. Repacking the bikes in Cape Town - Motomorgana, nomads riding around the world on a motorbike adventure.
Repacking the bikes in Cape Town
Contrary to the first part of the trip, this landscape is pretty flat, but the road follows the nice twisty curves of the river which leaves enough room for some drift fun. We make a mandatory stop at the Giant’s Playground and the Quiver Tree Forest and these are also about the last points of interest we visit. Just another impressive piste to the South African Border and then we finally work our way down to Cape Town after which we have a good additional 7000 kms on the clock.
The paperwork for the bikes shipment goes surprisingly smooth this time. We leave our carnets at the shipping agent and ride to the warehouse at the harbor where I left my top-notch-measured-to- the-centimeter crate. ‘A big wooden crate sir, yes sir, right here we left it sir’. It takes about 45 minutes for the guy to get back to us. ‘Well, in fact, we did have your crate here but euh… well euh… It’s not here anymore.’ WTF! Where the hell is it then?! A lot of discussion and cursing later, it appears our South African friend that had to store the crate hasn’t completed his mission very successfully. The crate was shredded to chips and then dumped. Bloody hell! And we have exactly 4 hours to pack the bikes. We shift a gear or two higher and with wood and pallets we collected in the harbour, we put together two crates in no time, strap down the bikes and pass the invoice for the additional volume to our crate keeper, albeit under light pressure. This trip definitely was too great to be ruined by this!

So long, Africa…