Africa in 5 months

[Aidjay]

Well, with the troubles we've been having before we've even started, that's starting to look more like Africa in 4 and a half months.

Anyway, it looks like its finally on!

Myself (Adrian) and Rsstler (Russell) of this parish are off on our trusty steeds (R1150GSA's), departing on tomorrow's ferry (if BMW Battersea can finish sorting out Russell's clutch) from Portsmouth to Santander (or Bilbao, we've changed the ferry booking so many times now, I've forgotten) to begin our epic journey of heading down through West Africa as far south as Namibia, then cutting across eastwards towards Tanzania, then back down south again to hopefully finish in Cape Town towards the end of February.

We will endeavor to keep you lot entertained with all that this trip throws at us, including some quality photos and video where possible.

A big thank you to all at UKGSer for feedback, hints, tips and access to the wealth of knowledge that is made available via this amazing forum.

To single out a few would be rude but necessary, so a double thank you to these fine folk: Steptoe, Timolgra, Vern, Ditchwater, Posu, and High-Tower. Not forgetting Pumpy for the inspiration.

Aidan at Adventure Bike Warehouse: the stickers are on the panniers and I'll hand a few out en route. Thanks for the help!

There'll probably be a few edits with some extra names thrown in there, I'm sure.

You can catch our updates via this thread, also via our website: pikipikisafari.net and our Facebook page: www.facebook.com/PikipikiSafari

Stay tuned, its going to be bumpy ride!

 

[SkyGod]

Stay safe mate and already looking forward to the pictures

Gaz

 

[Sgt Bilco]

I've forgotten) to begin our epic journey of heading down through West Africa as far south as Namibia, then cutting across eastwards towards Tanzania, then back down south again to hopefully finish in Cape Town towards the end of February.

Stay tuned, its going to be bumpy ride!

Have a great trip and may even see you down there

 

[finn]

Good luck hopefully all the off road training will come in usefull

 

[David Lee]

All the best Lad's

Keep safe and don't push it too hard

David

 

[MrIFan]

Have a good un, and stay off the Palm wine

PS. Know a great bar in Rabat if you didn't manage to sort your Mauri visas before you go

 

[Aidjay]

Know a great bar in Rabat if you didn't manage to sort your Mauri visas before you go

We'll be in Rabat for a day or two, so I'm all ears!

 

[MrIFan]

PM incoming, and will put a reply on here in morn

 

[(RIP) petcul]

Have a great trip and safe riding.

 

[MrIFan]

We'll be in Rabat for a day or two, so I'm all ears!

You're actualy spoilt for choice with bars in Rabat From very expensive cocktail joints to mega sleazy bars full of prostitutes and people whos' drink you wouldn't want to spill!!

There are no doubt many hidden down little back streets and away from the center but if you head for Avenue Mohammed V you won't go far wrong. If you are approaching from the Medina (North end) then the first place of interest you'll come to will be on your right just opposite the small park on the left. A famous old bar which still holds on to some of its old colonial values with polite waiters in white coats, but somewhat faded from it's glory days.
A little further along the road as you enter the wide avenue there is a bar on a street corner to your left. Despite being one of the most expensive bars in town it is well worth a visit. Go at night and head upstairs, it was an eye opener last time we were there
Carry on down to the Railway station and just past it there are two very sleazy bars. The ladies here start work early, we called in for a coffee at 9:30am and they were already looking for business!! So we swapped from coffee to beer and got them to show us some of the other bars in town
Now, with your back to the station, you will see two roads across the avenue. Take the right hand one and folloow it till it opens out into a cressent. There is another bar at the left end if you are looking for somewhere a bit quiter. Loads more dotted around the back streets and most of the tourist hotels will have a bar but not as much fun as the locals haunts.
If you take the left option you will find McShiteburgers with its free wifi, however, in the station is very nice coffee shop also with free wifi

We had a 3 day wait for our Mauri visas so had plenty time to explore. Despite what I had read and been told about Rabat I found it a friendly city, much less spoilt by tourism in many ways than either Marrakech or Fes. Far fewer hustlers in the souks too.

 

[Steptoe]

Spoke to them thursday morning about a slight problem (park lane induced), and they were just about to cross to morrocco from algerciras.

 

[SeanC]

If you want to swing north as you head for Tz will happily meet up and look after you in Nairobi.
Sean

 

[Aidjay]

Shove it up Rabat

Actually, that's a bit harsh, Rabat is a pretty cool city. Everyone's friendly (except for our hotel manager), the hassling is minimal and everything works. They even have a modern tram system.

We're not here by design though and are itching to get out. The Mauritanian visas take 2 days to process, and since we arrived on a Saturday, we're forced to stay for 4 nights. So in our quest to save money, we're walking around everywhere and there is only so much one can see on foot. In essence, we're bored.

Our hotel is clean, cheap and has internet, which helps. The hotel manager is a serious piece of work though. When we found the place, Russell went in and asked if he had a room. The guy said "No!" and walked off. We waited outside for 5 minutes planning our next option. I took a chance, went back in and asked if he had a room and he said, "Ok!". I then started negotiating a room rate and there was much cheek-puffing, tisking and head shaking before he gave me a revised rate based on us staying 4 nights. It wasn't so much as me negotiating a rate, as more like him telling me what it was.

To top it off, it's been raining cats and dogs these last few days. The forecast for the rest of the week is good, thankfully.

We did venture out in search of cheap beer and found it in the form of probably the worst bar we've ever been in (up to now, of course). It was tiny, smokey and full of middle aged pissed Moroccan men who insisted on banging loudly on the bar with no particular rhythm. I assume it was to music, but you couldn't tell. There was laughing, there was crying, there was singing and there was a fight. It was all quite hilarious. We might go back again tonight.


So today Russell has gone to Casablanca to visit BMW to have another look at his stinking clutch. It literally smells. But Russell will post on that at some point as its a whole saga of its own.

Our first night in northern Spain. It was a chilly start:

Our second night in sunny southern Spain. Much warmer down south:

Not too sure about the Klu Klux Clan pedophile statue, but Cueta is a strange place. We had our pannier locks forced open during the night, which are now pretty much useless. So we're stuck with what Steptoe refers to as laughing boxes:

Watching the Rugby World Cup final on the iPad in the hotel room. Since SA (or England) weren't in the final, we weren't all that excited. Cracking game though, and well done NZ.

Some boats and the Kasbah in the background:

Close up of part of the Kasbah wall:

A midget bringer of doom sending a quick text before heading forth to harvest a few souls (is that racist?!):

 

[Timolgra]

Good luck with the clutch, that needs to be sorted now

 

[Steptoe]

. So we're stuck with what Steptoe refers to as laughing boxes:

Did you lose anything ?

 

[Aidjay]

Did you lose anything ?

Fortunately not, our own supply of root vegetables were of inferior quality to what was locally available.

 

[Steptoe]

Fortunately not, our own supply of root vegetables were of inferior quality to what was locally available.

Glad you took my advice regarding root vegetables.

And don't forget to load up with hair spray and Calgon before crossing into the Congo. They can't get enough of the stuff.

 

[mr_magicfingers]

Oh looking forward to following this. Not at all envious

 

[Aidjay]

Nut Shot

Or Nouakchott as the locals call it.
Sit on an oven, in a bigger oven with a hair dryer blowing in your face and you get an idea of what riding conditions are like here.

We left Rabat after picking up our Mauritanian visas, although we still had to wait till after 2pm to collect them. We were hoping to push through to Agadir, however thanks to the late visa pickup, we could only make Marrakech. This wasn't too bad as we had a walk around and enjoyed a nice (expensive) meal on the medina.

Back in Rabat my iPhone, which has all my tunes, decided now was the time for a full factory reset. I was livid. Fortunately Russ came to the rescue and he's kindly lent me his iPhone. I'm now enjoying a choice selection of Psy-trance, Progressive House and 70's Danish Disco.

We then rode the next 5 days through scenery that changed from dry to bone dry to effin bone dry, to stop-and-its-instant-death dry.

The border crossing between Morocco and Mauritania was quite an experience. The no-man's-land is a few kilometres of rocks and sand with a dozen tracks leading off into the desert, to finally converge on the Mauritanian border post. Locals hover like vultures waiting for an "off" so they can pounce and demand cash for rescuing you. First trick is to ignore their guidance, they have a habit of leading you towards the soft stuff. Second trick is to take your time and suss out the route yourself. Both Russell and I had a little lie down in the sand, but we bailed each other out and escaped relatively unscathed and our wallets still cash flush.

So we're in Nouakchott for a day's break, mainly to get our visas to Mali. We're going to have a braai (barbecue) tonight with some other guests we've met at our awesome Auberge we're staying at. Beers are especially hard to come by, but we do like a challenge. Afterwards, who knows, we might hit the town in search of a bit of 70's Danish Disco.

We've met quite a few interesting people so far, so we thought we'd get a list going:

Macek from Poland on a Yamaha 660 Tenere. He's travelling around Morocco with no fixed destination. He's also packing two golf clubs and a few balls. He's not going to let a little bike trip keep him from his hobbies.

Fabian, Jonna and their baby son from Germany. They're camping in their RV outside Dakhla, windsurfing all day. Their hospitality was very much welcomed.

Alex and Eric from Brazil, on 2 Honda Transalps. Their plan is to travel from Paris to Cape Town in 42 days. They've had some problems en route and are already behind on schedule. They're averaging around 900km's a day when they are on the road. Good luck guys!

Camping chairs come in handy when you're waiting for the embassies to open:

Just another night in Marrakech:

A very delicious tagine thanks to Riyadh Omar:

That's Macek the golfer at our first desert camp:

Shade is rare in this part of the world. Lunch on a garage forecourt here:

Our first "on the road" shot. We were a bit battered by the incessant side winds:

The infinitely straight roads of the Western Sahara:

We were absolutely shattered after taking this shot. We had to drink about 2 litres of water and rest up for a while:

Who says you can't have fun with roadside litter?

Our camp in the municipal car park about 30km outside Dakhla. Our camp is on the bottom left and the Germans are the RV to the right. This was a surprisingly popular windsurfing and kite boarding spot:

Russ flying past for the action shot:

Topping up on cheap Moroccan fuel in Mauritania:

More dunes and sand in Mauritania. And a lot hotter too:

The roads in Mauritania are good. Their road engineers are experts in straights. Sand, mirages and roadside tyres are complimentary:

 

[Aidjay]

You've got Mali

Greetings from sunny Mali. And by sunny, I mean hot and humid. This heat is starting to affect our senses. We turn into parched, rabid loons after only a few hours on the road. We're trying our best to keep out of the sun at least in the afternoon. However, despite our best efforts, leaving at the crack of noon each day seems to be "our thing".

We teamed up for a few days with another pair of riders, Steve (a South African heading back from living in the UK) and Fokker (a Dutchman with 5 months off). Steve's on a Yamaha XT600 & Fokker's riding a Suzuki DRZ400S. They were a little nervous about crossing into Mali as their visas were only active a week later. They originally planned to stay a little longer in Mauritania, for some bizarre reason.

The next few days were spent heading east through The Big Oven. This is also the land where the Mercedes comes to die. Mauritania's roads are good. Good enough to eat off, in fact. There was a never-ending menagerie of road kill rotting in the Saharan heat which was our constant reminder we were on the main road. In decreasing order of size: camel (which also killed a Mercedes), cow, donkey, sheep, goat, dog, cat, and some strange squirrel / ferret type creature, which I'm assuming is the only local wildlife. Mauritania was a hard place, and we were happy to see the back of it.

The border crossing into Mali was thankfully relatively hassle free, Steve and Fokker worried for naught as the border official didn't bat a sleepy eyelid at their visa dates. However, as we approached the final boom gate to head into Mali, a well nourished border guard proceeded to give us a massive bollocking about disrespecting his stop sign, and thereby disrespecting Mali. The stop sign was not immediately evident, and after a bit of a waiting game and a thousand apologies thrown the way of the all powerful mighty lord guard, we were allowed to proceed, without paying a bribe. Walking from his office past the guards' outside resting area revealed the stop sign leaning up against their back wall. I wanted to take a photo of it, however I was encouraged not to.

Mali is massively different to Mauritania. The landscape has changed and we are starting to see regular occurrences of that great icon of Sub Saharan Africa, the mighty Baobab. The people are very friendly and they love to wave and just greet you. They don't hassle or beg from you as much as Mauritania (except in the bigger centres), and of course they sell beer! Our first night in Mali was spent camping in someone's compound (car park) in Nioro, just inside the border. There was music and laughter and men and woman were mixing freely in the markets and streets.

The following day we said goodbye to Steve and Fokker who were heading east and Russ and I headed for Bamako. This was incidental as it was unavoidable. We did find ourselves in rather a weird restaurant / bar that was next to our hotel with a Tex-Mex theme, complete with waiters toting cowboy hats. However, that wasn't the weird part, the 4 or 5 Ukrainian girls behind the bar had us stumped.
We got the hell out of Bamako the next day after changing money and headed for Segou. We immediately liked the place so we decided to stay a couple of days. This was our first rest day since Nouakchott, so we relished the time off. We spent a few hours on the banks of the mighty Niger and watched the locals go about their daily lives.
We camped just outside town under some trees in a hotel's compound, which was lovely and quiet. However the heat was relentless, and with no breeze, the nights in our tents were long, hot and sleepless.


We then headed to the UNESCO recognised town of Djenne, famous for its outstanding and very unique mosque. The lack of tourists in this normally well visited part of Mali is quite evident and it's hurting them. Hotels are empty and everyone is vying hard for your business, which is a bit off-putting at first, but once your face is familiar, things start to calm down a bit. We enjoyed another day off, which was used to explore the town, catch up on sleep and plan future routes.

Apart from Steve and Fokker, we going through an "interesting characters" dry spell. Let's hope it doesn't last.

So here are the photos. As it turns out, we didn't take too many photos in Mauritania, however the ones we have pretty much sum up the country for us.

Enjoying another braai and our contraband Chinese beer with Steve and Fokker:

No shade available for this break:

A typical crappy road in a typical crappy town:

A major roundabout in Segou. Nope, we have no idea what the hell that is either. Jabba The Hutt maybe? Suggestions welcome:

The obligatory sunset shots of the very impressive Niger river at Segou:

The donkeys are indeed sad looking creatures. This one's in Djenne:

This looks like a non-starter, but you never know in this place:

The impressive mosque at Djenne:

Inside the mosque. There were so many internal pillars, it seemed a bit over-designed in our opinion. But then again it is made out of mud:

The woman in the busy market going about their lives. Notice the one woman in the background giving me a bit of a stare: