Familiar Territory

The principle reason for choosing Africa to travel is because I was born in Africa.  Whilst I’ve been in Europe for over 30 years now, it is still very much a part of who I am, and where I feel safest.   An important factor when undertaking a journey like this.

As soon as we entered Zambia, I was starting to feel familiarity with my surroundings.  The Msasa trees and kids in khaki school uniform.  It had been raining, so the vegetation was lush and the ride in the truck down to Lusaka was dotted with abundant produce, there was so much I felt sorry for the sellers, I don’t think they could give it away and wondered about how much would rot before they had a chance to sell it.

Picking up bike from workshop – Me, Ginty Melvil and Bobby van de Merwe

The bikers of Lusaka gave as a warm welcome, and we were well looked after (esp. Ginty the President of FIM North Africa who accommodated us in his lovely guest cottage).  Bobbie did a fantastic job fixing our structural problem, in fact, he improved upon what we had been riding with, which was great!  and together they raise $1000 USD to help cover the costs of the fix, which left a little left over in much needed cash to help us on our way.

Our troubles were not to be so easily fixed however, and a new twin coil later we continued to Kariba for Easter, and a needed break on home turf of happy memories and great weather.  Crossing Kariba Dam Wall has been a bucket list item since I was a child and there we were in our less than reliable sidecar outfit actually doing it!   At the other side, I stopped to take it all in and were immediately surrounded by an audience, shocked to hear that we were travelling from England.  It is funny how the shock gets bigger and bigger the further south we go!

Easter was spent on the lake where Sofia landed her first fish, and for the first time actually put her face in water.  Something she has always been too afraid to do.  She was also very nervous about getting into a small speed boat, but once out on the waves bouncing she couldn’t keep the smile off her face.

We set off from Kariba in time to make World Autism Awareness Day in Harare where the bikers were organising a ride out for us to visit local events.  But even this journey didn’t go without hitch as it was discovered that the rear wheel bearing that had been done in Lusaka had been done incorrectly!  the whole assembly had started to fall apart!

It took a while to work out what all the broken pieces of the assembly and where they belonged

Aside from being utterly livid because I had said that they should check the correct assembly before doing it as it was different, I was distraught at having yet another problem to deal with.  I was still running with an intermittent power problem that was a total mystery, so this was just about finishing me off.

Fortunately I discovered this parked outside a hotel where we had stopped for breakfast.  The manager as an absolute angel, and very calm and confident that a solution would be found.  He drove me around town find bits and people, and finally at 8pm at night we had finished the fix.

Well met by the bikers of Harare – such a huge relief after such a difficult journey!

So next morning, once again we set off. I was determined this time we were going to enter a capital city on our own wheels instead of a truck, like the last 3.  We stopped 3 times due to power, but persisted, and were happily met by Natalie and the bikers to be escorted in.  Such a happy moment, and wonderful that others could observe what was happening with the bike.  It was embarrassing then to discover that reason for the next to power losses, were due to no petrol!

The main things was, that we made it.  Limping as we were, we arrived in Harare on our own wheels, and even better, surrounded by new friends ready to help sort out our problems.  It was a time to celebrate!

 

 

 

Tanzania Transit

Finally we were in Tanzania.  For a moment I thought we would never leave Kenya, that somehow Jungle Junction was the Hotel California of Africa, but we escaped and were once again on our way south towards our destination – East London, South Africa.

We entered Tanzania with 2 main changes to our plan.  The first was the decision to only take a transit visa, giving us 7 days to cross the country.  The second was not to go directly to Mozambique.  The former in an effort to save time and money, and the latter because news had come that there was trouble in Northern Mozambique and that it may be too risky to cross.

Stopping for a drink after crossing to border – we were both happy to be on the move again.

We were not without a plan in Tanzania either.  During our stay at Jungle Junction, we met many different people and received many different invitations to visit, many of which we were unable to take up, however, one we were.  It was to visit the Eastern Usambara Mountains and its rain forests.  When I mentioned rain forest to Sofia, she became very excited – she had never seen a rain forest before and was now on a mission to visit.

However, it didn’t prove so easy.  We entered Tanzania at a quiet border with no touts selling SIM cards, and a border town that had no SiM cards to sell!   I had sent an email ahead but was unable to determine if we were expected or not with no phone or internet! This was important as the road up the mountain was particularly difficult, and it was suggested that it would be better to leave the bike and be driven up.

A lab tech working hard at the research station!

It was not until the following day of travel, after asking many times and being misunderstood equally many times, that finally the SIM card was in the phone.  The vague meeting day that had been discussed was that very day, and so Sofia was left on tender hooks as we waited for contact to be made.

Finally the call came through, and we were on our way to the meeting point.  Well met, Bernard, our host, helped find a safe location for the bike to rest up, and we made our way up the mountain to the house.  Sofia was transfixed.  I have never seen her so engaged by her environment, soaking in every tree and vine.  The house we found on the top of a mountain, in the middle of a medical research station built by the Germans over 100 years ago, and expanded by the Brits in the 1940s.  Today the station is officially still operable, but there was little evidence of activity, and the directors house was now rented out to Bernard and his wife and daughter.

A beautiful place to have a picnic

This was a beautifully peaceful place with stunning views.  We took a walk on an afternoon and discovered that along with the Directors house, there were many other cottages dotted around the landscape to house researchers and their families back in the day.  All are available to rent at ridiculous prices considering many didn’t have water supply and the electric supply was crumbling on old pylons and extremely erratic at best.  The houses them selves, like the main house, were extremely well build and had stood the test of time practically unscathed by the tropical climate, but now abandoned, it would now be a matter of years before they finally give up as they have been given up on.

Whilst there we took a drive to a scenic spot for a picnic lunch, stopping along the way to learn about the various herbs and spices that now grow wild and cultivated, sustaining the local population.  We also drove through a tea plantation that was still growing and cutting gum trees to burn and dry out the tea.  The road was very rough, but it was worth it – the view at the picnic spot was astounding looking across to the Usambara Mountains and the floor of the Rift Valley that stretched to the horizon.

Too soon, too soon, it was time to leave this space/time warp and return to the road.  We had spent 3 nights in this wonderful place, and now had only 3 nights left to make it to the border.

We returned to the bike and set off on the hot ride for our first nights stop.  Along the route, for what seemed a strange reason to me, we had a problem with the 2 wheel drive and had to fix the leaver to the frame with wire to stop it locking hard on which made it impossible to drive.   At this point I didn’t make any connection to the missing bolt I had noticed before.  The second day of driving changed that dramatically.  We were ahead of time having driven in the early hours of the morning, when suddenly the 2 wheel drive locked on and it seemed to be doing it independently of the leaver.  It took about 2 seconds for me to notice that the location of the missing bolt had resulted in the frame to final drive alignment to have moved and worse a section of the frame was now broken.

Our early morning drive reaped rewards! 

A local fundi (Swahili for ‘fixer’) was called and he found a bolt to fix back into the bike.  This fixed the 2wd problem, however, the damage was done, and the bolt popped out within 5 mins, 2wd snapped on again and we could no longer move.   The fundi wanted to do the full fix, but knowing it would likely create more problems, I asked him to fix it so we could make it to the border.  So he got a new bolt, and then fixed it to the frame with wire so it couldn’t pop out.

Setting off with this temporary fix was a nervous moment, as I was told that there would be at least two hours drive with no reception on the phone!  but we had to go, and with wobbly rear wheel and wire holding us in place, we set off once more.  We were now in contact with a biker group in Lusaka and I let them know the situation.  Immediately they arranged a recovery vehicle to collect us when we crossed the border.  A huge worry off my mind.

The fundi works on plan B for getting the bike to Zambia

Somehow, the bike made it.  It was clear the bolt hadn’t held in itself, but the wire was doing its job despite sections of the road being horribly bumpy, not to mention the speed bumps in every village.  With every jolt, I held my breath expecting the 2 wheel drive to come back on.  It didn’t.  We made it to the border. We crossed the border. 3km from the border the wire had finally stretched enough for the 2wd to lock in and we could drive no more.

Well done to the fundi in tanzania, and thank you to the bikers in Lusaka who arranged the recovery.  All we needed to do now was wait.

Post Script:

I would like to thank Zambezi Bikers, Ginty Melvill (FIM North Africa Branch Chairman), and in particular Bobbie van de Merwe for sponsoring our recovery from the Zambian border.

 

 

 

 

 

Kenya – The Low Point

We spent a 4 weeks in Kenya, and almost all of it was in Nairobi!  One would think that this would have been a great time to relax and unwind, but sadly the opposite was true.

When your mode of transport becomes inoperable, it is stressful, and crossing borders in this condition only compounds this, so it was with relief that we arrived at Jungle Junction, on the raving recommendations of travellers, to rest up and have the bike fixed.  Indeed, the bike was worked on, and the primary fault fixed within a number of days, however, it became apparent that more needed to be done, and this is when we hit a wall.

Jungle Junction has a constant flow of overlanders with their various vehicles needing attention.  Sadly however, any bike that requires more that superficial attentions tends to go to the bottom of the priority pile.  And so we waited. I did some work on it and resolved a fault, desperate for progress. And the stress started to build.  The head mechanic, and owner of the establishment, eventually pulled out the stops and worked on a Sunday to resolve the problem.  But it didn’t help my levels of stress to hear the bike being referred to as scrap metal!  Negative attitudes to a job invariably lead to negative results.

The fault was found and resolved.  And despite the sound not being 100%, the machine worked and I wanted to get back on the road.  I don’t remember why we delayed the test ride a couple of days, but finally on the Wednesday we were riding to Nakuru, a good distance to ensure that any further problems would have a chance to show.  The results of the test told me all was not perfect, but the expense both in time an money thus far was too high, and it would be better to start moving South again.

The Saturday morning, I started to get ready to leave, checked the oil and tappets, the latter because after the still recent (in terms of kilometres) rebuild and suspected valve not seating properly.  This is when I discover they had been redone for the compression test and done incorrectly.   This was too much for me! utterly desperate to get going, and risk that damage had been done to a valve!

I freaked in a thousand directions, burst in to tears a few times, and generally looked decidedly unstable for about half an hour as I contacted a new mechanic to check the valves, get them ground in properly which we didn’t have the kit to do in Addis.  Things that had actually been requested and not done, and whilst it still clearly needed doing had decided to stop wasting money waiting – but now was an absolute necessity to do.

It turns out later, in conversation with another waiting motorcyclists, and perhaps as a result of what was going on with me, that the head mechanic was now saying that he was not prepared to take responsibility for taking apart cylinders and doing valves.  Well I wish he had said something like that to me when I arrived!  We would have been on the road 2 weeks sooner and saved a lot of money!

The new mechanic, Rick, did a fantastic job with the valves – and thankfully the unseated valve showed no signs of damage and was once again reseated properly. Although the prognosis was a cylinder head replacement would be needed at the end of the trip as a seat was worn.

A window opened in the clouds and showed us the summit of Kilimanjaro – beautiful!  

Finally we found ourselves back on the road and heading South, with an engine that has never sounded so smooth!  There were a couple of concerns as we headed for the border to Tanzania, but ultimately my fear of spending any more time in Nairobi kepting biting our heels and we kept going, with Rick accepting my panicky phone calls and putting my mind to rest.

We spent one more night in Kenya, and then crossed the border, an exact month to the day that we crossed the border into Kenya.  I have never been so happy to leave a country, and yet so sad that we never really had an opportunity to explore it a little.

We spent our last night at a lodge owned an run the local Masai.  It was a beautiful spot!

A Mazungu in a Mutatu

We have now been in Kenya for almost a month and practically the entire time has been in Nairobi waiting for the the bike to be good to get back on the road. I hope now that in the next few days the wait will be over and we will no longer be mazungus (white skinned) in a mutatu (mini bus public transport)

The inside experience of a mutatu! blurred as it raced over bumpy roads, and packed to the rafters with people – thankfully it was only a short ride to the local shopping centre!

So what has happened in this last month? From an autism perspective, we have met with a couple of charities in Nairobi. The founder of Autism Society of Kenya and principle advocate in Kenyan government, Felicity, met us for lunch and we found out about the remarkable progress that she has made in the last 10 years in terms of getting recognition for Autism in the Education Ministry, and on the day we met, how she received her first email from the Health Ministry acknowledging the need for a committee to be established to identify the needs presented by autism. Felicity has also been involved with outreach programmes but is constantly struggling to find sufficient funding to continue this work.

Knowing the struggle to get any recognition for autism in Africa, it was nothing short of a miracle to hear her story. She puts much of her success down to her previous involvement within government (from a nutrition education standpoint) which has helped her to understand the process, and effectively identify the contacts, follow the right processes, and use her her existing reputation as an expert to ensure that she is heard. Behind all of this however, is her drive an commitment to establishing an effective support system for autism that springs from her grandson’s diagnosis. Indeed, it was only through taking him physically to the registration office to register the charity, that she was able to convince the registrar that autism was real so that the charity would be registered.

I also had the opportunity to meet (albeit briefly) another star on the autism scene in Nairobi, James. Having worked with children with autism in New York, he returned to Kenya committed to helping families affected by autism. Setting up the Autism Support Centre, James works to help parents by bringing them together, providing information, and helping to apply pressure to get more support for their children. I was kindly invited to attend a parents group on a Saturday morning to speak a little about what Sofia and I were doing. I wasn’t the only speaker, as other parents where also invited to speak with the subject of discussion being Autism and Sexuality.

A full house of parents in attendence

It was a wonderful experience and really interesting to hear about the cultural challenges that parents were facing and wonderful to see a couple of the speakers being fathers, as well as a number of fathers in the the audience. On this particular subject line major concerns included sexual abuse of the child due to their increased vulnerability, and accusations of harassment (perhaps hugging strangers, or staring inappropriately) in a country where very few people outside the community have any knowledge or understanding and the law does not take any account of disability when considering a case should it be brought to court. The primary message however was hope, hope for the mothers who’s husbands refused to be involved, hope for parents concerned about the future and how they will cope, hope that despite autism, that into adult life there was every opportunity for their children to experience normality – as one parent put it: I am still hopeful that my son will find love and get married, even if it means his wife will live with us I will be a very happy man.

 

All in all, this time in Nairobi has been about interesting people. We have been staying at a major overland rest stop and mechanic shop, and whilst Sofia has been doing her utmost to make up for lost TV time both past and future, I have been regaled with wonderful travel stories – from the guy who was asked for the police report for his stolen car because he may have stolen it from himself, to the couple who seemed to have more than their fare share of break downs and improvised solutions like using margarine as grease, draining a pond of water because they were stuck in it, and a ranger vehicle running out petrol on them as it was coming to rescue them from the bush! But the time has definitely come to leave, as I become more frustrated with the stagnation and concerned about the finances, and judgements are starting to be made about my lack of control over Sofia’s TV obsession by the longer term punters of the Jungle Junction establishment. Judgemental strangers is part of what it is to be a parent of autism, as few people take the time to find out more about why things might be the way they are and even less interested to accept autism as a valid reason to any behaviour that they personally disapprove of. Yes I definitely feel it is time to go! 😀

Taking the carburettors apart and fixing the issue of petrol flooding into the cylinders

Please donate to help us raise awareness from autism – with the cost of fixes to the bike we are now very low on funds, so please donate even a couple of dollars and it will see us getting a few extra kilometres down the road – http://uk.virginmoneygiving.com/charity-web/charity/finalCharityHomepage.action?charityId=1005498

Stuck on the Side of the Road – Again!

Well what can I say, it seems almost repetitive to say we were stuck on the side of the road, but there we were, making a run for the border with a day to spare, and we lost all power.  First I thought it we had run out of fuel, but topping it up, it was clear that it wasn’t.  Then I thought is was compression, and discovered one of the cylinders was full of fuel.

Whilst I suspected all wasn’t well with the bike, I really believed we would make it to the border and didn’t top up the phone card and couldn’t even contact the mechanic to see what else I could do. So every vehicle that passed, I flagged down and asked for a tow to the border, but none were going that far, so the best option was to return to Yebello.  It eventually turned out to be the French tourists in their 4×4 with guide and driver who passed us on the road earlier, who we stopped to have a chat with, who had passed us again and were now on their way back to Yabello for the night, who towed our sorry bike to a place where a truck would be much easier to find should we need one to get to the border.

We were being well looked after by 4 local boys who helped flag down cars etc to get us a tow – and NGO that stopped was concerned about out location, but to be honest we were always met helpfulness.  Whilst I wasn’t keen to linger, I didn’t feel in any danger either.

Armed with phone credit, I got in touch with Mick our mechanic, who instructed me to clean carbs thoroughly, and check the timing device.  Carbs cleaned just as it got dark, and no improvement in the bike. The next morning, I checked the interrupter and that seemed fine too.  So without further consultation, I arranged a truck.  Getting across the border was a higher priority now.

Truck found, price agreed, I thought we would be on road to Kenya, but 3 hours later, we found ourselves outside the house of the local transport official where her mother was persuaded to allow the driver to complete the necessary documents and sign it in her absence.  The legality obviously questionable, but when you in a hurry, you gotta do what you gotta do.

Searching the back streets of Yabello trying to find the transport officer who wasn’t answering her phone!

Finally we were on the road to Moyales with Ethiopian folk music quietly playing in the back ground, whilst I tried to ignore the vulnerability of the situation we were in terms of crossing the border handicapped by a bike that didn’t work.

Yay! we are in Kenya.  The photo doesn’t show it but by this point of travelling 5 days of which two days off road and breaking down and trucking, Sofia’s last t-shirt looked like it had been washed in a dried out river as did all her others!   I wasn’t actually able to get washing done until Nairobi!  

As soon as we arrived, with 2 hours to spare, the haggling commenced on how much for a bunch of guys to get the bike off the truck and local fixer/guide/helper/money changer extraordinaire made himself known and pointed me in all the right directions to documents stamped, fingerprints taken and photos logged.  Surprisingly, Ethiopia customs and immigration processed us quickly, and by 4.30pm I was encouraging the bike pushers to push harder to get the bike up the hill to the Kenyan customs and immigration.

Parked out side the police station right by the boarder gate where I worked on the bike for a day.  The policemen where really nice and kinda took me under their wing a bit, making sure I got a decent mechanic, wasn’t over charged, and shooed away people if the crown got too big.

Finally we were in Kenya, and a feeling of safe in terms of visas!  The next day, I worked on the bike, still on the side of the road.  I sent the tank off to be cleaned, double/triple cleaned the carbs, and changed the oil yet again.  So back to the timer, and found that it had moved about half a cm.  Right on the border of Kenya and Ethiopia as not the place to find solutions, and despite the best efforts of the local mechanic, he clearly didn’t have tools or the right experience, and so another truck was arranged and it was time to go the Jungle Junction in Nairobi where a good mechanic and a great location beckoned us.

Crossing the Equator on our way down to Nairobi – in the back ground is the truck carrying Sofia ( who was tired and sleepy and not impressed with the occasion!) and the bike.