Advertisement
Published: February 23rd 2006
Edit Blog Post
Yuba
our first of many mechanic 'friends'... No quantity nor quality of our combined wits, water, crackers and immodium could have prevented or led us out of our motorcycle maintenance problems. (Maybe that’s a little bit of an overstatement…it is amazing how one little thing ‘let go’ snowballs rather quickly.) … but generally speaking…riding a 21-year-old 600 motorcycle through West Africa is bound to land one in some predicaments.
As in the past on my motorcycle adventures in Senegal and The Gambia, the occasional breakdown lends one’s life to often precious interactions with ‘the locals’ - you get to see what’s in a person, a village, a culture. When two pathetic toubabs are broken down with their monster machine in the middle of nowhere, people here tend to come through. Whether self-proclaimed mechanics or not, they do have the best intentions, usually.
So, par for the course, our travels through Mali (with a cherry-topping one-day-from-home breakdown on the way back in Senegal) included bike breakdowns (um, catastrophes) and mental meltdowns.
Though the list of odds and ends that broke, malfunctioned or well, fell off….could easily fill the space of a few paragraphs alone, I’ll highlight the ones I have some photographic proof of.
Our
hand pumps
attendant cranked, craig held first bump was in Kayes, just two days out of Dakar. Kayes is the first major city you hit heading east into Mali from Senegal, and has quite a lot of hustle and bustle - as well as the occasional other 600 moto around. We stayed on the town outskirts, in the building of the regional radio station, and woke the next morning to a dead bike.
Craig headed off to town with some guy from the radio station and managed to fetch a mechanic, Yuba. A looming man with a kind smile, slick black shades, and unlaced hiking boots. I knew we would be o.k. We ended up at Yuba's shop in town, having a new battery installed (and I got me my first mini-lesson on motorcycle-riding. Craig convinced another mechanic at the shop to let us borrow his Yamaha 100 for practice spins…I know it’s just a 100, but it was a real thrill for me to FINALLY have the kinesthetic experience of startin’ yer up and makin’ yer go!)
Onwards.
Getting gas was usually a novel experience - each pit-stop a mini-adventure. Most station pumps had a trick of some sort (if there were
dr jekyl's laboratory
one of the more freakish set-ups...the pink gas pumping into a glass container...this 'station' run by a woman no less! a station, or pump, at all) - sometimes the attendant hand-pumped - and Craig had to undo the cap and hold the hose while it was filling; sometimes the gas was in little containers on the side of the road and looked like nothing more than gigantic tubs of balsamic vinegar; sometimes, it was pink. And always, one had to make sure it was truly ‘essence’ and not diesel or some other mystery liquid. It was amazing what we ran into (or, ran out of…oops! just once…and some local kids helped us out and tracked 2 kilometers back to get us some gas!).
The other constant thing was oil maintenance. After coming across numerous incompetent ‘mechanics’ and gas station attendants, Craig got to doing the business himself...checking, adding, and actually changing. I assisted here or there - enough to get oil under my fingernails (caked in with all of the dust, grease and grime already inhabiting my cuticles).
The big doozy, well, two actually - both occurred in the far east reaches of Mali - both within 200 kilometers of Timboctou (coincidence?).
The first one I’ll keep short, because it was less about the bike rescue and
like a bat out of hell
i was a lean mean driving machine (um, in first gear only) on this 100... more about the Craig & Kathryn rescue coming in another blog. That first breakdown en route to Timboctou was the chain popping off and becoming stuck inbetween other bike parts (my moto vocab still isn’t up to par - though I can name most parts in French at this point!). I flagged down some toubabs in an SUV (ok, danced like a crazy woman and BEGGED as they flew past)…and the Malian driver and guide just happened to have the size wrench we needed. They let us hang on to it with the promise of dropping it at their hotel in Timboctou later that day!
The most monstrous of our breakdowns caused all sorts of strife: monetary, security and interpersonal (not only Craig and I head to head at solutions, but dealing with people whom we couldn’t really trust, arguing with mechanics and other shifty characters, etc.). To make a long string of dominoes short, we found ourselves 800 kilometers from the capital city (with not even a promise of a mechanic, or parts, being there really) with a bum bike, not a lot of cash, and not much bargaining power. (More on that 800 kilometer trip in the
my hero
the most thorough and resourceful mechanic, moussa from bamako, used scrap paper (hanging from mirror) to rig up sealants for our newly reassembled engine... future.)
We arrived in Bamako, Mali's capital, after driving through the night in the back of a ‘car rapide’ we hired to transport us and our 1/2 ton lemon. Enter: Moussa. Definitely he became my biggest hero of the trip, and the best mechanic around. Thorough. Honest. Competent. And African…meaning, resourceful. Down to the minutest detail. And, assuring in his silence. I literally sat and watched him for three days straight - with the occasional jaunt to the patisserie or a lounge chair. The man took out every nut and bolt of our engine. Craig was sure Humpty was never going to be able to be put back together again. I had more faith.
And how interesting to watch an entire engine and transmission be taken apart. I mean, in the 8th grade, we had to study car engines, I think. And I’ve had enough parts break on my own cars to have some idea of how it works (or, at least, what can break and how much it costs to repair!). But this was something else.
And, of course, it did get put back together again. And off we went…and cruised until just a few hundred
innards
hm...what's missing here? kilometers from Dakar…when a small line of dominoes was set off again. Another roadside village to be stranded in. Another gaggle of onlookers. Another day of me trying not to gawk, but stealing glances of daily life. Another barrage of smiling, curious and playful children. Another set of self-proclaimed mechanics. Another day of exasperation and hunting for edibles beyond biscuits and water (one time I found canned pineapple, yes!). Another day of understanding what being out there, vulnerable, and perhaps being stupid really means…
And last week, I understood the happiness of being rid of the 600. I’m happy to report, the bike got its new owner. So now he can have his game of dominoes as he drives it back to his hometown, somewhere in the middle Mali, of course!
Advertisement
Tot: 0.319s; Tpl: 0.015s; cc: 16; qc: 78; dbt: 0.1636s; 1; m:domysql w:travelblog (10.17.0.13); sld: 1;
; mem: 1.2mb