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Published: August 25th 2006
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Nellies
Crossing the road in front of us at Livingstone NOTE: THIS TOUR WAS A RECCE FOR MOTOAVENTURES WHO WILL BE OFFERING THE CAPETOWN TO ZANZIBAR AS OF JUNE 2007, FOR MORE INFORMATION:
WWW.MOTOAVENTURES.COM 21 days, 8 244 kms, 5 countries and millions of pot holes later - Tom nearly missed one!
We got in to Dar in great time after a quick stop in Morogoro, where Nina (Jens’s mum) was born, to find the city of Dar Es Salaam, a huge bustling city with busy people all over the place. We knew then that the tour was over, it was time to celebrate our safe arrival from the wild and cold Atlantic Ocean to the beautiful peaceful Indian Ocean. It didn’t actually sink in until Tommy left yesterday morning for Zanzibar to meet his family. That’s it for now, all the great memories are now engraved in our minds. They are a part of our past. After living in each other’s pockets for a month, sharing an amazing once in a lifetime experience, forming new friendships, time to head back to reality…
It really has been a wonderful journey, we’ve been very lucky in many aspects, seen plenty of wildlife in this last half of
the trip and our reliable KTM’s did a fantastic job, even being way overloaded!
These last ten days have been my favourite, through Zambia, Malawi and Tanzania which all feel a lot more “African” than South Africa and Namibia.
We got very lost in the bush along lake Kariba, where the “road” marked on the map turns out to be a foot path with very difficult stretches (all adds to the true Africa experience hey!) and ended up giving up and turning around after a few attempts at different forks and landing in a village which I am sure had never seen a motorised vehicle and 6 lost Msungus (white men). This put us back a day in our schedule.
We had a great day off at South Luangwa National Park after another attempt along impossible tracks, turning round, going the long way and driving in the dark. Our safari tents were surrounded by wildlife, baboons everywhere, hippo and elephant strolling around - truly fantastic! We had an early morning safari walk at sunrise where we had a couple of close encounters and a game drive at sundown. The only disappointment was not to have seen any
of the big cats, except for a quick glimpse from afar of a lion and his lady.
Lake Malawi was also spectacular, you have to keep reminding yourself it’s a lake, it’s massive with lovely white sandy beaches all along and the Malawians are lovely happy smiling people.
The last 4 days turned into a race to the Indian Ocean, we skipped our last day off, and managed to get here 2 days ahead of schedule!!
The drive through Tanzania was lovely, through gorgeous mountain ranges through Tea and sugar cane plantations, massive plains and plenty of vegetation.
The image which has stuck with all of us are the children, they have absolutely nothing, yet in all the towns, they would run up to the side of the road after hearing a different sound of motor to wave like mad, singing with excitement, jumping up and down. It touched us and would get us all excited and wave back wishing them good luck as I imagine they were wishing us a Good Journey, even some of the adults would act this way!!!
The prize to funniest moment is a tie between Dad and Jens:
Dad,
The day we got lost
The road started off like so... talking to some people from Israel “so you chose a good time to be out of Israel then…”
Jens, decides to pull in at a turnoff to wait for the others, a stoned chap riding his bicycle gets knocked down the bank, turns around and gives Jens a really cool thumbs up!! And he was wearing a bright orange t-shirt… Tut tut tut Jens…
The only bike who’s handle bars didn’t touch the ground once: Tommy!! Although the group votes his bike as most damaged suspension…. Hmmm…
Our last day, we set off at the crack of dawn to a magical moment when driving through Mikumi National park, within the first 10 kms, the sun rising and herds of wildebeest, zebra, impala and giraffe crossed the road in front of us, ran along side us, very special indeed! A great farewell!!
Dad and I off sailing round the islands this afternoon and Saturday with Dad's God Father and familly, really looking forward to it!
TTFN, loads of love to all and can't wait to see most of you very soon!!
Sas xxx
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Dave H
non-member comment
Wow!
Inspiring! Starting to make my feet itch too. Fabulous experience, you're so lucky! Give me a shout when you're in Bath - look forward to hearing all about it first hand! xxx