90 days Cape to Cairo on 200cc Motomias

Highlights from Malawi 21 – 28 September 2011 – Crossing Africa (a journey from Cape to Cairo)

We loved travelling through Malawi on our Crossing Africa trip. There were many highlights so it was difficult to choose them. Here is a pic of our route we took through Malawi:

To read all our daily blog posts during this time, please visit our Malawi section

Tania’s highlight – When we arrived at Mayoka village in Nkhata Bay, they upgraded us to a bungalow for the same price as a campsite! The bungalow overlooks the beautiful Lake Malawi and this remains one of the coolest places we stayed at during our trip. The snorkelling was awesome and it was too difficult to resist the pizzas at the beach bar/restaurant. Trekking crocodiles with Juma in the Nkhotakota Nature Reserve was also a real treat.

Tania’s lowlight – I read a lot about the little town Livingstonia (named after David Livingstone) and the Mushroom farm in Malawi (just past Mzuzu). It is situated way up a mountain and the only road leading there is a terrible gravel road. We wanted to go and check it out, but we could only manage about two kilometres before we decided to turn back. I am positive that our bikes would have made it, but with us still having about 10 000 km to go on this trip we didn’t want to risk hurting the bikes.

Favourite Pic – This pic was taken with our GoPro while snorkelling in Lake Malawi

 

 

Francois’s highlight - Being offered a bungalow for the price of a campsite at Mayoka Village in Nkhata Bay (see video). Also, baking roosterkoeke on a fire at Senga Bay. And meeting Solomo next to the road while having lunch.

 Francois’s lowlight - This is a difficult one as Malawi is such an amazing place with such amazing people. The worst experience was probably when the owner of Mzoozoozoo yelled at the guy working in the kitchen. What a rude old man.

Favourite pic - view at Senga Bay

 YouTube video:

We have put together a short video clip of us snorkelling in Lake Malawi at Mayoka Village in Nkhata Bay - enjoy!

 

Malawi GPS Profile:

More stats will be published in our book :o)

Zambia Highlights 14 - 21 September 2011 - Crossing Africa

Here is our route through Zambia:

Click here to read all our blog posts from our time in Zambia.

Francois’s highlight: Meeting Jeremie and Claire from France on their bicycles just outside Lusaka. We had a lovely lunch next to the road with them and listened to their stories of cycling down West Africa. Then, after lunch, they played some music for us on their accordions. It was a great lesson, seeing them so relaxed, in taking it easy and not rushing the trip. Seeing elephants just outside Livingstone was another highlight.

Favourite pic: Frenchies playing their accordions.

Francois’s lowlight: This has to be when we stayed in Chipata for two night during the national elections and we saw an entourage of about 20 4x4’s coming into Mamarula’s where we stayed. We didn’t go and ask what was going on until after they’ve left when we learnt it was then-president Banda coming over for breakfast. Ge’s good friends of the owners and they said he would have met with us if we came over to say hi. The lowlight was learning this too late, as it would have been great to meet him!

Tania’s highlight: I loved meeting Jeremie and Claire, the French couple on bicycles. They were such an inspiration and I was utterly impressed with their crate of vegetables strapped to the back of Claire's bike and the basil they kept trying to grow in a small tin attached to the frame of the bike. The other highlight of Zambia was definitely seeing Vic Falls for the first time. And yes, the elephants roaming next to the road in Livingstone was absolutely awesome too.

Favourite pic: I like this photo of Francois and Boyd very much. He is the Steers delivery guy and we enjoyed chatting to him about the bikes. 

Tania’s lowlight: The day we left for the border between Zambia and Malawi we stopped to refuel at a small petrol station in Chipata. As I was sitting on the bike waiting for a pump to become available my right foot slipped on some oil and slam bam I fell over my bike, ass over head. It was quite a show. The petrol station was very crowded and all witnessed this fall with great interest. At that time it wasn't funny at all and my ego was bruised, but if I had to do it over I would have jumped up, made a small bow and said "Tadaaa!" as I smiled. Funny how your perspective change after completing a trip like this. I definitely try and take myself a bit less serious now...  

Zambia Trip Stats:

Distance: 1 375 km
Time: 6 days, 21 hours, 6 minutes, 48 seconds
Highest point: 1 350.3 m
Lowest point: 363.1 m
Maximum speed: 97 km/h
Fuel consumption (Francois & Tania): You will unfortunately have to wait for the Crossing Africa book to come out for this (Along with other detailed information e.g. the accommodation and food budgets)

Video of Claire and Jeremie in action playing their accordians:

 

Highlights from Namibia 7 - 14 September 2011

Namibia is one of the most exciting and beautiful countries to travel through by motorcycle. The roads are good, the scenery stunning and with the exception of the Caprivi very quiet in terms of traffic and people. Here we also camped at some of the most beautiful campsites during our journey from Cape to Cairo.

Here is our route through Namibia:

To see our blogposts during this time please click here.

Here are our highlights and lowlights in Namibia.

Frannie’s highlight: The highlight for me was when we met Charley Boorman in Divundu. We struggled the whole morning to find 3G reception and ended up in Divundu, exhausted after battling the deep sand tracks to Ngepi Lodge. When we rode into the garage to fill our tanks I saw this lone bikes on a BMW1200GS. When he turned around I recognised Charley and we had a great chat and took some photos with him. Later his group of bikers he was leading from Vic Falls to Cape Town arrived. What a nice bunch of chaps.

I also enjoyed sleeping under the stars at Bagatelle Lodge near Mariental and I loved the bushveld surroundings of Roy’s Restcamp near Grootfontein.

Frannie’s lowlight: Our stay in Otjiwarongo was spoilt by a run in with diamond smugglers. I started chatting to three friendly chaps and they asked whether I’d like to do business with them and offered me some diamonds to take on the trip. They said I can send the money to them and asked for my number. Then they asked me to go out with them to look for ladies. I politely declined and we left as early as we could the following morning.

Another disappointment was when we didn’t make it to Kwando River Camp before sunset and had to stay at Bum Hill. It was already dark when we got there and the camp was pretty deserted.

Francois's favourite photo was this one taken with Charley Boorman in Divindu:

Tania's highlight: I absolutely fell in love with the campsite at Bagatelle close to Marienthal in Namibia. We slept under the stars and woke up between red sand dunes and bushveld. The spoor all over our campsite that morning showed that we had a few four-legged friends visiting us during the night.

Another highlight was spotting an elephant roaming freely around next to the road in the Caprivi. The sun was setting and the sighting incredible.

Tania's lowlight: Namibia's sandy roads really got to me and a number of times I ended up face down in the sand. Die Burger even published our article with the heading "Tania val vas in die kalaharisand". Somehow the sand proved to be the most difficult off-road terrain for me, but later I got the hang of it. And yes, I agree with Francois, the experience at Otjiwarongo was very very interesting!

It is difficult to choose my favourite photo in Namibia as there were so many, but I really liked this photo of the bikes in Namibia.

Namibia Trip Stats:

Distance: 2 331 km

Time: 7 day, 2 hours, 12 minutes, 55 seconds

Highest point: 1 927.1 m

Lowest point: +-135 m

Maximum speed: 98 km/h

Fuel consumption (Francois): 29.3 km/l

Fuel consumption (Tania): 35.3 km/l

 

 

During our time in Namibia we took some video footage with our GoPro camera. I have selected some interesting frames from some of the videos and it is presented below in a slideshow format - enjoy!