Cape Town at last
It was wonderful to finally be back in Cape Town again. The flight from Seattle to the bottom of Africa was as long if not longer than my past trips to South Africa, I say this every time.
This time I flew via London where I met up with two of my traveling mates, Vincent Cummings and Dan Moore that came in from Canada and Cleveland. After a 7 hours layover, in London, we headed to Cape Town on the same plane. Roger Hansen, our 4th member of this motorcycle journey flew from Florida and would arrive a few hours later than us in Cape Town.
Leading up to the departure date there has been long nights and many challenges putting together this expedition so it was with great relief to be on the way with no return in sight until Cairo, Egypt. We will be riding a distance of approximately 10,000 miles or 16,000 kilometer from Cape to Cairo with 68 days to do the journey.
If you ever have been to Cape Town I am sure that you agree with me that this is one of the most picturesque cities in the world. Situated at the bottom of Africa with the famous Table Mountain as a backdrop to downtown Cape Town and the infamous Robin Island, where Nelson Mandela was in captivity for 26 years, just a 30 minutes bout ride away.
We spent our first days at a hotel at the Waterfront, collected our bikes from the shipping agent, met with Harry, our partner for any of GlobeRiders Adventures to Africa, and tried to enjoy the beautiful weather.
Talking about weather, we had made reservations to go Shark Cage diving on our second day in Cape Town, but unfortunately the was to grate even though the sky was clear the dive was cancelled.
As we head North out of Cape Town we enjoy a cool clear day with magnificent vistas and a great appreciation for finally being on the road again. I can’t express how lucky and privileged that I feel to be able to ride like this with 3 good friends. I am very excited to spend the next 2 months on the road together.
Greetings,
Helge Pedersen
Damara People and Cheetah’s
We are fresh out of Rhino Camp Road and that late morning stop in to what is called a living museum where we find a tribe of Damara people. I have been visiting this living museum in the past and found it fascinating.
The people are very friendly and it is an excellent opportunity to get educated about their traditional way of living.
Last time that I visited with them I took a lot of pictures so I had made sure to bring copies of many of the pictures I took and handed these over to them, they loved it and now remember the last GlobeRiders visit.
They even recall that some of them got a ride on our bikes back to their village where they live.
The village that we visit is a markup of the traditional village they used to build as a nomadic tribe of Namibia. Our guide speaks in a clear English voice that makes it easy for us to understand and carry a conversation.
She translates as a young woman speaks in their local language which contains a distinct clicking noise as many of you might recall from the film “The Good’s must be crazy”.
HP
Fish River Canyon, Namibia
Namibia is one of my favorite countries to ride my bike. The main reason is that the country has so many good dirt roads, high speed wide open dirt roads, technical rocky roads, sandy tracks and if that is to much for you there is always sealed roads that you can retreat too, but what fun is that?
Fish River Canyon is in the southern part of Namibia and according to our books it is a little smaller than Gran Canyon in the US. We spend a whole day exploring the area and I take the guys on a back road that is bound to test everyone’s off-road skills. We left all of our luggage at the lodge which has made riding much easier, but still the rocky and at times steep roads demands everyone’s full attention.
The first spill of the journey happens on this journey as Dan rides a steep hill as if his BMW HP2 was a wild bronco. Vincent explain the scene referring to Dan’s master way of rolling as he hits the ground and then jumps up expressing a few select words before they get the bike straight.
A “normal” person would then get the bike straight to the direction of the road, but Dan beats to a different drum and accelerate out from his position with a sharp left hand turn and of he goes up the last part of the steep rocky hill.
In the late afternoon we take a 4x4 natural interpretation drive put on by the lodge to learn a little more about the area we are traveling through. It is a wonderful experience and as a photographer I really enjoy he opportunities to photograph the landscape it flora and fauna and the occasional Spring Clipper as they bounce from rock to rock.
HP
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