Africa 30 November 2022 to 30 July 2023

Baobab tree Africa

A friend asked me, just before I left for Africa, what I hoped to see there. I replied without thinking “rolling savannahs, beautiful sunsets and wild animals. But I saw and felt much more. Mama Africa opened herself up to me and showed me something really beautiful. She showed me her people in all their glory. Black, coloured and white. She showed me her wild life. She showed me beautiful nature from deserts to jungle to mountains to savannahs to beaches to lakes, she showed me her beautiful night skies, sunrises and sunsets. Showed me how her people lived in and on her land.

Lindi, Tanzania. Old Dhow fishing village

She showed me their cultures, their beliefs, their hopes, desires, despairs and their pain. She showed me their laughs, smiles and welcoming, trusting nature. She showed me their ability to forgive and forget and to get on with living. Their ability to bounce back from devastating plagues, epidemics, forces of nature, war, terrorism, corrupt governments and poverty. Their ability, despite all that, to smile and laugh and welcome strangers with an open heart and no malice.

Africa for me was travelling through the little villages, waving back at the children and the people that greeted me as I rode past. Sitting on the dusty side of the road eating with the locals and laughing and talking to them.

Eating with the locals at on the Kabala-Kisoro Road, Uganda

Watching the sun setting on different landscapes, from savannahs with acacia trees, to lakes and to oceans.

Lake Kariba, Zimbabwe

Vast open deserts of Namibia, open savannahs with wild life roaming freely Botswana.

Dunes of Namibia

Blue wildebeest of Namibia

Elephant Sands Botswana

An incredible new years with the locals in the Kingdom in the sky, Lesotho.  A glimpse into the ancient past of seafarers and the silk trail, the ancient ruins of Zimbabwe, Zanzibar and Tanzania. The sheer power of water, Victoria falls, Zambia and Zimbabwe. The power and the goodness in people that prevails and unites them even after mass genocide… Rwanda. Experiencing the smiles, friendship and the hospitality from the people in one of the poorest countries on the continent, Malawi.

Local fisherman selling their ware on Lake Malawi

The pearl of Africa with fantastic scenery and a really good conservation program, Uganda. The people of the country with the, reportable, most stable democratic government, the country that everyone knows and most have been, Kenya. The friendship and hospitality from a land deep in the process of trying to shake of the chains of a turbulent past, a land where most of the white, coloured and black people welcomed me and befriended me, South Africa with all its different regions and tribes.

Table Mountain, Cape Town, South Africa

I just visited a small part of this vast continent. Africa is one continent but every country is different but yet similar. Once you cross the border you notice this. The people are all friendly and genuinely will help. Just like me they are curious. Curious about me and where I come from.

I travelled just over 26,500 kms in Africa. Over some good asphalt and some really bad asphalt roads. Some really good dirt tracks and some really bad and of course Sand.

Lesotho

Road S103, to Mushroom Farm, Malawi

I was never once asked for a bribe on the road, not even a hint of that. Maybe because I have an action camera fastened onto my helmet, I really don’t know. But I have never heard any of the travelers, that I have met, mention having to pay a bribe. I was also mostly just waved through the checkpoints and anytime that I was stopped it was because they wanted to look at the bike. Tiggy Moondust was a star.   I was stopped for speeding but got an official ticket and receipt. Yes I was, unintentionally  speeding. Another time I just got a warning and yes once again I was unintentionally speeding. In both cases it was just by 6 and 10 km per hour.

Smiling, friendly official at checkpoint Zambia

Never once was I threatened or robbed. I carry two telephones. One is my good phone with my Dutch sim and the other is a cheaper smart phone with a reasonably good camera. This telephone I use for navigation, especially when I am walking in the towns or cities. It also has a local sim with airtime and data. It is what I call my throw away phone. I lost two of these phones. One in Cape Town when I dropped it into the harbour an a return journey from Robin Island. The second one in Lesotho when it fell out of my holder on the bike. There were three pick pocket attempts made on me, but they all failed. These, all three, took place in South Africa and in Cape Town. Unfortunately South Africa has a large crime rate and one has to be careful. This was difficult for me, frustrating and extremely sad. People lock themselves away in their homes surrounded by high electrified fences. The worse areas being the cities and the Cape region. This did not, however, stop me interacting with the people. I talked, laughed, embraced and shed a tear with many people. One thing that amazed me was the one thing that all the people, black, coloured or white, said to me… they said that they love their country and they pray for change. South Africa is on the road to healing itself from an unfortunate past. It reminded me of when the wall, separating East and West Germany came down. People united but there was a problem German friends then told me that the wall came down but “Die Mauer im Kopf des Volkes bleibt” The wall in the head of the people remains. But South Africa is an amazing country, I spent 3 months and covered over 10,000 kms there alone. Okay that included Lesotho and Eswatini. I had a fantastic time. I also visited a game park there.

Cape Town Market

Mating lions….Hluhluwe-Imfolozi Park, South Africa

Once out of South Africa things changed. More relaxed. Fences were disappearing, the feeling of thrust was returning. Once I crossed into Botswana I felt free. But also the people were more social and open to interaction. There were no more fences, no more mistrust, no more wall.

I wrote that Africa for me was the villages, small towns and settlements along the road. The smiles and the welcomes that I got from total strangers. The hospitality shown to me. In the villages and settlements there are communal banana leave  thatched open sided gazebos with a table football machine, pool table or game boards and this is where people gather in the late afternoon when its cooler. Charcoal burners come out and the smell of food gently drifts across the place.

Charcoal burners come out…

I stayed in some of these places either camping or in local guesthouses and I was always welcomed to sit down and eat. One memorable time was in a settlement scattered along the road by the Tanzanian Rwanda border. It was a moonless night and it was pitch dark. I wandered past the stands and bought an omelet from one, beans from another place ant sat down, somewhere else that sold cold drinks, and ate it. There was an old valve TV and people were sat around glued to the screen… Watching football. Then I went to a charcoal fire where the owner had two kettles steaming away. I had the best coffee that I have ever drunk. What makes this unique is that I was the only white person and everyone smiled at me. Once again I felt totally safe and relaxed.

Best-coffee-i-ever-had-Nyakasanza

Tiggy Moondust, a triumph tiger 800 XC from 2014 performed faultlessly. Never missing  a beat. We always got to where we were going. We only had one puncture that costs us two hours. But a local immediately sprang to help and with the help of him we got the wheel off, loaded into Badger, Phils 4×4 and he took it to a garage in the next village. She is a bit bashed and looks a bit beaten up but she wears her scars with pride. We got stuck once in deep sand but once again some locals manhandled the bike out and turned it around and pushed me until I got traction again, this in 40c and no shade. I dropped it on a dirt road in Malawi and 3 locals on one bike stopped and helped me pick it up again.

I have some really good memories of people that I met. Some fantastic evenings around the camp fires with fantastic people. Some amazing fantastic locals that I interacted with for a moment in time but their image is burned into my being. Be it a tear, an embrace, a word or just a smile.

So thank you Africa for showing me so much beauty, for sharing something really special with me. Africa is it’s people, black, coloured and white. Africa is wildlife that is protected and preserved for future generations. Africa is pure beautiful, wild, untamed, nature. Africa is unique and mysterious, Africa is Africa.

I have written this in Nairobi and on the plane flying back to Amsterdam and I am posting it from my home in my adopted city and country, Amsterdam Holland.

Many thanks everyone for taking the time to read my posts. Thank you for liking and commenting. Thank you for sharing the journey with me. Take care of yourselves and live evey day to the fullest…. Have fun

The sun sets on the magical continent of Africa