Expedition H2o | Bikers overland tour Africa

We promised that we’d try to keep you posted on the guys progress all the way up the coastline of Africa. Here goes:

Pretoria to Madrid. Getting JoJo tanks into rural communities.

Jean Cooper is a psychologist who plies his trade amongst businesses in the Pretoria region.

Dr De Witt Oosthuizen Is a South African emergency medical doctor who lives in Australia.

Both have hit the halfway mark in ife and are on a mission to do something spectacular.

To this end, they have both bought Norden Expeditions from Trax Moto and are well on a life defining adventure ride. And, they have linked it all with something cool! They are on a mission to raise funds in order to get 100 JoJo tanks to rural communities in the Free State.

Two months in and the guys are having one helluva adventure.

Last time we caught up, tyres had just arrived in the DRC and the guys were continuing their odyssey up to Cameroon and onwards through Africa…

They are now in Mauritania.

They sent us an update from Acra:

2 months. 14000KMs. 15 countries.

SA, Bots, Nam, Angola, DRC. Rep of Congo, Cameroon, Nigeria, Benin, Togo, Ghana, Ivory Coast, Guinea, Senegal, Mauritania.

Tyres: The ride started on 50/50 Pirelli Scorpion. 8500 KMS.

Swapped to Mitas E09 80/20 percent. Great tyres.

Mixed Gravel and tar. No proper sand.

7000 on those. About 1000 Km’s of tread left and we’ll swap back to the Pirelli’s.

In hindsight to date, we could have done the run so far on the Pirelli’s.

14000 KM’s in, our Norden Expeditions have been faultless.

“The only issue we’ve had was when an ABS cable rubbed through on one of the bikes and we had to repair it. But that was quick and easy.””

Maintenance?

Chain adjustment and lubrication and we clean and oil the pre-filters.

In Togo, we did an oil change.

Roads:

Roads in Africa vary from kilometre to kilometre, From massive dual carriageways to the most insanely potholed single lane tar.

Worse than gravel in many places.

We’ve followed freeways that just stop. Forcing us to turn back.

You need to expect anything around any corner.

The maps really don’t give you any idea of what the roads are actually like at all.

We haven’t left main routes. We’ve avoided smaller roads due to time constraint for this trip.

After 14000 KM’s – 13000 of interesting tar roads, if you can call many of them that.

The toughest was the 200 KM’s of deep red mud in Cameroon.

That thankfully dried out as we exited.

The best roads that we have seen are in Ivory Coast, brand new freeways with no traffic. Even through the main cities. Amazing!

All in all, the roads are better than we anticipated.

People, borders, paperwork.

Throughout our trip, the people have been supportive and helpful. In Central, Western Africa, you get swamped. Out of sheer curiosity.

But we have never felt unsafe or threatened – and we’ve had no theft of anything.

On one gravel road in Guinea, an incredibly poor area, I hit a big bump and lost my backpack complete with passport, wallet and all the important stuff.

I only realised what had happened when we stopped. I went back and people waved me down. They had my backpack. Nothing was missing and they handed it back.

On the whole the African People have been so helpful and selfless. Anytime we looked as if we were in trouble, people would step in to help.

The road between Cameroon and Nigeria was really interesting…

Single Track. Mud, we should never have been there. Everyone asked what we were doing there on big bikes.

50 KM’s took us 2 days.

Crossing the Donga River was pretty terrifying, we were convinced that we were going to capsize.

On that sticky road between Cameroon and Nigeria, people went out of their way to give us a hand. We were exhausted. They stopped us in Mung and the chief gave us his hut for the night. Boiled us water so that we could shower and took us to get food. And they expected nothing in return. It was incredible. Even though we didn’t understand them.

It’s very different from our western point of view.

Ubuntu is really a thing.

Paperwork:

Maybe we’ve been lucky, but on average, border crossings have taken around 2 hours a time. Mostly because we don’t have a Carne’. We found that the AA in South Africa wanted too much, so what we’ve been doing is getting temporary import permits for each country. It is a hassle, but you smile and be patient and make sure that all is in order. It depends who you get really.

The longest wait was between Senegal and Mauritania, but we got stuck behind another group of bikes, so that took time. We also got a visa on arrival.

I actually can’t believe that we’ve managed 15 x 2 borders so far!

Some thoughts:

Nigeria is chaotic.

You get swamped wherever you stop. The roads are terrible. Falling apart. The traffic is manic, people drive or ride wherever they want on whichever side… Crazy stuff.

We were constantly stopped by the police, army and DEA. Instant road blocks.

This is the only place we’ve been to where they ask for a gift or sorts. Getting out of Nigeria was also frustrating with every department checking our stuff over and over….

We were, however, very well hosted by the Nigerian motorcycle community. Fantastic people who went out of their way to help, advise on routes and host us. You need to look them up if you pass through Nigeria.

Food:

We’ve been eating what’s available. We eat whatever the locals eat, we haven’t brought anything with us. Porridge, rice, chicken and fish, we have steered clear of meat.

Weather wise:

We anticipated rain. Well, we dodged it. Dry and hot up to the Congo, but then the heat and humidity hit us, from Angola, all the way up to Senegal, it was insanely hot and uncomfortable. No rain to speak of…

We only got wet a few times with one real rain storm. We were quite lucky.

Especially in Cameroon. If it had rained, we’d probably still be stuck there.

From Senegal, the climate has dried out, desert all the way into Mauritania.