Experiencing the local life in Bagamoyo and Dar Es Salaam highlights the impact of HIV in this part of Tanzania. After checking into our accommodation in Bagamoyo (A beach side town north of Dar Es Salaam) we complete dinner then decide to venture out into the wild. Its not long before we are standing in […]

For us Zanzibar was the opportunity to have some R&R off the bikes doing something totally different. So Floyd, Jo and I chose to use the week off to hone our scuba skills. Why not – with a sea temperature of 26 degrees it sure beats the hell out of learning down on the south […]

dear all, Gareth and Floyd went straight out to the exotic island Zanzibar, where they are doing a dive course, and I stayed in this bustling town to help with the bike service and enjoy the city. As I walked to the internet this morning I was following a Masai man in his traditional reddish […]

We are in Dar Es Salam and it was a good time to do the first “on the road service”. A few of us are booked into a local hotel that has a good lock up for our bikes and a dirt floor so no-one get their knickers in a knot when we drip oil […]

As we’ve ridden east across Africa the frequency of minarets has lifted and now our dawn is welcomed by the call of the muezzin. Historically it was the Europeans – specifically the Portuguese that brought religion to the west coast of Africa while it was the Arabs that brought it to the East. Of course […]

Lake Malawi once skited of plentiful fish stocks but these days the resource is a shadow of its former self. Still that doesn’t prevent the locals spending day after day out on the lake in their dugout canoes chasing after the big one – butterfish, catfish and the prized speciality chambo, are the species of […]

6,000 kms into the trip and the bikes are showing some strain. This year it’s the exhaust pipes that have fallen victim to the severity of Zambian and Malawian potholes. The pipe passes just above the support bracket for the left footpeg and when the bike grounds in one of these canyons the two meet […]

Yesterday we crossed into Malawi, a small poor country with about 10 million people. We are in the capital city, Lilongwe, staying in a Korean guest house that has Gareth’s favourite Korean food on the menu. I don’t know what the AIDS statistics for this place are but most of the countries so far have […]

We leave livingstone and travel two days down the track pulling into the small town of Monza to change some US currency. At a local Barclays bank one of the team members asks me to exchange a $100 USD note. The teller checks all notes through the local machine only to find that the $ […]

Beware of the “Livingstone Currency Bandits”. Livingstone on a Saturday night is a live with locals looking for the unsuspecting tourist, they hang around the ATM machines knowing that if you are unsuccessful in obtaining KWACHA (local Zambian currency) you will be forced into a local on the street transaction, the result being the most […]