Month: May 2017

Things were all looking up as I left Keetmanshoop. I’d had a decent breakfast at the Canyon Hotel (complete with an uncomfortable conversation with the waitress, who may have just been doing an extremely poor job trying to flirt), the sun was shining, and my motorcycle was fully functional. I hit the paved surface of the B1 with a straight shot to Windhoek. A troop of baboons scurries across the highway just outside of town, hiding in the throngs of trees and watching me as I ride by. It felt a proper goodbye. I wonder where their sunglasses, hat, pipe, and Coca-Cola cans are.

About half of the gas stations I pass in Namibia are gaudy affairs, sometimes with manicured lawns, large covered parking lots, and one or two integrated restaurants. I’m going nearly 500km, so I need at least one stop for fuel along the way. I pull into an Engen (a South African oil company) station, complete with burger shop, bakery, and automatic sprinklers throwing water, a rare commodity here, into the air. It’s a welcome reprieve from the road, and I take a breather.

The ride is easy and uneventful, with the sun perpetually hanging in my line of sight as I head North. As I approach Windhoek, I fly past a turnoff with a sign for the Tropic of Capricorn. I realize what I just passed, turn off the highway, and offroad it back.

I’d been trying to cruise at around 65mph, about 10mph under the speed limit, it saves a lot on fuel and just feels right. Windhoek is over 5,000 feet in elevation, and the light green grasslands give way to some decent sized mountains as I approached. The altitude and the shade of the mountains as the sun made its way towards the horizon caused the heat of the day to rapidly deteriorate into the 40’s(f). I was too lazy to stop and layer up, so I cruised in with traffic at the true speed limit.

You pass through a mandatory police checkpoint on the outskirts of Windhoek, a friendly reminder that you’re not in Kansas anymore. We stumbled through some miscommunication when the officer asked me where my disk was before I realized we were talking about license plates. I guess they’re not always on the backs on motorcycles here? I haven’t seen any to confirm… With a cursory check, I was waved through and into light Windhoek traffic, arriving at the Chameleon Backpackers hostel just before the sunset.

I was in lucky and snagged a room. The place made dinner every night, has a bar, and subscribed to a pleasant tendency in accommodations in southern Africa, including a pool.

I snagged dinner, had some beer, worked on my writing, and got some sleep. I had some tasks for the next day: attempting to secure visas for the DRC and Zambia, finding replacement tires (mine weren’t new at the start of the journey,  my rear is nearly spent, and availability is limited outside of major cities), trying to secure a camping spot at Sossusvlei with the Namibian Wildlife Resorts (NWR) agency, and getting some wire to rewire my right turn signal (which seemed to have failed somewhere along the way). Miraculously, the embassies and motorcycle dealership I was going to try were all within walking distance of my hostel. In the morning I hit the road on foot.

As stated in my write-up of the weirdness that day, I failed with the embassies and the NWR, but at least managed to find tires. While it took four tries, I also managed to find two meters of automotive electrical wire. I know I’m late at mentioning this, but *fuck* this country loves receipts!

The next morning, my sights were set on Sossusvlei, despite my failure to secure a camping spot with NWR. I had breakfast in the morning and hit the road, backtracking 80km on the B1 before turning off onto a series of dirt roads.

Google offered three routes, the fastest involving slightly more pavement, but I figured I could take that one back. Instead, I turned off onto one of the many C dirt roads, and found myself bouncing along washboards, sand, loose rocks, and potholes that were far worse than what I’d gone over before in Namibia. There were times when the road was so bad I’d be laughing hysterically into my helmet while my eyes watered with vibration, no matter the speed. I passed goats, cows, a bunch of something that resembled a squirrel, and a single ostrich.

I also chatted up a weathered and mostly-toothless cattle herder who wandered by while I was taking a stretch break. He carried a whip made out of a handmade rubber grip with a long braided polyester cord attached, and an adorable dusty dog named Suzie was tagging along. He didn’t seem to be in a rush to catch up with his cattle, and seemed quite taken by my motorcycle.

People in the countryside in Namibia wave when you go by. As you’d expect, the kids get super excited about it and initiate, but practically anyone who catches your eye will wave, and even more so will wave back if you initiate. There’s more than that, too. When someone passes you on the road, they flash their hazard lights when they come back into your lane. When I pass trucks on the road, I’ve learned to wave (I don’t have hazard lights) and they invariably flash their headlights to say hi. When I’m taking a break on the side of the road, people will honk their horns, some lean out their windows and wave. Thumbs get pointed up to double-check that everything is okay. People are just plain friendly.

So far in my time here, the roads had been relatively flat. Even the approach to Fish River Canyon, which ends with an overlook not-unlike those of the Grand Canyon, didn’t involve switchbacks or noticeable elevation change. My chosen route to Sossusvlei started out similarly, but without warning, signs proclaiming that trucks weren’t allowed, and prolonged steep grades were approaching showed up, almost as non-sequiturs.  Then the road twisted onto a broad overlook of a massive desert valley, affording views of a brick road winding aggressively down.

This wasn’t just the only “pavement” (bricks) I’d seen in miles… this was a wild, curving, swooping road with steep angles and sharp dropoffs. In summary: it was fun as hell. I dropped me into a massive desert valley, far sandier than the surrounding area, with continued teeth-rattling washboards up to the entrance to Sossusvlei.

Conventional wisdom states that the best time to see Sossusvlei (a valley nestled in the coastal mountains with a salt flat and the largest sand dunes) is at Sunrise. The main entrance to the park unhelpfully (and obviously intentionally) opens at sunrise, but is another 60km from the spot itself. Instead, if you want to catch the sunrise, you need to either charter a plane/helicopter/hot air balloon, or stay at the government-ran campground located *just inside* the gate. There’s another *internal* gate that opens an hour or so before sunrise, and allows those folks to get a head-start and catch the sunrise. Cool. So that was my plan.

I made it through the gate with over an hour to spare before it closed (at sunset, obviously) and went to reception. I was in luck! They had one last tent camping spot in the “overflow” area (read: a long-ass walk from facilities, with no power and hardly and shade). I was also out of luck: motorcycles aren’t allowed any further on the road into Sossusvlei. The woman recommended hitchhiking (which I’ve read is technically illegal in national parks in Namibia). Alright… it’s worth a try.

I pitched my tent at the end of the known camping universe and had some dinner. Since I wanted to catch the early-risers and the sunrise, I wrapped up super early for the night, looked at the stars, read my book, and was in bed by 9:30p with an alarm set for 4:45am. Somehow (this isn’t really that abnormal for me…), I woke up at 5:15 without the alarm. Shit! I scrambled to get my things together and posted up on the road with a backpack and my thumb out. And there I stood, for nearly 3 hours, watching vehicle after vehicle file past. Most avoided eye contact. Those with no room shrugged. One van full of old folks rolled down their window, then drove off before saying anything.

In Namibia, hitchhiking is pervasive. Folks stand at major intersections with bags and get regularly picked up and carted around the country. Of course, Namibians aren’t the majority or folks passing through to Sossusvlei, foreigners are, and I guess something about my bearded self put them off, because eventually, I walked back to my camp disillusioned and packed up. I headed back towards Windhoek.

I took a different path back, the shortest of the options Google offered. I was in a less-than-stellar mood. The road back was just as brutal as the one in. Again, I had uncontrollable fits of laughing as every part of me vibrated down the dusty sandy roads. At one point, I caught a flash in my rear-view and realized the hat I had strapped down under a cargo net had managed to shake its way out and onto the road. I went back and got it back.

I passed cows, goats, and endless barren desert. I dropped to the reserve fuel supply on my gas tank part way along the road. Eventually, I ran out of gas in my main tank around 70km from the B1, the main tarmac highway (where there would be gas stations to refill). I hopped off the bike to get the jerry can off the back and noticed my hat was once again gone. I had no idea how long ago I’d lost it, and since fuel was now in a tight supply, I didn’t want to burn a lot of time and fuel going looking. I shrugged. No big deal. I dumped the jerry can into the gas tank, and as I went to put it back on the back of my bike, my heart sank once again: my left pannier was missing! There are four metal pucks that hold the panniers to the frame. The bottom two are bolted on, and the top pair are hand-tightened to allow them to tool-lessly removed. Somehow, the vibration must have worked them loose and somehow I hadn’t noticed!

This was bad… Not only do each of my panniers contain critical items for my travels, but they’re also uniquely utilitarian for carrying my things. Even if I were to replace the contents, replacing the metal box itself would be extremely difficult. Freaking out in my head, I quickly hopped onto the bike and deliberately backtracked at a reasonable speed to conserve fuel. About 7k down the road, I spotted the pannier, battered and on the complete opposite side of the road as it should have been on. It had a brand new dent (it must have been hit by something to get it where it was and in the state it was in), and some of my stickers had been pretty beaten up, but it was alive and all the parts were still there! I expelled a massive sigh of relief, and reattached the pannier to the bike, taking care to get make sure the attachment points were as tight as I could get them.

I got back on the road, taking it easy to avoid any repeats. Excitement seems to come when you least expect it. Eventually I made it to the main highway and another wave of relief swept over me. While getting gas, a car pulled up and a friendly Namibian triumphantly declared he’d seen me a few days ago (I’d passed through this town on the way to Windhoek the first time) and asked me all the standard questions. It was nice to have a pleasant social interaction after watching car after car of folks averting their eyes to avoid admitting they weren’t willing to take a chance on me.

It was smooth sailing and familiar territory back to Windhoek, but when I pulled up to my old hostel, they were booked up. I’d made friends there the first time around who were still there, so I was sad to be turned away, but I found another spot about a mile up the road, appropriately named “The Cardboard Box,” and plotted my course. I cruised in, checked in, unloaded, and began the process of forgetting the stress of the day.

I am not a morning person, and as such, I’ve always appreciated the incontrovertible truth that when you wake up in the morning in a tent, you’re committed to the day. As I climbed out of my tent, my swollen bladder at the helm, I found myself surrounded by baboons, busy raiding the campground’s trash cans. Fuck! I am in Africa!

I relieved myself in the comfort of the relatively clean campground services, and packed my things onto my motorcycle before heading to the canteen for the buffet breakfast.  I chose a table within view of my motorcycle (living in SF and traveling has made me endlessly paranoid), and twice I wandered down with my coffee to chat with throngs of gawkers poking and prodding my bike. I’m not complaining.

I was on the road early by my standards, bumping along the dusty washboards and through the desert. It’s just over 80km to the main viewpoint for Fish River Canyon from Ai Ais camp over rocky dirt roads, and as I’ve eluded to in the past, I enjoy the shit out of them. Traffic was light, as per Namibian standards, so dust was low, and aside from dodging particularly sharp looking rocks, boulders, and egregious potholes/washboards, it’s easy going on two wheels. After a slight stop to pay an affordable Nation Park entrance fee, I came upon the crowded main overlook. It did not disappoint.

While standing on the relatively bustling overlook, I watched three motorcycles, the first I’d seen since leaving Cape Town, cutting through a 4×4 path that’s one of two other options available to witness the Canyon, the third being a five day hike from the overlook back to Ai Ais that I wasn’t quite willing to do. My temporary excitement about fellow bikers abated somewhat as they approached and it became clear from their kit that they weren’t in it for the long haul — they had beautiful bikes, but without panniers, top cases, or any other luggage to speak of, and instead appeared to be weekend warriors getting their kicks. No judgment, but no feeling of kinship for the moment.

I followed in their tire tracks down the 4×4 track. Have I mentioned the unbridled joy and feeling of freedom one gets when carefully navigating treacherous two-tracks? I suppose I have. I trundled from overlook to overlook, taking a few minutes at each subsequent spot, breathing in the views which seemed fresh and new every 500 meters. I eventually gave up before finding the end of the road; I consider that a measure of success for Namibia’s roads.

My stop for the night was the town of Keetmanshoop (please don’t ask me to pronounce it). In Namibia, roads are designated with a letter and a number. The letter indicates the road’s quality: B roads are nice paved highways. C roads are occasionally sealed, frequently dirt and rock roads. D roads are what you’d expect. When I left Fish River Canyon, I had another 130km of Ds and Cs (I’d already gone more than 100 that morning) followed by 32km of tarmac.

Things started off with a degree of desolation I was beginning to become accustomed to: open desert, a scattering of rocky hills, the occasional bird struggling against the wind or spider skittering across the road, and rarely a truck or offroad tourbus. Then out of nowhere, a sign of civilization appeared on the horizon. As I approached, old cars with trees greeted me in a kitschy site that would have felt at home along the old US highways (think: South of the Border and Wall Drug, but smaller).

I stopped for lunch (some abomination they called a burger) and a beer, and marveled at the surreal spot. Multiple tour buses were hanging out here, and Namibian drivers and European tourists found plenty of opportunities to ask about my trip. They even had free internet, so I was able to set my sites on a hotel for the night.

It was a beautiful ride: barely any civilization for the first 100km, followed by lush farmland with signs proclaiming it to be an irrigation project. There was a large impressive dam, the output of which ran directly over the road…

When things are going well on dirt roads, one has a tendency to get a bit cavalier, and I’ll be the first to admit I was guilty. This usually turns out as you’d expect.  For me, I was 3km from the tarmac when I decided to get one last stretch break while I was still in the dirt. I was in super high spirits, so much so that I took an opportunity to cheese for the camera before turning it off:

Then I looked at my bike and noticed my top case appeared to skew at a different angle than normal. I leaned in for a closer look and spotted that one of the support pieces for the cargo rack (which the top case is attached to) was snapped cleanly in two. Fuck! I went to the other side… it was the same. Double-fuck!

At this point, the top case (and main part of the cargo rack) were attached to the subframe by two small bolts on the base. These aren’t intended to provide horizontal stabilization, to the entire thing was freely bobbing back and forth. It also meant way more stress on the small welded metal bar that now supported the thing. This wasn’t good, and I had no idea when it happened, and therefor how long I’d been zipping down washboard roads at 60mph.

Whenever I’m offroading, I carry extra fuel in a jerry can attached to the back of the top case. First step was to minimize some weight, so I emptied the can into the tank. Next, I reconfigured my bungee cords to pull the top case forward in a mostly vain attempt to reduce the torque of the thing bouncing back and forth. Lastly, I strapped my cargo net around the back in hopes that if the last attachment points failed, I would notice before the entire thing tumbled off the back and possibly into high-speed traffic (the road I was about to merge onto had a speed limit of 120kmh [~75mph], but cars and minibuses frequently went much faster).

The good news was I was only ~36km from my destination for the night: Keetmanshoop. I swallowed my anxiety, climbed onto the bike, and nursed it the last ~3km of dirt, wincing at every bump. For those unfamiliar, it’s not uncommon for washboard dirt roads to pass by much smoother at speed as you seemingly glide over the tops, but I couldn’t risk the occasional big dip or pothole.

I made it safely onto the main Namibian highway, the B1. Unlike the other roads I’d been on, this one actually sees a fair bit of traffic, but is also in far better condition than the 101 in the Bay Area. I nervously found a speed I was comfortable with, around 50mph, and whiteknuckled it the remaining ~32km, constantly checking my rearview, riding as far forward on the seat as possible (to avoid applying pressure), and holding the top case forward when conditions allowed it.

Keetmanshoop isn’t much by California standards, but at around 21,000 people, it’s the largest city in southern Namibia. The Canyon Hotel, where I found to stay, was on the south side of town, where I was coming from, but within the few bits of civilization I passed before it was a steel fabrication shop, around 200 meters from the hotel! Given the towns I’d passed through so far in Namibia, this was an unbelievable stroke of luck. The hotel I’d picked was much larger than I’d expected, a once-grandiose affair built of brick and ornamental stones in the 60’s, with a large bronze commemorative plaque at the front door, but there were only 2 cars in the parking lot. I checked in, unloaded, and got right to the task at hand of taking the broken parts off my bike while there was still daylight.

While I was wrenching on my top case, a pair of men approached me and started asking the standard questions, with some extra bits about the bike — they were both riders themselves. I chatted with them for a couple minutes while working, and explained the predicament I’d found myself in. They took a look, and started asking questions, such as the composition of the metal the rack was made of, I couldn’t answer. Then they explained that they were in Namibia for work on a Dam project to the west, and that one was a boilermaker (a fancy welder), the other a weld inspector. What are the fucking odds, seriously. I told them my plan to go to the steel fabrication shop up down the road, and they told me if I had any trouble, they’d find me in town and give me a hand. They also told me the food at the hotel was pretty good. If you’re the religious type, insert statement about providence here.

I got a beer at the hotel bar and proceeded into full-on chill out mode. I’d arrived at the hotel around 4:30pm on a Sunday, and it was well past 5 now; there was nothing more I could do that night. I had good company at the bar.

At 6:30, the hotel restaurant opened. I walked into an elegant dining room without a single soul in sight. The menu included dishes such as escargot for just a couple bucks. You’re goddamn right I ordered them. The rest of the food was pretty good, too.

Afterwards, I again retired to the bar, this time finding a more lively companion: the hotel manager, Enrico. To say Enrico is well traveled is an understatement. Working in hospitality all his life, much of which was spent on Princess cruise ships, the man has been to over 160 countries, speaks 4ish languages, and speaks with the breezy openness you rarely see outside of dedicated hospitality folks. He told me about his life, his love, his travels, and the hotel. He also performed some sort of magic by which my beer remained full, and my bill didn’t increase. The conversation was a very meaningful decompression from the tribulations of the day. If you’re reading this, Enrico, thank you once more.

There were something like 3 other guests at the massive hotel that night, which combined with its brick architecture meant I slept in a nearly-unheard of silence. In the morning, I took my broken cargo rack to the steel shop, where the boss nearly laughed at the simple task of repairing it, and quoted me NAD$60 ($4.53) to fix it. I picked it up less than an hour later.

I’d decided to take it easy, so after re-assembling my bike, I relaxed, caught up on my sleep, and set my sights on Windhoek the following night. More to come!