Lunar landscapes, listing ferries and the Smoke that Thunders

We were up before dawn and had packed our camp at Planet Baobab within 30 minutes, gobbled a quick breakfast and jumped onto our bikes to access the Makgadikgadi pans via another less sandy route and capture the best light of the pans at dawn.  Gary’s foot was doing a bit better, and we slipped down a short section and onto the solid pans.  The pans quickly opened out into a lunar landscape, the cracked salty surface free of any signs of life with our presence ensuring that the pans would continue to remain devoid of intelligent life. 

Planet Baobab

The giant aardvark

Cautious at first, we crept along at a sedate pace, and checked that the subtle changes in colour weren’t bogs.  But the surface of the pan was as solid as Pete’s resolve to hate BMW bikes.  We stopped to set up the GoPros and spotted a small island a few clicks away.  We dropped our clutches and speed along, feeling the surface and how the bikes behaved.  We set up a few shots with the GoPro and the Three Tenors did a fly-by, with Pavarroti, Placido and Jose dancing an elegant ballet around the pans and skipping over the occasional tufts of grass.

The beautiful tranquillity of the scene suddenly exploded in a cloud of white lunar dust as Pleitz decided he was now confident enough with the surface to really give his Big Block rear and Karoo 3 front a proper test.  The bike flew away from us leaving a jet-trail across the pans, with Pete drifting the Ten through some twisties and painting a double-helix on the virgin surface.

Lunar landing

Lone Ranger

The Tenors

We could have played all day, but we had to cover nearly 500km that day, and so we headed off in the general direction of the powerlines hoping to find the road again.  After hitting a few Aardvark holes, we were back on the black-top and heading towards Nata where we swung north and headed for the Chobe.  Our ride was littered with elephants, most of which displayed a firm dislike for bikes!  We stopped and watched one old boy approaching a waterhole, he nervously watched us and eventually came down to the water and took a long deep drink.  We watched him for about 15 minutes and as we headed off up the road his entire heard appeared from out of the Mopani trees.

Ja Schatz, I will be careful

Our destination for the night was a new camp on the Chobe River called the Mwandi View – I had heard about it while researching our route and it sounded promising.  Our approach to the camp took us straight through the Chobe National Park, quite a spectacular experience on the back of a motorbike.  We saw more ellies, some zebras, a giraffe or two, and the real treat, a sable antelope.  The road twisted around a bend and the vista of the Chobe delta opened up ahead of us, dotted with baobabs.  The final few kms to the camp was almost axel deep in elephant dung, this whole area is home to thousands of these creatures.  We were all quite relieved to see the camp featured a brand new electric fence!  The camp is not yet officially open, but we were welcomed by the owners who had two shiny KTMs standing on a trailer and looking on enviously as we rode in.  A couple of overlanders were there and we proceeded to spend an excellent evening huddled around our MSR camp stoves (thanks Megan – they really work well!!!), cooking MREs (thanks Lionel they really taste good!) and drinking 750ml bottles of St Louis lager.  The local lager’s name recalled our Nairobi friend King Louis, and Gary was quick to point out that Louis is many things, but definitely not a Saint.

Zis is how you poor salt, jawohl?

The next morning we headed back through the Chobe and on to Kazangulu where we slipped straight onto a listing ferry and left the comforts of Botswana on the southern river-bank to arrive in the mayhem of Africa on the other side, touts trying to sell insurance, exchange money, offer handling services, and all of this amidst an ocean of articulated trucks carrying raw copper south, and all manner of goods north.  This border post had been one of the things I was dreading on this trip – when I last drove through in 2010 it was the breaking point for me, the place where the dust and annoyances of the road all collided and I stamped my feet and threw my toys out of the cot and generally went nowhere fast.  This time our passage was relatively painless, while the touts were a bit annoying, the officials were very friendly and professional and we were soon back on our bikes and heading for Livingstone.

We're going to put our bikes on that???

Luckily we got the state of the art new ferry!

We spent a couple of nights at the Livingstone Backpackers, an oasis in the middle of Livingstone, which is itself an oasis in Zambia.  This little town is a thriving tourist hub with visitors from around the world stopping off to see the Victoria Falls, the “smoke that thunders” as the locals call it.  We made a pilgrimage to the falls and ran around getting soaked by the spray, making silly GoPro videos, and staring in absolute wonder at the power of the water coming over the falls.  It was my third trip to the falls, and this time was just as awe inspiring as the previous visits.

The Smoke that Thunders

Telly Tubbies getting wet

We really wanted to ride the Three Tenors over the bridge – the border between Zambia and Zimbabwe – and get a few photos of the bikes and the falls.  Its no problem to walk over the bridge and immigration will give you a pass to do so, but taking the bikes down was going to be a bit more difficult.  We met the friendliest customs official in Zambia, and after telling him that we had ridden all the way from Cape Town on our bikes to take photos of them in front of the falls, he said “not a problem” and personally escorted us to the gate and facilitated our passage through.  We attracted more attention on the bridge than the bungee jumpers, and after a brief encounter with security personnel on the bridge, we crossed over into Zimbabwe, did a u-turn and double-crossed the border.

Halt! No you may not halt there!

The damp bikers gate-crashed the Royal Livingstone Hotel, a new luxury establishment on the Zambezi just above the falls.  This hotel was opened amidst much controversy a few years ago, but it has been built in the best possible way in this spectacular landscape.  We sat drinking gin and tonics with zebras and impala at our backs and watched the sun set over the Zambezi in front of us.

Ice with that Gin and Tonic Sir?

The sound of thunder

We left Livingstone the next morning and headed north, aiming for Lusaka, we stopped just short and spent the night on a pig-farm in the middle of nowhere.  Owned by Germans… Typical!  The adventure that we’d looked for, we found in bucket loads over the next few days, but dear readers, you will have to wait until at least tomorrow for the next instalment.

Ist das ein Schwein?