MechanicalCamel
Pack Dog
Bravo Max – fine work on the vid there. I have to say that I was pretty disappointed in the Midget’s skills in the apple-on-the-head debacle. I mocked him a little, which is a dangerous thing to do to a Midget. I discovered just how dangerous 3 days later.
So the vid shows us arriving at the gates of the Bicuar National Park.
Which is here:
What is doesn’t show (thankfully) is the 4 hour process we went through to get access to the park. The 4 hours entailed:
- A lot of sign language from our side that we wanted to go in, on our bikes
- A lot of sign language from the ranger’s side that over his dead body were we going in without a nod from the chief
- A lengthy nap under the shade of a beautiful tree to process the afternoon bevvies
- A pre-school level drawing session to try to ascertain what animals were in the park, and more specifically whether there was risk of being eaten
- Some respectful engagements with the chief, after someone had found him and extracted him from (no doubt) more important duties. Watched over by his armed entourage
- A light reprimand from said chief for not speaking Portuguese
- A refusal to pay the full park entrance fee on a completely baseless (and mildly belligerent) assumption that it was ‘unofficial’
- And finally, a shrug, benevolent smile, and the wave on from the chief that we had been waiting for. We were in! Never has there been a finer example of the benefits of gentle pressure, relentlessly applied.
The unplanned for delay meant that we were closer to the end of the day than anticipated. Which is a bizarre statement given the lack of plan at the beginning of the day. Regardless, with a whoop and a toot we blasted off down the sandy tracks and into our first Angolan ‘game reserve’.
It dawned on me pretty quickly that this might not be plain sailing. It was probably the first time on the trip that I thought we may just have pushed it a liiiiiitle bit far. We were riding through a National Park that may or may not have housed hungry lions, it was the most technically difficult riding of the trip, and it was now dark. And we had a friendly-but-armed escort. The problem with friendly-but-armed escorts is that it’s difficult to tell what the guns are for, especially when you have not one word of common language between you. I figured it could only be:
a) to shoot wild, threatening tigers
b) to shoot wild, threatening bandits
c) to shoot us and feed us to the wild, threatening tigers
Naturally none of these options were appealing. Particularly because the Midget was having some trouble with the terrain.
Through the orange glow of my headlight (HID lights are apparently less effective when covered by orange headlight protectors) I had a disturbing view. In front of me, Lester Piggott was manhandling Buttercup like a reluctant racehorse into the starting gates. The bike was sideways a lot more often than it was facing in the direction of travel, but not in a Tokyo Drift, graceful kinda way. More epileptic fit. We were in very soft sand tracks, with a middle-mannetjie a good foot higher than the track, and dense bush tightly hugging the road. To top all that, the headlight on the DR is so miserable he might as well have been using his aura to illuminate the road. This would have been hilarious had it not been for the trouble I was having keeping my own bike upright, and the fact that I had a 4x4 full of armed-but-friendly Angolans about 6cm off my back wheel.
Now I’m fully South African but there are times when one might think I was raised in Buckingham Palace. I have this terribly British tendency to feel guilty about causing the slightest inconvenience to others. It’s hard to imagine how we could possibly have inconvenienced others more than this. We had woken the chief from his afternoon nap, been unable to communicate in any of the county’s languages, refused to pay the entrance fee, and then looked so amateurish on our vehicles that it had been deemed necessary to chaperone these bumbling fools through the dark to their destination. At least we would allow them the pleasure of shooting us later.
As if they hadn’t done enough, we then decided to halt the whole parade by breaking a bike. The Midge had a fiercely spectacular face plant and broke his kill switch (in all likelihood with his forehead – it’s soooo close to the bars). Before I could get the tool kit out, all the while mumbling “terribly sorry for the trouble…”, our guardian angles had radioed ahead, called in the cavalry and, with many hands, lifted the DR into the back of the bakkie. The cavalry was mounted 2-up on a 125 scoot, pillion with a rifle over each shoulder, and post-rescue they disappeared up the track as if it was a national highway.
(heaving the bike into the bakkie was aided by the formidably strong and expertly welded rack on the DR)
I was instructed to go up ahead which I refused on account of being afraid of the dark. So Max and I followed the wounded Buttercup and about 3km later we came to the camp that we had (unknowingly) been aiming for. We all tittered about how we’d much prefer to be sleeping rough (blatant lie) and then charged into our designated hut to claim the single mattress. Betsy, I know you may never forgive me, but I got to share the double with the midget that night. Which was great cause I just popped him on the pillow and had the rest of the bed to myself.
So the vid shows us arriving at the gates of the Bicuar National Park.
Which is here:
What is doesn’t show (thankfully) is the 4 hour process we went through to get access to the park. The 4 hours entailed:
- A lot of sign language from our side that we wanted to go in, on our bikes
- A lot of sign language from the ranger’s side that over his dead body were we going in without a nod from the chief
- A lengthy nap under the shade of a beautiful tree to process the afternoon bevvies
- A pre-school level drawing session to try to ascertain what animals were in the park, and more specifically whether there was risk of being eaten
- Some respectful engagements with the chief, after someone had found him and extracted him from (no doubt) more important duties. Watched over by his armed entourage
- A light reprimand from said chief for not speaking Portuguese
- A refusal to pay the full park entrance fee on a completely baseless (and mildly belligerent) assumption that it was ‘unofficial’
- And finally, a shrug, benevolent smile, and the wave on from the chief that we had been waiting for. We were in! Never has there been a finer example of the benefits of gentle pressure, relentlessly applied.
The unplanned for delay meant that we were closer to the end of the day than anticipated. Which is a bizarre statement given the lack of plan at the beginning of the day. Regardless, with a whoop and a toot we blasted off down the sandy tracks and into our first Angolan ‘game reserve’.
It dawned on me pretty quickly that this might not be plain sailing. It was probably the first time on the trip that I thought we may just have pushed it a liiiiiitle bit far. We were riding through a National Park that may or may not have housed hungry lions, it was the most technically difficult riding of the trip, and it was now dark. And we had a friendly-but-armed escort. The problem with friendly-but-armed escorts is that it’s difficult to tell what the guns are for, especially when you have not one word of common language between you. I figured it could only be:
a) to shoot wild, threatening tigers
b) to shoot wild, threatening bandits
c) to shoot us and feed us to the wild, threatening tigers
Naturally none of these options were appealing. Particularly because the Midget was having some trouble with the terrain.
Through the orange glow of my headlight (HID lights are apparently less effective when covered by orange headlight protectors) I had a disturbing view. In front of me, Lester Piggott was manhandling Buttercup like a reluctant racehorse into the starting gates. The bike was sideways a lot more often than it was facing in the direction of travel, but not in a Tokyo Drift, graceful kinda way. More epileptic fit. We were in very soft sand tracks, with a middle-mannetjie a good foot higher than the track, and dense bush tightly hugging the road. To top all that, the headlight on the DR is so miserable he might as well have been using his aura to illuminate the road. This would have been hilarious had it not been for the trouble I was having keeping my own bike upright, and the fact that I had a 4x4 full of armed-but-friendly Angolans about 6cm off my back wheel.
Now I’m fully South African but there are times when one might think I was raised in Buckingham Palace. I have this terribly British tendency to feel guilty about causing the slightest inconvenience to others. It’s hard to imagine how we could possibly have inconvenienced others more than this. We had woken the chief from his afternoon nap, been unable to communicate in any of the county’s languages, refused to pay the entrance fee, and then looked so amateurish on our vehicles that it had been deemed necessary to chaperone these bumbling fools through the dark to their destination. At least we would allow them the pleasure of shooting us later.
As if they hadn’t done enough, we then decided to halt the whole parade by breaking a bike. The Midge had a fiercely spectacular face plant and broke his kill switch (in all likelihood with his forehead – it’s soooo close to the bars). Before I could get the tool kit out, all the while mumbling “terribly sorry for the trouble…”, our guardian angles had radioed ahead, called in the cavalry and, with many hands, lifted the DR into the back of the bakkie. The cavalry was mounted 2-up on a 125 scoot, pillion with a rifle over each shoulder, and post-rescue they disappeared up the track as if it was a national highway.
(heaving the bike into the bakkie was aided by the formidably strong and expertly welded rack on the DR)
I was instructed to go up ahead which I refused on account of being afraid of the dark. So Max and I followed the wounded Buttercup and about 3km later we came to the camp that we had (unknowingly) been aiming for. We all tittered about how we’d much prefer to be sleeping rough (blatant lie) and then charged into our designated hut to claim the single mattress. Betsy, I know you may never forgive me, but I got to share the double with the midget that night. Which was great cause I just popped him on the pillow and had the rest of the bed to myself.
ot:
