The Flaming Nyanja Tour - Malawi 2010 - Ride report complete !!!

[popipants]

I think this report is a hoax!!
They never went anywhere, now they are trying to make sh!t up

 

[Pistol]

Pistol back and reporting in - got some nice lying down in the sand pics :-[

 

[bmad]

I think this report is a hoax!!
They never went anywhere, now they are trying to make sh!t up

Eish, your trip took longer to post this...  eepwall:

 

[popipants]

I think this report is a hoax!!
They never went anywhere, now they are trying to make sh!t up

Eish, your trip took longer to post this...  eepwall:

Good point BUT
we did not start a teazer about the report. That changes everything!!!

 

[bmad]

Eish, took a while to get all the pics gathered and get a report going...   ... so here goes.

The Flaming Nyanja Tour - Malawi 2010

This trip has been a dream of mine for a while now, and last year we a had 2 reports from the FunPlotPop crew and Leo and his mates, this just spurred me on to get the trip organised and done  :biggrin:

Thanks goes to Misty for coming up with the name  :thumleft: and to an animation designer friend in London for doing the logo :thumleft: Photo's of this report are courtesy of African Sky, eSKaPe and bmad  :biggrin:

The crew:
African Sky - aka "the quiet one"
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bmad - aka "the camel man"
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Dman - aka "Chuck"
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eSKaPe - aka "Don Johnston"

Kuruman69 - aka "the fisherman"
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Pistol - aka "Mr Kuche Kuche"
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"a trip of a lifetime..."

Day 1.
Pistol and Kuruman left on the Friday afternoon and headed up to Kwa Nokeng lodge for the night, the rest of the group would meet up with them there the next morning. The rest of the group, bmad, african sky, dman and eskape met up at 5 on Saturday and headed up to Botswana through some seriously cold and thick fog/mist all the way up to Thabazimbi. The going was much slower than we had anticipated!

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We finally made it to the Border and fortunately the proceedings did not take too long.  

We met up with Pistol and Kuruman, which at first was a bit entertaining at the site of Kuruman bike - This became a good source of entertainment the next couple of weeks every morning  >

The plan was to make it about 200km past Francistown and we set off on our way. Unfortunately our target seemed a bit optimistic and we ended up staying at Taiti River Lodge in Francistown. Nice spot with a warm shower and expensively cold beer :thumleft:

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Day 2
Our destination for the day was Livingstone, not too far and we hoped to setup camp at around 3 and go on a cruise on the Zambezi that afternoon.
After some coffee and a quick breakfast at the camp, we stood by and enjoyed the morning show with Kuruman packing his bike >
We hit the road full of excitement and looking forward to the falls, when a traffic official jumped out and pinned me for speeding - 77 in a 60 zone.
The result was a 450Pula fine, which we said we could not pay as we had no money  :, eventually after about 45 minutes of talking we promised to pay the fine at the next police station (which obviously we did not do!)  
We stopped at Nando's for lunch

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The road between Nata and Kasane is under construction and a good temporary road is in place.

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Along the route as per many other ride reports, you could be lucky and see some lovely elephants on the side of the road. We were very fortunate and actually saw quite a couple of them.

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Evenually after a long ride, we reached the Kazungulu border post at 2.30 and we were looking forward to a quick crossing and swift border entry, so we could make our booked cruise on the Zambezi.
Well that did not happen...

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As the ferry arrived and began to unload, the truck on the ferry crashed out big. The gap between the ferry and the sandbank is not exactly even or level and as the truck came off, it left front wheel appeared to collapse. This lead to quite a bit of running around and attempts to remove the the truck, which was no well stuck with no movement on the front wheel.
We used this time to chat with the locals, get something to eat and watch the time go by. also watch a mock landing of the other ferry and some taking chances to get on

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After a while a huge truck and trailer arrived and forcefully pulled the offending truck off the ferry and out of the way. He was well rewarded with an immediate pass onto the ferry. These guys stand here for up to 3 days to cross, so i think he was a happy chappy  :thumleft:
That cleared the path for us and finally we got going.  

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Well, the Zambian entry point was a mission of note - documentation for this and that, go to this office, then here, then there and after 2 and a half hours of paperwork, we could finally leave border control, but still had to get insurance :

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Rather strange that you have to pay Carbon Tax on a motorcycle that is rather green friendly, but the ferry that takes you across the great Zambezi is spewing out diesel and oil at a great rate of knots!

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The queue on the other side was rather ridiculous  

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Suffice to say we missed our cruise and only hot our camp in the dark just after 6!
The local shoprite was still open (on a sunday evening) and we bought some beer and meat for a braai.  :thumleft:

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to be continued...

 

[popipants]

GREAT!!!
brings back fond memories

Keep it coming.

 

[kevin]

Good start there Bmad - not sure about the Don Jonson pic fortunately its not there!!

 

[Misty]

Looking good so far!! Mmmm... I have to see this Don Johnson look alike!  :mwink:  ;D

 

[mikedabike]

Awesome trip guys.....Part 2 please!!!!

 

[bmad]

Looking good so far!! Mmmm... I have to see this Don Johnson look alike!  :mwink:  ;D

Good start there Bmad - not sure about the Don Jonson pic fortunately its not there!!

Fixed  > >

 

[Misty]

Fixed  > >

Hope they didnt rip you off with those sunglasses  ot: eepwall: ....  :biggrin: :biggrin: Looking good there sweetie!!!

 

[kevin]

Looking good so far!! Mmmm... I have to see this Don Johnson look alike!  :mwink:  ;D

Good start there Bmad - not sure about the Don Jonson pic fortunately its not there!!

Fixed  > >

Eish those reflective shades - needless to say they are the latest fashion (or so I was told Paris Hilton would love them) and could also be a replacement for a visor!!! Purchased them on the side of the road in Mozambique for the equivalent of all of about 60 ZAR when I lost mine and now somewhere in Moz there is a local wearing a pair of Mottorad sunglasses. The hawkers on William Nicol have nothing on those Moz salesmen...

 

[mikedabike]

Nice shades Kev and nice new avatar  :mwink:

 

[KAT-WP]

stunning avatar K

 

[bmad]

Day 3

Seeing that we missed out on the booze cruise the day before, we decided to add in a rest day early on and took the day off to see the sights and sounds of livingstone.

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On our way to find a breakfast spot, we spotted some elephant on the side of the road - in livingstone! we promptly stopped and started to take pictures before a security guard / cop came and chased us away telling us that these are wild animals  :

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We had a hearty breakfast at The waterfront, a really nice spot on the great Zambezi with a view of the falls from behind.
After breakfast we headed for the falls. Pistol started showing off and promptly dropped his bike in the parking lot, shortly thereafter a local attempted to hijack his bike  :biggrin: 

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Who's your daddy

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The falls were overflowing big time...

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Some of us were smart enough to bring along poncho's... but that did not really help  : There was so much water coming at you from every possible angle.
I believe that every person should go to the falls at least once in their lifetime, possibly twice so you can see it in full flood as well as in the dry season.  :mwink:

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That afternoon we were collected by a tour operator and taken to the African Queen for a leisurely cruise up the Zambezi. Thanks to African Sky for arranging a "better price" for this awesome experience. Drink as much as you like with snacks served at regular intervals.
For 3 hours we floated up the Zambesi in real colonial style  :biggrin: We had the whole bottem deck almost to ourselves sharing with 4 Irish women. While the American and Asian tourist packed the top level  :

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After a stunning sunset, it was back to our camp for dinner, beer and a good nights rest. We had now two days to get to Lake Malawi  :biggrin:

To be continued...

 

[nreyneke]

:happy1: :happy1: :happy1:

Lekker sover...  :thumleft:  :thumleft:  :thumleft:

 

[bmad]

Day 4

Due to the fact that we had taken a rest day, we now needed to put in some serious milage to get to Lake Malawi in two days so that we could spend a couple of days there.
The great fisherman Kuruman was eager to get his line in the water at the lake and pull out some big ones  >. Apparently he had some great bites - but no catches while we were in livingstone  ot:

We agreed that we would aim for Petauke, about 700km away and camp there. We set off early, after the fisherman finally finished packing up and set off toward Lusaka.
The road from Livingstone to Lusaka is undergoing some serious construction for about 50km just outside of Livingstone. A very nice temporary dirt road is in place, but was extremely dusty! From there on it is most probably the best tar road surface i have ridden on in a long time. We kept to a steady pace of 120  most of the way and had a good ride.

In Zambia, there are plenty of roadblocks or police checkpoints. Some ask for the papers and others don't.
We stopped in Lusaka for a late lunch around 2pm and then kept going. We found a spot later on in the afternoon on the gps, that said there was a campsite. We turned off to it but it looked a bit dodgy.

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Pistol popped in to the local village to find out about the place and in the interim the rest of us found another spot near the Luanga river bridge. So we decided to head there. It was still about 12okm away, but we thought it would be a better option.
We arrived at the River Camp Lodge just after dark and what a pleasant spot it was.

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Run by ex UK, SA couple, we were extended a very warm welcome and an ice cold beer  :thumleft:
Dinner was great and the accommodation was negotiated down to a reasonable rate. We took two of the dorms and had a great evening and a hot shower  :biggrin:

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The next morning we awoke to a cloudy day and had the chance to look around at the lodge. This really is a great place to stop if ever you are here.
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Day 5

The previous night we decided to head directly to Cape Maclear at Lake Malawi rather than going to Senga bay.
Our initial plan was to go to Senga for two days, then to Cape Maclear for two days and then head on down to Mozambique. In the planning phase of the trip, we saw too many nice things about Cape Maclear that we decided to go directly there and lounge around.

We headed for the Malawi border, which was surprisingly small, yet quick. The second you come into view, the helpers are there to show you where to park, change your money, etc.

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Once through the border formalities, you need to get insurance. We arrive at the broker but they were closed. During the wait, we were very well entertained by some guy that was so pissed he did not who or what he was and although we could not understand him, he was as funny as hell.  ;D

Waiting for the insurance shop to open

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After the formalities we were once again on our way, only to hit a police checkpoint about 10km later and asked for our papers and insurance. Kuruman decided it would be a good idea to test them and showed them his drivers license which had expired. Amazingly the police lady picked it up and he had to produce his international license  :biggrin:

Once again the roads in Malawi were good, but it was impossible to maintain a good speed as there were so many poeple, animals, bicycles and everything else on or next to the road.
We headed for Lilongwe and past through, the traffic here was hectic 

After Lilongwe, we headed for Dedza and then onto Cape Maclear. From Dedza you go down this most amazing pass S14 26.044 E34 25.260 check it out on Google Earth  :thumleft:
This pass has more twisties than the entire road to Katse Dam and i had a huge smile on my face all the way down.
As hard as i tried, i could not catch eSKaPe on his fancy new bumble bee 1200adv down that pass  :mwink:

After almost going the wrong way, we finally made it to Fat Monkeys at just after 7 that night. We negotiated a couple of dorms for the night as we were not keen on camping after such a long days ride and settled on $10 per person for a room with beds, toilet and a shower.

We hit the bar, had a burger for dinner and looked forward to a couple of days chilling by the lake.

To be continued...


 



 

 

[bmad]

Day 6

Fat Monkeys at last... I remember  clearly the pics from the PlotFunPop trio and it looks exactly like that, i had to look around to make sure they were not there too, that is how well i remembered their pics.

I woke at around six and took a walk to the lake edge, where pistol was already well comfortable on his new spot for the next couple of days and more.
The lake was more awesome to see than i had imagined. The shore was about 2 meters away from the bar, the water calm and soothing.  :3some:

Slowly but surely the rest of the gang started to awake and share in the beauty of our trip destination..

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The entire day was devoted to sitting at the waters edge, drinking beer and talk kak  :thumleft:
Now this is what we came for  :biggrin: :biggrin:

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We took a walk through the village to see the local life and have a look at the other accommodation offerings as well. Gecko Lounge looks really nice, but appeared to be a bit stiff compared to Fat Monkeys - which just seemed to have a great atmosphere about it.

The locals use the lake as a source for everything - They wash their dishes, themselves, they get water for cooking and drinking from there too. The kids play, the men fish and the women clean.

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Elephant beer - 7%
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A couple of us opted to have some artwork done. I was really impressed when the artist i had chosen, Ritchie produced a picture of Metal Jockey and his bike as reference  :thumleft:

Bmad's bike
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eSKaPe's bike
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We arranged with Dan the Man to go on safari the next day. This was to include some snorkeling off Mumba Island, a trip to the nature reserve as well as the feeding of the fish eagles. $30 dollars a head was price and we needed only to supply some beer and a cooler supplied by Fat Monkeys.

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Pistol's favorite drink
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The fisherman exiting  :biggrin:
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Lunch
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The great fisherman tried his luck and finally his big catch landed..  > >
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Our local chef, boat driver and guide said he could do better and catch the fish without a line
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Eagle watching
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After a good days outing we headed back to camp for more beer and relaxation.

We also met a couple of guys on bicycles doing the same route as us. They had been on the road for 82 days when we met up with them at Fat Monkeys. A really nice bunch of guys with the most amazing stories to tell. Neither of them had ridden before this trip  :
They organised some fillet and wors from a pub down the road managed by "Wilde Willem" from Potchefstrrom and treated us to a braai on the beach with Braai broodtjies, steak and wors.
Check out their blog: https://www.getaway.co.za/page/circling-the-south

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To be continued...

 

[Misty]

Monkey Bay looks like my kindda place!!! Mmmmm gotta go there!

 

[kevin]

Good going there B - eish its hard to look at the pics and not wish to be there again with a frosty in hand and toes in the lake. Mind you if Pistol stayed there any longer there would be no frosties left...