Two Okes Jolling Southern Africa

[J-dog]

:sip:

 

[JacoSwart]

eepwall:

 

[Knucklhead/knuckey]

:sip:

on the stoep with Jdog, waiting!!

 

[lj111]

:sip:

 

[Shaun]

:sip: eepwall:

 

[mischiefjay]

:thumbleft:

 

[chickenbadger]

On the stoep, where its at.

Right, killer flight up to Mombasa via Addis Ababa, new boeing dreamliners though, so that was quite epic!

Cruise into the Backpackers where HTFU was jolling, woke him up from a hangover, thats what happens when he jols with the locals!

It has been a relatively chilled few days, St Paddies day crept up with 42 Scandanavians pulling into the backpackers for the night, hhhmmmmm. After realising that I have left my sleeping bag back in Cape Town and that we may or may  not have grossly underbudgeted, we hit the streets hard. Meals in wit ou restaurants are same price as cheap parts of Cape Town, but then we discovered the local fare - Nyama Choma, Pilau and chpatis. Solid meal where you leave maxed out wanting to sleep for a whole R8. The best curried beef stew one could have with epic chipatis, the only thing is you have to wade through the flies in order to get to a table in these dark shacks, but hey, three meals cost a quarter of what they would were the whiteys are - and are often better. If you are lucky, sometimes you even find some lekker goat to chow down on!

Beer is R20 a bottle at the bottle store, so that is a bit of a ball ache!


The ship with the bikes on them (The MSC Dennise) has finally left Coega bound for Mombasa, we actually have an estimated date of arrival. So, waiting game. Headed down South to Ndiani beach. Local backpackers, really chillled out place. HTFU just rocked up with a 20kg white snapper (after its been gutted - 20 kg). See pic.

Thanks to those WIld Dogs that helped us in the preparations, like Piston Pete for organising tech days and supplying us with the kit, always helpful with the details!

Check the BAJA we found: LOVE that bike!

 

[chickenbadger]

Right, crazy few days. We got the bill of lading from the shipping company, which requested us to get in contact with Limutti Holdings in mombasa in order to start the process of receiving the bikes. And then those bastards quoted us: R19,000.00. Thats the same cost as getting the two bikes to Mombasa from Cape Town we got a few other quotes and they only came in to be mofe expensive. Twats. So, to limutti holdings we go. The quote is made up of two parts: shipping and clearing.

So, screw that. We head to Kenyan Revenue Authority where we end up in the big boss's office and tell our story, he schemes nooit so he phones his chomas in port, the bead of the port and the head of imports and sends us off down to the port to meet these okes. They agree and confirm tgat we are being ripped and they send us to the yard where our container is going go be deconsolidated and the manager there schemes that we are being taken for a ride as well.

So, the next day, back down to limutti holdings to tell them to shove it. We arrive, layout all the business cards that we gathered the previous day and tell them that they can phone any one of these people and they wil confirm that we are being ripped off.

The problem is because the company in SA (cfr freight) consolidated the container and sent it to limutti holdings, limutti holdings then issue delivery notices once you have paid them so that your goods can be released. So you are held by ransom until you pay them.

So we got it down from R19000.00 to $350 per bike which is still a bloody rip for them to issue the delivery notice, but a lot more digestable then close to 20k.

Now that is the shipping part, now the clearing part. Everybody says that we have no choice but to appoint a clearing agent. One agent actually sitting us down with a smile on his face saying he will do it for R2000.00 per bike, discounted because its a bike on a carnet so it shoukdnt be too hard for him. When we argued he lent back on his chair with a smile on his face, and told us that we have no option and that is life, life isnt fair. Twatwaffle. So, research, phone our china in the Kenyan Revenue Authority who reminds us that that is bullshit, and all it is is a free stamp in the carnet, that we can do ourselves. So we head back to this dickhead, he sits back with that same "welcome to my spider web" smile on his face and we tell him to shove it and we will do it ourselves and he was a crook. The smile disappeared. He asked us if we were going to pay him for consultancy because its fair - one of my best moments of my life - I lent back in my chair, and reminded him that "my friend, life isnt fair". It looked like he was hit by a brick!

Victory is oh so sweet.

So, MSC DENISSE arrives in the Port of Mombasa with our motorcycles tomorrow, and we should have them in our hands by Tuesday, then we leave for Cape Town.

Will post pics so far, and we will keep you dogs updated.

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[chickenbadger]

Lunch

This thing bit the bullet unfortunately.

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[Dirtcopper]

:thumleft: :sip: :sip:

 

[profiler]

Hold on let me just get my coffee!! :headbang:

 

[Just Blip It!]

This looks like it's going to be interesting!

 

[BlueBull2007]

Brilliant, this is route I have wanted to do. Lake Tangayika is AWESOME, way better than Lake Malawi.

Ride safe guys :thumleft: :ricky:

 

[stan1975]

Great stuff lads, keep the updates flowing like the lager...

 

[chickenbadger]

Phew, after yet a few more backpackers, and a few birthdays, its time to leave Kenya.

After months of waiting we headed to the Port of Mombasa this afternoon to welcome the MSC DENISSE into port. This vessel, a picture of health, after sailing the high seas is going to drop our motorcycles off tomorrow, and we pick them up on tuesday. Wednesday, we ride!
Stopping at the shops tonorrow to find some LED light strips, tassles and massive mudflaps to add to the bikes to help them fit in.

Will post pics in due time!!

Now the trick is to dodge the allure of these backpacker parties...

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[chickenbadger]

Kenya

Right, here's for the ride report...

After fighting tooth and nail to get our motorcycles released from port, we finally rode out at 18:00 on Wendesday the 27th of March to our backpackers to prep for the first day.

Thursday morning, all packed and ready to go, garnering a fair crowd of backpackers and comments from dimwits like "oh my god, they have so much gear, these Kenyans ride in like a tshirt and shorts" slaps were in order.

Setting off on Mombasa Road to Nairobi was fairly bland, trucks and cars driving like idiots, crossing a few parks and seeing a little wildlife kn the side of the highway, Zebras and the like. It was in Voi that HTFU noticed that one of his tanks on his 950 was not draining... Problem. So we take it easy up to a town called Kibwezi to tick in for yhe night and try sort the fuek problem out. After fidling with the taps the bike just refused to start. So, the next morning, bush mechanic time. At about 9am I go back to my room to get my phone that was charging to take pictures of this little local dude stripping the KTM when I notice my door open, I go inside my room and all my valuable stuff has been stolen, and my door lock broken. Laptop (I know, I had to bring it along, I still have a job), cell phone, ipod and all my cash for the trip. We were fixing the bike about 15 meters from my room when this went down. So, understandably I go into a right out panick!!!

I have a Galaxy S3, which, has a travking device on it. Head to the police station where they bring out their Land Rover Puma edition (full army colours - epic!!) And we can see the phone heading to Nairobi, roughly 200km away. So HTFU gets into the landy with his phone yo track, I stayed back and held the fort whilst the bush mechanic did his thing.

After pursuing the criminals, they tracked the phone down to a car parked river road, Nairobi, where they waited for whoever to come back and try get back into the car. Guns out and forceful arrests were made, they had just come back from selling my laptop to a stolen goods dealer. They arrested the dealer and retrieved my laptop along with stolen flat screens and stereo systems, all of which us now evidence, which goes straight to the Nairobi pokice department,  a labyrinth of corruption and beaurocracy. Now HTFU has the job of retrieving the items from the police, which took 2 days after the Kibwezi police (heros) convincing the Nairobi police that the cime happened in Kibwezi, and the stolen items and criminals shoukd be bought back to kibwezi.

In the mean time, yhe bush mechanic had discovered that there was a short in the fuel pump, which cracjed a diode insidr the pump and absolutely fried the wiring loom, all this after reducing the 950 to its parts, removing the fuel tanks, radiator etc etc etc - seriously impressive stuff. He eventually replaced the wiring loom, and replaced the cracked diode inside the fuel pump and got rid of the short. KT was back on the road.

Saturday night, the landrover rocks up at kibwezi with half the cash and all the stolen electronic items, and the criminals. The local chief of police and a few officers grab a bite to eat at the hotel to chat to me, the criminals enjoying complete freedom having dinner at the next table, I couldnt believe it, I wanted tk punch them!!! But we coukdnt gwt any of the items back, so I had about R200 on me which I had been living on.

Sunday morbing, and the police are asking us to stay until Tuesday to testify in court. We have covered a whole of 300km from Mombasa to Cape Town, all I wanted to do was gwt the fuck outta there. They have promised us that our case will be the first case to be heard and we can then be on our way with all my stuff, reluctantly we agree on condition that we get a tank of petrol each to explore the area on Monday, and our accommodation and food is paid for, all of which is granted, so now we wait.

The next two days were filled with exploring the local area and getting totally wasted with the local police chief, all on the account of the local municipality.

Tuesday morning comes, we head to the next town where the court is held. Prisoners get loaded into a holding cell next to the court, which is just a hall in the middle of the bush. Despite us being told that court starts at 8, and our case would be the first to be heard, court started at 11 and we were the ninth case in. I just wanted to cry. We sat through a range of interesting looking cases, two Masai Mara were held for something that they had no idea what was about and were scared shitless. Very hectic stuff. So our case eventually came, the three criminals bought in from the hokding cell, and the main guy gets up and states that he was beat up in Nairobi policr station and is unfit to proceed. So the bastard new we just wanted to get out of there as soon as possible. It also turns out that they followed us from Mombasa (300km). Case fucking postponed until Wednesday. One more day in Kibwezi.

Wednesday, head to Mikundu court again, fourth case is ours, the family members struck a deal with us were they bought us out of our case - which was fine with me to be honest, so we took our money, took our goods, told everybody we were headed South East and then klapped it HARD North west through Nairobi to Lake Naivasha. Booked into a decent hotel on the lake with the winnings and chilled hard, not posting anything on facebook and telling everybody that we were heading south to Tanzania.

Finally did some laundry and then headed to Nakuru, paranoid as anything that we were once again being followed, bevause after court it was pubkic knowledge that we had a lot of cash and assets on us. A guy on a fireblade rode with us for a while until we pulled over and asked him wtf he wanted, I think the poor oke was just loving riding with skme bigger bikes.

So we once again booked into a lekker guest house in Nakuru for some comfort,  the next day we head for Kerio Valley,  part of the great Rift. Absolutely incredible, with the most epic dirt roads with river crossings, small jumps through tiny villages, 130km took us 4 hours to Tot where we thought we would be hitting a tar road, but no, another 50km of dirt, so wr booked into a church to sleep for the night, absolutely finished. The next day we had a big push into Uganda. So, once again, highway section, gave us a chance to open the taps on the ktm and the bmw, loads of fun, our aim was to hit Jinja in Uganda in time for the rugby, the manager of the backpackers here is a massive stormers fan, we got here at kick off...

Ill post some pics as soon as I have access to my laptop again, I need to change its plug. This African Adventure continues...

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[Cheetah]

:sip:

 

[onderbroek]

Sub

 

[GPW]

never a dull moment in africa. enjoy your trip

 

[Wayne Duck]

Africa, always an adventure!  :