Day 1I have finally managed to set-off on Tuesday, December 22nd. The plan/hope for the day was to make it to Marracuene on the northern outskirt of Maputo, the start of the sandy double track up the coast, cca 600 km away. It was a long liaison stage, most of it boring tar where the main challenge was the Komatipoort border crossing to Mozambique - the only main border post between SA and Moz. In the middle of summer holidays just three days before Christmas it was shaping up to be a character building exercise. And there was a real risk that I’m not going to be let into Moz. I hoped to get Moz visa on the border as I did on my prior trip, but just before my departure there was a thread on WD forum where people in the know advised strongly for foreigners (I’m not SA citizen) to get the visa upfront as the visa issuance on the border seemed to be pretty arbitrary, especially in the peak season. So there was a real possibility that I may just bounce off the border and may be gunning it next day in the opposite direction north west to Botswana.
To give myself a fighting chance I started early before 7:00. First 15 km on N1 went without a glitch, until I stopped at the Shell garage to fill-up. The bike has 3 separate interconnected tanks and I closed them off to prevent the fuel spilling out of the lower two tanks. However I haven’t taken into account though how deep the filler caps stick into the tanks and ended up with petrol spraying all over me and by now hot engine anyway. So I’ve spent next hour in the parking lot sucking the excess petrol off the tanks with paper towels and waiting for the spilled petrol to evaporate.
An hour later I was back on N1 reeking of sweat (it was properly hot by now) and petrol. Somewhat intoxicated by the fumes I managed to miss the N4 off-ramp - a real Sandton bushtracker that I am - and had to turn back on the next off-ramp, having to paying toll in both directions getting off and on again. Then I got sprayed again by petrol from the front left tank - I was almost starting to like it. Who says you need to leave Gauteng highway network to have an adventure?
Quick stop and opening the tap between the tanks resolved the problem and I have finally reached N4 and headed into the sun towards Maputo. The ride was the dull slab enlivened only by antiques of overjoyed swarms of Moz heading holidaymakers and my sore ass. I have stopped for late breakfast in one of those rest points near Belfast and then again in Nelspruit for a refuel.
On stops the bike draws a lot of attraction - naturally, I have never had a bike with so many letters on it, including first owner’s name, initials and date of birth - in the form of race number. The downside is that it makes you (well me for sure) unwittingly act like a blase elder brother of Marc Coma in front of any spectators, particularly of female disposition. Those nonchalant moves came to bite me at that petrol station as I managed to pull the bike off its side stand while fastening a strap at the back, and the bike come crashing down right next to the fuel point. This came to become far too regular occurrence on the trip - posturing aside, the sidestand is just too long once the sag in the suspension is set-up correctly and the bike is filled up with petrol and luggage, and parking the bike turned out to be pain in the ass. I’ll have to sort that out before my next trip.
Once filled-up I continued on N4 towards Komatipoort, but I was feeling some serious misgivings about what laid ahead. There was a mass of traffic heading that way and I wasn’t keen to face the resulting mayhem on the border, including possible visa rejection by too busy officers. Quick check of the map brought up a possible solution - I turned south and headed to Swaziland about 30 km away. I have made it across the border to Swaziland without a glitch in less than half an hour where I turned east again heading along the SA/Swazi border for the Namaacha border crossing to Moz. By now the sun was getting low and I thought they may close the border for the day, so I was pushing to get there before border closes. I made it to the border on time and even better - there was no traffic whatsoever. I fully expected it to be pretty busy, surely I couldn’t be the only one to figure out this way around Komatipoort only about 30-40 km to the north. But I was, which amazed me even more when I was told later that the line in Komatipoort was 4-6 km long. Those people waiting in those line must have been comatose not to see the obvious workaround.
The officers were friendly - they gave me a cursory pep talk about how dandy it is to get visa upfront in embassy, but then proceeded to issue me one without a problem. Score! They even had official price list for it, so I guess it is still legally possible - I wouldn’t try it in Komatipoort in peak season though.
Once in Mozambique, the urban scenery immediately changes into a Brazilian favela with bright colours and plaster peeling off the decrepit concrete buildings - the portuguese influence is clearly visible, as are the scars of the civil war. Nevertheless, to my amazement, I was able to withdraw Meticais from the only ATM in town (and to my much bigger amazement it turned out later on that you can pay almost everywhere with payment cards - even in remote villages hundreds of km from tar) and afterwards pushed hard down the serpentines off the mountains towards Maputo racing the setting sun.
At the bottom of the hills I came to a T junction, where I had a decision to make. Left going north to Moamba on my original route from where I had plotted dirt roads all the way to Marracuene, bypassing Maputo completely. Right would take me straight through the middle of Maputo. Normally I would turn left without a second thought, but it was almost dark by now and the Maputo route was only half the distance, so I made up a theory about most of the Maputan’s already out of town in their beach houses up the coast and turned right. That lasted for few kms until I hit the peak traffic head on still way out of the Maputo proper and had to switch into full street-fighting mode. Unlike most westerners I do enjoy a bit of the trademark African traffic chaos and disregard of rules (SA, Botswana and Namibia do not qualify as Africa as people follow the rules more or less there) and soon got into the swing of things riding like an idiot swaying around stationary traffic alternating between the dirt riding on the shoulder and lane splitting against the oncoming traffic. It was fun, but with 550 km and two border crossings under the belt for the day I tired soon and persevered in the dark through the heat and fumes driven only by fantasies of medium rare stake and nice bed in Jay’s lodge in Macaneta.
The slow, stop and go traffic and the tropical heat were ideal for the KTM to show its character. The rev meter started acting erratically and eventually quit completely, the fan was on more or less all the time, and I was getting cramps in my left hand clutching my way through the choke a block traffic thanks to that truly stupid close ratio gearbox. Oh and my speedometer quit already in Joburg – I was sure it was blown fuse, but didn’t bother to change it as it also disabled permanently ABS, which is how I like to have it. I eventually came to like this bike a lot with all its ‘character’( especially as it didn’t leave me stranded which is all that matters at the end of the day), with exception of that stupid close ratio gearbox, that IMO is an epic KTM fail.
It took about two hours of intense urbane fighting to get me to Marracuene which I’ve reached at about 7:00pm. I still had to cross the Incomati river to reach the bliss of cooked meal and bed and was greatly relieved to see that the ferry was still operating. Normally they close at 6:00pm, but due to high holiday traffic they kept operating longer – bless their soul. Being on bike I jumped the long queue of cars (the ferry has limited space and according to locals it takes regularly about 4 hours wait to get car to the other side) and took the next ride to the other side. Then it was quick dash of about 5km or so on a good dirt road until I reached turnoff to Jay’s Lodge another 5 or so km away. I’ve been here before and knew that the double track to the lodge is one of the most brutal sands you can find even in Moz as it crosses the coastal dune field. So uncharacteristically for me, I have stopped and lowered the tyre pressures to about 1.3 bar and set-off. And I battled, battled bad. Tired from the long liaison and checked out mentally too early assuming I’m already there, I even had to resort to a duck-walking in places – not a good sign for the next 600 km or so of the same shit I had planned for me.
I have made it eventually to the lodge, where I inhaled in quick successions few sodas and beers, followed by some kind of meal that I don’t remember. Somewhat recovered – or so I thought – I still had to brave about 1,5 km of brutal sand to the chalet following the two ladies from the lodge leading the way. It was easy for them in their hard core Daihatsu Terrios 4x4, but me and my Dakar replica suffered badly in the deep uneven weaving sand and they had to wait for me couple of times. To say that I was relieved to see the chalet would be a gross understatement. I was tired like a dog and hit the bed straight away.
Sorry I have no pictures from this day - it will improve going forward. Route for the day:
Topic: Christmas Safari 3 - Mozambique & Zimbabwe (Read 31811 times)
