As we went on the list grew.. coffee, mugs, clothing, washing powder, spices, knives & forks, towels, sunblock.. it was starting to look a little long and I was starting to scratch my head, not giving up so easily I put my head down and continued to just add everything I could think of.. the idea being that once we had thought of everything we could always trim down, this was starting to become testing as we tried to figure out weather patterns, disease risks, cultural taboos.. we all had our say in what to take.
Eventually the last items to hit the list was the electronic equipment, battery chargers, cell phone chargers, cameras and we were done, or so we thought. Upon actually gathering everything together I realized what Wayne had been saying all along.. I was nuts. There in front of me was about 70 – 80 kg each of sheer necessity that would’nt fit into a 4 x 4 yet alone a bike. You want to be prepared, some things you throw out for weight, some for size and some cos there just is’nt place, I felt myself become less prepared and more uneasy with every exclusion but I knew, this was what it was all about, and I found my doubt turning to excitement as I realized what we were about to take on.. This is what I had dreamed of, this is what I wanted to do whenever I saw those okes riding with gear, covered in dust hammering it home after a days riding. I wanted to feel what they felt, then it hits home, reality sets in and I felt dejected, there was so much still to do and I cant even get the equipment streamlined enough to be light and effective, so back to the drawing board, now we had to take into consideration what we would be able to source along the way, what we could do without, we even considered the possibility of pre shipping supplies ahead to specific destinations. Either way, we had to get the weight down.
Things were all systems go, ahead of us lay weeks of grinding, cutting, drilling, fitting and refitting the bikes, we organized visas, carnets and insurance but then disaster struck, I had not taken into account I only had my learners license, and I was’nt the only one, with 3 weeks to departure this was not proving to be something that could be solved easily. I could’nt believe it, weeks of planning and the whole trip may have to be cancelled or delayed by up to 2 months because the traffic department just had no space to fit us in.. there had to be something we could do but I was hitting a brick wall on this one.
I could’nt believe that we had missed this one, and now the whole trip hung in the balance. I was’nt going to take this, I was angry, e-mails started to fly, and I started right at the top.. the Mayors office. That was not the only thing not going our way, even with working in the workshop every evening till 4am, we were terribly behind schedule, I was starting to feel the strain of the last few days, stress was starting to show and emotions were getting the better of us, we still had no detailed route setout.. things were looking down and I could’nt see our way out of it, I had to make a call to Wayne, “ dude, speak to your boss, we are going to have to push the departure date back, we are just not going to be ready”. I don’t think Wayne was very happy, he was the most organized out of the whole bunch and smarty pants bought Oxford panniers which means he was good to go and I was still slamming pop rivets into panniers I had no idea would work or not.. they sure weighed a ton.. but it was too late in the day to be going back to R&D to manufacture a lighter canvass equivalent.
I had no idea if we were going to get this right but we were not going to give up now, we are doing this, we are in It, so suck it up and get things done. We were due to depart in September, we had 4 months to achieve our goal of riding around lake Victoria to be home by Christmas, now we had a delay, every week we were delayed decreases our chances achieving our goal aaargh, this was frustrating, lets just go already.
Topic: Africa our way !! ( Complete...... or is it? ) (Read 42711 times)
