Motorcycle Diaries Day 1:

I recently made a rather epic journey south to Malawi to renew my visa. 9 Days and approximately 2,700 km on a 250 dirt bike. This is my chronicling of that tale. Stay tuned for Day 2 coming soon...

(No Kelly this does not specifically have anything to do with the businesses or what we are doing here so you might as well stop reading now)

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Day 1

Setting out from home in Moshi I really had no idea just what I was getting myself into. Of course in a way I think maybe that was the point, the truest adventure is that which you do not plan and are ill prepared for. It is the reaction to adversity, rolling with the punches and making things up as you go that really define many of the greatest stories in my life. It is not as though I was unprepared, I just didn’t plan or prepare in any kind of exhaustive detail. I knew where I was going, the route I intended to take and approximately how long I thought that it should take me to get there. I had a burly 250 dirt bike which generally seemed to run quite well, I had my Leatherman Multitool, capable of handling minor repairs and maintenance, a knife, clothing, a water bottle that purified even the dirtiest water and a jug for extra fuel. I figured I had what I needed to ride from Moshi to the Tanzania/Malawi border and back again. In some respects 2,700km doesn’t seem like all that far to travel. By comparison that is like going from Vancouver to Edmonton via Calgary and back again. Not close but not exactly far. On the other hand, however, I was in Africa and things here have a way of defying expectations and being much more difficult than we intend.

My bike was a 1990 Honda XL250R, the kind of bike that is made to tackle the toughest of conditions and slog through. By local standards it was a beast. Most bikes here are only 125cc and made in some cheap Chinese factory out of plastic and cheap metal not much stronger than plastic. The XLR by comparison is one of the toughest bikes on the planet. There is a version, which was produced specifically for the Paris-Dakar race (look it up if you don’t know it). It was far from perfect but was generally reliable. The morning I left I replaced the carburetor on it, had it tuned up and was packed and on the road by about 12:00pm. My goal for the day was Morogoro, approximately 550km from Moshi.

Just prior to setting out

My first sign that things were not exactly going to go as I had planned was small and innocuous. I pulled into a gas station just outside of Moshi to fill up the bike and the spare jug that I had brought along. The attendant smiled at my laden bike and filled the tank and jug. Resecuring the jug I immediately noticed that it was leaking from the spout. Tightening the cap yielded no positive change, neither did putting some plastic bag over the opening, nor in fact did trying a completely new jug from the station. Everything insisted on leaking all over my stuff. Finally in frustration I switched to two 1.5L water bottles and after a 15 min battle that left my hands smelling of gas I was on my way again. It wasn’t long before I was racing south through the desert like terrain. The sheer awesomeness of the situation, to be in Africa, riding out in search of adventure, was nearly overwhelming, forcing me to laugh out loud as I rode, a ridiculous grin plastered on my face.

I realized my first mistake about an hour into my ride. While my arms and face were all protected from the harsh African sun, my hands were sorely exposed as I gripped the bars of the bike. The sensible, logical and intelligent thing to do at this point would have been to stop, dig into my bag and find my sunscreen; a stop of maybe 5 minutes in total. I have, however, always found that once I am on the go I have an absolutely irrational aversion to stopping for anything unless absolutely necessary. This combined with the fact that I had started late that day drove me to push forward, disdaining the power of the sun. It wasn’t until some hours later when my hands were already burned that I finally caved and pulled over. Of course by this point it was much to late and the damage was already well done.

The landscape through which I rode was fantastically alien and varied. From the dry desert like flatlands closer to Moshi, to the great expansive sisal plantations, which stretch for miles and eventually give way to rolling hills and valleys; lush, verdant green, growing in abundance along the banks of streams and rivers and populated by all manner of livestock and people. Children playing, washing, and herding, mothers tilling the fields, doing laundry and cooking and the men, working the fields, and pushing laden carts up and down the road. All slipping past me as I rode onwards.

A Taste of The Landscape

The major roads, which I was traveling, are in generally good repair, though sharply punctuated by speed control humps appearing with regularity as you pass through small towns. The standard set up is two sets of three small tightly packed bumps followed by a small mountain of asphalt impersonating a speed bump. You can generally anticipate the size of the town you are about to pass through by the sign, which precedes the first of these launch ramps and proclaims the number of humps by which you are about to be attacked. A ‘2 Humps’ town is maybe 200-300 meters of road whereas a ‘5 Humps’ town can be upwards of 2km. Speed signage is few and far between in some areas of the country but it is simply assumed that outside of towns the limit is 80 and in town areas is 50. In other areas the towns and speed changes are very well marked, with the name of the town and the 50 km/h limit posted at one end of the town while at the other the signs repeat this information but with two lines crossed through to inform you that this information is no longer valid. A rather simple and elegant system really, no need to post a new speed limit, it is just inferred.

Unbeknownst to me, all the time that I was working my way south my bike was losing oil. By the time I had gone around 2/3rds of the distance to my destination I was running dangerously low. All of this of course was completely unknown to me as I do not have a working oil light, the leak somehow managed not to be overly visible when I was stopped, and as I had had an oil change that morning, checking the oil level just didn’t really seem like something I needed to do. Suddenly, the bike began to sputter and pulse. At first I thought that I was perhaps running out of fuel, but that did not make sense as I had just recently filled the tank. I limped it along, not knowing what was wrong with it, until I found the next gas station. The first thing I noticed on dismount was the smell of burnt plastic. Looking more closely at the bike I saw that the right rear side panel had been pushed into the exhaust pipe by my saddlebag and had practically evaporated. Unfortunately the damage was not confined to the cover. Once the cover was gone the bag had begun to press against the pipe as well, melting a large oval hole in it. When it had finished working its way through the bag the hungry pipe had moved onto the drysac packed within and quickly devoured that as well, finally sating its hunger by eating a good third of the sleeping packed within. The drysac and sleeping bag were a total write off and had to be thrown away. I cut away the brunt part of the cover and repacked the saddlebag. There was no way to hang the bags so I had to reposition them up on the back of the seat under my cargo net, donning my back pack to make space.

I still didn’t know what had caused my bike to stop running smoothly, but by this time it had cooled down and of course the problem had evaporated with the heat. Hoping it was one of those weird mechanical issues that seem to sometimes fix themselves, maybe some bad gas, I moved on. Of course with little to no oil in the block the problem reasserted itself after only a kilometer or so and I was forced to pull into the first Fundi I could find.

Let me tell you a little something about Fundis here. The word Fundi is a term applied to any repair or craftsman type. A Fundi Seremala is a carpenter, a Fundi za Vioo is a plumber and a Piki Piki Fundi is a motorcycle repairman. Unlike North America, most Fundis don’t work out of a garage, nor do they keep parts in stock. They work on a patch of dirt of sidewalk, usually adjacent to a spare parts dealer. Their entire kit of tools can generally fit into a small box, easily carried: a few screwdrivers, a couple of pliers and a mishmash assortment of spanners. With these meager tools they are somehow able to perform nearly any job on the bikes here. I have seen men remove a tire, change or patch the tube and replace, with one wrench, two screwdrivers and a hammer. It is kind of like hanging out with MacGyver sometimes, watching these people at work (if he was black, the black MacGyver… BlaGyver!). As for parts, when they determine what you need, you give them money on the spot and then run and buy it. Need more engine oil? Give them 5,000 TSH and they will go buy a liter. Need a new screw to hold your turn signal on? Give them 200 TSH and they will run down the street to the hardware store and pick one up. Talk about Just In Time Inventory Management… With the help of the Fundi I realized that my bike was dry and oiled it back up and set out again.

About 6:30pm the sun was setting and the world was beginning to dim as I rolled into Ubena, about 50km from Morogoro. Tired, frustrated at my slow pace, angry about the oil leak my bike had, and with rather badly burnt hands I decided I would stop for the night instead of pushing on into darkness. At the gas station I asked a man if he knew where there was a guesthouse for cheap and was directed just down the street. The guesthouse was clearly not the kind of place that many Mzungus had or ever will stay, but at 4,000 TSH a night you get what you pay for. Think cheap rest stop motel on HWY 1 in Canada then transplant that here. For me it was perfect.

4,000 TSH = Approx $2.75 CAD

While unloading my bike I struck up conversation with a few men who were sitting at a table out front and they invited me to join them. Once I was unpacked and cleaned up slightly I went and sat with them for a few beers and dinner. They were truckers, driving petroleum from Dar Es Salaam into southern Tanzania. Two of them spoke basically no English and one spoke about as much English as I spoke Kiswahili. We managed to communicate fairly well in a strange polyglot of the two languages and they were all very impressed with having made an Mzungu friend. One kept calling people he knew who spoke English and making me talk to them. I kind of felt like a pet that can do a cool trick and the owner wants to show it off to all his friends. The three beers and two plates of roasted goat I shared with them was the only food and drink I had consumed all day, other than maybe 500ml of water while riding, and it wasn’t long before I was feeling very ready for bed. I headed off to bed with assurances from the guys that if I needed anything, if anyone hassled me in the night that I could just call for them and they would happily take care of things for me.

Overall I went to bed happy that night, the day had held a number of unexpected challenges and frustrations but it had also held a great deal of beauty and freedom. The challenges are all just part of the adventure and would eventually add to the scope of the story. Thus far I had been tested and passed… now for tomorrow.