Road Story

Day 1

After about 9 hours of flying, we landed at Johannesburg International Airport. We were happy when Jonathan from SAMA picked us up from the airport and drove us to his home. This softened the landing in a new country a bit and also gave us the opportunity to experience for the first time how traffic behaves when driving on the wrong side of the road - a reminder of the British who ruled it until 1966. Johannesburg is a completely modern city but also very problematic. In light of the rumors about it, we were very happy to get out of it in an orderly manner. During the entire trip, we tried to bypass large cities. We have enough of them at home.

Pretoria, the capital city about 55 km away, appears to be a pleasant city with huge and beautiful mansions, all surrounded by CCTV cameras, electric fences and angry dogs. Cages of gold. At Jonathan's house, we first saw motorcycles - BMW F800GS and BMW R1200GS, sparkling in the light rain that had fallen. The excitement began. We rode the motorcycles to the hotel to spend the first night.

Day 2

In the morning, we started loading the motorcycles. Each of them came with a suitcase with a box on the luggage rack and two boxes on the sides, all detachable and original BMW. A very convenient arrangement for loading and unloading in hotels and maintains a low center of gravity of the motorcycle. We tied tents and mattresses to the back seat so that we had a comfortable backrest for long road trips. Then we mounted the GPS devices on the handlebars, loaded the routes into them and set off.

 

In order to shorten our way to "real Africa" we took the N1 highway towards the border crossing to Botswana. The road itself is wide, boring in its scenery and almost without curves, but it gave us an opportunity to get to know the motorcycle and its behavior with the weight on it. A rough calculation shows that the R1200GS, including the boxes and the rider, weighs approximately 380 kg. This figure doesn't really prevent this beast from reaching clearly illegal speeds, but with the exception of a few moments of mischief, throughout the trip we maintained a legal cruising speed of about 120 km/h. Speed, weight, and road heat didn't really maintain a reasonable rate of wear on the cubic tires, but they should only last for two weeks.

 

We spent the night in a lodge built from a tent to which a shower room and a toilet built of bricks are attached. When I asked if it had air conditioning, the host answered with a smile, as he opened one of the tent's huge zippers, that "it has the best air conditioning in the world". He wasn't wrong. We were showered with huge butterflies flying around us, very quickly in Africa you learn to live together with the world of insects.

Day 3

On the dashboard of the motorcycle there is a sticker - "Keep Left, Pass Right". You have to memorize it. In times of stress, the motorcycle will turn where the rider's subconscious directs it, so you have to make the switch in your head and the slogan that flashes before your eyes goes through your head over and over like a mantra. We get off the highway onto the N11 and head towards Botswana. The views begin to open up and the thought begins to seep into your head that we are really on a motorcycle right now. In Africa. In the open spaces.

 

The border crossing went smoothly and we are in Botswana. Suddenly the tension drops, we start to get into the rhythm of this country, which means - slow. We get off the A1 highway onto a more side road, the A15. We start to see strange names of settlements like Maunatlala, Sefhophe and Selebiphikwe. It doesn't really play easily on the tongue. We spend the night in a lovely lodge where the manager of the place, named Genesis, cooks us dinner. In return, we set up the WiFi network for her and teach her to write her unique name in Hebrew. Everyone here has an African name and an English name. English is also the second official language in the country, so communication with them is easy.

Day 4

We pass through Francistown, the second largest city in Botswana with a population of about 85,000 people. The entire population of Botswana is only about 1.7 million people spread over an area of ​​ about 600,000 square kilometers. 15,000 square kilometers of which are wetlands and lakes. Israel can enter this country several times. 27 times to be precise.

 

The roads are almost completely straight, in these spaces there is no reason to pave curves to challenge bored motorcyclists. The country is also almost completely flat in terms of its elevation map and the small number of cellular antennas placed there do not encounter any special difficulties in providing excellent coverage. We stop to rest in one of the parking bays on the road. They are scattered along the roads, arranged with a table and chairs. A car stops nearby and a woman gets out with packages. The car sails away and we watch the woman. 100 km in each direction there is no sign of a settlement. The woman nonchalantly pulls a ladder from behind one of the bushes and uses it to climb over the fence that prevents animals from entering the road area. Loads a few packages on her head, a few more in each hand and disappears into the thicket. Back home from shopping. Africa.

 

Towards noon we enter the Nata Bird Sanctuary. The reserve has an area of ​​about 230 square kilometers and is the largest breeding area in the world for flamingo colonies. We spend the night at a regulated camping site within the reserve. The area is flat and clean, near the camp there are well-maintained buildings that include toilets, showers with hot water, a dishwashing station and a huge stainless steel grill. A short hop to the nearby town of Nata and the grill is already searing steaks. Here they call them Rump Steak, here they would be called Shaytel And in any case, this is the part adjacent to the sirloin. Unlike in Israel, we sear them to a Well Done level. There is no need to take unnecessary risks in Africa.

Day 5

We continue on the A33 road. Halfway along the way, a group of elephants crosses the road. This is the first time we have seen elephants roaming around so freely and the cameras are ticking. Installing them on the handlebars for quick retrieval has proven itself. We have arrived in Pandamatenga and according to the Michelin road map, there should be a gas station here. It is there, but as is customary in Africa, there is no fuel. "Drive another 100 km to the nearest town, there is fuel there," we were told. We want to cross the border into Zimbabwe here. We calculate fuel consumption, decide to take the risk, and continue. Crossing the border gives us a strong hint of what awaits us - the paved road ends just below the gate that forms the border between Botswana and Zimbabwe. Banknotes are handed over to the border guards, and excess is not always returned. Africa. We get on a dirt road dotted with rocks. We start to smell the terrain and warm up, the motorcycles start to pay the dividends of a dual-purpose motorcycle, showing their ability even with a weight of about 34 tons. On these trails the animals cruise over the terrain, we stand on foot and ride deeper into the jungle. We pass through two nature reserves: Matesi and Kazuma Pan. Chameleons run away from us, elephants snort in the distance and unfamiliar voices are heard from the trees. After about 70 magical kilometers flowing over mountains and valleys, where we saw a few "settlements" consisting of a few families living in mud huts with thatched roofs, we reached the A8 road. A single-lane road, surrounded by tall vegetation that insists on encroaching on it, leading us to the city of Victoria Falls.

 

The city lives and breathes tourism and as soon as we entered to refuel at the nearest gas station, we were attacked. The feeling is not pleasant at all, so we immediately went to the tourist office in the city center. With our expensive motorcycles and riding suits, we attract a lot of of attention, so it is important to be in a prominent and central location. Judging by the villas that we saw, they were probably lived in by wealthy people in the past, but today most of these luxurious houses are neglected and rented out. The local currency has lost all value in crazy inflation and after collecting an astronomical number of zeros than they could print on the banknotes, the dominant currency is now the American dollar. We rented such a mansion, the motorcycles were stored in one of the three closed parking lots, close to the pool and the servants' house, and we went to indulge in dinner at the local casino.

Day 6

The first half of this day was planned for a visit to Victoria Falls, which are among the most impressive waterfalls in the world. The falls were discovered by the Scotsman David Livingstone in 1855, who was so impressed by them that he named them after Queen Victoria. The falls are about 100 m high, twice the height of Niagara Falls, and very wide - 1.7 km. Due to their height, the water spray creates a cloud of spray 1.6 km high, visible from a distance of 40 km from the falls. The thunder is heard long before arriving at the place itself, hence the local name of the river - "the thundering smoke". The falls are fed by the Zambezi River, the fourth largest in Africa, which is about 2,500 km long.  The falls are a unique meeting point in the world where four different countries meet: Botswana, Zimbabwe, Namibia and Zambia.

 

After visiting the falls, we returned to "our estate", loaded up the motorbikes and rode a side road along the Chobe River, one of the tributaries of the Zambezi. We crossed the border back into Botswana and continued to the city of Kasane. Returning to Botswana further sharpened the different mentality between the countries and we re-evaluated the peace, tranquility and security that Botswana gives us.

 

Kasane is a tourist town that feeds on tourists interested in exploring the huge Chobe Game Reserve on its outskirts. At the local tourist office, we were told that motorcycles were not allowed in the reserve due to the danger of wild animals living there. Of course, retracing our steps was out of the question, so we had to get creative. A guy named Mist, who owns a Toyota Hilux pickup truck that he uses as an open safari vehicle, agreed to rent us the pickup truck. The guy seemed a bit stressed by the new adventure that had been assigned to him, but he started moving things around. The nine seats attached to the pickup truck bed, including the roll cage, were dismantled, the BMW R1200 was (with great difficulty) lifted into the bed, the roll cage was put back in place, and the motorcycle was tied to it. Two seats were installed in the bed for us. We rented another open pickup truck, a Toyota Land Cruiser, to load the two additional BMW F800s and the equipment. It was agreed that Mist and his friends would take us through the Chobe Reserve, splitting the journey into two days of travel so that we could spend the night deep in the reserve. Mist went to his errands and we arranged to meet the next morning. We spent the night in a beautiful lodge on the banks of the Chobe.

Day 7

Mist, as is customary in Africa (as in other places) only called around noon, jubilant and happy that he had managed to get the last two tethers in Kasane. We used all the tethers we had and a climbing rope to tie the motorbikes and equipment. Around 16:00 we set off when the heavy clouds had already started to thunder. We spent the first 50 km in pouring rain while we sat on both sides of the motorcycle, on the open bed of a pickup truck, and the drops hit the inside at a sharp angle. The temperature outside was about 30 degrees, so at least the drying was quick after that. The period of the trip, early April, is the recommended period and is characterized by non-overwhelming heat and heavy but not prolonged rains.

 

The Chobe Reserve is the first national park established in Botswana and the third largest, about 12,000 square kilometers. The reserve contains a wide variety of animals and especially the largest elephant population in Africa, about 50,000 heads. The reserve is divided into four areas, each of which has a different ecosystem. The trails are mostly sandy and we were glad we didn't have to deal with them, the heavy motorcycles don't stand out in the deep sand and the equipment on them only adds to the burden the rider has to deal with.

 

Sitting statically in the box did allow us to enjoy the view without interruption and photograph antelopes in abundance, but it also took its toll on our backs and our backs. Towards 22:00 Mist turned off the rattling engine of the Hilux next to a beautiful lake. The local guys are well-practiced and within a few minutes the tents were set up and the fire under the poika was roaring. We spent the night listening to the sounds of nature, no one dared to go outside while we were sleeping so close to the only water source in the desert.