To purchase the book, Under African Skies, by Gareth and Jo Morgan, follow this link, or go to www.shop.worldbybike.com.

We are at the end, London. We have gone from spring and blossoms in South Africa to bitterly cold bleak UK and morning frosts, and between the equatoral scorching heat of deserts and the wet season in Ethiopia and Sudan.
We have had roads that are as smooth as a baby’s bottom to the ones that ate my three shock absorbers and mud and sand experiences to last a life time.

We encountered whole countries of beggars chanting “give me my money” to the fiercely independant groups that look on our life-style and relative wealth with disdain. We have been offered hospitality that is humbling from many folk of all walks of life.

The farmers that patrol their land with AK47 guns are welcoming and friendly . The women cowed beneath their robes enchanting, friendly and offering food and encouragement to me.

We have been charged by elephants ( charged double by Egyptians) seen a proper zebra crossing and sights to dream about in my dotage.

I have fallen in love with the wonderful men I travelled with, all unique people and a great team.

We all stayed well, the team all know each other like a family. Actually you are a type of family at the end of a trip like this.

BUT Can’t wait to go home and be Nana again.

Thanks for sharing the trip.
Jojo

We are at the top of Africa and waiting at Tunis for tonights ferry. Tunisia has been a real delight, especially after the ruin of Libya.

We managed to get some riding excitement along a 60 km shortcut that someone, probably Brendan, had found. Yes when I thought all the sweaty days were over another road to stress the shocks and luggage and me.
I,m not great at riding some of the adventure stuff that the REAL BOYS seem to love. Paul of course has done competitive riding in far worse conditions and Brendan and Tony do mud and rocks for fun in the weekends so they wonder at my quiet application to a road they celebrate. Anyway I made it and stayed on.

Tunis is a civilised place and steaks and wine were on the menu last night, and tonight we get to sleep on the ferry to Sicily.

You have to see it to believe it. Here we are at the home of Rome’s African citadels of Cyrena, Apollonia and Leptis Magna and all you can see is trash. The latest conquerors of Libya – following on from the Greeks, the Romans, the Turks, the Byzantines, the Spanish and the Italians – are the Arabs. The legacy from this cacophony of conquests is that the cultures of the native Libyan tribes have all but disappeared. Gaddaffi’s Libya isn’t an attractive place – in fact it’s one big rubbish tip. Kiwis would find it hard to believe people can live amidst their own waste like this. If you want to see the best examples of Roman remains you need to visit soon – they’re about to disappear under a sea of Arab rubbish and the Libyan Department of Antiquities is a joke - it’s concerned mainly about promoting the little green book of that pathological egotist Gaddaffi’s thoughts! Independent travellers need not bother – guides are compulsory and expensive – it’s a rort.

What I meant was Sert where the Colonel (Giddafi) was born as that other sort of kernel is a nut.
He has lots of huge photos of (surprise surprise) himself around the country and the years of his reign is advertised every-where.

What we have found here is incredible honesty and that has been wonderful after the graft and corruption we experienced in Egypt.

There are loads of flash cars and mercs and many of the top European brands are out at speed on the roads. They pass you with a few inches to spare and often have had cameras in their hand to take photos of the tourists while driving and passing. How so many people survive a day on these roads is a wonder. There is the other extreme too and not too much trickle down of wealth to the poorer folk.

The most memorable thing about this place will be the garbage. How have so few people (5 million) managed to create such a shit hole of filth??? It is piled along most highways and blows across the desert, they throw it out of cars and pile waste everywhere around housing.

You would never want to buy a plastic bottle again if you came here.

As we have travelled through Libya I have noticed there are very few women or girls visible in any places. I saw one driving yesterday and she told me she was “from Tripoli where it is more free”. There have been none at any of the restaurants we have eaten in, eating or working.

Today I had lunch at a segregated highway-side KFC look-alike. There was a picture of the colonel (Gaddaffi) over the counter.
I was well into my chicken before I realised that there were no other women in the restaurant, I’m sitting with my 5 bloke friends and ask if they have seen any girls.

“They go in the door over there ” said Dave, who notices these sorts of things. So in I go and find all the women and a few infants. Some don’t have food as they wait for the males
to bring it to the door and yell their name. They gather around and all know I’m on a motorbike and want to know where I’m from (Mars ???). The language barriers melt away. Many of the older women have a tatoo down their chin like a NZ moku, they say it is a Libyan mark. I use the bathroom, flooded, so I’m glad of boots, no loo-paper but a very efficient hose to wash instead of the usual wipe. Good-byes are fondly said in many ways and languages.

As I rode down the highway later several familiar faces waved out from back seats, often peeping from beneath swathes of fabric. I wish I knew what they thought.

We have put out toes in the source of the Nile (both Blue and White) looked at the confluence of both at Khartoum ( in the Sudan), taken a ferry trip along it’s dammed lake (Nasser) from Wadi Halfa to Aswan and gone to where it discharges muddy, used and abused into the Mediterranean Sea at Rosetta in Egypt. We have seen it used as a waste disposal unit, toilet / bidet, bath, irrigation and drinking water supply for humans and animals

Some details
Basin countries Sudan, Burundi, Rwanda, DR Congo, Tanzania, Kenya, Uganda, Ethiopia, Egypt
Length 6,650 km (4,132 mi)
Source elevation 1,134 m (3,721 ft)
Avg. discharge 2,830 m³/s (99,956 ft³/s)

She’s done it again – blown here 3rd shock absorber on this trip. What it is about Joanne’s riding or with her F650 none of us can fathom, but she is hard on the hardware. So bike guru Paul is back in action replacing the shock from our inventory of spares, shipped out to Addis Ababa a few weeks ago. He’s set a new record – just 54 minutes from go to woah! Give this guy a medal he can replace shocks just about as fast as we can blow them.

It was sad to see the pyramids surrounded by rubbish, parking lots, and the suburb of Giza pressing in on 3 sides. The construction was being eaten away by the acids caused by the city, but you had to be impressed by the size, hope they are looked after for the next generations.The corruption of Egyptian officialdom and plague of corrupt old and young touts make the continued protection seem uncertain.

I went back at sun-set to get a horse so I could ride into the desert to look back from afar. I am bruised and aching today as it was a very exciting ride, galloping up the dunes and across sandy valleys on a big stallion and with a sleazy guide racing me. This is an after hours experience and wouldn’t have been OSH approved. I saw two tourists lying on the ground after falling off their mounts. The Pyramid complex was shut but you could pay off the guard and get access (You can bribe most officials here — very corrupt).

The ride was a real adrenalin rush, I was glad I had done a fair bit of riding,,,,,,, and then comes the paying bit when the negotiated price is changed and you are glad that you are not a first time tourist in this land of hard bargaining and unfair tricks. Walking after in this tourist Mecca makes me glad I have a few words of Arabic, “go away” is used most but gems of people surprise you with generosity too.

Today we are off to Alexandria and the mouth of the Nile river. It is getting cooler and the daytime temperatures are about 30 but we can sleep at night with-out air conditioners.

Only two countries to go, Libya and Tunisia and then into Europe. Keep well and warm back there in wonderful NZ

L

Dealing with the Egyptian Traffic Police is like playing snakes and ladders. Land on the right square on the right day and you will progress up the ladders and get to your destination. Land on the wrong square and the snakes will ensure you’re in for lengthy delays.

Our first mission was to get an Egyptian licence and a set of number plates for our bikes. And what a mission that was to be!

We travelled to Aswan by the ferry up Lake Nasser from Wadi Halfa, but our bikes had to take the slower barge and were not to arrive until two days later. We cleared immigration but were told there’d be no more progress until our bikes arrived. For the next two days we looked at the scenery. But it was worse - we had hit Aswan on yet another succession of African public holidays so it was to be four days until we could even start the bike clearing process.

Brendan and I were volunteered to do the processing. We arrived promptly as the Egyptian Traffic Police office opened, armed with all the materials needed and determined for a speedy resolution. What dreamers! Entering the Police department we were immediately perplexed by a plethora of signs. The room had 15 counters with Egyptians queued at each and even more just pushing in – animals!

After minutes of push and shove we were curtly informed that we needed copious copies of our carnets and passports and an individual folder for each motor bike was soon established. Little did we know how bulky these files would become.

By 11:00am our prospects of a quick resolution were dimming. While we had the requisite number of photocopies we now needed Egyptian insurance but that office would close at noon. We sprinted across town to the insurance office, up the stairs and into another Egyptian queue or should I say, rabble. An hour later it was back to the Traffic Police office to find an inspector to confirm we hadn’t bull-shitted our chassis numbers. What!

The verifier looked like someone fresh out of the Columbia drug trade – or that fat Turkish prison Governor from Midnight Express- and man did he revel in the power he held. Any attempt to push things and he invented further delays. Immediately we slid down a snake. He shouted us out of his office and we were told “Mr Inspector” was busy – in other words, sit down and wait!

It was a 1 ½ hour wait until the inspector was “ready”. We watched this jerk in action – he tested all the vehicles without moving from his seat – his powers of delegation to a coterie of minions was an inspiring template of leadership.

Once out to where the bikes were locked up “Mr Inspector” planted his arse firmly on a car bonnet and barked at his minion to do the business - taking stencils from the motorbike frames. We’d landed on another snake, “Mr Inspector” would not release our forms even though the stencils revealed we weren’t liars. We were advised to thank this tosser properly . I asked, “how much properly” and was told 20 pounds should do it. I duly gave this bully the Egyptian hand-shake.

Oh god, another snake. The 20 Egyptian pounds apparently should have been 50. Finally we left the port with what we considered to be completed paper work. Suckers!

Now back yet again to the main Police Traffic office to complete the exercise. Shit, the doors are locked – it’s only 2:15pm and the office isn’t supposed to close until 3:00. Around the back and upstairs to where the Police Chief resides. By this time our tempers have gone - not a good omen. The big man, replete with 4 star epaulets, office with ceiling fan, air conditioning, a TV playing the local “days of our lives” and a closed circuit TV monitor for him to spy on all his underlings – looks right at home astride his empire. We ask what time the office closes and he replies 3:00pm, we explain that it is 2:15pm and he replies “Ramadan”, apologises and says come back tomorrow. We thank him for being so considerate.

We had been Ramadamned. Game-over go back to the beginning and try a new game of “Plates and ladders” tomorrow.

We return to the office at 9:00am. More paper work is undertaken by “Mr Blue Shirt” He tells us to sit down and wait. Brendan notes a lady return with 6 licenses and places these on “Mt Blue Shirt’s” desk who in turn delivers these to “Mr Corner Office” so he asks him if ours are ready. One hour has passed and we are still waiting. “Mr Corner Office” tells him to wait while he discusses our situation with “Mr Blue Shirt”. After another 30 minutes I decide to call the Police Chief. “Blue Shirt man” insists our forms are not complete, the Sheriff out at the port failed to sign a certain section. We must now go back to the port 20 km’s away and have this paper counter-signed. I realise what has occurred, we are now paying the price for not paying the enough “Baksheesh” yesterday to “Inspector man”

I confront “Mr Corner Office” and explain that we have been there for 4 days and have completed all the requirements, and have also paid lots of money to various people. He looks at me for the first time with a glance that confirms his understanding of my meaning of corruption. He says that we must return to the port and have the sheriff countersign the paper work. I explain that the chief has promised us an early departure with no more delays. He grunts and considers the situation then calls in co-conspirator, “Mr Blue Shirt”. They pretend to complete more form-filling and then “Mr Corner Office” throws our 6 licenses at “Mr Blue Shirt” and indicates that we can proceed.

I return to “Mr Blue Shirt’s” counter and sign the register for the licenses which are handed over, and we return to the plate room where on receipt of our license we are given the plates. I text the team back at the hotel who are wallowing in the pool to advise them to meet us at the port. After another 20 km drive we are finally with our bikes fitting the yellow number plates. We are now ready to ride and head north to Luxor? No not quite right, we need more paper. This time it’s a release letter from the Carnet man. This process goes seamlessly we suspect that this may be because “Carnet man” is a Christian and is not suffering the Ramadan blues. We are cleared at the gate by the guard but not before he asks for some more “Baksheesh”.

Riding at last, we travel the 30km back to Aswan and join the main highway on the Nile to Luxor. It is not long before we are stopped at one of the many Police check points. They want all tourists to travel by convoy. We are held at the check point awaiting the next convoy. Totally frustrated with the overall situation and two days of being stuffed around we agree to do a runner. On the signal we start our bikes and leave amidst shouts and gesticulations from the police.

From then on, right across Egypt we ran every police check and did not join any of their silly convoys. We got our own back.

And a footnote – getting out of Egypt we encountered the same corruption and the same hassle from the Traffic Police. Three hours to get out of a country is unacceptable.