Motorcycle Diary: Former Rainier man travels 40,000 miles across Africa, South America
Tuesday, January 6, 2009 6:06 PM PST
By Brad Ryan
Special to The Daily News
Printable version
E-mail this articleGrowing up in Rainier, a big trip for me was the annual hunting excursion to Eastern Oregon or a short holiday vacation on the Oregon Coast.
Even then, no matter how many times I had been to these spots, I’d be so excited before the trip that I couldn’t sleep.
It wasn’t until I was 18 that I would take a trip that required flying, and that was to Hawaii with my cousin. Ever since, the more I traveled, the more I wanted to go.
One day my girlfriend Jola (Jolanta Glabek) tired of my whining about travel. “Why don’t you sell your house and see the world,” she suggested.
Six months later I got the biggest Christmas present ever: a full-price offer on my house. As soon as the holidays were over, Jola and I gave notice at our jobs and began selling our remaining worldly possessions.
Our grand plan amounted to two backpacks full of the essentials (snorkels, fishing pole, flip flops, camera, etc) and two plane tickets. One was to New Zealand with a stop in Fiji, and the other was from New Zealand to Cape Town, South Africa with a stop in Malaysia.
All of those early places were fun and exciting, but it wasn’t until Africa that we found the real adventure.
Inspired by a free showing in Cape Town of “Motorcycle Diaries,” a movie about Che Guevara’s bike trek through South America, I announced to Jola and our friends that I was going to buy a motorcycle and ride around Africa.
Jola was a bit surprised since she had never seen me on a motorbike — and for good reason. I had not been on a bike for nearly 18 years.
Fortunately, Cape Town is the end point for a lot of European riders coming down the West Coast of Africa. Befriending some of them, we gathered all the knowledge we could.
In Africa, you need a bike that will stand up to the African roads or lack there of. It’s also difficult to tell if a bike has original parts or if parts have been sold off and replaced with Chinese counterfeits.
It took some negotiating, but my “Sweet Baby”, a shiny black XRV 750 Honda African Twin. She was used, but with only 600 miles, we got her for a steal at $8,000.
The next trick was fitting two people and two very large backpacks full of previously essential rubbish onto our Sweet Baby along with true motorcycle essentials (inner tubes, chain lube, etc). After re-prioritizing, we shipped one very large box home and hawked the rest.
Three weeks after arriving in Cape Town, we had our gear packed on the bike and were headed to the Western Cape of South Africa. The night before, we had planned to go to Namibia, but it was very common for us to change our itineraries from hour to hour, depending on the conditions of the roads, how many road signs we had missed, and recommendations of the locals.
What a surprise South Africa was.
Not only is it beautiful, but we found that South Africans love motor bikers. They would buy us drinks at the pub, oysters on the half shell at the restaurants, and invite us into their homes for weeks on end. We also found out that they love to braai (BBQ) and drink (double brandies and coke, and beer is their water).
On more than one occasion after several days of braai and drinking we would have to sneak out before another celebration began. One memorable night started with an innocent lunch and ended with a ride home in the back of a bukki (pickup truck) complete with a flashing blue light from a floating bar on a derelict barge anchored in a large slough.
I don’t want to give the impression that all South Africa has to offer is the greatest hosts I’ve ever met and a lot of BBQ’s. No, South Africa seems to have everything except snow. Just the ride out the Western Cape reveals one of the most beautiful coastlines in the world — and best adventures.
First stop was cage diving for Great White sharks. The sharks were impressive and huge and the women who ran the shop not only let us camp at their house, but you guessed it — they put on a Braai for us.
Then it was off to the highest bungee jump in the world, followed by tiger shark diving (without a cage — luckily we didn’t find one), and surfing at the famous Jeffery’s Bay (more like floundering until Jola broke a fin off the rental board) all before we even made it to the warmer waters of the Indian Ocean near Durban.
The great thing about all this adventure is that it is interspersed with wild African animals and amazingly wild areas where we would camp with springbok, ride along with hartebeests, and have to be careful not to get trampled by giraffes.
We had been warned against visiting the Transkei, which was allowed to stay free during apartheid and had remained relatively undeveloped, because of the high prejudice and crime. We went anyway and found with the exception of a few individuals throwing rocks at us that the people were very nice and the coast was spectacular.
A group of local boys would take orders of how many lobsters we’d like, then jump in the surf and 30 minutes later come out with 26 lobsters for 75 cents apiece.
The down side of Transkei and a lot of South Africa is the poverty and the incredible number of orphans, primarily due to HIV. You don’t stop for long before being overwhelmed with requests for money, candy, anything you might have. While it is tempting to give, it was evident that charity has been a real detriment to the people, so we never gave without getting something in return.
This was extremely difficult. I recall when we met three orphan boys, all between 5 and 7, cooking a small fish and a tweety bird on an open fire.
They were very nice and asked for money but did not persist. Instead they seemed to enjoy our company. It was heart-wrenching to see these little malnourished boys, eating fish — skin, bones, and all. I didn’t give them money, but I bought a bite of their fish (and I will admit I was afraid to eat it) at about 10 times the price in hopes they would put the money to good use.
Inside the borders of South Africa are two small countries, Lesotho and Swaziland. I would have thought that since they were inside of South Africa, there would not be much difference. Boy was I wrong.
Our first stop was the mountain kingdom of Lesotho, via Sani Pass (10,000 feet), and the highest pub in Africa. We were a little worried going up the steep rocky pass but made it, bush camping in the hills. We found a couple of twigs to burn to keep us warm, but they soon died off and we crawled into our sleeping bags for a cold (below freezing) night.
In the morning we woke up to the local pony boys, who live in nearby caves. They sat and stared as we tried to speak the few words of Sesotho (the language of Lesotho) we knew. Eventually they asked for food and money.
Lesotho is famous for its powerful horses, so we could not resist a little ride on the local horses. While we struggled to control the horses as they bit and kicked, it was a bit humbling when the village sent 5-year-old kids to collect the horses — and they rode them like tame ponies.
One unpleasant aspect of Lesotho was the number of people (mostly kids) who threw rocks at us. The adults who threw rocks would wave at us until they didn’t think we were looking and then throw a rock with the other arm.
We were unscathed and soon off to the Kingdom of Swaziland. At the border, the customs agent shared his sweet corn beer and told us all the great places to go in his country. Swaziland was a relief because here the kids waved and opened gates for us.
The highlight of Swaziland was the Reed Festival, where the girls from all over the country cut reeds to make a new wind block for the king’s mother, and dance around with nothing but a cloth around their waist all day. The preparation for this event involves the entire country and everywhere you look there are hundreds of naked women bathing in the rivers getting ready for the dance with the men, all standing around trying to look like they are not watching.
The king watches the dancing girls and if he desires he can add a wife to his harem. I have never wanted to be pulled over by the police before until I saw the Swaziland policewomen dance naked for the king (bring on the handcuffs).
The down side of Swaziland was that both Jola and I contracted giardia, which is rather unpleasant but nothing our giant first-aid kit couldn’t take care of in a few days. Next stop Mozambique.
Racked by years of civil war, people in Mozambique are poor even by African standards. Nearly all of the trees have been cut down for cooking wood, and we didn’t see a single native land animal. Along one stretch of beach near the village of Tofu we got a feel for the wildness, when sticking out of the dunes was a human skull that nobody seemed to notice.
We continued up the coast, diving with manta rays, swimming with whale sharks, and trying to surf. On our budget scuba diving trip, the boat drivers are generally teenage boys with more guts than sense and plenty of scars from boating accidents.
Our second dive trip started out with the boat breaking down on the way out to the reef and the boatsmen asking me to fix the motor. The guide nearly left two snorkelers behind until one of the other customers noticed they were missing.
After the snorkel it was time for the dive, which culminated in taking the boat into huge breaking waves, throwing one man overboard and having to drag the dive guide behind the boat until we were out of danger of more breaking waves before getting her in the boat. Despite the dangers, the coast was truly spectacular and I liked the beer (MacMahon) better than the South African beer.
An unforeseen advantage of traveling by motorbike was the need to stop about every hour and rest. This meant we stopped at five or six places a day in areas where we would not normally stop. And these rest breaks often turned into the highlights of our travel.
On more than one occasion we would stop to buy a 25 cent pineapple or 20 cent drink (Coca-Cola or Orange Fanta) from a kid along side the road. In just a couple minutes we would be surrounded by kids sharing our pineapple, while singing us a song or taking turns sitting on our bike and laughing hilariously when we showed them their digital photos.
They were so playful despite their poverty, even the ones with debilitating handicaps due to disease or land minds that exploded and injured them.
From the coastal beaches, we headed into the interior of Africa, riding through Malawi, Zambia and Botswana to the west coast in Namibia. Malawi had the friendliest people and a huge lake good for swimming and diving with Cichlid fish, but the real excitement came on a walking safari in the Vwasa Marsh Game Reserve.
The safari was relaxing until the last five minutes when we were guided within 50 feet of a lone bull elephant. As we neared the elephant, he began stomping his feet, fanning his ears and trumpeting -— and then he charged us. We looked to our guide with his gun but saw him running for his life, ahead of us all.
This happened three times before we caught up with the guide, who ignored our complaints.
Unfazed, we moved onto South Luangwa National Park in Zambia, where there are no fences. We could set our tent up right next to the river with a good view of giraffes, crocodiles, hippos, and elephants. Luckily, this time we did not have any close calls; we only lost a little sleep from the noise of hippos munching grass 10 feet from our tent and chasing the monkey’s around when they stole our lunch.
In the hopes of finding some excitement besides paying $12 a gallon for black-market gas, we found a company that would take us boogie boarding down the Zambezi River. If you have never ran class V rapids with only a piece of Styrofoam, you are missing out. Just throw in a few crocodiles (the guide said they were little) basking on the river banks.
We finished up our Africa trip riding through Botswana and Namibia before making it back to Cape Town where we would eventually fly our “Sweet Baby” and ourselves to Sao Paulo, Brazil.
However, before arriving in Cape Town we fished for tiger fish on the Okanogan Delta and sand boarded in the red sand dunes of Namibia.
The food in Namibia included outstanding schnitzel and dark beer, gifts of its German heritage, which was a treat, and more expensive prices, which wasn’t. While you can camp in a campground for less than $10 in Mozambique, Malawi, Zambia or Botswana, Namibia and South Africa charge up to $100 per campground.
Tourism has skyrocketed the accommodation and game park prices throughout some areas, so we free camped where we felt it was safe and otherwise paid.
We spent $2,000 crating and flying the bike to Brazil, where our adventures continued, through Uruguay, where we spent Christmas in a nice little beach town called Punta del Diablo. We caught a boat in time to spend New Year’s Eve in Buenos Aires, and then it was off to Chile, where we had quite the time buying a new bike.
Our trip south through Chile and Argentina was gorgeous, interspersed with wild rivers, hot springs, mountains and glaciers. The people also were nice, serving us food and inviting us into their homes.
Along the coast of Chile, the fishermen still launch their boats through the surf and bring them back in on logs that roll under the boats as they drag them across the beach. We continued south into Patagonia, where we camped at no cost for days along rivers and lakes without ever seeing another tent.
The east coast of Argentina puts a new definition on windy and desolate, so we were happy when we finally made it to the lakes district of central Argentina where we could enjoy fishing the lakes and rivers. We crossed mountains into Bolivia.
As we traveled on, we discovered Peruvians and Colombians to be some of the nicest people we met and the scenery in both of these countries was spectacular. Ecuador of course offered the Galapagos, where we did some outstanding scuba diving with hammerhead sharks.
With nothing but roads between us and home, the desire to see friends and family increased exponentially and we truly started to put some miles under our tires. In fact, we rode through Central America and Mexico in a little over two weeks, seeing many of the highlights and getting pulled over eight times by the police looking for bribes.
At last it was time to cross over into the home country and I have to say it felt better than I had ever expected. In fact if I wasn’t so macho I might even say I felt a bit choked up.
To celebrate, we did it American style, by going to the mini-mart and enjoying a Sparks malt liquor, nachos out of a machine, and an Arizona iced tea.
You may think I am joking. They tasted great.
It was a very strange feeling returning to the home country compared to when we were preparing to leave. After being on the road for a year and a half, if anyone had asked me where I’d most like to go in all the world, I would choose the annual hunting trip to Eastern Oregon with the family.
Then time passed ....
We spent $60,000, rode 40,000 miles, and all I can think about after the homesick blues have worn off is, where are we going to ride next?
Brad Ryan graduated from Rainier High School in 1988. He earned his bachelor's degree from the University of Portland and earned a doctorate in biology at Portand State University. He lives in Haines, Alaska.
VIEW A PHOTO GALLERY FROM THE TRIP (15 photos)
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