Africa is about the people you meet
"In the end people are all the same, you just have to smile and talk to them."
Tackling mother Africa on two wheels is easier said than done, as Ballito’s Gareth Loagie found out on a seven week, 12 500km sub-Saharan motorbike tour.
Starting their ride on October 15, Loagie and friend Rowland Vass would go on to enjoy the bleak beauty of Namibia’s Skeleton Coast, catch tiger fish in Botswana, pick up a Roman Catholic birth certificate in Zambia, watch the sun rise over Lake Malawi, pose with former Renamo rebels in northern Mozambique and – perhaps most amazing of all – experience the jubilation in the streets of Harare itself when Mugabe was ousted from power in Zimbabwe.
Loagie, who is the owner of Savage Soul and makes custom furniture out of reclaimed pallets, told the Courier that his parents ironically never let him ride bikes when he was young.
“In school all my mates had bikes but my folks reckoned they were too dangerous,” remembered Loagie.
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“Which is funny, because they bought me a parachute and let me go skydiving.”
Leaving Ballito, the 46-year-old headed up to Hartebeespoort Dam where he met up with Vass before the pair hit the road again to Oranjemund in Namibia. Together they rode up Namibia’s famous Skeleton Coast, which Roagie described as stunningly beautiful.
“Pictures just do not do it justice,” he said.
He recalled getting a puncture and being gobsmacked at only having to pay seven rand to have it patched. The two bikers then came back down again to visit the awe inspiring Fish River Canyon, second in size only to the Grand Canyon in America, before heading through Botswana.
“The people in Botswana are awesome, but I will forever remember it as the place where I caught my first tiger fish – 3,5kg – not bad for a first timer.”
They crossed the Zambezi by ferry and had some hard night riding through to Livingstone in Zambia. Then it was off to the town of Kabwe where Vass picked up an old family birth certificate from the Roman Catholic Church.
While in Kabwe the two men began to look for a place to spend the night, something that happened every day. On this occassion they ran into a pair of farmers from South Africa who invited them to spend the night and they were only able to break away two days later.
“We never actually planned out any stops, we just relied on lady luck and she always came through for us.”
A change in route saw them cover 570km to get into Malawi, arriving at Lilongwe at 20.30pm that evening. Loagie said electricity was a serious problem in Malawi and they quickly got used to drinking warm beers. The two bikers headed north to Nkhata Bay and followed Lake Malawi back down to Kande Beach.
“While we were at Kande Beach we met a South African on a bicycle also doing a trans Africa tour and it really put things in perspective. I mean, we covered 600km in a day and felt exhausted afterwards, while here’s this guy who probably only gets through 90km a day.”
Despite many scary stories, Vass and Loagie decided to take a chance through northern Mozambique, where old tensions between Renamo and Frelimo are said to be resurfacing from the days of the civil war.
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“It turned out to be fine. When we were stopped at the first roadblock I thought we were in trouble, but all the guys wanted was to pose for a few pictures with the bikes.”
The two men spent the night in Tete in the north on the night that Mugabe was removed from power.
“It was never our plan to go through Zimbabwe but when we saw the news, we had to experience history in the making for ourselves.”
Crossing the border, they headed for the centre of the action in Harare, where misfortune of a sort struck again, leaving them broken down right in front of Zimbabwe’s parliament buildings in the capital.
“The mood on the street was absolutely electric, everywhere you looked Zimbabwean flags were waving, people were filling the streets, shouting and hooting in jubilation and in all that excitement we never felt anything but goodwill from everyone.”
Overall, said Loagie, the experience changed him.
“What really struck me was how friendly everyone was, how willing people were to help a stranger. Wherever we went we met amazing characters, and a surprising number of South Africans and Brits spread throughout Southern Africa.
“In the end people are all the same, you just have to smile and talk to them.”
For more photos and to check out their trip from day to day, visit the Facebook page: Savage Soul African Bike Adventure 2017.
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