There are many benefits of travelling by motorbike. The freedom, the riding, the connectiveness with your surroundings, the sense you can go anyway - although perhaps not sand in my case. There are downsides. They breakdown. Most roadside mechanics know about cars & trucks but avoid motorbikes - too fiddly & not enough of them (in Africa anyway) to bother to get know them. Bikes also do not have a spare wheel. Or a jack.
I was heading for the South African border (Beitbridge) on my way to the rental guys in Pretoria. I figured if the electrical problem occurs again in Mozambique I'm less likely to be able to sort. Anyway Pretoria was broadly in the right direction (albeit the route is a bit motorway dull).
The Beitbridge crossing from Zimbabwe was going well. Lots of paperwork & kiosks but nothing new. What was new was my back tyre. It was flat. I am in no mans land between the two countries, in stifling heat with a flat tyre. I pumped it up. By the time I had entered South Africa it was completely flat again. I trundled into a truck stop & parked.
What transpired was 3 hours of oily, dirty, sweaty monkeying with me at one point in a taxi with my back wheel driving off to a nearby town. Meanwhile, the bike & all my belongings were with various "people".
This fella was the culprit. It was getting towards dusk as I headed off for Louis Trichardt about 100K south (this was where Herman the game hunter came from). I road onto the hills. It was pleasantly cooler. I had booked a place calling itself a Country Hotel. I walked into a posh reception. "Good evening sir...Good evening I have a booking". I looked at myself in the mirror. Best description of my appearance would be a welsh coal miner having just been winched to the surface.Some white around the eyes but everything else smudgy black.
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