Contemplating New Voyages

Time for a blog post I guess...

I think I mentioned recently that I had been starting to think about possibly doing another motorcycle trip sometime soon?
Well, that thought has been growing on me and I guess Ive started to do some serious planning, so I guess the possibility is now real enough to write about.

So, having ridden about the Americas enough, I feel I want to consider other options on other continents...
And that can mean only about four possibilities (Since Antarctica really just is not an option for moto-touring! ). The possibilities are of course, Europe, Asia, Africa, and Australia... (although I fail to see why we still consider Europe and Asia as largely seperate entities? -Its just a hang-over from the Greek outlook of several thousand years ago I guess!! :)
And so I find myself considering which of those four destinations do I most want to see/travel through?
And which of those four destinations has the best potential for the most "rewarding" motorcycle tour for me?
And it turns out that the answer is reasonably clear for me... Its Africa!... The "Dark Continent"...
It just seems to me to have the largest amount of variety in cultures and climates and landscapes and flora and Fauna etc... So much variety, and so much of it in danger of disapearing in the near future (particularly the fauna and the nomadic cultures).
I have to admit though that there is also a strong urge to ride across Europe/Asia through Russia/Mongolia since it has some absolutely wonderfull moto-touring acording to the accounts of people who have done it... But my first choice is still solidly Africa, even though and perhaps partially because I also find the idea of touring alone through Africa on a motorbike to be the most daunting option!  :))


OK, so now the next question is what route through what parts of Africa?
Well, a quick review of international news in pretty much any news media site informs us that there seems to be an excessive amount of violence and conflict and suffering in Africa compared to pretty much the rest of the world all put together... This is not very encouraging I have to admit!
But, Im gonna try to not get too intimidated and Im gonna say to my-self that a lot of that reporting is coloured by the Western media and public's "pre-disposition" toward Africa, much like I found it was for Central and South America... But Im not going to be blase about it either... Im gonna look into it in more detail.

That said, there are definitely significant conflicts going on in a number of places in Africa... Too many places to look into all of them... So, what are the "likely" routes I might take?

Well, I like the idea of riding the length of the continent in some form (much like for the American continents), so that kinda leavs three possibilities... West coast, Central or East Coast.
Note that I dont know if I would go N-S or S-N but Ill describe the routes N-S as a start point.
A bit more reading and map consultation eliminates the Central option since its never been a noted route, I can find no reports of people who have done it in the last decade, and its almost all through conflict zones from Lybia, Chad, CAR, and DRCongo before things ease up once you get to Botswana and S Africa!

Right, so what about the Western route?
Turns out its not really that much better! It has lots more smaller countries to cross but that just seems to increase the probability of crosssing "politically unstable" ground...
It goes Morocco, Western Sahara, Mauritania, Senegal, Mali, Burkina Faso, Benin, Nigeria, Cameroon, Congo, DR Congo, Angola,Namibia, S Africa.... And of those, Mali, Nigeria, DR Congo are all having some serious conflict issues at present, and Angola is virtually impossible to get a Visa for as well!
But on the plus side this route does cover the very interesting and attractive (to me) area of the Congo basin ("Deepest Darkest Africa")... Another plus is that it apparently does not require a "Carne", which is like a passport for your motorbike and while expensive, does make importing and exporting your bike to all those countries much easier... And a point slightly on the negative side for me is that much of the Northern section passes through former French colonial areas and the language of choice is French (which saddly I dont speak)... Id rather not add to complicated boarder "negotiations" by the little detail of my not having a clue what any one is saying :)

OK, so what about the Eastern route?
Well, its kinda the same but different!
the route goes Egypt, Sudan, Ethiopia, Kenya, Tanzania, Mozambique, S Africa... Lots fewer countries but still significant issues in Egypt, Sudan, and Mozambique...
Mozambique is the least issue since the violence of its recent 10 year civil war seems to have largely disipated recently and its just that travelers have not been there for many years and not much is known and the necessary civil services are yet to gear up for "normal" cross border activities... The country its self sounds quite interesting in many ways... And, failing all that, it can simply be bypassed by going inland via Botswana, Zimbabwe, and Zambia (all of which I would intend to visit any way)...
So, the next bigger problem in my opinion is Egypt... Which is still in the throes of its political "rejuvenation"... It seems that things have turned toward unrest and are somewhat violent again in the last few weeks, and its not at all clear what it will lead to... But thats only part of the problem... You see, everything Ive read from people who have actually been there and done what I want to do (basically ride my motorbike through and see the sites) say that the place is an absolute nightmare from the point of view of beaurocracy and corruption... ... Now of course I wont know what its actually like till I go there myself, but the litterature I read seems to be pretty unanimous on the subject!  Pretty much anywhere else on the continent, you can get into and out of a country with your bike for between $100 and $200 at a maximum (often about $50) but for Egypt, its likely to take you about a week of effort at each end, and will cost between $700 and $1200.... Thats an order of magnitude more than anywhere else!!!... And then once you are in, they all say that the people are terrible to deal with (with an occasional opinion expressing the exact opposite!... just to confound things)... I guess they have had a few centuries of tourists flocking to the pyramids to get there "attitudes" to tourists "honed"! (I suspect is a case study in social co-evolution based around tourism and human frailty!) OK, that doesnt sound like fun, but at least it doesnt (for the moment) sound like its too "life threatening"... so Ill continue to the third and I suspect largest challenge...
Sudan!... And again, the current media reports say that a political situation that had been trending toward peace and diplomacy has very recently taken a turn for the worse and is becoming violent... on at least three fronts! To the West is Eritrea with rebles on the boarder, to the East is the Darfur conflict over Gold deposits, and to the South is the South-Sudan conflict (just recently declared its independence from Sudan) over oil deposits... And they are all "active" all at once!
But, looking a little closer, and the main road route from Ethiopia to Egypt seems to neatly avoid all of the conflict regions... And better yet, there is a new highway in the North that crosses into Egypt that was opened to tourist use in the last month or so that very neatly eliminates one of the well known "worst border crossing experiences in the world" for over-land travelers (the infamous Lake Nasser barge)... Hmm we shall have to see what develops here, but this still seems like a feasible route to me.
Other benefits of the route are that all countries except Egypt and Sudan are "Visa on arrival" friendly, so I dont have to do much pre-planning or application for visas for specific dates, and that the countries most common "foreign" language is English. Other detracting features of the route are mainly that there is no real potential for a "Sahara crossing" experience (like there is in Morocco or Algeria to the West) where you get completely off the roads and just ride through the desert on a compass bearing!; and there is no "Congo basin" either.

Now there are of course any number of alternative routes that could be done but thats the basics of the three main possibilities as I currently see them.
So, preliminarily, it looks like the Eastern route is the way to go for the moment and Im now going to try to figure out what places/things Id want to see on the way and when is the right time to see them (season wise).

... In the next post...