Camels

Lots of camels at Petra... All dressed up for the tourist industry, but they made some good pictures :)

 

 

Cape - Cairo Trip Statistics

I decided to do the trip statistics while I wait around here in Israel for their public holidays to finish.
So I entered all the distances and fuel stop details into excel and this is what I came out with...

1) The trip was right on 30,000Km (Though its only about 20,000Km if you take the direct rote from Cape Town to Cairo)

2) I used about 1600 litres of fuel which cost me about US$2500 (averaging about $1.40 per litre which is about the same as in Canada). There were 96 stops for fuel.

3) The fuel efficiency over the whole trip was therefore about 19.5Km per litre which is pretty dam good in my opinion, especially given that the bike is carburetored and 12 years old as well as carrying a very heavy load...(though the carbs were newly reconditioned and tuned when I started the trip).
The worst efficiency I got was during my crossing from Kenya to Ethiopia and was down at 16Km per litre due to all the 1st and 2nd gear riding in very bad off-road conditions. The best efficiency I got was 24.6Km per litre with a hefty tail wind one day in Tanzania.

4) It took me about 135 days to get from Cape Town to Israel, but there were about 4 weeks of wasted time in there while I waited for visas, and another 2 weeks at the start to set up the bike, and another 2-3 weeks waiting around in Israel to get the bike shipped etc... So, The riding was about 100days of the 200 day trip... That's about an average of 300Km per day, which is more or less what I expected it would be :)

5) Other bike maintenance details are: I used 2x chains and 1x set of front and rear sprockets, 2x rear tires, 1.5x front tires, 3x oil changes and oil filters, 1x clutch cable, and 0.5x sets of brake pads. The bike is still running well but as it now has over 100,000Km on the clock, I feel its ready for a top-end engine rebuild with new cam-chains and tensioners and new piston rings.

6) I had I think about 4 flat tires on the trip but none of them were sudden or catastrophic (thank heavens)... And I had to repair two of them multiple times... The first one because of carelessness on my part for not checking the tire carefully enough for the cause of the puncture. the other was because the inner tube had simply run out of life and kept springing new leaks without any external cause :)

7) On the personal equipment front its been a pretty tough trip with all the hot weather and sweaty riding... Its really hard conditions for fabrics with lots of salt and abrasion and lots of hand washing and wringing as well... Ive worn out about 4x T-shirts, 4x sets underwear, and 3x pairs of socks. But Ive also managed to lose, misplace, or leave behind 3x hats, 1x shorts, 1x sweater, and 1x socks... nothing that cant be replaced along the way though :)

Update on Progress with Motorbike Shipping.

When I arrived in Israel I was not at all sure how I would be dealing with the motorbike now that Im ready to return home to Canada at the end of my ride. Things have clarified a bit since then so here is an update:

First off I have confirmed that it simply is not possible to sell the bike here in Israel. The current laws forbid importation of any vehicle that is more than 2 years old or less than 30 years old (ie they will only allow importation of latest technology or vintage cars)... My bike is 12 years old so that kills that idea right there.
And its also not an option to just "dump" the bike here in Israel and fly myself home accepting the bike as a write-off... Id have all sorts of problems at the air-port as I tried to leave if the bike had not been officially exported before I leave :)

So that simplifies things a bit... I am now committed to shipping the bike out of Israel, and the only destination I am considering is home to Canada :)
But I could ship by air or sea. I rode the couple of hundred Km from Jerusalem to the port city of Haifa in hopes of finding a suitable logistics company to help me. I ended up getting a suitable contact through a web listing for a moto-shipping company and it looks like Im going to go with that contact.
I also made a couple of enquiries about air freight but as expected for a very long flight with three separate legs, the air-freight costs look to be about double the cost of sea freight so that's out of the question at present too.
But its pretty expensive to ship by sea too and Im pretty sure that Ill end up breaking even or losing money at the end of the day when I finally get rid of the bike... Bummer but that's how it is and its what I committed to when I decided to ride the bike north.
But the shipping company recommended that I get the bike crated up by someone else since it was going to cost me about $1000 to have them do it for me. So Ive spent a couple of days running around trying to find a carpentry place to build me a big box... I found one and planned the box and we have a cut-list of materials but its going to cost me about $700 just for the box!... and then there will be about $1400 for the brokerage and shipping at this end... And then there will be more money ($400+) to be spent at the receiving end in Vancouver.

But it all seems to be under control now and Im getting things organized... The only remaining challenge is that I happen to be trying to do this right in the middle of Jewish holiday season... there was Yom Kippur last week which pretty well shut everything down for a couple of days and then as of tomorrow there is another longer holiday session that shuts everything down for about 10 consecutive days!!!
... Good thing I don't fly out till the end of the month and it should all work out OK.

So now Im left with trying to figure out what to do with 10 days of national holiday... I really don't think there is that much to do here in Israel (since Im not really into bars and clubs and other urban activities... At this stage I plan to do a tour over to Jordan to see Petra but that will only occupy a 2-3 days... then Ill probably just be twiddling thumbs till I ship the bike out on about 21st.

So that's the status of things at the moment...

Pictures from the Holy City of Jerusalem

I see huge numbers of Israeli flags flying all over the place and especially in "outpost" locations in Palestinian areas... Nationalist fervor is stronger here than Ive seen anywhere else that Ive traveled.

I see far fewer of the Palestinian flags and Ive only seen them in the Palestinian areas... Though Ive only been to Hebron in the West Bank so Gaza and the Golan heights may be quite different.

 

An infestation of feral camels in the city! :)

 

 

 The main attraction in Jerusalem is of course the three major holy sites in the Old City...

Dome of the Rock (Where Mohamed flew too on his way to chat with god)... Holy for the Muslims

 

Church of the Holy Sepulchre (houses the last five stations of the Passion of the Christ)... Holy to Christians

 

The Western Wall of the Temple Mount (Last remnant of the platform that had the temple containing the arc of the covenant... Built by King Solomon in the first Hebrew kingdom)... holy to Jews.

 

 

There are so many churches and mosques and synagogues and assorted historic and holly sites that its not possible to mention them all so Im just gonna share some pictures of stuff...

 

One of the 12 stations of the via doloroso... This is where Christ's body was embalmed/anointed.

 

 The dome above the Holy Sepulchre

 

 

 

 

Went to a market to get some food before the complete shut-down of the Jewish Yom Kippur holyday. 

 

 

 

 

 

... and back to more religious sites and stuff...

An obscure little basement church... Been there for about 2000 years :)

 

 

One of the gates into the old city.

 

 

 

 

A Greek Orthodox church.

 

The Old City wall in the Muslim quarter

The Jewish Cemeteries...The Jews like to be buried here because its the place closest to the location where the messiah will arrive on earth at the end of days... or something like that :)