Frebruary 2010 trip report

SAMA 10 Day Motorcycle Train Tour, February 2010
Brenda & John Rice, Winchester, Kentucky USA

Africa. By BMW motorcycle. It’s every bit as exciting as it sounds, and with SAMA Tours' train excursion, it’s not nearly as difficult as you might imagine. Africa is a huge smorgasbord of sights, experiences and adventures and with this tour, we were able to sample the best bits on offer in the most efficient manner.We arrived at the airport in Johannesburg to be met by Jonathan, one of SAMA’s tour guides who took us to our B&B for the evening.

The lovely Marloot House is set on the side of a hill, near SAMA's headquarters, looking out over the lights of Pretoria. Our hosts made us perfectly comfortable at once. The next morning we were treated to a full breakfast prepared specially for us....the Diet Tour this definitely is not !

The next morning, as appointed, Darryl, the operator of SAMA, picked us up and took us to their headquarters where the paperwork and orientation were quickly arranged. Our motorcycle for the trip was to be a current model BMW R1200GS, the perfect machine for two-up touring in this place.

Darryl and his assistant Tamzin mounted a similar bike and we took off for a tour of Pretoria. All of the street signs here are in English as are the vast majority of the advertising signs one sees on the road or in the shop windows. On the streets you hear mostly English but also a heavy dose of Afrikaans being spoken. There are apparently 11 languages here but English is sort of the universal default used more or less effectively by everyone.

Darryl and Tamzin lead us down through a maze of city traffic and then finally up into the hills above Pretoria. We stopped at an overlook which gave a view of the entire bowl in which Pretoria sits, rimmed by the mountain range that forms the opposite side.

(Two American motorcyclists who can't quite believe they're standing on a hill above Pretoria)

This range, according to Tamzin, who is taking a college degree in adventure tourism management and is an absolute wealth of information, is one of the longest ranges in South Africa. Darryl told us that in the proper season the Jacaranda trees all bloom purple at once making the entire valley look like a purple haze. (Do you suppose that Jimmy Hendrix had visited here?) Down from the overlook we went into the bowl and weaved our way through Pretoria downtown traffic to Church square for lunch.

This square marks the spot where the Voortrekkers, South Africa’s version of America’s Western Settlers, first settled when they came in to the area in the 1800's. There was a church built there as their first edifice and then the square was built around it. As it developed, the square was designed by an architect who modelled it after Trafalgar Square in London, England with the statue of Lord Nelson replaced by one of Paul Kruger, a hero of the Boer Wars and the first President of South Africa.

Lunch at the Cafe Riche, where the Riche salad is not to be missed

After lunch, Tamzin took us on a tour of an old theater harking back to the glory days for this downtown portion of Pretoria.

From church square we got back on the bikes and went through this lovely city to the Voortrekker Monument. On our way into the monument, which is arranged like a huge park, we were amazed to see herds of Zebra and Wildebeest grazing on the grounds. Having arrived only the day before, the sight was unbelievable and is probably the moment when the realization hits that we are really in Africa.

CHUCH SQUARE

The Monument is an enormous granite structure, looking actually a lot like our old American iron furnaces but 10 times the size, built on top of a hill in such a way that on December 16th, of each year the anniversary of the Battle of Blood River the sun shines through a small hole in the roof down through the building to a Cenotaph at the bottom which celebrates the unity of the Dutch settlers.

The Battle of Blood River (so named because the “river ran red with blood” from casualties) was the decisive battle in which the mostly Dutch settlers repelled the natives and established their hold on this part of the territory. Inside the monument is a plaster relief sculpture which goes around all four walls portraying the events. The artwork portrays their hardships and their battles against the natives they encountered. Like our Indian wars, the settlers were armed with rifles and moving into areas already occupied by natives whose weapons were hand-carried spears. It is another example of the adage that the winners get to write the history.

Our next stop was the Union Building, South Africa’s seat of executive government. Unlike our maximum security at the White House, we were able to park right in front of the building. (If you've seen the movie "Invictus", we parked just about at the spot where Matt Damon is dropped off for his meeting with the President.) The building was built with an identical East Wing and a West Wing with an amphitheater in the space between, because apparently the Afrikaans and the British factions weren’t getting along so well and it was decided to give each an equivalent space from which to work out their compromises. That evening Darryl took us to a local shopping center to pick up whatever necessities we required and then to dinner at an excellent restaurant overlooking a portion of the city.

Bright and early the second day, we departed from the Marloot House and headed northeast toward Mpumalanga . There was an hour or so of breaking free from the confines of the city and its environs, but we quickly were out in open grasslands, dotted with the iconic Acacia trees so identified with Africa. Darryl understands the needs of Americans, who must have our coffee-and-get-rid-of-coffee stops, so we paused for a while to take in all that we'd seen so far.

From here the mountains began in earnest, rising suddenly and impressive from the plains. Roads became one curve after another, as if designed by a motorcyclist just for this use, and the rock formations more dramatic.

Everywhere one looks, the evidence of past continental collision is apparent.

John & Brenda at the Union Buildings

The rock strata are pushed up high and angular, then eroded away to patterns sculpted by eons of wind and water. In this first part of the Limpopo Province, there are, scattered about as if at random, enormous conical mounds of reddish-yellow dirt, partially worn away to reveal an interior composed of huge rounded rocks, the size of SUV’s or larger, as if someone had stacked the rocks then coated them with dirt for protection....if one can imagine a Brazil nut cluster as large as a four story building, coated with light coloured chocolate on the outside and a bite taken out to reveal the goodies inside....God’s own box of candy.

These hills just rise here and there from flat plains between the mountains with no apparent mechanism for them being there. I wondered if they could have been glacial moraine, from the tumbled and smooth appearance of the rocks, but this seems unlikely. As we neared our lodge, we were in the mountains on roads with wide sweeping turns and decent pavement. Darryl was setting a sporting pace, not dangerously fast but definitely not “smelling the roses” either. The big GS was, of course, completely in its element carrying the two of us as if it didn’t even notice we were there. Mountain roads like this are on the long list of this bike’s natural habitat.

The scenery here in this part seemed familiar, yet different enough that it was clear we weren’t at home anymore. There are tall trees lining the roads, that at first seem like our North Carolina mountain pines, but they aren’t exactly the same. The smaller understory trees are green and leafy and as we zipped by, I could have assumed it was the Georgia mountains...but it was a bit different. Sort of like those old Twilight Zone shows where the man wakes up in a place he doesn’t immediately recognize, where everything seems not quite normal. The sense of the exotic is everywhere.

Lunch was found at the "Pot & Plow". The sign out front advertised pizza and other meals. Here in the middle of the countryside in S. Africa there is an Irish greeting on the door and inside a mixture of things British, Irish, with a bit of New Zealand, thrown in and of course a South. African flavour. We ate wonderful food, a fusion mixture of all of the above, outside at a table on the lawn, near a palm tree (which they do have in Ireland, just not usually on the lawn of a pub).

We dropped our things at the hotel where we spent the night at Magoebaskloof Lodge on top of a mountain and then proceeded on , after passing through the village of the Rain Queen (a whole story of its own) to visit the largest baobab tree in S. Africa. It’s also is apparently the oldest known such tree in the world, carbon dated (they don’t have growth rings) at 6,000 years old. The tree is probably about 60 feet in circumference and has multiple trunks which sort of give the impression that it's upside down, with the roots in the air. The bark looks like elephant skin rather than tree bark. The interior of the trunk is split with a large enough cavity for a small pub inside. Human kind was still in a rather primitive state when this tree was a seedling and it was 4,000 years old when Christ was born. Even the Chinese were still primitive and without a written culture when this tree was a thousand years into its life. Nearby were some small baobab saplings. I’m going to come back in another 6,000 years to see what they look like.

On Friday, we headed out at 8 am to visit the Kingdom of Swaziland, one of the few remaining absolute monarchies. The King is an inherited position and the current holder lives an opulent lifestyle, with multiple wives and a collection of expensive cars, in a palace while the majority of his people live in poverty. Shortly before we arrived, there had been the traditional ceremony in which dozens of young virgins are rounded up, dressed up and permitted to perform a complex dancing routine for the King. He selects one of the group as his new wife, to add to his others. Not surprisingly, this setup isn’t terribly popular with the much less affluent citizens. The road leading to the kingdom recently had been a dirt track, but now was widened and paved for the most part. We stopped at the top of the mountain to look back down from whence we had come. We could see the dirt roads still remaining, going off into the distance. I could easily tell how isolated this place must have been if that was the main route in. We reached the border crossing and went inside to present our papers and pay the “road tax”. Guards at the border, carrying automatic rifles, inspected our bikes for the proper serial numbers and documents.

Then after a few yards from the SA border, we came to the Swazi border post where we had to show our documents again and have our passports stamped. We passed through a small town, on potholed broken pavement and on the other side of this village, were stopped again at a checkpoint. These soldiers again wanted to check the papers for the bikes, but did not demand our passports. As always, Darryl handled everything official with a minimum of fuss.

Gods window

Darryl had asked me if I would mind a dirt road route, about 20 kilometers or so, to avoid a long stretch of straight pavement and town traffic. He said he watches riders for the first day or so of the tour to see if he thinks they can make this part. Apparently I passed the test. Brenda was a bit apprehensive, but game (as long as I promised to take it slowly) so, after turning off the ABS and traction control, away we went. The road went up over a mountain, following the edge of a ridge line most of the way, affording spectacular views of the slopes and valleys below. Not many cars joined us on the road, mostly coming the other way, but the ensuing dust cloud did require a bit of holding the breath.

The surface was partly graveled for some of the distance and it was much easier riding when the gravel ended and we could be on just the red dirt. In a few spots, there were rocky areas where the dirt surface had worn down to expose some clumps of rock beneath. Brenda wasn’t too happy about these, but I welcomed them as a chance to do a little more technical riding. I was standing up most of the way, meaning Brenda’s view of this portion of the trip was mainly of my backside, probably not the more scenic aspect of her ride so far.. At the end of the dirt portion, we filled up at a petrol station in a small town that was having some kind of market day or celebration. There were hawkers selling their wares on the streets, music playing from different directions and a constant din of voices happily yelling across streets in what sounded like a variety of languages.

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