After a way ahead of schedule stop at Koës we head to Aranos via Gochas planning on a pretty decent looking 280km which should take us round about 4 hours. We were making plans to go to Swakop, Windhoek and even go and watch the Newlands Test, I mean we had time to do all that! that changed...
5km outside of Koës my air filter got blocked which was fine because it should be cleaned every 1000 miles but it took us 2hours to clean the thing, that's where Big Boy kinda let it slip, you need to take the whole bike apart to get to the filter! With that done and dusted we discovered that not all the gravel roads in Namibia are like the tar roads of South Africa. Now there are two type of roads that the scooter don't perform too well on, one is corrugated road and the main one is sand roads, now that is imposseble to drive on! It's all fun and games to make sports and play the fool until someone gets hurt, then it gets hilarious!
Du Toit and I love the Kalahari, it's a place for the sole and it gives birth to loving and caring people with true goodness in them, luckily, otherwise we would have been screwed.
What happened was this, we were driving at a leisurely 60km/hour when Du Toit claims he just could not contain himself any longer and jumped off his bike at full pace to hug and kiss the earth. or that's what he claims to have happened, to me it looked like he helped himself to a quite spectacular fall and in the process finding a much quicker way of dissembling the bike...jip that's where it got hilarious, I had a laugh and then laughed some more, it was classic!
But then reality struck we were faced with the very real possibility that we would not be able to continue our trip. We could not get the engine going and the whole front part of the bodywork was lying in pieces in the sand.
Our first real introduction of the goodness of the Kalahari people
The Strauss family of Liberty farms came to our rescue loading the bike and taking it to their farm and then offering us accommodation and a meal, now folks a meal in this part of the world aint what you might find at your normal house or preferred place of dining, two casseroles of meat, sausages(cause that doesn't count as meat in these part of the world) bread and little or no salad, which in my mind is as good as a meal can get.
So the next morning we got the bike "fixed" using alot of ductape and very little skill on Toit or my own part, the starter wasn't working but the rest of the electronics were tip top! Du Toit claimed an injured ankle and said I should kickstart his bike for him...tjik tjik pilots I tell you. So off we were going to Etosha come hell or high water...or sand for that matter.
Well not quite, my airfilter got blocked again! So it was fixing time again but this time a giant came to our rescue. Pieter Steyn was that giant he played rugby for namibia for 13 years, 2 worldcups and all of that in the lock jumper! He gave us the use off his compressor and his wife tried to get us even fatter!
Clicè time... this one is for Toit, "its not about how many times you fall but rather how many times you stand up that matters..." just don't make a habit out of it buddy, these Kalahari people are gonna fatten us up if we don't stay clear.
The sand was winning the battle but we're not prepared to consede the war just yet.
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