Tienen, Belgium.  03 January 2018.

Hi family , friends and others.

Finally, after several years of attempts and hesitation I have decided early september to go on my motorbike trip to nowhere.

The first leg , of course, is  Africa since I know that continent better than any other .  Unfortunately one cannot drive to  Egypt at this moment due to blockage in Syria and Lybia.   One could go through Iran and Saoudi Arabia to cross at Djedda but this does not have my preference.

Also one can put the bike on a roro ship from Piraeus to Alexandria but I do not fancy riding in this wheather from Belgium to Greece.  To leave in winter is essential since the desert  In Egypt and Sudan is no option for me in summer.

Hence I have decided to fly  with the bike to Cairo  and leave from there to Capetown.   The bike transport is taken care of by Motofreight at Heathrow.

I drove the bike to Heathrow on the 8th December in a horrible wheather between Dover and London.  Heavy windguts , hail, rain and 250 lorries chasing me after we got off the ferry. 

The process of getting the bike into Egypt is not the easiest one.  In fact it's considered the most difficult entry of all . 

Thsi demands for detailed preparation which , I think, I have done in the past months.

Have all the required documents, like visas for Egypt, Sudan and Ethiopia.  All easily available from the embassies in Brussels even the Sudan visa.  In fact it was the easiest contrary to what I read in other overlander blogs.   Took me 10 miniutes to leave the embassy with the visa.

Have the Carnet de Passage to avoid payments of import duties for all countries in Africa.  Stamp at entrance and on exit.

Of course all other documents like motorcycle license, int drivers license, copies of all and plenty passport photographs.  

I will fly on Saturday  6th Jan to Cairo and stay at a hotel at the airport for as long as the clearing process will keep me there.

The agent that I was offered to help in clearing the bike asked only 1000 euros whic I think is a bit stiff since all clearing charges seem to be around 200.

The people at the Al Ahram brewery at Cairo who I know quite well offered me to assist since they have logistic people at the airport for clearing their goods.

Of course I am very grateful and am sure all will work out fine.

One most important matter on such trip is not to be in a hurry.  It' s not work and have all the time in the world.  No targets , please !

Sunday is normally a work day but not the 7th.  Seems to be a Holy Day so I can try the temp of the poolwater and drink a Sakara / Heineken beer.

Will go to terminal 2 to buy a local SIM card and change some money.

These last days before departure make me restless , hoping not to forget the right stuff and leave home what I do not need.   Always at the end of a trip one finds itself with things that were not needed so I want to avoid that.

My idea is to go from Egypt to Sudan, Ethiopia,Kenia, Uganda, Rwanda, Tanzania, Zambia, and from there Zimbabwe or Botswana to South Africa.

My partner Linda will join me for 2 weeks in Ethiopia and Botswana ( Okavango ).  

The bike I ride is an 20 year old Harley Davidson Electra Glide.  Of course I had it overhauled and renewed many essential parts to reduce the risk of breakdowns.

HD dealers in Africa are in Cairo and South Africa but nothing in between for more than 10.000 miles.    On my long trips ( 15.000 km each ) to the North Kaap , Finland, Marocco I have experienced  only one breakdown which was due to a service fault whereby the 2 sparkplugs were not well tightened and popped out in the desert at Ouerzazate ,  almost simultaniously .  As everywhere in Africa it did not take 5 minutes before someone came out of the woodwork and asked < Vous avez un probleme, chef ? > .  I showed him the problem of a SP hanging  on the wire out of the cylinder .  No problem , he said, I have a brother who can fix this.

Truely in notime his brother came along and fixed the plugs back with the help of a piece of metal from a gazcanister and one small plier.

He assured me this was for life and he was right .  I drove another 4000 km and arrived home safely.   I had to spend quite some money to fix other cylinder heads.

On my last trip this summer to the North of Finland and Moermansk I decided to skip the camping. No more sleeping in a tent and crawl on my knees in and out while my bones are getting older and become more sensitive to this kind of treatment ( or punishment).

I now go for hotels, B&B's and other decent places to sleep and eat.  In Egypt the choice is endless and cetainly at this moment with very few tourists for all kind of reasons.  Sudan has less hotels but one can sleep at peoples houses who rent out a room so to make a little money.

Ethiopia now also has ample hotels and lodges.

Booking. com is my friend for this, as well as Google Maps.

I will attach a picture of the bike being packed with , of course, the essential paperwork and a picture of other needed stuff to survive.

In London with my son I loaded some " power " with my most preferred drink.

I will continue once in Cairo.