The fat lady sings

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Once the haze of St. Patrick’s day had cleared, we needed to get our heads together and work out exactly what we were going to do. Most of the overland truck folk had gone, leaving me, Linz, Simon, Brian and Tony the truck driver. Tony and Brian were heading out to Point Noire to stick the truck on a boat before flying themselves to Cape Town and Simon was waiting for his flight back to England.

We knew there was an outside chance of an Angolan visa in Point Noire, if we bought plane tickets to Luanda, then got them refunded after we had the visa in our hands. We’d heard this had worked for a Japanese guy, but hadn’t heard about his experiences of getting into Angola with his bike. The only clear option was to fly our two bike convoy to Windhoek, Namibia and then follow the tar road south to Cape Town.

The Namibia route made sense, but we never set out to just reach Cape Town, our aim was to travel the world. However, a recent chat with the bank and a short journey back to reality had clipped our plans for world travel and left us heading for New Zealand to work once we left Africa. After some discussion we had resolved to head back to the UK for a few months, sell the bikes (another story) and head out to New Zealand in July.

Windhoek to Capetown was just 1500km and, with empty pockets, it didn’t look like we would be able to experience much of what Namibia and South Africa had to offer. So we decided to call it a day in Brazzaville, just a few days less than a year on the road and a little over 22000 miles since we left home. We figured that Angola, Namibia and South Africa would still be there in a few years time and we had already hatched a plan for a run down the East side of Africa when we’ve raised some cash.

We set the ball rolling at the SDV freight office at Brazzaville Airport. They seemed organised, if a little expensive, but promised to ship our bikes to Paris with Air France. The first task was to build a box for the bikes and SDV had a warehouse in the city centre where this took place. Linz and I removed the front wheels and handlebars from the bikes to make them as small as possible, the freight cost was dependant on the box size, so every centimetre saved would be money saved.

Easter weekend delayed us and the SDV office was closed until the Tuesday after, but we were on their doorstep early in the morning to get the bikes and the box off to the airport. At the SDV office at Maya Maya Airport we handed over wads of cash and signed various bits of paper and were promised a Friday departure for the bikes. We headed off back to town to organise our own flights for Monday.

The rest of the week was spent exploring Brazzaville’s fine restaurants and enjoying the intermittent water and electricity supply at the cheap hotel we called home. On Friday we returned to the airport to finalise the customs paperwork and confirm the departure, all went well despite customs trying to charge us to stamp the papers! On Monday we were stood at the airport waiting to checkin and the reality of the situation started to dawn on us. This was it, the trip was over, the bikes were already in Paris and we weren’t far behind… it was confusing, we were happy to be moving again, depressed to not be on the bikes and we were heading North instead of South. We spent the rest of the day in a plane trying to make sense of our feelings and wondering what it would be like to touch ground in Europe.

We arrived close to midnight and took a taxi to a hotel, all the while marvelling at the relative splendour of Paris after 3 weeks in Brazzaville. The next morning, Tuesday, was strange, Paris seemed like a different planet and we slowly began to realise how much we had settled into riding through Africa. The day didn’t bring good news though, it soon became apparent that our bikes had never left Brazzaville, it was April Fool’s Day and we thought it might be a sick joke, but it wasn’t.

By Wednesday afternoon, after several confusing phone calls, we had arranged to get our bikes moving with a different freight carrier, they would arrive in Paris the following Tuesday, April 8th. We could ill afford the week in Paris, but decided to stick around and ride the bikes home to give our family and friends a big surprise. There’s plenty to do in Paris and we took in a tour of the Louvre Museum, Champs d’Elysees and various other tourist spots. It helped to pass the time and was a reasonable way to help us get back into European society, it was difficult at first, but the days became easier.

Tuesday 8th arrived, but our bikes didn’t…  we tried in vain to get useful information from the Brazzaville connection, but they were next to useless. We did some internet research and found numbers for our freight company in Belgium and after a a little effort we were talking to a helpful lady in Paris who informed us our bikes would arrive in Amsterdam on April 14th and would be moved to Paris, by truck, shortly after. Although this was later than expected and nobody had mentioned a truck, at least we had some useful info.

We’d had enough of Paris, so we hired a car and drove through the night to get home to North West England. We decided to see Linz’s brother first, knocked on his door at 7 in the morning and laughed at his look of utter confusion! We spent the next 2 days driving around and surprising folk and explaining what the hell we were doing back home. It’s good to see some familiar faces, but it still feels wrong to not be riding the bikes every day, I guess that will get better as the weeks trundle by.

So that’s it, we’re back in the UK for the rest of the year to earn some dough. In the New Year we are off to New Zealand to see what that brings, and at some point in the next few years we’ll be back on two wheels, going somewhere else, perhaps East Africa, or maybe somewhere else.. one thing is for certain though, next time we’ll get Linz a bike where she can touch the floor!

Thanks for the comments and emails over the last year, they helped to keep us smiling and it’s good to know we’ve raised a smile or two. Our blog has been intentionally non-technical and perhaps not so useful to other travellers, but if you’re planning a trip and want to pick our brains, feel free to drop us an email.

Thanks, Dan and Linz

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