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Things are different now. Its all a lot easier. From Nairobi onwards there was a more developed tourist infrastructure, and I was never far from a big city where I could buy stuff I needed, and there were lots of campsites and places to stay etc. Its even more the case here in Southern Africa -from Malawi onwards. All the roads are perfect, the toilets are clean, and I don't need to steal toilet roll any more. It feels very 1st world, you can buy anything anywhere if you have the money, and my big, daft adventure, like all good things, is coming to an end.

Sigh.

I know. Your heart bleeds. Anyway, Zanzibar.
From there back to Dar es Salaam. Seriously hot place, and lots of ancient chinese bicycles loaded usually with hundreds of coconuts. Its amazing what people load on to bicycles in Africa: its often farm produce or water but I've seen double beds, breastfeeding mothers, goats and a dolphin all perched on a carrier. Usually tied on with strips of old inner tube - a nifty trick I've used myself.

And then of course there are the women (usually) carrying stuff around on their heads. Big water containers (which must be of a different primary colour than any in their clothes), bundles of firewood, enormous bunches of bananas, bricks, you name it. I've tried copying that trick too but it ended in disaster.

Away from the heat of Dar down a long straight road, it was good to be moving again. I'd been in touch with my Dutch cyclist friends Coen and Dienne whom I'd first met way back in Morocco exactly a year earlier (I gave Dienne and her bike a lift on my bike and we camped with the UN together). Since we'd gone our separate ways in Mauritania they had cycled on through West Africa as far as Cameroon, where Coen contracted malaria. From there they flew on to South Africa, spent several months there, and were now cycling up the east coast on their way to China! We knew we'd meet somewhere in southern Tanzania.

I'd been having problems with my bike spluttering to a halt in the rain, somehow the air filter was getting wet. I'd have to wait for the rain to stop, put in my spare air filter, drain the carb and I'd be off again. Not a major problem as it doesn't rain often and I was eliminating possible causes one by one.

The straight road became twisty, I began to climb into hills, and the climate started to feel much more temparate. The pineapple fields were being replaced by sunflower fields, it was cooler and clouds were gathering. There were still those big, big Tanzanian skies and at times I could see two or three thunderstorms in the distance while it was still clear and dry around me. Eventually, as it was getting dark, my luck ran out and I rode into the rain. Predictably, the bike spluttered to a halt, and over I pulled. This time my usual technique didn't get it going. Still at least I was in a nice scenic spot, and an elephant ambled over to take a look at me.

Hello Mr elephant. How ya doin? Don't come any closer mate will ya? Only you're a lot bigger than me and those tusks are looking big and pointy. There's no need to flap your ears like that neither. That's it, you just tootle over there and there's no need for us to fall out. I don't want any trouble.
Phew. That was close. I'd broken down in Ruaha national park, and it was getting late.

To remind me of the danger a truck slowed down, its passenger leaning out of the window pointing into the bush, saying "Lion! Lion!". He didn't mean he'd seen a lion, he just meant "this is a national park, be careful because there are lions here." I think. But anyway, unlike everyone else, I never get to see lions.

There was nothing for it; the bike wasn't starting, I couldn't stay there, I'd have to push. My longest push yet. 7 Km. In my waterproofs too. Killer. I had help for Kms 5 and 6 by a passing trucker, which I was indeed grateful for, but I thanked him and let him go once we'd got out of the park, though I still had another Km to push to the nearest guest house.

It was owned by a TZ / Swiss couple and they'd sent someone out to meet me after the trucker had informed them I was on the way. When I arrived they were alone in the bar, and had evidently been in there all evening. Not for the first time, I was a sorry sight on arrival. After a reviving lager they let me have a lodge room for the price of camping, and I collapsed into luxury. Double bed, en suite, hot shower, satellite TV, air con. Must play sympathy card more often.

In the morning I finally traced the fault to a loose rocker cover breather hose clamp. You little tinker. Drained it again, dried a few bits in the sun, sprayed some WD around and vroom! I gotcha!

Nice ride that day, great road, great views through the hills, and the rain had cleared the air. I pitched camp at the lovely Riverside campsite, Iringa, and went to the internet cafe to check on the Dutchies' progress. There was a bit of a mix up with the rendez-vous but the next big town was about 500 km away and I figured they had just left. They'd know where I was staying and I knew they did about 100Km/day. I'd sit tight and they'd turn up. I could service the bike and change the brake pads while I waited.

They did turn up and we had a great couple of days hanging out in Iringa of all places. These southern Tanzanian towns are OK. The streets are clean, flowers are planted and the buildings are painted up in bright colours. All the shops sport paintings of what they sell on the outside walls and they have good names. A place selling fried pork is called simply "Pork Joint." A bar where you can play pool is called "Pool Joint." And a bar that's a bit cool and trendy is called "Cool and Trendy Joint." In Tanzania a roundabout is called a Keepy Lefty. However in spite of this sensible nomenclature the bus drivers still struggle with basic principle, although they are maniacs to a man. I've also heard that in Tanzania a condom is called a Trouser Stocking, which I think is hilarious.

Anyway the dutchies and I wandered around, hiked up a big hill, had some beers and swapped stories from the last year. It was good fun catching up with them. We swapped information about the route ahead and they told me I was in for a nice ride.

It was lovely. Zooming along through high forests and timber plantations, just the odd logging truck on the road. One day after Iringa, I was at Kyela just before the Malawi border.

I was at the border post first thing in the morning, and passsing through was straightforward enough. Down here they just stamp your passport and carnet and wave you through. Its not like the endless bureoucracy up in North Africa. Having stopped a while in Dar / Zanzibar, and again in Iringa I was keen to cover ground. I needed to get the KMs under my wheels. Malawi was perfect for this. Great roads, almost no other traffic, and it is a very pretty country. Around the lake in particular is gorgeous, its the bluest water I've ever seen. It is seriously blue. The blueness goes up to 11. At times the road twists up the hillsides next to the lake, giving fantastic views. It reminded me a bit of Sicily or the Spanish coast. I was tempted to stop often but I really wanted to cover ground, and you can't stop everywhere. I stopped at Mzuzu that night, and the following day I bypassed Lilongwe to arrive at Mchinji on the Zambian border just as it got dark, after another nice day's riding.

I met and chatted to a cyclist there. He was Nepalese and had been on the road 9 years. Malawi was his 103rd country. He said he was cycling for peace and he had another two years to do.

In my room at the motel there, a deafening bang caused one of the window slats to fall in and I dropped to the floor. The walls shook and I thought a bomb had gone off in reception. Outside tiles had come off some roofs.
It was thunder: a massive, sudden clap right overhead. My ears were still ringing as the rain poured down.

At least the rain had stopped when I crossed into Zambia. These formalities were less straightforward. They wanted me to pay a "carbon tax" on entry to the country. Zambia being such an environmentally aware nation and all. What with its gigantic open cast mines, corrupt logging industry, and choking black smoke billowing from every vehicle. There is often some bullshit bribe thing like this but you can usually get around it somehow, but here, they weren't going to let me in.

The thing is, they wanted me to pay in Zambian Kwachas. So I explained to the customs official that I wouldn't have any until I used the ATM at the nearest town over the border. He pointed me to the money changers hanging about outside, underneath the sign saying "Persons changing money illegally will be prosecuted." I pointed out that he as a customs official was about to deny me entrance to the country because I wasn't prepared to break the laws of that country. So criminal activity is a compulsary entry requirement in Zambia? He just shrugged his shoulders.

In the end I gave him the dollars and he went and changed it. For a laugh I took a photo of him changing the money but he wasn't impressed and he came back over and made me delete it. What a laff. By the time they raised the barrier and let me through they were well fed up of me but I thought it was all quite funny. Anyway, I was in Zambia, with a long ride in front of me.

I noticed the first town looked very smart. It had traffic lights that worked, real pavements and the ATM was at a barclays bank. You could detect the South African influence. I filled up with petrol, and hoped I'd make it to Lusaka. Zambia's Great East Road is an amazing road. It winds through valley after valley after valley. All the hillsides covered with dense forest and nothing else. For hundreds of Km, there is only a very occasional village. My petrol light came on long before I reached Chongwe petrol station and I stopped at one of the villages. After a bit of a faff the local minibus, which was crowded with people was driven up an embankment so some guys could get under it and drain out some petrol for me. It wasn't cheap but it got me to Chongwe.

Before Lusaka I turned off to look for the lodge / campsite I was staying at. I had a 7Km ride down a bumpy track with tall grass up to head height either side, just my headlight for light. Its at time like this, down some track in darkest Zambia that you really wonder what the hell you are doing. But it makes you grin too.

I kind of landed on my feet at this place. I got a cabin at the camping rate and half price steak dinners. They were good too. The following night the owner and her friends were all going out and I was invited along. A wierd night and a shock to the system. We went to a theme bar type place at an out of town shopping centre. The kind of place where the bar staff juggle the glasses and pour the drinks over their shoulder and expect you to be impressed. The car park was full of fancy cars and most people were white and rich. It just sort of felt weird.

Anyway from there I rode on to Livingstone, and the biggest waterfall in the world, Mosi-ao-Tunya. The 2Km wide Zambezi river drops over a 100m cliff, and it's the end of rainy season too. What can I say? The falls are amazing, and the site seems well run - on the Zambian side at least. I'd met up with an Austrian couple traveling in an ancient series 2 land rover who I'd met back in Dar, and we hung out there for a few days.

At the falls, you have to wear waterproofs from the spray, and peep between obese americans at the viewing points but the sound is deafening and seeing all the white water thundering down is pretty special. We went back on a night with a full moon to see the lunar rainbow formed in the spray.

From Livingstone its not that far to the Namibian border at the end of the Caprivi strip - the Namibian pan handle that cuts across to Zambia. I crossed the mighty Zambezi (and it is mighty) again at Katima Mulilo. Back in Livingstone I'd noticed my rear tyre was in much worse shape than I'd expected, I could see the steel. I knew Windhoek was the next place I could get a replacement so I just had to ride on, only slowly.

The road through the Caprivi is the kind that vanishes to a point in front of you, it is so long and straight. Either side there is mostly just flat bushland. There are fences that go on for hundreds of Km and you see some elephants and big game. But at 80km / hr, its pretty dull. Although when I go home I won't get to spent all day tootling along on a motorbike in the sunshine so I just sat back and enjoyed it. The tyre sitution had been the deciding factor in choosing this route; I had hitherto been contemplating a loop down through Botswana and the Okavanga delta, but I'd also heard Botswana was very expensive. The best thing to do was to press on for Windhoek. I crossed the huge Okavanga river. It flows down through Botswana but never reaches the sea. Instead it spreads out into the Kalahari desert where it either evapourates of forms the swamps of the Okavanga delta. Its supposed to be an amazing place to visit but like more and more places in Eastern and Southern Africa, its only really open to the very wealthy.

To make the distance I needed to cover at slow speed I rode late into the night before pulling in. Off again in the morning riding all day. The tyre was getting worse but was holding out. The towns I came to started to look clean and modern. The other cars on the road were modern, white, and had tinted windows. In the towns there were tractor showrooms and crop spaying adverts; it was farming country. The petrol stations had those miraculous sliding doors which people caught me staring at, bemused. And inside you could buy all of the junk you can buy in petrol stations at home. I bought a steak and kidney pie, which a woman in a red apron heated up in a microwave.

When I reached Grootfontain, there were traffic lights all the way down the high street and too much street furniture. All the cars looked very new and the shops seemed to have huge plastic signs over their windows. There were lots of signs telling you what you're not allowed to do and the people were white and overweight. It was just like home. Here, as anywhere else over the last week or so - but more so - I had a strange feeling of resurfacing. You sort of look at it all in a detatched way. It is surreal.

I still had a long way to go to Windhoek. The roads were good and I wasn't tired so I rode all night like Roy Orbison. I reached Windhoek between 3 and 4 AM. After riding around a while along dual carriageways lined with car showrooms and criss-crossed with concrete bridges I came into the city centre. Arriving in Windhoek in the very early morning is just like riding around Manchester at that time. The same traffic lights, the odd drunken bloke bouncing off the walls as he staggers home. I saw a road name sign on little reinforced concrete legs. One of the legs was broken and you could see the steel reinforcing rods rusty and bent inside. Behind the sign were stuffed takeaway papers and a drink can. I realised I'd ridden 50 000Km across jungle, desert and swamp to get to a place that looked exactly like Stockport.

Anyway, I've been here since. Windhoek is very interesting in its own way. It is very evident Namibia is a former German colony. The place I'm staying is nice; it has a pool and I'm camped under a lemon tree. From southern Tanzania through Malawi, Zambia and Namibia I only really stopped for any time at Livingstone. The tyre was in a bad shape but it stayed inflated and I have since managed to find and fit a replacement, and I have finally replaced my melted number plate. I see from the football matches on TV the weather is nice back home and I will press on again soon. The next stop is Cape Town, my final destination. From there I will look into flights home but I would like a couple of weeks in South Africa and I may have to fly from Johannesburg. Its been one helluva journey in many ways, and now I have just 1500Km to go.
Hope you had a happy Easter. See you soon!

As usual I?ve left it too long before updating my journal, and now I have all the way from Nairobi to write up, and it?s been an eventful few weeks. From Nairobi I planned to do a couple of excursions to the coast, and around Kenya, which would take me back to Nairobi. The idea was to give the bike some good long test runs before moving on from Jungle Junction and what must be the best motorcycle workshop in East Africa.

So, off to the coast. Head for Mombassa but turn off just before and emerge at Tiwi beach. Once out of Nairobi, the road was good and actually went through Tsavo West National Park. Nice day, bike running well, good road and what?s that grey thing? It?s an elephant! Stood by the side of the road alone, a fully-grown, but tuskless elephant. A little further and I see zebras grazing next to the road. Then some sort of dragon type reptile runs across the road and I have to slow down for a troupe of about 40 baboons.

I press on toward Mombassa and as dusk approaches I turn onto an unpaved road. It?s a bumpy track but with another 40 or 50 km to do I need to keep moving. Although it?s a tiring ride there is a big setting sun and the villages I pass through are nice. I started to see piles of what could only be elephant droppings and I have to be careful. An elephant dump is about the size of a bag of cement and so they represent a significant road hazard, although they are not pictured in warning triangles.

It was dark by the time I reached the main coast road but I could still see the odd monkey climbing over the road on one of the specially constructed rope-ladder bridges they have there. I located the campsite and pitched up in the sand amongst the coconut palms. After food, beer and shower I crawled in and fell instantly to sleep to the thump and hiss of the waves.

I woke to the same sound. I unzipped my tent and emerged to a perfect beach of white sand and palm trees and went for a swim. The water was shallow for quite a long way out and there is lots of coral, so its better for snorkeling than for swimming, but a walk down the beach brought me to a gorgeous spot where a river cut through the sand and coral as it reached the ocean. The water was warm and very blue and great for swimming. Back at the campsite a Rasta man who had elephantitis in his left leg was selling tropical fruit from a basket on his bicycle. He had pineapples, mangoes, coconuts, bananas, and avocados and could get you anything else you wanted.

There were monkeys bouncing around the campsite, screeching and chasing each other and nitpicking. They would raid the bins for fruit scraps and were hardly afraid of people at all. They would be most energetic in the early morning while it was still cool. One morning I woke to the sound of my tent being unzipped and sat up to see a monkey with turquoise testicles lean into my tent and steal the plastic bag I had been using as a bin. After that I had to tie the zips shut. I hired a mask and snorkel and spent a few days riding up and down the surrounding coastline looking for coral gardens and other interesting places to snorkel. Lots of bright colours, pretty fishies and sun cream.

From Tiwi I decided to head north along the coast and cross over to the island of Lamu. I?d heard it was tropical island paradise, similar to Zanzibar further south, but less developed. Gotta be worth checking out. Soon after Tiwi I reached the ferry for Mombassa. Mombassa was hot and pretty funky, but I just rode through and continued on to Malindi. Malindi is a tourist town developed by Italians. It is clean and leafy and a good place to stop for an ice cream. From Malindi northwards the scenery gets very bleak. There is nothing but flat scrubland either side of the road, and not a soul around. It goes on and on. 200km later you arrive at a junction with a police checkpoint, where you turn right, off the asphalt for the last 70km to Mokowe where you get the ferry. It?s a grueling 70km. The track is bad but because you reach it late in the day, and because you have to cover the 70km, you can?t ride slowly. As is so often the case in Africa you have to ride fast on a bad road if you want to get where you?re going. Its not dangerous but it is knackering and it takes its toll on your vehicle.

By the time I reached Mokowe I realized I would not be crossing over that day. I asked around for a hotel and a guy I didn?t trust (he was a bit of a nutter) tried to direct me down some other track where there was no sign or any other indication of a hotel. I think he just wanted me to stay at his house but I couldn?t be bothered with that so I just headed for the police station. As usual they were all hospitality and let me camp in their compound. They also confirmed I could leave the bike there while I got a boat over to Lamu, which I did the following day. It was a wooden boat, about 30ft long with an unhealthy diesel inboard engine. There were about 30 other passengers but I was the only muzungu.

Arriving in Lamu feels like arriving at some kind of pirate hideaway. The road along the seafront is unpaved, the hotels and other buildings are at the front of a small town of narrow winding streets. Along the sea front people are loading and unloading boats, repairing boats and nets, selling their catch, or offering to take the few tourists out to neighbouring islands. It is small, but busy and colourful. You can?t help but like it.

I was there 3 or 4 days. One day a French guy, a Slovakian girl and myself, all of us traveling independently hired a dhow to take us over to Manda Island. Now that place was stunning. The most perfect beach you could imagine, a bounty advert beach, fringed with palm trees, beautiful soft white sand. There was a small thatched bar where you could go and get a cold drink and some shade in the hottest part of the afternoon. At the point where the water met the sand, where it was shallow, it was actually hot. You had to step through it quickly to get to the deeper, less hot water. The dhow journey itself was an experience, the boat was at least 100 years old, sail powered, and the crew sang and played drums the whole way back.

All the little restaurants on Lamu do the most amazing fruit smoothies in pint mugs, so you can wash down your lobster thermidore down with a papaya and mango smoothie. Cheap as chips too.

On arrival back on the mainland I got as far as Malindi before I needed to pull in for the night, at a campsite called ?Eco-camp? on the edge of an unusual freshwater fed saltwater lagoon. The guy that ran it told me how 30 years ago they started getting scientists coming to study the lagoon, and then birdwatchers arrived who they thought were mad. They were amazed to find the birdwatchers coming back in increased numbers, year in year out. This guy was one of the few in his village who spoke English and he started working with the researchers on a crab survey. He ended up learning loads about the wildlife of the lagoon and got to know many of the birdwatchers. He had fascinating stories about how the locals and the birdwatchers came to understand and accommodate each other. There is now a walkway over the mudflats to a bird watching hide and a really good little information centre and clever conservation schemes. He also told me all about his tribe and his clan and we drank palm wine.

He?d built this amazing covered platform at tree top level where there was a bed and a mosquito net and very little else. I fell asleep to the steady din of the bullfrogs and the calls of countless exotic birds. Sunrise was pretty spectacular too.

I pressed on, back to Nairobi. Outside Mombassa the road is so potholed it becomes a slalom race, but soon I was back on the good road. Just before Nairobi a fuel hose disconnected, and I lost all my petrol. No biggy, but a faff and a lot of walking back to a checkpoint, and then a lift to a petrol station and back. I reached Jungle Junction about 11.

I?d covered a couple of thousand km, and teased out a few niggles with the bike to sort out over the next few days. I would ride to the Masai Mara about 120km away, and if it was OK, continue on my way.

I was pitching my tent outside the Masai Mara, when a Masai guy approached me. He was wearing a red cloak; lots of beads and his ears were pierced with holes so big the bottom of his earlobes rubbed his shoulders. He was holding a screwed up piece of newspaper and with his hands mimicking striking a match while saying ?boila, boila.? I took this to mean he wanted a light to get the boiler going and I rooted round in my bag and passed him my cigarette lighter. Off he went. Ten minutes later he comes back, flicking the top of the lighter with his thumb. He didn?t know how to work it. I attempted to show him by holding it out in front of us and showing him, but instead of taking it back off me and trying himself, he just kept sticking the paper in the flame while I lit it. He was completely uninterested in learning how to use the lighter. He just wanted to get the boiler going.

I met up with Bill and Rosemary, a dead nice English couple I?d met at Jungle Junction who were traveling south to north in a land rover. As I?m not allowed in on a bike, they offered to take me round in the back of their land rover. They had already bought their ticket, so as we approached the gate Bill suggested I stay low in the back, and they didn?t see me. Woohoo! I was in the Masai Mara for free!

It was a wonderful day. The Masai Mara is an amazing place. It?s like a sort of Disneyland, but its real. The amount and variety of wild animals you see is amazing. We saw everything except big cats; giraffes, wildebeest, zebra, elephants, buffalo, hartebeest, gazelle, hippos, monkeys, a snake, a tortoise, warthogs, a hyena and others. But just the landscape of rolling grassland and lone trees against massive skies is unforgettable. We got lost and had to drive up a big hill and
stand on the roof to find our way back and we got bogged down in the mud. We had a wonderful day.

I decided to return to Nairobi. The bike wasn?t running well and I didn?t want to be stuck with a badly performing bike after investing all that time getting it straight. We removed the carb and did some fine-tuning and got it just right and I headed for Eldoret.

I stayed in the most lavish campsite ever -as recommended by Bill and Rosemary. It was run by an Indian textile mogul and had to be seen to be believed. The family owned a huge mill in the town but was investing in tourism in the face of textile competition from china. I was the only guest and was plied with Jack Daniels all night by the manager in the biggest bar I have ever been in. It had waterfalls and bridges. Surreal.

I celebrated my birthday, an otherwise grey and overcast day, by crossing into Uganda. There was that feeling of the new country looking different but I was unable to say why. I had hoped the roads would improve after Kenya?s dire roads, but most of the way to Jinja, my first stop, it was pretty awful. Bujigali falls at Jinja is near the source of the Nile, but the river is big and powerful.

In Jinja I went white water rafting on the Nile. 10 sets of rapids, with smooth stretches in between, where you recover and prepare for the next rapid. On one of the smooth stretches we just jumped in the water and were chatting and eating pineapple while being carried along the huge river by the current. You hear the rapids before you see them and by the time they come into sight you are already scared. Sometimes the boat goes over and you are lost in a washing machine of white water until your life jacket pulls you up and the river spits you out after the rapids. If you don?t mind being forcibly imbibed with river water, it?s a lot of fun.

From Jinja to Kampala ? a much better road a nice ride, and Kampala?s not so bad. Its nowt special either, mind. I met up with a couple of Canadian lads I?d met in Lamu and an English guy. With another couple of Canadian girls we decided to head out to Banda Island on Lake Victoria. I?d sort of left the arrangements to the others so wasn?t exactly sure what to expect, an island in the lake and something about a mad guy that lives there.

We crammed into a matatu (public minibus) and an hour or two later, after we?d stopped to pick up some shopping for the mad guy, we were at a fairly chaotic bit of the lakeshore. The boat looked like a boat that I would make. I?d say about 20ft long, it was bolted together from flat sections of wood. No graceful, sweeping curves, just straight lines and angles. To get to it we were hoisted up by porters who waded out carrying us on their shoulders. You don?t really have any say in it; they just pick you up and take you. Once in the boat we realized the rest of the cargo was contraband; beer, fags and people who would continue on to Tanzania after we were dropped off. Lake Victoria is bigger than France, and maybe even bigger than texas, and the journey would take them a full day, though we would be dropped off after an hour or two.

We had a smooth crossing, which was fortunate as the smuggler in charge of the boat only had life jackets for about half the people aboard. Worried looking smugglees were wearing them all. We didn?t get any because ?everybody knows muzungus can swim.?

We arrived at a beach and jumped off. A fairly posh sounding bloke with a big beard greeted us as we waved our transport away.

It turns out this guy is a real deal old time colonial bloke, who can?t face living in modern Kenya, and years ago opted instead to live a Robinson Crusoe existence on this island. His worldview, and opinions (which he is keen to share) are those you?d expect from old-fashioned empire bloke who has spent most of the modern era alone on an island. He?s started inviting tourists in the past few years but he doesn?t seem to get off the island much. He doesn?t have much good to say about the locals, or for that matter his servants, who he has trained to serve him and his guests seriously, seriously good food. The island is beautiful, and is covered in dense jungle apart from the beach and the area he has cleared. It isn?t adorned with beautiful buildings; he hasn?t made it into a picture postcard hideaway. He has built strange turreted buildings from stone that are cluttered and full of junk and musty piles of books. You have to clamber over broken furniture and crates of empty bottles and stuff. The building he lives in is about 4 or possibly 5 stories high, and the view from the roof is stunning. He grows pineapples and spends a lot of time getting stoned. He?s a nutter.

He was a polite and well-mannered nutter though. And manners go a long way. He was a genuine guy; he was what he was. He was just a loon. We spent a few days there. He would leave us alone most of the time and then come join us for a while. He would warn us about the stinging caterpillars and the latest location of the man-eating ants. There were butterflies whose wings were the size of both my hands. The ants were the ants of horror movies; they marched in huge columns, leaving a trail on the ground. I laughed at one of the girls who had to pull her pants off when they marched up her leg, until it happened to me. There were snakes there too. After dark, a trip to the toilet was fraught with danger.

As sunset approached, we would head to the building he lived in on a part of the island that jutted out into the lake, and climb the steep stairs up to his room. From there we?d go out to the balcony and climb a rickety ladder onto the roof, to watch the nightly bat migration.

The island is home to millions upon millions of fruit bats. As the sun sets each evening they take off en masse to raid the fruit trees of neighbouring islands. He told us they go to a different island each night, exhausting the fruit of each in turn. The red sky turns black as they take off and it is a full half hour before they?re all gone. Its amazing to see, and sunset on that roof is a truly awesome place and time.

It would have been easy to stay longer there, and the other lads did, but I wanted to keep moving, as did the girls -so we headed back to Kampala. We were canoed over to another island from where we got in another big boat for the return to the mainland. This one was crammed with people; there was hardly room for us.

The crossing got rough. At one point they turned the outboard off (or it broke down) and they dropped the anchor. We couldn?t understand why they weren?t facing the boat into the waves. Instead the waves were hitting us side on, and the boat felt inches away from capsizing with each one. We knew it would stand up to the current weather, but we couldn?t afford for it to get any worse. Everybody (I think about 60 people) crouched as low as possible in the boat so we were all crammed below the gunwale. Everybody was scared; some were clearly terrified. After a while though, the weather passed, the waves got smaller, the outboard was restarted and we continued to the Ugandan shore, where the porters carried us back to terra firma. If it weren?t for the terra, I?d?ve felt a lot firma.

From Kampala, I headed east, toward Fort Portal, and Lake Nkuruba. The ride there was wonderful. Uganda is impossibly lush and green. You see tropical fruit growing everywhere; there are hills and valleys always thick with dark green trees and bushes. The road was new and almost empty. The towns are nice and well kept. Whenever I stopped to get a drink or ask directions, the people were dead nice and helpful, there was no hassle. There is something wonderful about Uganda.

Lake Nkuruba is a small volcanic lake. You go down a steep path through pleasant woodland to reach the water. It is cool and shady and the lake?s surface is like a mirror. It is gorgeous to swim in. The campsite is very close, at the top of the path, in the woods. There are the most amazing birds flying around; of all sizes and some in colours you wouldn?t think possible in nature. I know I keep going on about birds but here they were unbelievable. I saw parrots and a toucan amongst all the others. And butterflies; loads of colourful butterflies. There is tropical fruit growing from the trees, which you can just go and pick, and there are black and white Colubus monkeys swinging from the branches. It?s a paradise.

After a couple of days just hanging out and swimming in the lake I set off south for a national park where I?d heard they?d let motorbikes in. To get there I had to cross the equator again and return to the southern hemisphere, which I?d left as I left Kenya. Here there was funny weather. At night there was no rain, or thunder, but lightening flickered constantly all night. I spent a few days in the park and saw warthogs, zebra, elephants, crocodiles, a chimpanzee and had a run in with a hippopotamus on my way back from the pub. I didn?t see any lions though, despite riding around the bush for a full day looking for them. They are elusive these lions. Ah, well, you can?t be greedy in life.

On my map I?d noticed Bwindi Impenetrable Forest. Now if that isn?t an enticing title I don?t know what is. It is home to the Silverback Gorilla and I?d heard it was a beautiful place. Some Germans I?d met told me it was unmissable so I continued south along the Congolese border, although I knew I couldn?t afford the fee for the gorilla trek.

At one point I got unsure of my route and pulled over to consult the map. I pinpointed my position to exactly the point where the map simply said ?Tree Climbing Lions?. I hung around for a bit making kitty-calling noises but the buggers remained as elusive as ever. If I can, I?d like to see a lion before I leave Africa.

The ride up to Bwindi was wonderful. The scenery spectacular. I began to see huge tea plantations, with the pickers strung out across the fields, up to their chests in the bright green bushes. I also passed a couple of prison farms, the prisoners waved as I rode past. Although I felt a bit sorry for them I resisted the temptation to stop and offer one of them a lift, as some of them seemed to be imploring me to do. Better not.

The forest itself isn?t so impenetrable, there is a track running through the middle of it. It is dense forest with huge tall trees and monkeys charging through the branches. It?s lovely and cool. I didn?t see any gorillas though; they must be hanging out with the lions somewhere.

And so on to Lake Bunyonyi. I loved Lake Bunyonyi. The guidebook said it looks like something out of the hobbit. I haven?t read the hobbit but it certainly seems like somewhere that could appear in something called the hobbit. It is almost unreal looking. It?s a big lake but you?d have to be very high up to see all of it. It is sided by scores of bays and inlets and studded with countless islands. The hills at its sides are terraced and drop down steeply to the water. I camped on a manicured lawn right by the water. There was a little jetty with a diving board and a dugout canoe for hire.

I spent a day exploring the lake and its islands by dugout. The dugout is a fantastic craft, a great way to explore. It?s a bit tricky to maneuver until you get used to it, but its very stable and easy to climb back into from the water. You can chuck loads of stuff in it; it is bone dry and comfortable. After a hard mornings paddling and swimming I paddled out into the middle of the lake and settled in with a book. An hour later I nodded off and had me a little snooze in the middle of the lake. It was a Monday.

One of the islands had a nature trail on it and a little shop. You could walk around through the eucalyptus forest and get a cold drink before setting off for another island. You would meet the occasional other person in a boat and you would shout directions to each other. It was a lot of fun, no better way to fritter away a Monday.

Reluctantly, I packed up and headed for the border. The high road around the lake gave more magnificent views. I was sorry to be leaving Uganda; it is an amazing country.

So feeling a little down, I got my passport stamped and rode across a little bridge over a raging river and got myself stamped into Rwanda.

Rwanda is a tiny mountain country. It reminded me a bit of Ethiopia, loads of people, many going overboard with the whole ?Muzungu!? thing. They don?t get many tourists in Rwanda, so everybody stops and stares, and the roads are thick with people. I?d only really come through Rwanda because it has good roads. I wasn?t intending to stay long. It did have good roads and big views through the mountains. I reached the capital, Kigali, the same day.

In Rwanda, one day every two months, they have ?Community Day.? On Community Day all businesses close and everybody has to go to work for the community. As my luck tends to have it, I arrived on Community Day.

As I walked into town from my hotel in the suburbs I realized everything was shut, and there were big organized teams sweeping the streets, cutting bushes, picking up rubbish. I had to wait till the next day to change money for my hotel and petrol. But the city, unlike any other African capital I?ve been to, was absolutely spotless. It felt strange! It is the kind of place though, where if you are white people shout things at you as you walk down the street. ?Hey Muzungu, Howareyou?? is the intellectuals choice.

My third day in Rwanda, was the day I left. It had been a short but interesting little visit, but soon I was down from the mountains and crossing into the gently sloping plains of Northern Tanzania. I was heading for Mwanza, Tanzania?s 2nd city, but there was no asphalt and I knew it would be a long slog.

In the late afternoon the sky began to darken, and soon I was under a huge thunderstorm. Lightning started and got more frequent and close. Four or five times I saw forks of lightening zap the ground in the land around me. After it hit there would be a huge puff of smoke and steam rise up from where it hit. I really thought I might get hit. The road turned to mud and I stopped and ran for cover at what I thought was a police checkpoint, but turned out to be a prison. The guy in charge was a nice bloke, and he let me camp under the veranda.

I reached the ferry for Mwanza the following afternoon. The boat was due in an hour. It would take me across a strip of Lake Victoria and on the other side I would have a 15km ride into town. I waited and after 2 hours I could see the boat chugging towards us.

Minutes later we heard the engine stop and everybody groaned. They said it had been having engine trouble lately. It drifted away circling as it went, completely at the mercy of the lake?s currents. I asked why they didn?t drop the anchor. The answer I got was that if they dropped the anchor they needed the engine to pull it back up. And so off it drifted, past some rocks and out of site.

I fell asleep on my bike. Six hours later I heard the boat chugging back towards us. They?d got it going. After the trucks on board had managed to skid up the muddy banks, we skidded down and on to the boat hoping it wouldn?t break down. It didn?t, we made it to the other side and an hour later I was putting my tent up.

Mwanza is a nice town. I spent a few days there cleaning and drying my stuff and eating top grub at a nice caf? I found. It made a change from ugali, the concentrated wallpaper paste that is the staple in these parts.

I headed for the Serengeti. It was 120km away and I hoped there might be a way round the motorcycle ban. Perhaps if I traveled with another vehicle, or if they had a pick up going through or something. You never know, it was worth a shot. It would save me a 500km round trip if I could just get across the park. But they wouldn?t have it. It was too dangerous; wild animals would savage me. Unless I paid a $300 dollar bribe, in which case the animals would leave me alone. But I don?t have $300 dollars to pay as a bribe so I turned around and headed for Dodoma, the capital.

It was the hardest ride I?ve had in a long time. At least 300km on bad sandy rocky tracks full of slow-moving trucks kicking up huge clouds of dust -a nightmare to overtake. A few bits fell off my bike too but I was determined to reach Dodoma in one day and get it over with. I did, but I was completely knackered when I got there, and covered in grime.

There had to be a good road between the capital and Dar es Salaam, the biggest city. There was. A brand new, Chinese built road across the broad central plains of Tanzania. Particularly after the previous day?s grueller, this was heaven. Perfect weather and a massive sky where the enormous cotton wool clouds couldn?t fill a quarter of their bright blue background. The clouds seem to be stacked up above one another rather than lying down flat. The sky just seems so big. There were blue mountains on the horizon and a real sensation of zooming over the planet?s surface. Regardless of all the nice places I visit, just riding the bike never loses its appeal.

And so into the sweltering heat of Dar es Salaam. It is hot, hot, hot. South of the city, across on another ferry, are fantastic beaches and a good campsite, where I met people I last saw in Nairobi. I had a few days getting some jobs done in Dar and returning in the evenings to cool off in the Indian Ocean. When you swim in the ocean at night the phosphorescence in the water sparkles around you like fairy lights. It?s pretty magical.

From Dar I took a ferry to Zanzibar, where I am now. It was cheaper to leave the bike at the campsite and hire a bike over here, than bring mine across on the ferry. I spent an enjoyable couple of days buzzing around the sights on my amusing little 250. It is an exotic place, Zanzibar, with its perfect palm fringed beaches and spice markets etc, but there is just a little too much hassle as you walk around Stone town. There are some great thing to see, like the Ceremonial Palace of the Sultan of Zanzibar, and Jozani forest with its mahogany trees and rare red Colubus monkeys. I like monkeys.

There are some good government run museums. There is a great dhow exhibition in one, which I really liked. Instead of using nails they used to stitch the boats together. And the buildings in the little streets of Stonetown are crumbling palaces with elaborately carved doorways. Freddie Mercury was born here, but apart from a cheesy bar called Mercury?s there is little mention of him. The devoutly Muslim population doesn?t seem very proud of him for some reason.

Well that?s it. Too long I know, but I?d left it too long between updates again ? and you don?t have to read it! Hope you all had a happy St Patrick's day. Since Christmas I?ve been thinking about home more and more, and I want to hurry up the pace a bit now. Trouble is, I keep finding myself in such nice places and it?s hard to leave. The money?s running out but I?m having such a good time. I?m having a ball.

Another African capital, a town called Addis -and nicer than most in many ways. It's high up, so it's relatively sunny and cool, and it doesn't seem to have the intense, hot and frantic core as most of the other African capitals that I've been to seem to have. Although of course it has its share
of all the usual traits. But there are smart coffee houses decked out in white tiles and chrome halogen lamps, which are always packed. They sell fancy pastries that never taste quite as good as they look and coffee that looks like gravy but tastes fantastic. You get a mild disappointment and a pleasant surprise each time you go.

In the centre of the city, some of the Soviet era monuments are now covered up or are being dismantled, -presumably now an embarrassment, but you can still see hammers and sickles poking out at the top. There is also a beautiful park facing one of the royal palaces. It runs down the middle of one of the main thoroughfares; Menelik 11 Avenue. There is a kiddie's area, with the slides and swings carefully covered up in plastic. The elaborate water features are switched off. There are beautiful landscaped lawns, hedges and plants, winding paths and stepping stones, all maintained and manicured by a busy team of gardeners. The gates are locked however as they don't want the public going in and spoiling it. You have to admire it through the railings.

I was hanging about in Addis as my bank cancelled my card after I'd asked them to confirm it was active. Useless buggers. -So I checked out the national museum, and the ethnography museum in the university campus. The ethnography museum was pretty cool, and the campus was nice, with gardens and lawns around which students and lecturers milled about. Inside was info and displays from the country's various tribes. One of the video displays showed an 'adulthood' ceremony where young men have to run across the backs of a row of 25 bulls, 3 times in a row. Basically, if they succeed they pass successfully into manhood. If they fall off the women run over and ridicule them and poke them with sticks.

I'd heard from the Germans that the piste on the Kenyan side of the border was a muddy nightmare, and I had yet to ride in mud. I'm in no hurry to discover the experience either. Having done my share of slogging over deserts and mountains I like asphalt now. A nice asphalt road with a pretty view and warm sunshine, that's what you want.

No chance.

The Kenyans emailed me with good information about the second possible route around Lake Tana. But there was flooding on that route too so I was in a bit of a dilemma.

Then I found a note pinned to my bike and met up with an American guy who had done a lot of bike travel and now lived in Ethiopia. With him, I worked out a new route, hopefully avoiding the worst of the flooding. He knew of a track around the other side of the lake, not marked on my map. He said the stretch of road there would 'blow my mind' and I knew I would have a chance of meeting the Suri people if I went that way. They scar their own bodies and wear plates in their lips, and that's just the girls. To get there I reckoned I could follow the main road south, then turn off and take a mountain pass between lakes Chamo and Abaya known as the Bridge of Heaven.
I had a plan. My bank got their act together and I was off.

It was slow going getting out of Addis. The roads the familiar chaos of banger racing taxis, lopsided trucks, crowds of people doing their funky thang, minibuses with their conductors hanging out the doors shouting destinations, two-stroke motorcycles buzzing like flies between everything else, donkeys plodding home on autopilot, white wood smoke, black diesel smoke, beeping horns, musical horns, cattle, goats and all kinds of other random events.

Out of Addis the road eventually opened up until it was reasonably clear, at intervals passing through muddy towns of corrugated iron and sticks and lots and lots of people, of whom many were shouting "You! You! You!" or "Faranji!" at me as I chugged through.

Also on that stretch I encountered something I had not experienced for a very long time - rain.

It was a big event for me as I had to dig out my coat, which I'd worn every day until one day in Mali when I couldn't bear it any more, and my waterproof trousers which I last wore the day I reached the beach at Canet-Plage in France, exactly a year ago. It was a big event in Southern Ethiopia too, as a crowd of about 200 people gathered to watch me put them on.

I stopped a day at Awassa. When I arrived it had street lights and wet tarmac, and the smell of rain - reminding me of home... although the similarity ended there. The hotel I stayed at was run by a Rastafarian woman and was nicely decorated and a bit arty. It had lovely gardens and was in a gorgeous location right on Lake Awassa. Apparently, West Indian Rastafarians were given land around there years ago.

The lake is famous for its birds. I know very little about birds but you don't need to know anything. As you walk around the lake you are inundated with all kinds of chirping, twittering things, every size shape and colour. Some are amazingly colourful and I saw the largest bird I'd ever seen heaving itself out of the water, its wings easily big enough to cover my front door.

The next day I gave my air filter a clean as it was a bit grubby and the bike was not quite on song on the way down. The next day it sounded better.

By now the landscape and foliage by the side of the road was looking decidedly tropical. There were strange spiky plants the shape of pine cones, the size of a tree, composed of bright green 'leaves' several inches thick. All the vegetation looked strange to me. It was very dense, very big leaves, every shade of green, lots of it very dark green. Amongst it all one of the plants had a loud red flower that really stood out against all the green. There was the odd ginormous tree with thick heavy boughs stretching right over the road and piled at the sides of the road were countless black heaps of coffee beans.

The coffee in Ethiopia is the best I've ever tasted. And like the tea, it comes steeped in spices and of course, plenty of sugar. It's a good brew. The food is usually pretty spicy too. The staple is injerra, a sort of pancake which comes in a sheet as big as a pillow case. Aside from its taste which is slightly sour, it shares many other properties with carpet underlay. And it's your plate, your cutlery and your napkin. On top of it comes your meat and /or veg which tend to be served in a spicy or peanut sauce. Its good grub. I like it.

I turned off the asphalt road at Yirga Chefe, following a track through progressively more ramshackle, but no less populous villages. It's in places like this that the people, especially the kids, go really mad with the whole faranji thing. Eventually the downpour got really heavy, and while I was between villages, the track sank under a sheet of standing water.

In places the water streamed across the track like a stream. In these places I got off and walked through first. But you can't walk through them all first and perhaps I got a little complacent. I was picking my way across one of these when the front wheel dropped deeper, then hit a large stone and the bike began to topple. I stretched my right foot out to take the weight of the bike as it leaned over. My foot went down through the water, then down through more water and then I and the bike were firmly in the drink.

I killed the engine and managed to keep the exhaust and air intake out of the water, but I couldn't lift the bike up straight, the ground under the water was just too rocky. Lightening flashed, thunder clapped and the rain moved up a gear. I stood there up to my knees in brown water, utterly drenched, bike on its side in the flow, watching bubbles coming from where my right pannier was. For the first time in Ethiopia I was completely alone. Ya gotta laugh.

Bit by bit I unloaded the bike, panniers bags, spare tyres etc and lugged them over to some higher ground, falling over a few times in the process. Eventually I could upright the bike, push it over to the luggage and start reloading it. The whole thing took an hour or so and it was starting to get dark. It was still p!ssing down. I wondered if it would start.

It didn't.

Then the blokes with the machetes and spears turned up. I counted 3 machetes and four 6 foot spears, but they just wanted to stare and shout and walk around waving their arms about in a fairly random manner. They were alright really. After a futile few minutes trying to engage with these people in a practical way, a couple of businesslike soldiers turned up in army gear and carrying Kalashnikovs. Disregarding my previous run-in with the Ethiopian army I was pleased to discover they spoke some English.

They explained that we were at border between two tribal areas. The tribes occasionally take pot-shots at each other so the Ethiopian army patrols the boundary to keep the peace. They told me their hut was a further along the track, and helped me push the bike there. I was knackered when we reached the hut, wet, sweating and being eaten alive by the mosquitoes. They sat me down and gave me a foot of sugar cane. They showed me how to split it open and suck the juice out of the soft pulpy core. It is sweet and fantastic, just what I needed.

A few hours later some headlights appeared from the direction I'd come from, and minutes later an ultra-rugged Isuzu bus pulled up and the soldiers spoke to the driver. All the passengers got off the bus and helped shove the bike in the door, with its back wheel hanging out the side. It was then tied in place and the passengers had to get back in via the drivers door and climb
over his seat and my motorbike to sit back down. They did it like it was the
most normal thing in the world.

A bumpy hour later we were at Amoro Kele. A ramshackle town along the track which had a hotel but no electricity. The passengers then climbed over my bike, out the driver's door and unloaded my bike and carried all my tuff to a neat pile in my room. After thanking and paying I ate and slept like a log.

In the morning I was the town's star attraction. Hundreds came to have a look at me as I sorted my bike out. It had dried in the sun of the morning.
The oil looked OK. I changed the spark plug, sprayed a bit of WD40 around and it fired right up. Woohoo!

After letting in run a while, I switched off and put it all back together. Before loading my kit on I thought I'd better try it again, just to be sure.

Bikey no startey. I tried everything I could think of. All that day, all the following day, and all the day after that. All the time with an audience of
blank, staring faces and comments like "I think it's the battery." the people gather to watch and, like cattle, they edge closer and closer to you until you pull your head back and it bumps someone else's head. You lose your politeness after a day or so, and eventually you end up shifting them away by going berserk and charging round like a total spanner for 10 minutes until they all just please fuck off. Thus your reputation grows and more and more people come to check out the crazy faranji. Half an hour later the zombies are shuffling towards you again. "Youyouyou, howareyou, youyouyou, faranji, haveyoucheckedthebatterieeeeee"

ARGGGGHHH!

It wasn't the battery, it wasn't the fuel, and the spark plug was sparking, the starter motor spinning. I checked earth strap, starter relay, cut out switch, cleaned and dried everything, including the carb and I changed the oil. In the end I could only think it had been a recurrence of the problem I'd had in Libya, and I'd noticed a white deposit in the oil (water). The bike hadn't been running perfectly, just like in Libya, and the symptoms were the same. In any case, I couldn't fix it and I had to get out of Amoro Kele before I killed someone.

If I had a truck ride to do there wasn't much point going back to Addis Ababa. When I was in Khartoum I'd heard about a campsite in Nairobi run by a German motorbike mechanic, and there was also a (reportedly expensive) KTM dealer in Nairobi. Nairobi was the other side of the vast Northern Kenya wilderness. I knew I was in for a long slog.

Some of the people in Amoro Kele were very nice and helpful to me. They helped arrange for me and the bike to squeeze onto a pick-up truck to Dila, back on the main road. It was carrying a spice they put in tea that tastes very much like cloves but looks different, as well as a bunch of other paying passengers and a pile of furniture, farm implements and stuff. I sat up on the roof with the others; it was a very bumpy ride. They dropped me at the police station in Dila, which is a small town straddling the main road to the Kenyan border.

I had a word with the policeman. I explained I needed a bit of help negotiating a ride on truck to the border, so as not to get ripped off. I was low on Ethiopian money but had some dollars. He said he couldn't help me and then told the crowd outside exactly what my problem was and how much money I had to spend. Nice one. That'll help me drive a hard bargain.

There was an hour or two of extreme chaos as dozens of shouting voices and waving hands loaded my bike and stuff on to the roof of a bus and then unloaded it all back down as I tried to get a grip of whatever the hell was going on.

Eventually a wonderful bossy woman appeared and took control of the whole situation. She seemed to be the only person I could get through to, and I managed to explain what I needed to her. The first thing she did was make
all the people disappear, which was wonderful. Then she showed me somewhere safe to put the bike and my stuff. Then she led me to a hut and sent someone to fetch food, water, tea and coffee - all of which were wonderful and she pulled a very cross face when I tried to leave money. Then a taxi appeared, and she came with me to a bank where I could change money at a good rate, and then we went back to the main road by the police station.

A guy who could speak English was summonsed but all he did was try to convert me to hardcore evangelical Christianity, something I'm really not interested in. It was good fun being flippant with his deeply held religious
convictions while my heroine sorted out my transport. Eventually she shooed him away too, much to my disappointment.

She stopped every truck that passed, and bargained hard with the drivers in the local language. She let about ten go, but not without commandeering a bunch of khat leaves from every driver, before agreeing a price to the border. It was cheap. The bike was loaded up on top of sacks of maize flour and I settled down next to it while a cover was thrown over against the rain. There was a space of about two feet between the sacks and the canvas, and that dusty space was my home for the next day and a half.

When we stopped, and the engine was cut, they rolled the cover back and I shielded my eyes against the bright, blinding daylight. I paid up once the bike was unloaded, and tired but still wired on khat, I completed the exit formalities and pushed the bike across no mans land into Kenya.

In Ethiopia they drive on the right, from Kenya south they drive on the left, so no mans land between Ethiopia and Kenya is an interesting place to push a motorbike.

On the Kenyan side people who could see me pushing immediately came rushing over quoting prices to take me south. I had a word with a customs guy who told me trucks often return to Nairobi with small or even no loads. The guys outside were asking for $300US to take me to Isiolo. I went outside and sat down with a novel. When they came over trying to flog me transport, I just said ?Oh, I?m OK thanks? and went back to my book. If you want a good deal, its best not to be in a hurry, and I wanted time to suss out who were the owners, the drivers and the agents, and get a feel for how many trucks were around.

The first thing I noticed about Kenya was seeing Muslim women completely covered up, and Sikh guys with big turbans, and lots of white people, as well as local people ? some in tribal dress. Kenya seems very multicultural.

The town at the border is called Moyale. Half of it is in Kenya and half in Ethiopia. No mans land runs through the middle as rivers run through other towns. I went looking for some place to eat but quickly discovered all cafes and restaurants had been closed due to an outbreak of cholera. Someone told me I could walk over to the Ethiopian side and eat there, but I doubted the cholera respected the border so I bought some pasta and stuff and headed to the campsite. The campsite had ostriches and a 24hour armed guard. I was the only guest.

I spent the following day weighing up the truck situation, and eventually, in an atmosphere of mutual distrust, agreed a price of $70US to take me to the campsite I had stored in my GPS (I had no address), in a Nairobi suburb to leave the day after tomorrow.

Another day spent waiting and reading at the border.

Then finally the bike and my stuff were loaded onto my 3rd truck that week. A great big 10 wheeler, already loaded with what everyone said was ginger, but it didn?t look like ginger and it smelt like vanilla. I was one of about 20 other passengers.

That truck ride lasted three days. Three days I want to forget but know I never will. To call it a bumpy ride just isn?t adequate. It was like being in a tumble drier. What I hadn?t realised was the bigger the truck, the worse the ride. And the road down through Northern Kenya is a legendary suspension breaker. After just a few miles the ropes that had tied the bike down had all snapped, and it was bouncing around with the rest of us. When I say bouncing I mean you are constantly bouncing a foot or more off whatever you are sitting on. Sometimes there is a big mother of a bump and after hitting the roof a good 3 feet over your head you have to try not to crush someone else as you land, and then hope you are not crushed by someone else ?or a motorbike ? landing on you. It?s worse at the back ? where I was at first, but even towards the middle of the truck its pretty desperate.

There is the option of climbing up and sitting on the roof bars, which I did for some stretches, but while the view is better you have to cling on for all you?re worth so as not to get bounced off.

While I was up there I saw glimpses of the vast wilderness that is Northern Kenya. Mostly it was bleak, but there were fat birds than ran off the road away from the truck. Lots of them, -grey things as big as turkeys. I saw some zebra, a wild ostrich and some sort of deer or buck. I also started to see Masai people with their red cloaks and amazingly colourful beaded jewelery stacked up around their necks.

It stopped after dark in one of the towns. We all tried to sleep on the uneven sacks and boxes in the back. A much more intimate and uncomfortable sleeping arrangement than I would normally go for. We were woken by the engine, and then we were back bouncing around all over each other again for another full day. Somebody vomited, and I got splashed. ?Look out, she?s gonna chuck? isn?t in my Kiswahili phrase book.

People got out along the way but I was going all the way to Nairobi. There were frequent and confusing police checks. A face would appear through the canvas and a torch would scan around until the beam stopped on my face, and I would have to answer the usual array of curiosity motivated questions. ?Irish...Ireland...No Ireland...Near England...No that?s Holland...Roy Keane....Yes very good....Yes it is....Because its broken...Yes I have checked the battery...Nairobi...Yes I do like Kenya...Yes the people are very nice...oh much nicer than Ethiopia...Thank You...goodbye...yes I will...goodbye...goodbye.? And then with red blotches in my vision, we would be off again, bouncing and crashing around like a bouncy crashy thing. In this manner I crossed the equator.

We reached tarmac somewhere just North of Nairobi ? Isiolo I think -and the driver ignored my requests to stop at the point my GPS was telling me was close to the campsite. Mind you, I was trying to hammer my request on his cab roof from the back ? but he had no intention of stopping. Instead he drove to a Dickensian warehouse in downtown Nairobi where my bike and stuff were unloaded so that the ?ginger? could be unloaded -and then the bike was loaded back on. I jumped in the cab thinking we would finally be going to the campsite as I had agreed (in writing) but no, the driver thought otherwise.

The problem was he had never heard of GPS. He wanted an address. How do you explain GPS to someone who has never heard of it? ?You see there are these satellites.........? He kept looking at my little yellow garmin and repeating ?but you don?t know the address?? He would have to ask his boss.

So from the warehouse we drove to a secure truck compound where I spent another night in the back of the truck. In the morning his boss turned up and tried to turf me out until I told him he wasn?t getting the rest of his money until I was dropped at the place we agreed on the bit of paper they made me sign. So the three of us, all angry and sullen got in the truck and made our way out to the suburbs, the bemused driver following the arrow on my GPS. We got stuck in traffic, we went down dead ends, we rowed, we shouted but a deal is a deal and I held them to it. The bit of paper was their idea but we?d shaken hands on it, and I didn?t fancy getting out in the middle of Nairobbery with a broken down motorbike and all my gear.
When we reached the campsite ?Jungle Junction? there was another row. They wanted more money, but I said they hadn?t secured my bike properly and now it was broken so they owed me money. Then they said my bike had damaged their truck so I just told them to fuck off. They found this amusing and started laughing. I shook their hands while they were still laughing and lugged my stuff into the campsite.

I stank like a wet dog. I had eaten nothing but biscuits for a few days. My bike was broken and now battered. I was a mess.

The campsite is in the grounds of a large 1970s suburban house ? similar to one you might see in Manchester?s outer suburbs. They have a washing machine. A WASHING MACHINE. And I arrived on barbecue night and was given a piece of lamb so big I thought it must have been a horse, and loads of other tasty food. There is a beer fridge where you just help yourself and put a mark next to your name. It is run by a German motorbike mechanic. There are clean hot showers. I was happy.

I?ve been there ever since. I?ve dried and fixed all my gear, bought a new tent, and spent hours working on the bike. Christoph is a top mechanic; he?s worked for BMW for years, and on African police bikes as well as the bikes of people like me passing through Kenya. He knows his stuff, he works properly and really importantly he lets me do the donkey work and call him over for the bits requiring some expertise.

The bike not starting was not because of a recurrence of the cam problem, but because the Neutral switch (which went swimming) was faulty. The water in the oil was traced to a faulty water pump ? which could (maybe) have been caused by the overheat way back in Mali, and could (maybe) have been what caused the cam follower bearing to seize back in Libya ? though I?ve since discovered that is not an uncommon fault on this engine. We fixed it and flushed the engine a total of 6 times. We?ve sorted out loads of other little niggles as well ? including a full overhaul of the carburetor and front wheel bearings.

None of it is unusual. Everyone I meet has setbacks or problems of some sort. A couple of German guys at the campsite had their Land Rover?s chassis break on the route down through northern Kenya, another English guy had his suspension ripped from its anchors. Even people with Toyota Land Cruisers have had cracked leaf springs. The Germans were unlucky because after they broke down they were robbed at gunpoint by bandits (that?s the other thing about Northern Kenya) so my problems are nothing unusual.

As my luck tends to have it getting parts has been hampered by the Christmas holidays, though if it wasn?t for bad luck, I wouldn?t have any luck at all. The bike was rideable between Christmas and New Year. I had thought about going somewhere and coming back, but it was lashing down most days. I did get out to a lake about 100km south of Nairobi to see the pink flamingoes and I fed a giraffe at the giraffe centre and went to the elephant orphanage. Baby elephants are pretty damned cute and most National Parks don?t allow motorcycles in case the rider gets eaten by a lion or something, so I need to check out wildlife where I can.

I?ll be leaving here soon, possibly to the coast, possibly to Uganda. The radio said more than 50 tourist 4x4s are stuck in the mud in the Masai Mara, so much depends on the weather.

I?ve seen a bit of Nairobi, out here in the suburbs there are shopping centres where you can buy anything. There?s even a woolies and I?ve seen black pudding in the supermarket. I?ve decided to save that treat for when I get home.

Christmas and New Year were both pleasant if a little quiet. The other tourists and I had a nice meal and a few drinks on each occasion. Hope you all enjoyed Christmas and a collective (sorry) Happy New Year to all of you. The city centre is smaller than I?d expected though it is very busy and not unpleasant. There is much less hassle in Nairobi and Kenya generally than there was In Ethiopia. I still get the odd remark as I pass by but at least I?m not a Faranji any more. I'm a Muzungu now.

Looking back Sudan was a funny experience. The first part - struggling along the banks of the Nile was grueling, but I enjoyed travelling with the German guys (pls get in touch - your email address doesn't work!) and we had a laugh. And then arriving in Khartoum in time for Eid meant waiting there a while. I noticed other travellers rushing through, some only had limited time. Others just seem to rush because they're used to rushing, they talk of not wanting to lose time, as though that were possible. But now I've been doing this nearly a year, for me, I know some of the best times come when you stay put a while.

You get to meet and know people a bit more, which is important when you're travelling alone, and fate has a funny way of delivering unexpected benefits when you think you are "stuck". Every time I have been "stuck" somewhere I have ended up meeting someone or learning something that has proved crucial later on. Its uncanny. Meeting the land rover girls in Meknes who I would eventually travel through Algeria with - and meeting people who told me about the Libyan transit visa. Finding top tyres in Atar that are still on the bike now. Even when the bike fell apart after Algeria and I needed to go to Sicily, Sicily turned into a real highlight. Delayed in Cairo I met the germans who I travelled through the difficult northern Sudan stretch with. And most of the people I'm still in touch with are people I hung out with when we were both "stuck" somewhere.

So when we hit Khartoum to find everything about to close for Eid week, I settled in with a couple of books to sit it out. Sure, getting the permits and passes etc would take longer but I had no reason to rush unnecessarily. Also "stuck" were an amusing Canadian fella on his way to the Congo and a dead nice Belgian couple planning to blaze a new trail up to Egypt (pls get in touch as well!). There was also a guy from the club who was a good bloke, and who kept us plugged into Khartoum. We spent a good few evenings getting slightly trollied, and having a laugh. Its harder to do that when you just meet people for a day or so. Also passing through were a bunch of Kenyans who I would catch up with later on.

Fun though it was, Eid passed, I got my stuff done and I packed up for Ethiopia. So the Sudan I saw was probably nothing like the Sudan you see on the news. Apart from a direct line from Egypt to Ethiopia, I didn't leave the capital, and Sudan is vast - the largest country in Africa. The country's (oil) wealth is concentrated in the capital - and the city is a world apart from the rest of the country. Places I go are often nothing like I expect and Africa seems full of surprises and contradictions. Its also a reminder that as a tourist - in Sudan at least - you only see so much.

The road down to Gederef is long and pretty dull. I can hardly remember the landscape which probably means it was scruffy, featureless desert dotted with nondescript concrete settlements. I stayed overnight at one of these towns. No surprises, nothing special. I hoped Ethiopia would be different - I'd heard it would be. All through my trip, people I met singled out Ethiopia as unique. Everyone who'd been had something to say about the country - they either loved it, or hated it.

After Gederef, you turn off the asphalt road and travel 155km down to the border on a good piste. On the way the landscape started to improve. First you smell the water, then you see it, tiny little streams and puddles. A light green fuzz starts to cover the sand, and within a few miles you see donkeys and cattle. I was south of the sahara again. Just to remind me, a few bright turquise birds darted across my front wheel. The last few km were green and lush, there were villages of thatched, round, mud or stick houses and I hit the border post half an hour after turning my headlight on.

The border post was the usual chaos of partially loaded lorries, overloaded taxis and minibuses, people hanging around, people argueing, touts, money changers, petty smugglers; as well as food stalls and tea vendors set up to cater to them all. Also present were the motley collection of armed and/or uniformed officials losing the battle to control them all. I'd heard it was worse on the other side so decided to kip this side of the border and go through in the morning, so I went asking around for a bed. Eventually I found one and the guy unlocked the chain so I could drag it round the back of the customs shed and sleep in some peace. I was left alone and they switched the generator off at midnight.

Ethiopia derives much of its culture from its Orthodox Christian heritage. As such, they did not change their calender under the instructions of Pope Gregory XIII in 1582 as we did. Instead they continued with their own version of the old Julian calender. Additionally, as Ethiopia is close to the equator, they get a pretty steady 12 hours of daylight from roughly 6am to 6pm, so they start their clock at our 6am. What this meant for me is that having left Sudan at quarter past six on the 03 / 11 / 2006, I arrived in Ethiopia at half past midnight on 24 / 02 / 1999. Its a bit confusing but its nice to be 25 again.

The thing with the time just about sums the country up. Ethiopia is unique in many ways. The Aksumite kingdom which predates the country had its own monarchy, minted its own coins and was powerful enough to fight off colonisation attempts. Apart from a brief period of occupation during the 2nd world war, the country was never colonised. The highlands in the north have history coming out of their ears, from ancient stone monoliths and coptic monastaries to 17th century castles. It is very, very scenic and there is loads to go and have a look at.

Through the border the first thing I noticed were the signs in the strange Amhairic script. It looks nothing like arabic, or anything else for that matter - perhaps a little like cyrillic, but on lots of acid. And people. Loads of people. People everywhere in Ethiopia. And about half the people were carrying umbrellas - shielding themselves from the sun. I hadn't seen that at all before. As I pulled away from the border post, the track started to rise through foothills of big mountains. By now there was thick, dark green folliage everywhere, or lush, cultivated fields. The earth had gone from light brown sand to thick, black soil. As the track / piste climbed it got cooler and more green. There were fields at the tops of the mountains, it was not rocky as mountains usually seem to be. There was lots of forrest, some of it looking like it had been chopped down and thinned out a bit too heavily. Wood fires, wooden buildings, loads of people.

I stopped in Gonder. It had the bright, glassy air of a real mountain town. Cool air, blue skies, and hot, bright sun. A couple of days there to check out some local sights. A big 17th century (I think) palace complex which was nice to mooch around, and the remains of a huge swimming pool from the same era. Also one of many medieval Coptic churches, inside vividly decorated with biblical scenes. The monks show you around. Its very old and pretty spooky.

From Gonder to Axum was possibly the most scenic (if there can be most scenic) stretch of the whole trip. A stunning ride through the mountains. Views for miles and miles, lush pastures and meadows, waterfalls, fat cattle, horses, donkeys and people. Loads of people. The weather was gorgeous, clear and bright, there were all kinds of birds flying around from swarms of colourful little things to huge vultures soaring and swooping. It was a wonderful ride. I stopped to take some photos over a huge valley and as I got back on my bike I noticed a family of baboons, further up the road checking me out. After a few seconds they bounced off to sit on the hill and pick nits out of each other's fur.

Later on I noticed my bike heating up and quickly realised the fan wasn't coming on. I shorted the wire across the radiator switch and it came on fine, but it meant I had to stop, get my tools out, take the seat and tank off and faff about by the side of the road for an hour or so. I was in the middle of nowhere, but by the time I got going again I had an audience of about 50 people, mostly kids in a circle around me and the bike. Most were silent, the few I communicated with seemed very friendly. It can be hard to work with an audience like that - particularly if you are doing something difficult (which I wasn't). People have a habit of waiting untill you are using all your concentration, both hands, and your mouth before interrupting with something like "where are you from?" or "howareyou?" I cope with it better that some people, worse than others, but on this occasion there was nothing to get stressed about, no need to try shoo them away and besides, a couple were carrying Kalashnikovs and I'm not shooing away anyone with a Kalashnikov. My delay meant I had to ride after dark, which I try not to do though sometimes its unavoidable. It gets dark early and quickly here, but I was in luck again and I had a full moon.

The mountains towered up in pointy spires around me. In silver moonlight it was very spooky. It got cold and there were wierd bird and I think monkey noises coming from the forrest around me. The piste was rocky and twisty and you have to concentrate hard on the area illuminated by the headlight. Every now and again some huge bird would come flapping madly out from the side of the road and scare the bejaysis out of me. I saw quite a few owls, foxes and rabbits, each about one and a half times the size I would expect them to be. The owls with their unmistakeable faces would either perch on a rock and watch me pass blinking slowly, or take off in a fluffy grey flap. They gave me the eebie jeebies. The foxes just stop and watch you go and the rabbits did that stupid thing that rabbits always seem to do; where they run along in front of you, changing their mind about cutting across your path and then going for it right at the last second when they have just inches to spare. The stupid buggers should just sit tight, but they all seem to do the same daft thing.

I wasn't going to reach Axum but I eventually came to a small town that had a hotel lit up in electric lights. I checked it out. Clean room, cheap, courtyard for the bike and they had a small bar where they were showing the united game. Hotels in Ethiopia are so much better than the Sudan. You have to use them, camping is not an option. People who tried it told me they were surrounded by people as they pitched their tent and when they got up in the morning they were all still there. I finished off the trip to Axum in the morning. To give some idea of the distances here - that stretch from Gondar to Axum, representing about one inch on my map, was about 500km - all on an unpaved road.

Axum proved eventful. Its a tourist town. Every other building is a cheap hotel or an internet cafe with a dial up connection so slow you can't open a hotmail account. The people in the tourist information office were unbelievably gormless. I was a tourist. I just wanted to know where the main sights around the town were. Straightforward enough you would think. They had no map or information but they just sort of waved in the general direction. I went and had a look at the largest monoliths in the world at one end of the town. Huge, impressive things, then wandered back past the tourist office where I got waved in the direction of a monastery.

Sure enough, just out of town, two big blue signs pointed off down a track saying the monastery was 2.5km to the left. So off I went. Lovely walk, nice day, butterflies fluttering about, birds chirping, people working in the fields waving hello, happy days. After about 2kms there was a fork in the track, I didn't know which way to go. I chose left. After about 500m I met a woman who was working in the fields. I showed her my ticket and made a cross sign to indicate I was looking for the monastery. She pointed back the way I came so I figured I'd taken the wrong fork. As I plodded back I thought by the time I've seen the monastery it'll be dark so maybe I'll come back tomorrow, a bit earlier. I'll just have a quick look down the other fork to see if I can see it.

About 50m down the right fork I went around a bend but couldn't see it. There was a bloke in a grey sweater, green pants and yellow flip-flops who came over. I showed him my ticket and he said "ahh" and pointed back the way I'd come. I was a bit confused but I thanked him, and turned back planning to return the following day. It was no big deal. So, a good bit later, I'm a couple of hundred meters from the main road when I hear the bloke in the sweater and flip flops shouting me from behind. I look round and he's with another bloke in full camouflage fatigues. They are waving and shouting at me. They're not looking friendly.

They catch up with me and block my path and start pointing at me to go back down the track. I would much rather continue to the main road. I'm trying to smile and keep it friendly but keep going to the main road, but they're having none of it. They get pretty insistent and then the guy in the camo goes to grab something from his right hip, like he's got a gun. I say OK, OK and I stop and start to turn around. The guy in the yellow flip flops meanwhile is shouting at a 3rd soldier across the fields. I take another look at the guy in the camo and realise he's pulling the old pretentending to have a weapon trick, so I call his bluff. Sure enough he's got no gun and I'm trying to smile along but return in the direction of the main road. I don't want to head into the countryside with 3 blokes partially dressed in military gear. I hear a shout and turn around to see soldier No 3 throwing an AK sideways through the air to yellow flip-flops, and I don't mean Alan Keegan. Yellow flip-flops catches expertly, swings it round at me and shouts MUV!!

OK then, why didn't you say so? Its reach for the lasers time. Off we go, back down the track, me with my hands up in front and them following behind with the shooter. I'm trying to look on the bright side. The people working in the fields can see whats going on but don't seem overly fussed. They just stop and watch us go past. Back down the right fork my arms are getting tired but I'm not dropping them, and we are joined by others in odd bits of camo. The soldiers seem relaxed they are laughing and joking between themselves. The track becomes a very narrow path through the fields and on we go, God knows where. Eventually, after about 20 minutes, we come to a long chainlink fence with a hole cut in it, and I have to go down on my knees to crawl through. On the other side is a shack with more soldiers hanging around. I count 16 but can hear more. I take this as a good sign. While they come out and take a look at me I look around and can see a control tower and a runway. We are at an airfield.

After a 20 minute wait on the floor a Toyota pick-up arrives and a pilot gets out in a smart uniform and brass wings on his shoulder. He's the 1st guy that speaks any English. He comes over and I tell him my story. He starts shouting at the soldiers and they shout something back. "They say you were snooping around the air force base." I told him I was nowhere near the air force base until they led me there at gunpoint and I described exactly the point where they accosted me. He shouted some more at the soldiers and then said "they say you were taking photos of the airfield" I told him they were lying and invited him to look at my pictures which he did. They showed the monoliths from earlier that day. Then it was "they say you were snooping round in the bushes" I said "why would I be snooping in the bushes, look at me, I'm a tourist - and the guy that led me here saw my ticket to the monastery, ask him" There was a lot more shouting and then the pilot said he'd take me back to my hotel in his car. I told him I'd better report it to the police and he agreed to take me to the station. On the way I showed him where they grabbed me.

At the police station I said I wanted to write down what happened, a copy for them and one for me, and that I'd have to report it to my embassy. The pilot tried to talk me out of telling my embassy and apologised for the soldiers. His excuse was that other tourists had previously been taking photos of airplanes and the soldiers had been reprimanded for not stopping them. Maybe that was bollox. I pointed out that I was an obvious tourist on a signposted tourist trail in the biggest tourist town in the country with a ticket to a local tourist site. He tried to distance himself from the soldiers, saying they were not under his command and that they only involved him because he spoke english.

I started writing my account but the cops only had one piece of paper and suggested I return the following day, but they were totally clueless. It also turns out the "air force base" is the local airfield where all the tourist flights fly from. In the morning I got up early and got the hell outa Axum.

The next place I stop, much later that day, is the Debre Damo monastery. This one is unmistakeable as its located atop a vertical column of rock rising straight out of floor of the landscape. I rode as far as I could along a rocky track, fording a small river, untill I could ride no further. Continuing on foot with a 'guide' we eventually came to a 20 or 30 m cliff face where a handmade leather rope was tied around my waist. There is a second leather rope for you to pull yourself up with while a couple of guys at the top pull the rope thats around your waste. Even with their help its a tough climb and you are panting for breath as they drag you over the lip at the top. I noticed one of the guys that pulled me up to this tiny clerical village in the remote Ethiopian highlands was wearing a Manchester United shirt with the name J S Park on the back, and I remember thinking globalisation must be complete now.

The monastery dates from the 6th century and is a wonderful old stone and olive wood building. Really impressive. There is a bell tower you can climb for more amazing views and tombs cut into the rock. Its interesting and the monks show you around before you give them a few Birr and you scramble / are lowered back down the cliff face. At the bottom I bump into the Kenyans and we meet up at the same hotel that night. A place run by a mad guy who reminds us all of Basil Fawtly.

Next day I go to change money and realise I'm a bit low, and will be till I reach Addis Ababa. I really want to see the rock churches of Lalibella and the Blue Nile Falls so I decide to skip the dozens of other monasteries around and head south. There is a fantastic asphalt road south, an amazing road when you see the terrain it crosses. Steep, jagged mountains with still more 100 mile views. In stretches it is still being worked on. There are Chinese roadbuilders overseeing gangs of local labourers digging and driving Dong Feng trucks. I stop a day at a small town to service the bike where I get my first bad dose of Faranji fever. Not a stomach bug, its where the locals go beserk at seeing a white person. They follow you and point and shout "You You You!" or "Faranji" (white person) at you. Both phrases have become a permanent sountrack to Ethiopia, and its what most tourists complain about, but you do sort of get used to it.

There are loads of kids everywhere, and sometimes they can lose control of themselves when they see a faranji on a motorbike. They often just go into spasms at the sight of you. In rural towns they may shout, scream, wave, jump, whatever. But normally, a faranji on a motorbike cannot be allowed to just pass. Occasionally the odd kid (or even adult) will chuck a stone at you. When that happens to me I stop and savour the look of terror on their face as they see me turn the bike around further up the road, and then they leg it as I come back towards them. Most do not appreciate the speed the bike can cover ground and I am on their heels faster than they are expecting. In terror they run up side paths and cack themselves further when they see me follow. I back off after they run screaming into a house or jump into a ditch to get away. I hope they learn not to chuck stones at faranji, but its good fun anyway.

The track I took up to Lallibela was a just a rocky donkey path through the mountains. The hairpins were so sharp and steep I often could only see a metre or so ahead. It took a full day but it was a great route. In one village the cry of Faranji went up and everyone came running out of the huts to look at me (or look at the bike - I dunno). The kids went beserk and ran after me through the village. There were a lot of animals not used to the sound of an engine so I had to pick my way through slowly. In my mirrors I could see hundreds (really hundreds) of kids running after me. Outside the village the track hairpinned down and the kids came teaming down the hillside to head me off. I feared some of them would get hurt they came charging so fast but I managed to stay in front of them and get away. Never been so popular.

Later my engine began to splutter. I hoped it was just the altitude - this would be a bad place to breake down. As I got higher it got worse and worse until it cut out completely on a steep ramp. A few bemused sheperds helped me push it over the crest. I was lucky - I was at the very top. As I came down the other side I got it going again and it got better and better as I descended.

At Lallibella I bumped into the Kenyans and the following day I checked out the amazing churches. They are unbelievable. They are simply carved out of the rock floor, so their roof is at ground level. There is a bunch of them, all full size big churches, carved right out of the rock. There are coptic monks chanting and praying and collecting money from the tourists, and the smell of incense burning. You can wander around through interconnecting stone tunnels, some open above your head, others completely black and inhabited by bats. If your curiosity gets the better of you, you feel your way along in the blackness. The carving is wonderful. Its a truly amazing place.

On the way to the Blue Nile Falls I pass through loads of small towns where nobody wanted to sell me any petrol. They had it but would only sell me enough to get me to the next town where I had to go scrounging around again. One petrol station had a pet monkey but no petrol. In the last town they sold me bad petrol at a particularly inflated price and so I sputtered into Bahir Dar - the pretty town on the edge of lake Tana and close to the falls, seriously over budget.

I camped by the lake. I saw the falls, they were big, loud, spectacular, and plagued by scrounging kids. I was counting the change in my pocket. On the last leg to Addis Ababa I ran out of petrol, and money, and rolled into a petrol station expecting to have to trade my watch or something for petrol. The guy just said "no problem, you can have the petrol on credit, send me the money from Addis" You gotta love Ethiopians. Mad though they are, they will always help you!

I arrived in Addis in time to meet the Kenyans, find the cashpoint (in the very posh Sheraton hotel - fountains in the lobby, that kind of thing) and go out clubbing. We all got plastered in an Addis nightclub and I'm told I responded to a prostitute's proposition by falling asleep on her shoulder. I can now add Addis to the impressively long list of cities where I have fallen asleep in a nightclub. Think I'm getting too old for it. But god loves a tryer.

So thats it. Ethiopia has been eventful. I'm in Addis another few days before pressing on south around the lakes. Addis is a cool city. Its got hammer and sickle statues and the like, good cheap food, bearable hassle levels and some buzzy stuff to go and see. I like it. And I love Ethiopia.

Ok so I should have updated the journal in Cairo. But Cairo was a strange place; it sort of took me over and sucked me in. Every city has its own vibe and Cairo's is as distinct as any, but more intense than most.

I'd better rewind to Sicily. The story with the bike is too long to repeat here, but basically Robinsons of Rochdale from whom I bought the bike did not register the warrantee, so I never had a warrantee. I had to sort that out with KTM in Austria, and Motormondo got the bike going again. It didn't start due to a seized cam follower roller bearing, which in turn ground down the cam - not pretty, but fixable and fixed by Motormondo. KTM agreed to pay for "half the cost of the repairs" although when the invoice arrived it was for half the cost of the parts only, which I think is a bit sly and underhand. Some of the other work carried out in Sicily has turned out to be of a poor standard and I am still trying to get some of the same problems fixed in Egypt as I was in Sicily. I can't do them myself as special tools are required. It?s an ongoing story, but I hope to get it all fully sorted before I reach Sudan. We'll see.....

So anyway, much of Sicily was closed for August holidays when I was there; on many days the streets of Palermo were deserted, apart from me. It was a funny experience having the place virtually to myself, although with everything shut, and no newspaper stands or internet cafes open it did get boring. But I reminded myself it still beat the 9-5!

I was back on the ferry the morning after I got the bike back from Motormondo, though my helmet and arm pads had been nicked from their premises. What sort of person steals somebody's crash helmet? Yet another crossing aboard the Eurostar Salerno though this time with great views of a couple of uninhabited Mediterranean islands and I'm back in Tunis, which by now is like visiting an old friend, it?s so familiar. There was something on in town and all the hotels were full so I headed out to the campsite at Bordj Cedria, determined not to stay there long.

The first job in the morning was to go back to the Libyan embassy to see if I'd been granted another visa. I had, but they wanted to mess me about a bit first which I was expecting. They don't want to make it easy so they tell you to come back tomorrow. When you go back they get you to fill a form in and again tell you to come back tomorrow. Then they take a fee off you the following day, and you collect the visa the day after that.

At the campsite I met a bunch of Austrians in a huge (I mean hewge) 4x4 truck and a land rover. They had been turned back from the border and had spent 11 days trying to get Libyan visas. I just needed a few more Tunisian Dinars to pay for petrol and the campsite and I was off. The feckin cashpoint ate my card! I worked out I could just about could scrape to the border from where I'd be OK as I still had some Libyan dosh from my last visit.

I bumped into the Austrians again just before the border and we went through the formalities together. It was an even bigger shambles than the previous visit and at times I had to explain the procedure to blank faces behind the desks. You'd think at a border post they'd know how to process incoming vehicles, but all the beaten up local traffic rolled through while we waited and queued and filled out forms and waited some more. Five hours later, and after I had collected my 15th and 16th Tunisian stamps in my passport, they let us through.

It was after midnight as we rolled out of the border enclosure and it was a cloudy moonless night. I was knackered. I just followed the lights of the truck with the occasional waft of seaweed reminding me I was near the sea. 60km or so into Libya we pulled over at a row of all night shops lit up in orange light next to the busy main road. The Austrians invited me to kip on the roof of their truck which I gladly accepted as it saved faffing with the tent. I clambered up, made a space at one end, and while the trucks thundered past I sank quickly into a deep and much needed sleep.

My bike and the Austrian's truck travelled at different paces. They had to stop for things I didn't need and vice versa. I was wary of travelling with another vehicle, and in fact other people. It?s nice to have company sometimes and sometimes its fun or just necessary to hook up with others, but I'm careful now about giving up the freedom to do what I want, and unnecessary exposure to "group dynamics". In any case, it made sense for us to split so we swapped phone numbers and off I went. I had meant to stop at Al Khums to look up Baas and Faraj but somehow missed the turnoff by some 60km!

There was a youth hostel in Sirte so I stopped there for the night. It had been a long, hot days riding and again I was knackered. The hostel was a sort of community centre / sports hall / youth hostel / mosque building -empty apart from a grumpy caretaker called Mohammed, who made it clear that he would not be breaking into a smile any time soon. They had a cracking shower there though. It was both powerful and cold which was fantastic.

Sirte was a surprise. Not quite the usual collection of concrete bunkers it was a fairly smart modern town. I found a supermarket that had rows and rows of nice stuff to buy and a nice cafe to eat in. I needed a key cutting and the guy in the shop asked me for my passport! In the end I fobbed him off with my international driver?s license which is great for fobbing off people who ask for your passport. I don't know why you need your passport to get a key cut in Libya, but you do.

After Sirte was the long ride along the coast to Benghazi. The road was now a real desert road with sand swirling along behind the oncoming trucks and blasting me in the face when they passed me. I had a cheapo open face helmet given to me by Motormondo that offered no protection against the sand. I'd see the truck coming, slow down, brace myself, turn away a bit, but still get blasted. By the time I reached Benghazi some of my face was raw. Having spent the last 4 or 5 days covering up to 600km / day I decided I'd have a day off in Benghazi. I really didn't want to go back to Tunisia but now I'd passed the halfway point so if the bike died now I'd go on to Egypt anyway. My face and my backside were also crying out for a day off the bike.

A day to kill in Benghazi. Hmmm. There's not a lot to see, although the city does arch around a nice bay over which a big red sun sets in the evenings. The problem is it pongs a bit. Or it did when I was there; a change in wind direction surprising you with a sudden quick whiff of humanity. Kinda takes the shine off the sunset.

An important port, Benghazi was bombed heavily during the Second World War so most of the city has been rebuilt since then. Consequently Benghazi boasts some of the most impressive moulded concrete in North Africa. There are facades, fountains and sculptures crafted entirely from ready-mix.

All the shop and street signs are exclusively in Arabic and most people speak only Arabic, which made wandering around looking for a bank and an internet cafe more amusing than it normally is. After a while I also found a bookshop which, very excitingly, had a few dusty English language books in it. I bought three short biographies; Pol Pot, Chairman Mau and John Major, and a copy of Persuasion by Jane Austen and headed down to the harbour to read in front of the sunset.

I read away contentedly until the sounds of Celine Dion and smells of untreated sewage came together in a dreadful and effective union and forced me to trudge back to the hostel, the warm sunset having lost the battle with the stinking power ballad.

From Benghazi the road to Egypt follows the part of the Libyan coastline that takes a bite out of the Mediterranean Sea. The landscape changes. It is a greener and more fertile part of the country and it also seems to host several of the country's ancient and abandoned cities. I wanted to see Cyrene and Apollonia.

But first, something much more exciting: A hill! Yes, no doubt about it, I was going up. After days of riding on the flat desert floor, the incline was very exciting. It got cooler. It got greener. It got twistier. It was a hill alright. Not the most vertiginous I've ever encountered but it did mark a welcome change of landscape from the flat Hamada of the previous days.

Cyrene was one of the great cities of the ancient Greeks. It is home to the temple of Apollo and is a replica of Delphi, though sadly there is no oracle to consult. Which is a shame as I would like to have asked it about a funny noise coming from my clutch. Cyrene was home to the philosopher Aristippus. A disciple of Socrates, he founded the Cyrenic school of hedonism. He argued that pleasure was the highest human value and pain the lowest and so a good life was devoted to the pursuit of pleasure. Prudence should be exercised only to avoid discomfort. Good lad Aristippus.

20km along the coast from Cyrene is Apollonia, now partly submerged by the sea. There are "no swimming" signs up but I couldn't resist a dip. Swimming through the ruins of Apollonia was as good as it sounds. The waves were a bit strong but the sea was lovely, and as well as the city on the shore, you can make out ruins on rocks a little further out. There were a couple of stern faced guards waiting for me as I waded back on to the beach, and its never nice getting a telling off when you are in the nudd. However, it was exactly the kind of experience I know I?ll remember when I?m back in the daily grind, with life once again trudging resolutely towards its inexorable final breath.

Apollonia was just the start of what turned out to be a fantastic day. After my swim I was back on the bike, following the coast east. A beautiful day and an empty, wide and twisty road. The sea to my left was turquoise, the sky above blue with fluffy cotton wool clouds and bright purple bougainvillea climbing up the hillsides to my right on the back of stone walls. When I did see another car, the occupants would beep and wave at me and one guy even turned and overtook me and then stopped to film me on a camcorder while the rest of his family waved like mad.

I didn?t want to change money when I reached Tobruk, I was hoping my last few Libyan Dinars would last me as far as Egypt, but even the cheap hotels were too pricey. I headed for the big fancy hotel in the middle of town as they had a big garden and I hoped they might let me camp. I was enquiring about this when a bizneezman in the foyer interrupted and offered to pay for a room in the hotel. I think he was showing off to the other bizneezmen in the foyer but since he was solving both my money and accommodation problems I was happy to indulge him. I ended the day checking into a proper hotel room with en suite, air con and sat TV, and blowing the last of my Libyan dosh on a slap up meal and a shisha pipe on the sea front.

I?d heard the border crossing between Libya and Egypt was as testing and tedious as any on earth and it lived up to expectations. I arrived at 7pm and left at 6am. 11 hours; roughly 7 of which were spent attending to mind numbing bureaucracy and the rest dossing down next to the bike on a flattened cardboard box. Libya didn?t want to let me out as the number plate guy had cocked up the paperwork when I entered the country. Some people who had been refused entry to Libya after exiting Egypt decided to vent there frustration by chucking lumps of concrete at the Libyan guards from No Mans Land. They just missed my bike but I managed to flea over to Egypt in the resulting chaos. I still have my Libyan number plate!

The saga on the Egyptian side was just too complex to retell in detail here. But by the time I finished they had a buff dossier of paperwork as thick as my fist, tied with string to put in their files. It is just unbelievable. You get reams of paperwork ? all exclusively in Arabic ? that you have to take round dozens of offices and get stamped and copied and signed. You get issued with a card with a photo and a hologram on it that you never use again and of course there is money to shell out. Some of the staff wear uniforms, some don?t. Some sit behind windows, some don?t. I?d get pointed to a window and fight my way to the front (Arabs don?t really do queues) only to be asked what I wanted. I didn?t know what I wanted, I just got told to go there! I met two generals and had my backpack swiped.

I met a South African girl who had been stuck there for a week. She was riding to South Africa on horseback and the Egyptians wouldn?t let them in despite all their paperwork being in order. One of her horses had been sick so she had been in Libya for 5 and a half months. Her stories made my problems look trivial. There were also two Czech lads traveling on tiny soviet era motorbikes. They hadn?t realized they needed a carnet and had been stuck there for days. An attempt to bribe their way through had backfired and their passports had been confiscated. So really, my eleven hours was a breeze, though some lucky people get through in six.

Through the border there are a few scenic miles before hitting the first town. It was a surprise to see it so much more run down than most Libyan towns I?d seen of the same size. The biggest visual clue comes when you see all the donkeys and carts, then you see the buildings are simpler and, aside from the main road, streets of dust rather than asphalt. The road on to Alexandria was 4 lanes wide in each direction and completely empty for long stretches, aside from the odd donkey and cart traveling on whichever part of the road the driver fancied.

Having had little kip, I was knackered when I reached Alexandria, which may have affected my take on the place. The city is 18km long and 3km wide and I made the obvious mistake of approaching the centre from one end rather than the side. The hotel was a bit grotty and there was plenty of hassle ? just like being back in Morocco. Alex itself reminded me a lot of Blackpool, it was busy, grey, had dodgy decorative lights and there are trams and a lighthouse. The main road along the seafront is a racetrack. It was noisy, dirty, and most of the old colonial buildings were dirty with grime and pollution. It had a kind of seedy charm I suppose, which I soon got bored of.

I hung on an extra day there as having slept through the afternoon I couldn?t sleep at night and I needed an early start for Cairo. I also heard the Austrians were in town and though we weren?t successful (long story) we tried to meet up.

And so on to Cairo. The road is wide and plastered with large and very American looking advertisements for Coke and McDonalds etc. Being careful not to stop in Sadr city I hit the chaos of a Cairo ring road in the early evening. The sun is setting and giving the smog a strange, slightly radioactive looking, soft red glow. Every scrap of land is used. There are mile after mile of tower blocks built right up against the road. They are built with concrete floors and uprights, the sides filled in with brown mud bricks. Any space not built on has crops growing and there is an intricate network of canals and water channels. You even see the odd cow, though they are funny looking cows, more like a buffalo or something. Looking towards the centre you see an impressive skyline of glass and steel.

The campsite is in Giza, a mile or so from the pyramids, so my plan was to stay on the ring road till I saw the pyramids, then get off and ask the rest of the way. When the pyramids first came into view I was really taken aback. It was hard to take my eyes off them. They are so big and so strange and alien looking too. They were the tallest buildings ever built right up until the construction of the Eiffel tower. And although they loom so large and dominate the whole southern side of Cairo you know of course they predate virtually everything else you can see by several civilizations. In that strange red light, with the city seething below them, they just suck your gaze towards them.

A visit to the pyramids however is a predictably dreadful experience, though you have to go. Admission is 40 Egyptian pounds, unless you are an Arab, in which case it is 5 pounds. The 40 pounds buys you access to all the horse ride and camel touts you could ever want. The hasslers pay to enter the compound and get ?hassling rights? to the tourists, which they have to earn back. There are no facilities, no information of any kind. They don?t even pick up the litter or provide bins. If you want to go into the pyramids, or enter the building with the preserved ship in it, you must pay an extra 60 pounds or 100 pounds depending on the time of day. They have built a stadium around the sphinx so at night they can have a ?sound and light show? which basically extends the working day of the site. The whole set up is unashamedly aimed at bleeding as much money as possible from the tourists, while spending as little as possible in return. But hey, it?s the pyramids right? And yes, they are impressive, but the effect is much better from a distance.

The campsite was nowt special, though it had a few things going for it. They sold cold beer in big bottles. It had a view of the pyramids. And a huge flock of acrobatic birds ? swallows I think ? that chased each other endlessly in huge circles around the campsite, fast and furious.

In Cairo I had to renew my carnet. If you know anything about the carnet du passage document, and if you know anything about Egypt, you will know the two together make an unholy union. Like Celine Dion and untreated sewage. Since I would have to get it sent out from England, I arranged for some other stuff to be sent out at the same time, and my bike had an appointment at the KTM dealers in Heliopolis, to the north of the city. In all I was there about two weeks. I?ll try and describe it in a paragraph.

Cairo is chaos, chaos is Cairo. They drive like nutters. They use their horn as we would use our lights. I crossed the city with no clutch twice. I rode around town every day for at least a week. I got bumped a few times until I hardened up and became one of them. I visited Coptic Cairo. A taxi driver drove over my foot while I was waiting at the lights. Most of the paperwork I got on entry had to be renewed which took two days. When they said ?You are finished? I did a little dance as I walked off and they said ?Where are you going?? I replied ?You said I was finished!? And they said ?Yes, finished with customs, now you must go to traffic? ? which took another two days. My parcel didn?t turn up and took a few days of searching and traversing the city to find, a surreal and epic story in itself. I experienced the combined charms of the Sudanese, Irish and Ethiopian embassies. I met the only taxi driver in Cairo who isn?t a thief. I got lost so many times I began to know my way around. I saw two blokes fighting in the street, I smoked shisha pipes and drank Turkish coffee on the Corniche and I read a Nobel Prize winning book in the caf? in which it was written. Although I was there by necessity, with the bike at my disposal and the time I had, I really got to know Cairo more than most and I really enjoyed it. And then there was the incident with the mad taxi man.

Obviously, you agree the price before you get in. And you check your change when you get out. They always start the bidding at a ridiculous price; they always short change you and they always give it up after a short argument. But this guy was a bit of a looper as well; a mad ranting old giffer. He doesn?t take me the right way back to Giza. I point this out and repeat the price we agreed. He?s ranting away, driving like a kid on a computer game set to a level well beyond his ability. He is saying something about showing me the pyramids so I repeat where I am going and hold up the note he will get when we arrive there, but its clear he has some daft, elaborate plan to take me somewhere I don?t want to go and then try charge me for it. When we get into the desert I decide to tell him straight and he shuts up and turns the car around. Half an hour later he is still asking other taxi drivers for directions and he has become all aeriated again.

When we eventually pull up near my campsite I handed over the note we agreed and he carried on bawling and carrying on. He had bugger all chance of getting any more money out of me as he had wasted nearly an hour of my time so I just opened the door and got out.

At that point a passing truck whacked into the door I had just alighted through with a crunch of metal and a squeal of brakes. Mr Crazy Taximan jumps out with the fires of hell burning in his eyes, and the first thing he does is try to give the note I paid him back to me. I?m not falling for that one so I end up walking backwards trying not to receive the note which he is trying very hard to give me.

I couldn?t understand the words he was using but there were a lot of them and they were coming out quick and loud. He walks at me faster and faster and I can only walk backwards up to a certain speed.

Some fellas would just run away from a situation like that. I am one of those fellas. I turned and did a legger with the note waving madman hot on my heels, followed in turn by a bemused and uncertain truck driver, and, for some reason, a passing scooterist.

The scooterist rode alongside me and indicated for me to get on the back. A kind offer I politely declined while still running at full tilt. I managed to give them all the slip after about a km of hard running, helped in part by the presence of wide sewage ditch, which I could just about leap across, but they didn?t fancy. I had to walk around for an hour or so before skulking back to the campsite via the canal.

Cairo is a crayze, intense place and when you go out in the morning you can?t be sure if you will achieve anything that day or what madness you will encounter along the way, but you are always ready for your beer when you get back.

By the time I left Cairo I knew I would have to leave the country in a maximum of two weeks, and that the ferry to Sudan departed just once a week, but I didn?t know on which day. I ruled out a trip to the white desert as although I wanted to go I also wanted to go diving in Dahab on the Sinai Peninsula, and given the distances it wasn?t practical to do both. I also needed to have a new a clutch cylinder fitted to the bike in Sharm-el-sheik which was fairly close to Dahab.

The journey across the top of Egypt was uneventful enough, though my clutch was starting to go again as the cylinder was leaking fluid. It was just beginning to get dark as I pulled into Suez. Suez was very quiet; there was no sign of any crisis. I took the tunnel under the canal and surfaced, geographically at least, in Asia. There was not much to see of the canal. I caught a glimpse of an expanse of water with tankers on it but it was so wide I could hardly discern the canal; it looked more like a lake. There were a few cranes but I didn?t see the ships gliding through the desert as they say you can.

When the police stopped me at the checkpoints, I had to get them to push me off again so I could engage 1st gear without the clutch. The thing is it would only work if they pushed me to over 10kph. They could hear the engine running so they couldn?t understand why I needed a push. There were 6 checkpoints between the canal and Sharm with the same torturous explanations required at every one of them. There were attacks on tourists a while back and the police were checking everyone. They weren?t halfhearted about it either, each one meant a 20 minute or half hour stop.

I don?t usually ride at night but the road was very good, empty and the coolness of the evening is lovely to ride in. At Sharm I ate, slept, booked the bike in and had my spare bank card eaten by another faulty cashpoint. I got it back after a moneyless 10hour wait after which I celebrated with a pint in a tourist pub, watching match of the day. Liverpool got beat 2-0 by Bolton! In the morning I was given a lift 80km up the road to Dahab, where I checked into El Dorado.

El Dorado is a cool and funky little Italian run place right on the beach at a place where you can see the turquoise water breaking over the coral in big white splashes, and settling into bluer water right in front of the beach. It has nicely decorated clean rooms with air con, the food is fantastic, there is a shady area playing chill out music and it?s cheap as well. It is just a wonderful place.

I arranged diving classes a few doors down and just had the best week ever. It was bliss. Most of the mornings and afternoons were spent being taught to dive in a class of one (by an Australian chick in a leopard skin bikini). And the evenings were spent just sorta generally taking it easy, reading, eating my way through the menu, and hanging out with various diver types. The diving itself was pretty amazing. You see shoals of pretty yellow fishies swimming through shoals of pretty red fishies creating a fruit salad light show. There is every colour imaginable and you can see the faces of the fish as they swim around looking for stuff. As well as all the colourful fishies, I saw eels and a gold spotted stingray ? which I gave a wide berth. It really is another world down there.

I could have spent weeks in Dahab but I knew I had to catch the Sat evening boat to Hurghada, back on the other side of the Suez gulf. I didn?t have time to climb Mt Sinai or explore the desert on my bike, as I would have liked. The plan was to head to Luxor, find out what day the ferry to Sudan departed (from Aswan, further south) and spend any spare time checking out the gigantic ancient monuments and temples of Luxor.

There were big police checks getting on and off the ?Eid Travel? ferry and I pulled into Hurghada about 10pm. I had planned to stay one night there but it?s an overdeveloped tourist resort and as I wasn?t tired I thought I may as well ride on another few hundred km to Luxor. I could save myself a day, which might come in handy. The police were a bit twitchy about letting me ride the desert road at night but there was no reason not to let me go. There were police checks every 50km or so and at each they knew my name as I arrived. They would register my arrival and then ring ahead to the next checkpoint before allowing me through. All this was because the people who attacked the tourists at Luxor several years ago came from Qena, which my road across the western desert took me through. It was a lovely nighttime ride through moonlit hills and valleys. The campsite in Luxor had its own policeman. I was the only guest. I crawled into my tent at 4am.

First job was to find out from tourist information which day the ferry from Aswan in the south to Wadi Halfa in Sudan left. Of seven possible answers she said ?tomorrow?, which was the second worst, after ?today?.

To stand a chance of catching it I would have leave that day. And I?d have to travel by convoy, which left in an hour. I just made the convoy and had to forget about seeing the sights of Luxor. The convoys travel fast with a pickup truck full of armed police at the front, and one at the back. I had to stop for petrol, so the rear pickup waited with me and we both then had to race to catch the convoy up. We followed the Nile upstream, heading south through the fertile area on its banks. At Aswan I stayed in a dilapidated 1920s Art Deco hotel overlooking the Nile. An amazing building, I snook up onto the roof to find the remains of a lavish swimming pool and bar area.

I needed to extend my Sudanese visa at the Aswan consulate, and return my Egyptian number plate ?I?d lost one ? in time to catch the ferry. The next ferry was next week and after my carnet expired and that would have been a nightmare. Both tasks could have been problematic, but I was very lucky and got through both quickly. I then headed out to the high dam to catch the boat. The high dam was built at a cost of 451 lives and it holds back the Nile to control its floods and generate electricity. The water backs up over the land of the Nubian people to form the artificial lake Nasser. The ferry is 18hrs from one end to the other. It passes the great temple of Abu Simbel, four 20m high statues of sitting gods, which had to be moved to a higher location as the waters rose.

On the ferry I met a couple of German lads on motorbikes who I?d last seen in Cairo, as well as an older German guy who?d they?d met along the way. There was a French couple, and an English backpacker and a couple of other tourists. The bikes had to travel on a separate cargo barge which was piled high with bags, furniture and allsorts. It took a day to load before we could squeeze the bikes on and jump across to the passenger ferry ?Sagalnaam? as it pulled away, hoping we?d see our bikes again.

The port of Wadi Halfa in the Sudan is a sorry looking place. The cargo ships are unloaded by teams of men, each man carrying a sack of grain on his back. We had to wait a day for the bikes to arrive, complete the paperwork and then leave the following day.

The Germans and myself spent 5 gruelling days following the desert pistes along the Nile to Khartoum. It was hot and there were many stretches of deep soft sand, and pits of custard powder like ?bull dust? to get through. Sometimes we were out in bleak, rocky desert, other times we were in the green belt that follows the Nile. We passed through villages, towns and cities built entirely of mud. In many, the buildings sit behind walled courtyards so as you drive through you see nothing but brown mud walls. Many people spoke some English, so we were able to communicate with people. We met a bloke who looked about nineteen who had 3 wives, they all came out to say hello.

In Khartoum I am camped at the Blue Nile Sailing Club where I?ve met a few of Khartoum?s many wealthy businessmen. There is plenty of money here, and of course plenty of poverty ? but of course wealth is much more visible than poverty. Sudan has oil, but the wealth of the capital seems to be in contrast to the rest of this massive country. Downtown Khartoum is laid out in blocks, is calm and shady and quiet, and I get almost no hassle as I walk around. So different from Egypt. Oh and I got invited to dinner and then drinks at the English embassy ? the only bar in Sudan. 2,505,820 sq km and one bar. And I found it.

I?ve had a few things to do here but everywhere has been shut due to Ramadan and then Eid. But now the shops are open and I don?t have to fast any more. There is a problem with my carburettor to sort out and some savage kittens have torn my tent to shreds -which at least makes a change from dogs pissing on it. Hopefully a couple more days and I?ll be back on the road south heading for the Ethiopian border. I think Ethiopia will be interesting ? it?s the country everyone I meet tells me about. They say the people are bonkers. I can?t wait to meet them.

Leave me alone, I'm a dive bum now.

Will update blog soon, but if its a choice between internet cafe or fruit smoothies on the beach.......I'm with the smoothies.

I really should stop ending my journal updates on a smug note. I should have learned with all that business with the weather coming down through Europe and Morocco.

Anyhoo, the first job on arrival back in Tunis was to apply for a Libyan visa. Independent tourism is not allowed in Libya, you have to travel with a guide in an organised group. However, I'd heard on the jungle drums that it was possible to get a "transit visa" in Tunis. This basically allows you 1 week to get across the top of the country but you're not allowed into the desert in the south. I've had my fill of desert bashing for a while and most of what I wanted to see in Libya was along the north coast anyway, so this was the visa I applied for. I didn't have to provide a letter of invitation or get my passport translated into Arabic, as others I know have had to. They just said "come back in a week".

For that week I busied myself with a few jobs, like patching up my acid damaged tankbag, fixing zips etc, and I'd noticed that some of the wiring on the bike was getting chafed. Its an easy but time consuming job to tape it up, so I agreed with motomondo that I'd do it, to keep the costs down.

Other than that I'd catch the train from Bordj Cedria (a seaside suburb) into Tunis. Tunis is nice enough, if a little bland. Its a much bigger city than I had expected, and it has a very mediterranean feel. It feels much more like a European city than any other place I've been in North Africa, mostly things are clean and efficient. Almost everybody wears "western" clothes. And I got the feeling there was more money going around than in Palermo, across the med in Europe, which I didn't expect.

Although you can get good grub, it quickly gets boring, particularly if you're dining on the cheap, like me. There are a handfull of standard fillings or toppings that go in or on everything: processed cheese, tuna, or what they call "salami" but we know as spam. Pasties, whatever their external appearance or dimensions are all always filled with chopped egg, which is a little disappointing when you've bought a selection. The food was better down the country, where there were local dishes available everywhere.

There are a few bars in the city centre, frequented exclusively by men, selling the local "Celtia" bottled lager. Its bland stuff but its OK when its cold. Alcohol isn't really a feature of life here, but you can get a beer if you really want one. In the bars and out on the street you often see young lads going around selling white flowers, which fellas buy to sniff at for a while and then wear behind their ear. It looks a little bicurious to my eyes but they just buy em coz they like the smell, they don't seem to have a macho element to their culture in the same way we have. All through North Africa blokes often hold hands walking down the street. At first you think they're gay but they're not. Like if you ask a bloke for directions, often he'll take you by the hand and lead you around the corner to point out where to go. Its just one of those funny things. I might try it in Manchester when I get back.

What else? Tunis? Bought some new jeans to replace the ones I'd spilt acid on (jeans are cheap in Tunisia) and generally pottered about. I got my Egyptian visa as well. It took 2 hours. After 10 days and a few visits to the consulate my Libyan visa was ready.

I was bored with Tunis by the time I left. Its the kind of place you go to because you have to and I'd been there longer than I would have chosen, but that's just the way it goes when you're travelling. It was nicer and more interesting than I had supposed though and I was leaving Tunisia in a much, much better state than when I'd arrived. Me, my bike, and my kit were in top condition. I had stocked up on spares and everything I needed. All the little jobs had been done.

The road ahead I was looking forward to. It would be on good asphalt roads and I imagined much of it would be like Western Sahara, where I'd just ride down a straight desert road all day. Easy squeezy. But Libya promised to be interesting and cheap as well. There is very little crime in Libya, no political problems I needed to worry about. So as I headed along the coast to the Libyan frontier that day I was feeling good about life, the world, my trip, and I was in love with my motorbike again. Its fair to say we'd been through a rocky patch together, but we'd emerged from it stronger than ever before. To cap it all off there was a perfect red sunset at my back as I approached the last town before the border. I asked around for a hotel where I spent the night before rising early and was pulling into the frontier complex by 9am.

As I got off the bike and walked over to the first building a military helicopter painted in desert camouflage swooped low over my head, and through the fences over on the other side I could see a huge portrait of Colonel Gadaffi. There was a lot of other traffic. The usual beaten up old Mercedes, Peugeots and Toyotas returning empty to Libya. Coming the other way the same vehicles piled high with shoes, sandals and bed linen. Presumably these are easy to sell and have a big price differential. Also going into Libya were fleets of ancient Fiat lorries piled high with building materials. Don't ask me why - I would have thought building bricks, blocks and bags of cement could be produced easily enough in a vast desert country like Libya but I dunno, that's what I saw. Some quirky legacy of the sanctions I suppose.

The border formalities took about 3 or 4 hours, mostly waiting around and walking back and forth to various offices. The procedure was different for me than for the other traffic so some guys had to be woken up from the beds all the offices seem to have. I had to hire a Libyan number plate which meant changing money, get my carnet stamped, passport and visa checks, customs, purchase insurance etc etc. And of course I was a bit of a curiosity so everyone wanted to see my passport and ask me a few questions. If you're not careful the guy who is dealing with you will go off and do something else if it suits him so you just have to indulge everyone a little bit, keep smiling but try and keep the whole thing moving.

Some time after midday I'm through the border into the Great Socialist People's Libyan Arab Jamahiriya, overtaking all the old Fiat trucks and heading for Tripoli. All is well.

Straight away you notice a defining feature of the country. Litter. Its unbelievable. By the sides of the roads there are rivers of plastic bags and bottles. In some places as much as 20 or 30 feet wide, on both sides. The people just drop their shit on the floor when they're finished with it and no-one picks it up. So much of the time you feel like you are at the tip. It can be hard to find a bin in Libya, and you feel daft wading through rubbish looking for a bin, but often that's exactly what you have to do.

If you buy a soft drink, they give you the bottle in a plastic bag with a plastic cup and a plastic straw. I'm not kidding! And if you decline and sort of show them that you just want the bottle they look at you with surprise and/or suspicion. Its weird, its like there is a national plastic compulsive disorder, and the only way to block out the encroaching plastic is to indulge in yet more plastic. It has to be seen to be believed.

I passed rows of wooden fishing boats, being manufactured on the land between the road and the coast, the same basic shape as those I'd seen in Spain. A design for the med no doubt. I also passed an enormous oil refinery that had 3 or 4 high towers with oil burning off at the top, a striking sight against a brilliant blue sky.

The hostel on the edge of the city was full. Well, they said it was full. They said I'd have to kip on the floor in a room with 4 other blokes. It was a huge building and they could have found a room for me somewhere if they'd wanted to. As we walked along corridors I said "what's in that room, I'll kip in there" but there weren't having it. The other guests were bizneezmen and migrant workers. The building was surrounded by vast lawns so I asked if I could camp. They said no. Bollox to 'em, I'll take my chances in Tripoli.

Unlike the rest of North Africa, Libya has no widespread European second language. Some older people speak some Italian, and people are starting to learn english (or Italian) as its useful to have, but most people just speak Arabic. All the signs are in arabic only. You can ask for "hotel" or "centre ville" and just get a blank stare, but after riding around I found a posh hotel where they directed me to a cheap hotel. When I pulled up outside the whole street greeted me with a nice welcoming stare. There's nothing like a good ole stare to make the stranger feel at ease. However, it was the best cheap hotel I've stayed in. Sparkling clean, air con, sat TV and a fridge full of cold drinks and chocolate!

Tripoli is an interesting place. Many of the buildings are classical white Italian buildings, beautifully ornate and elaborate. Another set of buildings I could only describe as the best Soviet bloc architecture money can buy. Definitely Russian looking but well built and holding up well. They look a bit like 1970s package hotel buildings you might see in Spain. The rest is the familiar arab style of cheap concrete single-storey bunkers decorated generously with moulded concrete. One building even had a concrete aeroplane on its roof. Out in the suburbs most buildings seem to be 3 or 4 storey supermarket size buildings with shops and cafes on the ground floor and flats above. In the harbour there is a broad promenade and open square, there are fountains and the restored city walls are on show. Tripoli, if I may be so bold, has a touch of class.

It doesn't seem to be particularly socialist, as the country's name implies. There is run down housing and big, fancy housing. Same goes for the cars. There are plenty of top end mercs and bimmers to be seen. In the area around my hotel there were lots of market stalls selling clothes mostly, and electronic goods. All branded stuff (or copies of?) addidas, ciro cittero, levis. I bought a diesel shirt from a selection of thousands for 15 dinar, about 10 Euro. If its a copy its a good one. Elsewhere in town there are plenty of much fancier boutiques selling really expensive clothes, rolex watches and the like.

There are portraits of the Colonel everywhere. In most he gazes sagely into the distance while the sun rises behind him over a large outline of Libya. The text declares him to be "the High Mediator for Peace, Security and stability in CEN-SAD and beyond."

I visited the national museum, which like all public buildings in Libya has received significant funding. The exhibits are interesting, it is air conditioned and I was virtually the only visitor. Gadaffi's baby blue VW beetle is there, which according to the plaque virtually liberated the country and overthrew the previous corrupt administration by itself. There is also a collection of stuffed, two headed animals.

I was disappointed to discover there was no information on the Amazonian guard. In case you don't know, the Colonel has a team of 40 female bodyguards called the Amazonian guard. Beautiful women - who must be virgins - are selected from all over Africa and sent to an elite military training academy for weapons and martial arts training. From the few who graduate, Gadaffi hand picks those who will eventually serve in his guard. They are trained killers, and are said to be able to kill a man with their bare hands. They are fiercely loyal, indeed one was killed as she stopped a bullet intended for Gadaffi during an asassination attempt in the 1980s. And they look great in camo.
One day I would like to have an amazonian guard.

The roads are OK as long as you spot the unmarked gaping holes in time, though the driving you see is shocking. There appear to be no standards at all, for vehicles or drivers and I saw several kids behind the wheel. Horns and hazard lights are use to indicate weddings rather than dangers and hazards. People like to drive their vehicles as hard as they can. They skid around in the dust, pull away with wheels spinning and the sound of screeching tyres is constant. People also like to swerve violently from one side of the road to the other, weaving from side to side with tyres screeching as they drive along. I asked a guy why they do this and he just looked at me and said "for fun!"

The petrol in Libya is the cheapest in the world. You work out how many litres you get for your euro rather than how many euros a litre costs. I filled up approximately 30 litres for just over 2 Libyan dinar so I think a Euro buys you about 20 litres. What's the price in england now?

I left Tripoli for Leptis Magna, a roman city further along the coast, near the modern city of Al Khums.

Leptis Magna is staggering. I've seen a couple of other roman ruin sites on this trip but I kind of got the feeling that if you'd seen one ruined roman city, you'd pretty much seen them all. What stands out about Leptis is that firstly it is so big, like on a par with central Manchester, and secondly it is so complete. You are not looking down at the remains of walls but you look up at the decorated walls themselves, the pillars, the passages are largely still there. You really feel like you are wandering around a real city. You can go into the buildings, and temples, walk around the baths, and feel like you are in the baths.

A bloke called Septimius Severus was born in Leptis in AD146. He rose through the army, defeated his enemies and became a very rich man, eventually becoming emperor in 193. Despite spending a fortune on the city the Romans didn't trust him, believing him to be more North African than Roman. By 207 he had been recalled to Rome and then sent to england to fight the Scottish. He died at York on 4th February 211. His last words to his sons Caracalla and Geta were recorded as "do not disagree between yourselves, give money to the soldiers, and despise everyone else."

Caracella murdered Geta on the 1st February 212. Caracella was murdered in April 217 and the last of the family, Alexander, was murdered in March 235. In the 50 years that followed there were 26 emperors, only one of whom died a natural death. That's a bit like the managers job at city.

Mosaics on display at the national museum show what went on at the amphitheatre. They show musicians playing, gladiators fighting, a bear and a bull chained together fighting to the death, and naked prisoners bound to a stake on a small wheeled cart being propelled forward to be savaged by a panther. Something that nowadays would only be acceptable for someone like Robbie Williams.

You can go into the cells where people were held before being thrown to the lions, and take the walk they took out into the arena. You can imagine the huge crowds and the streets busy. There are streets of terraced houses, all built from stone. And crossroads which must have been busy junctions and you start to wonder if the romans had traffic lights.

The city of Al Khums isn't half as nice as Leptis. All the buildings are concrete and most look like the money ran out before they were completed. Its dusty, dirty and you can usually smell and sometimes see sewage in the streets. You never see any women, whether in the shops, cars or anywhere. Among the blokes its all very pally, everyone is shaking hands and waving hello. It reminded me a bit of going to play 5-a-side.

There was a cheap hotel across the road from Leptis. I had the option of camping there but I wanted an early start, and packing the tent and everything away takes an hour or so at least usually. I have somewhere between 500 and 1000km (no-one seems sure) to do the next day along straight desert road. So in the morning I'm up early, packed up, pads and helmet on, jump on the bike, here we go and the feckin thing won't start.

There then started the kind of downward spiral you can only really experience if you're riding a motorbike through Africa, and which I'd hoped I'd seen the last of for a while given my recent trip to the KTM dealers in Sicily. Feel free to skip it if you're having a nice day and don't want it spoiled.

Just before I'd reached Leptis I thought I'd noticed a very slight difference in the engine tone. If there was a difference it was very slight and I couldn't be sure I hadn't imagined it, its hard to tell on a moving motorbike. But I remember being suspicious about the cheap petrol for a moment.

Back to basics; fuel, spark, compression, that's what you need. I could hear the starter motor spinning so after working up a sweat to see if the kick start made a difference, I took off my gear and removed the spark plug. Sure enough, when I hit the start button I could see it sparking away.

Fuel supply. Perhaps my cheap Libyan fuel was a bit dodgy after all. So I took a taxi to a big petrol station in town and bought new fuel. I drained the old fuel from tank and carburettor and tried with the fresh stuff. No joy. I resigned myself to a lost day and pushed the bike into the shade. I disconnected the hose between the fuel pump and carb and hit the button. Out spurted petrol, the fuel pump was OK. I'd have to remove the carb.

I haven't done this before so I took my time. I got somewhere clean to work and I studied the manual, not that that was much use. A couple of hours later and I've got the carburettor in my hands, seeing how it works. Inside it was dirty, full of fine black sand. Some of it came out in lumps. Some of the little holes and channels are blocked so I carefully clean them out using wire, rags and petrol, though there are a couple of screws holding delicate little springs and jets that I didn't dare undo. While I'm a bit annoyed that it seems not to have been cleaned out by motormondo as they'd said it had, I feel confident that I've found the problem and I start putting it all back together.

When I tried to start it up again, the starter didn't even spin. All the starting attempts had run the battery flat. One of the guys around the hotel place said we could get it charged around the corner, so off we went. He pointed out that if they saw me the price might rise, so I let him go in, and I met him back at the bike. A couple of hours later he went back to get the battery. My precious new battery that I had crossed the sahara without and had to go to Sicily for. On the top of the battery the unit is sealed with the words "This battery is the sealed type. Never open it. Never add water." He had prised that off with a screwdriver and filled it full of water. The guy came back and said "the mechanic said it was hard to get the lid off."

When I stopped banging my head off the wall I took some deep breaths and carried on. The battery still held a charge, maybe it was OK, and I had a spare in any case - the one whose acid had eaten my jeans. I put it in. The starter spun. The engine still didn't fire up. I went for a walk.

Alcohol is banned in Libya.

I don't want to describe the events of the next few days, it hurts too much. But basically it involves lugging the bike around the back streets of Al Khums to a sequence of mechanics on the back of various pick up trucks. A whole load of handshakes, Salam Aleikums, sign language and sound effects. Along the way I acquired a couple of new mates - Baas and Faraj - who were fantastically helpful and stuck with me throughout. They really were fantastic, they arranged the pick-up trucks, made countless phone calls, translated and spent 2 or 3 long days with me at the end of which they went home tired and covered in grime like me.

The mechanics followed the same sequence as me. One showed me how to clean the carb properly with thinners and a paint brush and he removed and cleaned the bits I had been afraid to, but it made no difference. In the evenings I got on the internet, found the relevant message boards for broken down KTM 640 Adventures and people from around the world posted their suggestions. I studied the wiring diagram.

We did all the obvious things: changed the spark plug, earth strap and bypassed the cut-off switches. The only effect was we kept running the batteries down which we had to keep getting recharged. We tried everything, the bike refused to start. One guy actually got it going, but when we switched it off he couldn't repeat it. I went to the tourist police and got my visa extended for a week. Al Khum's best mechanics couldn't get it going and suggested we take it to motorcycle mechanics in Tripoli.

Baas and Faraj arranged for a pick up to take us to Tripoli. The mechanics there worked away. They tinkered with the carb and got the bike going, although they weren't sure why - the carb they thought. Anyway it started OK a couple of times and I rode it back to Al Khums.

I should point out that many people spent an awful lot of time and effort on my bike. Not least Baas and Faraj. They made countless phone calls, arranged pick up trucks, and the bike mechanics in Tripoli even filled my tank up with petrol, but nobody would accept any payment at all. I tried many times to pay for the taxis, the food, the drinks but I was always bundled away. They all just said "you mustn't pay, you are a guest, its our culture". Nobody would take a penny.

In the morning I got ready to leave. I jumped on and hit the button. Bikey no startey.

Back on a pick up truck to Tripoli. I began to realise time was running out. The tourist police had said I couldn't have a 2nd extension, and to ship parts from Europe would take at least 3 days. If we even knew what to buy. Without a compression tester we couldn't rule out a problem with the valves or timing chain. We went through the electrical system but without a multi meter it was trial and error. Not that I hadn't thought to bring one, but I faced choices and you can't bring everything you think you'll need.

The mechanics in Tripoli thought they had the problem traced to a faulty relay, but I was less sure. I'd bypassed it earlier and it made no difference, though admitedly, after they'd poked about inside it with a screwdriver, the bike did start up. They got me another one from a suzuki to use as a back up which was the same spec, and off I went, with Baas on the back, back to Al Khums. Later that evening I went to get petrol. The bike didn't start. I replaced the relay. Still didn't start. Time to face facts.

I couldn't ride to Egypt. Even if I got the bike going it wasn't reliable enough for the long desert stretches. A pick up truck to Egypt was out of the question. It was 2000km. Even if I found someone prepared to go (unlikely) it would cost a fortune and then I'd only be dumped at the border in northern Egypt with all the same problems to deal with. I'd have to go back to Tunisia, and if I was hiring a pick-up truck to take me to Tunisia I might as well get them to take me all the way to Tunis port, from where I could return to Sicily.

Faraj did the deal. 900km for 300 dinar. Half up front, half on arrival. Could have been a lot worse and maybe a little bit better. Once resigned to my plan I actually felt a lot better. The preceding days had been a nightmare of setbacks and false dawns, long and difficult days. Although the bike wasn't fixed, the immediate struggle was over. I could relax.

Baas and Faraj invited me to join them and their friends on the beach for my last day. I did and it was fantastic. Man do these boys know how to do a day at the beach! After picking up a couple of their mates we drove around the town to get supplies. Food, drinks, plastic table and chairs, barbecue, sun umbrella, ice box, you name it - all got tossed into the back of the pick up and off we went.

They found a place where the beach and the water was clean and while two of them went off to harpoon fish, the other two started the cooking. It was a feast. There was fruit packed in the ice, and watermelons buried in the sand to keep cool. A huge red fish harpooned the previous day was cooked with chicken, and vegetables roasted for a salad. Good bread, loads of drinks and of course harissa. I spent the day swimming in the sea and eating, which are both among my favourite activities. As Faraj and Baas both spoke some english I was able to find out a bit about life in Libya, which was interesting.

Faraj and Baas came to see me off in the morning and we loaded the bike onto an old Toyota pick-up driven by a bloke called Itman. I couldn't thank them enough, they had been a huge help. Itman seemed like a nice enough bloke but 900km and 21 hours later he still hadn't grasped that I don't speak any arabic, for all my pointing at my mouth and saying "no arabi". Even as we finally pulled into Tunis port he would be jabbering away and looking at me for an answer. My blank face just wasn't blank enough.

After a weary early morning arrival we unloaded the bike. I said goodbye to the Itman and paid him his money (Itman Earns?), and when the office opened I learned I had 4 days to wait for the ferry.
I went into town and plodded round the cheap hotels until I found a clean room, and crashed out.

With 4 days to kill I went back to the Libyan consulate to apply for a second transit visa. They said no. We had a big row and eventually they said maybe, but I would have to get a letter of explanation translated into arabic. I got that done at an office in Tunis and I've submitted my application. They sort of told me to come back in a week, which I won't be able to do, it'll be 2 weeks probably. So one way or another I don't know if I'll get another visa for Libya. If not a major, major rethink is in order. I also emailed motomondo and my mate Kieron.

Anyway, I pushed my bike back aboard the Eurostar Salerno with the help of a really nice German family and a greek biker. On the other side a recovery truck took me back up to Motomondo Monreale, where me, Fabio and the mechanics had a long chat. I took the bags I needed from the bike and carried the damn things on my shoulders back down to Palermo. Kieron had done me proud again and emailed me with details of a B&B run by the family of a friend of his wife's (I think). Its located right in the middle of town, and its clean and nice. Cheers fella.

So that's the story, dunno what happens next. Have more questions than answers at the moment, but I'm working on it. There have been national holidays here for the past couple of days so everything has been shut. The mechanics are on holiday so I had to kick up a stink, and they say they can get someone in. Best case is bike gets fixed quickly, cheaply and definitively and I get back to Tunis to find my visa waiting for me. Worst case, well, worst case is I get hit by a bus.
There you go. Not smug at all.

After chilling out in Tozeur for a while I had a go at getting the bike back into a useable state. I spent a whole afternoon on the front tyre, cleaning out all the little bits of cack and carefully filing down the little dints in the rim. I checked all the spokes and cleaned the cruddy remains of old rim tape out with petrol. I purchased good quality tubes and rim tape,
re-cleaned and re-greased the bearings and generally spent the kind of time on the job that I just wasn't able to spend on it in Algeria. I topped up the fluids and cleaned and oiled the air filter and took it for a spin, though I still had no clutch.

It wasn't running well. I'd last serviced it in Bamako so it was due for its next one, but there was just another couple of hundred km to Sicily and the KTM main dealers. My test ride took me out to the Chott el-Jerid salt pans, but riding it was just no fun. The salt pans were yet another stange landscape to take in - they are almost totally flat, and brilliant white so they look like snow fields. But there are channels of water running through them. The water, for some reason, is a deep marroony red colour. It looks just like vimto, or blood if you're feeling dramatic. Strange though my surroundings were I wasn't really taking it in. My mind was on the bike.

I made a list of the jobs it needed, the niggles I wanted checking out, the parts I wanted replacing. Clutch, tyres, battery, fork seals, oil leaks, thermostat, chain, speedo cable -all needed some attention. After typing out everything I wanted investigating or repairing it came to quite a list, and then I would have to buy service items and fluids. I just hoped that if I kept the oil and coolant topped up it would make it to Sicily.

I was worried about explaining everything to a dealer or mechanic given I don't speak Italian. A mate of mine in Liverpool, Kieron, comes from an Italian background so I dropped him an email to see if he could help. He really came up trumps. Not only did he translate the letter about the bike for me but he also reminded me that his wife comes from Palermo. In fact,
they got married at the cathedral in Monreale, the town where the KTM dealer is! Shortly after I received an email from Kieron's brother-in-law, Angelo (who also helped translate the letter I think), to say if I needed any help while in Sicily to give him a call. How good is that?

Though still a bit anxious about the bike, I was starting to look forward Sicily. As Ireland hadn't qualified, I needed a team to support in the World Cup, so as I was going to Italy and in honour of my Italian friends, I decided it had to be Italy. Kieron, who is a Liverpool fan, and with whom I occasionally trade derisory text messages, told me if I was supporting Italy it would have to be in his wife's honour as he would be cheering on England. My mind was made up though. I was gonna be there! It had to be Italy.

I checked out the palmeries around Tozeur, basically forests of date palm trees. In the heat of the day they are lovely and shady and cool. As you walk along the footpaths its very quiet and all you hear is the water splashing along the irrigation channels. The whole place was laid out by a local architect / politician / poet back in the thirteenth century, to make
the most of the water available. It is still harvested as he planned today. Its a nice way to spend a day, and a good place to have a read. In the evenings I either took a stroll to a bar where they were showing the group stage games of the World Cup, or sat outside one of the cafes with a newspaper and a hubbly-bubbly pipe.

With my ferry to Sicily booked I packed up and headed north to Tunis. From that route, Tunisia seems to be a green country of flat farmland. You can tell the french were here by the evenly spaced trees planted either side of the roads. I don't know if it was some sort of harvest time but every other vehicle seemed to be a truck piled high with water melons. Outside most of
the shops in the villages and towns there are great piles of water melons. They're huge as well, bigger than my head, which is pretty big as heads go. I like water melons, but there seemed to be about fifty water melons for each person. God knows what they do with them all.

Tunisian food is pretty spicy, you can get good grub though. I discovered a tasty broad bean soup called hleb-hlebby (may not be correct spelling) that always comes with loads of bread and is really filling. But a key ingredient in many foods is harissa, a sort of culinary napalm distilled from chilli peppers and battery acid. Put too much harissa on your lettuce and your teeth start to melt and your tongue dissolves, which is not a good look. Maybe thats what all the water melons are for, an antidote perhaps.

I met up with Bel at the camp-site just outside Tunis, at Bordj Cedria. She'd been there since leaving Tozeur and the land-rover was sparkling. It was nice to catch up though and we went for a few beers and a game of pool. Mel would be arriving back from London the day after I got the boat to Sicily and I think Bel was probably looking forward to hitting the road again.

I picked up the parts my mate Dom had sent out to me and repaired my stove (cheers mucker). I can now cook for myself again and have hot water whenever I need it. Makes a difference.

At Tunis port I got talking to a really nice German couple who had just got married and decided to spend their honeymoon touring the Tunisian desert on motorbikes! They said it was more their thing than sitting on a beach. Good on 'em I say!

An hour or so later I was in my seat aboard the Eurostar Salerno watching Brazil play Argentina I think it was, and settling in for the 12 hour sailing to Palermo. An Algerian guy sat next to me insisted I share his bread and cheese with him as "otherwise it's going in the bin". That was lucky as I had no Euros on me and the ship didn't accept dinars. I ate with
him and did my best to converse in french, while he struggled with some english. Its funny how much you can actually communicate in that situation.

Getting off the boat was a bit of a nightmare. A passport control desk had been set up aboard the boat. Everyone got a ticket and had to stand in sweltering corridor until their number was called. I was one of the last and was eventually shown into a room where three wavy haired Italian men in white naval uniform were sat behind a large desk. It felt like a court martial on the love boat. They were polite but they asked me lots of questions. I hadn't expected it to be so difficult for a European to re-enter the EU.

Once off the boat I had to negotiate my way round central Palermo in rush hour on a fully loaded bike with no clutch. Palermitan drivers aren't renowned for their patience and good road manners. Its kill or be killed and I was the lame duck at the back of the herd.

It felt funny being back in Europe again. The cars all seemed new and shiny and everyone looked very well dressed. Without a word of Italian getting directions was good fun. Normally in that situation, people gesticulate the directions with their hands, but the people I asked seemed to enjoy waving their hands around anyway. So I'd be studying their hands as they spoke and thinking "So he says I should go up here, turn right, then loop the loop?"

After a bit of a faff I was on the autostrada heading east out of Palermo following the coast. It was a Friday and I wanted to get the bike to the dealers before they shut for the weekend, so they could order the parts for the Monday or Tuesday. The plan was therefore, although I was knackered and in dire need of a shower, find the nearest campsite (expected to be around
Termini Imaresi 50km or so out of Palermo), pitch tent, dump stuff, head back to Palermo and then perhaps 10km inland and up to Monreale. It was do-able but I knew it would be a long day.

The campsite at Termini Imarese was shut, so I continued on to one just outside Cefalu, another 20km or so. Half an hour after arriving, I was back on the bike heading back to Palermo and on to Monreale. Struggling clutchless through the traffic hadn't done the bike any good, and it was sounding worse when I hit Palermo for the second time that day. By the time I found my way out to Monreale I was beginning to wonder if I'd make it. The transmission was growling at me to stop.

The Motomundo KTM dealer was located on the side of a hill, after which there was a steeply inclined drive. It made it up the hill but died on the drive. A bloke gave me a hand pushing it the last few yards. But it had made it.

Still sweaty and grimy, I trudged in. Automatic doors opened and I stepped into air-conditioned KTM heaven. Automatic doors! I remember them! A gleaming, marble tiled showroom with sparkling motorbikes on raised display podiums, and halogen lights that came on slowly as you approached. Yes, this is what I needed. You should have seen the oils and fluids stand. They had
everything that I'd spent hours trudging round sweltering markets hoping to find substitutes for. Everything was there, from DOT 4 biodegradeable brake fluid to fully synthetic 15W / 60 engine oil. I didn't even know you could get 15W / 60 engine oil. All laid out like a perfume display. I wanted to drink them all.

I was still grinning like a big daft thing when the guy came over and I handed him my translated letter, which he took a few minutes to read, nodding occasionally and shouting things in Italian to the other staff. Then we all went outside to look at the bike, suck air through our teeth and wave our arms around. One of the guys spoke English so he sat me down to get the
full story.
"Would you like a can of red bull?"
"Yes. Yes I would"
And over red bull I told him where I'd been, what had happened, and what I'd done about it.
He was a good bloke, was very interested in my trip, and said they'd try to keep costs to a minimum, but there was still a lot of work to do. When I saw the workshop I knew I'd come to the right place. Loads of test equipment and so clean it looked like a kitchen.

Fabio, the guy I'd spoken to gave me a lift on the back of his bike back down to Palermo and dropped me at a tube station as it was getting dark. I still had no Euros. I had to find a cashpoint, work out the underground system enough to get to the train station, and then find a train to a town whose name I was struggling to remember and work out how to get from there
to the campsite. With no Italiano. Of course its do-able, and enjoyable, but it was a long day. By the time I got back to my tent I was good for nothing and fell into sleep instantly.

Something I noticed a lot of in Sicily, even just on that first day, was something I'd not seen very much of for a long while. Foxy Chicks! Woohoo! Foxy chicks on the bus, foxy chicks sitting outside cafes, foxy chicks riding scooters...... Foxy Chicks Everywhere. I also couldn't help but notice that about half the shops in Palermo have lingerie displays in their
windows and all the bill boards seem to advertise lingerie. Presumably for all the foxy chicks. Its a far cry from the oversize nylon knickers you see hanging up above the souks and bazaars of North Africa.

I woke early as I'd pitched my tent in a hurry and not in any shade. In that situation you wake when the sun comes up and you've just gotta get out before you boil. As I plodded over to the showers I realised I was in a really nice campsite. It was big, catered mostly for the big, white motorhomes, but had good clean facilities, manicured lawns and was well maintained. It was right by the sea with a lovely beach below and a big pool.

They had nice bread and coffee in the shop and I ate my breakfast as everyone made their way past my tent down to the beach or to the pool. I was just thinking "water, water everywhere and not a drop to drink" when a very nice girl from the next tent came over to say hello. Like me, she had just arrived and we decided to check out Cefalu together.

Cefalu is a really nice town. Its always been a wealthy place so there are elaborate buildings from different ages all around the town. There is a dramatic looking rock towering over the old town and a pretty harbour and quayside. There is a big beach and winding cobbled streets. At tourist information I picked up a guide to the towns buildings. I stuck with it but it was very heavy reading and could have formed the basis of an architect's PHD. Places like Cefalu are so steeped in history and have so many fine ancient builings you can't hope to get your head round it all, so you content yourself with ambling round, gawping at it all as you eat your ice cream.

I must say something about the ice-cream. The food generally in Sicily is fantastic, and if like me you are a slave to savoury snacks then Sicily could well be your ruin. But the ice cream, ohhhh the ice cream.... They have ice cream stalls everywhere, but some places have the biggest selection of ice creams you have ever seen. There was one place in Cefalu that when you walked in you were surrounded on three sides with a patchwork of different ice creams three rows deep. It was like being back in front of the lubricants shelf only this time I could actually eat it. You could even buy a beer (or as I later discovered, a campari soda) while you made your mind up. And it is sensational ice cream too. Unlike the over-rich and slightly sickly american ice cream you can buy, its lighter, slightly more watery, and much more refreshing. The only problem is keeping track of which flavours you have already tried. Next time I go to Sicily I'm going to make up a little scorecard or something so I can tick them all off. Chocolate and english custard is pretty special, but after careful deliberation I'd say I don't think lemon and watermelon can be beat. Its a controversial choice but I'm sticking with it.

Anyway, after a morning walking round the town we went for a sit down in the arab baths, another medieval construction. You go down some stone steps to where a local river has been channelled through several stone passages to allow people from the olden days to collect water. Now its where tourists go to chill out and sooth their feet in the cold flowing water.

I think we spent the following day on the beach, swimming out to rocks, climbing them and jumping back in, snorkelling and generally lazing around. For some reason the sea in Sicily was warmer than it was further south in Bordj Cedria, where I'd also had a dip.

I still had no bike so for the rest of the week, after Catalina had headed off to the Aolian islands, I either hung around the campsite, swimming, and fixing and sorting some of my kit, or got the train into Palermo. I had internet stuff to do and the the prices in Cefula were ridiculous (5 Euro / half hour) and Palermo was a bigger place to walk around and pick up a few
bits that I needed. In the evenings I met up with Susanna, a german girl I got talking to on the train who was learning Italian in Cefalu, to eat or watch the football. Later in the week I went back to Monreale to check on the bike's progress, which took nearly a full day on public transport.

On the way back I looked in on Monreale cathedral. Its in all the tourist guides and Kieron had said it was worth a look. He was right. It has that solid, sturdy look that buildings from the middle ages have, but its very elaborate in a strangely simple kind of a way. There are stories from the bible depicted in gold and blue mosaics, though the pictures themselves are
very obvious and easy to understand, like cartoons almost. Inside no wall is left undecorated and its all very dazzling. Its a (strange when you think about it) combination of Norman, Arab and Byzantine architecture - the display said many of the original craftsmen were North African Muslims. And it feels very ancient, older than other cathedrals I've been in. Also you
can buy a little ticket, and go wandering through a series of spooky passages and staircases until you come out on the roof -from where you can see down over Monreale, Palermo and the sea.

The bus back to Palermo was there, but no driver. He was stood on a box outside a cafe, peering in to watch the football. Of course! That was why the streets were quieter when I came out of the cathedral. Having spent the day on trains and busses and plodding I'd forgotton Italy were playing Australia. I watched the second half in a cafe further up the street with a beer and an ice-cream. Italy had a man sent off and Australia looked better than I was expecting. It was all quite tense then right at the end, Italy were awarded a penalty. Silent faces stared at the screen. Totti scored. Italy were through to the quarters. Monreale went mad.

The bus couldn't leave for a while on account of all the beeping, flag waving scooters. I watched in cheerful bemusement out the window. In Palermo an hour later they were all still at it, hanging out of cars waving flags, car horns reverberating off the tall grey builings. It was a good laugh. I hoped Italy would go further. Susanna of course, was more concerned about
Germany.

I think that was the evening we climbed up Cefalu rock - which is a fair old hike. Its worth it though. There are loads of old buildings and fortifications that you walk past and some of the views are stunning. In one spot you look right down on the town from virtually directly above it. You can hear the band playing in the square outside the cathedral - which is
another ancient architectural gem, and pick out the ice cream shop on the corner. Further up the rock is the Temple of Diana. Built by the Greeks from huge slabs of grey rock, the front face and doorway are completely intact (it looks indestructable). Its one of the oldest buildings I've ever seen.

On the Monday (I think) I went to get my bike back. They were still putting it back together when I arrived so I hung around and chatted with Fabio and the mechanics. Fabio was going to England and Scotland in September so he asked me a few things. He said he knew someone who went to Scotland in June and it rained! In June!

I laughed my head off and confirmed it was indeed possible to get rain in Scotland in June. He was a good bloke though Fabio, and he translated for me with one of the mechanics. The mechanic talked me through what they'd done. Among other things they had found 3 oil leaks (probably from the overheat) by cleaning the engine, coating it in engineering talc, then bringing the
engine up to maximum RPM - right up through the red zone. As there was a risk the engine could explode he had to sit with his feet on the petrol tank and he filmed it on his mobile phone. That was a video clip that made me shudder, but they had to do it and the bike, being basically sound, handled it easily.

The transmission clunk had come from the bearing behind the front sprocket. He showed me the old one and it was pretty chewed - perhaps from riding clutchless. The clutch plates themselves were sound, but he'd replaced the internal hydraulics. And he'd sorted out the other things on my list, and tested the bike. Eventually, after a painful but utterly necessary credit
card transaction they wheeled the gleaming bike out for me to ride away.

They all said goodbye, Fabio gave me his email address and one of the mechanics asked me to email the shop with photographs of beautiful women from around the world! They told me good places to take the bike for a spin. I hopped on the bike and hit the start button. It jumped into life and settled down to a perfect idle straight away. I rode off happy, the bike a joy to ride again.

In the morning I was up and out early. I didn't have a map but I knew there was a national park inland from where I was, the Parco Delle Madonie, so I headed for the hills. I just followed roads that looked promising. I went up above the pine forrests where the air was noticeably cooler and the sky crisp and bright. The empty, twisting roads reminded me a little of Spain. With the new tyres worn in and the bike unloaded and running well I could throw it into the corners and zoom out of them again, the kind of riding I hadn't done in ages. There were fantastic views and in places the smell of the yellow honeysuckle growing on the mountainsides was almost overpowering. A couple of times I followed tracks up mountains that usually led to nothing more than a sheep-pen and a great view. There were picturesque little villages, some of which had rows of terraced houses and cobbled streets like lancashire mill towns, where I stopped for an ice cream. I did about 400km
that day, it was a fab day.

We watched the Italy - Ukraine game in a funky bar on the sea front. They had covered the shallow steps from the prom down to the beach with a red carpet and cushions. When the football wasn't on the big screen they played laid back, tasteful house and you could get the waiter to fetch drinks for you. Always nice to have a bit of luxury.

Italy had an easy 3 - 0 win. The crowd was happy, the scooters beeped and like everyone else I was thinking they could do it. There were some fantastic players in the squad and the team was playing well. But then France.... Hmmm. Come on Italy!

I took the bike out to the South West side of the island -the quieter, less visited side according to my info. The map showed a coast road from Trapani to Agrigento so I thought "quiet coast road, motorbike, blue skies, yes please." I was a tiny bit disappointed as it was more built up than I'd hoped but hey, I was still riding my bike around an island in the sun, its
not exactly a hardship.

After stopping at a museum and generally taking my time pootling along the coast, I realised I wouldn't get back to Cefalu in time for the Germany game, which I didn't want to miss. Ten minutes before kick-off I pulled off the Autostrada. I followed signs for a town called Enna, where I figured I'd be able to watch the game. The road zig-zagged up the side of a hill, the
town being at the top. As I made my way up I could see the lights of other towns on the top of neighbouring hills.

I came into the main square of an elegant old town, constructed from stone, not a soul around. I walked over to a hotel and the guy on the desk allowed me to come in and watch the match in a little room off the foyer. I switched my phone on and there was a text from Susanna asking if I wanted to watch the match. I sent back my apologies and sat down to watch the game with an exuberant Sicilian family. They were very friendly and they spent the game shouting at the television, jumping to their feet and pacing up and down. It was a good laugh and a great game. Bufon made some great saves and it went to extra time. Italy let it go right to the wire again and scored at the end of extra time. Del Piero came on and scored another, the last kick of the game. The Italian family jumped up and down and put their arms around me, and the horns started up outside. Italy were through to the final.

Out of the hotel, I had to turn right as I couldn't possibly ride against the current of swerving, beeping, flag waving scooters, some with three or four people squeezed on. So the next thing I know I'm riding along with them in a crazy race around the narrow streets. My bike makes quite a noise in those narrow stone passages and its bigger and my horn is louder, but the scooters are nippier and zip around me like flies. You can't help but join in though and I was soon stood up on the pegs, bouncing up and down, and tooting my horn in time to that riff by the White Stripes.

After a circuit of the town we got coralled into a narrow passage in the main square, where singing crowds on either side cheered and waved flags at us. Someone tapped that riff out on my helmet with a flagpole as I had stopped. I'd come to a halt because I couldn't actually see on account of being completely covered in Italian flags. It was great fun, but I had to
leave Enna and head back to Cefalu.

Waking late the next day I headed into Cefalu to say goodbye to Susanna, who was heading back to Germany. I felt a bit sorry for her as she had had to watch her team get beat while on her own and surrounded by cheering Italian fans. We had a good laugh about it though and said our goodbyes. She was nice, and was good company while I was in Cefalu, although being German she didn't get all my jokes! Or maybe thats just my jokes.

My sister was coming over to meet me but I still had a day to kill. I went back to Motormundo as when they replaced my battery I said I wanted to keep the old as a spare. Only instead of giving me my Bosch battery back they'd given me a different Piaggio one, and I didn't know if it worked.

Careful though I was it must have spilled in the tankbag. One hour later I'm walking round Palermo when I notice things are a bit breezy. I looked down to see me troosers disintegrating in a large area between the pockets! And no undercrackers! In a bizarre re-enactment of some distant childhood nightmare I had to rush across the city, back to my bike while my jeans
gradually evapourated. I made it back to the bike in the nick of time (sort of) and rode like hell back to the campsite, jumping into the shower before the family jewels got damaged. I'm happy to report all is well and my marital prospects are intact. The battery had leaked in the tank bag, the acid had leaked / eaten through the fabric and run down the tank and seat. Luckily in the end the only damage was to the tankbag which I have since stitched up, and of course the jeans which I'd only bought about a week earlier. Gave me a bit of a scare though. I had to have an ice cream to calm myself down.

My sis Mary Jo arrived the next day and I was at the airport to meet her. It was great to see her and catch up on all the news from home. She'd booked us a room in a nice hotel in Palermo so we headed there on the bike. We went out for a walk while we waited for the restaurants to open. In a park we chatted in the shade of an incredible tree whoose branches grew out and back into the ground, looking like the trunk of another tree. I can't remember its name but it was very big, very old and the plaque said it was Australian. After a nice meal I had my first night in a bed for weeks, and my first night in a nice bed for months.

We headed out to Cefalu, and spent a lazy couple of days around the campsite and in the town. We climbed Cefalu rock again and generally spent a lot of time nattering and eating ice creams. I think two nights in a tent were enough for Mary Jo(!) so we checked into a hotel in Cefalu. I went back to pack the tent up while Mary Jo had a look around the town. She told me she
was going to look at jewelery but really she just stuffed her face with cakes and ice cream! Back at the hotel I foolishly forgot to bring my camera out as we headed down to the bar with the red steps to watch the final.

It was an idylic setting to watch a match. We got a seat at the bottom of the steps right by the screen, the crowd filling the steps up behind us. Out at sea the setting sun was a clear red ball in the sky. It was warm though there were a couple of dark thunderclouds in the sky.

France scored quite early. At the same moment a loud clap of thunder made everyone jump. Someone upstairs wanted Italy to win. Italy equalised as the sun fell to a red semicircle on the horizon. There was a fantastic atmoshphere in the bar. Tense but excited. Half time brought a few large drops of rain, which led to a power cut for a few minutes. Would it rain?
Would there be another power cut? It all added to the tension. Even Mary Jo was enjoying the occasion, and she ain't a big football fan. Then of course Zidane got sent off, the plot thickened an the tension rose, it was great.

Penalty kicks. It had to be Italy. It just had to be. We were there! It had to be!

"So if they score this one, thats it?"
"er no, I mean yes!"

Bang. In it went.

The people holding hands on the steps behind us leapt into the air as indeed did we, and no doubt everyone else in Italy. Everyone was jumping up and down and hugging each other. One fella, who had already lost his shirt landed on his back in front of the screen next to us. He lay there writhing, both fists clenched, legs kicking up and down, head wagging from side to side, a massive smile of ecstatic delerium on his face. He was in utter bliss. You'd have thought he scored the peno himself. Then the big screen fell over, and we all had to catch it before it landed on him.

Mary Jo and I were laughing our heads off as we walked back up toward the main square. It was such a fantastic reaction to a match, everyone was completely full of joy. People were running, waving flags and someone would hold up a cardboard copy of the world cup and be surrounded by people trying to touch it! The scooters were doing wheelies, bouncing up an down, and the
horns were deafening. Eventually, we had to find somewhere quiet to get a drink as we both had headaches from the beeping horns. Nothing an ice cream and a beer couldn't cure though. Wish'd I'd brought my camera.

We had one last day in Palermo. Much of it comprises very grand, old buildings, but very run down. We had a fantastic meal in this great restaurant in a really run down little square - very shabby chic. The rest of the evening was spent outside a cafe sipping cocktails and watching the world go by, and jabbering away. A really nice evening.

We spent one more night in a hotel (such luxury!) before saying our sad goodbyes in the morning. Mary Jo went for her plane and I went for my boat. It was sad to be saying goodbye again but it had been a great few days at the end of a wonderful two weeks.

Big thanks to Mary Jo, Kieron and his brother-in-law Angelo. Also thanks to Fabio and the guys at motmundo and of course the Italian national football squad, for winning the world cup while I was in their country. Back on the Eurostar Salerno, I settled into my seat with a headful of memories from a fabulous two weeks. Going to Sicily though I say so myself, had been a very good idea.

Cotton buds, toothbrushes, toilet roll, soap. These are the jewels of the modern world.
I'm in Tozeur, southern Tunisia, where there are toilets you can sit on, and indeed take a few minutes to reflect on things if you wish. You can have a little think; plan your afternoon perhaps, or recall your favourite pie.

I'm resting up here after falling out of Algeria in a bit of a mess. I crossed the border in clothes that were either dirty or ripped to shreads, a big ol' ginger beard, dog tired, smelly and grumpy. The bike fared no better. Fed up of repairing continual punctures I'd ridden the last 1000kms or so with a flat front tyre. The clutch had gone, and it was leaking coolant, fork oil and probably something else. You can't hang about in Algeria. You have to travel with a guide, who's time you pay for, and one of the girls I was travelling with had a plane to catch for her brother's wedding. And the distances in Algeria are vast, so we had to keep moving.

For the last few days in the country, my answer to pretty much everything was "Lets just get to Tunisia". We'd been to some stunning places in the desert, and we'd done a proper sahara crossing but the last stretch was all about covering x hundred kilometers per day. It all started back in Bamako....

This is a long and boring story, but its my record of my trip across the sahara, so I want to get it all down. You can read it if you like, but feel free to click away if you're falling asleep.

The women travelling in the Land Rover - Melanie and Belinda - and I, had a agreed to travel through Algeria together, primarily to split the cost of the guide but there were other benefits; some stretches are a wee bit unsafe, so it makes sense to group together. Also, for me some of the desert stretches are prohibitively long. I can't carry the fuel and water to get across safely. Bumping into the girls was the stroke of luck I needed to get back across the desert. And they said they felt a bit safer having a bloke with them, given some of the places we camped. And after a big mad night out, and a couple of days splashing about the pool, we were all good friends anyway.

They set off to explore some of Mali. The plan was for me to collect and fit the part I was waiting for to my bike; hang on another couple of days for the passports to get back from the Algerian embassy in London, then go catch them up. The passports got delayed in London so I would have to hang on and wait for them, as there was little point to the girls coming back. I was itching to hit the road again though, I'd been in Bamako too long and although the hotel who's grounds I was camped in had a pool, pretty much everything else about it was starting to do me 'ead in.

But at least the bike was fixed! Yay! A South African motorbike mechanic called Verner passed through on an overland truck, and he gave my bike a bit of a once over. The kind of bloke who's not happy unless he's fixing something, he came bounding over when the truck pulled up, and offered to help straight away. I was glad of his experience and got his advice on a few things. He also set about sorting out a few other little problems. He spent a long time trying to straighten the sidestand bracket though unfortunately it still eats bolts, but he did sort the back brake out once and for all. He also confirmed I should be able to fit the new thermostat housing and be back on the road.

The last few days in Bamako were spent killing time really. I spent hours wandering around the market. Its big, hot, smelly, colourful and there is a stall for pretty much everything you can think of. I even found a stall for re-upholstering motorcycle seats, so after memorising its location I came back with the bike and had a couple of extra layers of foam put in my saddle.

The passports arrived back in Bamako just in time for the May bank holiday weekend. So Tuesday morning I was at the DHL office first thing, the bike all packed up and ready to go outside. Got the passports, thank you very much, and half an hour later I'm zooming along the open road, the heat and dust of Bamako behind me, singing "I'm on the road again" into my helmet.

My improved seat made the 600km or so I covered that day a bit easier on my botty, though the ride had shown up some problems not evident from my test rides around Bamako. Oil had started to leak from my front fork. I seemed to be losing a small amount of engine oil, probably a knock-on effect from the over heat (I hate it when an engine overheats, you can never be sure what damage has been done). I hadn't managed to get a good seal around the new thermostat, so I was losing a little coolant as well, though it made a big mess. I couldn't do anything about the forks, they'd need new seals putting in, but after I'd caught up with the girls I had some time in Mopti to try and nip up the leaky housing.

On the way to Mopti I had passed through fairly uniform sahel countryside. Apart from slightly worrying numbers of dead livestock outside many of the towns, and passing lots of roadkills from the unfenced land, it was pleasant enough. For much of the journey it felt like riding through parkland, as to either side of the road there were huge mature trees dotted through the red soil. Bigger than any tree back home, and plenty of them, they are mostly mango trees or boababs. The boababs particularly grow to an enormous size with some of the trunks as wide as a bus. They also have a pleasing, slightly comical appearance, as if they've just been electrocuted, so a boabab is always something to look at.

Mel, Bel and I made a revised plan for the next few weeks. The Algerian guide would be meeting us at the border on the 15th I think it was, so we had a couple of weeks to squeeze in a whistle stop tour of Mali (mostly for my benefit as the girls had already done a fair bit of touring round), cross into and get across Niger and up to the Algerian border. We had an awful lot of km to cover, hundreds of which would be on difficult piste, rather than road, but we were all keen to keep moving anyway, and there was nothing we could have done about it in any case.

The following day I set off for Djenne, home to an incredible mud built mosque. It really is an amazing building. Large and impressive, yet very natural looking, it is the building on the cover of the Rough Guide to West Africa and a world heritage site. Getting there and seeing it turned into a bizarre experience though.

I turned off the road following the sign for the town of Djenne, A sandy piste, not too soft, not too badly corrugated, sound enough. After a while I pulled up as shallow river cut across the track. Following some signs I was directed to a little jetty type thing on the bank to where a toll booth had been set up. Having heard about this, and being a bit suspicious, I got off to check it out. It turned out they were asking people (probably just tourists) to pay to fjord the river. Not pay for a ferry, or to use a bridge, you paid your money and then you still had to take your chances crossing the river. That didn't seem like a great deal. The river stretched off endlessly in both directions. I asked the guy why I couldn't just cross the river somewhere else instead of the bit they had roped off, but he just said "you can't".

I thought the price they were asking far too much (and more than my friends had paid) and I wasn't sure I needed to pay anything, so I decided to have a sit down, wait and see what other traffic did. It was a nice spot, and I was in no hurry. The guy came up to me with a new, lower price, but by this stage I was watching some cattle walk across further downstream. They didn't seem to be having any problems and the water only came halfway up their legs.

A local guy on a motorbike turned up and straight away had a lot to say. He wanted to be my "guide" in Djenne, which I didn't need. I carried on watching the cattle. Of his own volition, he interjectded on my behalf, and asked the toll guy how much he wanted for me to cross. They began arguing about how much I should be charged. As they got more heated I headed back to my bike. I looked on as they started shoving each other and eventually a bunch of other blokes had to try and split them up. In the classic dodge, I rode over the roped off fjord while they were all busy rowing. I gave a kid who had stayed at his post by the rope a coin for what I thought was a reasonable amount.

Djenne itself has a very mysterious quality, in part I suppose due to its formal layout of streets and buildings built entirely of dried mud. The mosque in the main square is now also a tourist attraction and straight away I was approached by touts and guides. One guy wanted me to come up to his terrace, which overlooked the mosque and the other wanted to guide me around the outside of the mosque. I wanted neither. Then they began arguing with each other! Five minutes later they are both following me round saying "don't go to his terrace, its rubbish" and "you don't need a guide, what do you want a guide for?"

I know the locals need to make money from the tourists, but in Djenne they were still working it all out and I wasn't enjoying the hassle. I took a few pics, bought a couple of drinks in a local shop for local people and got back on my bike. I didn't stop at the fjord on the way back, I just rode straight through and kept moving. Back in Mopti, I cleaned my bike's engine with my toothbrush to help find the source of the oil leak.

Next the girls packed up their land rover (kindly carrying my luggage too) and we all set off to travel up through the Dogon country to Douentza. The Dogon are a people with an unusual religeous heritage and culture. They live in lovely little villages along the Bandiagara Escarpment, which is a 150km long cliff face, rising out of the desert floor.

After an exhausting days riding along what finished up as a very sandy piste, but through some stunning countryside, we eventually pulled up at a beautiful village called Tireli. Well used to tourists, we were shown to a rooftop terrace, given a simple meal, and each given a bucket of water to wash with. Unable to move we spent the evening on the roof, enjoying the wonderful view and gradually falling asleep.

In the morning we were given a tour of the village and went on a walk up the escarpment for more stunning views over the village and scrubland beyond, though we didn't have time to take in a second village at the top of the escarpment. The villages have meeting houses where the elders gather to discuss issues facing the village. Elaborately decorated, these buildings have very low ceilings so you can only really lie down in them. This apparently ensures a reasoned debate, as if you get angry and stand up, you bang your head. I think thats a very good idea.

Anyway, that evening saw us arrive, knackered, at Douentza at the end of the escarpment. It had been a one night stop in the Dogon country, which isn't nearly enough, and we didn't get to take in the village of Bongo which I would have liked. At the campsite we got a cold beer (Tireli had no electricity), a good meal and went to crash out on the roof.

Timbuktu is to this day a very difficult place to get to. The Royal Society no longer offers a generous prize to anyone who gets there, but you can get a stamp in your passport from its tourist office. So thats why you go; for the hollow satisfaction of saying "I've been to Timbuktu". However, given the difficulty reaching the place, and the struggles you go through to get there, the satisfaction ultimately isn't so hollow.

I set off from Douentza the morning after we arrived. Timbuktu was at the end of 210km piste, that had a horrendously corrugated surface. These corrugations are truly awful. Your vehicle gets shaken to bits. Seriously, at the end of a journey you have to tighten everything back up counting the missing bolts as you go. Everything breaks. If you're carrying spare fluid containers, they all leak.

Anyway, 100km in - half way to Timbuktu - I gets a puncture. To my horror I discover my large adjustable spanner which I need to remove the front wheel is in my large toolkit, back in Douentza and not in my puncture kit, here with the bike. Oops. I drank some water and had a bit of a think. The first option was to try get some help. Two cars passed but neither responded to me waving them down. Time to turn to the technology. I used my sat phone to text my GPS co-ordinates to the girls. Then I rang them though my phone was low on power.

They said "no problem, we'll come and get you" I said "Great, thanks, listen my phone is low on power, but hang on it looks like a truck is pulling up to give me a hand. You might not need to come out, I'll ring you back"

The truck turned out to be a military vehicle, with the letters "UN" crudely and dubiously painted on in black paint. It was carrying a motely collection of soldiers and nomads, who were all very friendly and helpful, and they had the right size spanner to get my wheel off. I had to ask them to hang around a few minutes while I fixed the puncture so I could use their spanner to put the wheel back on. Anyway, off they went and I tried to ring the girls back. But my phone was outta juice. Bollox! I tried charging it from the bike (which has never been a reliable business) to no avail. Hmm, what to do?

They would have known I didn't ring them back because my phone was out of juice. They would try and ring me and not get through. But they could not be certain I was OK, so they'd have to come out, wouldn't they? Or maybe they'd assume I'd be OK because a truck had stopped, and one way or another that meant I had help. Hmmm. I worked out how long it would take them to get here. I'd allow them that time, plus a bit more, before continuing to Timbuktu. I'd either meet them here, or if not I could still reach Timbuktu by nightfall.

Changing a tyre in the hot sun is tiring work so I lay down and rested in the shade of an acacia, sipping at my Foster Clarkes. Eventually, the time I calculated came and went so I pressed on for Timbuktu. I had no means of leaving a note, apart from scratching in the sand, but if they did arrive at that spot, they'd know I would have pressed on to Timbuktu if I wasn't there.

Jarred and aching I arrived at the Niger river 10Kms before Timbuktu just as the light was changing. Apart from a quick glimpse in Mopti, I'd last seen the river in Bamako, perhaps 1000km upstream but it had the same slow, shallow flow.

The ferry was over the other side so I lay down to wait. Moments like these are great in Africa. Some transport fact of life forces you to sit and wait in some lovely spot, it happens all the time. The nice people at the landing ramp gave me water to drink, and a glass of tea, so I sat and relaxed and watched the setting sun colour in a massive sky over the river. The cost of the ferry is divided equally among its passengers, so I was glad to see a few more cars turn up.

On the ferry, one guy held his cup over the side, filled it with river water and drank it straight down. Hmmm not for me thanks, I was thirsty but not that thirsty. Not with all those 3rd world towns and cities built along its banks.

Once out of the soft sand on the opposite river bank, there was tarmac for the last 10kms into Timbuktu, spoiling my hopes of describing it as "200kms away from the nearest tarmac", but welcome relief anyway.

A bigger town than I was expecting, arriving at night in Timbuktu is nonetheless a surreal experience. There is definitely something mysterious about the place, thats hard to put your finger on. In many ways a typical sandswept sahel town, but somehow ancient and deceptive too. Pulling over to consult my map, a few people offered help. They all had the same greeting "Welcome to the Middle of Nowhere" which I thought was very funny.

The guy at the Auberge was fantastic. I explained I was staying one night, I needed to charge my phone and I needed food, beer and a shower, I could kip on the roof and in the morning I'd need directions, but that I didn't need a guide, souvineers or any other touts. He nodded, and provided me with everything I needed, and nothing I didn't need. Magic.

I plugged my phone in and rang the girls. "We're on the ferry, we'll be there in 10 minutes, order us some food and get the beers in" So they had come out, they just had some things to do first and set off late.

Apologies aside we had a good laugh about it that evening. They, after all, are part of a very small elite who have been to Timbuktu twice.

There was no time to explore Timbuktu the next day. The land rover needed a puncture repairing, I needed a new inner tube, we had to go to the internet for something, and of course we had to get our passports stamped at the tourist office. Its also true there's not a lot to see in Timbuktu, the streets are not paved with gold as the Royal Society once believed, though with more time I could have checked out the monument to comemorate the end of the Tuareg rebellion. They decommisioned the arms by sticking them in concrete, and thats the monument.

Originally, I'd wanted to get a boat from Timbuktu along the river to the Niger border, apparently its a great trip with crocodiles and I think even hippos visable as you float along. However, the larger boats weren't running as the river is too low at this time of year. Again, with more time I could probably have found someone with a smaller pirogue or pinasse to take me, but with a tight scedule to stick to, it just wasn't on the cards.

We crossed back over the river and headed back to Douentza. It quickly became apparent how much our respective vehicles coped differently with the terrain. On the corrugations my best bet is to ride quite fast, skimming over the top. That doesn't stop me getting shaken to bits but its much more bearable. In the land rover, they didn't stay on the main piste at all. They were better off in the rutted soft sand tracks that roughly follow the same course as the piste. Those tracks are a nightmare for me.

We agreed to meet at the 80km marker, to camp in the bush for the night. I got there easily enough, but the girls took a side track, overshot the rendezvous, ended up in some village, spoke to a nomad.... All the while I could only lay on my bike and wait listening to and watching the birds of the sahel go about their twilight business. I was surprised there were so many different types of birds, I'm no optometrist but there was everything from large winged solitary birds of prey swooping around to big flocks of tiny birds that swarmed from tree to tree in one cloud-like movement.

I began to get worried about the girls. They should be here by now, something must have happened. I was just thinking about going back towards them when their land rover approached from the wrong direction and they told me the story. I jumped on the bonnet and directed them to where I had parked the bike, a bit deeper into the scrub. We found a spot to camp. Mel prepared some food, we ate, I washed up and we had a bit of time to sit in the camp chairs and stare up at the night sky. Bel picked out the Southern Cross, something I'd never seen before.

We packed up in the morning under the studied gaze of two utterly silent goatherder boys, and we were back in Duentza in time for a quick lunch stop. Our route along a mostly good, tarmac road toward the border took us past more villages where we could see firewood stacked high for transportation away, and women pounding millet in hollowed out tree stumps.

Most of the villages are mud built, but when you are way out in the scrub you see villages that are simply made from grass. The thin wiry grass that grows on the desert floor is cut and woven into mats which are then folded and shaped into little huts. A few people, a few goats and a well, and thats your village. I don't know if they're occupied all year round, but there are people living that way. It seemed like a strong wind could blow a whole village away. Amazing when you think of all the stuff we fill our houses with.

We also passed the Hands of Fatima, a couple of giant rock formations that do look a bit like mittens. We stopped for a few quick photos and then I hopped back on the bike and pressed the start button. I just got a crackle and a dimming dash light. Try again - same thing. A few quick checks identified a flat battery. I was pretty sure it had been shaken to death on the corrugations to Timbuktu. Batteries are vulnerable to vibration. I managed to kick start it and we continued on toward Gao.

This was bad. I knew I'd been lucky to kick start it, as I've tried many times and failed almost as many. Kickstarting a single cylinder engine of this size is unlikely to be easy anyway, and despite lots of attempts I never really got the knack. If there is a knack. And even with the electric start, the engine doesn't always catch first time anyway. The poor quality petrol here probably doesn't help. But whatever my excuse, I've never had much success kickstarting the thing.

After many more kms we pulled over by the side of the road, not sure what for, but we were in the middle of nowhere. I left the engine running but when I went to move off again out of habit I hit the start button. This actually made the engine cut out. So we were stuck by the side of the road.

I tried kickstarting it till my leg went numb. We tried jump leads from the land rover but they were too big to clip on my battery. We tried using sections of smaller wire but they just melted in a blue flash. The girls tried pushing me but they couldn't push me fast enough. We put Bel on the bike while I pushed and she just kept shouting "faster! faster!" while I collapsed into the ground, a blue, panting mess. Then we tried a tow start from the Land Rover and vroom! We were off!

The city of Goa has no bridge on the main approach connecting it with the rest of Mali, just a ferry. We arrived at the river crossing just before Goa, knackered after a long and tiring day. We had also discovered that one of the oil containers in the Land Rover - mine - had leaked its contents into the rear load area. Nothing was damaged, but it would have to be emptied and there was a mess to clear up. As it was after six, the ferry had stopped running, so we would have to sleep there for the night - not really a problem, they came over and rolled a mat out for us, and (after eating) we just slept on that as everyone else does.

A woman came around with a big bowl on her head. She put it down and shone a torch into it. There were about six or eight whole fried fish in a thin brown liquid. The girls couldn't look at it but I had one, with some rice. It was good, the sauce was spicy and as it was fried all the bones were soft so you just crunch the whole thing up, tail, head the lot. Then we just flaked out on the mat and fell asleep.

Up bright and early, I pushed the bike onto the ferry and we headed to a campsite in Gao. Goa was another sahel town where only the main streets have a reasonable surface, the rest are soft sand, but I can't tell you much more about it. The plan was to stay a few hours, send the guy off to get a battery (there's always a guy who can go and get stuff for a small fee), fit it, clean out the Land Rover, eat, shower then get straight back on the road.

I worked on the bike while Bel worked on the car. It was boiling hot. Mel felt unwell so she had a sleep. The guy came back with a small chinese made motorbike battery. Far from ideal but it was the best he could get. And it started the bike. In it went. I nipped up the thermostat housing but I was becoming more concerned about my various leaks. We were covering so much ground I wasn't getting the chance to clean the engine, run it for a while, and then examine it again, like I needed to.

Off we went again, the same morning, now on a difficult piste. A horrible combination of soft sand and corrugations it was a nightmare to ride on, and it went on for hours. The concentration you need to ride on a piste like that is exhausting, and when you pull up you are still wired for a good while afterwards, and its physically demanding with all the jerking of the handlebars and trying to keep a balance. Occasionally we'd see the Niger river glinting off to our right. I wanted to pull up for a swim but of course, there wasn't time.

We pulled over just before the border as the sun went down over the wide open countryside we were in. We were all tired, but in spite of everything we had stuck to our plan and were on schedule and so in good spirits. A couple of nomads appeared from nowhere (as they do) to have a good ol' stare at us. Being a bit of a tit, I decided to entertain everyone with a little dance before I got on my bike. The movement culminated with a swirling arm thrust over my shoulder while pressing the alarm zapper to make the bike beep.

Even the nomads laughed at my little routine. They laughed even more when my bike wouldn't start. Bollox! The crappy chinese battery just wasn't up to the job. The girls hopped out of the Land Rover Charlies Angels style with the tow rope. We tow started it. They hoped out again, undid the rope and we were off. They had the manouver down to a fine art, but by then we were all beginning to get fed up of the bike problems.

Though it had been a good day, and we were still on track, the failure of the second battery put us all, in a bit of a dark mood. It didn't help that we were all dog tired, and physically knackered from the difficult driving. When we pulled up at the border it was shut, as we had expected. Again, there was a place to buy food and drink and they rolled out a mat for us, upon which we crashed out.

Border formalities and tow starting the bike took up the first couple of hours in the morning, and then we crossed No Mans Land. Some 20 km wide the piste is at its worst, presumably because no-one maintains it. Strangely, there were people living in No Mans Land, which I thought must be a cool address, but god knows who you speak to if you need a new wheely bin.

At the Niger border post, really just a few shacks, there were soldiers in combat pants and football tops playing boules outside. After a load of tedious burocracy we were allowed to continue along the same nightmare piste along the Niger river, which thankfully, mercifully gave way to an excellent tarmac rd after a few kilometers. Niger has very good roads, paid for in part by a toll system. We had to buy cards, then get them checked by orange clad officials at regular toll booths along the way. But after the previous few hundred kilometers of piste, it was still a welcome respite.

We arrived in Niamey, the Niger capital that afternoon. I explained to the girls that I would have to spend time sourcing a new battery in Niamey, and I needed time to work on the bike. I simply couldn't (or the bike couldn't) maintain the relentless pace. I was fed up of working on it under torchlight, or in the knowledge that we still had another 200km to cover that day. I needed to work on it slowly.

They were good enough about it. We had another look at the plan and found some time from somewhere (Agadez I think, a town further on). We were all in need of a break and in any case there was nothing I could do until I had a battery.

The next couple of days (actually three I think) were spent following up different leads on motorcycle batteries, cleaning the engine up, and finding and correcting the source of the oil leak. I removed the thermostat housing and very carefully cleaned and reseated it with a little smear of vaseline, and generally gave the bike a little TLC.

The girls spent the time resting and stocking up on other things we needed for the forthcoming Algerian trip. My battery is an 12 volt, 8.6 Ampere Hour battery, of which there are none in Niger, or Niamey at least. It is also difficult to find one that fits in the compact little space for it under my seat. Having to follow up all leads, I actually ended up purchasing a further 3 batteries. Two were about 5 AH - the best of the chinese batteries, but eventually I got one that looked well made, but still only 6AH. Still, I'd tried everywhere in Niamey and it was the best available. The story that came with it was that it was one of two spares that a guy had for his Yamaha Tenere. The tenere is a 600cc single. It was the best I was going to get, so in it went.

Before we left Bamako I bumped into one of the South African guys riding a KTM 640 whom I'd met in Mauritania. His battery had died and so had his rear shock. He'd had to cut away some of his seat to allow his replacement battery to fit and was now waiting for the shock to be sent from Europe. No doubt I've got that to look forward to as well...

We had 951 Km to cover in two days if we were to reach Agadez on the revised schedule. But the roads were good. We did 450 the first day, most of it skirting the Nigerian border. We'd intended to do more, but I got a puncture. What could I do? Punctures are just part of riding a bike, but I started to get the feeling the girls were regretting ever inviting me along. Unable to bushcamp as the land was all tilled, we pulled up at a town where the (lovely and hospitable) people rolled out a mat for us to sleep on. I repaired the tube I had replaced, did some work on the battery and went to sleep again feeling I was slowing the others down.

They were dead nice about it but the fact was I had slowed them down although I knew there was nothing more I could have done. And I wasn't really enjoying it. My mind was constantly on the bike and we were travelling too quickly to take much in anyway. Previously I'd been travelling at whatever pace I liked, that was the whole point. I get enough rushing round in a normal working life, I'd come away to get away from all that. Now we had this constant time pressure. And travelling with others isn't the same as travelling by yourself. On your own you please yourself. You wanna ride all day today? Fine, ride all day. If you want to slow down or check something out, you slow down and you check it out. Also, if you're in a group people leave you alone. Rock up somewhere on your jack and they talk to you, invite you in and you see more that way. Now I was spending all day, every day talking to the same two people. Don't get me wrong, they're dead nice, but it was a different experience, probably exacerbated by the distances we were covering.

We arrived in Agadez the following afternoon, all a bit grumpy, at the end of the most pot-holed road in the country. On the way, in one of the towns I saw a Tuareg carrying a sword. It was no ceremonial ornament either. It was a big heavy sword with a two handed handle in a leather scabbard hung from belts around the waist and shoulder.

Out on the road I also saw a couple of vultures ripping at the carcass of a donkey. There is something very sinister about the way they hop around; big cumbersome creatures with huge awkward looking wings. After we arrived I had a dint knocked out of my front wheel rim, replaced the wheel and then sat down and ate a one litre block of ice. We got all excited about a European run pizza place described in the lonely planet to the point of discussing our toppings -only to find it was shut this half of the year. Damn that book. We slept indoors for the first time in ages.

Agadez is a desert town, but continuing north the towns (if you can call them towns) were to get progressively more remote. Really just settlements thrown up around wells or army bases, when we arrived, everyone knew about it. From here on as well we would be passing through "bandit country". Probably an exaggerated term but nonetheless referring to several incidents where tourists had been robbed of their vehicles. - The bandits have a preference for Toyota Landcruisers, but when we enquired we got fairly non-committal assurances "you should be ok" and "its fine now, I think". After chatting with the police at the road block we decided it was OK to continue, but we'd try keep ourselves to ourselves.

Next stop was Arlit. We wanted to get our paperwork checked and press on for Assamaka, the last settlement before the border. The gendarme who checked our papers was a twat. He knew we would have to hurry if we were to make assamaka before nightfall so he tried to slow us down as much as possible, fishing for a bribe. He asked us for insurance which nobody has in Niger and which we had not been asked for by any other official. We tried to fob him off with our travel insurance documents, which worked in the end, but only after he'd realised we weren't going to bribe him. After a couple of hours he let us go.

We had a little talk about it and decided not to continue the rest of the way that day. It wasn't safe. We were out of road, it was a soft sand piste from now on, and described as difficult. The area was a bit dodgy and we couldn't be sure we'd get to Assamaka by nightfall. Galling though it was, we decided we'd spend the night in Arlit, and leave in the morning. Cursing the gendarme we trudged off to find a cold drink.

The cold drinks had become our big treat. In towns with electricity there is always someone with a fridge who can sell you a coke or a fanta or a sprite. When we got tired or stressed, its amazing how much a cold sweet drink picked us up. Sometimes, I would ride for miles just thinking about the cold drink waiting for me at the end. We all had times when our moods got the better of us, it happens no matter how much you want not to allow it, but a cold bottle of pop was always an antidote.

Walking through Arlit we felt like the good, the bad and the ugly as all eyes followed us down the street. We were "escorted" to a "restaurant" by a Ghanaian guy who described himself as a travel agent. We later worked out his business was transporting Ghanaians over the notorious marlboro piste to Libya. Sub-saharan africans do not require a visa to enter Libya. Its called the marlboro piste on account of all the smuggling traffic that uses it. Very long and very difficult the overloaded trucks often break down, and a lot of people have died. I think in his business he'd need to know if a bunch of European tourists were using the same piste as him, which we weren't. In Arlit we also noticed a Toyota Landcruiser with a machine gun mount over the cab, though no machine gun.

We left very early the next morning.

On the way out of Arlit we followed tracks in the sand across a wide open desert plateau. For a long time it was a fantastic surface to ride on and gave a real sense of the vastness of the desert. Eventually though we hit a patch of very soft sand where I went over. The girls who were ahead in the land rover reversed to give me hand - and promptly got stuck. After a fair bit of digging and pushing we got it out, though I managed to push one of the small windows by the back door through into the car intact (I'm still blaming land rover build quality. I hardly touched it). We got going again just as a dodgy looking truck was coming to assist us. We shouted our thanks and sped away.

We stopped on some high, solid ground to take some pictures. We could see for miles around. Things were going well, we were in a fantastic place, we were all tired, but in a good mood. We were about to cross the sahara, following the ancient and scenic and steeped-in-history Hoggar route, right through the middle. We were already doing it in fact, it was exhilarating. We ballooned about there for a few minutes, took some photos and set off again. Er, apart from my bike wouldn't start. Niamey's best motorcycle battery had let me down on the doorstep of the sahara. My head dropped. I'd had enough of dammed batteries.

Contd./...

With a working battery everything was fine (putting aside the fluid leaks and punctures for a moment). Driving without one was a real pain. We had to stop all the time, for fuel, police checks, toilet breaks, cold drinks etc etc. And I couldn't always leave the engine running. For one in this heat the bike would just heat up, and other times I simply had to turn it off anyway. Tow starting it was not always straightforward. If not on very solid ground, the rear wheel would just skid when I released the clutch. Solid ground can be hard to find in the desert and desert towns. How the hell was I gonna get across the sahara feckin' desert with a flat feckin' battery?

Anyway, we were on firm ground so the girls tow started me and we carried on. From the laughing and joking minutes earlier we were now all fed up. We were tired but we were getting sick of the bike and its problems. I was running though, and we continued to Assamaka.

Finding Assamaka was a bit of a nightmare. In the searing heat the sky was as black as thunder and the subsequent haze reduced visibility to perhaps a kilometer or two. There was a complete absence of landmarks and, the piste was splitting up and becoming feint and the sand was getting very very soft. At one point we were travelling up a slope, but everything we could see in all directions was on the same slope. So your mind gets confused with the horizons and all of a sudden you think you are riding on a flat. I relaxed my posture on the bike only to realize that I was still riding up a slope after all. We were all starting to feel a bit worried when we pulled over for a chat.

Over the noise of the bike engine I said "shouldn't we be there by now? I'm not sure we're following the right tracks" Bel said "we're not sure either, look at the GPS."

I held the GPS away from the car and the goto arrow was pointing perpendicular to the tracks away over the sand. We had a bit of a discussion, checked the GPS co-ordinates, and decided to turn back, to see if we'd missed a turn off. We turned round and I followed the land rover.

It stopped after a while and I pulled up alongside, careful to keep the engine running as a tow start would be impossible in that sand. "Mel thinks we've been a bit hasty turning round, she thinks the track could come round the right way." I said OK, Mel's the navigator lets go back"

We tuned around again. We went a little further than where we had turned around originally and then the land rover stopped again. I said "whats up now?" And it was clear tempers were getting frayed and we weren't all sure what to do for the best. Not being able to turn the bike off meant we couldn't stop, have a little time out and go over it slowly which didn't help.

I said I could see the tops of some trees in the distance. I could ride up a crest and see it a bit better which I did. I came back down and said, there's more than a couple of trees there, there's perhaps forty or fifty at least. Its an oasis of some sort. Why don't we head there, there will be a person at least who we can ask. The girls nodded and off we went. It was Assamaka.

The army post was a shack made from branches and palm leaves. Some of the soldiers were asleep, those who were awake were hostile to the point of being aggressive. There was a fair bit of shouting going on, and the toothless soldier in a great coat who led us round the various shacks for customs, army, police etc wanted money. Too tired to stand our ground, we gave him the last of our measly CFA coins (we kept the notes) and got ready to leave. Some of the officials behind makeshift desks in the gloomy fly ridden shacks wouldn't respond to basic civil courtesies.

We asked which way for Algeria and they just pointed out into the open desert. We noticed the tyre tracks in the sand, though spread out as far as we could see, were all oriented north-south, so we just headed off north. After a good few kilometers of riding over a flat, featureless void we began to notice a building away over to our right, which we headed towards. It was the Algerian border post. My bike conked out in the churned up soft sand a few yards before the main gate. It didn't want to go to Algeria.

Inside we were shocked (but not surprised) to see fair skinned, mustache wearing arabs in neat uniforms processing our entry. And the building. It was no palace, but it was a proper building made from concrete blocks with real tables and chairs and windows and all that. It was constructed in a long thin tunnel shape, so a lovely cool breeze was wafting through. After processing our docs and disinfecting our vehicles we were told we would have to wait there for our guide to come and meet us. We all promptly fell asleep.

Ragged and weary, we were all pleased to meet Mohammed. He had a kind and sympathetic look to his face, and was very polite. He was the real deal however, a tamachek speaking tuareg he came very highly recommended and it quickly became apparent he was as comfortable finding his way round the desert as I am round Withington. He carried his water in a sewn up goatskin which he slung on the side of the land rover. With Mohammed we could relax more, we wouldn't have to worry about navigation or where we could next buy fuel, or sleep etc. He would see to all that.

We got a discount because Mohammed didn't speak english, he spoke tamachek, arabic and french. Between us and the phrasebook we had enough scraps of french to communicate, though our different perceptions of what he was saying did give us a few problems later on. We explained to Mohammed we were just too done in to carry on all the way to Tamanrasset that day. This was no problem for Mohammed. He took us to his friends house in nearby In Guezzam where on yet another rolled out mat we were treated to a cous cous supper, a cold drink, and tea. Mel, who is an arsenal fan was invited into a nearby house to watch the champions league final. Worn out, I stayed on the mat for some precious rest.

We got little sleep that night, as a screeching sand laden wind howled over us. I had to wake Bel up and get her to move as I was worried the bike might go over and land on her under the weight of the wind. I couldn't move the bike as the alarm was becoming a real problem with the flat battery. I would have risked waking the whole village up.

In Geuzzam to Tamanrasset is a good few hundred kilometers of real desert crossing. There is a piste in some sections, though you can't always follow it, confusing tracks in other places. Some stretches again have no tracks at all, just the ones you leave behind you. Some of it is flat, some of it goes through low mountains. There is rocky terrain, soft sand, claypans, sheets of flat rock and small dunes. It is very difficult, and very spectacular.

Before leaving, we had to buy fuel, and had some difficulty starting the bike due to the soft sand roads and me being half asleep. The girls towed me round the down to the amusement of the locals. The tarmac out of In Guezzam ran out at an oasis where we had some of Mohammed's wonderful tea as tankers filled up with water. From there we hit the sand. it was still early. Before long I came off in deep soft sand, and try as I did to keep the engine running as I lay sprawled on the deck I lost the battle and the damn thing conked out.

A lot of heaving and pushing got me to some firm ground where I had to tinker with the bike. The girls kept spirits up by practicing cartwheels as I muttered curses into my engine. God knows what Mohammed was thinking of us but he joined in anyway and put his foot behind his head. By this stage he had already christened me "derrier sortie" on account of the shocking state of my trousers.

The rest of that day we kept moving pretty much all day. It was an amazing journey. There were times we were gliding along happily. Other times I was struggling up a sandy incline, the throttle wide open, the engine screaming for mercy while I'm screaming back "Come on you f@cker, its what you're built for!" Sometimes bouncing slowly from rock to rock, all the time concentrating on the dashboard and the ground ahead, while trying to take in the stunning scenery all around.

In places the ground was littered with millions of perfect spherical balls, some sort of seed pod I think. Of different sizes, they added to the other-worldly landscape. And they made a satisfying pop when you rode over them - pacman Mel called it.

I got a puncture a few km before tamanrasset, but it was no big deal, the worst of the desert crossing was behind us. There was a tarmac road of sorts for the last few kilometers into Tamanrasset, and from then on the is tarmac all the way to Tunisia if needed. Approaching Tamanrasset felt wonderful, sort of like "we've made it". Ok I was limping in with a flat front tyre, but as far as crossing the sahara goes, given the availability of tamac from now on, I was on the north side. I'd crossed the sahara.

We all noticed the different climate in Tamanrasset, for me, adding to the feeling of having "crossed" the desert. Although technically I suppose we were still in the middle, the weather felt very different. The sky was blue, we hadn't seen blue sky in weeks as I could recall. It was much cooler 32? as opposed to 40+? in Niger. There were even a few spots of rain. Tamanrasset was a proper town, with cafes spilling onto the pavement and roundabouts in the roads. It almost felt like Europe.

The campsite owner, also called Mohammed, invited us for a beer at his friends house that night. I travelled there in the back of his pick up truck. We had a really nice evening chatting with his friends, trading stories from our travels and finding out a little more about Algeria.

The girls went off the next day for a tour of the area around Tamanrasset with guide Mohammed, while I stayed behind for the weekend to fix my puncture and source a new battery with the help of campsite Mohammed. I also needed to stitch up my pants, clean the sand out of my helmet etc etc There were two options for the battery, both of which I had to follow up, as they were both a bit tenuous. One was to DHL a battery from england to Algiers where Mohammed's friend would put it on a bus to meet us at some point further up. The other was to have a battery purchased from a shop in the north of the country bussed down to us that weekend. The first battery I am still trying to catch up with, the second arrived late on the sunday night. It was a bosch 9AH battery that although difficult to fit has lasted ever since.

I also pulled out the alarm system as it had become a pain in the arse, and was not fitted with a main fuse as it should have been. The battery problems were over, but the puncture I got on the way into Tamanrasset was the start of a series of punctures that were to become as much of a pain as the battery ever was.

We set off Monday for Assekrem. Seeing the sunrise at Assekrem was right at the top of my list from when I first started researching this trip. There is a monastery built high in the mountains inhabited by monks to this day. Seeing the sun come through the pointed spires of the mountains is one of the legendary sights of the sahara. As you'd expect, its not an easy place to get to.

I got a puncture soon after leaving Tamanrasset, which I fixed and was moving again in about an hour. 20kms before Assekrem I got another, though we needed to be there before sunset. I rode the last 20kms up the famously rocky path with a flat front tyre (Michellin deserts are much thicker than ordinary tyres and can be run at very low pressures anyway). We got there in time to rush up the hill and just see the sunset.

5AM in the morning saw us leave the very pleasant tourist accomodation building and trudge up the steep climb to the summit, where we all sat together to watch the sun come through. It was a beautiful sight, a glorious new morning emerging over the mountain tops, truly spectacular. We went for a walk further along the ridge, taking in the sheer scale of the landscape around us. We could se for miles and miles, mountain after mountain. There was no sign of any human activity anywhere to be seen. No roads, no buildings, no pylons, no walls or fences. Just mountain after mountain, and when the birds piped down it was perfectly silent.

Back down at the bike, I put a new inner tube in and put a new tyre on. I also think I lost my leatherman there, I haven't seen it since. It was the fancy titanium one too. Bugger.

From Assekrem we took a very rocky route indeed over a high desert plateau. This kind of terrain is easy on a bike but very difficult for the land rover. It was great that I wasn't slowing us all down for a change. I'd ride ahead and wait just past a spot I knew would be difficult for the land rover. Some stretches I thought the car would never make, but Mohammed took the wheel and always got it through - having had years of experience doing that. Riding ahead on the bike, but stopping every km or so for the others to catch up, I almost missed a stop at a lovely waterfall and pool. We needed Mohammed to let us know about these stops in advance, but with the language barrier and with me being on a separate vehicle, communication was difficult.

When we finally came down from the plateau to camp (at Hirafok - an old french army base, complete with rusty belt buckles) that night I was feeling great. The bike was going fine, and the terrain was fun on the bike. However it had been a far more stressful day in the land rover, the girls got out with faces like thunder and there were a couple of tears. I came to realise thats all part of the deal travelling like this. No matter how much you want to keep positive, the tiredness, the heat, the difficult travel and inevitable differences of opinion are bound to have some effect. Its very rewarding, but it can be difficult too. With other people around, you can't just make your own decisions and of course, hell is other people. I tried not to take sides, keep positive and we had things to get on with. It passed as expected. The following days would bring other stresses to replace those past. We each had times where we were miserable and grumpy, and we were each brought back into better form by one or both of the other two. All part of the adventure....

After another night sleeping under the stars Mohammed led us to the Hoggar national park, a beautiful area. At a village called Mertoutek we were given a tour of the gardens where they grew everything from onions to apricots. There were ancient cave paintings a couple of miles away and rather than struggle with the bike in the soft sand, I travelled safari style on the roof of the land rover. Bouncing along over streams and through bushes it was so much fun Mel decided to join me for the return leg.

The paintings and engravings themselves were interesting to see. Quite skillfully painted they depict people, cattle, giraffes and lions they date from a time when the desert was a fertile savannah. They decorate the interior of a number of caves overlooking what would then have been a raging river. The guide points them out but if you have a clamber around you can find some by yourself, which is somehow more satisfying.

From Mertoutek we followed Mohammed's lead through the desert, skirting hills, crossing river beds, dodging rocks to a mountain called Abazou. On the way the sand got very soft and I had to ride right through the bushes to get some traction. Hanging on for dear life, you have to keep moving regardless of whether you're going in the right direction. Its hard but can be hilarious too as you come blasting out of a bush hanging on for all your worth.

Just before we reached Abazou, I got another puncture, though there would be time to change it after we camped and before it got dark. Before I started though, I scrambled up the mountain with Bel and Mel to check out the view. With steep sandy or rocky sides it was a tiring climb. All the way up we had to stare fixedly at our feet until finally we reached the crest. As we came over the top the banter stopped as we were all reduced to silence by another stunning panorama. We stared out at a limitless flat expanse, dotted here and there with mountains similar to the one we were on, each singular and distinct. The bike and land rover were just tiny dots below us, and we could just make out Mohammed checking out some camels roaming around at the foot of the mountain. You can't really describe a view like that with words, and the photos we took can only capture a little window of it, but the scene stays in your mind.

Anyway, back down to fix another puncture and drink more of Mohammed's magical tea, which had replaced soft drinks as our favourite restorical slurp.

Another days desert riding took us to tedjemout, near Arak where we met some of Mohammed's camels and the nomads who look after them. I think this was the day that my rear sprocket packed up. Looking for a spot to have lunch, I got bogged down in soft sand. I filled the hole in, put the bike in gear let the clutch out and gave it a big handful. Standard technique, only nothing happenned. My first thought was the clutch had gone, but the chain was hanging loose. The teeth of the rear sprocket had been wearing thin. When I gave it a load of juice with the tyre slightly bedded in, the chain just ripped the teeth off the sprocket. A straightforward enough job to replace with the spare, most of the hour and a half or so was spent unpacking and packing the tools. Glad I brought a spare though.

Before sleeping on the mat at Tedjemout (the girls purchased one in Tamanrasset) we were given camel milk and a sort of camel yoghurt to drink. It was good, but very rich and sweet.

Then on to Erg Tahoulahin, a huge and solitary sand dune. I was a bit ratty after missing some rock paintings due to us not being able to communicate with Mohammed properly and having a hard time of it in the sand, but the dune was stunning. We slept half way up it and in the morning I made the energy sapping trudge up to the top. Its energy sapping because your leading foot sinks down in the sand to about an inch past where your standing foot is, but its worth it. The crest is a perfect arrow head point, but it twists around into all sorts of shapes, a bit like flattened whipped ice cream, and the view.....I better not start.

We saw some more rock paintings at Afalalel the next day, after shooing away the cave's present occupant - a snake, and then on to the Ain Tiguelguemine guelta for a swim. An utterly beautiful pool of deep turquoise water, you could jump straight in from the surrounding rocks, the water cool and refreshing but not cold, though the occasion was spoiled a bit by another cock up with understanding the guide. We returned the next morning so we could all have a swim together, but with the first announcement being that we all have to leave in 20 minutes the occasion was lost.

For a time we had been following the remains of an old colonial road built by the french in 1911, but after the guelta we broke across the sand to make for a tarmac road. Just before we reached it, I got yet another puncture. Though I repared it, it was clear something must be wrong with the wheel, the spokes or perhaps the rim tape.

Soon however we were back on Tarmac, the first for days. Though I loved riding round the desert I was glad to be back on tarmac and enjoying some effortless cruising along an open desert road. Sit back, enjoy the view, sing "I'm on the road again" into the helmet. We arrived in In Saleh, Mohammed's home town, and I got the ice creams in.

From now on there would be no more exploring the desert. We had a few days left in Algeria during which time we would have to travel the long, long road up to the Tunisian border. From In Saleh onwards we had a new guide. A younger, but equally nice chap called Abdul. Mel told me she thought the reason for the change of guide was that Mohammed was fed up with us. I asked her what she meant but she said she didn't want to talk about it because Bel was still upset. Oo dear. I didn't pursue it any further, but from the way she said it, I took it to mean she thought Mohammed was fed up with me.

I honestly thought this was unlikely. Mohammed wasn't stuck in a car with me all day so me and he got along just fine. Yeah I'd had problems with the bike but he was always very philosophical about it, and often gave me a hand. I think the reason we got a new guide was because Mohammed (who owned the agency) was a basically a desert man, he'd taken us through the difficult desert section and now we'd reached his home town, he could send us 1500km or whatever it was up the road with one of his younger staff. I thought what Mel's comment showed, was that she was fed up with me. That I could understand, given the ongoing problems with the bike meant waiting around, something she said she didn't like.

Mohammed invited us to eat with his family that night so we put our best (least dirty) clothes on and drove there in the land rover. Fatimah, his wife, prepared a beautiful meal for us and Mohammed dished out the camel meat. Its good stuff. Somewhere between beef and lamb it was cooked perfectly, really soft and juicy. We met Mohammed's kids and three of his cousins who, pleasingly, were also all called Mohammed. Beacoup du Mohammed!

In the morning, with the help of Abdul I made a few phone calls to try and catch up with my battery, ordered from england, to no avail. And then we hit the road. Not long in I get a puncture. I fix it and cut a section from my rim tape (quickly stitching it up with dental floss at the side of the road) as it had become loose. It now fits nice and snug and we get going again.

Then my clutch packed in. I'd noticed a little more play in the lever but in the end it went very quickly. I'm careful about how I use my clutch but I actually felt lucky that it hadn't gone while we were in the sand. With a bit of practice I could ride without it, though around town its difficult. I could sense the eyes rolling in the land rover.

By this stage the mood between the three of us had changed. The clowning around and banter had all but dried up. After hearing a few barbed comments and muttered insults I didn't much feel like japing about and entertaining anyone any more. Bel interpreted this as me not feeling well which didn't really help. I knew that almost all the delays had been caused by me and my bike, but I also knew at every stage I'd done as much as I possibly could to minimise the impact. I knew as well that the ever present time pressure hadn't been created by me, and that I'd put my cards on the table from the start. If I got an oil leak for example, I'd say "I've noticed a small oil leak here, but the level hasn't gone down and I don't think its serious. I've tightened this nut here and I think that should cure it, but I need to keep an eye on it." And then I'd update then again later. With every puncture I'd say what I think caused it, what I was going to do about it and invited their suggestions.

It was up and out in the morning, ride all day, eat, sleep.
One town we stopped at we were told or we read was a bit dangerous for tourists, and we shouldn't speak to anyone. It was best to keep a low profile. Our cover was blown when our guide (travelling in the land rover) had to stop to ask for directions. Not having mastered riding clutchless I couldn't stop and get going so easily, so instead had to keep riding round the main roundabout in the middle of town until the others caught up! We checked in at the police station as usual and they escorted us to our hotel.

At the next town I changed my inner tube and fitted a new rim tape, again at the end of a long days riding. Again it didn't last very long. I'd knew by now my ultra heavy duty tyres weren't so bad when flat, and the bike was still rideable, so with mind set firmly on reaching Tunisia we carried on. No clutch, flat tyre, watching the Grand Erg Oriental float by.

The border formalities were a drag, but we were able to say goodbye to our guide having reached the border on the original date. Tunisia looked greener than Algeria, there being a large date palmerie and salt lake near the border. At Tozeur, 70kms in we stopped at a lovely campsite among the date palms, and sat down with a coke, all pressure now off. We noticed the bizarrely shocking sight of European tourists in shorts and t-shirts. It was Friday, and Mel had until Monday afternoon to catch her flight from Tunis. We ceremoniously ripped up my tattered trousers and decided to go out for a celebratory meal.

The restaurant was a palace compared to anywhere we'd eaten for weeks, months. A lovely outside terrace, candles on the tables, frosted glasses for the beer, clean toilets, menu pages not stuck together at all.

That night Bel and I were up all night with a nasty attack of food poisoning. Both ends. We spent the following day delicately sipping water in the shade, both feeling rotten.
Sunday was our last day together I think there were mixed feelings all round. It was sad definitely, we'd had a lot of fun together and shared some amazing experiences. But we were probably all starting to do each others 'eads in, having been living so closely for the last few weeks. Mel was no doubt looking forward to her trip home, Bel would be glad to get away from broken motorbikes and I was looking forward to some serious slowing down, and just not travelling for a few days.

I hope we meet up again, though I'm not sure travelling together is such a good idea. Even with better luck with the bike, travelling by motorbike and travelling by land rover are different ball games.
That said, what was from the outset perhaps the most difficult section of my trip is now behind me. I have crossed the sahara, through Algeria. Mel has since emailed me saying in spite of all our efforts she missed her flight as their watches were still set to Algerian time. Easily done I suppose. I will probably take the bike from here to Sicily to a KTM dealer, and then hopefully return to Tunisia on a fully sorted bike. To be continued.....

There was this house. And the windows were all bashed in. And the doors were all bashed in, and the roof was all bashed in.

The chairs were all bashed in, the tables were all bashed in, and the shelves were all bashed in. The beds were all bashed in, the wardrobes were all bashed in, and the cupboards were all bashed in. The bath was all bashed in, the taps were all bashed in, even the toilet was all bashed in.

The cooker was all bashed in. The sink was all bashed in. The washing machine was all bashed in. The television was all bashed in. The radio was all bashed in. The lights were all bashed in. The mirrors were all bashed in. The ceilings were all bashed in, the floors were all bashed in and the stairs were all bashed in.

Everything was All Bashed In.

Woohoo! I'm in Timbuktu!

Well I wanted an adventure. Bloody hell!
The last proper write up was from Tan Tan wasn't it? Man, that could have been years ago..........

I remember Tan Tan Pl?ge was a drab and worn out looking place. The shops were stocked with dust covered, artificial looking, and cheap, packaged food. Instead of turning their fridges on or cleaning their shops, the shopkeepers seek to gain custom by pouncing on tourists, spitting the words "Hallo, how are you?" into their faces before trying to somehow force them into the shop. There was also a children?s playground built around a statue of a hand clutching a rifle. I was glad to be moving on.

I started to notice people spoke Spanish as a second language, rather than French.

South of Tan Tan Pl?ge the road leads down through Western Sahara. Although Western Sahara is a country, it?s officially a disputed territory. The Spanish withdrew when Franco died in the 1970s leaving Morocco to the North and Mauritania to the south to fight over the territory and its phosphate reserves. The Saharawi people who lived in the area were not impressed and formed a group called POLISARIO to keep both their neighbours out. POLISARIO succeeded in forcing the Mauritanians to reject their claim on the area which just left the Moroccans to deal with.

The Moroccans managed to win the western (coastal) side of the area as far down as the Mauritanian border and built a wall of sand several thousand km long down the middle of the country. The Saharawi are stuck in refugee camps on the desert side of the wall. The UN says there must be a referendum but the Moroccans keep stalling. POLISARIO are pretty much a spent force although the UN monitors a ceasefire.

In the mean time the Moroccans are trying to encourage their own people to move into the area by building good roads, villages and subsidising fuel. They are also opening up a reliable road route across the Sahara, something that doesn't really otherwise exist. Most people in this part of the world know the value of a trade route across the desert. South of the Sahara there is stuff, north of the Sahara there is money. It was ever thus.

What all this meant for me was I had a very long ride down a very long road with regular police and army checkpoints, but at least the petrol was cheap.

It really is a long, long journey along the same straight road through the desert. It takes days. Some of the time you have the sea to look at and a couple of times I stretched my legs on the beach or along the low sandy cliffs. There is the town of Dakhla half way down but it?s mostly just a case of riding till the sun gets low, camping off the road somewhere, and then getting up for more of the same the following day.

On the road I met a Dutch couple cycling to China via South Africa whom I'd met previously in Meknes. They told me about other people who had passed them and I passed a message up the road for them. You get to know who is on the road and roughly where they will be.
Messages get passed up and down the line via people travelling at different speeds. The cyclists always have good information and are usually glad of the chance to get water from people who can carry more. I managed to meet up with some South African / English people in Land Rovers who I'd also met in Meknes, some of whom were travelling roughly the same route as me. I had to stop in Dakhla for a few days to wait for a bank to open and was given brandy by a nice Welsh / English couple who had to use it up before reaching Mauritania. I hung out with the Dutch couple a while and gave one of them a lift on my bike, bicycle and all.

Before reaching the Mauritanian border I met a patrol of UN peacekeeping troops on the road. They observe the ceasefire between the Moroccan army and POLISARIO. An important part of their role involves blasting around the sand dunes looking for a nice spot to camp. They invited the Dutch couple and me to camp with them in the dunes, an offer too good to refuse. Not only did they know where all the landmines were, but they had heaps of tasty food too. We all camped in an amazing spot in the crescent of a huge sand dune.

There was a full moon that night so I climbed up the dune to see the view. Even though it was night time I could still see a fair bit. An expanse of flat ground dotted with perfect sand dunes, all lit up in silver. We were camped at the bottom of the steep side of a wedge shaped dune, and it wrapped around us. The steep side of the dune is good fun to run down as your feet sink down into the soft sand. Two of the troops were French, one Costa Rican, and one Pakistani. Then there was the Dutch couple and me. It was like the United Nations.

The No Man?s Land between Western Sahara and Mauritania is 12km wide, has no road and is heavily mined. There are sandy tracks between the rocks, but also the charred remains of upside down cars dotted here and there. Some of them are (were) recent models. The advice I had was stay generally left until you see the broken up remains of an old Spanish road, follow it to the right until you see the Mauritanian border post. And of course the golden rule is stay on the tracks.

The thing is it?s difficult to stay on the tracks as the track diverges around rocks or stretches of soft sand. It?s not always easy to see recent tracks in soft sand, and different types of vehicles cope differently with each terrain. Eventually however I found the crumbling Spanish road and followed it. It wasn't easy to follow as whole sections were missing, but I knew it was safest to stay on it.

After a while though I noticed there were no other people or vehicles around and I felt I had done more than 12km. I stayed on the track and kept going until I noticed a row of small stones laid across my path. I got off the bike and had a look around. I was completely alone down a ruined track in No Mans Land. A stick had been pushed into the ground next to the row of stones. Nailed to the stick were the remains of an old Diadora tracksuit top. It had a luminous green collar and cuffs.

After tip-toeing around with my fingers in my ears I turned back. A few kilometres back down the track a Mauritanian border guard waved at me from behind a ridge, where you could just see the top of a wooden hut. That was the border post. I'd missed it (it was very missable) and I had been riding along, rather than across No Mans Land. He wagged his finger at me and held his hands as if riding a motorbike saying, "brum, brum, puff!" Anyway, I was through and into the Islamic Republic of Mauritania.

Mauritania has just 1 city (Nouakchott) that was "hastily thrown up" by the French before they withdrew, and a few towns. Before that, everyone lived a nomadic life in the desert. Many still do, and of those who live in the capital, many still return to the desert regularly. It?s a camel economy, there are no ATMs. There is a rigid caste system relating to skin colour and slavery was reluctantly outlawed in 1986, though it is woven into the caste system, and is still widespread. Alcohol is banned.

St Patrick's Day isn't really a big deal in Nouakchott. You can't even get a pint. I'd arrived there after crossing the border and bypassing the town of Nouadhibou to hit the road south. After 100km I realised there was nowhere to buy petrol and I had to turn back. In Nouadhibou there was petrol but no electricity with which to pump it, so I camped round the back of a police checkpoint. If you're just using improvised sign language, how do you ask directions to a campsite in a country where everyone lives in a tent?

Nouakchott is a 3rd World city. The streets are packed with the most beaten up cars I've ever seen, and legions of donkeys and carts. I'd heard the cars looked like they'd been banger racing and thought it was an exaggeration. It isn't. Many, particularly the taxis, have lost their basic rectangular shape and it can be hard to guess what make they are. The donkeys don't fare much better. They get flogged hard with heavy sticks and many have open sores on their backs. If they are lame they get flogged harder. The streets themselves are ankle deep in a mixture of ash and sand.

Most people you see in Nouakchott are black, and as you walk around you link up what you see with what you have read about the caste system. It?s a complex situation, but you get the gist of it after a few days walking around.

The Auberge owner told me there was an English guy also staying there, so I went over to say hello. After a quick chat we arranged to go out for some food together later on. After we sat down I noticed the slight camp tone in his voice getting more and more pronounced until by the end of the meal it was like having dinner with Liberace, he became so extravagant. I found myself celebrating St Patrick?s Day without a drop to drink, and having dinner with possibly the only openly homosexual man in Mauritania.

From Nouakchott I took another long desert road north east to Atar, which I intended to use as a base to explore some of the Adrar region. On the way I rode through a sand storm and saw small tornados, though I missed the plague of locusts that other people told me about. There was a stretch where the sand was almost white, and very fine, like cement. In the wind it was almost like driving through the snow as visibility is reduced by the white glare. It was very hot though. In several places the desert floor was made up of millions of sea shells that crunched underfoot.

Atar is a bit of a hole, but the campsite was lovely. It is run by a European couple and had a much laid back, bohemian kind of a feel. There was lots of shade, lots of water, chickens clucking around, a hammock and a 3 legged dog. The food was good, but expensive, and for the first time in at least a thousand km, clean toilets.

The first place I wanted to go to was Oudane, but it took 3 attempts over nearly two weeks to get there. Oudane is a crumbling abandoned city in the desert. Partly consumed by the rolling sand dunes it is one of the iconic images of the Sahara, a monument to a long forgotten trade route across the desert. It is thought to have been built by the ancient Songhai dynasty, though the reason it was abandoned is not known. My guess is that it was abandoned because it?s in the middle of feckin' nowhere.

To get to Oudane, first you must go to Chinguetti, itself an ancient city among the dunes, though still populated. I think it?s about 100 km from Atar to Chinguetti along a flat, hard, but badly corrugated piste. Once in Chinguetti, in the centre of the town, you hit deep, soft sand where, if you're not experienced in soft sand riding you make a tit of yourself to the amusement of the locals.
To get to Oudane from Chinguetti, you can either take another long corrugated flat piste, or take a shorter piste which is soft sand.

After letting my tyres down a bit (a lot) I hit the sandy piste. The track splits and winds for maybe 10 km through the dunes that surround Chinguetti, before converging to a clearer track, which is easier to navigate but still very soft. Riding in soft sand is fantastic fun, once you've got your confidence up. If you stop or go too slowly you get stuck, so you have to nail it. You hold onto the handlebars very loose and let them swing from side to side, which is quite alarming at first. The back wheel thrashes about behind you and you can sometimes see the trailing jet of sand out of the corner of your eye. You can't really use the brakes so if you need to wuss out you go for the clutch, but to be honest, a big handful of gas usually gets you out of trouble.

After bouncing through the dunes, occasionally even getting airborne, I was through to the main piste going great guns and working on my power slides. About half way to Oudane my front wheel hit a rock below the sand, and I got a puncture. The valve ripped from the tube which can't be repaired from my puncture kit and my spare tube was back at the campsite. Lowering tyre pressures is necessary in soft sand, but go down too much and you risk just such a puncture. Getting it right takes both experience and luck.

I had to turn around and ride back on a flat front tyre. 150km of sand and corrugations at 30kph. My heavy duty wheel rims survived fine (one of the reasons I chose a KTM) but the tyre and rubber rim tape was knackered. And I was exhausted.

The next day was 41? in the shade so I spent the day in a hammock under a neem tree, reading a good book I'd picked up. I've never been in a hammock before, so I counted it as acquiring a new experience. Amazingly, I discovered there was a guy in Atar who had a pile of motorbike tyres in his shed. It?s amazing because there are almost no motorbikes like mine in Mauritania, and even less in the middle of the desert. Apparently the Paris-Dakar rally had passed through a couple of years earlier and this guy had picked up a load of leftover tyres. I bought 4 competition spec Michelin Deserts which are the best tyres you get for just a few hundred Ouguiya.

I made a new rim tape from my old inner tube, but I noticed a sight glass on the engine casing had cracked and was weeping oil. Hmmm. Not sure how it happened but I didn't want to continue riding with it as it was. The campsite owner reckoned he might know someone in Nouakchott who might have an old KTM engine in his shed, but after a few days waiting that came to nothing. In the end I removed the casing and Mr Campsite Owner guy glued it inside and out with 2 part epoxy glue (which is wonderful stuff). I can't see in that side any more but it doesn't leak and is very solid. And I was ready for attempt number two on Oudane.

Attempt number two didn't get as far as attempt number one. In the dunes around Chinguetti, I lost the main piste. Where you see a fork you only get an instant to make your choice and because of the need to maintain speed you can't change your mind. I incorrectly took the lesser fork and knew straight away I was off the main piste. That?s not normally a big deal, you can usually follow the tracks you are on back to the main piste or cut across. My lesser piste began to fork more and more and after a few minutes petered out. So I'm bouncing through the low dunes looking for the main piste when I basically rode down a big hole. It was sort of a boat shaped depression between the dunes and I rode down and along one of the sides, falling off at the bottom. Falling off is just part of the deal in soft sand, it normally happens because you are riding too slowly.

Anyway, I spent the next 5 hours in the heat of the day trying to pull my bike out of the hole. At one point it took an hour to move it one metre, as it kept sliding back into the hole. My water container is a Swiss army rubber jobby that holds 20 litres. It rolls up when empty, is extremely robust, but its black, so my water gets hot. Not warm, hot. I have to sip it. I frequently dropped to my knees in the patch of shade cast by my bike to rest and sip hot water. I was never in any real danger, I'd taken all the safety measures but I had to try getting the bike out myself first. 5 hours and 15 litres of hot water later I was out of the hole but struggling to build momentum. With my confidence dinted I was going too slow and getting the back wheel stuck. When this happens you have to get off, push the bike on its side, and fill the hole the tyre made with sand, pick the bike up again and try and ride off. Do this 20 or 30 times and the Sahara starts losing its romance.

A further problem is that you can walk along a firm sand dune, and then suddenly sink to your knees without any change in surface appearance. On the bike the front wheel just dives into the ground and even if you don't go over the bars you still have to pull the bike out and turn it round before you can try and get going again in the wrong direction. Eventually I could see the water tower in Chinguetti, where I pumped my tyres up and headed back to Atar, exhausted and beaten again.

The following day I took myself and an American backpacker off to Terjit to recover. At Terjit there are a series of pools created by springs along the edge of an escarpment. There are palm trees and ferns lining the cliff face and it is shady and wonderfully cool. The main pool is small, and the waterfall had been embellished with a plastic pipe, but it was still a chance to cool off and have a swim, which is rare in the Sahara. Floating around in the water was the perfect antidote to the previous day?s efforts.

Fed up of trying to reach Oudane I spent a couple of days exploring some of the other mountain passes and canyons around Atar, and visited the set of Fort Saganne, a film I have not seen. I knew I couldn't leave the Adrar without going to Oudane though, so I prepared the bike for one last try. I decided to take the corrugated piste and Neil, a Welsh / Brummie bloke (top bloke) from the campsite decided to come with me. Brave man.

After perhaps three and a half hours rattling over the corrugations I finally made it to Oudane, with Neil on the back. After imbibing a few refreshing libations (non-alcoholic) we wandered around the old city. It?s huge. It seemed to me to have been a city of tens of thousands of people, and the buildings are largely intact. The layout is a bewildering maze and the city is built from the same rock as the landscape it sits in, which has a camouflage effect. There were giant gerbils the size of my cat and even a piece of petrified tree trunk, its rings still visible. However, according to my calculations this ancient city was built just fourteen years ago, but then there's never a dendrochronologist around when you need one is there?

Before it got dark, Neil and I set off for "home". We spent the last couple of hours bombing along over the corrugations in the dark, both trying to calculate if we had enough petrol to get us back. We made it back to Atar with the bike running on vapours in time to witness the local chief of police stocking up on illicit whiskey. Two South African blokes on KTM 640s arrived and we compared notes. I traded some air filter oil for a thermarest patch with them.

I'd been in Atar long enough to see a little of how the place worked, and for the 2nd week had camped on the roof of a mud building where it was cooler. In the desert of course, the sun is in charge. At home it can take a minute to locate the sun in the daytime sky, a little yellow polka dot if you're lucky. Here the sun is a big and powerful presence. At its height, in the middle of the day all living things whimper away to the shade, sneaking out again as it declines. The locals all take a siesta, often when you go into a shop the keeper is stretched out on a carpet on the floor. They don't really use chairs, I don't have one with me and the internet cafe was shut. Neil who was staying at the campsite introduced me to Foster Clarke?s, a chemically powder you add to water to make it taste fruity and sweet. It became my second big luxury, after sitting in a chair. Sitting in a chair and drinking Foster Clarke?s is for special occasions only.

The bike was fixed and serviced and fitted with new tyres. I fitted an inline fuel filter as I'd seen what the local petrol had done to my stove. I'd had my hair cut by a guy whose clippers kept breaking down and seen the places I came to see. It was time to head back to Nouakchott and on to Mali. Most people enter Mali via Senegal, but I couldn't see the point of adding unnecessary and reportedly troublesome border crossings when Mauritania has its own border with Mali. I'd heard I could get a cold beer in Bamako and I thought it would be a quicker route.

Heading west from Nouakchott I noticed small trees appearing in the scrub and the sand getting darker. That night I slept next to the bike, hanging my mosquito net over it so it covered me as well. My thermarest got another puncture so I had a bad night's sleep. The following day must have been the hottest yet. I'd lost one of my black gloves trying to reach Oudane and been given a pair of gardening type gloves which were much better, though I'd managed to burn my hands before losing the old gloves. So my hands were still painful, I was tired, and low on water, so I had to keep asking the police for a litre at the checkpoints. It was so hot I had to ride with my visor down; otherwise my face would get blasted by the heat, just like when you open an oven door. It was so hot out on the road when I reached one town I got straight off the bike and threw myself down in the shade for a couple of hours. I can't really describe how hot it was. It was feckin' hot.

Later, the dark sand became red soil, and the land was full of low acacia trees. I was now in the Sahel, on the southern side of the Sahara. As you emerge from the relatively sterile desert, you start to see signs of vegetation and life again. On this side of the Sahara though, it?s all different. I started to see cattle with big horns and strange insects. Many of the insects jump rather than walk so you'll just be stood there doing something when ?boink!? -some colourful new species arrives in your space and you're expected you know how to deal with it. Half the time it just boinks off again somewhere, leaving you slightly bemused. I started to see small fields with crops growing in them.

It turns out there is no petrol in much of southern Mauritania, though nobody mentioned it to me. I had an extra 8 litres on board that just took me further into the petrol free area. I pulled up at every petrol station to find they only had diesel. One even refused me water. I was tired, hungry, and still only had a litre of water (I had enough to drink but I wanted to guzzle it, make tea, cook and wash) so I decided to pitch camp. By the time I found a spot I could only really think about sleeping. I got off the bike and threw myself down in the sand to rest awhile before sorting out my camp. When I stood up I was covered in balls of small thorns that broke off when I tried to remove them. They were embedded into my clothes and into me. I managed to cook on an open fire as my stove was still broken. You can break wood straight from the bushes and it burns straight away it?s so dry. I crashed out still full of thorns.

In the morning I headed into the next town. I was still tired and low on petrol and water. My hands were stinging and now I was full of thorns too, making me howl whenever I got on the bike or walked. And it was so hot! On the reserve and with no petrol available I ended up asking the gendarme for help, though I had to wake him first. I did that by dropping my bike outside his office, smashing the wing mirror. Seven years? bad luck. Great.

He sat me down in his office and gave me water while he got on the radio to try and locate some petrol. After all sorts of people coming and going, and to the general surprise of everyone we discovered there was no petrol for at least 100km, perhaps 200km. Normally there is at least mechanic or someone who has a jerry can or something with a few litres, but not a drop.

I asked if I could put my bike on a truck heading over the border to Mali, and he led me to the checkpoint on the edge of town. The gendarme who manned the checkpoint lived there with his wife and five kids in a shipping container and a sun shelter made from branches. They were the nicest people you could meet and they made a big fuss of me despite me trying not to impose. They told me I'd be able to get my bike on a truck to Nioro over the border but they didn't know how long I'd have to wait. They rolled out a mat for me in the shade and gave me a mango. They fell about laughing as they watched me trying to eat it. Later on we all ate couscous and goat meat from a communal bowl and they laughed again at my attempt to copy them rolling the couscous into bite size balls.

Before it got dark I offered to take their photos which created much excitement and had the guy changing into his best uniform and checking his hair in the mirror. He was more interested in having his picture taken with my motorbike than with his wife and kids, but it was all a good laugh. I spent the evening lay on the mat by the side of the road doing my best to converse with the gendarme in bits of French and "sign language" with him jumping up to inspect the odd car or truck that passed. He asked me what the main crops grown in my country were so I made horns with my fingers and said "moo". He said "Ah, bulls!"

In the morning I was passed a bowl of white liquid to drink, with the words "Ees tha meelk ov tha bull." I was relieved to find it was actually the milk of the cow, and then he made tea.

A small pot about the size of a mug is filled with 2 or 3 teaspoons of Chinese green tea, water and several heaped tablespoons of sugar. When it boils a small amount is poured into one of two tiny shot glasses. This is then poured endlessly back and forth from one glass to another from a big height until it starts to froth. Eventually it forms a small "head" at the bottom of each glass. This takes a good 5 minutes. The pot goes back on the boil and a small dollop of tea is poured from height into each glass. You are then handed a shot glass half filled with a spirit measure of very sweet tea with a head on it. You knock it back in one then hand the glass back for the next person to use.

A clapped out Peugeot taxi-brusse pulled up taking two American peace-corps volunteers to Mali, with a few locals along for part of the way. The driver said he could take me and the bike to Nioro. I looked at the overloaded taxi and said "How?" He patted the roof. We hoiked the bike onto the roof and I said goodbye to the gendarme and his family and squeezed into the taxi.

That was the start of a very long day. The taxi stopped to let different people get in or out and I chatted to the Americans. Just before the Mali border I saw my first baobab tree, and they became more frequent from then on. The border guides tried to get money from me for a stamp in my passport for the bike, but I told them I'd paid the driver to get me to Nioro inclusive of all charges so ask him. They let me in without a stamp.

Nioro in Mali was noticeably different from the last town across the border. It was nicer, there were more people around and I noticed loads of small motorbikes buzzing about. It was midday, and Bamako was still another 500km away, and information about the piste was sketchy. By this stage I was pretty focussed on reaching the hotel / campsite I'd heard about in Bamako, as it overlooks the river and has a pool and a bar, so rather than wait in or around Nioro another day I decided to have a crack at reaching Bamako. There was cold beer waiting for me in Bamako. I changed money and stocked up on petrol and water.

I went back out the road to the border and took the turn off signposted to Bamako. Straight away the tarmac ended and I was on soft sand. Riding a heavily loaded bike in soft sand is no fun at all. The bike handles like a top-heavy ship and you get scared of dabbing the ground with your foot as you can feel the panniers snapping at your calves. I came off 3 or 4 times in that first few km, but I always jumped straight back on before the bruises came up. If you wait you?ll never get back on, and your confidence goes.

By this stage I was a bit of a mess. I still had the thorns and burnt hands and I needed a shower and a change of clothes pretty bad. I'd only nibbled at food over the last 3 or 4 days, as I'd been concentrating so much on petrol and water. I still had a long way to go. But there was cold beer in Bamako.

The soft sand eventually came to an end and I rode up onto an empty, but brand new tarmac road. They were still painting the lines on it. Heaven. I made up good time for 100km or so before it stopped as suddenly as it started and was replaced with a severely corrugated hard piste.

Corrugations are the result of a relatively soft road surface, heavy traffic, and some other weird physics. They transform the piste surface into a washboard of rolling bumps. And they shake and rattle vehicles driving over them like I don't know what. A really big shaky rattly thing probably.

You can either ride slowly, which is slow but your bike stays in one piece. Or you can accelerate up through a new world where everything is blurred and intangible to the magic window. The magic window is the speed at which your wheels have enough momentum to carry them from the summit of one corrugation to the summit of the next. You can get a relatively smooth ride as you crest over the top. The magic window can be quite fast 70-75 mph perhaps, and if you have to slow for a pothole for example, you decelerate down through corrugation world meaning you have to deal with the pothole and the fact that you can barely see of feel anything with all the vibration.
But there was cold beer in Bamako.

After endless miles of passing broken down trucks on the corrugated piste, I got a puncture. A 4 inch nail right through my back tyre. A bloke and his son on a small motorbike pulled up to help me change it and we soon head it done. They were dead nice.

Off I went again. After more miles of corrugations a camel trotted out in front of me and I had to brake sharply. I heard a snap and my dash went out. I pulled over to find the speedo sensor cable had sheared, shorted and I presumed, blown a fuse. It was getting dark and I had to keep going. I could manage without the dash for a few km.

Eventually, when it was dark I hit a small town, where nice, polite kids sold things like baked potatoes and boiled eggs to passing drivers. I bought cold some water. They sell it in clear plastic bags which they keep in cool boxes. You just bite the corner and suck / squeeze the water out. Its heaven. I normally like to filter all the water I drink but in hot desert countries that?s impossible and probably unnecessary. Unfamiliar with the money I let the kids pick the coins from my hand and they carefully counted the right change back in. That wouldn't happen in Morocco. The water was good, but there was cold beer in Bamako.

The last 100km was on a good tarmac road. It was dark so I took my time. My mouth soon dried out again and my lips kept melting into a dry, gummy mush (or that?s what it felt like - like when you've chewed a chewing gum too long with a dry mouth). I noticed though I was often driving through tall trees, reminding me of France, and there was often the most amazing sweet incense smell. When it came I took big lungfuls of it in through my nose, but I could never quite get enough. Most of the towns I chugged through were full of people and life, despite the dark. I was nearly there, and there was cold beer in Bamako.

Arriving in Bamako at night is a bit like arriving at Glastonbury at night. You have to slow right down for the crowds and there is all sorts of mad stuff going on. It?s chaotic and colourful and you want to check out all the stalls. Music pounds out from big sound systems and you just know it?s an easy, laid back sort of a place.

Finding the hotel / campsite place took the usual asking around and getting lost. As I got close to the campsite I notice white steam or smoke coming up from my bike so I pulled over to let it cool. I rode / pushed it the last bit there. I didn't care. I was in Bamako. And there was cold beer in Bamako.

I checked into a room and dumped my bags. I carefully removed my gloves so as not to dislodge the tender skin. My shoulders were burning and my arse was numb. Every now and again a thorn dug itself into me somewhere making me wince. And my bike was knackered.

The next thing I remember was the bar man saying "of course" and walking away. He came back and placed on the bar a large bottle of Castel beer and glass with ice.

Oh mama. I hadn't had a beer since Morocco, on the other side of the Sahara. It had been a long and difficult few days and my mouth was as dry as a bone. The beer bottle had come out of a chest fridge and was wet with condensation. The barman took a bottle opener from his pocket and loosened the top with a fizz. Then he retreated out of my field of concentration. I poured the beer. The bottle glugged, the ice chinked and the beer fizzed. I looked at it a while, savouring perhaps the most enduring image of the whole trip, and then I dived in.

Every parched taste bud opened up and was drenched in sharp, cold fizzing beer, sending endorphins dancing round my brain, taking the focus out of my eyes and making them well up. A few glorious, refreshing glugs and I lowered the glass with that cold burning feeling in my throat and the buzz of the alcohol in my head. I blinked tears out of my eyes. Then came the burp. Like the cherry on the cake.
That beer was the highlight of my trip so far.

The other fellas in the bar were laughing at me. They said "Mauritanie?" I said "Oui" and they nodded. They'd seen it before. I didn't realise the other reason they were laughing until I went back to my room for a shower and saw myself in the mirror. My face was caked in red earth. The fine soil dust had got inside my helmet and covered my face. As the shower water went down the plug hole it was dark red, I was that covered in grime. I came out of the bathroom with a towel and sat on the bed fully intending to pick out the remaining thorn splinters, but it didn't happen. The journey, the beer, the cool air coming down from the ceiling fan, I just fell asleep.

When I woke I was covered in itchy red blotches all over my limbs and torso. I'd fallen asleep with a couple of mosquitoes in the room and they had feasted on me as I slept. After a day or two sorting myself out I made a start on the bike. I had just got started when my South African friends turned up. They were in Bamako and heard about a guy on a bike at this hotel from a bloke they met in an internet cafe and figured it was me and came over. It was great to see them and we had a big, mad drunken night out. A welcome chance to catch a few beats, down a few scoops and chuck a few shapes. We hatched a plan and they set off with me planning to catch them up.

However closer inspection of my bike revealed the thermostat housing had melted and I'm waiting for a new one to be sent out. My bike is out of action but this time I'll have to catch up the time. I won't get to spend as much time exploring Mali as I wanted but that?s the way the beans roll. And there are worse places I could be stuck. The hotel looks out over the Niger River and has a nice pool. Bamako doesn't seem anything like as deprived as Nouakchott. There are tree lined streets and modern buildings, and half the city buzzes around on shiny new scooters, about half of them are KTMs. Obviously there is poverty here too, but for me, I can walk round the markets without any hassle and I get charged the same price as everyone else in the shops. It?s nice to be just another guy walking down the street, without people pouncing on me and trying to talk me into spending my money on some rubbish I don't want.

People are very nice, and I have embarrassed myself a couple of times by asking the price of everything up front and being suspicious ? the way you have to be in Morocco and Mauritania. It takes time to readjust to the fact that people are not trying to rip me off all the time.

In Bamako they know a thing or two about cold drinks. You can buy cold, fruity concoctions from women in town who carry ice boxes on their heads. You can also buy mangoes and bananas and the women who sell them are genuinely friendly and funny. Even the taxi drivers are nice. It?s no surprise the people here have great music and are into wearing the loudest colours they can find. Some of the fabrics the women wear make Hawaiian shirts look drab. And they can wear white ankle socks with their flip-flops and still look imperious and flash. Much of the city is green and leafy. I know much of it is dusty and run-down as well, compared to a European city, but its funny I don?t really see that any more.

While I?ve been waiting for my part an overland truck came through with 28 people on their way to Cape Town. Their truck had been stuck in the desert for a week and they?d had to ration their water. It had been tough for them but they were a good bunch and they invited me out to celebrate one of the girls? birthday. When they left a tour of a dozen or so bikers came through and they camped all around my tent, so I hung out with them for a couple of days. I?ve sorted loads of niggling jobs on my bike and kit, and I?ve had a good break. My new thermostat housing should be here in a couple of days hopefully and then I?ve got some catching up to do. Nice though it?s been I can?t wait to hit the road again. Anyway, I?m off for a dip in the pool. It gets quiet about this time and you can see the sun setting over the river.

Hi folks, I'm in Atar, Mauritania. Had some minor bike problems, but it's ok now I hope. All Well m

I do realise my journal entries have been a bit long-winded, but in a way that reflects the excitement and enthusiasm I'm experiencing in the first part of my big trip. I've always known that the detailed recording of it all can't last, but what the hell, I reckon its better to just let it happen as feels right at the time.


I'm in Tan Tan plage now, its in southern Morocco, on the coast. Its my first sight of the sea since arriving in the country. This last couple of weeks, since leaving F?s, have been wonderful. I don't want to tempt fate, but if for some reason I have to go home early, or there is some other problem, I can say I've had a taste of the big adventure I was looking for.


Zagora turned out to be more interesting than I expected. When I arrived I needed to do some internet stuff, and a few minor but time consuming repairs to the bike / my kit. I planned to keep my head down and get on with what I had to do.


Amongst other things I had to get a bolt and a couple of little spacers made (for the sidestand). There was a row of "bush mechanics" near the campsite, and you can't just deal with one of them, the whole lot get involved. Its a
long story, but after a couple of days I was walking into town saying hello to people I "knew". The hasslers stopped hassling me, and the kids started passing me their football!


Despite wanting to keep my head down and get on with my shit, on my last night I ended up getting wrecked (in a mud tower) with a couple of blokes from Marseilles, the campsite owner and much of his extended family, and a couple of nomads who'd come in from the desert to work.


As we searched for shared cultural experiences, they kept asking me to repeat lines they'd heard in various films. They found this very amusing and after I said it, they all repeated it.


We got as far as Raging Bull before we all descended into a full-on fit of the giggles. Even the silent nomads started saying "you f+ck my wife?", "you f+ck my wife?" and one of the blokes from Marseilles nearly fell out of the tower. I climbed down the ladder and stumbled back to my tent with tears rolling down my cheeks.
Maybe you hadda be there.


With my jobs done I packed up and hit the piste. Like the night I spent in the Legionairres fort, I don't think I'll forget my first night camping on that piste in a hurry. The piste led into a valley, as they often do. The piste itself splits up and fades out as people take different routes through the valley. Its not a problem, you just pick the piste up again at the other end of the valley. With mountains(escarpments) on either side you can't really go any other way.


Anyway, I'm riding along the floor of the valley admiring the mountains and the beautiful day, and I notice its a flat claypan, good for pitching a tent on. There are a few unhobbled camels browsing at the scrub. They walk slowly and create a scene like in "Walking With Dinosaurs". Its getting late and it could be rocky further on, so I start looking around for a sheltered spot to camp.


There is nothing. The valley is about 30km long and maybe 10km wide and flat as a pancake. Apart from a single acacia tree a couple of km away.


I rode over to it and put my tent up there. Next to the lone acacia tree on a flat plain between the two escarpments. The sun was setting at the open end of the valley, in the direction I was heading, so I saw it go right down. It was perfect. Even my camel dung fire was a success.



You can't beat a nice camel dung fire at the end of a long days motorcycling.


The FM band on my radio, had nothing at all on it, just a low hiss. I listened to the news on short wave while I cooked my meal. Then I lay between my fire and the tree and stared at the stars for a while. The sky at night over the desert is just........ I'm lost for words (for a change).


In the morning another beautiful day, and another day riding through empty valleys. I passed through the odd village, some inhabited, others abandoned.


I'd meet the odd person herding goats and kids asking for sweets. One kid had a mobile phone and no shoes. He came running towards me over jagged rocks and I felt sorry for him not having any shoes. Then his phone rang and he started having a laugh on it with his mate.


I noticed lizards running across my path, about 10 inches long and about an inch and a half wide, and fast runners too. And some of the insects down here are as big as small rodents.


I spent one night as the only person in a very quiet campsite in a dusty town in the mountains. I shared the campsite with a donkey and some poultry.


After that I rode through some very dry rocky desert. Along the piste I'd come to an oasis every few hours. These oasis are so green they strain your eyes. They have palm trees and irrigated fields. You hear water splashing and burbling and birds chattering and screetching.


In some stretches the piste had been tarmaced recently which was a chance to remove my lid, put my sunnies on and ride my bike as nature intended. Very occasionally, near a town, I'd see a Mk II Ford Transit minibus with hands out every window waving at me.


I had to camp just off the road one night and another night reached a nice town called Akka. The whole town was painted pink (as many of them are) and it had a hotel which sold Stork Biere De Luxe.


I stayed at that hotel and spent an evening wandering round the market that night. It was lit by gas mantles on tubes sticking out of gas bottles. That light, the setting sun, the pink walls created a distinct look. The sounds, and for that matter the smells, were provided by the transport: donkeys, two-strokes, deisels. I'm not just getting used to these African towns, I'm starting to like them.


There you go that was as brief as I could make it. I've missed loads out but hopefully you get the picture. Its still not very brief. I also want to say that I keep thinking about how lucky I am, to be able to ride to all these amazing places and camp and all the rest of it. I'm very, very fortunate.


Tomorrow I head south along the coast into Western Sahara. From what I can gather it will be flat and dull. But you never know, anything could happen

The legendary hassle you get in F?s started before I even got there. Blokes rode alongside me on small motorbikes trying to wave me down, or shouting offers to "help" me. They are persistent and so are a pain when you are trying to find your way into a confusing city boasting no less than 3 separate city centres.

Eventually I had to stop near where I thought the youth hostel was just to find a street name, look at my map, get my bearings. In that 5 minutes I was approached by 5 or 6 blokes, all offering to be my guide. Apart from myself the hostel was empty and although it was a bit of a gem as the guidebook suggested, they could have let me park my bike in the grounds rather than pay for secure parking up the road. It did have a lovely shady courtyard though, with plants and a burbling little fountain.

I'd stopped in F?s because it was on my way east from Meknes. Most people heading south go down the coast but from what I'd read I couldn't really see the appeal and anyway, I wanted the desert! That meant heading east towards the Algerian border before turning south. I decided to have a full day in F?s, see a few sights, and keep moving.
The guy in the hostel warned me about some of the tricks the faux guides use, although with an official (and cheap) guide from the tourist office you will undoubtedly see a lot more than you could on your own. And its recommended you don't go into the medina without one in case you can't get out!

The tourist office was shut, there was just an army of faux guides hanging around waiting for people like me to show up. Being out of season, they were tripping over each other to get to me. You can hire them, but they won't be as well informed as an official guide and will be more interested in taking you to their mate's shop rather than anywhere you want to go. People do have problems with them, and if they find out where you are staying, you can have trouble getting rid of them. Not for me, I'd rather wander around on my own.

The problem with that though is that I was constantly being approached by people who saw I had no guide with me. No big deal you think, I'll just tell 'em "non merci" and keep walking. Thats fine, but you typically have tell each hassler "non merci" at least three times and near any of the sights, you can be approached by two or three guides per minute. After a few hours, you just get sick of it. By midday I'd been walking round for maybe three hours. I couldn't stop to take a photo or sneak a look at my map without being pounced on, so I headed for a quiet, leafy square in the Ville Nouvelle. There were smart cafes around and it was obviously a business district. There was a bench at the quieter end of the square where I sat down for a bit of a time out.

After one minute a guy in a suit sat down next to me. "Hallo my friend, welcome to F?s. Where are you from?" Another tout.
By this stage I couldn't resist heading back to the hostel where I could sit in the shady courtyard, read the english newspaper I'd bought with a cold drink and sparrows flickering about in the fountain. There a lots of things to see in F?s, it seems like a fascinating place with an amazing history, but a whale had got stuck in the Thames and chalksniffer Fowler had signed for Liverpool.

The good thing about being hassled by all those touts is I got to experiment with different ways of shaking them off. I tried ignoring them completely but they just keep at you until they get a responce, so I tried not saying anything but just smiling at them which only seemed to wind them up. I tried different tones of voice. To be honest, a firm "non merci" and keep walking is probably the best bet. One thing in my favour is most of them are short little fellas so when I walk at full stretch they can't really keep up next to me without doing an amusing little hop every few steps, like in monty python. As I got ready to go out again in the evening, I thought of a new tactic.

I have with me a broken watch. I bought a cheapo casio in Barcelona and for some reason threw the old one in my spares bag. While eating outside a cafe that evening a guy came and sat at my table. After he asked, I told him where I was from and then I tried to sell him the watch. Which wasn't what he was expecting. I kept at him to buy the watch until he got up and left. It wasn't the fastest shrug off but it was easily the most amusing, which I think is the way to go.

After my food I found a bar and had a beer. With my beer came a tiny dish of chopped cooked carrots in oil and herbs, and another tiny dish of chopped pickled radishes. Very tasty. In Spain it was nuts or olives or cheese. I find this thing where you get a little plate of munchies with your beer very civilised.

The guy at the secure parking tried to short change me, as had the guy at the internet cafe the night before. On both occasions I protested and got my money back with a smirk. There was no embarrasment at having tried to steal from me, just a smirk for not having got away with it. I was Medinad out, I'd had enough enough of the cities, scams and hassles. I wanted the desert.

I headed for my first desert piste, an "off road" track. It was meant to be an easy one to test out the bike and my riding and navigation skills, somewhere not too remote and where I would not have to wait long for other passing traffic. As I continued East I noticed the grass getting thinner and thinner until after a futher 20 miles there was just sand next to the road dotted with a few scrubby tussocks. The roads got quiet and I felt out in the open.

Eventually I found the start of my piste. There was a road and a rocky track heading off in roughly the same direction, though both had dog legs in the first few hundred metres. The route said head east along the rocky track so I went east down the rocky track. After a km or two I realised the track didn't match the route info so I was just thinking about turning round when I came into a village. It was a mud built village of I'd say about a thousand people with no roads, a couple of motor vehicles and loads of donkeys.

I got some funny looks and had kids running after me so I decided to ride through the village, turn around somewhere quiet and retrace my tracks back to the road. Off I went, turned around and came back along the rocky track into the village. Pop sssssss. Puncture.

I didn't much fancy sorting out a puncture (my first) with an audience in the village and I could still steer OK ish, so I picked my way slowly back to the smooth tarmac where I managed to steer into the ditch.

It wasn't a big ditch, I was only going at walking pace so I just sort of wobbled in. It was no big deal, it just meant I had to unload the bike, heave it out, reload it, find somewhere flat away from the road, dig out my puncture kit.... basically a big palaver. It was getting dark by the time I had my front wheel off the ground. Its the same principle as a pushbike puncture repair but everything is much bigger and clumpier and heavier. I replaced the inner tube OK and put my new knobbly tyre on the wheel (eventually, after loads of heavy tyre levering), but one of the brake pads fell out of the caliper and I couldn't get it back in. I fiddled around with it by torchlight until I decided I'd be better off leaving it til morning and coming at it anew. People had stopped to help and they were really helpful but I had to ask them to leave me to it. This was after all a trial run and I needed to know I could fix a damn puncture without help. Despite wanting to help, and being really nice people, each car that stopped slowed me down by 20 minutes or so. One guy kindly left me a bottle of water. In the desert it would be silly to refuse water, even though I had plenty of my own.

There was no point putting the tent up. I locked the bike up, dug out my thermarest and sleeping bag, and food and water and headed a couple of hundred metres away from the road, where I spent the night sleeping under the stars. I had a great kip, and woke at dawn to an amazing red martianesque landscape. Just me, red earth, black rocks and blue sky. I had some breakfast and went back to the bike. The brake pad popped into place at the first attempt. The wheel went back on and I had plenty of time to mend the tube that had punctured. I took my time packing everything away though and spoke to a few more passing drivers so it was 11 o'clock before I got moving again.

It turned out the piste I was meant to be following had been recently tarmaced so off I went along it. The tarmac ran out after 60km so I carried on along gravel road works and then desert piste. It was wonderfully scenic, low sandy hills and open stretches of desert. I passed Berber nomads at their tents or out minding goats. The track was good and clear and I got comfortable with using my maps and compass, and GPS as a back up.

I took my time and ended up reaching the end of the piste at a town called Ain Benimathar. A real dusty outpost. There was no street lighting in the town, so when I pulled up, I could just make out faces in the dark. There were a lot of people about but my headlight was the only light. An old drunk saw his opportunity and told me he would guide me to the town's only hotel, and he shooed everyone else away as though I belonged to him. I followed him to the most ramshackle hotel I'd ever seen. It was just around the corner and I gave the old giffer a couple of dirhams which I thought was plenty for what he'd done. He was on at me for more money when the hotel owner came out showed me into a gated yard at the back. My drunken guide staggered away gesticulating and ululating.

I locked the bike up and was shown to the classic dingy African hotel room I'd heard so much about. Rough walls, a dirty floor, two low beds made from rusty angle iron. A door that had to be lifted, rather than swung into place. And no key. In fact no lock. The guy spent ages copying my details from my passport and the form I'd filled in and I began to regret listing my occupation as Radiological Paeleantologist. In the end I filled it in for him and dug out my sleeping bag.

I woke at dawn and went straight out. Nearby was the point where 32?N Latitude and 2?W Longitude cross. Before I left Manchester I'd heard about an internet project called the degree confluence project where people photograph these intersections, and since one was nearby, I thought I'd go and "bag" it. I've not submitted it yet so I don't know if my place in history is secure.

Then I hit the road south. This runs through big desert. Mile after mile of wide open, flat space. Mostly the road is straight as a die, going to a point on the horizon. There was just rough brown scrubland littered with small rocks on either side of the road. Almost no other traffic, perhaps I'd see a truck come towards me every half hour. The drivers always wave. Now and again I'd pass a nomad's tent, or see its occupant walking around outside it. I don't know how they survive out there, I could see the goats they had nibbling at the scrub but there was no sign of any water anywhere.

Its a funny experience riding the bike in a straight line for hours on end. You are almost a passenger. I could have put my feet up on the handlebars and settled back with a novel if I'd wanted, but you sort of just sit and think and marvel at the scale of it all. At a very remote section I pulled up to stretch my legs. It was perfectly silent. The road vanished to a point in both directions. Whichever way I looked, the horizon curved slightly downwards at the edges of my vision, a perfect blue sky like a bowl over my head. I marvelled at it for a couple of minutes, laughed for some reason, then set off again for another hour or two riding in a straight line. Its pretty bizarre.

Eventually I hit a town called Bourfa , where I bought petrol and continued on towards Bouadnib. Beyond Bouadnib I would start my second desert piste. The plan was to get off the road and camp up on the piste somewhere. The piste started as a rocky ascent through some low mountains, but after passing a few strangely shaped black hills that had been extruded out of the earth like toothpaste I came into some very pretty villages. They were pretty mostly because they were built along a shallow river around which palm trees sprang up. The water itself was a sort of cloudy blue colour and it looked so incredibly inviting after seeing all that dry desert.

The buildings of the villages are built of light brown mud and straw. What seems to happen is that eventually the mud gets eroded down so they build a new village next to the old. The old village is then left to the elements, and these old villages look as though they are melting back into the ground. Its all very pleasing to the eye though.

Further up, the track took me into a deserted valley. By now the sun was low in the sky and I had a 30 foot shadow. A stream which fed into the river below wound its way across the floor of the valley, and there were brown hills on three sides around me. In the middle of the plain, on a raised level well away from the overlooking hills was the place I'd been hoping to camp. It was the ruins of a Foreign Legion fort. Apparently it had been subject to many attacks before being abandoned before the first world war. It was a truly enigmatic spot, and after riding the bike up into the middle of it I pitched my tent and sat on a rock to watch the sun go down. It was quiet and peaceful in the valley, not a soul around.

I was up before sunrise to filter water from the stream. Most of you will be astonished I managed to drag my arse out of bed before 9 o'clock, but when you go to bed at dusk, you wake up refreshed and raring to go just before dawn. Its great really, the day is so long. As I filled up my water containers I could see the sun coming up. In that valley at least, the sun went down fighting - a large, strong, hot ball. It comes up much more timidly, gently breathing warmth into a cool dusky chill. First you hear one bird, then a few, then the full chorus. It started cold, but by the time I had the tent down and the bike packed I was breaking into a sweat and thinking I'd better put some sun cream on.

I also had some company. A guy with a cleft lip appeared from nowhere and came over and shook hands. After the greetings he sat down to watch me finishing packing up. I had more water than I could carry so I gave him a bottle. He told me a bit about the state of the piste ahead.

I finished the piste through more weird and wonderful landscape. Back on the road I passed through the Legionaires tunnel, the Ziz gorges and some amazing palmeries. The palmeries grow along the paths of rivers, effectively creating a green river through the desert. They are lovely to ride past, they are so lush and you can see water twinkling along little irrigation channels. Small black and white birds sometimes dart out from the side of the road, they fly alongside me for a short distance then swoop across my front wheel. They either do it for kicks or to prove their flying skills. They could do something less dangerous though, and I'd believe them.

I was way down south by now, and its different here. Dare I say I'm far enough south to have beaten the bad weather? I've said that before. But, I haven't seen a cloud for days and when I get out of my tent my first thought is for the factor 40 I carted down from Manchester, and which got frosted up in Poitiers. Also the people are different, the buildings are different. The bustling cities and rolling green hills may as well be a different country, and a distant country at that.

I decided to start my next piste the same day. This was another rocky mountain climb with rocks of all sizes to negotiate. At one point I had to ride both across and along a shallow river. Actually in the river, with the water up to my footpegs for a hundred metres or so. Further up the path broadened into a severe black landscape, covered with more black rocks. Whatever geological event formed that place it was a violent one. It took a while to find somewhere to camp but after a while I saw an oued (a dry river bed, they run all through the desert) with soft black sand to camp on.

In the morning I was joined by two men and a donkey. After big handshakes all round they settled down somewhere comfortable to watch the big event of the day: me putting my tent away. That seems to be the done thing. Come over, say hello, then sit down and watch everything I do. They always seem to like the tent, and the tent poles in particular are a real crowd pleaser. I finished that piste at a small town and went straight onto the next. These towns are incredibly remote places, some are dusty and ugly, others are very pretty little places. There is a distinct architecture down here, all the buildings, whether mud or concrete have these little ornamental turrets at each corner, and there are only flat roofs of course.

This last piste was breathtaking. If you're thinking its all just desert, you'd be very wrong. The desert floor can be almost any colour and the hills that rise from it can be blue, black, brown or red. Sometimes there is vegetation, sometimes not. Sometimes the floor is flat and smooth or it can be strewn with rocks of any size, and not always the same colour as the earth. There are streams and rivers, palm trees and mountains capped with snow. Sometimes its black and angry looking and other times its like a scene from a fantasy novel. A couple of times I have seen a sole, flat-topped, table-like mountain on its own in the middle of a vast flat plain.

On this piste there were villages high up in the mountains, where there was snow melt for water. One little settlement I passed through seemed to be the most idyllic little place I've ever seen. A small green valley high up, warm and sunny surrounded by snowcapped mountains. Palm trees and tiny neat fields arranged around little irrigation channels. An entire family came out to wave as I rode through.

After that the track led me into an empty basin, perfectly flat and again surrounded by mountains. There was tall thin grass growing in patches. It was perhaps a few kilometers across. There was nothing there apart from me, a dry well, and a few shiny black haired goats. It was just fantastic up there, and the descent gave me views across scores of mountains stretching out for miles. It was a very bumpy rocky path down, and I had to do the last 20km of that 171km piste under headlamps, which is fine, but tiring. The town I arrived in had no hotel, auberge or campsite so I had a 30km ride to Tazarine at the end of it. I was aching badly but I can't tell you how happy I was to see tarmac again! It seemed so easy riding on it.

The campsite I found was more hotel than campsite. There were no vehicles in the car park so I haggled hard for a room, and got a good deal for 2 nights B&B. In the morning after a hot shower in a proper bathroom, they told me my breakfast was being served by the pool. I went to a beautiful, but strangely geometrically laid out pool area where a table had been set next to a perfect blue outdoor pool. I was the only guest at what felt like a palace in the middle of a flat desert plain. It was like a cross between The Shining and a surrealist fantasy. Waiters in marroon velvet jackets carried things over to me on silver platters held aloft on their finger tips. It was very surreal. After breakfast I took a dip in the pool. It was lovely and cool.

After a day lazing at the pool, reading, and washing my clothes in the bathroom, I left the strange hotel and headed for Zagora, an easy and pleasant ride on tarmac roads. Zagora seems to be a sort of regional capital in an area of dusty outposts. So its a slightly bigger dusty outpost. It comprises one long wide street and not much else. It reminds me a bit of that cardboard town they built in Blazing Saddles.
However, it is a base for tourists exploring the area, so there are camel ride touts and "Tuareg Experience" gift shops lining one end of the town. They try to reel me in with the usual "Where are you from?" opener, but now I just tell them and ask them the time.
"Call that a watch? You need a watch like this my friend. For you special price"
"Broken? Is no problem. I have cousin who is jeweller, he will fix it for you. He is very good. You will like him."

I was a little apprehensive about coming into Morocco. You hear such differing stories. On the way down through Europe I met some people who said they'd got off the boat or through the border, and at their first sight of the country decided it wasn't for them and turned around and came back. Amittedly, they were older people travelling in big, white motorhomes and I doubted I would do that, but it did make me wonder. And I'd met the guy in Gibraltar who'd had everything stolen in Agadir. Of course, other people tell you it's a fabulous place, and Lonely Planet says it's a country of contradictions. The people are said to be extremely friendly, but you hear about a lot of hassle as well. A typical summary is something like "Morocco is a forward looking, modernising country, yet its undeniably Africa as well." When you are queueing up at the border, you wonder exactly what that means.

Going through the border with a vehicle is a 5 stage process. It took about an hour and a half, shuffling back and forth between various portacabins, queing, filling in forms and waiting for forms to be stamped. In one portacabin a guy loads your form into an old mechanical typewriter and click-clacks away for about 15 minutes. Finally, he slides the roller across with a ping and scrolls the form out of the contraption, before stamping it extravagantly with 3 or 4 rubber stamps.

Eventually, after shrugging off one of the touts trying to "help" me through the process I was waved onto customs. The guy asked me one of those stupid trip-up questions police and customs always seem to like asking.
"So Irlande eh? Capital Budapest No?"
"Oh no Msr, Capital Dublin"
And he waved me in.

I was excited riding out of the border enclosure, onto the wide, empty road. The sun was fighting its way through the grey and white clouds that had soaked the area overnight. Having spent a couple of hours going through the border, being impatient to see some Morocco, and the road being empty, I couldn't resist opening the bike up a bit, just to get into Morocco and take a look at it.

It didn't seem so different. I was on a good road, well marked and signposted with proper lighting. All was well. There were thick hedges around dark green, wet fields. I'd come all this way to find Morocco looked just like county Roscommon. Then, in one of the fields, I saw a camel. There are no camels in Roscommon. It still looked out of place though, in a wet field munching grass.

You can bypass Tetouan, but I was curious so I rode into town. The first thing that stood out were the enrobed men. Its mostly men in the street, and most of them were wearing a long, loose fitting garment over more familiar looking clothes. Its called a Jellaba and it hangs straight down from the shoulders with baggy sleeves and a hood that rises to a point. It surprised me how much that stood out. When the hoods are up, they look uncannily like extras from a Harry Potter film. Of course I'd read somewhere that's what many Moroccan men wore, but I didn't think I'd think much of it. And I didn't really, it was just a constant and striking visual reminder I wasn't in Europe any more, on that first day at least.

Something else was different about the look of this town, as opposed to a town in Spain, but it was really hard to figure out what. The buildings were the same cheap, quake-proof construction you see in Spain, the shops were
just shops, the traffic just traffic. It looked the same but it felt different.

After a couple of minutes I decided there was just something different about the way people moved around the town, and lots of other little things put together: the complete absence of grafitti or fly posters, the ratio of cars to people, hardly any advertising. Apart from the jellabas there was no single thing I could put my finger on to explain why it felt so different. It was something to ponder as I rode on to Chefchouen.

Chefchouen is at the heart of the Rif mountains, where all the ganj comes from. But a quick look at a map and a guidebook tells you you pretty much have to stop there on your way south. I'd decided I wasn't going to bother
with any cheap Moroccan hash, as it probably meant dealing with some dodgy street hassler, and in any case, there was always plenty of it available in Manchester for peanuts and I didn't bother with it there.

Getting higher into the mountains the view from the road became much more scenic. It was very green, and if it wasn't for the prickly pears growing everywhere you could almost call it alpine. There were snow capped mountains, it was very beautiful.

The fields were all very neatly kept, and I could see people working in them. There were lots of people in this countryside. There were people minding small flocks of sheep or goats. Others just standing at crossroads
talking. At the sides of the road, people were clearing the drainage ditches of weeds. Further into the mountains people would come running toward the bike, making a skinning up motion with their fingers and waving at me to stop. Perhaps 20 or 30 people tried to sell me a smoke in the last few miles before Chefchouen.

Approaching the town I couldn't get over how clean and tidy everywhere was. Even at a building site nothing was lying around, everything was in a neat pile or stack. Coming into the town itself, there were flags flying everywhere. Mostly a red flag with a green 5 pointed star emblazened on it, but also groups of more colourful flags flying together. At the campsite I discovered the reason for all the flags, and probably why everywhere was so tidy.
The King was coming to Chefchouen.

I put my tent up in the muddy, slightly surreal, slightly hippyish looking campsite, with the radio for company. By the end of my time in Tarifa the radio was driving me mad, it was all so commercial. I thought if I hear that sickly "You're beautiful" track one more time, some hapless fecker is gonna get a radio inserted where a radio should never go. I switched it on in Chefchouen wondering what to expect from the local FM stations. I've hardly switched it off since. Moroccan music is amazing. Or at least what I've been hearing is.

I ignored a few more people trying to sell me hash as I walked into town. Some of them would see me and just run straight over, thinking up some old bullshit on the way. It was a pain in the arse but easy enough to ignore.

In town I saw all the buidings (and some of the trees) were painted a very pale blue. It looked lovely. I headed straight for the medina. Morocco is famous for its medinas and I wanted to see one. I went through a small, islamic looking archway into a narrow shady alleyway, lined with tiny shops and stalls as it wound up the hill. Daylight was only available in patches as the goods are strung over the top as well as at the sides. There was no hassle - apart from on one corner, and it was full of people doing their shopping, and people selling their wares. There were spice stalls, with the sacks rolled down to reveal their contents. The spice stalls gave off the most amazing, exotic smell as I plodded through, and I was in the first truly foreign place I'd ever been (foreign to me I mean). The buildings I could see were very old, with a sort of brown mud rendering on them, unlike anything in Europe. It was the assault on the senses the guide books speak of.

I came into a small square lined with cafes on one side, and a very old builing on the other. I called in at one of the cafes for a meal. The waiter asked what I wanted to eat so I ordered a tagine, which is a travellers favourite."And to drink sir?" I enquired about mint tea which is said to be the national beverage and very refreshing. "Oh yes sir, mint tea sir, and will you be wanting any hashish sir?"

I relented. I only bought a gram, it cost a few dirhams so I could hardly go wrong. And the town was clearly dripping with the stuff. It seemed inevitable I'd succumb in the end. After the meal I went up onto the roof to
skin up and the waiter came along. He pulled a couple of chairs up and over a spliff told me about the town and what I neeeded to know. The people trying to sell me hash have all got some in their pockets for their own use anyway. Many people have. They try and flog some to tourists because half the time the tourist will hand over 10 or 20 Euros, which is a lot of money for not much effort. I paid the bill, even with the little extra to take away it was still
remarkably cheap, and wandered back to my tent. My first impressions of Morocco therefore, were that it was a beautiful and exotic country, with great music, and populated by wizards - many wanting to sell me cheap drugs.

I stayed a few days in Chefchouen. The campsite was to be used to seat some of the dignatories for King's visit so was being guarded round the clock by the police. I figured it would be a good place to acclimatise, get used to the money etc as the whole town was on it's best behaviour, and everyone was out painting or cleaning something in anticipation of the visit. I hoped also to be there when the King arrived and maybe even get a pic of him on the podium that had been errected in the main square. It was clear the people loved their King. His photo was everywhere, inside all the buildings as well as outside.

In the end though I got fed up with Chefchouen. The King's visit got put back and the hassle I started getting in town became a pain. It was never really a problem, I just got fed up of being stared at and people running over to say "Hallo-my-friend-how-are-you-todaay". At one point a teenage lad followed me after I'd told him I didn't want to buy anything. He just stayed walking next to me so I stopped to look in a window, and he just hovered around. So I leaned against a lamp-post and stared at him untill he started walking up the street, looking over his shoulder to see which way I went. I let him go a bit then zig-zagged down a few side streets. 10 minutes later he was behind me again. It is only a small town so it didn't take him long to find me. I let him follow me down a quiet road and then I jumped out at him from a doorway asking him "What the f*ck do you want, you little f*cker?" and he just ran away. It was just annoying more than anything else, and perhaps I was more sensitive to it having just arrived in the country.

A Swiss couple I met at the campsite who were touring on motorbikes had told me about a campsite in the Imperial City in Meknes they were heading to. Meknes is a bigger town. People are used to seeing foreigners, but I'd heard
it didn't have the hassle of some of the bigger cities so I decided to head there. I spent one last day in Chefchouen where I followed a rocky path up a mountain on the bike. I went up as far as the snowline, then carried on on
foot. It was lovely up there, fantastic views, clear and bright and cool. At the top I flaked out in the snow for a few minutes before heading back down. The following morning I got up and headed for Meknes.

The ride to Meknes from Chefchouen was magical. Morocco is a surprisingly green and verdant country. Its very scenic. After coming down from the mountains there were miles and miles of gently rolling, unfenced grassland.
I don't think it was actually grass, more probably a grain crop, but it was a very bright green. The swiss guy suggested cous-cous. That's semolina isn't it?

The roads are so quiet it was easy to overtake the ancient Berliet and Bedford trucks that trundled around. There wasn't much else on the roads, the odd old Mercedes taxi and some more modern cars as well, but still very quiet by our standards.

You see things in Morocco that have long since disappeared in Europe: shepherds and goatherds minding small flocks by the roadside. People travelling by donkey, or donkey and cart. I saw a blacksmith hammering at an
anvil and later on, on the way to Casablanca I saw people broadcasting seeds in the fields.

After such an enjoyable ride through the countryside, Meknes was big and busy and dusty. The campsite is located within a bewildering series of medieval fortifications that I still haven't got my head around fully. Passing through the archways in the walls you come into big courtyards, now tarmaced, and you have to go out through another fortified archway. It was built hundreds of years ago by 25 000 captives of a ruthless sultan called Moulay Ismail.
At the campsite each morning we see jet fighters shooting off toward the desert to practice manouvers, and we see them come back in again later on. Its just like Rock the Casbah!

On my first day in Meknes I went with the Swiss couple to a huge site of Roman ruins at a place called Volublis not far from here. It was the furthest southern outpost of the Roman empire and is famous for its intact mosaic floors. It was a good day out in nice weather but the site is so big after a while you start to wonder how many photos of intact Roman mosaic floors a guy needs.

The 2nd day (I think) was spent poring over the maps, comparing notes with the swiss couple about intended routes, and fixing the problem with my accessory socket on the bike (as the guy had a voltmeter) so I can now charge phone and batteries from my bike. In theory at least.

I needed to get my Mauritanian visa extended so I got up one day and headed to Casablanca. That was another great ride. I took a detour along a very remote road through the hills. I went through places where people wore very colourful traditional clothes. At one point I came to a bend in the road where perhaps two hundred people were gathered, men and women, and perhaps half as many again donkeys. There was nothing at that bend, just the people
and the donkeys, so I'm not sure what the gathering was about. I figured it was maybe something to do with the donkeys, but I'm not sure. I got some curious looks, but the people parted and moved the donkeys out of the way
and let me chug through.

After a while I got a little bored of the rolling unfenced landscape and it started to rain turning the road muddy. One town I passed through was a real muddy hole. The road itself was badly broken up and next to the road was just mud as far as the buildings. As I picked my way slowly through people stopped their conversations to stare at me silently from under their hoods. I thought Clint Eastwood was about to walk out to meet me in the middle of the road.

Further on a policeman stepped out into the road and waved me down. He asked a few questions in French which I answered, and then he asked me something I didn't understand, which I also told him. He looked at his mate and rolled his eyes and I wasn't sure he believed me when I told him I didn't understand. I asked him directions to Casablanca which kept him talking for a minute, then I said "Merci Beaucoup" and rode off before he could give me
any grief.

By the time I reached Casablanca both the bike and me had been covered in mud and had had it all washed off again by the rain. Casablanca has a population of 5 million people and I arrived just in time for my first African rush hour. In town there are so many horns beeping you can't tell which ones are intended for you. The first few minutes are a bit scary as there are few discernable rules but you soon learn to go on the offensive, and before you know it you've got your thumb on the horn beeping at things to get out of your way. I say things because its not all cars, trucks and mopeds. Its donkey carts, handcarts, the odd horse.

They have these little motorised tricycles with one wheel at the back and two at the front. The back half is the remains of some old two stroke motorbike and the front is a flat bed for carrying goods. These things get overloaded with all sorts of stuff, and the drivers are madmen. You'll be moving along with the traffic and all of a sudden you become aware of some cardboard boxes or a sofa closing in on you fast, with some little fella doing his best to peer over the top of it as he drives. Keeping immediately behind one of these guys is a good idea though.

I parked the bike up on a busy street outside a big hotel, at the end of a row of mopeds. There was a consiege on the door and a guy who takes a Dirham to sit by the bikes and look after them. It was as good a place to park the bike as I could see. I knew I'd be staying overnight so I gave the guy 2 Dirhams. I locked it up and put the alarm on and went off to find my hotel.

The hotel was an old French colonial building listed in the loney planet budget section. Sure enough it was clean and reasonably priced and the room had a balcony and en suite. It was nice to have a bit of luxury amid all the camping.

I found the Mauritanian consulate the next morning. I would have to leave my passport there and collect it the following morning, which meant another night in Casablanca. After trudging round in the rain I found the Moroccan
agent for my satellite phone and bought some credit. Then I went to check on the bike. I rounded the corner by the big hotel and saw the row of mopeds. That was all. No big orange motorbike at the end of it.

The guy I gave the dirhams to realized very quickly he'd better tell me very quickly where my motorbike was. The cold, sickening feeling I had felt when I saw the bike was missing was turning into something much less passive. I
was honestly about to blow when the consiege came running over with a worried looking guest from the hotel, whom he had dragged out to translate.

It turns out they don't mind the mopeds that are parked there overnight. People take them home in the evenings. Despite my bike being locked and alarmed they didn't want to leave it out front overnight, so they had locked
it away in a yard round the back. It took three men to lift it and they wanted 50 dirhams payment. I explained they didn't tell me they would do that and it would have been OK to leave it anyway, but really I was just glad it hadn't been nicked. They accepted 30 dirhams and pointed me to an overnight carpark, which cost 20 dirhams. After calming down a bit and drying off back at the hotel I headed to an internet cafe for a couple of hours to sit out the downpour.

Casablanca is nothing like the movie, not now anyway. If you were expecting somewhere dusty and exotic and beautiful you'd be disappointed. It is none of those things. OK maybe its dusty, but while I was there it was raining
hard. Its not without its charms though. I liked it for all its gritty, industrial flavours. It felt like a real city, bustling, functioning and full of life. Pretty much the only sight listed to see is a huge modern mosque built on the outskirts of the city. It may have been interesting to see some modern craftsmanship but its location ruled it out for me, given the time I had.

By my second evening I knew my way round fairly well as its built like a french city, with all roads meeting at a huge central round-about, and I'd done quite a bit of trudging round.

After a meal and another walk around I found a bar that looked just right. Not to glitzy - not at all glitzy - but clean and well run just the same. The guy that ran it was a canny old dog, you could see it in his face. He looked everyone who came in up and down to make sure they'd be suitable for his bar. When I went in a got the feeling I was on probation, but I think after a while he figured I was a sit-at-the-bar-and-drink-my-beer kind of a guy, and he was OK. Other people who came in weren't so lucky. If they were a bit too loud, or he didn't like the look of them he would frown at them, and serve them with a show of complete reluctance, and glare at them while they drank. After they left he would smile and go back to chatting with the regulars.

It was nice to sit there and reflect for a couple of hours, staring into my Stork Bierre De Luxe, watching the people in the bar and dodging the rain outside. There was good Moroccan music playing quietly and on the back bar there were black and white photos of Casablanca in the old days. From the cars in the shots I'd say they were taken in the 1930s. It looked beautiful then. It looked like Perpignon; there were pristine white buildings, neat streets and well dressed people stepping off trams.

That day I'd seen a lot of poverty. People begging and earning money on street, selling single cigarettes, shoeshines that kind of thing. I'd had some minor hassle but then I probably stood out a bit. I had the only ginger beard in Casablanca. And I saw a woman pissing in the street. But I'd also seen a city that was thriving as well, office workers commuting to and from work, businesses flourishing. I accepted that I might have arrived in Casablanca eighty years too late, but I liked it just the same.

I stopped only for my passport and a couple of photos on my way back to Meknes. I've been here over a week now. I'm glad I've stayed a bit of time in one place as you see things you wouldn't pick up on if you were just passing through. The thing about Morocco being a country of contradictions really is true.

Here in Meknes there is a fantastic medina of little alleys and shops to wander through. Its like a labyrinthine market you couldn't possibly hope to know your way around without living here. I have wondered for hours through there. Most of what is for sale is your usual market stuff, cheap clothes and shoes and plastic washbasins etc. But there are areas which specialize more. You can see furniture being made by hand with old men carving bewilderingly complex patterns seemingly from memory.

In other "stalls" you can see clothes for sale at the front and in the back there will be a dozen people sat together cross-legged stitching incredibly quickly. I didn't get any hassle at all in the medina, or any pushy sales stuff. People are quite happy to let you wander round and take it all in. I've heard that isn't the case in F?s or Marrakesh.

I went through a section that was full of chickens and eggs. If you wanted to you could buy a chicken, have it killed and plucked, then stuffed and roasted and then you could eat it along with some of the eggs it had laid that morning. There was another area that was all metalworking shops. Piles of scrap were being systematically broken down and just as fast gates, roof-racks and furniture were coming out the other end. I saw a sofa frame made from the spiral rods that reinforce concrete being carried into an upholsterers. At the front of the upholsterers completed sofas were for sale. I sat in one. It was comfortable and looked well made. It seemed heavy and strong. I saw people making patterned tabletops from broken tiles, and people making jewelery and it just went on and on. The medina here is a fascinating place, but my advice is bring a compass.

While the medina is clearly a very old place, the doorways alone tell you that, Meknes has a modern element to it as well. There are western shops and bars with men and women patronising both, and people driving fancy cars. And so this contradictions thing hits you again. Also, sometimes you are suspicious of people who approach you, because of the odd hassles you get. But often people just want to know where you are from and to say "Welcome to Morocco". They shake your hand and off they go.

A couple of times I have been approached by dodgy looking blokes and they just wanted to know how fast my motorbike would go. Everyone seems to speak Arabic and French, and many speak English or Spanish as well. I've stopped for directions a couple of times and the person has started off by running through a list of European languages for me to choose from.

Morocco is a really interesting country, certainly to me, and I haven't really even seen that much of it yet. When my oil filters arrive from england and I've serviced the bike, I think I will head across the Atlas mountains somehow and head down the east side of the country. I'm not sure yet when that will be. I want to get moving again, but there again, whats the rush?