Tour d'Afrique - and then some

I understand the concern if you're leaving home for a 2-weeks vacation. For me it's really a non-issue, I just eat where everybody's eating. It feels just like going to Taco Bell in the US, no worse, no better. (disclaimer: I've never been sick in Taco Bell, it's just an example). What you have to understand is this:

1. If you're stepping out of the plane and immediately head for the nearest curry in New Delhi or a plate of grilles fish in Kinshasa, you're asking for trouble. When you're overlanding, you're taking it slow, allowing your body to adjust progressively to new kind of bacteria. At the end of the day, there's no reason you should be more sick than the millions of locals who're eating in the same place. Although of course, they do get sick from time to time.

2. Conversely, when I get back to Switzerland I'll pretty immediately eat a nice cheese fondue, with lots of white wine and booze, as it should. And I will get pretty sick, I already know it. Because my stomach isn't used to it anymore - cheese is pretty darn hard to digest in big quantities.

3. Sometimes you just don't have a choice. If your vacation is a tour of touristy places and nice hotels, chances are that you'll be able to eat pizzas and steaks everyday. But out there in the bush in Africa, tough luck. You might try to cook for yourself, but that's just a huge PITA when food is available everywhere for next to nothing.

4. One reason I go overland on a bike and do it slow, is to be able to immerse in new countries and get a good feeling of it. Food is an important part of this experience, and I wouldn't miss it for anything. Even if it does actually sucks, like in DRC. But over there, there was actually no choice, I wasn't carrying food for 2 weeks on my bike.

5. If I have to spend a couple days in the loo because I ate something foul, that's no big deal - I'll get over it - although I'd rather do it in a hotel room with a private bathroom of course, which doesn't happen very often. On the other hand, wasting 2 days of your 8 days vacation is really a bummer.

That said, I must admit that I've been lucky to not get sick (yet.. knock on wood) in this trip. Likewise I haven't gotten malaria, haven't been hit by a speeding bus or mugged by a thief, etc..

Bon appétit!

During my trip break in France, I stocked up on some parts that are hard to get here. I brought a rear tyre of course, I knew the one I put in Lubumbashi wouldn't last the rest of the trip. I had this TKC 80 that was in storage in France, and as I was pretty happy about it I took it with me when I returned to Cameroon. The one that was on was still OK so I tied the new one the back and carried on. As it turned out, it would last all the way to Ouagadougou, where my girlfriend was to meet me, and I could have spared the burden of carrying the new one and asked her to bring it with here to Ouaga (the nice thing about Africa-bound flights is that you have pretty high baggage allowance). Instead I asked her to bring me a front one, a Pirelli MT21.

I didn't really plan my trip further along in much detail, and this is how I like it. So it just happened that since I left Cameroon and crossed to Nigeria (on a perfectly good road, not on the infamous Mamfé - Ekok stretch), I rode mainly on surfaced roads, or pretty good gravel. I've had to ride a few patches of soft sand, but really not that much. So my knobby tyres weren't of much use, even worse, they wore out pretty fast. This is a trade-off I was willing to make until now. I'm avoiding mud at all cost, but still the added traction and better control made the riding on gravel so much more fun. The Heidenau K60 experience in South Africa hasn't been convincing. On the other hand I knew from my riding in the mountains of Albania (gee, that now seems quite a while ago..) that I could perfectly do pretty bad roads on "trail"-like treading, like the Scorpion. After DRC, Gabon and Cameroon I didn't expect much crappy roads, but maybe some sand up there in the Sahel. Mauritania is either tar of deep sand, and I don't fancy the latter.

In retrospect therefore I should probably have brought a more street-oriented and longer-lasting tyre, such has the Mitas E-90, which I've been told about. An added benefit is lower fuel usage and less noise. On the front side, which always lasts at least 50% longer, the TCK 80 started to wear off in a very uneven way, every other knob much more worn that the other, and in a very slanted manner. Not sure why it is so, but it doesn't look good. It still gives good control, but the noise on tar is dreadful.



Fortunately while driving around in Ouaga I found a motorbike dealer who had a few big bikes on display, a couple Ténéré and even a V-max (?wtf?). I stopped by and spotted a still pretty good Pirelli Scorpion A/T, that I quickly haggled for 20€ and my old TKC-80.



Meanwhile I've had three punctures in a row in the rear tyre, in Benin and Burkina. Two in fact, the last one was due to a previous patch that tore off. The puncture under it had split and was now a long cut in the tube. I decided to swap it for my spare one. It might just have been bad luck, but that led me to think that the tyre was growing too thin and was more prone to letting a nail through. When my girlfriend arrived I decided to swap the rear for the new TKC, but keep the old one in storage here, as we would come back to Ouaga for Cécile to fly back to France. That bought me a bit more stability riding two-up, but after our 2500 km round trip through Mali we'd done maybe only 25% of it on gravel, and that was pretty good gravel. The rest was tar, so the knobby one was really unnecessary. Back in Ouaga, I'm heading down to Ivory Coast and Guinea. Ouaga - Abidjan is a bit over 1000 km, so I have probably about 1500 km until I reach the possibly bad roads in the far west. In Guinea I'll be using mostly main roads, except for the Fouta Djalon, but this is supposed to be the dry season..(?) Senegal will be mostly good roads and Mauritania almost all tar, all the way to the mountains of Morocco.

If I can shave 2000km off the old tyre, I should be good with the other one until Morocco. The front MT21 is actually pretty aggressively knobby, that wasn't the smartest choice. But it's light, I'll carry it along until I find a good reason to use it.



So much for rubber, but my other concern was the chain. Unexpectedly, it started to get pretty lose soon after I headed out of Douala back from France. It's a high-grade DID X-ring that I put in Durban, South Africa. Even though it had like 18'000 km when I arrived in Ouaga, I could pull the links a few mm off the sprocket. Unlike what I had reckoned, in won't survive the rest of the trip. Damn, I don't know what happened, the BMW chain lasted like 40'000 km.. I haven't oiled it much, as I did with the other one, that's my theory for the maintenance of chains in dry/dusty environments. I thought a lot about it, but I couldn't miss the opportunity of Cécile flying down here so I asked her to bring along a full chain set. The rear sprocket was OK but funny enough the front one was pretty worn too. Maybe because it's a 16-teeth, or possibly because it's aftermarket ?



Once Cécile had arrived, I went back to the workshop with the big bikes, and asked the guys to give me a hand with the chain. The BMW chain is continuous, which is good because I don't have to worry about the master link getting lose (although it's never happened to me), but it means I have to remove the swing arm. This in itself is not so hard - if you have the right Torx bit of course.. I had to fence off the dudes here who wanted to work on it with a hex key, they didn't really see the difference! But to put it back on was a major PITA, requiring the help of two other guys to align the swing arm and drive the axle back in.

That should be my last pit stop of the trip - oil change excluding. The clutch is a bit "edgy", it shows that it's been through a lot, but it will do until I come back home for an overhaul. The last issue popped up on the way to Bamako: the sidestand switch eventually (and unsurprisingly) started to act up, It would come and go and the engine would stutter. I was ready to cut off the wires and short them, but a good clean-up of the switch itself was enough to get rid of it (so far so good).

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Superbes photos! Merci beaucoup!

Burkina Faso is just a small hop away. The border is crossed in short ordeal, after which I spotted one "Safari camp" sign. Hey why not, let's go and see. The campement is a few km off the main road next to a lake. It's a rather upmarket affair in a beautiful setting; it's empty, I look for the manager and I start to negotiate a stay here. He wouldn't budge on the price for the rooms, but he agrees on me camping on the parking lot; it's not cheap but what's the heck, there's a small pool and ice-cold beer!



He explains to me that the place will start to get customers from Christmas, rich Whites (French, mainly) who come here to hunt. The big draw is to kill a lion, of which they have about 70 in their private reservation. I look a bit puzzled, but it sounded like they're actually managing their business is a responsible manner, allowing only a handful of kills every year (he wouldn't tell me how much that would cost, but I'd guess 10'000 - 15'000 € for a lion). They're more concerned about the elephants, of which they have too many, because the international treaties ban all killing of elephant. They'd like to be granted an exception like Kenya, where they're allowed to control their expansion.



The next day I arrive in Ougadougou, where my girlfriend will join me for a few weeks. I settle at the OK Inn, a hotel where they allow overlanders to camp for free. As a campground it really sucks, it is set inside a closed parking for trucks waiting to pass the customs, moving around in the middle of the night, and right at the end of the airport's runway (interestingly, the airport is bang in the middle of the town, but that's not much a nuisance as there are just a handful of flights every day). But the price is right.. there's even free wi-fi!



Arriving in Ouaga is a shock, just about every other African capital sucks big time, it's always a mess of pollution, chaotic traffic and stressed out people. Here it's the opposite, everything is pretty subdued. There are such unbelievable things such as dedicated lanes for bikes and traffic lights that people abide by, even when there's no police in sight. Mind-blowing. It's probably friendlier to ride here than in Naples or Marseille! Despite that (or probably because of that) it is also ever so boring, and there's no other overlanders in the hotel to swap stories with.



I shop around for a bike mechanic (see next installment), and make plans for the next visas I need. Mali is easy, a temporary visa cab be bought at the border. The Ghana embassy is willing to make an exception to the rule and sell me a visa anyway, but I'm not sure I want to go there, it's a bit too beaten of a path for me. Ivory Coast is the way to go, now that the war is over. The thing is, they have put in place a very complicated and expensive system of "biometric visa". It costs over 100€ in France to get it.. but there's a trick: the passport office here in Ouaga is issuing the (in)famous and elusive "visa tourisitique d'entente", a five-countries visa that also covers Ivory Coast. It's 25'000 CFA (around 38€) and valid for 1 entry in each country for 2 months. Nice. There's no embassy for Guinea and Senegal, because there's no common border I guess, but I'll be able to sort that out in Bamako.



Cécile arrives only in a few days so make a short trip down to Tiebele for a bit of "cultural tourism". The place is OK, there are some remains of the local culture but it's a bit bland and kept alive artificially for tourism. Which is nice per se, but the touristy thing shows too much. They tell me there would be a big party for Christmas Eve, although they're not much Christian. The party turned out to be a single place with lousy sound reinforcement and a pseudo-famous Ghanian singer who speaks a lot and lip-dubs on taped songs. Yech.



Back at the OK Inn in Ouaga there's still nobody in the campground. I take a nice room in another hotel in Ouaga and go wait for Cécile in the single-hall Ouagadougou international airport. Once again the customs make no difficulties with her baggages (tyre, chain, the usual tourist stuff..) and she's cleared in an hour or so, i.e., just the time necessary to fetch the baggages and put them on the conveyer belt. I was looking forward to seeing her, sometimes it's just better to be traveling with somebody, I get to see stuff I wouldn't go to if I were alone. We both wanted to visit Mali and in particular Dogon country. We had some discussions following the recent abductions and the killing of a tourist in Timbuktu, coming to the same conclusion that it was a one-off banditry thing and that the south of the country, where the interesting places are, present no particular problem. Usually I'm usually not into the heavy touristy places, and Mali is definitely the most touristy country in West Africa, but for the last couple years most tour operators have stopped going there, following the security warnings issued by the French and other foreign ministries. Therefore it might turn out to be actually a good window of opportunity to visit these spots in a more calm and authentic way.

outstanding can't believe an advrider actually passed through my country! (Nigeria) Your comments on fuel being smuggled from Nigeria to Cameroon are interesting because they - (Nigeria's mostly corrupt leaders protected from the wrath of the mostly uneducated and impoverished people by the machine gun toting cops) - removed the subsidy as you noted.

I'm amazed at how calm and peaceful Cameroon and our other neighbours are.....we were much less violent as a nation until oil was discovered and we've been suffering from the effects of the "dutch curse" ever since. Our Agricultural industry has died off since oil was disvovered. Youths feel helpless as the political system is very corrupt. in fact i'll use this forum to ask my fellow riders what would u do if u were born here and care what happens?

I really hope and pray we come out of our problems in Nigeria, thanks for passing through and happy rides on the rest of your trip wish you safety and favour IJN.

in Mali, Mopti, Segou, Djene are interesting towns. Not sure if safe to travel there these days (I was there in the late 80s). Went back to the very beginning of this RR and admit, it is one of the best ones I have read on ADV! thank you again for sharing

Hello Laurent,
thanks again for your interesting stories and pics of your long ride. I've been for 2 or three times in Quaga in the years 1982-1985, when it was still called Ouagadougou in Haute Volta. In this time it was a "big village" with relaxed and friendly people, even the taxi drivers have been correct. The traffic was low and the airport was outside the city (all in comparison with other african cities par ex. Abidjan). It is amusing now with a lot of years that passed to see that there was not a great change, in opposite of other capitals in this edge of the world. Kinshas was exploding from 4 mio. to more than 10 mio. habitants and the infrastructure has not kept pace.
I'm shure you will have a good time in western Africa and your visit to the Dogons.
Curious about your next post.
Ride on.
Nelliedriver

Hoi my hommy

stunning man, I love your report keep it coming!

Amazing adventure. Thanks for taking the time write it up.

Hi there,
quick update, since the internet connections are so unreliable. Yeah, I'm still a few weeks behind on the RR. I've arrived in Senegal, you may have heard of unrest in Dakar, but it's very quiet here in the bush. Still, I'll stay put for a few days until after this sunday's election and things calm down. I'll then be able to catch up on what's happened between then and now.

In the mean time, here are just a few random pictures from last weeks to keep you wating (and guessing; no, they're not geotagged..)

Great! Looking forward to the update.

Hi Laurent, I met you at sleeping camel Bamako, it seems we just missed each other, you were in Ouaga 2 weeks ago, I arrived here on monday, I'm staying at 'Le Pavillon Vert' owned by French biker Guillaume.
I'll be on my way to Ghana in a few days.

Lovely report, keep it up!

www.tony-roundafrica.blogspot.com

Hi Tony,
I read about you getting up and close with African law enforcement.. happy to see it all ended well. I'm looking forward to reading the rest of your trip.
Happy riding

In December, the weather in Burkina isn't very hot. And it becomes truly cold when the Harmattan blows. Harmattan is a cold, dry and dusty wind blowing from North, from the Sahara. The temperature goes down to 10-15 degrees at night, the dry air parches your skin and upsets your nostrils, and the dust blocks up the sky and irritates our eyes. For me, I just caught a good old cold. Not nice really.



I had shed some weight by leaving behind some non-essential, and off we go with Cécile as pillion. Our objective is the famous Dogon country, which is actually easier to reach from Ouaga than from Bamako. The road to the Malian border is good tar and good gravel, so pretty easy and fun. As we reach the border in the friggin' fraîcheur (coolness in African French), wearing a sweater under our jacket for the first time for a long time, I meet the first overlander biker for quite a while: an funky Italian dude who wasn't really in the mood to chat. The paperwork is quickly processed with any fuss, no asking for carnet by the Malians. They sell us a 48-h temporary visa, so the first task will will be to extend it in Mopti, on the shore of the Niger river.



The ride brings us on a very nice gravel road up the Bandiagara cliff (Dogon country) on a plateau, from we quickly reach Mopti. We stop on the way for a first glimpse of Dogon culture, venturing to a small village on the plateau through 1-spur pistes. The welcome is nice and we do what we're supposed to do: give out a few francs to a "guide" for him to lead us into the village.

We then head for the official Dogon tourist office and book a 3-days tour with them. It comes out not being cheap, but it feels just wrong to us to take advantage of the totally ruined tourist industry by haggling down to death. Those guys aren't responsible for AQMI and the war against Touareg rebels that have scared off all tourists.



This done we went to Mopti, a city famous for being a major trade center of the region. It also used to be very touristy, witness are the dozens of touts that jump on us like birds on a bleeding donkey.



That's not only annoying, but also ruining the ambiance. To top it up, the kids have learned that White people are willing to give out sweets, pens, small change, etc.. A far cry from the last countries I've been through.

There's still a lot to enjoy at the market. They sell everything that goes through here, including salt from the Sahara



mountain heaps of dried fish from the Niger



medication for every possible condition



.. and video games (well, not really).



We find a nice (but deserted) campement to pitch the tent and prepare for tonight's New Year's Eve. As it turns out, they don't really give a damn and there isn't much of a party going on there. One opportunity missed to get up the next morning with a hangover.

Hello

Hi Laurent, could you please write me what modifications did you make to you BMW, when you get the chance?
Did you put in new springs, like Touratech says for when you put new tank, also if you did which one?
Also I read in the manual of the tank, that you have to always put the bike on a main stand, with the new tank, so what does that mean exactly?
Also what kind of panniers did you use on your first leg of the journey?

Thank you in advance

Sure, I really haven't bothered to make many mods, apart from the extra tank and progressive fork springs, the set that's sold by Touratech. It works really well, but unfortunately I can't compare as I haven't tried the extra tank fully loaded with the stock springs - I changed both at the same time. The tank isn't absolutely necessary but it gives considerable peace of mind knowing that you don't need to stop at every fuel station to top up. Except for DRC, all countries I've visited have plenty of fuel stations - although Ethiopia and Malawi experienced severe fuel shortages and I was glad I had a 700km range. During the DRC crossing I would have needed more than that, so in any case I had to top up on the black market off jerrycans.

Another advantage is that the tank is protecting the radiator in case of crashes, and it is very robust so after numerous crashes it is only scratched - and the radiator is intact. The drawback is that it interferes with the riding position when standing up on the pegs.

It held up very well, only recently I have discovered a leak where the pipes connect with the base of the (stock) tank. I'll have to take it out to fix it. One thing that I noticed is the lid leaks pretty badly when the bike is leaning on its side, so when I crash with the tank full, my tank bag gets soaked with petrol. Not nice. So I can imagine that if you top up the tank to the brim when the bike is upright, then it will probably leak when put on the side stand. I would always fill it when the bike is on the side stand so I never had an issue with that - even though I might be losing 1/2 liter of capacity or so.

About the other mods:
- get rid of the useless paper air filter and fit a foam filter which is reusable, and extra filters in the snorkels.
- install a foldable gear selector
- add hand guards
- add some electric connectors wired directly to the battery
- install the low-octane fuel engine mapping
- change the seat for the BMW "comfort" seat
- the sump guard was standard on this model, the BMW aluminum one, a kit with LED indicators, heated grips and board computer

The hard panniers I installed were Caribou cases: The cases are very robust, but the rack is the weak link. It's great when new, but if you start to bend it with crashes then it's more and more difficult to straighten it back. After my crash with the car in Mozambique it was really badly bent; after much efforts I have been able to attach the cases back on it, but it became a bit of a pain really.

Hope I answered your questions. Cheers,
Laurent

Gosh it's been months I haven't updated the report. Now that I'm back home (no, really, it's no April fool's), I'll get to it, but don't expect anything very exciting, just nice riding in nice places. In the mean time, here's where I left off, thanks to Google it now looks very 80's Dakar...

Fantastic trip. Love the map. I spent a couple of years as a Peace Corps Volunteer in Togo, 1986-88. Travelled to Benin, Ghana, Burkina Faso & Niger. Brings back lots of memories to check in on your thread. Lots has changed, but lots has remained the same. Overall, beautiful and kind people in most of West Africa. Thanks again. Ride safe!

Felicitaciones y agradecimientos por tu gran y original reporte !!!!!!