We will do our best to keep you entertained and to inspire you Hola Mario! que bueno saber de ti! Hi Paul!
I have realized over the years that each long motorcycle journey is like growing a tree. The rider and his bike are the seed. In order for the seed to grow it needs soil, water and light. I have found Advrider to be the most fertile soil for any rider willing to venture out in the world. The community in this forum is like an extended family always providing the encouragement, support and advice needed. I would like to dedicate this thread to all the Advriders that have supported me to "grow". I would like to dedicate this post to Cooltours who is currently going out of his way to help me ship the bike from Switzerland to Cape Town while I'm here in Indonesia. Thank you very much! I owe you one I got the picture above from Cooltours when the biked arrived at his house. His daughter is making sure that all is under control. The bike will be shipped to Cape Town in the upcoming days
Motivation: Every 60 seconds, a child in Africa dies of malaria. According to the World Health Organization, 216 million people suffered from malaria in 2010; 655,000 of them died, and 85 percent of the dead were children under 5 years old. Innocent children are dying of a disease that can be prevented and cured. Project Description & Objectives: We will document our experiences meeting malaria patients, health workers and caregivers across Africa in order to increase malaria awareness among young professionals in developed and developing countries. We will use our background in the healthcare industry to help drive innovation, expand mutual knowledge-sharing and help achieve malaria elimination. Strategy: We will travel across Africa on a motorcycle, visiting rural villages, health clinics and health organizations. We will contact media channels as we travel to share the lessons learned and to publicize an online platform that enables knowledge-sharing, facilitates research and promotes constructive debate to drive innovation at www.researchmalaria.com Journey Overview: The Ride for Malaria starts in January 2013. We will travel across 11 countries in Africa, from Cape Town to Cairo. The trip will last approximately 6 months or more, depending on funding. Riders: Salvador Carlucci and Tarciana Caricio grew up in developing countries and were fortunate to advance both academically and professionally overseas. We both have worked in the healthcare industry. We are grateful for the opportunities life has given us and feel compelled to give back to a cause we believe in. The bike: A BMW F800GS built in 2008. It was used by the dealer as a demo bike and I bought it in 2009. Since then I've used it for a few rides in preparation to the Ride for Malaria. Below is a picture of a trip to Tunisia where I got to play in the Sahara Dessert.
feliz navidad Salvador, hope you are having a good time and ready to ride very soon, Africa is an amazing place that i know having lived there twice myself. As you are doing your ride for a cause it is just an added bonus for all the people that you share this with and others that have the opportunity to meet you as you head north thru an amazing continent
First of all Happy New Year everyone! Second, I have no words to express the excitement to know that CoolTours dropped the bike at Swiss Air Cargo just a few minutes ago and the bike is ready to be shipped to Cape Town. These past few weeks have been a roller coaster of emotions. A good mix of frustration, gratefulness, excitement and also quite a bit of concern. As we get closer to reaching Africa the fear of something going wrong is increasing and also I'm a bit worried of riding in new third world countries where I don't speak the language. On the other hand it is hard to believe that I'm finally riding across Africa like many before me have done. Riding in Africa is a dream that started several years back and it was fueled by many ride reports on this site. Today I feel extremely fortunate that life has given me this opportunity. Anyway, there are many things that I could ramble on about. Let me know how I can keep you entertain Any particular topics that you want me to cover? If not I'll try to keep you posted on my progress. Thank you cooltours and I look forward to seeing more pics
bring it on! In South Africa, go onto www.wilddog.za.net, to talk to local adventure riders, for help, onformation, or just to meet some locals, enjoy,,,
Well, yes, it is true; the bike is crated and there is no other direction for it anymore but southbound, at least for a bunch of thousands of miles. BUT : Just to let readership know; I kind of had to convince her quiet a bit into this big adventure. Well, not alt least what beemer leaves behind is not less than this to be exchanged against who knows what loads of uncertainity, very, very hard work and thousands of miles of dirtroads crossing countless deserts, jungles or bushland all that on foreign soil Is this REALY what you want? I asked. The answer came short anyway: YES, I DO! Not surprising to me at all, as exactly this IS the pure natural environment for such rig as an almost brand new 800GS is. It also might have helped to decide, as for this afternoon rain is announced and for tomorrow a dramatically drop of the temperatures is the outlook. So I went down to the garage early this morning. The plan was simple, getting her naked: Unscrewing the windshield and mirrors made her look, well, nude. Than I started to pack everything into the last free space inside of the topbox. This, of course, not before having wrapped everything carefully into some (Italian) newspaper, which already made a great job on covering finest Italian Salami for the transportation from mother in laws home in northern Italy to what, for the motorcyclist at least, is the Heart of Europe. The rest of the panniers have been packed full to the top a bunch of days before already. The box than went straight up to be attached to the bike and the only thing left to do was somehow strapping Salcars helmet and ridingjacket onto the pillow. Ready! As I find, shes looking quiet sexy the way she currently looks. Even more; Riding a GS in its travel-trim, loaded and ready for a lot of dirt, adventures and unknown ground, gosh yes! THAT feels simply fantastic! Seriously: I find these motorcycles by far smoother and more comfortable, even more safe to ride in the trim they have been designed for, though they are already awesome to ride w/o any load and on pavement. After only a few meters out of the shelter of an ugly grey, concrete, unheated garage in Zuerichs suburbs, troubles popped up! Big. This picture shows all three of theme at once: 1. Almost noon. I wont make it in time to the airport before their lunchbreak. 2. 3°C thats 37.4°F Thats not only f..n cold, but gets also close to be dangerous. And finally, 3. This is what worries me most: The tank is half full, still! The guys from Swiss clearly pointed out: That the tank must be nearly empty for the airfright . Well, still with even the best willing, this is sure NOT nearly empty. Darn! The bike has been services before christmass and instructions was clear: Hook of the battery and leave one liter of gaz in the tank only . Thatd be the moment to use the first words I learned in English to describe what went through my mind. So I went over to the do-it-yourself shop and bought a pump to pump a bit of gaz over to my car. To keep even this part of the story short: I failed. But back to the delivery now. I missed to be there before noon, arrived at the warehouse 15 before they opened for the afternoonshift. So I decided to burn a bit of gaz and made a short loop around the airport for some last pics: Than I was back at the warehouse right when they opened the gate: Swiss Cargo is specialized in shipping motorcycles worldwide. I have seen their booth on many motorcycle-shows within the last few years and the few short but precise instructions gave us already a very good feeling about their professionality. It felt very good here, like being awaited and very much appreciated. All here just was waiting for us, the GS and its bringer. One guy showed me how to get onto the ramp and into the hall, than he called Bettina, the lady from swiss-cargo which Salcar was dealing with via email. Only a few minutes later, the four of us, including Bettina , started to fix the bike onto the pallet. A thing of 10 only maybe, intentionally extended by all involved, just because of the pure pleasure and excitement this situation and all the phantasies one can have all around this thing. All in all after half an hour, the thing was fixed, wrapped, packed and tagged and all what was left to do was taking pics, as all of us know of course about the duty of reporting to he interested public, which comes with an undertaking like this. The very nice, kind, professional and down to earth guys from swiss-cargo: Now, Salva, Traci... its your turn! I am full of respect for your undertaking and also the fact you are dedicating a part of your trip to a greater, humanitarian purpose fits perfect in my picture. Good luck to you! Well gladly welcome you after your return for the first Cervelat-Salad which for sure you miss already now;-)
Cooltours thank you for updating the thread! We haven't talked much and I was curious to know the details about how it went with the Swiss Cargo guys. I'm glad that it was a smooth process. In less than 24 hours we will be boarding the plane from Bali, to Singapore to Johannesburg to Cape Town. Johan, from Horizonsunlimited will be waiting for us and I think we will go directly to the cargo terminal to see if we can get the bike out and hit the road early next week.
After a very long flight from Bali to Cape Town fellow rider Johan Naude was there waiting for us. Luckily we we arrived early in the morning and we headed directly to customs to pick-up the bike. The process was very smooth and a lot easier than many other customs that I have been through. In about 1 hour the bike had clear all the paper work, we unpacked it, hooked up the battery and put back the windshield and mirror. Johan lives in Worcester about 120 km outside of Cape Town so I got to ride It was the perfect day with blue sky, perfect temperature, amazing scenery and little traffic. I'll post more pics and more details soon. Above is Tarci with the bike. We still need to buy Tarci's riding gear and ship some stuff home. As soon as we do that we will start riding along the coast and then up north.
As we finalize all the gear and discuss with Johan our route we decided to go for a 360 KM (approx. 230 miles) loop around the mountains, vineyards and ocean. Here are a few pics of the ride: Today we hope to finish buying the gear for Tarci, then tomorrow get a GPS (mine somehow didn't make to South Africa) and the day after we start heading North/East.