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Overland with James

December 2016 - May 2017
A 156-day adventure by Overland with James Read more
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  • 33footprints
  • 16countries
  • 156days
  • 150photos
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  • 7.5kmiles
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  • Overland with JamesOverland with James
    Day 39

    Nouadhibou

    January 8, 2017 in Mauritania ⋅ ☀️ 22 °C

    So I've arrived in mauritania. The adventure really begins. A short 3.5 hour border crossing. No corruption just spectacular bureacracy. One person gives you the form. Move forward into the compound. Complete form. Get form checked. Show form to police, they sign it. Take form to passport office get stamp. Show policeman stamp, go to customs get different stamp, show police etc etc ...and that's the Moroccan side. Mauritania includes a 1.5 hour wait for the visa while they finish lunch.

    Most spectacular though is I just pass the border and reach a military roadblock. Fiche demanded, then followed with a first question of "where are you coming from?".  I've come half a mile from the border and either side of the road is meant to have landmines! If my French was good enough I would have been so sarcastic.

    I'm now in Nouadhibou the second city, but a not very exciting place. The only redeeming feature was some really tasty street food. I also found out that the only campsite in the city closed after a German guy was robbed and killed a few years ago. Time to leave I think 🤔

    Good news is I've met some fellow bikers (Ferry and Gülçin) heading in the same direction, to Atar. First plan was to ride the desert piste there, but on more research none of us think we're good enough on sand. So we tried to ride the longest train in the world there, but when we turned up, we were invited into the train chief's office. The title of his department being 'Exploitation'! However they can't unload the bikes where we want to stop and we'd have to go to the end of the line and ride an equally sandy piste.  Instead, we're off to take the tar road via a 500km detour!    Read more

  • Overland with JamesOverland with James
    Day 45

    End of the road

    January 14, 2017 in Mauritania ⋅ 🌙 18 °C

    I've now reached the end of the road.... literally.  I'm in Ouadane, pronounced Wadan, an ancient caravan town in the proper Sahara.  To get here, the last 100 miles has been a corrugated piste where I saw a total of 2 families of camels, 1 4x4, 0 buildings and 0 people.

    I've also visited Chinguetti, Mauritania's cultural capital where there is a rather impressive 500+ year old library with ancient Islamic scripts and astrology charts.

    Other exciting snippets are;
    - My first real attempt at riding on sand.  Started well, then I unexplicably decided to pi k a route through the softest, loosest looking sand and promptly fell down. Crash #1. Slow, embarrassing, but painless. Luckily my new riding partners could help pick the bike back up and remind me they have it all filmed.
    - Getting the last laugh as Ferry and Gulcin run out of petrol and I have to rescue them.  Nearly every vehicle in Mauritania runs on diesel, so we have to carry lots of bottles of petrol to get us to the next station that hopefully has petrol.
    - Realising my army mess tins are slightly less useful to cook with when they dont have handles. Though vice grips make a pretty good substitute.
    - Half a day spent trying to compensate for my terrible French by acting out 'glue' and 'rubber hose'.
    - Half a day, using said glue and a needle and thread to repair my panniers that are suffering a little with all the bouncing up and down.

    Photos
    1) Aftermath of crash #1
    2) Street food in Atar
    3 & 4) Chinguetti library
    5 & 6) Road to and view from Ouadane    Read more

  • Overland with JamesOverland with James
    1
    Day 51

    Zebrabar

    January 20, 2017 in Senegal ⋅ 🌙 21 °C

    First stop a desert oasis in the Adrar gorge. It's nice to see something other than a panorama of sand. Then onto Senegal via a quick pitstop in Nouakchott, Mauritania's capital, to acquire a Mali visa. The only reason i want the Mali visa is so I can do a quick dash later to Bamako, Mali's capital, to get a Nigeria visa because every other Nigeria embassy insists on me getting the visa in the UK.

    The driving in Nouakchott is absolutely atrocious. I've driven / ridden in many places where people say it is chaotic or dangerous,  but my experience is normally that the locals ignore all rules, but actually drive with common sense and tend to be more aware of what's going on around them. Nouakchott is NOT like this, it's like the entire population has had a lobotomy from the part of the brain that promotes self preservation. Everyone drives like they're playing GTA.

    My next treat is to cross 2nd most notoriously corrupt border in Africa....on my birthday, but first we pass a national park with warthogs, which we saw and crocodiles, which we didnt ☺. The border was actually OK apart from the Mauritania customs guy who wanted 10 euro each to stamp the bikes out. He didn't take so well to me pointing out his vehicle records book had 25 entries for the day before, but his receipt book only had 5, at which point he gets angry and says he's the custom chief and tells us to go to another border (the even more corrupt one). Ferry's and my response is to say, OK we will wait here for the stamp.... right in the middle of your office. An hour later, after some concillatory conversation ("where were you born, how many children do you have, you're very successful to have such an important job, Mauritania is a good country, it's my birthday today etc") we finally get our stamp for free.

    Once over the border it becomes clear how different mauritania and senegal are, in senegal there are so many colours, so many more people and everyone seems an extrovert.  Now I'm at the famous overlanding spot near St Louis called Zebrabar with a birthday beer and I've seen my first wild monkey. The view here is pretty damn good.

    Photos
    1) Terjit oasis
    2) Adrar gorge
    3 & 5) View from Zebrabar
    4 & 6) The city of St Louis, the former capital of French West Africa    Read more

  • Overland with JamesOverland with James
    Day 54

    Lac Rose detour

    January 23, 2017 in Senegal ⋅ ⛅ 20 °C

    So a night was planned at the famous Lac Rose where a mixture of salinity, bacteria and sunlight mean the water turns pink. However there have been a few issues with this.
    1) The road the mapping app suggested for the last 5 miles ranged from horrific to non existent. Picture the good bits - the kind of sand where the front wheel slides from rut to rut, while the back fishtails along. The bad bits being flat out desert type sand where I've got the throttle open, I'm bouncing up and down over the rear wheel to get traction, meanwhile half the village is getting covered in what's being kicked up from the rear, all while moving forward at half walking pace, with a rather large audience at times.
    2) The plan was to arrive at dusk, but because of the conditions, most of this riding is done in the dark.
    3) The bloody lake isn't even pink the next day when we see it!
    4) Leaving in the morning, all we had to do was ride 2 miles on a hardcore road, then turn onto tar...much easier.

    Photos
    1) The unpink lake
    2 & 3) Sights on the way there. Unfortunately the gopro was out of charge for the sandy bits.    Read more

  • Overland with JamesOverland with James
    Day 56

    Dakar

    January 25, 2017 in Senegal ⋅ 🌙 19 °C

    I love Dakar. It has a real intensity and busyness with everyone seeming to have a purpose. Aside from Fes and Marrakech, it is the only city so far where most people are enjoying life rather than just moving from day to day. I joined in with the hustle and bustle and spend my 4 days here;
    Getting the Guinea visa;
    Visiting Ile-de-goree, the island where ships departed to take slaves to America;
    Haggling in the massive markets. I got quoted the equivalent of £100 for some Africa print trousers, I ended up paying £2.60 for them, and I still know that's too much;
    Searched for engine oil so I can do an oil change in a couple of weeks. This is surprisingly difficult as everyone just fills their bikes with car oil;
    Visited the most westerly point in Africa, which is predictably semi-occupied by the US embassy, a building big enough for about 1000 people;

    Also after 3 weeks it's time to say goodbye to Ferry and Gulcin 😭. They have 2 years to tour Africa, whereas my plan was 6 months, but I've now decided a year is definitely needed!

    Photos
    1&4) Africa's most westerly point
    2) View across Dakar to ile-de-goree
    3) Pirogue fishing boat    Read more

  • Overland with JamesOverland with James
    Day 60

    Q - How many people can a taxi carry?

    January 29, 2017 in Senegal ⋅ ☀️ 3 °C

    5 hours after leaving Ferry and Gulcin I spot a group of 12 bikes parked up. After a quick chat with the Polish/ Austrian group it turns out we're going to the same place, le petite cote. So we join up. The first night involves some typically Polish drinking which is an experience for my head and liver after hardly drinking for 6 weeks!

    The next day we go on a pirogue trip up the Saloum delta, but first we have to go to the next village which involves 12 people getting a ride from a battered old Peugeot 405. 2 in the front including the driver, 3 in the back, 2 in the boot, 6 on the roof, but before we can go anywhere the driver has the hammer the passenger door shut.

    The boat trip itself was great, seeing the mangrove swamps and lots of birds. The boat even got stuck on a sandbar on the way back so we all had to lean the boat perilously over towards the crocodile inhabited water. Most worryingly though my premium quality Africa print trousers have ripped.

    In the afternoon I have a little ride up and down the beach without all the baggage. The bike feels much better without all the extras bouncing up and down with it. After going up and down for ten miles I think it would be a good idea to get some dramatic video footage in front of the shipwreck. So I start being a yob and doing donuts in front of a shipwreck, predictably this ends up in me laying in the sand. Pick the bike up, and it won't start as I need to wait for the petrol to drain, meanwhile I tensly watch the tide come in and start lapping at the back wheel, but she starts. Then it turns out I actually pressed the wrong button and don't have it filmed.

    In the evening I find out there is the local annual wrestling competition, Senegal's national sport. To be fair I saw more build up than actual Wrestling but the rituals the crowd and the wrestlers go through are quite something, including drumming, call and respond chanting, animated dancing, throwing of leaves, throwing water out of a hollowed out animal horn, drawing in the sand. The wrestling itself is a little tactical. I was expecting these huge men, mostly 6ft 6+, to start throwing each other around. The reality though is that 95% of the time is spent playing slapsies.

    Photos
    1 & 5) Pirogue trip
    2) Everyday traffic
    3 & 4) View from my tent
    6) Wrestling    Read more

  • Overland with JamesOverland with James
    Day 63

    Gambia and monkeys

    February 1, 2017 in Gambia ⋅ ⛅ 27 °C

    The smiling coast is what the tourist brochures call Gambia and for once it's not an exaggeration. I've never met a nationality quite like the Gambians. They nearly all want to talk to you and help you. Of course it helps that they speak English!

    However, my first experience wasnt quite so enjoyable. During the political instability up to a quarter of the population fled into Senegal, now it's safe again they are all returning. The problem though is there are no bridges across the river Gambia in Gambia! This left me competing for space on the biggest ferry (space for about 20 cars) with trucks, cars, motorcycles, people, goats, chickens and furniture. After being told to wait in a spot for 1.5 hours under the midday sun in sweaty bike gear, they finally open the gate. Suddenly I'm swamped with all the animals of the ark pushing towards this narrow entrance. The staff have no idea how to organise the crowd and close the gate until people stop pushing, which isnt said loud enough for anyone at the back to hear! So 45 mins later about 30 people have got through and I've not moved from my spot in the sun. Then they open the gates completely and order everyone to the side, to let the vehicles off the ferry. So everyone shifts to the side, almost pushing me and the bike over in the process. This leaves me in the same position but now on the edge of the cleared path, perilously close to the trucks trying to squeeze through. Now the staff start shouting at me to move across out of the way. After 2.5 hours being baked, all patience evaporated from my body, I angrily snap back and say "where the f### am i meant to go". At this point the guy makes some space next to me by kicking some goats. I then have to point out that motorbikes don't just move sideways without moving forward or backwards too! I do eventually get on the boat, albeit after being accused of not buying a ticket, even though I'd given it to them already - this situation was met with a full rainbow of expletives.

    If it wasn't for the general friendliness then the capital, Banjul, would be slightly terrifying. At night there is almost no electricity in the city and what little light there is, is from the cars and trucks on the few main roads. This came as quite a shock after Senegal and it just instantly feels very unsafe to be in a city without lighting, but the reality is that it's fine. At least my 'bravery' to walk about at night has been rewarded by stumbling across Gambia's very own beer, Julbrew, by far the best beer in Africa...so far!

    I'm now just about to leave Banjul after visiting the Abuko nature reserve, where I've seen lots of wild animals from monkeys to vultures as well as some sadder looking caged ones such as hyenas. I also used my guide to try and get over my fear of animals when wild camping. It didn't really work as he just told me about all the animals that might try to kill me....just in Gambia. For those who want to know, the list includes crocodiles, hippos, green mamba snakes, baboons and hyenas.    Read more

  • Overland with JamesOverland with James
    Day 65

    Upcountry

    February 3, 2017 in Gambia ⋅ ☁️ 18 °C

    So I've gone 'Upcountry' as the Gambians would say. A rapid ascent of about 1 metre per mile along the south bank of the Gambia river. However, Gambia is so narrow I've had to be careful not to accidently stray across the border into Senegal. For anyone who doesn't know why Gambia is so ridiculously long and thin, here is a synopsis of Britain's colonial logic.
    - Race for Africa begins at the Berlin conference
    - France begin colonising the whole of West Africa
    - Britain see an opportunity to annoy the French by doing the bare minimum to colonise an area right in the middle of France's existing colonies
    - Britain sends the navy up the Gambia river and claims sovereignty as far as the river is navigable and as far as Britain's canons can fire (20 miles to each side)
    - Britain then offers France the 'opportunity' to have Gambia, in exchange for a much larger French colony such as Gabon
    - The French tell the British to get stuffed and stop all trade with Gambia
    - Britain pays no interest in Gambia until independence

    I've also learnt that Gambia has no atms outside the capital and I've survived wild camping without any unwanted animal experiences. I've had a rack built to support my panniers that have been disintegrating under the repetitive bumping up and down. I've also learnt that the old president was universally disliked.

    P.s. I'm sure Mick Comben will correct me on the history!    Read more

  • Overland with JamesOverland with James
    Day 68

    Casamance

    February 6, 2017 in Senegal ⋅ 🌙 23 °C

    Firstly, apologies for the lack of updates. I've had some technical difficulties, but I should be able to catch up soon.

    A return to Senegal, sees me into Casamance, a region even flatter than the rest of Senegal, yet very different. The whole region is basically a flood plain for the Casamance river where the highest point seems to be provided by the senegalese love of monumental speed bumps. This flatness and the seasonal rains means the locals, who want to be independent, are epic rice farmers and the meals are both tasty and healthy.

    However my ride through 'upper' casamance took me to a dirt road, at times more like a footpath. Where I had crash #3 & #4. #3 was rather embarrassing, riding about 10mph, I tried to turn off the gopro, lost my balance and pathetically fell to the side, breaking my fly screen at the same time. #4 was much more dramatic as I went in to a sudden sand pit, buried the front wheel and lost it at about 35mph, only to be instantly engulfed by a massive cloud of sand and dust. I pull myself up and as the cloud clears I see about 20 people coming to help me and the bike up. No damage on this one, but I've got a cracking bruise on my leg.

    I've also stayed in a camp site by the shore of the casamance, where they had 7 small crocodiles in a pen, just by they bar. They catch them if they come close to the town,  but still I've been told it's not a good idea to go in the water! On the plus side I've been told crocodile is tasty! While here I took the opportunity to ride the bike unloaded and visit st George's point and very briefly see manatees. This involved a very Sandy track where it took me 1.5 hours to do 12 miles, but I was rewarded when I arrived with an impromptu rice and fish lunch with a local family and secured some palm wine for dinner later.

    The link below should show a YouTube summary of the journey so far from the UK to Senegal.

     https://youtu.be/JWtZhocU-rU    Read more

  • Overland with JamesOverland with James
    Day 78

    Why am I so Grumpy!

    February 16, 2017 in Guinea-Bissau ⋅ ☁️ 31 °C

    So I've now been away for about 10 weeks and it has got to the point that it feels less like an extended holiday and more like a lifestyle... and as lifestyles go there are some slight downsides, mainly
    - sleeping in a tent
    - being devoured by mosquitoes
    - the inevitable Delhi belly
    - moving 'house' most days
    - repeatedly struggling through the most rudimentally basic french conversations

    Right now I'm particularly struggling with a dodgy stomach, and a string of things that have broken, including my phone, the bike's fork seal (suspension),  my stove, my widget that transfers photos to the tablet etc. You may have noticed I'm not in the best mood.  I'm really considering turning back to Europe,  but I know things will change,  I just need to keep going and my mood and luck will change, hopefully.

    In terms of what I've actually been doing I wild camped on the beautifully deserted Varela beach, though to get there I dropped the bike 3 times in 15 mins in the deep sand. 2 were so close together that I got help to pick the bike up from the same fishermen! So deserted is it that most of the time my company was the odd cow. This was where I found out my stove has stopped working, so bread and water was my diet for 2 days.

    Since then I have been in Bissau for a week trying to recover and fix things (without success). Initially I stayed at a campsite/hotel on the edge of the city where I met Ferry and Gulcin again and we got to know a Swedish guy who was very coy about his business, apart from he owns a plane and has a Guinean diplomatic passport from the president. We suspect he is a drug dealer, as most South American drugs arrive in Bissau before going to Europe. After this I stayed with an English guy, Patrick and Magdiel on couchsurfing. They've been great hosts, looked after me and given me a comfortable bed! Patrick is funded by the overseas aid budget and is working for the bissau ministry of finance, which has meant I've got a really different view of Bissau. It's an interesting and really chilled place, but has some real problems to develop and be a functioning country.

    And I have to mention that I've had rain for the first time since Europe....a very strange experience!

    Hopefully I'll be more enthusiastic next time I check in.    Read more

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