Buy the Ticket - Take the Ride

Hey sweeties, as promised we're back on the road yeeeeaaaah!!!!

We've been back home for a bit, remember, because a war broke out and the land borders were difficult. And with heavy work on Kismet's engine AGAIN and RidingKismet's knees making riding a bit hard, at that time we had been on the peninsula for four months already.

By mid April, we had taken the decision to temporarily wrap up, leave them iron beauties behind at a friend's place in Riyadh and to fly home. To get some stuff done, look for jobs, water the plants, bake bread, a bit of home life….

BUT THE BIKES ARE STILL IN ARABIAN LANDS AND WE LEAVE NO ONE BEHIND

On one of our regular Sunday's rendezvous hence we said "alright let's f*king gooooo", and we booked one way flights for Thursday. A bit on the spontaneous side but, we need to leave our comfort zone, right!?

So the plan was to take a flight to Riyadh where we had left Murghob and Kismet at a friends place. But one difficult decision needed to be made: Initially, we planned to ride from Saudi to our home, K-town, via Jordan, Syria and Turkey to Europe. This involved getting a support letter from an Embassy for the Turkish authoreities to allow us to cross from Syria to Turkey.
But regarding the still unpredictable situation at the borders, the questionable health of Kismet and also new responsibilities back home requiring our presence, begrudgingly we decided to take a boring yet adult way: Instead of riding them all the way home, the plan was to ride the bikes northwest, to cross the mountains and hit the Red Sea. After crossing to Jordan, we would go to the port of Aqaba, where a crate would be carpentered for each bike, they would be put onto a ship, and ma'a salama till Hamburg, where we could collect them a couple weeks later.

For now we needed to get to our bikes and thus jumped on a cheap-ass AJet flight which delivered us half past one in the night in Riyadh. Somewhat tired after ~17 hours of traveling we stared at the baggage claim, but it turned out our iron bag had gone lost in Istanbul. That was quite interesting for us, since all the important paperwork as well as quite a bitta cash was inside that bag...
Too tired to be annoyed we took a taxi to our friends place - WHERE OUR HORSES WERE WAITING FOR US. Under ripped plastic covers, dusty like never before, there they stood, WAITING.
Suddenly, all the tiredness and the lazyness from being at home flew away, and it was hard not to kick them alive in the middle of the night. But our heads hit the pillow and we slept into deep sleep, finally...

We woke up, happy Friday Riyadh, coffee first.
The bikes were full of dust, and in summer in Saudi Arabia everything you touch is extra hot. At 42° we checked the tire pressure, we connected the batteries, opened the fuel petcocks... And they're alife at the second kick. Ready to hit the road and cut through this desert.
Just in time we got our bag back as well, and after a dirty burger and a good rest we were ready to HIT THE ROOOOAAAAD!

Let's go now, please!Read more