almost all of Africa was the building
of roads, power grids, factories, and
railroads by the Chinese. The famous
treacherous section from the Omo Val-
ley to Marsabit, Kenya was a new road
in which the only dangers were that
of large African animals crossing the
road, as displayed to the travellers by
road signs. The highlight, or lowlight
for that matter, was the crazy and ag-
gressive drivers of the Matatu busses
in Nairobi. It was like being in a Mad
Max movie, complete with armor on
the busses, accept this was real with
the drivers giving no mercy to anyone
as they worked on a commission-basis
and it was on to the next potential rid-
er to maximize their profits – motor-
cycles, or any others, be dammed for
that matter!
We decided that we would take in
one or two major attractions in each
country for the remainder of the trip
for two reasons. The first being the
element of time and we could have
probably spent six months, alone,
in Ethiopia and we spent only one
month’s time. The second being that
we wanted to experience one unique
part of every country – and we both
simply enjoyed the nature and riding
– without any of the normal trappings
of the tourist trail. We spent several
wonderful days on the Maasai Mara
National Reserve and marveled at the
sheer abundance of wildlife and were
even treated to the famous wildebeest
crossing of the crocodile-filled waters.
Leaving Kenya, we were treated to a
large hail storm and torrential down-
pour of rain, of biblical proportions,
that made it impossible to see be-
yond one to two meters. Stopping at
the side of the road, we waited it out,
without any cover, until the pelting of
hail subsided and we were able to see
again and pick up the road and contin-
ue.
Our next experience awaited us in
Tanzania and we decided that due to
the uniqueness of the Ngorongoro Cra-
ter that we would make this our major
experience there. The crater is a large
volcanic crater with all of the Big Five
within the confines of the largest in-
active, intact and unfilled caldera. It
certainly did not disappoint due to the
vast size of the actual crater, the wild-
life that were present, and the chance
to get off the motorcycle and enjoy
the sights and sounds in a four-wheel
drive vehicle.
The advent of instant information
has its benefits and liabilities. We
came to find out that the next coun-
try of Malawi had some very inter-
esting occurrences reported in the
news. First, that there was an active
vampire rampage whereby humans,
and other animals, were dying from
TRAVERSE 67
the reported attacks from vampires.
The next worry was that of the hunt-
ing and selling of albino humans on
the black market for a very large sum
of money. Both were quite disturbing
but we chatted with some people who
had travelled through Malawi before
and they stated that it was a relatively
safe country and that we should defi-
nitely go, which we did and, of course,
we did not regret it. Lake Malawi was
impressive but we came to find out
that it lacked in fish due to the sever-
al countries sharing the lake and the
non-ability to adequately manage this
natural resource.
We motored into Zambia and Zim-