Finally Moving North - Sam

Matt and I have had a loaded 5 days. We made it to Cape Town after finishing volunteering with Outward Bound South Africa, but not after our bus broke down along the way. It turned out to not be a big deal as we just boarded another bus. I was a little concerned about getting on the next bus as the bus driver of the first bus let us on with no proof of having tickets. We assumed we would be able to pick them up at the bus stop, which was wrong. Matt showed him our reference number, which he didn't check and I just said I was with Matt. So that's apparently all you have to do to sneak on a bus in South Africa.

Once we arrived in Cape town, we went and picked up our car and had to learn how to drive on the "wrong" side of the road and shift gears on the "wrong" side of the car. It was a little nerve racking, but after driving down the other side of the road a couple times and needing both of us to help navigate the enormous city of Cape Town, we got the hang of it. We got the hang of it, but not after I dented the side of the car with a branch that was hidden in some bushes as I poorly parallel parked just hours after we got the car. There goes $200.

That day we drove down to the Cape of Good Hope, the southern most point of Cape Town, to get some practice driving the tiny Toyota hatchback. We stopped at a wharf along the way and got fresh fish and chips and beer. The Cape of Good Hope was great and we found some nice cliffs that were easily scalable with some amazing views of the ocean. Cape Town is a massive city, a little too big for our liking, but there were little sleepy towns all along peninsula of the Cape of Good Hope with awesome expansive views of the ocean.

The following day we headed towards the southern most tip of Africa, the point where the Indian and Atlantic oceans converge. We passed through country that resembled Eastern Washington or Kansas in the Autumn after the grasslands and farms start turning brown. We drove through many small towns with lots of local coffee shops and art galleries that reminded me of towns along the coast of Oregon and California. When we reached the southern most tip, we found a viewpoint that we decided our little inadequate Toyota would be able to make up. For the first time since we reached Africa, we found somewhere where we could throw our sleeping pads down and guerrilla camp, something we imagined we would be doing regularly with the Tuk Tuk. It was a great feeling. Our trip was finally totally in our control. We had our own car, could travel wherever we wanted and throw our packs down and sleep under the stars.

Our next destination was the mountain kingdom of Lesotho, the land with no fences and the country with the highest low point of any nation in the world. A place where cattle, goat and sheep herders roam the mountains and the roads with their flocks. The people wear colorful blankets and balaclavas covering their faces and bodies from the intense sun at high altitudes. Herds of animals roam the land openly. Men and young boys often times herd their animals on donkeys and on horseback. Occasionally you will see horses roaming freely off in the distance and I wonder if they belong to anyone or if they are wild. The sound of bells attached to goats and cattle ring as you drive through. This is a place where one can roam the mountains and camp freely, or so Matt and I thought.

The first day we spent driving through small villages full of huts made of stones with thatched roofs made of straw. I have never been somewhere like this. Unlike South Africa, the people seem to be so far removed from the western world that the world economy could crash and the people would likely not be affected. They would carry on living how they have for centuries. They definitely have their own style and way of life that resembles nowhere in the western world.


That first night in Lesotho, Matt and I found a place where we could drive the car off the road, hide it from view and hike along the top of a small ridge that overlooked a village. We made camp and began cooking dinner and drinking a bottle of wine that only cost $1.50, but tastes a hell of lot better than Boone's Farm as South Africa is known for it's wine. After dinner, we sat overlooking the village and had a cigarette listening to the sounds of the village below. We could hear the bells ringing from around animals' necks and could hear children and people singing songs. There were maybe ten to fifteen lights that could be seen, the majority of which from fires and only a few from electric sources. Life here is simple. As I lay down in my sleeping bag, I think this is why I travel.

The following day, Christmas Eve, we woke up with the sun, packed our things and headed back on the twisting, turning roads that weave their way through valleys and scale mountain passes as high as 3200 meters, occasionally descending hundreds of meters just to shoot back up again. Fortunately, most of the roads are paved. The people seem friendly enough, many waving back at us and smiling and many giving us a puzzled look that says "What the hell is a white person doing in my village?" If I felt like a minority before, here I am beyond a minority. We are the only two white people for miles, at least it feels that way. It's somewhat of a lonely feeling, but one I am learning to embrace. It's my hope that it becomes common place further into the trip and not so isolating. Time will tell.

As we drive, we come across an archaeological site. The site consists of a cave that has drawings on them, many dating back as far as 15,000 years. The drawings consist of animals and people with animal limbs and heads. The stories that accompany the drawings are of battles and of shamans communicating with and successfully transforming into animals. I'll be honest, the history of the drawings is interesting, but once you see a cave drawing, you've seen them all.

Along the way we come across a ski resort and decide to stop in for a beer. It is a nice lodge that is nearly empty given that it is summer here. It only has one run on the mountain, but the fact that there is a ski resort in Africa at all is amazing to us. As we are sipping our beers, we realize that for the first and likely only time in our lives, we are sitting in an empty ski resort on Christmas eve with absolutely no snow with temperatures somewhere in 80's. It's a strange feeling, especially with a large blow up snow man sitting in the corner and Christmas music playing.

That night we found a seemingly great place to hide the car on the highest pass in Lesotho and hike up to a Plateau to make camp and cook dinner. We were somewhere around 11,800 ft. The wind was whipping and we found a small flat place on a rock hidden from the wind to cook. For dinner we made curried lentils and rice topped with sauteed vegetables seasoned with spicy chakalaka seasoning, somewhat similar to Curry. That night, we woke up to a thick cloud socking in the mountain top. Everything was damp from the moisture. You could see the whisping white clouds moving in all around us surrounding us until there was little visibility. It was amazing sleeping up in the clouds. As long as a storm didn't move in, we were fine with it.

The following morning we packed up and headed back to our car, a short fifteen minute hike. When we arrived to the car we saw a man waiting near our car. We walked up to him and said hello. He seemed weary of us, but said hello back. He then proceeded to inform us he didn't know where our car came from and had called the police to come investigate. He spoke some English, but it was very limited. We informed him that we were just camping on the mountain top and that he had nothing to worry about. He said in broken English, "You wait, police come and you talk with them." I told him we had somewhere to be and were leaving. We through our packs in the car, got in and started the vehicle. That is when he leaned against the car and said "You see, there could be criminals trying to steel cars. I don't know where this car come from." "We were just camping. This car is ours and we have to go because we have to be in Mokhotlong by a certain time," I replied. It went back and forth for a while. He again said, "You wait for police to come. They sort it out." That's about the time he pulled out his revolver and showed me he was armed. He didn't point it at us, and in the moment I felt fear, but he put it away and I honestly didn't feel threatened by him after that. I think he was honestly just making sure were weren't car thieves. We wrote a note for the police and insisted on leaving. He called them back, but I think they were already on their way. We finally got him to agree to let us leave and we took off without incident. That is how Christmas day began for us. We are now hanging out at a lodge enjoying the comforts of home, drinking coffee and using wifi. Tonight we are going to treat ourselves to burgers and cold beer, who knows maybe a glass of scotch. It is Christmas after all.

Teaser for next time. Sam'll let ya know.

OB Adventures - Matt

Well, what a week it's been. Sam and I's original intentions for volunteering at Outward Bound South Africa were to have a relaxing two weeks of volunteering. Something entailing repairing old gear and putting some work into the base camp grounds all while working on our tuk tuk and getting ready for our journey north. Apart from 'technically' volunteering at OBSA none of those other things happened.

We had three days at the actual base camp in Sedgefield, just outside of Knysna. Upon arrival we found out that everyone that Sam and I were professional rock climbers that were long time instructors with Northwest Outward Bound School. We're not sure how that gap in communication happened but for those of you that don't know us very well, Sam and I work logistics at NWOBS and we are rock climbers but are by no means professional. Anywhoo, on the first day we arrive on the beach where Deon, the OBSA Ops Manager and out contact, was doing some kayak training with the new instructors. This meant surfing Kayaks in the waves on the coast. We were then told we were going to be training the instructors to lead climb tomorrow, most had little or no climbing experience, and then, three days down the line we would be co-instructing a course while mentoring the new instructors. Feeling as though we'd been thrown somewhat indelicately into the deep end, Sam and I started flailing our proverbial arms and legs wildly in hopes of keeping our proverbial heads above water. Sink or swim, ya know.

The days that followed included soccer, trail building as community service, rock climbing in beautiful places (something I never thought I'd get to do and left me kicking myself that I didn't bring my gear), a braai (Afrikaans for barbecue), an education in the differences in course prep between OB schools, and a extremely long 6 hour drive go a 3 hour distance while being blasted with South African christian gospel/rock/pop to our course area outside Robertson. Here I would just like to say that racial tension is unfortunately still strong in SA. Not on a legal level but certainly on a cultural one. Blacks and Whites here are so culturally different that they seem to naturally break up into segregated groups. No one is excluding anyone, but people at OBSA and the hostel I am now in at least, are clearly more comfortable in like minded groups. An example being that the blacks that we were working with here were very comfortable yelling and shouting and being generally noisier than whites appeared to be. Instead of going over to someone sitting a long way away they would just project the voice at such decibels that I would never be able to accomplish, with no thought of poor old Matt sitting right in front of them with just recently perforated ear drums. This one first sight would probably be taken as quite off-putting to most westerners, but one of the most beautiful things I saw was late one night after dinner three of the black instructors were walking out of the lodge and right in the doorway one of them started singing (there always singing something) and then the others joined in until they were belting out this song, alternating versus, stomping their feet and clapping their hands. One of them, Kayah, didn't even take the time to put down the dish of leftovers he was holding but still tried to clap his hands. It seemed as though they were just taken by this small spark of a tune which ignited their need to make music and move as a group. This is one of my fondest memories from my time in OBSA and I wish that I, or any of the other white people just sitting there watching, would have or could have joined in. This is only a sliver of the giant pie chart of racial problems left in post-Apartheid SA but was one that I felt would be relatable as well as relatively easy to portray.

The course that followed all of this was a clinic of appreciation for the resources available to NWOBS. about half of the packs the students used were in full good working condition. These were 75L + 10 packs that the 12 and 13 year old students were just unable to fill for the three night trip causing a bulky, unmanageable and uncomfortable carrying style, much less unable to properly wear because of their size. The students were all from a scholarship program (Students for a Better Future) set up for underprivileged, but highly intelligent, youths in Capetown who are just about to start high school and would otherwise be unable to go since in SA you have to pay to go to school, even public schools. The students were a wiley and energetic bunch, and I was surprised how well I did remembering names like Mayibongwe, Muzafirr (roll the r's) and Qiqimba (each 'qi' is pronounced as a tongue click). But we took these students down a 60m abseil (repel) over a dry waterfall and forced them to fight like dogs amongst themselves to build a raft out of wood poles, rope and plastic 42 gallon barrels.

As the students were rolling away on the last day I started teaching the other instructors the B, double E, double R, U, N song which succeeded in getting us some beers for our end of course braai (roll the r). After that was another six hour drive back to Sedgefield and the next day we went to George and waited for our bus to Capetown, that left at 11:30pm, by watching The Force Awaken (Hell Yea!), going to the beach and dancing my face off and getting a little buzz on to a South Africa ska band with friends we made at OB (sweet sweet friends).

Death of the Tuk Tuk - Sam

So buying a tuk tuk is not going to happen. It is impossible for foreigners to register a vehicle in South Africa. It is something we did not anticipate and something the guys at Atul did not anticipate as they have never sold a vehicle to foreigners. The reason is that we don't have any proof of address so we would have to apply for a vehicle registration number that would allow us to register our vehicle. We thought "great!" and headed to the department of transportation. When we arrived the woman behind the desk informed us that the office was closed until mid-January and the rest of the branches in the country were either already closed or about to close. Welcome to Africa.

There is one last possible way we could still make it happen, but it 's a long shot. Paul from Atul said he would be willing to register the vehicle in his name and sign the liability over to us. The catch is that we would not be able to legally sell the vehicle in Cairo. That means we would have to pay for the vehicle to be shipped back to South Africa. Paul would then sell the vehicle, take a cut, and give us the rest of the money. We are trying to get a quote on how much that would be, but are getting nowhere. Welcome to Africa.

At this point, unless we find out it is affordable to ship the tuk tuk we are planning to head north by renting cars and riding buses, trains and ferries, but we are not giving up on the tuk tuk completely. There are Atul dealerships in a few other countries and we are going to try and get their contact info before we take off. It's disappointing that we won't be able to tuk across Africa as we have so much time and effort invested in this idea. We would be the first people to ever complete the Cape to Cairo trip in a tuk tuk making tuk history. The guys at Atul were really excited about the idea for the marketing benefits it would mean for their business. They even offered to contact the owner of Atul in India to see what could come of that. I also have a friend who has offered to make the trip into an amateur film for the BANFF mountain film festival and a local magazine in Matt's hometown of Sandpoint, Idaho has even written an article about us making the journey. So it goes.

As for now, Matt and I just finished co-instructing a four day course in the beautiful Graham Beck Reserve situated in a valley between two mountain ranges. The course was a lot of fun and the kids were great. Matt will be writing a post on our experiences there in the next couple days. Pictures will be coming with his post.

Precipice - Matt

First of all, I would like to front load this post by saying Sam and I have come out of today even more committed to the realization of our goal of arriving in Cairo carried on the wings of a tuk tuk, even facing the immediate threat of failure at such an early stage. We went tuk tuk shopping today.

Woke at 6am. Figured out the strange bus system of people yelling at you from short VW buses and you yelling back to pick up a ride. Got to the dealership by 8am. What followed was a series of revelations that puts us on precarious footing as to whether or not we can even legally buy a tuk tuk in South Africa. First, we meet Paul, with whom we've been in contact with for the past few months discussing our trip, who tells us that tuk tuks are classified as motorcycles in SA, requiring a motorcycle license to operate.

Since neither one of us "technically" has a motorcycle license I guess that's the end of our trip, huh? Not so fast. Turns out in SA you can sell any vehicle to any unqualified person with no problem from a business view and if caught operating a vehicle you don't have a license for, say a motorcycle, the police will fine you 250 Rand, or 18 dollars, and then send you on your way. Mostly this law is in place for vehicles operating in a business capacity, such as taxis. Well, Sweet. Next problem.

To buy a vehicle you have to register it with the government, but to register you need to have an address in SA that you can point to as your own, not just some random address like your hostel, a tuk tuk dealership, or the place you're volunteering. To get around this foreigners may apply for a Traffic Register Number, which can take up to six weeks but more likely will take around three weeks.

Being stuck in SA for six weeks would alter our trip in a big way. We would not be able to stop in Kenya and take a break from the road or work towards connecting schools in that area to the schools in the US that are following us. Also we would lose our buffer for any unforeseen delays. Three weeks is a much smaller issue since it would only be a week longer than we intended to be in SA.

Tomorrow we will go to the Registration Authority and sit in line for hours to apply in person, give big brother our thumb print and some fees in hopes that he over looks the fact that some people decided to call tuk tuks motorcycles instead of cars.

Sam and I are charged up and ready for this. Not because of the stakes but because of the welcome we have received. Everyone we have met thus far has been incredibly excited about our trip, if not a little surprised. But even more than that, the folks at the ATUL tuk tuk dealership have been amazing. From the moment we realized there may be bureaucratic difficulties, like 8:05am, Paul has been on our case working with the SA government to figure out how to achieve our goal. While Lallie, the mechanic/driver trainer, was taking us through the ropes of tuk tuk maintenance Paul was figuring out what needed to happen to get around each successive problem. Beyond that, Chris, the semi-retired owner of the company, took us to the factory where the tuk tuks are assembled and introduced us to Patrick. He is the fully retired owner of some four or five businesses including this one (don't ask me how that works) who runs the assembly business, who gave us a tour of the factory, a history of ATUL and tuk tuks in general and went into much unasked for detail about these machines. When we got back to the dealership Chris took us out to a light lunch.

Now, I understand these people want me to buy their product and there's a chance we're just being sold by some excellent salesmen. But the dealership Chris runs sells over 100 tuk tuks a year and Patrick's business does way more than that. These two guys don't seem like they're hurting for money. In fact, they seem to just really like tuk tuks and probably wouldn't know what else to do with their free time. They also understand that our trip is a wonderful PR opportunity for them as well as just a cool adventure.

This has gotten a lot longer than the "a few paragraphs explaining the situation" that Sam told me to write so I'll just end with this. Tomorrow is a big day for us. We'll update as soon as we can, but no news is good news because it means we're barreling down the road in a brand new tuk tuk.

Arrival in Port Elizabeth - Sam

Matt and I made it to Port Elizabeth, South Africa today. I have been travelling for nearly 3 days to get here, Matt over 3 days. We had one 8 hour flight, one 11 hour flight, a 15 hour bus ride and two delays lasting multiple hours. That isn't including the drive and wait time for me to get to Chicago or Matt's flight from Idaho to Chicago. We finally got some needed sleep on the bus ride last night, but are still sleep deprived.
This is the first time I have felt like a true minority. It is an interesting feeling. Even in South Africa where there are a good number of white people, we are still the vast minorities. People often stare at us, but I think it has to do more with the fact that we are carrying around backpacks and a large duffel. We are clearly travelling which places us in the tourist category. Being stared at is something that we just have to get used to as it isn't going to change. It will likely only increase the farther north we go and as we pass through more rural areas.
Tomorrow we will go to the Atul Auto dealership and figure out how exactly we are going to purchase the tuk tuk and hopefully we will be able to take the maintenance course that is offered and be on our way by tomorrow afternoon. The tuk tuk dealership asked for a 50% down payment before we arrived which we didn't feel comfortable doing. They said it was needed so they could begin getting the tuk tuk ready for us. I don't know what "ready" meant and didn't want to transfer $2000 to someone I've never met. We expected  to see at least some tuk tuks here in Port Elizabeth. So far we haven't seen a single one since we arrived in Africa.
Outward Bound South Africa is expecting us on Tuesday midday in the town Knysna, about 250  km away. I hope we can get the tuk tuk sorted out and arrive on time. They are having a training this week that we don't want to miss out on and I think we'll be helping out with a course next week in Cape Town.
As for now we are hanging out in a hostel that is near the Indian Ocean relaxing after travelling so far and long. We are doing well and are excited to begin our trip.

Loomings - Matt

Well it's just about three weeks till we leave for our African odyssey and we're as ready as we're gonna be minus our Egyptian visa which should be here within the next two weeks. All that's left is to scrounge up as much dough as Sam and I can muster. That and get this blog fully operational. So, as this is the first post in this blog and seeing as we have yet to reach Africa I'm just going to use this post as a little introduction.

For those of you who haven't read the 'about us' page, have no idea who we are, and have gotten lost wandering the depths of the internet let me introduce us. Hi, my name is Matt and I have a friend named Sam. Now go read the 'about us' page.