Africa with Charley Boorman

[mountainboy1974]

great report!!

pity you never went into Sossusvlei - Dead Vlei is really something to behold and is 'usually' the shot of Namibia!!

[upweekis]

ask Charlie whatever became of Claudio?

[globalpilot4]

Claudio is still filming documentaries all over the globe. Here is a link to his latest.

http://vimeo.com/30186882

[globalpilot4]

After 2,500 km of riding through South Africa and Namibia, we had reached the half way mark. We had a day off to wander the streets of Swakopmund, a very German influenced beach town along the Skeleton Coast.



Tim, myself, Adam





I was looking forward to a day off to catch up with family and give the bike a little TLC. I really missed my wife today due to the fact that it was our five year anniversary...and here I was spending it with a bunch of dudes in Namibia. What a saint for putting up with me!!

Charley was up at the crack of dawn and raced down to the dealership to slap on a new rear tire. Scotty was not far behind. Now, from what I understand, Charley grabbed the last Mitas tire that we had reserved for Scotty the day before. Charley claims that he new nothing about the tire being reserved. He just walked in, grabbed it, and had the guys spoon it onto his bike. Well, by the time Scotty got there, all the tires were gone and Charley was rolling on new rubber. To say Scotty was pissed is an understatement. He decided to have a little fun with Charley's bike. His first stop was a label store and a few black permanent markers. While the rest of us explored and enjoyed Swakopmund, Scotty was on a mission. He cranked out hundreds and hundreds of labels and stickers, each with the letters "TGC" printed on them. I will get back to this in a moment!!

After a very nice German lunch of Bratwurst and potatoes, Adam and I decided to go and ride through some of the makeshift towns on the outskirts of Swakopmund.







It was so humbling to see how simple the people live. They literally have nothing, yet they are able to raise families and provide them with food and shelter. I was struggling internally trying to justify my lifestyle in comparison. After some great conversation with Adam about the meaning of it all, we decided to leave and roll up the coast. We found a go cart track and decided to stop for a few laps.



Meanwhile, Scotty was still cranking out labels.

By the time we got back to our lodge, it was time for dinner. We noticed that the support vehicles had the letters "TGC" carefully added next to Charley Boorman's name. Then, we looked at Charley's helmet. Across the back it read "TGC." We then walked over to Charley's bike and realized it was covered in hundreds of small white lables, each marked "TGC!" Charley had no idea that all of his shit was covered in labels.



Scotty had spent the better part of the day working on his little project. Finally, we were able to locate Scotty. "Scotty, what the hell does TGC mean anyway?" we asked. He laughed. "TIRE GRABBING C#!T mates!!!!!!!" (rhymes with runt!) We all had a great laugh and loaded into the vans for dinner at the casino. Charley was clueless.

Apparently, someone in our group decided to be a rat and tell Charley about his bike, and even showed him a picture while we were at dinner. We weren't sure how he would take it. Being the good sport that he is, Charley had quite a laugh when we got back to the bikes and he saw all the destruction. It took him over an hour at 10pm to get all of the labels off his stuff.





Nobody messed with Scotty from that day on!!

I awoke the morning ready to leave the coast behind. I was ready to leave civilization and get back to the remote Namibian desert. I missed the warm air, the clear skies, and the wide open roads. We had 310 km ahead of us today. Our first stop was a 20 year old shipwreck on the Skeleton Coast. We stopped for a quick photo shoot and pushed on.



Jimmy, Tim, Scotty, myself



As we left the coast and started our journey inland, the temps rose drastically. The scenery today was amazing. This was the Africa I envisioned in my head. We drove past numerous small villages with small hut like structures. We drove past numerous topless women covered in red clay.










If you look, you can see BMW on the back of this cart!!





Thank you Bryce for getting some awesome photos!

The small children were everywhere, and they were so excited to see us riding. Their smiles were as bright as the African Sun, and it made me miss my own children.



We also saw our first elephant today.



It is so surreal to be riding in such a beautiful country.



The roads today were beautiful, fast, straight gravel roads. The only problem today seemed to be the blinding dust. This stuff is so fine and thick that each rider had to leave 1/4 mile dust gap. Our destination today was Vingerclip, or "finger rock."















Once again, our accommodations for the evening were out of this world.





I am running out of adjectives to describe our nightly accommodations. The pictures will hopefully do it justice. After a dip in the negative edge pool looking out over wild, raw Namibia, we hiked up to the top of the mountain for a sundowner and dinner at the Eagle's Nest restaurant.





The hike up to the top took about 15 minutes on a makeshift scaffold. The view from the top was mesmerizing.











We stayed up there for many hours rehashing the days ride, the "TGC" labels, the elephants, the tribes, etc.



Billy and Charley enjoying a beer





Myself, Su and Tim (Su is one of the owners of Motoaventures)



I am having the time of my life, and I have become aware that we only have 6 days left of riding. It is the first time on this trip that this thought has crept into my mind. I made sure to live in each moment and just enjoy the ride!!


[/SIZE]

[Black-Ops]

Hey thanks for the photo credit but Jaks took most of those pics! She's stoked to see them up on the web. Keep up the great reporting.

I'm hopefully on an American radio show called Sidestand Up talking about our trip this Tuesday night U.S time.
Tune in if you can!

[globalpilot4]

Tell Jaks thanks, and I will try and tune in for sure. Hope all is well.

[VikB]

[QUOTE=globalpilot4;17230967
[/QUOTE]

Just a suggestion - your photos are great and I understand the desire to tag them, but maybe something smaller and less distracting from the image? It's not that easy to enjoy the spectacular scenery when your eye gets drawn over to the large tag all the time.

No offense - as I said great photos...

[crashkorolyk]

Brillant ride report,good luck & keep it coming!

[Voltsmith]

[MKJ]

Originally Posted by VikB

Just a suggestion - your photos are great and I understand the desire to tag them, but maybe something smaller and less distracting from the image? It's not that easy to enjoy the spectacular scenery when your eye gets drawn over to the large tag all the time.

No offense - as I said great photos...

That's funny. I didn't even notice they were tagged until you mentioned it. GREAT thread. I wanna go!

[Lartech]

You've done a great job of putting this report together the videos, photos, and your writing is awesome. It's a blast to read and see the camaraderie, awesome riding , and scenery. Brings back memories of the great guy trips and moments in life that you put your cares aside and have a kick ass time.

[Beesarider]

Another brilliantly described report with your beautiful clear photos.
I had wondered how you were going to approach the TGC debacle (or if you might choose to ignore it) but of course you've covered it the only way possible - straight to the point ! Good on you.
I think for most of us that Vingeklip Lodge and the Eagles Nest experience was a highlight, well up to that point of the tour anyway. But there's much much more to come yet isn't there.
Looking forward to the next episode.

[GSdog]

Yikes! For those of us who were there, we know what happens on the next day....

[Liebchen & Izzy]

Make me want to go to Africa even more,didn't know that is was possible. Just curious,, how come some of the women were topless and others weren't seems odd when there standing next to each other..

[gagator]

Wow best RR I have read.Thanks