Zuma and the Guptas

We arrive at the department of transportation's offices before they open expecting to spend all day there fighting to get our licenses.

We both buy our bikes with a drawstring bag stuffed with cash. That's a lot of Mandelas.

I get my bike which I will later find out to have been named 'number 1' and have 100k miles more on the odometer than what was claimed.

Every KLR we saw had this sticker on it. Might as well give him a call to take a look at the bikes?

We brought our bikes to Doctor KLR's garage, conveniently located in his backyard and with a KLR bolted above the door.

We set out one morning to get our bikes inspected and permitted so we could be official. Doc and Mr. T led the way in the Zebra car. We ended up having to dodge a couple road barriers of medium sized rocks that protestors had set out and double back to a dirt road to make it to the inspection station. The inspection officials glanced at the bikes and took us into a barely furnished office where we sat and waited for their seals of approval.

For when we weren't on bikes. Complete with zebra vinyl graphics, starting to age and peel from the car.

It was the second or third day of motorcycle ownership at this point, so it's safe to say that Doc taught us everything we knew about motorcycles.

Our first day immersed us in vast and empty desert biome route 3, a major, but quiet freeway connecting Johannesburg to Durban.

On our first day out on the bikes, Ben first side swipes a car dodging potholes, then skids his bike in sand around the next corner, bending his brand new panniers.

We didn't plan anything about our first day other than heading south. As the sun started disappear, we set our eyes on Estcourt, naturally an optimistic goal. When we arrived, we found a hostel, but it appeared to be full. We arrived at the gate of a bed and breakfast we found on Google maps, and rang the owner who fortunately was able to have someone let us in. We were the only guests. The premise itself had a nice garden and porch looking onto the river. There was not much happening in Estcourt, however, and it seemed it was not a well traveled accommodation.

Our only goal for the second day was to make it to Himeville at the foot of Sani Pass. It wasn't too far of a ride so we decided to take some backroads. We found some dirt and traversed trhough some more vast desert landscape to start to get our bearings off road.

Doc suggested we stay at Himeville Arms before heading out to Sani Pass as it was the thing to do before climbing the pass. Indeed, there was a truck with some bikes in tow next to our rooms around back.

We removed our panniers and other gear and left them in our room while we went out to ride Sani. This was going to be our first time with any challenging terrain and all that extra weight certainly make it any less challenging for us.

Our first night 'camping'. More of your classical backpackers hostel, but with a yard you could pitch a tent in!

Coffee Bay was also the first time we'd stop on the coast. There's a nice cove right in front of where we pitched our tents.

We made our way down the coast to the next town where we again got to pitch our tents. This campground was a lot more open with a nice, outdoor communal-kitchen and shower. Also plenty of mischievous monkeys hanging around.

We met a number of others heading out in their vehicles. This couple had retrofitted an old bug and were heading north.

We also met some Aussies who had purchased a pre-fitted van and were making their way out to the desert as well.

There were lots of campsites to choose from here, nearly all of them vacant except where some well established tents that belonged to the 'long-timers'. We chose a spot moderately far from the communal area near a tree house. It wouldn't be until the next morning that I would find that the local troop of baboons lived in the adjoining forest and would come to scavenge for food around the campsites.

The guys at Angie's gave us some suggestions on the best roads to get to Oudtshoorn. There was some short dirt riding through a red canyon that led to a highway then some long, gravel-backroads taking us into Oudtshoorn.

We ride our bikes out to an ostrich farm and get on a giant bird, fully outfitted in our motorcycle gear.

The last leg of our ride to Cape Agulhas was very windy. Not as windy as when we were in Losotho, but this time there were some intermittent bursts of rain.

Parking with all the other bikers as we grab some lunch.

The last couple miles to Cape Down brought us down to the ocean, separated only by a short stack of rocks. A great way to end the 'warmup' period of our trip.

No biker's visit to Cape Town would be complete without a ride around Chapman's Peak.

Our first of what would become many braais in Cape Town

After a month of sitting around the Hostel waiting for word from Le Cap, we got pretty bored. I decided to buy drones for the two of us from the South African equivalent of Amazon, using Bitcoin.

With my bike still with Le Cap and my visa on its last days, I went to deposit my panniers and bags in a storage unit with an agreement that Le Cap would drop my bike there when he was done with it.

As had become customary, we had a braai to celebrate the departure of a tenured guest, myself in this case.