Well we’ve made it to South Africa!! Cape Town now seems within touching distance, although it’s still over 2,000km’s and a couple weeks away. We’re currently in Johannesburg. A truly metropolitan city, with too many shopping malls and traffic jams. It’s a world away from the Africa we have seen so far.

Leaving Lilongwe (in Malawi) we made the short trip to the border with Zambia. Although we had bought motorcycle insurance for Malawi, we were never asked for it by the police and in general thought it was a waste of money. Determined not to make the same mistake again, we simply walked passed the unattended Zambian customs window and didn’t bother paying the obligatory road tax, carbon emissions levy or insurance. Nobody stopped us so we didn’t consider it important. That was until the police demanded it at one of the check points. Oops!

Thinking on our feet, we said that the receipts for all three had dissolved after getting soaked from the constant rain we were riding through. They seemed to buy the story and said they will let us pass, but insisted that we get another receipt from Lusaka. Of coarse we said we would

The road through Zambia was pretty boring. Long straight roads flanked by tall trees and bushes on either side. It was great for finding secluded camping spots, but we’d had similar scenery all the way through Malawi, so didn’t stop or detour too much.

We reached Livingstone after a couple of days riding and camped at a local backpackers (with free wireless - bonus!). Here we met Tom. A crazy one armed American who made a film about his trip down the east coast of Africa in a beach buggy (www.redbuggy.com). He’s now trying to sell the film in order to fund future adventures.

We also met a Polish/Japanese couple who have been touring around the world on their BMW F650. They fund their trips by selling their photos in Japan. Also a cool idea. They were the ones that told us how to see the Victoria Falls without paying the entry charge. We won’t go into details, but let’s just say it involves holes in fences

The Victoria Falls are one of the seven (or eight - we can’t remember) natural wonders in the world. And they make an impression!! The sheer force and size of the falls is amazing. We spent several days exploring the falls from every angle. Kamil even got to see them from above in a microlight. For someone who loves flying, but hasn’t flown in 10 months, to take the controls and fly over the falls was like a drug. He now wants to buy a microlight

Before crossing over the bridge to Zimbabwe we stock up on food, petrol and US$1 notes. We were told that shops are empty and the Zimbabwe dollar depreciates by the day, so it’s not worth changing into the local currency. At the time we entered the US$1 was equal to $40 trillion Zim dollars!!! Apparantley thirteen zero’s had already been dropped in the last couple of years and they have just put a $100 trillion note into circulation. No joke!

In the tourist town of Victoria Falls itself there was a handful of tourists. We had the whole campground to ourselves. Shops, petrol stations and restaurants were all shut. The only thing to remain open was the bottle shop Bread and some vegies (brought over the border from Zambia) could only be bought for US dollars and South African rand.

After a few days we continued south to Bulawayo. On the way we met an aussie couple riding around the world - Billy and Trish. They were in Zimbabwe for over a month and claimed that things aren’t that bad. This turns out to be true. The closer we get to Bulawayo the more we see on store shelves and we even buy petrol for US$0.80 per litre. The price over the counter is US$1/L but we bought a petrol coupon on the black market. Nobody in Zimbabwe is paid local currency anymore, instead they receive food, clothes or petrol coupons which they on sell.

Despite the current hardship of life in Zimbabwe, the people have remained very friendly. Hardy anyone resorts to begging or theft and we felt safe bush camping all the way to South Africa.

From Jo’burg we want to visit Kruger National Park and then ride through the tiny inland island of Lesotho.