Liftoff! (11/08/00)

Steph has conquered the intestinal bug that had her down for over a week, and we made our exit from Cape Town today!

We got a late start because we had to get everything packed up and make one last run to the Internet cafe.

This is the wild part! Yesterday, I was at the Internet cafe when a guy came in and asked who the KLR 650 belonged to. When he was directed my way, he introduced himself as Marc Forrest.

He said that a few years ago he had been following a group of guys who rode their motorcycles from California to South America, and asked if I was familiar with them.

Was I familiar?! I'm one of them!

It was incredible. He had followed our entire trip; he knew the stories; he knew all about Jay. He had even emailed us and both Gary Kout and I had responded.

Sure, we had a lot of people following us on that trip, but were the odds of running into someone in Cape Town, South Africa!

Anyway, Marc is a bit a wildman himself. He's from Ashland, Oregon but he travels the world fishing. Check out his site:

http://www.mind.net/basile

So, back to Steph and me. When we were finally packed up, we made our way out of the motel and got all of 100 meters when she got a short in her bike.

But, with a little electrical tape, she had it fixed in no time. We made our way to African Adventures to make reservations for Kruger Park, and then we were off!

We finally headed out of Cape Town at around 1:30pm (on this my 20th and her 19th day in Cape Town).

We headed out the N2 and the landscape rapidly changed. I'm afraid I'm not the writer Gary is, but just let me say it was a beautiful ride--and VERY WINDY.

My speedometer cable broke after 50km so not sure how far we got. We took a leisurely lunch in Caledon and then headed along the "Garden Route" until we got to Wilderness. Did a bit of riding at night--plenty of bugs :-)

Gotta Run!

We on the road!!!

Thanks for your patience and support.