Change. Of Course.

Maybe it was each of the continuous 20km without even ten meters of relief of perhaps the worse corrugated, rocky and gravely road I’d been on during my trip. Bone jarring, teeth rattling and bike beating nasty washboard with spots of deep gravel. Or peradventure, was it the 130km of dirt riding requiring heavy concentration […]

The Sandy Wet Ride to Namibia

Things always take longer than you’d like. Especially when it comes to motorcycle dealers. As my bike sat for over a month in Rio this past summer, the humidity combined with the salt ocean air did a number on the bike. The nuts and bolts holding the end cap of my Adventure Pipe had oxidized […]

The Twentieth.

Namibia marks twenty countries that I’ve visited on this journey.

Attitudes. Latitudes: Getting Back To Cape Town

Making my way back to Cape Town I try my best not to tread over the same ground I’d before. Curious to see one of the oldest towns in South Africa I set my sites on Graff-Reinet. Cruising across the “Grand Karoo” with its scrubby rough terrain, proud buttes rising from the desert floor and […]

Celebrating And Getting Ready For Namibia.

Thanks to all of you who somehow have remembered that today is my birthday and sent me notes, cards and e-mails!!! And thanks so much to those of you who have put a few dollars in my gas can through my PayPal or Amazon Accounts. The support and help is appreciated and I will put […]

Leaving Lesotho

The Lesotho plate features an icon of the traditional straw woven hats the traditional Sotho people wear while working the fields or tending livestock. I’ve come to endear Lesotho. Maybe it’s because of the extremely friendly people, the smiles on the faces of children or the spectacular mountain scenery and primitive villages. It’s unfortunate I […]

Landing In The Kingdom In The Sky

By the time I stopped I had counted five or six waterfalls. Given the amount of rain I’d been through for the last two weeks, it was no wonder. But riding through this majestic valley of gently rolling fertile hills punctuated by harsh and ominous croppings of rock, the waterfalls tumbled down from cliffs more […]

Coffee Bay to the Drakensburg (sort of)

South Africa’s Wild Coast – between the ripping currents of the Indian Ocean and the mountains to the north is the “Transkei” a magical, mysterious and scenic part of South Africa and birthplace of South African freedom fighter Nelson Mandela. My time in Coffee Bay on South Africa’s “Wild Coast” was well spent. The “chill” […]

Xhosa, The Transkei and Coffee Bay.

Tucked in cozy nook in the Amathole Mountains, Hogsback and the surrounding old growth forest, waterfalls and the canopy and odd shaped twists, turns and hanging strands of foliage and tree branches apparently was the inspiration for South African-born J.R. Tolkien and his wildly popular series of Fantasy books including The Hobbit and the Lord […]

Happy Birthday Mom

Happy Birthday Audrey Karl-Shaff! Mom and my brother Jon decanting a bottle of wine in South Dakota in the shadow of Mount Rushmore!