Exploring Africa on motorbike: October 2011

Mozambique, October 2011

After twelve days long stay in Pemba I'm getting a feeling that I need a stronger adventure. Early in the morning I start driving from Merrebue south to Mecufi. Some 15 kms after Mecufi I find some village and ask people where to turn left to find pathway to lead me to Rio Lurio banks. After two or three tries I find it. I ride around 4 kms on a very narrow pathway, sometimes through the bush. I arrive to the river banks in around 40 minutes. Low tide starts at around 8 am and now is already 9.50 am. I decide to start riding my motorbike accross on a sandy riverbed anyway. The sand is very wet and I can feel my chain is very tense while driving. I have to speed up to 70 km/h because of the sand is wet but at the same time I don't want't to break the chain. I am slaloming between water channels for next 2 kms. I can see water from the sea coming up very fast. Suddenly I stop and realize that I am trapped on a small island. Water is all around me. I can't go anywhere only straight into the water. I quickly start my motorbike and start driving directly into the deep water. First it's 30 cm deep, vut not for long. Soon I fall into 100 cm deep water. I think it is all over. I am aggresivelly splashed over my face and body. I think I will have to swim together with my motorbike. I can't feel that my wheels are touching the bottom. In a second when I am scared to death I just accelerate aggresively and start flying on the water as a jet-ski. I come out of the water on the other side. What a relief. My eyes are wet, I squeal of happiness.:) I did it, Yamaha did it, we did it! :)

I continued my trip on a dirty but beautiful empty road to Memba which is around 150 km south from Lurio. In next few hours I didn't meet not even one tourist, just locals everywhere. And that's what I love. To meet locals and only locals. :)

Later I spoke to the Italian guy who lives and works on a historic island called Ilha de Mozambique where I arrived two days later. He was showing me his two KTM motorbikes in his garage. When I told him about Rio Lurio experience, he couldn't hide his excitement. He told me that he tried the same with his KTM motorbike but both times failed, as water entered through his exchaust system so engine stoped in the water. So both times he was literally swimming with broken motorbike and then repairing it for hours on the river banks. I couldn't hold my tongue and I kindly suggested him to buy Yamaha. :)