Ready for Rwanda, Dudes !!

The title of this post says it all !!

The Big Fella is good to go again !!

I spent yesterday, writing the post about the events of the 13^th, and my ordeal to get to Dodoma… I also went through all the options available to me, including getting the bike onto a truck, and driving the 450 km to Dar-es-Salaam, and relying on the kindness of Steve Luker to put me up while I flew parts in from South Africa… But my first goal was to try and get the bike sorted on my own… I went to see Glenn at M.A.F. (Mission Aviation Fellowship) with whom I had been in contact with via email over the past week or so, but he wasn’t in… I did however notice that they have a relatively jacked up workshop, which repairs the vehicles which the missionaries use to get themselves into the interior… I found out that Glenn was actually the workshop manager!! If I couldn’t get the bike sorted out myself, guess where my next port of call would be!! Glenn is also a biker, and has  Honda off-road bike parked in a container in his workshop…

Robert the night manager inspects the back of his eyelids...

I was up at 5.00am this morning, and raring to go… It was still dark outside, but I knew there were lights on the porch where the bike was parked… Only problem was that half my gear, including the panniers, was locked in the manager’s office… I made my way downstairs to reception, where I found the night manager, Robert, fast asleep on the couch. The front door was unlocked, and I tip-toed past him and out onto the porch…

Robert awoke with a start when I “accidentally” shut the door with a bang, having stood around for ten minutes wondering what I should do…

“Sorry to wake you, Robert, but I need my tools from the office… I want to start early, as I have to call BMW in South Africa to get some info on the bike…”

He heaved his considerable bulk off the couch and opened the office for me, staggering into the counter and wincing in pain as he did so… The body was up, but the eyes hadn’t fully opened…

By 7.00am, I had removed the exhaust and the back tyre, unbolted the shock absorber, installed the spare one, repaired the puncture, changed all the globes, and was waiting for BMW to open back in S.A. … Not bad going huh ??

Tyre, Exaust and Shocking Absorber removed... Big Fella's backside exposed to all...

Puncture fixed.... I've now done 14 700 km on this tyre, and there's more to come...

I asked Robert for the keys to the kitchen, so I could make myself a cup of coffee… I could see that to him, this was a highly unusual request, but after a bit of dithering, and a stern look from me, he took me down the corridor to the kitchen… When I saw the state of the kitchen, I was flabbergasted… Having already consumed a few meals that originated in that kitchen, I had no doubt that I was in for a bad dose on “Galloping Gut” in the very near future… I made a mental note of where I had packed the Imodium…

Rather than fire up the stove, (because this hotel does not have a kettle…!!), I chose to heat water in the microwave oven, and used my own mug to make my coffee… The wording on the control panel had long since disappeared under a layer of dirt and grime… Robert squinted at the dials and then started pushing buttons in a random manner that told me he had no idea how to work this contraption… I elbowed him out of the way, when themachine came to life and showed that the single cup of water would be spending 30 minutes heating up… Using the back of a teaspoon to push the buttons, I got it set for a90 seconds and then showed Robert how to work the microwave, while his eyes followed the cup… Round and round, round and round…

“Robert !! Stop watching the cup…!! You are going to fall over just now !! “…

He shook his head like a dog with wet ears does, and then stepped back into the safety of the dining room…

I made a mental note to sneak down to reception at 5.00 am again tomorrow morning….with a cup of cold water… I will call it, “Let’s see how high Robert can jump ?”

Out with the NEW, and in with the OLD...!!!

The offending little switch that caused all the anxiety... I'd been sitting on the problem all along...

I decided to call Mannie Koutsoudakis at Auto Alpina, as I knew he would already be at work… He very kindly called me back, and after explaining my electrical problem, he said,

“Before you cut any wires, (too late !!”) check under your seat… there is a starter relay there, and perhaps it has shaken loose…”

“It couldn’t be that simple !”,  I thought, but followed his instructions and…., Hey Presto! …. Not only was it loose, but it wasn’t even in the holder… It was lying next to the socket… And that, my friends, tells you how corrugated and rough that road was…!! I pushed the relay back into it’s socket, turned the key, and pushed the starter… And nearly crapped myself…!!! The Big Fella roared to life…and without the exhaust, the noise was almost deafening…!! Maybe he was just happy to come alive again…!! The guests in the hotel were not as happy to be woken so early !!

After thanking Mannie, and hearing his familiar chuckle at my joy, I rang off and danced a little jig on the porch… Robert and the security guards came up, and there was much “high-fiving”… It then took me twice as long as it had to fix everything else, to join the wires that I had cut while waiting for the truck in the dark the other night… Lesson learned… Check the starter relay first, Ronnie !!!

Glenn of M.A.F. getting a pesky bolt sorted out for me...

Abdoulah, the taxi driver who has been ferrying me around town every day, arrived with my back mudguard, which he had taken upon himself to repair… I tried fitting it back onto the bike but noticed that the bolt which held it on had sheared off inside the larger bolt that held the shock absorber in place… Did I mention how rough the road was…??

I remembered the M.A.F. workshop that I had visited the previous day, and got Abdoulah to drive me there, where I met Glenn, who is from Northern Ireland, and after an hour or so, we had removed the offending remains of the old bolt, and tapped the hole to take a new bolt, which Glenn supplied me with… More about M.A.F. and the great work they do, later…

Before leaving, I discovered that Glenn is off to South Africa this weekend, to attend a course in Kempton Park!!! He has kindly agreed to take my broken shock absorber back with him, where I will arrange to get it to Roger at Bavarian Motorcycles, so that his man Alec, can have ANOTHER go at repairing it… In case the original BMW shock that I now have back on, gives me hassles, I will have to fly the repaired shock to wherever it is that I am stuck…

Glenn also agreed to take a CD back with him, onto which I will load all the photos, video and audio files I have thus far collected. I intended to send them from Nairobi once I got there, but that will no longer be necessary… Thanks a million Glenn, you are a star !!

All clean and ready for Rwanda...but the tyre hugger stays off...!!

Back at the hotel, and after much fiddling, I decided to dispense with the mudguard, the joint was just too flimsy, and was bound to break again as soon as I got onto a dirt road… I will strap it to the spare tyres, and decide what to do with it once I get to Nairobi… Perhaps Chris will have a few ideas on how we can improve the darn thing…

My two days in Dodoma have been entertaining, I have met a bunch of friendly people, and enjoyed taking the Mickey out of them. (as I am sometimes known to do…) From here, I was planning to ride the 580 km to Kahoma tomorrow, but may cut that trip in two, by staying in Singida tomorrow night (250 km from Dodoma) and then the remaining 330 km to Kahoma the following day… I will see how it goes, and how long the Singida leg takes me… Most of it is “sort of tarred” according to locals…

Singida is the place where only  a few years ago, a pride of man-eating lions terrorized the local population for months on end, killing and eating more than a dozen people, before they were brought to book…

There better be a lot of tall trees in this next section, because if I break down, you better believe I will not be found waiting next to my bike….