That moment sufficiently summed up the entire trip. A lot went wrong: flat tires, reroutes, and a number of close calls—all of which we laughed off. There’s a calmness in knowing that your crew has your back. There’s a lightness in realizing that the worst moments always pass. There’s a freedom in learning that most problems don’t have a single right answer. Thick mud, deep sand, lightning storms, food poisoning, and bike trouble are all solvable problems, provided your group sticks together.
Lesson #2: Plan Ahead, but Save Some Room for Creativity
Let’s go back to the beginning and how we got into this mess. Two weeks earlier, we’d touched down in Arusha, Tanzania, clean cut and naively optimistic for the journey ahead. The four of us, close friends and frequent adventure partners, had spent the last half year planning this moto trip across Africa. That may sound like a lot of time, but for something of this magnitude, it turns out it really isn’t.
We divvied up the to-do list, researching routes, collecting the right gear, building out a spare parts list and repair kit, figuring out visas and vaccinations, and petitioning bosses for PTO. We moved fast, putting together a month-long, self-supported motorcycle ride across the southern half of Africa, but in all honesty, we didn’t know what to expect.
We had the gear, riding experience, and GPX routes on our nav, but that’s just table stakes. There wasn’t a playbook for what we were about to get into—nor did we want one. We didn’t fly across the world to follow someone else’s path, repeat their experiences, and post the same photos to the ‘gram. We wanted to do it our way, get lost a few times, and figure it out as we went.