Country number nineteen and the final one...South Africa. Lesotho may have taken that final title but alas time is not with us and so SA it is. After our late border crossing we made Zeerust, a small town 230km west of a waiting Werner in Pretoria. A pleasant stay was cheaply had at a B&B that was managed by an Afrikaans version of Basil Fawlty. Slept, fed and WIFI’d, us and the bikes were then pointed east where we reached Pretoria and finally met Werner. Bike/travel chat, nice food, beers and more chat then followed. Amongst the chat was the very recent news that my original travel companion BJ was some 3000km north about to cross into Angola. Seemingly he’d a last minute change of mind and set off a couple of weeks after me. Either that or he just wanted to ride solo. Or he doesn’t like me..! Anyhow, after two nights of this we wished each other well at Werner’s BMW Motorrad dealership, under the eyes of the usual GS owners who were probably shocked at the sight of two properly used non GS’s having made such a trip as ours, despite next to none of them venturing outside of their own country, as usual.
Next up after a short ride was Johannesburg for what was supposed to some quick bike repairs and a night out but after a random meeting with a local nutter called Alan we began what turned out to be a monster two day drinking session with him and his friends. During this gradual liver poisoning exercise we also met two young guys (that also knew Werner, coincidentally) Lee and Renato who took a more savage approach and bought me a ‘Flaming Lamborghini’ as it was my birthday.
Good times initially but several hours later...bad times! As for Alan and co, the more time we spent with them and the more we learned about them the more odd it felt. All far right Afrikaans and ‘pwoper naughty’ as some may say, it was clear that although extremists if they were your friends they would do their upmost to look after you, which they certainly did. Their tales of violence, guns and corruption were without doubt true but to be fair they all seemed to be based on protection of their property/family/business which seems fair enough to me.
Country number nineteen and the final one...South Africa. Lesotho may have taken that final title but alas time is not with us and so SA it is. After our late border crossing we made Zeerust, a small town 230km west of a waiting Werner in Pretoria. A pleasant stay was cheaply had at a B&B that was managed by an Afrikaans version of Basil Fawlty. Slept, fed and WIFI’d, us and the bikes were then pointed east where we reached Pretoria and finally met Werner. Bike/travel chat, nice food, beers and more chat then followed. Amongst the chat was the very recent news that my original travel companion BJ was some 3000km north about to cross into Angola. Seemingly he’d a last minute change of mind and set off a couple of weeks after me. Either that or he just wanted to ride solo. Or he doesn’t like me..! Anyhow, after two nights of this we wished each other well at Werner’s BMW Motorrad dealership, under the eyes of the usual GS owners who were probably shocked at the sight of two properly used non GS’s having made such a trip as ours, despite next to none of them venturing outside of their own country, as usual. 
Next up after a short ride was Johannesburg for what was supposed to some quick bike repairs and a night out but after a random meeting with a local nutter called Alan we began what turned out to be a monster two day drinking session with him and his friends. During this gradual liver poisoning exercise we also met two young guys (that also knew Werner, coincidentally) Lee and Renato who took a more savage approach and bought me a ‘Flaming Lamborghini’ as it was my birthday.
Good times initially but several hours later...bad times! As for Alan and co, the more time we spent with them and the more we learned about them the more odd it felt. All far right Afrikaans and ‘pwoper naughty’ as some may say, it was clear that although extremists if they were your friends they would do their upmost to look after you, which they certainly did. Their tales of violence, guns and corruption were without doubt true but to be fair they all seemed to be based on protection of their property/family/business which seems fair enough to me.
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