Murchison Falls National Park

Big african sunrise on the Nile

"Mom, I'm hungry!"

"Ba patient and wait for your little brothers"

"I think mom is calling us"

"Mom, we're coming..."

"Hey guys I found some fresh food!"

"Why that lions are looking at me?!"

"Don't know what is it, but I think is good. What do you think guys?"

"Hope lions don't like bikers!!!!"

"We don't like it, let's go for a classic anthilop"

"Oopss!!"

"...here seems safe..."

"Why don't we play with that strange animal?"

"All this small animal are too crazy for me"

"Run, run! He's shooting!"

"Hey don't go away, we could be friend!"

"You're too ugly for me!"

"Hey you on the bike don't go away, we could be friend!"

In corrispondenza delle cascate Murchison il Nilo attraversa la Rift Valley, uno degli ecosistemi piu' ricchi di tutto il pianeta. Qui si ha la possibilita' di avvistare un'innumerevole quantita' di animali. Dai grandi erbivori ai piu' pericolosi carnivori. Abbiamo passato mezza giornata in mezzo al parco e nel pomeriggio siamo andati in barca fino alla base delle cascate.
Come sempre e' stata un'esperienza incredibile. Gli animali trasmettono veramente un grande senso di pace e tranquillita'.
Colonna sonora: "Jambo, jambo" Traditional swaili

Jinja - Murchison falls

Most powerful falls of the world

Just one step beyond...

Le cascate del Nilo bianco sono uno spettacolo naturale unico al mondo. Il fiume intero e' costretto a passare in uno spazio di appena 6 metri e la potenza dell'acqua in quel punto raggiunge un livello esagerato. Il rumore dell'acqua lo si puo' sentire da chilometri di distanza ed una volta arrivati li' si e' come ipnotizzati da questa forza naturale. Io ero talmente emozionato che mi sono lasciato prendere dall'entusiasmo ed un po' incautaumente mi sono avventurato su un masso in mezzo alla cascata d'acqua. Inaspettatamente sono stato sommerso da un'ondata d'acqua piu' grande del normale che mi ha fatto perdere l'equilibrio costringendomi ad afferrare il masso con le mani. Vi assicuro che in quel momento l'adrenalina ha invaso il mio corpo e ci sono voluti dieci minuti affinche' il mio cuore tornasse a battere regolarmente.
In fin dei conti sono stato fortunato ed ho imparato che e' da incoscienti correre rischi inutili ed anche se questo vuol dire seguire le proprie emozioni, non ne vale mai la pena.
Colonna sonora: "One step beyond" Madness


we spent 4 days in Jinja. we met some lovely people out there. namely mitch, jack and geoffrey. real characters who ran the campsite. we had a lovely time time with them unwinding and patching ourselves up mentally and physically. i had a lot of work to do on the bike. i had to gas weld my seat adjustment shaft on the bike. which was a real hash bush mechanic job. but i had no choice. its worked out quite nicely in the end. the rear shock from Sachs is a really fantastic design with a pivoting action. as in the shock itself doesn't support the weight of the bike. it does so indirectly. so when the shock bottoms out its the seat adjustment shaft (that is pivoting off the shock) that takes the brunt of the hit and snaps. so the shock remains protected. i find it a master piece in design. Bmw shocks out in Africa are breaking all the time whereas our Ducati's haven't had a single problem with them. we rode a very hard two day ride to Murchison falls. about 450 km of very bad road. at one point we rode 25 km with speed bumps every 10 meters! i was going nuts i tell you. we bushed camped in the middle of nowhere and then we arrived at the falls. wow it is probably the single most beautiful piece of nature i've ever seen. the entire nile passes through a 6metre gap. the power of that water is astounding. you cant hear yourself think. being near it makes your heart beat faster and you can feel a heavy presence there. the water drops 300metres and the force of it is so powerful that the water actually rises back up 200 meters up the cliff creating these incredible white water. i spent about 2 hours taking photographs of the mists rising out of that place. it was a really enchanting experience and i will never forget it.

Kisumu - Jinja

burnt out town during the tribal conflicts in kenya

talking with some guys who were involved in the killings and rioting - hectic moment

just after i hit a foot deep pothole . i broke my seat adjustment shaft. my rear wheel was rubbing on my seat.

our nervous night in Kisumu. we thought the hotel was going to get raided by an angry mob that night

so happy to be in lovely uganda. we were so tense and anxious in western kenya.

my bike looking really sad after the big crash and hitting that deep pothole.

well i never thought i could write a book in my life. but with the amount of stories and things that happened to me in that week i think i could. we arrived in Kisumu after a hellish 13 hour day on the bike. i could barely ride it. i had to go at 30 km/h as my rear shock was bottomed out and i had only 2cm of travel before my rear tyre touched my seat. the road was terrible and it was very hard going. i never thought this trip would be so hard. every time im just amazed at how difficult things can be. and you struggle struggle struggle every km of it. well after a nervous night in Kisumu we left early in the morning at 0500. i was so extremely exhausted the previous night that i couldnt sleep. we left early to avoid the rioting in the area. we were really scared of being caught out there and having a broken bike was not helping much. how can one outrun a mob on a bike doing 30km/h! anyway, we left and managed to get some km's under our belt. we were relieved to arrive at the ugandan border around lunch time. and passed, into what seemed like, heaven. uganda is light after kenya. happy smiley people. beautiful scenery. i was singing in my helmet the first 50km. arrive in jinja around 6 and had a cold friendly beer. we camped on the source of the nile and talked to, what seemed like, old friends. we'd made it through, arguably, the most dangerous part of our journey.

Nairobi - Kisumu

my big crash, hit a stopped car doing 60km/h. did'nt even break. hell it hurt.

the damage i did. my head went through the rear window breaking it. just as well.

a view onto the rift valley. africa's battle wound as she tried to split in two.

our friend timmy - in hiding from the kikuyu tribe who killed many of his friends

beautiful flamingoes

well we decided to do a uganda raid. only we didnt want to go all the way down to tanzanaia. so we decided to risk it by passing through western kenya. now as you all know wester kenya was the centre of all the post electorial violence in kenya. people were slaughtered there and villages set alight. it was not a nice place to be going. things were heating up politically as well. we decided to run, we wanteed to get through there in a day. which meant doing 600km. all was going to plan when we pulled into Naivasha. we met our friend Timmy who was in hiding from the kikuyu tribe. he was telling us stories of his friends being massacred just the past week. it was shocking to hear those things but good for us to know the truth. we passed on the next day to Nakuru (one fo the worst towns hit by cultural violence) on the way we passed burnt out villages. which was really quite disturbing. we stopped and talked to the people there. asking what had happened. turned out it was them that had don all these terrible things. killing people, burning down the village and driving the others out. a real mind openere and we very discreetly made a french exit.

Ngorongoro Conservation Area

Un giorno in seconda elementare la maestra ha tenuto un’intera lezione sugli animali dell’Africa nera. Le foto di leoni e zebre mi hanno colpito a tal punto che avevo deciso di andare in Africa per vedere tutti questi affascinanti animali dal vivo. Una volta venuta a conoscenza delle mie intenzioni, pero’, la maestra invece d’incoraggiarmi ha cercato di disilludermi dicendo che, dal momento che dove vivono gli animali non ci sono strade, senza una bussola ed una mappa mi sarei sicuramente perso. Interpretando a modo mio i suoi avvertimenti il giorno dopo ho commesso un piccolo peccato ed ho rubato la mappa dell’Africa che era appesa affianco alla lavagna della mia classe convinto che con quella sarei stato in grado di andare a trovare i miei amici animali ed avrei poi ritrovato la strada verso casa. 24 anni dopo quella mappa mi ha permesso di arrivare fino a qui e finalmente sono riuscito a realizzare il mio sogno. Prometto che una volta tornato in Italia andro’ alla mia vecchia scuola e restituiro’ la preziosissima mappa.

Domenica 24/02/2008.

Ngorongoro Crater (S 03 10,305’ E 35 32,547’) e’ uno dei posti piu’ suggestivi al mondo per la ricchezza e la varieta’ di animali che si trovano all’interno di quest’enorme catino situato a sudest del parco Serengeti. Sulla sterminata prateria che circonda il lago salato Magadi, infatti, convivono a poche centinaia di metri gli uni dagli altri zebre, elefanti, gnu, bufali, leoni, leopardi, iene, struzzi, antilopi, gazzelle, ippopotami, giraffe, flamingo, rinoceronti e moltissimi altri animali.

Colonna sonora “Iron, Lion, Zion” Bob Marley