Vaughn, Dustin, Luke, and I spent the weekend at Mulungushi Lake at Dustin and Vaughn’s lake-house. The weather was perfect. We went hiking, rock climbing, canoeing, slalom-skiing, cliff jumping (into the lake), and so much more. My personal favorite activity was swimming in a natural pool at the base of a waterfall (Vaughn and I decided it was like a taste of Paradise).
But as perfect as everything was at Mulungushi, the weekend was not without its problems. Vaughn, Dustin, and I had decided to ride motorcycles out to the lake. Luke rode in the car with two other friends of ours, Tommy and Marissa. Shortly after we started our 3 hour ride down the dirt road, Dustin’s bike began to have problems. A bolt had fallen off his bike and his side panel was ready to fall off. Vaughn came up with a quick fix by using a self locking pin (normally used for connecting the motorcycle ambulance to the bike) to substitute for the missing bolt. So after a short delay, we were back on the dusty trail.
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| Vaughn's soft wire McGyver battery rigging |
But an hour later, I came across my second most hated motorbike nemesis... A deep ditch. (My most hated is pigs.) I fought the ditch, but gravity and gravel gave it the upper hand, and I fell. I was fine, but the bike suffered some cosmetic damage. Nevertheless, I was up and riding again after several minutes. We made it about 30 minutes further before Vaughn had his first problem. His battery terminal broke off. It apparently couldn’t hold on any longer after all the bumps he had taken it over. I stopped to help him, but I wasn’t much help. Neither of us had any tools. Dustin had a toolkit, but he was somewhere up ahead of us. So we used some tape off my bike to try to reconnect the battery cable. Then we stuffed rocks and our T-shirts into the battery compartment to help create pressure on the connection. It didn’t work too well. So I left to go get Dustin and his tools and return. I found Dustin. He was also having battery problems now. Somehow his connection had been shorted, and he could not diagnose the problem. But at least he managed to jump start his bike. On our way back to help Vaughn, we found him with his bike running... He had gotten it to work. He had pulled a McGyver and used his key ring to hold the battery cable to the terminal. All the bikes were running again! Since we were just under 25 miles from Mulungushi and the most difficult terrain was behind us, I jumped in the car and let Luke hop on my motorcycle. He had been practicing his motorbike skills and was ready to put them to the test. Unfortunately, about 10 minutes into the test, he encountered what has become his motorbike nemesis... Sand. He lost control and involuntarily took a detour off the side of the road and into the bush. This detour was cut short when the front wheel of the bike was greeted by a hole in the ground. The bike tumbled several feet. Luke tumbled several more. (He was launched over the handlebars.) Luke laid on the ground in shock. When he realized he could still move all of his body parts, he got up and walked back to the edge of the road and laid down. That was the condition Vaughn found him in as he rode up on his bike... Still in shock, lying on the side of the road, eyes wide open, and no sign of the bike. He had a few bumps and bruises but he was okay. Vaughn found the bike lying in the tall grass and waved down a truck to take the bike and Luke the rest of the way to Mulungushi. By nightfall, all four of us and three of the bikes were in Mulungushi.
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| Luke's leg post-crash |
The return trip from Mulungushi was met with similar problems. Dustin was still having battery problems and had to jump start his bike every time he stopped, Luke’s crash had knocked loose the muffler of my bike, and Vaughn’s other battery terminal decided to break. This caused our 3 hour ride home to stretch on for 5 hours. But after multiple efforts, we managed to use soft wire (pliable metal wire) to reattach my muffler and Vaughn’s other battery terminal. According to Vaughn, “Soft wire is the duct tape of Africa.” But eventually, we all made it home safely. And the bikes were still running, even if they were only being held together by bush mechanics.
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| My muffler rigging |
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