Apologies to our faithful readers for the incredibly long holiday we have taken from blogging and keeping you all updated about our exploits. As I, Jeremy, write this I’m currently I’m the United Arab Emirates waiting for a visa for Nigeria to rejoin Keith and the bikes, I guess that takes some explaining! So here goes.
Keith was back home for a month in July and I was supposed to spend a month in August back in Europe before we were both going to resume travelling. Unfortunately sometimes things don’t go according to plan and after getting a new visa for Nigeria from Dublin I had to get my passport couriered back to me in the UK. This is where the plan fell apart as my passport with all my precious stamps and my expensive visa for Nigeria along with my plane ticket was lost by FedEx!!!! You can imagine my frustration and the uncertainty of the next couple weeks was a killer.
In the end I escaped the UK for 10 days on a cheap flight to California on my other passport while my Irish passport was being replaced. The time I had there was relaxing and allowed me to think a bit more about the remainder of the year, so as soon as I had a new passport I was on a plane to Afghanistan to spend a little time with my parents who live there.
After an all too short time at “home” it was off to Yemen to spent a few weeks travelling around with Richo, the mad Aussie who patched me up in Ghana after my accident!
More bloggage about both these places will follow with pics on the site.
During all of this time I was caught up in an internal battle about what to do with the remainder of the year. To either return to Africa and push for Cape Town or to fly the bike to Dubai and cross over into Iran and ride back to Europe via Turkey… Much too and frooing occurred with a couple turn arounds, before like a politician, I finally settled on a decision to rejoin Keith and ride to South Africa together.
So here I am applying for another visa to Nigeria hoping to rejoin Keith and the bikes by the start of December with a goal of reaching Cape Town sometime in January. Rather optimistic perhaps, but achievable and I’ve got to go back to work and earn some dollars for the next trip!
Meanwhile back at Drill Ranch Keith has been busy plugging away helping run the place and generally being indispensable. I’ll let him fill you all in on his activities in the last few months in another blog post.
Good to see you back Guys. Nice to see that Keith is been going at it hard work wise. All those hours spent with the apes (monkeys) we will have to change his name to man cub. A real jungle book character. Keep up the good work and leave some for Jeremy when he returns. Keep safe and Keep the rubber side down. Nigel
Ah … Cape Town in January … sweet! The sun, the beaches, the mountains and the wine – a place I like to call home. Make sure you get hold of me when you get here guys! I’ve got enough room and mattresses to accommodate you both. Enjoy the ride. Gareth