Lots of Dreams in few days! – Khalid Al-Jaber

At a speed of 80 km, I had my bike on a cruise control mode, trying to get my Malaria pill to have it, it was 08:12 am, the mobile alarm doesn’t stop ringing as I could hear it from my tank bag! Took off my glove, opened the tank bag, shut my phone alarm off, and got out my pill, it was wrapped in a tissue paper and had it on my hand the moment I have opened the paper, the pills fell away on the streets of Malawi! Ok, should I stop or wait until I stop at a station? I was told that I should always take my malaria pills on time, never mind, if I stop now, I would be surrounded by locals, let me drive further until I stop for fuel. When I stopped at a petrol station, noticed on my right lots of kids watching me in a weird way, observing, waiting for a call, I finished refilling up my bike and took my malaria pill then said why don’t I give some of those kids my sticker? I parked my bike on the side, started my gopro, and called one kid, he came hesitating, took the sticker, and within seconds I was surrounded by those kids in a pushy, violent way that even my bike almost dropped, many of them were taking more than one sticker, and I remember this big chubby girl wearing black pushing other tiny kids with her elbows, for some reason I found 5 stickers with her! They were increasing more and more until I ran out of all stickers and had to call for a help from the station manager who kicked them away!

kids after getting all their stickers in Malawi

I was getting closer to senga bay, another part of the amazing Malawi lake, that lake is a source of income to all people of Malawi, you would always see a lot of business going on around that lake. Before reaching the town, I have noticed a lot of crowd of people running around, drums and music, and other crowd from the opposite side, I managed to ride through and reached that amazing hotel by the sandy beach of Malawi lake, the room view was amazing, just in front of the lake, spent a night there and next day continued to cross to Zambia, but on the way out I have seen a mosque that was funded by a Qatari charity organization to be exact! I kind of didn’t like the number of mosques built by people in the middle east, we donate for 70k and then the result is something worth 3000 Dollars! Other than that, all wells are dry and bad quality. Not just that, there are a lot of mosques that you would find them empty! Malawi is in desperate need for education, schools, infrastructure and decent jobs than mosques and dry wells!

a dry well which was made to satisfy the donor

The beautiful lake view in Senga bay

It is a crossing week here! Crossing to Malawi, Zambia, Botswana then Namibia! Entering Zambia was way easier than applying for their visa! Which took me more than 3 months to get the approvals! Big thanks to that Lebanese young lady, Khadija, who works for Embassy of Qatar to Lebanon, without her support I wouldn’t have entered Zambia! I felt she was doing her best to get it done, probably I would consider her one of the supporters of this trip! I have Spent around 4 days in Zambia, crossing to Lusaka was part of the route, nothing impressive in the first 2 towns except the long riding days, overtaking and lots of goats on the road. The interesting part was livingstone, where we have spent 2 nights, to see the amazing Victoria falls, do a helicopter ride and visit the bridge that connects Zimbabwe and Zambia! I was so excited to do the Bungee jumping, the same time I was so scared to get a heart attack or a back pain, for sure it would stretch all my body, but id rather wait and see it with my eyes then decide. When I woke up next morning, first thing I did was riding to the falls to see the bungee jumpers, when I said to myself “It’s not gonna happen!” I wouldn’t want to hurt my back, knees or even heart while I am on this adventure, so I decided to ride back to the hotel and prepare for the helicopter ride with Hubert, Kevin, Julia, Paul and Anne which felt like a dream. Not just that, right after that ride we headed to swim in the devil’s pool, that close to the edge of Victoria falls. That felt like a dream. Many who saw the videos didn’t believe that I would do it. I would call it crazier than the bungee jump. So, on the same week we crossed to Namibia Botswana, spent the night there, nothing much except we have seen lots and lots of elephants, crocodiles, and hippos! One afternoon and sunset river tour and one big buffet dinner and next day we crossed to Namibia! The country that I got the most headache with their visa, finally it’s happening, and I was worried that I don’t get in for some reason, but it was way smoother than Zambia! Next week I will tell you what happened in Namibia which could be lots of adventure and toughest rides!