A motorbike trip to South Africa.

Africa.
We enjoyed the first day of winter a lot. The weather was fine, it was +25°C and a little bit windy. Such a breeze is better than yesterday's +37°C heat, when the sun in a cloudless sky scorches your body and makes you sweat. Even racing at a speed of 150 km/h the oncoming air wouldn't cool you down.

We have already been traveling across South Africa on BMW motorbikes for two weeks. Our team of seven started from Cape Town, crossed the central part of the country from west to east and reached the coast of the Indian Ocean.
South Africa is an amazing country that combines both European culture and local African flavor. There are excellent high-speed highways connecting cities with each other and numerous roads, which appear as well-rolled grader ones and are paved between small villages and farms.

While going along grader you can keep the speed of 100-120 km/h in a comfortable way. The only thing that prevents you from experiencing the complete pleasure of riding is dust rising from under the wheels of your friends who ride in front of you.
When we go across plains, we permanently see the low barbed wire fence on both sides of the road. It marks the boundaries of private areas. These are either harvested fields of grain crops with rolled "coils" of straw on them or vineyards. There are also many ostrich farms, pastures for cows, sheep, horses… And when we go to the mountains, the tops of the passes and the gorges offer really stunning views, which remind us of the Alps.

The small green towns, which we passed by, surprised us with their tidiness. It seemed that we weren't not in Africa, but somewhere in Austria or Germany.

Only black people working in the fields, baboons crossing the road and ostriches running along it would remind a traveler that this is not Europe. The percentage of the black population in South Africa is about 90% and there are villages where you wouldn't be able to meet a single Caucasian. I haven’t found out any difference in treatment of the races to each other, however, certain problems are claimed to exist.

There you can see slums made of roofing material and cardboard (which can expand for kilometers on the outskirts of large cities) and barbed wire winding along the top of high fences, which indicates that not everything is perfect in this country. In private talks it flashes that after the representatives of the black population came to power, there appeared many problems, almost in all spheres of public life.

Moving along the coast, we got to the place where two oceans meet (the Indian and Atlantic). The rocky shore and powerful waves crashing against the huge cliffs is such an impressive sight!

Then the road went along the Atlantic coast and we were able to enjoy the cold wide open sea, the yellow stripes of sandy beaches, the mild waves and the rustle of stones rolling one after another because of the tides.

To visit Africa without seeing wild animals in their natural habitat would be a big mistake. So a Jeep safari across the national park of South Africa allowed us to experience the Africa we had had an idea of since childhood, when reading the nursery rhymes about Doctor Aybolit for the first time.

The sight of elephants, rhinoceros, hippos, herds of antelopes and giraffes (which were similar to dinosaurs from the Jurassic period), wandering around the savannah at dawn, was just amazing! Everything looked like as if it was being shown in National Geographic films.

If you happen to be at the edge of the African continent, make sure to visit at least one of the private wineries.

Here you will be acknowledged with the history and technology of the production of this sunny drink and, of course, will be offered tasting it while listening to an interesting description of each sort. And the wines in South Africa are really fine! We checked up on this fact ourselves after having "tasted" from 1.5 to 2 litres of each sort with great pleasure.
The closer we approached Cape Town, the more interesting the scenery became.

The beautiful highway glides along the coast making smooth turns and climbing up the steep cliffs, which offer breathtaking views of the boundless ocean expanse.

Somewhere on the horizon, a few dozen kilometres away we could see a tiny sailing yacht, which was slowly moving in the direction of the Cape of Good Hope. That day the ocean was calm, therefore the voyage must have been a success!

КCape Town is a fairly big modern city with a huge port, traffic jams, beautiful beaches, hotels and fish restaurants where you can order a plate of gorgeous oysters for just 1000 roubles! South Africa isn’t an expensive country in comparison with the majority of European countries. Here gasoline costs one dollar per litre and a lunch in a good restaurant with a glass of wine would be around twenty dollars. A bottle of local wine will cost you 4 or 5 dollars. In general, South Africa is a country of contrasts.

On one hand, it is the richest and most developed state on the continent, populated by more than 50 million people. On the other hand, it takes the first place in the world top of AIDS incidents, its crime rate is very high, half of the black population lives in a situation of extreme poverty, etc. However, we were lucky not to experience all this ourselves in any form, and during the two weeks of travel we did not have a single unpleasant case related to these issues.
By and large, everyone in our team remembered South Africa as a very interesting, comfortable and friendly country with a beautiful and diverse nature and wildlife.

I think most of us had a desire to come back here again. I dream of it as well. However, next time I want to travel not by a rented motorbike, but by my own one.
And why not cover all over Africa from north to south?

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