Vic. Falls, JC gets medical, AITO & Cheesy goodness
MARCHING ON
2 newsletters in a month?! It’s like busses. Well we feel we’ve been remiss, leaving your poor old inboxes barren for the past year, with nothing but COVID updates from the government & the odd tumble weed blowing through. So now we’re (over?)compensating and shall be letting you know all the latest every other week from now on, in smaller bitesize chunks.
What have we got in store for you this time? News from Ecuador, Botswana & rather less exotically Somerset, UK. Read on to find out all about it!
…Well, almost. We aren’t holding our breath for any tours scheduled over the next few months so our Namibia Unleashed May riders have done a bit of reshuffling and are now our Namibia Unleashed September riders.
But from August 2021 onwards we are cautiously confident that (whisper it) our tours can go ahead! This means that we are still selling seats on our usual array of rides across the globe:
Once JC has his medical ticket, his first batch of Ride Expeditions on-boarding will be in the mighty Himalayas this July, accompanied by Ride Expeditions owner Toby & trip manager / adventure rider instructor / adventure guide assessor, Henk.
Combined with JC’s 15 years of riding and 8 years of guiding prior to this, it’s safe to say that he will be more than qualified by the time he leads his first Ride Expeditions tour solo!
Why not join him and Toby this coming December for our incredible new venture in Patagonia, The World’s End (or wait a little longer and join JC on tour in Peru & Bolivia… watch this space!).
CAPE – VIC. FALLS UPDATE
Henk’s been busy making everybody jealous, sending through daily updates of his incredible journey from Cape Town to Victoria Falls while it seems the rest of the world is in lock down.
To remind you, we’re planning two adventures and the very basics are shaping up to look something like this:
CAPE – VIC. FALLS: 15 days, 100% on-road.
VIC. FALLS – CAPE TOWN: 21 days, 60-70% unpaved.
We’re toying with the idea of bringing two support vehicles to enable us to set up some pretty epic camping for you guys en route. If this sounds like your kind of thing (or not!) please let us know your thoughts as we’d love to know what you guys think… we start shaking like an excited chihuahua just writing about it!
Henk has been having close encounters with all kinds of big game, including elephants, giraffe, cheetah and a lion… yes, a lion, sat under a tree right next to the road! If you’re following our Facebook & Instagram stories, you’ll have heard Henk discussing a few ‘underpants’ moments!
(Re-reading the above ^ this way maybe not the best choice of news to follow a paragraph about camping!!)
Spot the elephant!
But it’s not all been fun & games. Henk arrived at the Zimbabwe border yesterday and, despite all info pointing to the contrary, COVID restrictions kicked in and immigration informed our dusty Henk that the border was closed. Not one to give up easily, Henk attempted a second border post and then exhausted his entire phonebook, all to no avail. But, bizarrely, it is still possible to enter Zim by air…
So, Henk is currently crossing back into South Africa en route to Johannesburg where he’ll park up Big Orange, board a flight to Bulawayo, hop in a rental car and continue his quest to the mighty Vic Falls.
Go on Henk!!
Follow us on social media pages for daily updates on Henk’s journey.
Gimme some Cheddar
We thought in this day and age, in a world of contactless payments & cryptocurrency, we’d go old school and revert to some good ol’ fashioned bartering. And what holds its value better than gold? CHEESE! Specifically, cheese from the Somerset Deli.
When Dan got in touch wishing to (re)book his Himalayan Heights tour, it came up in conversation that he was the purveyor of some of the finest cheeses in Somerset! Naturally this piqued the interest of cheesaholics Anna & Toby and a deal was struck. Once travel restrictions allow, Dan shall mount his trusty Enfield and embark on the perilous journey from Somerset to Dorset to personally make his cheesy deposit in order to secure his place on a ride with us next season.
If any one else has anything other than cold hard cash they would like to offer in exchange for a trip then please do get in touch!
PROUD NEW MEMBERS OF…
Not quite as exciting as close encounters with apex predators, but still very important… So what’s the Association of Independent Tour Operators (AITO) all about? Well, the below sums it up quite nicely:
If you’d like to learn more about what AITO means for us, check out their website here (as we are brand new members, we are yet to be listed on the website but we’ll be there soon!).
EYE CANDY
Namibia & Cambodia… Just a short one to whet your appetite!
Never one to outstay our welcome, we’ll sign off for now.
As always, please don’t hesitate to get in touch if you have any questions at all.
Just ping us an email (info@rideexpeditions.com),
call / message us on Whatsapp (+441273 930 383)
or send a carrier pigeon (he’ll know where to go)
and we’ll get straight back to you.
Stay safe people!
THE RIDE TEAM