One of the problems associated with travel on a motorcycle was there were often places motorcycles are either not allowed to go or where physically it was impossible to ride them.  One of those places was the huge sand dunes of the Sossusvlei National Park in Namibia.  Here it would have been physically impossible to ride a heavily loaded touring motorcycle because the wheels would immediately sink into the soft sand.  Instead Donna-Rae and Greg climbed on a 4-wheel drive truck that ferried them to the famed dunes to film a sunrise.  As the sun came up the color of the dunes changed from dark brown to red, then white, all within a matter of minutes.

     During the day hundreds of people hiked to the top of this dune, leaving footprints and trails along the crest.  At night the winds and weight of the sand would obliterate the scars left by the humans.  Greg, a sometimes tongue-in-cheek-bunny-hugger, opted to be environmentally sensitive when declining to climb to the crest, saying, “I do not want to scar the beauty of the dune,” while mumbling under his breath, “I’m a biker, not a hiker…especially in 110-degree heat and up a 45-degree angled pile of sand.”  Donna-Rae contented herself with recording memories on her camera at the base of the dune knowing if Greg did not hike up then she would have to face alone the wild animals she might confront, like the scorpion she had seen.

     To get around the world by motorcycle means having to use more than a motorcycle. To cross oceans, seas, lakes and rivers, the motorcycle has to be flown or floated, the same with unfriendly countries that do not issue transit visas for American citizens like Algeria.  Then there are the large expanses of swamps, or impassable mountain passes.  Other times, for security or safety reasons, it is better to try and blend in with the locals and not stand out by riding an expensive motorcycle costing 1,000 times more than the average local worker earns in a year.  This may mean hiding the motorcycle in a truck, then using the local means of transportation.

     Donna-Rae learned that riding a motorcycle wass more comfortable than riding a camel.  The plodding pace through the sands of a camel train could take a day to do what a motorcycle could in 15 minutes.  Another down side was when the camel in front passed wind that those following passed through.  “Whew!”