As our time in Africa slowly winds down to a close, I find myself thinking about all the incredible experiences we've had here. Some of these times include coming face to face with lions, elephants, rhinos, or delving into the food, cultures, and languages that make up this vast continent. But those are the expected treasures of Africa, the ones you see in brochures, or on instagram, and online travel articles.

Today I'm going to talk about my favorite experiences that came as unexpected surprises, things that I never expected or even dreamed of happening. And even though all of my experiences here have been profound, and some even life-changing, it's the little things that sometimes hit home the hardest. The ones you don't see coming.

We were in Lesotho, down a lovely country backroad surrounded by gorges cut by rivers through the mountains, rocky pasturelands, and little stone houses built into the landscape like they had always been there.

We pulled over at one of these "abandoned" houses for a lunch break, and while we were eating, a Sotho cowboy trotted up to us on his horse. I immediately thought, "Oh no, maybe this is his home and we're intruding on his land." But he came right up to us with a big smile and got off his horse to shake hands with us. We offered him some of our lunch which included bread and cheese, and hard boiled eggs. He greatly appreciated the food, and even though he couldn't speak English, he managed to offer us his horse in exchange for our motorcycle.

​Of course, we jokingly agreed! I got on his horse, we snapped some pictures, while he admired our motorcycle. Finally, we went back to our respective beasts of burden, and he went on his way. It was a simple, but heart-warming moment.

When we first purchased our KTM 1190 back in 2014, we had one non-motorcycle friend who was familiar with the brand. Everyone else had never heard of it.

Since then, KTM has come a long way in popularity in the States, but it has always been popular in South Africa. In fact, the country has a robust and vibrant adventure motorcycle community of all brands, and many South Africans love to take these bikes on their thrilling backroads where they can really put a stamp of approval on the "adventure" motorcycle name.

I had always wanted to meet the Himba people of Namibia, who are famous for their traditional lifestyle and the ochre resin the women coat on their hair and body. While the monoshock of our bike was being fixed, we rented a car to explore the country, which turned out to be very fortunate to have an extra seat when we came across a Himba village and they asked if we could drive one of their women and her newborn baby to another village near Etosha National Park. Of course we said yes!

It was about a three hour drive, and even though we couldn't speak each other's languages, we had lots of fun listening to the Namibian music CD that had been left in the car. I would coo at the baby boy who was swaddled in blankets, and we even spotted some giraffes beside the road. Because the Himba women take "smoke baths", she filled our car with the smokey perfumes of her clothes, and it's a smell that I will always remember fondly.

It was the day after Christmas, and we were traveling through Zambia with an American motorcycle friend, Emiliano. We had pitched our tents at a wild camping spot high up in the mountains, and being the fantasy video game nerds that we all are, we decided to watch an episode of the Witcher (a show based on the video game and books) that we had downloaded on our phones. Emiliano was in his separate tent, but we pressed play at the same time so that we'd be watching it "together".

The sun had just set, and the forest of the many hills and mountains came alive in the sound of buzzing insects. And then about halfway through the episode, as we were just starting to immerse ourselves in the fantasy world on our tiny screens, I noticed something glowing outside. And then I saw a huge yellow light float over our tent, hovering around like a fairy. It was so bright, it made shadows around it like a lantern.

And there were more, a lot more. We all got our our tents to admire to magical light show of thousands upon thousands of these fireflies illuminating the hills in a twinkling ballet. And I realized that we didn't need a Netflix show to transport us to a fantasy world. We were already there.

The pandemic was an unexpected surprise in the worst possible way. But as the people of Uganda and Kenya opened their arms to us and allowed us to stay in their home during this time of upheaval and the unknown, it was a show of the true character of Africa - one of kindness and hospitality even when facing difficulty. While many countries closed their borders and went under some form of lockdown, Uganda allowed us to stay beyond our visa limits without any problem. And Kenya has also been generous by allowing foreigners who present recent negative tests to enter and stay up to six months. We couldn't have been luckier.

Moreover, these countries have handled the pandemic extremely well. With limited resources, they have taken crucial measures to keep their case numbers down and make sure their hospitals are not overwhelmed. I've been honored to spend this past year in East Africa, and I will always feel indebted to the people that make this beautiful region of the world feel like a second home to us when we were most in need of a safe and secure place.

Next week, we will be traveling back to Uganda which is where we'll be flying home from. I'm not sure I'll be able to write a blog post next Sunday since we will most likely be on the road at that time. But I'll keep you posted on how things are going once we get there.

​Happy Easter, and all the best to everyone.

Kenya just went under another lockdown yesterday, restricting travel once again. This is due to a new wave of Coronavirus cases, and we're currently not sure what this is going to mean for us to move to Uganda once our Kenyan visas expire in two weeks. But we'll hopefully get that figured out soon.

What this lockdown also hints at is the fact that this part of the world is no longer the best place for us to stay. The US and the UK have had a fantastic vaccine roll-out so far, and their cases are dropping as they start to get control over the virus. But poorer countries have been falling behind. This includes most of Africa.

Dreaming about traveling again? This week I'll go over some of our favorite roads that we've come across in Africa. Obviously there's a lot of Africa we haven't seen, and these are just our humble opinions. But during our travels here, we've come across some real incredible gems that we would like to share with the world.

There's nothing better than being on a motorcycle, drifting down a perfectly twisty mountain road, and being surrounded by stunning views. So if you ever find yourself on the African continent and with a vehicle, these are definitely some places to check out.

​The following are our top 5 roads -

Almost exactly one year ago, we had just arrived in Uganda, and Tim and I began to realize that our traveling life as we knew it was going to change - and possibly come to a complete halt. It felt like every time we had access to internet and looked at our phones, the headlines were getting worse and worse. Airports were shutting down, country borders were closing, and cities were going into lockdown.

But luckily for us, nothing was locked down in Uganda yet, and most people were blissfully unaware of the storm clouds that were brewing on the horizon.

We were traveling with our American friend Leo, and had just spent the night in a hotel from hell (if you missed that story, check out last week's blog here). Needless to say, we hadn't gotten very much sleep, and had woken up early because we had a long day ahead of us - a ride through Queen Elizabeth National Park.

This week I'm taking us back into the past - to March 12, 2020 to be exact. It was one of the last days that borders were still open in Africa, but we didn't know it at the time. We were blissfully ignorant of what was to come.

Tim and I were in Rwanda, planning to head north into Uganda the next day, and we were traveling with our American friend Leo (for a recap of what we did in Rwanda, check out this blog post).

We stayed the night in a bar called One Degree South on the shores of Lake Kivu. We hadn't originally planned on staying in a bar overnight, and had just stopped there for lunch, but after meeting Hicham, the charismatic restaurant owner who was Lebanese/American and grew up in the Central African Republic, we didn't want to leave. Hicham and his wife were fascinating people. She was from Michigan and did charity work every day across the border in the DRC, and so we spent the night entranced by all their incredible stories.

You might have heard a few horror stories about Africa - violence, war zones, corrupt officers and guards, and when it comes to travelers, robberies where people's bikes have been torn apart, and all their stuff stolen. Traveling by motorcycle can always be risky, but we had heard that Africa was on a whole new level. At the same time, we always wanted let the cities and the people within present the truth of the matter, good or bad.

Thankfully, I'm happy to say that so far in Africa, nothing major has happened to us. Someone once tampered with our bike one night in Tanzania (but Tim heard him and scared him away), and there were a few places in South Africa where we didn't feel safe. But besides that, we've been very fortunate. Of course, we're always aware of what could happen, and are always trying to stay one step ahead the game.

This week has been a lesson for many of us on the power of nature. Back home across much of the US, winter storms have been debilitating, sometimes even deadly. And it just goes to show that no matter how much we try to control our surroundings, every once in a while, nature deals a heavy blow.

Here in Kenya, we learned this lesson twice this week, and the first time was with sewage.

We think we have it all under control - we flush our toilets, and it's gone forever. But we don't expect the entire town's sewage line to clog due to storms and washed up debris, and for everything to return to us and back-flow onto our property. But that's exactly what happened.

I was living my life quite happily not ever knowing about the strange things that people flush down their toilets here - batteries, chip bags, large screws, pieces of metal, wires, dirty diapers, and even avocado seeds! Who does that? And how did they manage to flush an entire diaper down the toilet?

Since today is Valentine's day, I've decided to focus on my favorite emotion - love. And because we're here in Africa, I'd like to talk about some things that I love about this continent.

All too often, Africa gets a lot of negative press. You hear about wars and corruption and poverty, but you rarely ever hear about the incredible things that Africa has to offer, and what make this continent magnificent.

​The following are my top 5 things that I love about Africa.

Our Sunday Scoop

A lot of people wonder what our typical day looks like here in Kenya. In some ways, it's probably not so different from yours in that due to the pandemic, we're unable to travel much. So we mostly just stay at home watching Netflix. But even though we're not on the road, it's always an exotic adventure to be in Africa, and some of the stranger things of living in Kenya include a nightly barrage of nightmarish screecher-creatures, and the occasional UFO sighting.

​Don't worry, I'll explain.

Before coming to Africa, I realized I had no idea what a typical African dish was. Everyone knows Chinese food, Mexican food, Italian food, and Indian food, but what in the world was African food? And why was it that we didn't have an African restaurant on every other block in America like we do with so many other types of cuisine?

Well, I was about to find out that we really should have an African restaurant on every other block, because African cuisine is delicious.