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John Nomad and his wife Carmen are worldwide travelers, but Africa has always been their passion... they have lived in Africa and explored a big chunk of it since 1995. The massive diversity of this continent, the thousands of cultural aspects and the landscapes make every journey a unique discovery. They love to explore places off the beaten path like the Kalahari Desert (where they lived and worked with the San people), Congo jungle (with the fantastic Bambuti pygmies), to remote regions like the Namib Desert and the Skeleton Coast, to Victoria Falls and Zanzibar. Being bikers they have an added advantage: they see everything raw, unfiltered by a car’s air-conditioning or a windshield; they smell the African fires in the villages, the acacia flowers in bloom in the desert and all these sensations make you fall even more in love with Africa.
Besides exploration in beautiful Africa, they developed a passion for the children of Africa, especially the orphans. In spite of its beauty, Africa has been the scene for some of the most dramatic events of this world: from civil wars to ravaging diseases to extreme poverty and mass starvation, and the most affected are the children. These children are left behind at a very young age, with no hope of survival or any chance to a decent future. It is very hard to explain the horrors these orphans go through...
It is therefore impossible not to be affected by the things you experience in Africa and this comes from both the beauty of the land and the tragedy of its children. Having been involved in this continent for so long, John and Carmen decided to do whatever they can to give some hope to these orphans. For most of their life they were involved in some kind of physical training (Carmen is a nurse, John is a former professional footballer), so they found an amazing niche: building the only Sports Academy for Orphans and Underprivileged children in Zambia, offering these children not only a place to sleep and eat, but a chance to do something amazing with their lives. Once completed, this Academy will boast 2 full size football pitches, 2 training size pitches, 2 tennis courts, 2 basketball courts, 2 volleyball courts, swimming pool, track and field facilities and much more. There is a very solid reason for establishing a Sports Academy: the talent in the children of Africa is immense and largely undiscovered. It only takes living in their villages to discover how they run to school and back, barefoot, sometimes 15 km round trip, without the backup of a great coach behind, or a professional diet or special training.
In order to recruit professional coaching help and attract the attention of sports organizations around the world, John and Carmen jumped on their motorbike, in November 2013, and headed North on a Round the World Motorbike Expedition to raise awareness for these orphans and for the Sports Academy.
They crossed the whole of South Africa (from the Cape of Good Hope on the East Coast to Durban, through to Pretoria and then the North West to Springbok), Namibia (from the Fish River Canyon in the South to the Himbas in the North), Botswana (from Gaborone through the Trans Kalahari highway to Kasane), through Zambia towards Zanzibar on the Indian Ocean, passing by the Ngorongoro Crater and the majestic Kilimanjaro on the way to Kenya.
Through mud and sand, heat and rain and crazy traffic, chased by elephants from our tent, bitten by mosquitoes, but also sharing stories with local tribes around a fire at night, listening to their songs and dances in the African night, they have experienced it all and as they lived it, their hearts were filled with the story of Africa and yearned of telling the world about it.
They ride 2up on our Yamaha Super Tenere, fully loaded, with a total weight of 490 kg (21 kg over the recommended load), with no mechanical problems to date, and with just the occasional fall (it wouldn’t be a proper expedition without those) and only 2 near collisions (both of them in Europe, if you can believe that).
If you are interested in keeping informed about their whereabouts and adventures, you can check them out at:
