Afro Vespa 2003

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A write up on the event

Although this was the inaugural AfroVespa and much activity and hype had been going on for weeks around me, I must confess that I initially expected a rather dull weekend. In Morreesberg!! I certainly didn't TELL anyone I was going on the first AFROVESPA SCOOTER rally in in MORREESBERG

Of course, on the Monday after my friends were asking... "so how DID the climb of Kilimanjaro go?" and I was going... "er.. wha..? OH! Yessss....er.. great, great  thanks....fab...."I mean really, these are scooters after all. And even with some inside info, I still fell in to the usual trap of assuming that folks who owned and / who rode these seemingly underpowered little things with the really, really little wheels were a tad on the boring side when compared with other enthusiasts on two wheels. Yet another erroneous assumption on my part...

It began with what seemed like squadrons of scooters arriving over the course of the Friday afternoon. Not difficult to figure out why 'Vespa' (wasp in Italian) is an appropriate name. Apart from the distinctive sound, they certainly have a sting in tail. (but I will discuss that later). Friday evening we had a very festive braai (barbecue) at the tennis club with dancing and everything - Thanks to Ray Stroud and his girl for running the disco -and I was working the bar (I've always wanted to say that ever since I saw Coyote Ugly...).

Saturday morning events included an interesting outing to the corn processing factory and silos. I fell asleep during the talk which others tell me was very interesting. (It seems I was the dull one in the group!) The scooters went off to see other things around the town of Morreesberg while I remained to continue working the bar for the few that decided that the tennis club was where it was at.

Games, games & games.

Saturday afternoon saw quite a show at the games held at the tennis club. These little machines, with more power than is immediately obvious, were racing in the quarter mile sprint with blurring ferocity. First they had the slow races, the obstacle course, which saw EXCELLENT control of the scooter and then the sprints. There were also off-scooter games like the traditional rally egg-throwing competition. Although we didn't use the four (4) ostrich eggs one of the scooter riders had brought down from Oudtshoorn. On his scooter. With his daughter. I said on his SCOOTER! Picture that. A man, a girl and four ostrich eggs in a bag on a scooter. Great film title... anyway I  digress again.

We will skip right over the dinner at the rugby club on Saturday night (apart from mentioning that when I asked the barmen to play music hauled out 4 cd's to find these were just the covers and the actual cd's had been nicked. and move right on to the fireside non-chat. Obviously the group seated around the fire at the tennis club later that evening were using some kind of no-doubt chemically-induced telepathy, because they sat silent and contemplative for the longest time... usually I make my entrance by butting into an existing conversation. Not possible at this particular get-together. So I just contemplated the amazing Indian moon. (damn that cake)

All in all it was a fab weekend with everyone seemingly having a fun time. Congrats to Frank, Matthew, Ian etc etc for a great inaugural AFROVESPA -they can be really proud since rumor has it that the rally even MADE some money! Oh yes, and I think there were about 55 scooters !!!

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