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Mauritania, Western Sahara & Morocco
Mauritania – Country 39 Western Sahara /Morocco – Country 40 The wait for the boy’s Moroccan visas gave us a bit of a break from driving, but the wait also meant we were losing time to drive up to Morocco and the ferry across to Spain. It got to a point, I couldn’t wait anymore I needed to start driving if we were to keep on track. So I reluctantly arranged 3 drivers to assist me in driving from Dakar through Mauritania, Western Sahara to Morocco. To say my security wasn’t happy with my decision, was an understatement… I didn’t have a choice, I couldn’t wait and I couldn’t let…
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Senegal
Senegal – Country 38 I do love Senegal, this is my 3rd visit and I enjoy it more each time. The road from the Gambian border was one of the worst roads we had been on in a long time, big potholes, lots of flooding (which my car “Princess” loves, so I never miss a chance to go through a puddle and keep her happy…). Then about 50km outside Dakar, the roads became some of the best in Sub-Saharan Africa! Dakar is quite a cosmopolitan city, with lots of restaurants and nightlife (had to dress up a few nights, well, as ‘up’ as you can get after being on the…
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Gambia
Gambia – Country 36 Gambia is another English speaking country, which was a relief after our battles in Bissau. Our border crossing into Gambia again didn’t go as planned (what is it with West Africa!!!) We spent 2 hours trying to convince the officials that the boys all South African, were upstanding gentlemen. South Africa is on their list of I won’t say undesirables but not entirely welcome! Even though we had obtained visas in advance they still wanted clearance letters for each of them (the first we heard of it). When we eventually crossed over and we had an easy drive into Banjul. Banjul is a typical holiday town,…
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Guinea Bissau
Guinea-Bissau – Country 35 Guinea-Bissau is a Portuguese-speaking country. Now, this made things a lot more difficult for us, as none of us really spoke more than a few words, so getting what we wanted across was more than difficult and very frustrating!!! The police here are more open about what they want “give me money” (we never did), but thankfully this happened a lot less than in Guinea. Bissau is a very different capital to the rest of Africa, for those of you that live in Cape Town it is like a very run down Obs, the buildings are very similar in places. The roads are nice and wide…
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Guinea
Guinea – Country 34 After we finally got back with the Guinea visa from Bamako and crossed into Guinea. We had to go through the most tedious process before we were allowed to cross the border. We had a “fixer” with us who had lots of side conversations out of earshot with many different people, the amount of “officials” you had to go to was ludicrous. We even had to go and sit in front of some guy, still not sure who he was with the police and others, explain our trip and what were going to do in Guinea, he then declared we should be able to travel safely…
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Benin
Is another nice easy country with beautiful sunsets. Busier than Togo but no hassles, I was very comfortable driving around on my own exploring. We had a relatively relaxed time here as things are very close together so not much driving ( not complaining…). A lovely day trip to Ganvie a village built on stilts in the lake, apparently the firsts villagers “flew” across from the mainland to escape the slave traders! We also had one of the best school visits so far, dancing and singing greeted us on arrival so much fun (loved it, was getting hugs and kisses from the kids…). The DHL customer function was great, a…
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Malawi
Due to a few problems happening in Mozambique, we were unable to host any functions in this country. So we just used the Tete corridor in Mozambique to drive from Harare to Monkey Bay in Malawi. We spent a great night in Tete at an amazing restaurant on the river, it was one I had been to on a previous visit and wanted to take the guys as the food is amazing. Watching the sunset over the river is really beautiful. Arriving at the Malawi border today I was ready for the usual onslaught of harassment that accompanies every border crossing. It was there waiting for us, but there was also people waving today’s…
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Swaziland
Driving from Lesotho to Swaziland we were able to have Breakfast in Lesotho – Lunch in South Africa -Dinner in Swaziland. Which felt quite cool, the guys wanted to know if we could go to Mozambique for dinner, I told them they would have to walk… This border crossing was an easy and quick one! Things had started to fall into place, and we were able to base ourselves in one place which for the week which made things a lot easier for us and enabled us to catch our breath and for me to sort out all my boxes with my “office” equipment in so I could actually work…
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Lesotho
The Drive from Cape Town to Bloemfontein was no problem, a stay overnight in the Southern Sun hotel and an early start the next morning to Lesotho. Are first border post took a lot longer than necessary as we were trying to be too formal with all the paperwork, which delayed us at customs – first lesson learnt – keep it simple! Being our first country from South Africa, everyone was trying to find their feet and finalise last minute things. The team were all new to each other, two of which I had only met a couple of days before our departure. We were all learning each other’s ways,…
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African Adventure
The start of my African Adventure is drawing closer and closer, with a speed that is quite frightening! 7 weeks until I leave South Africa for an adventure up one side, down, around and up Africa again ending in the UK. Not a conventional route in the least, but one that will take in as many countries (42)in Sub-Saharan Africa as possible starting from Cape Town. The purpose of the trip is to introduce rugby to the Continent, meet great people and showcase what Africa has to offer. This mad trip is for DHL, who luckily for us, has offices in every African country we will visit – nice to…
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The Start of a New African Project!
My next African trip looks like it goes to be an EPIC one! DHL would like me to visit as many countries as possible in Sub-Saharan Africa to promote rugby – by car! They are keen for me to start in August 4 months away! That is such a short space of time to plan a trip like this and get all the parties on board. So with my brief to drive from Cape Town to London visiting as many countries as possible in Sub-Saharan Africa I started working on routes and came up with about 50 different options until I settled on one (and that route still changed along the…
