Proposed Africa Route - comments please - Horizons Unlimited

**ianbaker** · #1 22 Mar 2006

Hi all
I'm planning on doing this from the first week of September, getting to Cape Town late December for Christmas.

Anyway, proposed route of countries is:
Morocco - Mauritiana - Mali - Niger - Chad - Libya - Egypt - Sudan - Ethiopia - Kenya - Tanzania - Malawi - Zambia - Botswana - South Africa

I was originally thinking of Egypt to South Africa, but I'm keen to do as much of North Africa as possible. I'll be travelling on Irish/South African passports.

Any areas I should avoid, or any advice you could offer?

**Robbert** · #2 22 Mar 2006

I think Libia is only possible entering from Tunisia or Egypt, so maybe you'll have to cross Algeria from Niger to enter Libya from Tunisia. And also this will give you enough things to think of... might work though.

**Nicko** · #3 24 Mar 2006

Ian

Sounds like a lot. I was thinking of travelling about the same time, but going through Turkey, down to Egypt, Sudan and down the east coast getting to Cape Town for Xmas.

We should keep in touch about route, planning etc.

cheers
Nick

**danielsprague** · #4 27 Mar 2006

It's not possible for foreigners to enter Libya from Chad. Even if you could, northern Chad is not an easy area - rebels in the Tibesti, virtually no infrastructure, landmines...

You may be able to get from Chad to Sudan, but I don't think that's possible either at the moment.

The first place you could do a real east-west crossing (apart from going along the coast, which hardly counts as crossing Africa) would be through the CAR, though again this is not exactly a country which sees much tourism (rebels in the north towards the Chadian border).

Are you travelling by motorbike / 4x4? If so are you aware of the paperwork required to get into Egypt? - Carnet de Passages en Douane with a customs indemnity 800% of the value of your vehicle. Even with this, you still need to leave deposits at the border.

You're best bet is probably across the Sahara and down the west coast route to South Africa. I'll be doing this in October, crossing Algeria into Niger, so let me know if you're going at the same sort of time.

I hope this isn't putting you off, but it's not as easy as the map makes it look! Otherwise, we'd all be taking holidays in the Tibesti.

Log onto the Sahara travel page for more info.

Cheers,

Dan

[This message has been edited by danielsprague (edited 26 March 2006).]

**ianbaker** · #5 27 Mar 2006

hi
Thanks for the info. Thats (definately) worth knowing, will have a look at that.

Ian

**Landygirl** · #6 2 Jul 2006

It's a big itinerary for 4 months. Have you got enough room in that for delays in getting visas, etc? Not sure about the Chad - Libya route. We took the route from Niger into Algeria and up to Tunisia where we're waiting for a Libyan transit visa (10 days just to get the OK, then a further 4 - 5 days for issue, if they say OK - see what I mean about timings). We took 6 months to do Morocco - Mauritania - Senegal - Mali - Niger - Algeria - Tunisia and will take another 6 months to get from Cairo to Cape Town, pretty much a similar route to you. Perhaps see you along the way.
Enjoy it
Bel

**ianbaker** · #7 6 Jul 2006

Hi All
Thanks for the advice. Having a bit more time to look at the possible issues I'm going for the classic Cairo-to-Cape Route. Well, hoping to... :-)

Egypt - Sudan - Ethiopia - Kenya - Tanzania - Malawi - Zambia - Botswana - South Africa

Speaking to people in The Sudan and Libya, as well as getting advice from other travellers has left me thinking that this will be enough for now.

**arthur** · #8 13 Jul 2006

I like the HUBB.... So much information!

See you along the way Ian!

**Bossies** · #9 14 Jul 2006

Could I recommend that you do Namibia instead of Botswana. Lot more to see although it is a bit more expensive depending on where you are staying....then again camping in the Okavango Delta in Bots is also rather expensive nowadays and southern Botswana is very dull, flat, boring, featureless.

**Chris Scott** · #10 24 Jul 2006

Cant say I've done it all myself but i reckon the 'wavy plumb line' trans Af route is as good as it gets: a real desert crossing followed by the Congo Basin Experience (with handy "Get Out of Jail' option from Cabina to Luanda if you get freaked out) and a nice spindown through lovely Nambia into SA.
It's outlined in AMH and I recomended it to Loose Lois - for a rough map see her web: http://www.loisontheloose.com/Africa/Africa_route.html

Going the east side, all the action is over by the time you get to Kenya.

Chris S

**Norman Rahman** · #11 31 Dec 2006

Quote:

Originally Posted by Chris Scott

It's outlined in AMH and I recomended it to Loose Lois - for a rough map see her web: http://www.loisontheloose.com/Africa/Africa_route.html

Going the east side, all the action is over by the time you get to Kenya.

Chris S

hi Chris and all,

thanks for the above info. found out while trying to trace landygirl's past postings that the link above didn't seem to point to the right page; for those interested, here it is:
http://www.loisontheloose.com/africa/route.html

does anyone know how she is doing now?

best regards and Happy New Year!!

**panhandle1300** · #12 18 Jan 2007

Hi,
I'm planning my route for a RTW trip and trying to estimate approximate arrival times. Can anyone ( Chris Scot ) tell me what sort of timescale I would be looking at for a run from Ceuta to Cape Town using Chris Scotts "Wavy Plumb Line" route?

The HUBB is a great place.