Flights from Chad to East Africa
 

Hi,

Currently in Ghana and looking at options to get across to the East (with bike). Internet searches aren't proving too useful for current info. I think the rain/roads rule out Cameroun, so alternatives are either Nigeria/Niger/Chad. Does anyone have recent experience of flights from these countries (met two guys in Senegal on XR650's earlier who flew across Sudan?).

cheers,
Doug

We drove through Ghana, Togo, Benin & Nigeria to Cameroon & shipped from Cameroon (Douala) to Mombassa around mid Feb.

Entered Cameroon in south from Nigeria (Calabar - got Cameroon visa here). Road was poor & bumpy (no tarmac) but not very wet yet so was ok.

Cost of flying the bikes to the east from Cameroon was ridiculous (quoted +- 3000 GBP). Once we finished laughing at the air freight quote we ended up clubbing together with some other travellers and shared a shipping container to Kenya. We flew to Nairobi.

Our share of the shipping costs came to +- 800 GBP for both bikes incl insurance.

Took 6 weeks to arrive so had some time to do some hiking & game parks around Kenya before bikes arrived (which we couldn't do on the bikes in any case).

It should be easy to arrange shipping from Thema (port next to Accra in Ghana). Others we met shipped from Togo to Cape Town and then drove back up along the east.

We also checked out airfreighting the bikes from Ghana but the quotes were silly money there as well. At the time air kenya were were the only option for air freight and were happy to milk the position.

Hi, Dougie. its Rich, here - the ringleader of the two you met in Senegal.
we flew and freighted with Ethiopian from Addis to Ndjamena, Chad. each person was $500 and each bike was about US$600, but I packed them real small. you could probably do it for about 600-700, depending on weight.
Ethiopian don't fly from Niger and I wouldn't recommend the northern loop around lake chad for your bike so you'd need to nip through Nigeria and Cameroun. come to think of it, Ethiopian do go from Lome and maybe somewhere like Abuja so you could try those, but it'll be more expensive for both you and the bike because of the distance.
let me know if you need more info ... you need to defuel the bike etc and the guys in Ndjamena are right twats!

another option for you would be Nigeria to Nairobi with Kenyan. if you check their site, there will probably still be an apology for the appalling delays in Nigeria, but its an option :-)

[This message has been edited by RichLees (edited 15 March 2005).]

Hello,

You can check also Eritrean, flying from Ndjamena to Asmara.

Cheers!

thanks for the info. probably going to head to Chad and try and fly from there. May drop you a line again nearer the time.

cheers,
Doug

FWIW I heard some years ago of folks air freighting their bike from Libreville to Nairobi. Also in 2001 I remember getting a reasonable quote from Accra to Nairobi with Ghana national carrier.

If you want to get to Cape Town, instead of shipping you might consider heading down the west coast through Congo-Brazza etc. Didn't a HUBB contributor recently achieve this?

Unfortunately, the so-called classic route through NE DRC remains a potentially dangerous prospect - who knows what will happen when they have their long-awaited election?

Hi,

thanks for the replies. I'm going to head to Chad and see what works out.

Rich, may email you nearer the time if that's ok? Oh...and are you prepared to deliver your XR all the way to Chad http://www.horizonsunlimited.com/ubb/wink.gif

The problem with the Nigera/Cameroun/Congo route is that I'm on an Enfield. It's unlikely to get through the mud (it's raining) unless I drag it by hand. But I am equally as unlikely to get through http://www.horizonsunlimited.com/ubb/smile.gif

cheers guys,

Doug

Doug - where shall I send the XR and which would you prefer? Sir might prefer the XRL and I'd be delighted to send it to Niamey for Sir ;-)