Zambia to Angola
 

Hello,

I'm currently on a UK to Cape Town trip (In Cairo at the moment) and i'm in the process of having a slight route re-think... The original plan would have involved shipping the bike home from CP and me flying back to heathrow.. The thought of this already sounds hideous! ..so i'm thinking about a slight detour to use the shipping/flight money for travel back up the west coast instead..

This would mean not going all the way to Cape Town but instead going West through Zambia (where I would have gone to anyway) and then instead of South to Botswana, keep going west to Angola and then up the 'usual' west coast route and eventually get back to Morocco etc..

I popped into the Angolan embassy here in Cairo today who thought it would be possible to get an Angolan visa in Addis Ababa, I believe the others are mostly straight forward or can be sorted on route..

Any thoughts would be welcome as the maps I have seen imply poor roads!

Cheers!

Hey James,

Might be possible, although if it is, the roads in eastern Angola would be rough going to say the least. Probably good adventure though.

Having said that, even if it is doable logistically, not sure I'd recommend missing Botswana and Namibia and South Africa for what a person would gain by cutting across and heading up the west coast. Those are pretty spectacular places and a destination in their own right.

There is a ton of stuff to see down south and many route options. For example, you can also consider heading down into Malawi and then cutting across Zimbabwe instead of crossing Zambia.

The attraction of riding back home is certainly understandable. However due to a lot of reasons including how good the riding in South Africa is, the vast majority get to Cape Town, see how the desire levels are and funds are holding out and then decide from there to ship back, turn north and keep riding or some take a third option which is to leave the bike and fly home, save more money and then return for another trip back:)