Where are all the overlanders?
 

Been on the road 6 weeks now, spent 4 weeks in Morocco (Dades, Todra, Marrakesh, Merzouga, Tazzarine, Rabat, Essaouria) before heading down through Western Sahara, Mauritania and now just outside Dakar having spent some time at the Zebrabar in St Louis. In all that time we have come across one other overlanding Austrian couple in Essaouira. Where is everyone!! Was king of looking forward to sharing a few beers and stories with fellow travellers!!

When I rode through with my wife in 2010 we actually met very few people. The usual haunts like the Auberge de Sahara in Nouakchott, Sleeping Camel in Bamako, Hotel Vert in Ouagadougou,out back of the Sheraton in Abuja, at The Hotel Napoleon in Togo were the places where we bumped into people. Once you get into Southern Africa there are lots of local bikers.

Simon

Syria, Libya, Egypt a little, Mauritania before(?) and now Mali are all causing problems for people getting in and out of Africa. Angola won't give transit visa's for the west coast (easily) and Syria is not possible, Libya only just started giving visas to transit for the east coast.

All a bit unstable for the less adventurous...

Plus you have a world recession slowly starting to bite over the last 3-4 years.

It was very quiet in Sudan when I was there for two months recently....

heard about economic crisis ?

?c?

lack of overlanders
 

We found it a tad quiet travelling from Oct 11 through to april 12 down the west coast. Saw few overlanders until we got to the Sleeping Camel.But with Mali in a mess that will be different.
Like an earlier post it changes in Southern Africa when you see more. Although it wasn't exactly buzzing!

There was an interesting analysis a while back of the number of trips over the years by zeroland (who runs the Africa Overland Network website) which charts the drop off:

http://www.horizonsunlimited.com/hub...s-toyota-61129