Well after reading the "What do we get out of Africa" thread and CaptainStabbin's inquiry about people who've done them, I decided to drop a long overdue trip report about heading across the dark continent.
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What is Overlanding?
Overlanding is simply budget group travel over land in a truck converted for passengers, largely sleeping in tents, eating in field kitchens, and seeing lots of great things on the way. My specific trip was 50 days starting in Nairobi, Kenya, and finishing in Cape Town, South Africa. There are many companies that offer packages, and at least on the well-travelled routes they are all pretty similar. Specifically I went with one called intrepid travel (http://www.intrepidtravel.com/) which is fairly mid-range. Other companies I looked at or saw on the road include:
http://www.africa-in-focus.com/
http://www.dragoman.com/
https://www.gadventures.com/
http://www.oasisoverland.co.uk/
https://acacia-africa.com/
https://nomadtours.co.za/
http://www.absoluteafrica.com/
Like airlines, pricing can’t be simple so there are really three components to every price. First is the actual price which they advertise, then some have what’s called a “local payment” which is meant to pay for variably priced things like camp fees and food, and finally there are extras, which are generally things like bungee jumping off Victoria Falls. Absolute Africa is bad for this because they advertise a 52 day trip for £1300, a $600 US local payment, and then things like entry into the Serengeti is not included. Sort of defeats the purpose to travel all that way merely to sit in a tent for 3 days. I largely went with Intrepid due to price and schedule. A lot of places will discount them closer to the date if you have flexibility, and at least with intrepid, they have different sites for different countries with local currency prices that aren’t updated in real time, so by booking on their Australian site, I saved an additional $400. The base price for mine was around $7k CAD, but due to discounts and booking on the Oz site got it for around $4900 CAD, then I probably spent another $1k for optional extras. You seem to get what you pay for, with ones on the higher end like Dragoman(owned by same company) might have an extra staff member, better food, or like Africa in Focus a specific focus on photography with guides. On the other end Absolute Africa is really chasing the budget market, so you would have fewer guides, shittier food, and expected to do more work around camp. On that note, we were divided into 5 groups. Each day one swept truck, one did dishes, one helped cook, one set up chairs/tables, one was off, and you rotated daily.
The People:
While most of these tours are very similar, the two absolute make or break things on the tour are the people and your guides, and unfortunately you have no control over this. We had three staff, a tour leader, a cook, and a driver. They were all spectacular, all from Kenya, all very knowledgeable and involved, and almost at times acted more like other people on the trip (boozing, skinny dipping, inappropriate jokes) instead of staff members which is great until you get someone with a stick up their ass whining about professionalism or minority rights or something like that. Unfortunately there were a few signs of this company which is based out of Oz moving down that SJW road (Would you like to pay extra to offset the carbon your trip produces???)…
My trip was actually two smaller trips combined (Nairobi-Vic Falls, and Vic Falls-Cape Town), and there were 5 girls who had done the 13 days before I joined who were doing three trips. There were 19 people on the first part, 4 couples, 3 guys, 8 girls. On the second half there were slightly less people, but ratios were about the same. The ages ranged from 19-64 with an average age probably around 27-32. The people were largely from Canada, UK, and Australia, but with Denmark, Sri Lanka, USA, NZ, Switzerland & Sweden also represented. The people were generally a combination of older backpackers and people on long vacations/mini retirements. On the second part there was only one other single guy, but luckily he was a guy who worked on the rails and loved to bullshit like you do in any mostly guy environment, so me coming from the oil industry we got on really well. Managed to antagonize some of the “Save-the-world-I’m-a-traveller-not-a-tourist” type Brit girls fairly well. One Aussie guy hooked up with a British girl on first part, but the quality of girls was average at best, despite the good odds. This seemed to be pretty standard based on the other groups I saw, personal theory being that women being generally less adventurous and more drawn to the safe predictability of group travel.
Other Considerations:
Basically I packed for this like you would any trip where you’d spend a fair bit of time outdoors. Largely shorts and t-shirts, but a couple pairs of long pants and shirts (to protect form bugs/sun) and a good pair of shoes for some longer walks. The most strenuous thing was probably on the order of a 1 hour bush walk, then some optional climbs and longer hikes if you wanted. We had to bring a sleeping bag and pillow which was a bit of a hassle to travel with internationally. Since I wasn’t returning home after this trip, I just bought cheap ones at a thrift store before I left, then left them there when the trip ended. Money was often hard to come by, I paid a $12 service fee at one bank machine, but it was the only one for a hundred miles, so your options are limited. Internet was basically non-existent, even in large centers, places which advertised it and where you paid extra for it, or trying to use it on a cell phone. Something like booking a flight would literally be a 2 hour affair, if you were fortunate.
Each of us had a locker on the truck, and there was also a safe for valuables, although there weren’t any issues with crime, being Africa you always had to be on high guard. The truck had basic seats, and two tables to play games on or use your computer to edit photos or whatever, along with a fair number of 120V power outlets to charge stuff while the truck was on.
As mentioned it was basic comforts, we had a tent shared with one other person, and had to put them up and take them down which wasn’t difficult. Generally mornings were early, maybe half of the breakfasts were hot, otherwise cereal/toast/PB etc. Sometimes we’d stop for lunch and have sandwiches/fruit/leftovers from night before, otherwise we’d make a packed lunch in the morning to eat on the road. Dinners were generally hot-spaghetti, stir fries, chicken, steak a few times etc.
Visas were needed in I think 5 countries, and they were $25-$100 each. Aside from the money, the process was generally slow and unpredictable. One country’s border post didn’t have power, and it still took like 2 hours to process 22 people. They literally just took your passport to a back room, did whatever, and then brought it out whenever. In more developed countries like South Africa and Namibia, it was a lot more similar to Europe.
If you’re into photography at all, this place is a dream. I probably took almost 10k pictures, and there was one girl who “made a point to take less” yet still ended up with like 50k. It was also good because with power and lots of time on the truck, it gave you a chance to sort and edit any keepers.
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Tents - elephants in back right corner
The Trip:
Kenya: The trip started in Nov of 2015 and I flew in 2 days before the start of the trip just to ensure I arrived on time, and due to flight costs. I had to arrange a $50 visa beforehand which was the only country to do so, but then they said it wasn’t necessary and apparently 15 months later is still “temporarily” available at the airport when you arrive. I stayed at Manyatta backpackers and they were able to arrange someone to pick me up at the airport for about $20. This was also fairly handy because it was only about 500m from the hotel where we were meeting the group. Hostel was basic, had a firepit, the lady there cooked dinner for you for a couple dollars, and a typical backpacker scene. This was the last good internet I would have until Cape Town. I was advised not to be out after 7, and this was one of the only hostels I’ve been in that had heavy, solid metal gates. I walked around the next afternoon, there was a park nearby, bought some food. Some small street girl saw I had bread poking out of my bag and ran up to me and tried to grab it. Gives you a different perspective on poverty compared to Canada. Unfortunately Kenya was only the meeting point, and after meeting the group we took off early in the morning, and really didn’t get a chance to see anything.
Arusha/Serengeti
The next night we arrived in Arusha, the safari capital of Tanzania, and camped that night after loading up with snacks and anything we wanted in the park. Early the next morning we entered the Serengeti and Ngorongoro crater National Park. We were divided into 3 groups, and 5-7 people each in these big Land Rovers to enter the park. Absolutely stunning, looking back it’s almost comical because we would ask the driver to stop when we came across our first wildebeest, and after 2.5 days and thousands of them later didn’t even warrant slowing down. Elephants, giraffe, buffalo, zebra, we saw more wildlife than we could count. We camped for two nights in the park with no power, and had elephants at our doorstep. One even came into the camp around 10pm one night, which is somewhat unnerving when you can’t really see anything. Truly a highlight of the trip and would go back in a heartbeat. We went almost to the northern end of the park, and found ourselves in the middle of the great migration. Thousands upon thousands of wildebeests in every direction.
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Arusha/Marangu/Dar Es Salaam
After Serengeti we were on our way to Zanzibar. After our last day in the park, we camped again in Arusha at the same campground, then another one in a place called Marangu which was right in the shadow of snow-capped Kilimanjaro, and then finally a night in Dar Es Salaam. The last night was almost like a resort, it was on a gorgeous beach on the outskirts of town with swimming, volleyball and soccer. Unfortunately we didn’t get to see much of the city, but with my experiences in third world capitals (mostly poor, dirty, crowded) I’m not sure if that was a bad thing. One girl did leave the tour to meet up with friends, but I got the feeling that wasn’t the preferred way of doing things.
Zanzibar
The Spice Islands were great. We were up early and onto a ferry over to Zanzibar. The ferry was comparable to what you’d find anywhere else complete with TV and AC. Then, while taking this boat in Eastern Africa, they decided out of all films they could show, the best choice was Captain Phillips, a film about pirates hijacking a boat sailing in Eastern Africa. We spent one day in Stone Town and got a feel for it, did a tour, and saw how they really played up the Freddie Mercury angle. The next two nights were at the north of the island on a beach, was able to do some diving and swimming and we did a spice tour.
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Dar Es Salaam/Ininga/Chitimba
A few more days largely of driving all day, camping, early mornings and late nights. The drives were generally through parks and there were lots of things to see on the way, at the same time got a lot of reading and board game playing in.
Lake Malawi
We moved onto Malawi and camped on the shore of Lake for two nights. We unfortunately ended up losing about half a day on the way because the government was busy kicking some farmers off their land. Apparently they technically didn’t own it, but they had been there farming the land and making improvements to it for several generations, and this was a very nice campground. I was able to get diving again, and was one of the few fresh water dives I’ve done which is different. This seemed to be a bit of a hub for these types of trips, and tent space seemed to be at a bit of a premium. We had a nice steak dinner one night and had a sort of battle of the groups.
South Luangwa
We entered Zambia and went to a national park called South Luangwa. We did a night game drive here which was pretty amazing to see all the things that come out at night. Saw a big cat eating something and the campground had hundreds of monkeys everywhere, and were getting into all sorts of trouble.
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Lusaka/Harare/Masavingo
A couple more long days of driving through African capitals. Getting into Zimbabwe, Harare was uneventful, though we did pass by Mugabe’s house. We stopped just long enough to stop for fuel/food etc. A lot of the people on the trip were suffering from internet withdrawal, so went out trying to get SIM cards and credit. The next morning we moved on to Masavingo which is the hopping off point to the great Zimbabwe ruins. Apparently the country takes its name after this site, and is the 4th best stone UNESCO heritage site in the world behind the Pyramids, Machu Picchu, and the Great Wall of China. It’s interesting and worth the visit, but I think there’s a bit of a gap between #3 and #4.
Bulawayo
After that we travelled to the second biggest city in Zimbabwe. We had a free afternoon to explore, and after walking down an open air market street which smelled overwhelmingly of human sewage to the point where one girl got sick, people decided they had had enough of “experiencing life like a local” and we found some sort of old colonial style house which had been converted into a restaurant called 26 on Park and had drinks and snacks. Bulawayo also features the best museum in the country, but sadly we didn’t have time to get there.
The next day was another one of the highlights of the trips. We spent the day with a guide in Matobo National park. This guide was named Ian with African Wanderer safaris (African-wanderer.com) and knew just about every plant and animal in the park. We went to some high ground, and he was able to pick out 2 white rhinos from miles away when we could barely see them with binoculars. From there we drove closer, and walked maybe a mile off road until we came within about 10 meters of them. He said sometimes they’ll approach you within 10 feet, but by and large the White Rhinos are fairly peaceful. We then got word there was a group of a half dozen nearby, so again it was drive for a bit, then bushwhack for half an hour and then we were just sitting there with 6 rhinos quietly eating, accompanied by rangers with guns.
This guy was actually incredibly interesting, a wealth of knowledge, and saw the world how it was and what motivates people. Told me about taking down a charging buffalo once with .416 rifle, sometimes he brings it depending where he’s going, but just so happened to have a glove box full of ammo. Pretty monstrous sized rounds. He was actually hugely in favour of legalizing the Rhino horn trade, namely since prohibition isn’t working, horns can and are cut in due course to keep the animals safe (and it just goes in storage), and no private land owners want to breed them since there is no profit for them. Legalize it, and market would get flooded with all the stored horns that have been cut over the years, people would now have a motivation to farm them like they do for all other endangered game species, the price would drop, populations would expand, and thus not making it worthwhile to poach. Also had a ton of words for people upset about targeted rhino hunts and the Cecil the lion debacle a few years ago. Essentially when these animals are old and done reproducing, or worse; acting like asses toward young bucks, it does far more good to get a 6 figure cash influx for conservation, then it does to just let them do their thing for another year before dying naturally. Apparently the guide who brought the whole Cecil thing to light is a pariah in the guiding community, purely because hunting this old lion in terms of cost/benefit was the best thing for the lion population, but instead this guy capitalized on American sentimentalism to fill his own ledger with high paying clients who want to work with the guy who speaks up for lions.
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Victoria Falls
We spent 3 days here, and said good bye to about half of our group who was only there for the first part. The next day another bunch of people arrived and otherwise it was largely free time. I did a white water rafting trp down the great Zambezi River, and that was an absolute blast. Got up to grade 5 rapids with people who didn’t really know what they were doing. We managed to only fall out once. Spent half a day in the park which in terms of width and height is supposedly the largest falls in the world. Water was extremely low where we were there, but still an awe inspiring sight. There were a lot of other activities like helicopter rides, bungee jumping, and Devil’s pool which involves basically going right to the edge of the falls in a stationary pool in the river.
Chobe National Park
We moved on to Botswana and Chobe National Park. We got to do a boat tour of the river and saw charging hippos and crocodiles. The day we arrived and were getting to know the new group everyone except for me and my tent mate decided to go to bed before 9. It was Saturday night, the driver didn’t need to drive the next day, so the tour staff and us two went out. This was another one of the best experiences of the trip. Saturday night out in Botswana. We walked maybe half a km, and got to literally a large parking lot, there was a truck with speakers in the back blaring music, a “bar” which was essentially a liquor store with metal bars on it like a ticket agent, and hundreds of random local people milling about.
Okavango Delta
We ended up having to change the schedule around due to the dry weather, so we went to a different part of the delta than originally planned, but that’s how it goes down there. TIA (This is Africa) as they say. What we ended up doing was interesting, we essentially loaded up these conoe style boats and someone with a pole pushed us down river a couple miles. There we set up camp, went on bush walks, went swimming, were harassed by millions of flying termites, which the local people scrambled to gather and put in bags to later eat. They probably had a couple pillow cases full of them, and then after a bush walk had them laying out on tables to dry.
Namibia/San Bushmen
After we returned from the delta we moved onto Namibia. Shortly after arriving we spent a day with the San Bushmen. Basically same story as every country in the world, Indigenous people pushed onto crappy land, can’t make a go of it, need to do something else. So what these people do is re-enact what they did back in olden days, how they found water in the desert, made fire from sticks, hunting/trapping, really quite interesting to see. Lots of people making handy crafts from things like ostrich shells, and you can buy them for not much money.
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Etosha National Park
We moved onto another national park, and this time did a game drive in our big main truck. It was a fairly large campground that had a manmade watering hole, and because of the dry weather, you could just sit there watching all the animals come and drink. We also saw a male zebra with a female and her newborn. The male kept pushing it towards the water, then pounced on it trying to drown it. Then started biting it, essentially trying to kill it while the mom was going nuts doing what she could. Guide figured either the baby wasn’t his, or it was slowing them down in the hard weather. Damn Nature you Scary.
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There is also a huge salt flat here called Etosha Pan, just white flatness as far as you can see. Supposedly you can see the curvature of the earth, but I didn’t notice it.
Spitzkoppe
This place was a huge rocky/mountainous area in the middle of the desert. Absolutely stunning landscape, we were able to climb a couple hundred meters up various rocky outcroppings, and there were cave paintings from thousands of years ago. Didn’t get much in the way of rain, and we were able to sleep outside under some pretty amazing dark skies.
Swakopmund
We got to spend 3 days in Swakopmund and was fairly low key. We did a secret Santa thing since Christmas was a few days away and we got gifts here. There were a few more adventure type things, we did ATVing in the sand dunes which was a lot of fun, just basically driving up them as far as you can, turning down and racing down them over and over again. Then ending up in the middle of nowhere with sand as far as you can see in every direction, and then doing it again on the way back. It was great to be in a real town again, we were staying in small apartments with 6 beds each, and BBQs, so we were able to go to the grocery store and eat some of the animals we had spent so much time looking at the previous few weeks. Other people did an airplane ride up the skeleton coast with hundreds of shipwrecks which have ended up hundreds of meters inland due to the shifting sands. After seeing their pictures I somewhat regret not going. Another interesting thing they id there was sandboarding. No lifts are allowed so you end up walking up each time which gets exhausting, but was worth it to say I did it. The other thing they did was they had a piece of that cheap particle board you sometimes see on the back of book shelves with one shiny side. You could race that down the hill like a toboggan, and a guy with a radar gun caught your speed. You ended up coming right at him so he could get you, and then he would jump up and over the 180lb projectile that was about to take out his legs at 75 km/hr. Somewhere around here we stopped at a the Cape Cross Seal Colony, which had thousands and thousands of seals and stunk.
Sesriem/Sossusvlei
Christmas Day involved being up before sunrise to get to the desert and begin climbing the infamous Dune 45. It’s only about 500 feet high which in the pre-dawn temperatures wasn’t too bad, but climbing on sand is brutal. For every step you take you lose 2/3rds of it, and the person in the front breaking train has it even worse. We got to the top and saw the sunrise and just noticed how if you kick the sand it would slowly roll down the edges for dozens of meters. On the way down you can literally just run down the edges which are at around 45 degrees. You end up going so fast that your feet can’t keep up and end up having to cut angles almost as if you’re skiing. You can get down from your half hour climb up in about 3 minutes.
Later that day we got to another dune called Sossusvlei, this has the largest dune in the region called “Big Daddy” at about 1000 feet. Now in addition to being twice as high, you also had 40 degree heat, and the choice between climbing with your bare feet on burning sand, sandals which would cost you even more traction, or shoes that would fill with liters of sand. Made it up, but absolutely exhausting. The view and the way down was worth it though, as you are absolutely flying and I ended up tumbling down a part of it, and then ending up in another salt pan, but with the remnants of trees that died a thousand years ago.
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Fish River Canyon
After the dunes we moved on to Fish river Canyon. This is one of the largest canyons in the world. Some of us decided to hike up to the canyon which was about 2.5 hours and maybe 12km. Other people took the truck, but it was a nice walk. Once you get to the actual canyon you can walk a little bit around the perimeter and basically just look down.
Orange River/ South Africa
As the trip came to a close we spent one night on the Namibia side of the Orange River, at a fairly nice campground with a pool and restaurant and bar. It was right on the river, so you could actually swim across the South Africa. Once again outside of the “5 eyes” countries I’m amazed how most countries, even ones like Singapore where they have death for drug smuggling consider customs more of a mere formality. The next day we spent at a quaint winery after crossing into South Africa. We did a wine tasting, were able to go for a bit of a hike, and had a nice fire for the last night of our trip. The next morning we moved onto Cape Town and said our farewells.
Final Thoughts:
This was a different kind of trip. I would likely this sort of trip again, and would recommend it for anyone travelling solo. Africa is doable on your own, but especially for things like park passes, it can get expensive quickly, and things like border crossing which are only open certain hours for vehicles can be difficult if you don’t know the ropes. That said we did meet a lot of small groups and couples with campers/trucks doing their own thing. That of course has the advantage of setting your own schedule and route, which was definitely one concern here. Africa is huge. A lot bigger than most people give it credit for. The roads generally aren’t good, and there aren’t a lot of them. Shit happens. We had some 11000 km to cover, and average speed was likely around 60km/hr. These tour companies are businesses, so they want to promote that you’ll be doing as much as possible, yet at the same time don’t want to pay for extra days. This leads to things like trip notes saying “an early start for a day of driving through a game park, but arrive in Harare with time to explore the city” which means up at 345 to pull down tents, eat and make lunch, on road by 430, drive straight through till 530 without slowing to see animals, spend 30 minutes going to bank/grocery/liquor store in Harare while the crew fuel up and buy food, never mind if you have delays. Mind you that was the exception, but I feel they tried to cram too much into too short of time, and an additional 10 days would have been perfect. On the other hand, tons of stuff was organized, included a lot of things you might not think of, and things that would only work as a group. There wasn’t much idle time, and the trip was along a well-worn backpacker route. Likely 2/3rds of the days, we did not associate with anyone not on this path, and I fear it may become like the east coast of Australia, where you just go from hostel to hostel and ticking off sights. In a sense this trip felt less like an adventure, and more you were just along for the ride. Aside from that one night in the impromptu African bar with our guides, or perhaps seeing the military fire tear gas at farmers as they were pushed off their land, there weren’t a ton of “holy shit” surprises. All in all though, it was an amazing trip, and amazingly in 50 rushed days I only managed to see a sliver of this huge continent.
Overlanding is simply budget group travel over land in a truck converted for passengers, largely sleeping in tents, eating in field kitchens, and seeing lots of great things on the way. My specific trip was 50 days starting in Nairobi, Kenya, and finishing in Cape Town, South Africa. There are many companies that offer packages, and at least on the well-travelled routes they are all pretty similar. Specifically I went with one called intrepid travel (http://www.intrepidtravel.com/) which is fairly mid-range. Other companies I looked at or saw on the road include:
http://www.africa-in-focus.com/
http://www.dragoman.com/
https://www.gadventures.com/
http://www.oasisoverland.co.uk/
https://acacia-africa.com/
https://nomadtours.co.za/
http://www.absoluteafrica.com/
Like airlines, pricing can’t be simple so there are really three components to every price. First is the actual price which they advertise, then some have what’s called a “local payment” which is meant to pay for variably priced things like camp fees and food, and finally there are extras, which are generally things like bungee jumping off Victoria Falls. Absolute Africa is bad for this because they advertise a 52 day trip for £1300, a $600 US local payment, and then things like entry into the Serengeti is not included. Sort of defeats the purpose to travel all that way merely to sit in a tent for 3 days. I largely went with Intrepid due to price and schedule. A lot of places will discount them closer to the date if you have flexibility, and at least with intrepid, they have different sites for different countries with local currency prices that aren’t updated in real time, so by booking on their Australian site, I saved an additional $400. The base price for mine was around $7k CAD, but due to discounts and booking on the Oz site got it for around $4900 CAD, then I probably spent another $1k for optional extras. You seem to get what you pay for, with ones on the higher end like Dragoman(owned by same company) might have an extra staff member, better food, or like Africa in Focus a specific focus on photography with guides. On the other end Absolute Africa is really chasing the budget market, so you would have fewer guides, shittier food, and expected to do more work around camp. On that note, we were divided into 5 groups. Each day one swept truck, one did dishes, one helped cook, one set up chairs/tables, one was off, and you rotated daily.
The People:
While most of these tours are very similar, the two absolute make or break things on the tour are the people and your guides, and unfortunately you have no control over this. We had three staff, a tour leader, a cook, and a driver. They were all spectacular, all from Kenya, all very knowledgeable and involved, and almost at times acted more like other people on the trip (boozing, skinny dipping, inappropriate jokes) instead of staff members which is great until you get someone with a stick up their ass whining about professionalism or minority rights or something like that. Unfortunately there were a few signs of this company which is based out of Oz moving down that SJW road (Would you like to pay extra to offset the carbon your trip produces???)…
My trip was actually two smaller trips combined (Nairobi-Vic Falls, and Vic Falls-Cape Town), and there were 5 girls who had done the 13 days before I joined who were doing three trips. There were 19 people on the first part, 4 couples, 3 guys, 8 girls. On the second half there were slightly less people, but ratios were about the same. The ages ranged from 19-64 with an average age probably around 27-32. The people were largely from Canada, UK, and Australia, but with Denmark, Sri Lanka, USA, NZ, Switzerland & Sweden also represented. The people were generally a combination of older backpackers and people on long vacations/mini retirements. On the second part there was only one other single guy, but luckily he was a guy who worked on the rails and loved to bullshit like you do in any mostly guy environment, so me coming from the oil industry we got on really well. Managed to antagonize some of the “Save-the-world-I’m-a-traveller-not-a-tourist” type Brit girls fairly well. One Aussie guy hooked up with a British girl on first part, but the quality of girls was average at best, despite the good odds. This seemed to be pretty standard based on the other groups I saw, personal theory being that women being generally less adventurous and more drawn to the safe predictability of group travel.
Other Considerations:
Basically I packed for this like you would any trip where you’d spend a fair bit of time outdoors. Largely shorts and t-shirts, but a couple pairs of long pants and shirts (to protect form bugs/sun) and a good pair of shoes for some longer walks. The most strenuous thing was probably on the order of a 1 hour bush walk, then some optional climbs and longer hikes if you wanted. We had to bring a sleeping bag and pillow which was a bit of a hassle to travel with internationally. Since I wasn’t returning home after this trip, I just bought cheap ones at a thrift store before I left, then left them there when the trip ended. Money was often hard to come by, I paid a $12 service fee at one bank machine, but it was the only one for a hundred miles, so your options are limited. Internet was basically non-existent, even in large centers, places which advertised it and where you paid extra for it, or trying to use it on a cell phone. Something like booking a flight would literally be a 2 hour affair, if you were fortunate.
Each of us had a locker on the truck, and there was also a safe for valuables, although there weren’t any issues with crime, being Africa you always had to be on high guard. The truck had basic seats, and two tables to play games on or use your computer to edit photos or whatever, along with a fair number of 120V power outlets to charge stuff while the truck was on.
As mentioned it was basic comforts, we had a tent shared with one other person, and had to put them up and take them down which wasn’t difficult. Generally mornings were early, maybe half of the breakfasts were hot, otherwise cereal/toast/PB etc. Sometimes we’d stop for lunch and have sandwiches/fruit/leftovers from night before, otherwise we’d make a packed lunch in the morning to eat on the road. Dinners were generally hot-spaghetti, stir fries, chicken, steak a few times etc.
Visas were needed in I think 5 countries, and they were $25-$100 each. Aside from the money, the process was generally slow and unpredictable. One country’s border post didn’t have power, and it still took like 2 hours to process 22 people. They literally just took your passport to a back room, did whatever, and then brought it out whenever. In more developed countries like South Africa and Namibia, it was a lot more similar to Europe.
If you’re into photography at all, this place is a dream. I probably took almost 10k pictures, and there was one girl who “made a point to take less” yet still ended up with like 50k. It was also good because with power and lots of time on the truck, it gave you a chance to sort and edit any keepers.
The Trip:
Kenya: The trip started in Nov of 2015 and I flew in 2 days before the start of the trip just to ensure I arrived on time, and due to flight costs. I had to arrange a $50 visa beforehand which was the only country to do so, but then they said it wasn’t necessary and apparently 15 months later is still “temporarily” available at the airport when you arrive. I stayed at Manyatta backpackers and they were able to arrange someone to pick me up at the airport for about $20. This was also fairly handy because it was only about 500m from the hotel where we were meeting the group. Hostel was basic, had a firepit, the lady there cooked dinner for you for a couple dollars, and a typical backpacker scene. This was the last good internet I would have until Cape Town. I was advised not to be out after 7, and this was one of the only hostels I’ve been in that had heavy, solid metal gates. I walked around the next afternoon, there was a park nearby, bought some food. Some small street girl saw I had bread poking out of my bag and ran up to me and tried to grab it. Gives you a different perspective on poverty compared to Canada. Unfortunately Kenya was only the meeting point, and after meeting the group we took off early in the morning, and really didn’t get a chance to see anything.
Arusha/Serengeti
The next night we arrived in Arusha, the safari capital of Tanzania, and camped that night after loading up with snacks and anything we wanted in the park. Early the next morning we entered the Serengeti and Ngorongoro crater National Park. We were divided into 3 groups, and 5-7 people each in these big Land Rovers to enter the park. Absolutely stunning, looking back it’s almost comical because we would ask the driver to stop when we came across our first wildebeest, and after 2.5 days and thousands of them later didn’t even warrant slowing down. Elephants, giraffe, buffalo, zebra, we saw more wildlife than we could count. We camped for two nights in the park with no power, and had elephants at our doorstep. One even came into the camp around 10pm one night, which is somewhat unnerving when you can’t really see anything. Truly a highlight of the trip and would go back in a heartbeat. We went almost to the northern end of the park, and found ourselves in the middle of the great migration. Thousands upon thousands of wildebeests in every direction.
Arusha/Marangu/Dar Es Salaam
After Serengeti we were on our way to Zanzibar. After our last day in the park, we camped again in Arusha at the same campground, then another one in a place called Marangu which was right in the shadow of snow-capped Kilimanjaro, and then finally a night in Dar Es Salaam. The last night was almost like a resort, it was on a gorgeous beach on the outskirts of town with swimming, volleyball and soccer. Unfortunately we didn’t get to see much of the city, but with my experiences in third world capitals (mostly poor, dirty, crowded) I’m not sure if that was a bad thing. One girl did leave the tour to meet up with friends, but I got the feeling that wasn’t the preferred way of doing things.
Zanzibar
The Spice Islands were great. We were up early and onto a ferry over to Zanzibar. The ferry was comparable to what you’d find anywhere else complete with TV and AC. Then, while taking this boat in Eastern Africa, they decided out of all films they could show, the best choice was Captain Phillips, a film about pirates hijacking a boat sailing in Eastern Africa. We spent one day in Stone Town and got a feel for it, did a tour, and saw how they really played up the Freddie Mercury angle. The next two nights were at the north of the island on a beach, was able to do some diving and swimming and we did a spice tour.
Dar Es Salaam/Ininga/Chitimba
A few more days largely of driving all day, camping, early mornings and late nights. The drives were generally through parks and there were lots of things to see on the way, at the same time got a lot of reading and board game playing in.
Lake Malawi
We moved onto Malawi and camped on the shore of Lake for two nights. We unfortunately ended up losing about half a day on the way because the government was busy kicking some farmers off their land. Apparently they technically didn’t own it, but they had been there farming the land and making improvements to it for several generations, and this was a very nice campground. I was able to get diving again, and was one of the few fresh water dives I’ve done which is different. This seemed to be a bit of a hub for these types of trips, and tent space seemed to be at a bit of a premium. We had a nice steak dinner one night and had a sort of battle of the groups.
South Luangwa
We entered Zambia and went to a national park called South Luangwa. We did a night game drive here which was pretty amazing to see all the things that come out at night. Saw a big cat eating something and the campground had hundreds of monkeys everywhere, and were getting into all sorts of trouble.
Lusaka/Harare/Masavingo
A couple more long days of driving through African capitals. Getting into Zimbabwe, Harare was uneventful, though we did pass by Mugabe’s house. We stopped just long enough to stop for fuel/food etc. A lot of the people on the trip were suffering from internet withdrawal, so went out trying to get SIM cards and credit. The next morning we moved on to Masavingo which is the hopping off point to the great Zimbabwe ruins. Apparently the country takes its name after this site, and is the 4th best stone UNESCO heritage site in the world behind the Pyramids, Machu Picchu, and the Great Wall of China. It’s interesting and worth the visit, but I think there’s a bit of a gap between #3 and #4.
Bulawayo
After that we travelled to the second biggest city in Zimbabwe. We had a free afternoon to explore, and after walking down an open air market street which smelled overwhelmingly of human sewage to the point where one girl got sick, people decided they had had enough of “experiencing life like a local” and we found some sort of old colonial style house which had been converted into a restaurant called 26 on Park and had drinks and snacks. Bulawayo also features the best museum in the country, but sadly we didn’t have time to get there.
The next day was another one of the highlights of the trips. We spent the day with a guide in Matobo National park. This guide was named Ian with African Wanderer safaris (African-wanderer.com) and knew just about every plant and animal in the park. We went to some high ground, and he was able to pick out 2 white rhinos from miles away when we could barely see them with binoculars. From there we drove closer, and walked maybe a mile off road until we came within about 10 meters of them. He said sometimes they’ll approach you within 10 feet, but by and large the White Rhinos are fairly peaceful. We then got word there was a group of a half dozen nearby, so again it was drive for a bit, then bushwhack for half an hour and then we were just sitting there with 6 rhinos quietly eating, accompanied by rangers with guns.
This guy was actually incredibly interesting, a wealth of knowledge, and saw the world how it was and what motivates people. Told me about taking down a charging buffalo once with .416 rifle, sometimes he brings it depending where he’s going, but just so happened to have a glove box full of ammo. Pretty monstrous sized rounds. He was actually hugely in favour of legalizing the Rhino horn trade, namely since prohibition isn’t working, horns can and are cut in due course to keep the animals safe (and it just goes in storage), and no private land owners want to breed them since there is no profit for them. Legalize it, and market would get flooded with all the stored horns that have been cut over the years, people would now have a motivation to farm them like they do for all other endangered game species, the price would drop, populations would expand, and thus not making it worthwhile to poach. Also had a ton of words for people upset about targeted rhino hunts and the Cecil the lion debacle a few years ago. Essentially when these animals are old and done reproducing, or worse; acting like asses toward young bucks, it does far more good to get a 6 figure cash influx for conservation, then it does to just let them do their thing for another year before dying naturally. Apparently the guide who brought the whole Cecil thing to light is a pariah in the guiding community, purely because hunting this old lion in terms of cost/benefit was the best thing for the lion population, but instead this guy capitalized on American sentimentalism to fill his own ledger with high paying clients who want to work with the guy who speaks up for lions.
Victoria Falls
We spent 3 days here, and said good bye to about half of our group who was only there for the first part. The next day another bunch of people arrived and otherwise it was largely free time. I did a white water rafting trp down the great Zambezi River, and that was an absolute blast. Got up to grade 5 rapids with people who didn’t really know what they were doing. We managed to only fall out once. Spent half a day in the park which in terms of width and height is supposedly the largest falls in the world. Water was extremely low where we were there, but still an awe inspiring sight. There were a lot of other activities like helicopter rides, bungee jumping, and Devil’s pool which involves basically going right to the edge of the falls in a stationary pool in the river.
Chobe National Park
We moved on to Botswana and Chobe National Park. We got to do a boat tour of the river and saw charging hippos and crocodiles. The day we arrived and were getting to know the new group everyone except for me and my tent mate decided to go to bed before 9. It was Saturday night, the driver didn’t need to drive the next day, so the tour staff and us two went out. This was another one of the best experiences of the trip. Saturday night out in Botswana. We walked maybe half a km, and got to literally a large parking lot, there was a truck with speakers in the back blaring music, a “bar” which was essentially a liquor store with metal bars on it like a ticket agent, and hundreds of random local people milling about.
Okavango Delta
We ended up having to change the schedule around due to the dry weather, so we went to a different part of the delta than originally planned, but that’s how it goes down there. TIA (This is Africa) as they say. What we ended up doing was interesting, we essentially loaded up these conoe style boats and someone with a pole pushed us down river a couple miles. There we set up camp, went on bush walks, went swimming, were harassed by millions of flying termites, which the local people scrambled to gather and put in bags to later eat. They probably had a couple pillow cases full of them, and then after a bush walk had them laying out on tables to dry.
Namibia/San Bushmen
After we returned from the delta we moved onto Namibia. Shortly after arriving we spent a day with the San Bushmen. Basically same story as every country in the world, Indigenous people pushed onto crappy land, can’t make a go of it, need to do something else. So what these people do is re-enact what they did back in olden days, how they found water in the desert, made fire from sticks, hunting/trapping, really quite interesting to see. Lots of people making handy crafts from things like ostrich shells, and you can buy them for not much money.
Etosha National Park
We moved onto another national park, and this time did a game drive in our big main truck. It was a fairly large campground that had a manmade watering hole, and because of the dry weather, you could just sit there watching all the animals come and drink. We also saw a male zebra with a female and her newborn. The male kept pushing it towards the water, then pounced on it trying to drown it. Then started biting it, essentially trying to kill it while the mom was going nuts doing what she could. Guide figured either the baby wasn’t his, or it was slowing them down in the hard weather. Damn Nature you Scary.
Spitzkoppe
This place was a huge rocky/mountainous area in the middle of the desert. Absolutely stunning landscape, we were able to climb a couple hundred meters up various rocky outcroppings, and there were cave paintings from thousands of years ago. Didn’t get much in the way of rain, and we were able to sleep outside under some pretty amazing dark skies.
Swakopmund
We got to spend 3 days in Swakopmund and was fairly low key. We did a secret Santa thing since Christmas was a few days away and we got gifts here. There were a few more adventure type things, we did ATVing in the sand dunes which was a lot of fun, just basically driving up them as far as you can, turning down and racing down them over and over again. Then ending up in the middle of nowhere with sand as far as you can see in every direction, and then doing it again on the way back. It was great to be in a real town again, we were staying in small apartments with 6 beds each, and BBQs, so we were able to go to the grocery store and eat some of the animals we had spent so much time looking at the previous few weeks. Other people did an airplane ride up the skeleton coast with hundreds of shipwrecks which have ended up hundreds of meters inland due to the shifting sands. After seeing their pictures I somewhat regret not going. Another interesting thing they id there was sandboarding. No lifts are allowed so you end up walking up each time which gets exhausting, but was worth it to say I did it. The other thing they did was they had a piece of that cheap particle board you sometimes see on the back of book shelves with one shiny side. You could race that down the hill like a toboggan, and a guy with a radar gun caught your speed. You ended up coming right at him so he could get you, and then he would jump up and over the 180lb projectile that was about to take out his legs at 75 km/hr. Somewhere around here we stopped at a the Cape Cross Seal Colony, which had thousands and thousands of seals and stunk.
Sesriem/Sossusvlei
Christmas Day involved being up before sunrise to get to the desert and begin climbing the infamous Dune 45. It’s only about 500 feet high which in the pre-dawn temperatures wasn’t too bad, but climbing on sand is brutal. For every step you take you lose 2/3rds of it, and the person in the front breaking train has it even worse. We got to the top and saw the sunrise and just noticed how if you kick the sand it would slowly roll down the edges for dozens of meters. On the way down you can literally just run down the edges which are at around 45 degrees. You end up going so fast that your feet can’t keep up and end up having to cut angles almost as if you’re skiing. You can get down from your half hour climb up in about 3 minutes.
Later that day we got to another dune called Sossusvlei, this has the largest dune in the region called “Big Daddy” at about 1000 feet. Now in addition to being twice as high, you also had 40 degree heat, and the choice between climbing with your bare feet on burning sand, sandals which would cost you even more traction, or shoes that would fill with liters of sand. Made it up, but absolutely exhausting. The view and the way down was worth it though, as you are absolutely flying and I ended up tumbling down a part of it, and then ending up in another salt pan, but with the remnants of trees that died a thousand years ago.
Fish River Canyon
After the dunes we moved on to Fish river Canyon. This is one of the largest canyons in the world. Some of us decided to hike up to the canyon which was about 2.5 hours and maybe 12km. Other people took the truck, but it was a nice walk. Once you get to the actual canyon you can walk a little bit around the perimeter and basically just look down.
Orange River/ South Africa
As the trip came to a close we spent one night on the Namibia side of the Orange River, at a fairly nice campground with a pool and restaurant and bar. It was right on the river, so you could actually swim across the South Africa. Once again outside of the “5 eyes” countries I’m amazed how most countries, even ones like Singapore where they have death for drug smuggling consider customs more of a mere formality. The next day we spent at a quaint winery after crossing into South Africa. We did a wine tasting, were able to go for a bit of a hike, and had a nice fire for the last night of our trip. The next morning we moved onto Cape Town and said our farewells.
Final Thoughts:
This was a different kind of trip. I would likely this sort of trip again, and would recommend it for anyone travelling solo. Africa is doable on your own, but especially for things like park passes, it can get expensive quickly, and things like border crossing which are only open certain hours for vehicles can be difficult if you don’t know the ropes. That said we did meet a lot of small groups and couples with campers/trucks doing their own thing. That of course has the advantage of setting your own schedule and route, which was definitely one concern here. Africa is huge. A lot bigger than most people give it credit for. The roads generally aren’t good, and there aren’t a lot of them. Shit happens. We had some 11000 km to cover, and average speed was likely around 60km/hr. These tour companies are businesses, so they want to promote that you’ll be doing as much as possible, yet at the same time don’t want to pay for extra days. This leads to things like trip notes saying “an early start for a day of driving through a game park, but arrive in Harare with time to explore the city” which means up at 345 to pull down tents, eat and make lunch, on road by 430, drive straight through till 530 without slowing to see animals, spend 30 minutes going to bank/grocery/liquor store in Harare while the crew fuel up and buy food, never mind if you have delays. Mind you that was the exception, but I feel they tried to cram too much into too short of time, and an additional 10 days would have been perfect. On the other hand, tons of stuff was organized, included a lot of things you might not think of, and things that would only work as a group. There wasn’t much idle time, and the trip was along a well-worn backpacker route. Likely 2/3rds of the days, we did not associate with anyone not on this path, and I fear it may become like the east coast of Australia, where you just go from hostel to hostel and ticking off sights. In a sense this trip felt less like an adventure, and more you were just along for the ride. Aside from that one night in the impromptu African bar with our guides, or perhaps seeing the military fire tear gas at farmers as they were pushed off their land, there weren’t a ton of “holy shit” surprises. All in all though, it was an amazing trip, and amazingly in 50 rushed days I only managed to see a sliver of this huge continent.
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