Alonso, who, I think, is the owner, the organiser, the guide, the driver and everything else you can think of at Kumakondo, responded quickly to my request, and sent me a more extensive brochure on the ‘transit trip’. In essence, the plan is to drive in 40 days with a truck from Chad to Sierra Leone, through Cameroun, Nigeria, Benin, Togo, Ghana, Cote d’Ivoire and Liberia. A little over 5000 km. With a small group of likeminded lunatics, max. ten pax.
the proposed route of the West Africa expedition
A few points from the brochure:
- ‘We will have many days on the road with many hours of driving per day.’,
- ‘We will cross 9 borders and possibly more than 200 police, military, customs, etc. controls. Most of them corrupt. At each of them we will also have to be very patient. Each border crossing can take 4 to 5 hours. At many borders it is necessary to pay for “formalities”.’ – I love the term “formalities”!
- ‘You should be physically fit and prepared to endure heat, humidity, dust, uncomfortable roads, fatigue, stress, etc.’
- ‘The hotels during the trip are usually very basic’.
- ‘We advise you to always look at the Foreign Office Travel Recommendations and act accordingly’.
- Oh yeah, and ‘Hardness of the trip is very high’.
In his accompanying email Alonso also helpfully points out that we need to make sure we can get all the necessary visas. Nine of them! My guess: many African embassies and consulates are not necessarily known for their expedient handling of requests.
So I forwarded the email to my wife, Sofia – who was sitting upstairs. Without any comment. And she didn’t even bother to respond. Or so I thought.
next: 16 Nov
Both of you are sure to make this trip😀😀😀😀😀😀👍