1/19/2024 0 Comments Overland west 2022![]() In the evening we camped out in the yard of our Senegalese back packer patrons and the next day drove on into Gambia for some prawn like shrimp lunch at a wildlife resort on the banks of the Gambia River. Driving east to the coast across the huge wetlands and estuaries we drove past piles and piles of oyster shells littering our path. We left the village and decided to head west to the coast of Senegal and then tracked north again into Gambia to get more stamps in our passports and see another country. We felt accomplished and present in ourselves. Sitting on a small bench in his store on the side of the road, trying on various garments, taking pictures and laughing with the shop owner, affirming the creativity of his tailors. The proprietor welcomed us warmly and took us through countless options of outfits and colours to assist our selection process. We were so enamoured by being in Senegal, seeing the beautiful traditional boubous the citizens were wearing, that we stopped in the first village shop to deck ourselves out in traditional boubou garb. It was magical. Like some kind of natural welcoming to the Sahara blessing. We hadn’t been driving in Senegal for long and we were embraced by clouds of snowflake like white seedlings from the kapok trees blowing across the road. ![]() Savanna and semi desert dry shrub peppered the earth. We were feeling like we were at the cusp of our halfway mark in our circumference Africa adventure. ![]() Before us lay the last stretch of the journey across the bulge of West Africa and on into Morocco. We had triumphed over the hill of a dual passport at the Senegalese border and had my Irish safely stamped well before our Morocco crossing. It was early March when we finally crossed from Guinea into Senegal. Didn’t seem like much of a problem from the distant shores of West Africa. I never knew why they did that till weeks later when, sitting on Burrough Beach south of Freetown, another traveller said something about there being a virus and it was spreading from China to Italy. And they pulled back and directed us to a bucket of water under a tree to wash our hands. When we arrived we swamped them in hugs and high fives. And you do that by being kind and open and warm to the border officials. We had taken a left turn from Guinea and a big chance to enter Sierra Leone on a remote north easter border without either a visa or the right to drive a right-hand drive vehicle. On reflection, the way we first felt the signs of the pandemic was on the Sierra Leone border crossing. In retrospect we were blissfully and comfortably ignorant to the first signs of the pandemic. And what happens outside the windshield is way more riveting and captivating that any news broadcast. There is so much going on in front of your vehicle you cannot rest for a minute. That’s how you roll in an adventure into the depths of African remoteness. At sea, blissfully floating across countries whose people speak with a foreign tongue. Lost in our bubble of pleasure zone ignorance. In all the preparation we did, no one could have even imagined what would happen in a market in Wuhan in China in December of 2019. We would have left out the European bit if we could cross Libya…but that was a no go because of the civil war there. Drive north up the west coast, and across through Europe, then drive south down the east. ![]() In our case the plan was simple: circumference the African continent in a year or so. Hopefully we can stretch this trip out as long as possible, as it's only so often between life's commitments that we get the chance to spend this much time exploring.As any overlander who has spent significant time on the road knows, there is a lot of preparation involved in an overland adventure. The idea is to basically drive up the middle to Norway, and see where the road takes us on the way, and then back down making our way to Spain, which on the way Mark plans to show Jolie where he spent a winter in the French Alps.įrom Spain we'll drive back up to Calais, France and get the train over to the U.K., our final destination! We'll then work our way through India, Pakistan, China, Central Asia a.k.a "The Stans" (Tajikistan, Kyrgyzstan, Uzbekistan and Turkmenistan) and Iran, through to Turkey. Through South East Asia, the route will take up through the south coast of Thailand to Cambodia, then up through Laos, back into Thailand and over to Myanmar, where you're required to travel as part of an organised self drive group. Once we reach Medan, North Sumatra, we will need ship the car to Port Klang, Malaysia, and we'll jump on a short flight and meet the car there. ![]()
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