...a journey of a life time through ibn batuta's africa

preparations

since deciding to go on this adventure, we have been preparing for it for now over an year. browsing through the lonely planets, magazines and viewing the past adventures of others, checking the maps, deciding what to take and what to leave behind...all nerve wrecking stuff. incredibly, there is so much on hand to consider, especially with all our families coming along.

time

the amount of time we spend on road will depend on how much leave (paid or unpaid) we get. we are aiming for 50 days. we think this is just about right, since we do not want to rush along, yet want to experience the places. ideally we would have loved to have the year off to do this...
 

health

firstly we need to get in shape (!).

all of the vaccinations (yellow fever, cholera (this is not required any more), typhoid, polio, hepatitis A & B) has been taken plus we will start on malaria tablets (malarone or equivalent) 2 weeks before departure.

we will be carrying with us a comprehensive list of medicines and first aid boxes.

visas

after researching on the visa requirements, we found that we will only need the visa for sudan only. however we may also obtain ethiopia and kenya's visas as well, so that the border crossing at gedaref and moyale may be less problematic. as for the rest of the countries, the visas will be obtained at the relevant borders.

documents

this is the most essential of all requirements. the following documents will be carried (with numerous copies)

  international driver’s license (translated)

  vehicle registration (translated)

  carnet du passage (known as trip ticket here)

   -one for rest of africa and one especially for sudan. we obtained ours from the

    saudi automobile and touring association in dammam.

  special permit for landcruiser entries to sudan (to be obtained from sudan embassy)

  passports (valid)

  vaccination certificates (especially for yellow fever)

  insurance documents

vehicles
our companion on the trip will be "buraq", a 1996 landcruiser vxr for the  johnstones, and "malaika", a 1999 landcruiser vxr for the mahmoods. both vehicles have undergone some modifications (dual battery management, additional shocks and springs).  buraq will carry the roof top tent, and use the back of the vehicle for storage, meanwhile malaika will have all the storage in three trunks on the roof rack, leaving the third row of seats in. we will be shipping back the vehicles from capetown to dammam port.

money matters

the estimated cost will be about $2000 per person for the trip (minus the trip back and local expenses).we plan to take some cash with us (especially for sudan and ethiopia), but most of the money will be obtained from the ATMs in major cities.

itinerary planning

this has been the most time consuming, however between ourselves we have agreed on a detailed itinerary and a planned route has been drawn up. we do not intend to overplan this, but because of the time constraints, we want to squeeze in as much as we can without compromising too much. we will have to move with rhythms of africa (early starts, early nights) and cover at least 320km on average per day. we therefore plan to stop at as’r time (late afternoon prayers) for each day.

prebookings

we plan to prebook as many resorts/lodges/hotels as we can on the route (especially in major cities) and also book early the activities in zambezi, okavango delta, serengeti and zanzibar.

communications/ GPS

we have bought a thuraya satellite phone with scratch cards. access to an isp is being considered so that we can manage this web site daily.we will be using the garmin 111+ and V models for our navigation with a garmin 12XL as a backup.

maps

our main source of maps is the mitchelin maps (745 and 746) and from the national

geographic african adventure book. the navigation software (moving map) we will use is the oziexplorer hooked to our garmin gps. we have scanned and callibrated the mitchlin maps and we will try to publish the waypoints and tracks on this site as we go along.

food & drink

we intend to take a few tinned and dried food items for emergency only. we plan to buy most of the food (fresh) on the road. we will carry with us water purifying tablets (kartydyn).