Africa Blog Posts, Blog Posts, Europe Blog Posts

Week 22: Into Africa

It has been an unplanned, but enjoyable, week. I spent a few days in Gibraltar with some awesome CouchSurfing hosts, Shawn and John, while I was there a lot of other Couch Surfers passed through. I spent two days exploring Gibraltar with three German Couch Surfers, Steph, Ronny and Fabian, we wandered around the city and went to see the monkeys.

Africa Trip

I had planned to get the ferry to Morocco on my Birthday, 6th December, but due to our excessive celebrations I was in no fit state to move off the sofa all day. I drank two bottles of red wine and a beer or two, then at 4am, when we were out of alcohol, we went to a 24 hour bar. I’m not sure what time we got back or when we went to sleep, but it was late.

Africa Trip

Steph, Ronny and Fabian left and I stayed on the sofa. Later that evening Steph contacted me to say I had left my scarf in their car, I decided to go and collect it the next day and so drove the four hours to Cordova. Steph and Ronny were kind enough to let me stay with them for a few days before I headed back down for the ferry. The ferry costs just under 45 euro and the morning ferry leaves at 10am. The journey took around an hour, with two hours going through customs on the other side.

Africa Trip

I drove around Tangier for a while before deciding I wanted to go into the mountains. I slept in a village called Ouezzane, where I’m sure I got ripped off with an expensive hotel (25 Euro). Then today I left and headed to Fes. I’m staying here for a couple of nights in a youth hostel, at the much better price of 5 Euro, taking a tour tomorrow, should be fun.

Africa Trip

Blog Posts, Europe Blog Posts

Africa Route Problems

As you probably know, I will be arriving in Africa in a month or two. With this in mind I decided that it was probably about time that I planned the route, but I am having some problems.

Firstly the border between Morocco and Algeria is closed.

Secondly Libya.

As I see it there are three possible solutions.

1 – Travel back to Italy, after visiting Morocco, to get the ferry from Venice to Alexandria. The problem with this is that the ferry is currently not running, although there have been stories that it will start running again next month.

2 – Travel back to Turkey, after visiting Morocco, to get a ferry to Israel then drive to Egypt over land. The problem with this is that I will be doubling back on myself through Europe again. But I did miss out on Turkey the first time round, maybe this would be a good opportunity to see it.

3 – Go to Egypt the long way around. Basically drive south from Morocco, possibly as far as South Africa, then head north again, to Tanzania, then go to Egypt after I have stayed in East Africa for a while. The problem with this is the time it will take and the amount of money I may have to spend.

At the moment I am hoping that the ferry starts running again.