The Long Drive

How do you sum up a journey like this?

In short, and most objectively, by numbers:

Total number of days on the road: 209

Total distance travelled: 23,069 Miles (36,910Km) on the car’s odometer, 23,550 Miles (37,680Km) including 4 ferries (door – door).

Number of countries visited: 30 in total:

13 African: South Africa, Namibia, Botswana, Zambia, Malawi, Mozambique, Tanzania, Rwanda, Uganda, Kenya, Ethiopia, Sudan, Egypt

3 Middle Eastern: Jordan, Syria, Turkey

14 European: Bulgari...

People who hear about our journey always ask us…”Which was your favourite country”?

 And if I answer them, do they understand the response?

Does saying “Sudan” provide any reason why…Does saying “Sudan because the people were friendly, the food cheap, our travelling companion incredibly funny and the culture so entirely welcoming” help to sufficiently broaden the answer?

You can’t really categorise a journey like this as the sum of the countries visited, the breakdow...

Arriving in Egypt hit me like a smack in the face. Not too hard...

Every so often we’d come to a security check point. It’s ironic in the extreme that a country whose people are so friendly, honest and generous should tolerate, even contemplate such frequent security posts. The drill was simple, smile, greet people in the local language, say where you’d come from, where you were going, thanks, and off you went. The formula worked flawlessly till we met Hassan.

The roadblock could have been anywhere, the scene was one we’d encountered so often on ...

The border post guard put down his pen. He adjusted his Chelsea football shirt and explained that he was going to get some lunch. It was Friday afternoon, and we were entering our first distinctly Muslim country...oh, and it was about 45 Celsius. The paperwork he was mid-way through, our entry visas, would have to wait, our Carnet document lay on the desk open, but unstamped...we were going nowhere. Claudio sighed, I groaned...welcome to Sudan...Hamdililah (praise be to god).

Claudio...

Ethiopia is a country off on its own mission. Its home to the spaced-out rastas of Shashamane, the ancient tribes of the South Omo Valley and a general population that is as friendly as their hair is wild.

While all the other countries we’ve travelled through have a clear national religion, Ethiopia isn’t Muslim, it’s not traditionally Christian, it’s tribal in the south, but overall it’s a place that I could only describe as biblical. The view from the car window is filled w...

This is the Africa that you heard about before CNN told you the news. Before the live satellite feeds showing the latest disaster, before the Oxfam-sponsored images of starving children filled your TV screens. Before famines and wars dominated the headlines, and before safari tourism was something that your travel agent had even heard of. Before China came in and started chasing minerals, and before presidents came to power and decided to stay...This is how it was.

In Southern Ethiopi...