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Africa, East or West to CPT. Africa, East or West to CPT.
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Route Planning Where to go, when, what are the interesting places to see
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  #1  
Old 17 Jan 2008
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Africa, East or West to CPT.
What I want to know is,

Which side of Africa should I plan on driving down in a Land Cruiser, trying to stay on tarmac for as much as the way as possible to Cape Town

Which is to say which side, east or west has the least amount of unsurfaced roads.
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  #2  
Old 18 Jan 2008
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Tarmac?
If you stick to tarmac you'll have a nice drive down but wheres the fun in that.

Pimp that machine up with a few basic bits of kit so you can comfortably hit the dirt, download Tracks4Africa and go on the adventure of a lifetime.

My advise - Forget the tarmac. Research what Africa has to offer you and plan your trip around all the really cool places and things to do enroute - not where theres a bit of black stuff.....

Get a grip! Keep it lit!

Niallo
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Old 18 Jan 2008
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Not only sometimes the bad tarmac is much more vehicle killing than the good gravel. Tarmac has the most advantage in the rainy season. To give you an answer:
On the east-coast you have the bad roads in Sudan, Ethiopia( I'm a little bit unsure about this - the chinese a working fast) and in the north of Kenya as well.
On the west-coast you have it in Cameroon, DRC, Gaboon and Angola.
One year ago I did Windhoek-Tunis in 30 days, so the roads can't be that bad. But for my personal point of view, I would suggest you the east route. It's a little bit "smoother" and you will find more animals.

For road-conditions have a look at http://www.traveller-tracks.de/en/routes

Save journey

Peter
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Old 19 Jan 2008
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west vs East
I haven't done the east but from What I've heard the east coast would be alot easier... there are better roads, more set up for tourist. more accommdation etc and the fact that there are less borders to cross than the west side.

I guess it depends on how much time you have and whether you will detour off the main roads.

Personally, I preferred West Africa - appears to be more interesting, primitive and more of an adventure!

Good luck
Amy
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  #5  
Old 19 Jan 2008
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Quote:
Originally Posted by amybaja View Post
I haven't done the east but from What I've heard the east coast would be alot easier... there are better roads, more set up for tourist. more accommdation etc and the fact that there are less borders to cross than the west side.

I guess it depends on how much time you have and whether you will detour off the main roads.

Personally, I preferred West Africa - appears to be more interesting, primitive and more of an adventure!

Good luck
Amy
,
,
Thanks Amy,

Time is not on my side, so I would not be taking my lazy time down there.

We will be two vehicles driving down, and would like to make it a short a time as possible.

However, only my Land Cruiser will be coming back, unless we plan to drive to UK with another party in tow, and that will be the time I can slow down a bit.

So for quickness, and ease, the East coast looks like it will be the ease.

The return could well be the West coast, and take our time.

If we decided to go West coast, I would have liked to travel through Turkey, and Saudi Arabia, before crossing into Africa some where, is that difficult, possible or just impossible.

Graham
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  #6  
Old 20 Jan 2008
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Hey Graham,

in that case you can break it down to this: West Africa has the people and East Africa has the animals. Now you can decide where to spent more time. And if you are really in a hurry on the way down on the east, you have to keep an eye on the ferry Assuan-Wadi Halfa. It is not unusal to wait there 10 days or hire the whole bark.

Cheers Peter
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