Sudan - Kenya (bypassing Ethiopia)
 

I'm trying to complete the jigsaw puzzle on how to get to Cape Town along the East Africa route (Dec '21 - May '22).

Getting to Sudan seams feasible, see: https://www.horizonsunlimited.com/hu...a-sudan-100346

But it looks like the situation in Ethiopia is not improving (see also https://www.xn--wetzlosweltwrts-clb....hp/reise/sudan).

How shall I get past Ethiopia? :(

Greetings,
Wauschi

A more significant question might be "How do I get past Sudan?"

Friends of mine who work in humanitarian services in South Sudan advise me that the situation is not at all secure there.

I think you might want to consider transporting the bike from the Arabian peninsula to Kenya, and skipping the whole Sudan - Ethiopia - Eretria - Somalia - northern Kenya area entirely.

The Sudan - South Sudan border has not opened for international travel since the independence of South Sudan in 2011. A mixture of border disputes between the two Sudans, tribal conflicts along the border and a civil war in South Sudan are making the crossing into South Sudan impossible for now and the forseeable future.

With civil war in Ethiopia and the movement of refugees from there towards/into Sudan there is actually no way to continue from Sudan to Kenya on land.

If you dont want to miss the hospitality of the people in Sudan your best option is to fly from Khartoum to Nairobi or to ship your bike from Port Sudan to Mombasa.

I've been wishing the Sudan/S. Sudan border was an option as well. There are reports that river shipping has restarted from Kosti (Sudan) to Malakal (S. Sudan), but I don't know if this actually happened. I read of travelers making this journey in the small window between S. Sudan independence and before everything unraveled, and I hoped this might be a way for overland travelers to cross the border and avoid the worst of insecurity, but being on the barge for the border areas.

I also talked to an aid worker friend of mine and he advised no S. Sudan travel at all, or if it was going to be done do not go north of Juba. They have staff and transport routinely traveling from Kenya and Uganda to Juba and have not had incidents in these areas, not to say that they don't happen.

I inquired with a (the?) tour agency there recently to ask about an unrelated idea, but he did mention that "crossing to Sudan by road is still hard .... we do not recommend it as it will be difficult", which I read as "No way, not happening."

Mr. Mayom (mayom.bul@gmail.com) of the tour agency said that they are running tours without issue in the country, but all in the South. He was professional and responsive if anyone wants to contact him.

In 2018 there was a post here on the Hubb of someone that managed a West to East crossing from Chad into Sudan.

https://www.horizonsunlimited.com/hu...gh-sahel-95153

You'd have to really want it, but perhaps the reverse is possible? He was given a police escort through the Darfur zone, through in a day. Now in these covid days there is a much higher risk you could be stranded in an inconvenient country due to border closures.

More info please
 

I'm also trying to figure this out. I've found a way to ship the bike from Greece to Kenya but I hadn't thought about Port Sudan.
Do you have any specific info or contacts there?

Thanks

Jack

Pure and wild speculation from far away: maybe Eritrea - Somaliand - Ethiopia could be an option, thereby bypassing the areas with trouble in Ethiopia. Somaliland is reportedly safe and distinct from Somalia. Or, if you feel very adventurous and have a lot of time: Chad - CAR - DRC - Uganda

Unfortunately I dont have current info about the situation, when I crossed Africa, Sudan/Ethiopia were well. But then it's part of the adventure, there always is a jigsaw puzzle in Africa. When I went, there were no ferries to Egypt, Syria out of order etc, so I went through Libya. That was amazing but also quite a jigsaw puzzle to make it happen.

I don't know whether you're really proposing this as an option, but it would be somewhat fraught even without a worldwide pandemic. Eritrea is one of the most difficult countries in the world to travel in these days, with separate permits required everyplace you go, a repressive government to rival North Korea (so it's said), and few or no borders open. They seem to have a propensity for engaging in wars with their neighbors, too--hence lots of mines on and off roadways.

I spent a couple of weeks there during a rare time of peace and relative freedom twenty-odd years ago just after independence. It's a wonderful country, and I'd recommend it to anyone who can find a way to go, but I doubt it's even possible as an overland route from Sudan. That stretch along the Red Sea to Djibouti is doubtful as well, so I wouldn't get my hopes up--remote desert with hardly any people, and more minefields related to another border war. Then there is the perhaps-solvable issue of getting out of Somaliland and through southern Ethiopia....

Just been pointed to this from a few months ago.
https://theconversation.com/what-sud...-border-167546

Don't know if western tourists are included but, from the example of Western Sahara when central Sahara closed in the 1990s, once the flow of cross-border trade realigns, intrepid tourists follow and eventually it becomes a new overland route.