Belgium to Cape Town 2014
 

Hello,

I'm planning my trip to Cape Town. Is anyone interested to join during my trip. I will leave my home town Brussels the first of August.

Greetings,

Koenraad

interested
 

hi. Ive been thinking of this trip for a while and replied to a few posts here but not managed to get dates that work. August next year would be possible for me.
Im Irish, based in Dublin, reasonably experienced overlander riding BMW 1200 GSA. how much planning have you done? Ive looked at the classic route in a bit of detail and it seems the most obvious but interested in your thoughts
Brian

Hi guys,

I am going to take off around middle of March, from Antwerp, Belgium also heading to Cape Town.

Together with a friend from Argentina.

On a KLR and a Yamaha Tenere from 1990.

If you decide to go earlier, keep me posted.

wr, Bart

Hi guys

I am also looking into doing London to Cape Town in the second half of 2014, so an August departure is fine with me. How much time do you have?

I have done some research, and the most tricky bit at the moment seems to get to Egypt without going through Lybia. I know there is a ferry from Turkey. However, we should also consider boarding a cargo ship. I have done it across the Caspian Sea in May, and it is not so bad. Actually I quite enjoyed the experience. Here is the link:

Grimaldi Group

Basically, it is a six day "cruise" from Salerno (Italy) to Alexandria (Egypt) stopping at Piraeus (Greece) and Izmir (Turkey) on the way.

Let me know what you think.

Cheers

Sam

Time wasting fool
 

Why did this fool start a thread, get earnest replies from people then not bother answering. Time waster who will never do a proper adventure trip and certainly, judged by his history here , ever find a good travel companion
I've seen this kind of stuff a few times on here and my advise to the moderator is to ban anyone who does similar

Hi Brian

you are right. However, it could serve the purpose of other people meeting up. I am still interested in doing this trip. If you are, we can start our own discussion. Although I may end up doing this trip solo, I think pairing up would be safer in Africa especially if we decide to get off the "tourist track" were roads may be very bad/absent and very little assistance around.

The tricky bit is to get to Egypt without going through Lybia or Iraq which means taking a boat of some sort. Apparently there are still ferries from Turkey. However, I found an Italian cargo company (Grimaldi) that does host people on their cargo ships. We could take on in Salerno (Southern Italy) and get to Alexandria in few days. I took a cargo ship to get across the Caspian sea last May, and it was actually a very good experience.

Cheers

Sam

Sam

I'm on the bike in South America at the moment (in Chile heading north) so it's difficult to give a good response. I'm back in dublin early February so let's exchange thoughts then

Brian

New Year's Eve in Chile... you must have had a lot of fun !!! Let's get in touch when you are back. Have a nice trip north

Sam

hey Bart
ik ben de peter en afkomstig van Ekeren
ik vertrek in oktober naar zuid Afrika zouden we eens kunnen afspreken in de ene of andere café om eens over de roette te spreken oe dat je gaat rijden enz..... voort
ben zelf al een keer tot in Tokio gereden laat eens iets weten
grt peter

Hi Guys
It sounds as if there is quite a bit of interest in a trip through Africa, North to South, for the second part of this year. I am also interested in doing this. How much research and planning have you guys done? Is it possible to do a "central planning" project? Even if nobody ends up going at the same time, if a trip like that can be planned, centrally so to speak, with input by everybody it has to be on interest? Any thoughts?
Etienne
PS: Sorry, I don't want to hijack the thread, should we discuss it somewhere else?

Hi Etienne

I am not sure what you mean by "central planning project". But surely we could exchange information. For example, I already have some information about cargo ships from Italy to Africa,

Hi Bart

Which route are you going to take? Eastern or Western?
I will depart from Switzerland end of February on my Toyota Landcruiser 78.
I am planning to take the ferry between Turkey and Egypt and then drive south the classic eastern route.

Would appreciate your answer.

Cheers
Lukas

Did you check out that one?
[url=http://www.unroro.com.tr/EN/LINES/default.asp]U.N-RORO Web Sitesine Ho

Hi Sam
There is so much information out there regarding this trip but it is spread over many sites and forums. It is really difficult and a huge amount of work trolling through all the sites trying to get the info needed.

I thought it would be really nice if we could create a site or even just a thread with as much info on as possible. Kind of like the definitive Cairo to Cape Town overland info thread. If a lot of guys contribute with the info that they have it would make it a lot easier for everybody. I know that things change very quickly in Africa and what is applicable now would not necessarily still be current in a few months time but it would at least help.

I am thinking of things like where to stay in various places. What hotels/camp sites to avoid (if any). What the procedure is to cross from Aswan to Wadi Halfa. Where to buy the tickets and what the time issues are. I recall somebody saying that they neglected to "register" when entering Sudan (I think) and had to back track 800km's to go back to do so. What is up with this? Any info on that? Just so many small (and some not so small) things that can make life on the road easier and safer.

Any thoughts?

Take care
Etienne

Lots of people going to CPT!

Did Brussels-Nairobi myself some 15 months ago,
and intend to do 2nd part somewhere Sept 2014.

@ Etienne Questions? go ahead.
@ Koenraad and all others: am living in Brussels and
happy to meet and talk about driving down south.
good driving to all!

geertvdgucht@yahoo.com

Hi Geert
Thanks, appreciate it! Do you have a copy of the route that you took? Did you camp or stay in hotels? Did you do it as part of a group or on your own? Did you keep a travel blog?
There are so many things I don't know, I don't know where to begin!
Take care
Etienne

Etienne,
The route was the classic eastroute, was together with travelbuddy from
Istanbul and yes we did some camping, even in the Sudan.
For details like ferries/fuel/boardercrossing, send me a pm please.

Geert

Antwerp - Capetown _ March 2014
 

Hi Lukas,

I am going for the West route: Morocco, Mauretania, Senegal, Mali, Burkina, Ghana, Nigeria, Cameroun, DRC, Zambia, Namibia, Cape Town

The Egypt - Sudan part, I don't really like about the Eastern route ;-)

Wr, Bart

We, my girlfriend Nikki and me, are taking the eastern route to Capetown on our Africa Twins.. We are leaving from the netherlands halfway october.


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Sam. I'm in London 27th February to 1st March if you fancy a coffee to discuss. I'm staying central and busy all day Saturday, till about 18.00, but flexible apart from that

Email me
montague.brian@gmail.com

Hey guys, sorry for my late responses (family issues). So my plan is still to start in August (2nd week) and take the classic East route. I have some contacts on the way and I really want to revisit my school where I worked a couple of years ago. So the plan for me is.
1 month for Europe
Hedding in to Africa 2 options
A. take the ferry to Tunis and go trough Libya into Egypt or
B. take a roro from turkey into Egypt. I have a contact in Egypt that might help.
and take the classic route down. For the whole trip I'm taking one year (slow I know :)) I'm looking for some (a) travel companions for the stages Tunisia-Libya and Sudan.

So if anyone wants to meet up let me know.

Koenaad.Vandenbussche@gmail.com

Hey Guys,

very interesting thread! Me and my friend are planning to take our Africa Twins from Germany down to Cape Town starting beginning of August this year as well, so there will be at least four twins pointing their front tires straight south :D

We are a bit in a time crunch since we only have roughly 3 month for the trip. So the plan is blasting down to Turkey, visiting some friends and family of my travel companion, get somehow to Africa and travel as far south taking the classical east rout as we can get. If we are not to reach SA its no big deal since our primary goal is to have a good time and not desperately trying to get to the Cape.

We want to do camping as much as possible, not only to save some money but also course we like the outdoors :)

The biggest issue right now is the question of HOW to get to Africa? The Egypt customs seam to be a major pain and waiting two weeks to get the bikes out of customs is definitely not an option...

So I'll be interested to see how you guys figure out this issues and we are happy to travel bits of the trip with some of you guys! I'll keep you posted on the progress we are making and information we can get.

Cheers,

Topher

We are taking the ferry from Genoa to Tunis and then travel through Libya to Egypt.
This way we can be in Africa in about 4 days.
We also will pass the border from Libya to Egypt with our bikes, so we can avoid the hassle of having our bikes with the egyptian customs for more days.

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Libya is definitely an interesting option, especially with their gasoline prices :) From what I am reading here in the HUBB crossing Libya seams a lot safer and easier than one would expect. How is the visa application working out nowadays?

We've decided to cross into Egypt via Israel. That's probably a lot less adventures than crossing Libya but we anyway wanted to see Israel and visit some friends there. Entering Egypt via the Taba crossing should (hopefully) be a lot easier than the entry with a ferry.

If it's working out time wise we could take the ferry from Aswam together?

Cheers,

Topher

Israeli visa
 

Hi El Topherino,
Be very careful about having an Israeli stamp in your passport, as the Sudanese will deny you a visa if they discover such. Even having an Egyptian entry stamp at a Israel land border (from memory there is only one) is grounds enough for the Sudanese to freak out.
Best of luck.

stamp issue
 

Hi Cam,

thanks for the info. I´ve heard about the israeli stamp issue with the sudanese border, but apparently you can ask the border guys in israel to simply stamp a lose piece of paper. That they might freak out about the land border stamp from the taba crossing in egypt is rather discomforting... alternatively one might be able to take the ferry from jordan to egypt, but the issue persist, they still might find the land border stamp from israel to jordan.

i guess we have to hope that the sudanese border guys are in a good mood and give them no reason to be angry with us (probably in general a good idea)...

Hi guys, I have not been on the HUBB for a while, and it is nice to see that the plans for this trip are progressing.

My employer has recently approved my request to go on leave for a year. However, they want me to start in Jan 2015 rather than August 2014. So I cannot join the expedition this year :(

If there is anybody planning the reverse trip starting in January 2015, or to go Cairo to Cape Town in Summer/Fall 2015, please get in touch.

Cheers

Sam

I'm leaving Austria on my '11 Transalp at the end of may. My initial plan is to go south, Croatia-Greece-Turkey but I'm flexible and really would like to do the Africa trip so please keep the thread updated :)

How are you planning to get your bikes back to Europe? Put them on a ship and then fly back?

Nick.

Copenhagen-Cape-Town
 

Great thread!...I am at the beginning stage of planning my trip from Copenhagen to Cape-town, hopefully leaving Copenhagen August 2015 for 3-4 months.:mchappy: Never thought that the biggest hurddle would be how to get to Egypt!...great suggesstions though, although I think I leave that one for a while as the situation might change before my departure. Hope you all will keep on posting as your planes, and trips moves along, I am a ladybiker and will be traveling solo so I want to be very well prepared especially for the first leg of the tour, so Iwill be keeping a close eye on this thread :):thumbup1:

Hi Brynia

as you can see from my earlier message, I had to change my plan and I am now looking for an August/September 2015 departure for my London to Cape Town trip. If you would like to discuss the opportunity to share the Egypt/Sudan/Ethiopia bit, and share information, feel free to get in touch

Bye now

Sam

Hej Sam

We can deffinetely look into that, I am just starting to plan the route and must sees along the the way, I am thinking 4 months as I want to visit Uganda and Rwanda as well, I have been to Uganda and the country is for a very good reason called "the pearl of Africa" it is stunning! I hope I will be able to make it August 2015, I will see how fast the planning will progress and get an estimation of how much the adventure will cost so I will make a full committment at the end of the summer wheather it will be 2015 or 2016! Lets stay in thouch

Hey Guys,

great to hear more and more people are planing similar trips!

@ Nick: Our plan is still to leave Germany during the first week of August and then go fairly quick to Turkey. We will spent at least a week in Israel and then head on to Egypt. It would be great if could team up, especially in northern Africa.
We plan to get back as you said. Ship the bikes from South Africa and fly the riders ;)

Just PM me for more details.

All the best,

Topher

ok it seems that a whole bunch of people try to get to CapeTown. We are doing a Zurich to CapeTown starting on 1stof Octobre with our three AfricaTwins so at least 7 AT's are heading south. :D

Lybia just had some fighting action yesterday, so it is at the moment not our primar option. That Grimaldi Boat sounds interesting. If anyone has a good idea how to get to Egypt without traveling into Lybia or Israel please let us know.

I will search for a solution as well.

I love how many AT's rolling south soon :scooter: !

@ruulio: great homepage! reminds me that i really should get our page together...

we will attend the HUBB meeting in germany end of may, just in case any one of you guys is around!

Into Egypt
 

Hi guys,

I am on my Zurich to Cape Town trip, currently in Addis Ababa. You find my blog with useful information on how to get into Egypt here:

Cruise The Planet | Von Zürich nach Kapstadt

Click on "Info for travellers"

I have crossed from Iskendurun to Damietta in March 2014.

Cheers
Lukas

Hi Lukas,
I enjoyed reading your stories. Makes me wanna leave the Netherlands and head for Africa today. Unfortunately we have to wait untill octobre. We planned to go through Libya but the current situation made us change our plans. Now we are probably taking the Iskenderun-Damietta ferry. Enjoy the rest of your trip and keep writing!


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new in the game
 

Hi Everybody,

Great to here everybody is gearing op for travel. My current situation has changed and therefore decided tot ride far away. Capetown is my destination! The eastern Route

I am new to this forum, and to motorcycle travel, but not less committed! I'm planning to leave in August/september, but that's flexible. I'm planning to do it in 3 to 7 months, but thats also flexible:) and i'm planning on goin' solo, but indeed, that's also flexible

I'm looking to (1) team-up in Northern Africa (or more) and (2) i'm looking for info on reaching Egypt. (3) visa information regarding the rest of the route.

Does anyone already made plans to Team-up from this Thread?

El Tpherino: like to get in touch with you, teaming up in Egypt. I hope your stamps work out ;)

Samueleuk: Are you still planning to go and august still feasible? Like to get in touch with you and maybe we can team up.

I'd love to hear from you all, and i shall chek the thread often.

We are leaving the Netherlands at the end of september. First plan was Libya but i think we'll have to change to turkey-egypt

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So, twoTwinCapeTown, I assume that leaves the Grimaldi option open? Samueleuk, i have been looking at the Grimaldi option but on their information sheet, they don't say Alexandria is a disembarkation point. Or do you have other inforamtion? This is, imo, the most feasable option.

I was chekking over here..
http://www.grimaldi-freightercruises...medEnglish.pdf

We are looking at UNRORO from Iskenderun to Damietta.


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Anyone have any other possibilities for getting from europe to egypt???

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Do you have any information about gettung to Egypt with Grimaldi lines?

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I am afraid you are right guys.

I checked, and Grimaldi stops but does no longer disembark in Alexandria. Damn it.

They disembark in Israel but, as many of you surely know, that it is likely to stop your trip at the border with Sudan.

My suggestion is to contact directly Grimaldi to see if they could disembark the bikes in Alexandria. They may agree to it, Italians are flexible :-)

UNRORO also stopped the Iskenderun-Haifa-Damietta line. It is getting harder and harder to get into africa

Dutch XRV750: Teaming up with you in Egypt would be great! I am just a bit puzzled of how to get there...?

With the ferry service from iskenderun canceled and the situation in Libia worsening only little alternatives are remaining. Our plan, as you know, was to go to Israel first. i've read of several travelers who crossed into Sudan with an Egyptian land boarder to Israel stamp with no a problem, but it can also be a show stopper. I'm afraid right now it's a risk we have to take.

We are looking for alternatives and trying to get more information. i might at some point even look into airfreight but i am highly unmotivated to pay all that money...

Samueleuk's idea seams promising. grimaldi might be flexible enough to disembark the bikes in Alex. in any case it's easy money for them if enough people are joining in.

fingers crossed we'll find a way!

http://www.unroro.com.tr/EN/NEWS/def...page=1&fId=408

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I am also planning on riding the East coast route, leaving Wales around September. Watching this thread with great interest. Happy to link up for ferry if there is one available.

Gareth

We are sorting out all the possibilities. I've send an dozen emails today to all kind of freighting companies.
Israel might be the only good option that is left. There is one guy who managed to get into Sudan even though he arrived in Egypt by the Israelian border crossing. I've sent him an email for some more information on how he managed to get into Sudan without a hassle.


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Who is interested in trying to get to Egypt with Grimaldi lines, and can head for Egypt in the beginning of october?
It might be a good plan to contact Grimaldi with a group so it may be more interesting for them to disembark our bikes in Alex.


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I will be able to give a definitive answer in a few weeks . Departing from which port? I am just sorting out valuation for carnet, but all being well you can count me in .

Gareth

Unfortunately, as explained in a previous message, my employer has not given me permission to leave until 2015. So it is next year for me. But I will keep an eye on how you guys are doing. I hope you will find a solution to get to Egypt

Sam

two twins: it will be very interessting to hear which kind of Information you are getting. teaming up for a ferry is probably a good idea. unfortunatly we can't wait until octobre to leave for africa.


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@twotwins as you already know, we are in to team up for grimaldi ferry, we are three guys, so if you write them we are at least total of five bikers. maybe we should start a new thread "how to get to egypt", we still have hope that there will be a ship to egypt.

Good idea.

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Can you help us?
 

Hi as i can't send you a private Message please sen dme your email :

stefan.klimek@gmx.net
Einspurig-Reisen | Zu zweit auf dem Motorrad um die Welt

we also wanna go that direction in september. Maybe we can groupup somehow and i wold like to get informations from which you which Ferry you're gonna think to take to Egypt or how do you manage to go to Africa...

Thanks a lot,
Stefan

How to go to Egypt in August/Septemer 2014
 

Hi there, we have the same problem. It's so frustrating... Please pelase please let me know if you find any way or come in touch with us:

www.eispurig-reisen.de

Thanks,
Stefan + Kerstin

I think there is only one, reasonable, way to go.
Take a freightship from Salerno (IT) to Israël with Grimaldi lines.
To work around the "been to Israël" problem and not getting into Sudan. You need two passports. I don't exactly know how this works but there are numerous overlanders who have done it this way and had no problems getting into Sudan.

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Just started a new thread. Getting into Egypt over land/sea 2014.

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thank you TwoTwins, we will use that new thread for all information. my friend works with grimaldi, I have a swiss contact but he is out of office so we have to wait till monday.

HI,

My name is Andrea form Milano Italy, I am interested in the trip, can You send me some more details .

My email is andrea.m.lodolo@gmail.com

Regards

Andrea

grimaldi also wrote me that they won't take passengers to egypt.



Salamis from greece is an option. it is possible to get from israel to jordan. at the jordan border you can aslo ask them to stamp an extra paper. not your passport. as is possible in israel, hence the passport will be free of traces of israel. from jordan one can take the ferry to egypt. thats probably the best option at the moment. in comparision, a direct connection to egypt would be nicer.... we will find a way!


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Grimaldi doesn't disembark passengers in Egypt but they do in Israël. You can ask at the jordan border not to stamp your passport but if they do it anyway.......
That's why most overlanders recommend an extra passport.

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Way to Egypt
 

I have been following this thread with interest. I just want to ask, can you not travel trough Turkey over to Iran and over to Saudi Arabi and then a ferry over to Egypt or Sudan. Is this a to long way to go? otherwise I think its interesting countries to visit. Iran is safe and ok I think SA is also ok. I just want to hear opinion from you that have the experience. :innocent:

As we're having the same problem we guess itz's possible from Greek-Zypern-Israel(Haifa) and hoping to make it to Egypt at the Taba border. We are travelling on a Motorbike, i heard some Guys had problems with their 4x4

My latest Informations are that it's actually not possible to enter Iran with your own car/motorbike! If you come as Backpacker no problem but not with your own vehicle...

Stefan

Of course... Im Germany it wasn't a problem to get a second passport.. so why not. They just ask me why and i told them because of Israel and i wanna give one passport to the embassy and have a second one with me. That was enought reason for them...

Hi Andrea

did you get my email?

Samuele

For the Dutch Travellers about a second dutch pasport, it's possible, but only for "professional" rreasons. I'm e-mailing them about my reason for doing volountary work in africa and israel, then i will let you know..

Kan ik een tweede Nederlands paspoort aanvragen? | Vraag en antwoord | Rijksoverheid.nl