Hia all

We plan to drive the west route, starting from switzerland with a 4x4 (i hope 4x4 are welcome too)

We have a timeframe from only 8 weeks - and will fligt back - and ships the car back.

We cant plan with more time - without quitting our jobs, so we decided to do it the fast way - this time...

Currently we works on the visas - recognizing we are pretty late - for so many visas. We dont have the time to get the visas on the way - we want to start with all of them.

Starting from Switzerland, driving to italy and shipping us and the car to marroco.

Then the route is planned this way: Marocco, Westsahare, Mauretanien, Mali, Burkina Faso, Benin, Nigeria, Cameroon, Kongo, Dr Kongo, Angola, Namibia.

Only in marocco we dont need a visa - each other country need one.

Because of our pace, we plan to do the trip as single car, because most of all travellers have enough time, to enjoy beatiful places a bit more...

But maye we can work on the route togehter with others, can share gps tracks and so on.

Unfortunately the situation in mali dont seems to get better in the next months, and i dont know if we get our visa. To drive arround mali is possible - but than there we have to get some additional Visa`s and have to calculate more time for border crossings.

I found here some more threads about - but mostly for the way from the cape upside.

Surfy

I have now have merged my Website together with my Blog. You can translate the website to english, the link to the "translator" is on the right menü side, maye you have to scroll down a bit.

Trans-Africa

I have done my best to compress the informations - so it isnt so much stuff to read.

We should get our carnet on monday, and are in hurry to get most of the Visa's.

Mauretania has refused the Visa, because they want a booked flight - or the carnet... And this is a easy Visa to get on the way...

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About Overlanding, Travelogues, Equipment
Trans-Africa over the west coast

Hi,

Well i traveled the westcoast without a carned but it will make live easyer (and more expensive) if you have one. You are indeed late to start organizing your visa but if you would have started earyer some of your visa might be expired before you get there.

To get my visa for Angola took me 3 Months...when i finaly got it my congo visa where allready expired...

Lone way up...eine etwas andere Afrikareise - Teil 3

Anyway have fun, Tobi

Because of the risk of the carnet - i will try it also without on the borders.

I had to deposit 50% of the worth of the car, and have to sign, that i will be additional liable for 125% of the worth. When you read the clauses - thats a really bad kind of paper.

Only good point is, that i was able to set a really low worth. But 175% of a low worth ( 50% deposit & 125% liability) is much anyway.

So it is anyway better, to pay money for a temporay import paper as to show the carnet at the border crossings..

If you loose the car, and have leave the country - the situation is finished this way.

If you loose the car, and have the entry stamp - you are really in trouble... Because you have to pay the bill - worst case szenario.

Only Senegal, Namibia and Southafrice - will reqest the carnet for shure. And there you also can have luck You can see the carnet-map in my blog - to see where it is really necessary.

I had read your blog some weeks ago A great journey!

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About Overlanding, Travelogues, Equipment
Trans-Africa over the west coast

Now the sleeping plattform building phase has started!



When you have ideas or suggestions - jet is the time to wrote them, because changes are still possible.

More pictures and news of the progress, you can find in the blog @ Trans-Africa in the section "sleeping platform" or "Schlafplattform"

When you have additional ideas or solutions - write em!

Surfy

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Trans-Africa over the west coast

Slowly the inner build up nears the finish state



Watertank is equipped, electrical stuff and so on.

More pictures on the website. There are also detailed writeups of how we plan to navigate, and how we will filtrate and clean our water.

Hope you enjoy, and that it is readable with the translator.

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Trans-Africa over the west coast

We was able to do our first trip




You find our Trip report here @ Hubb

http://www.horizonsunlimited.com/hub...289#post392826

Surfy

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Trans-Africa over the west coast

I have now more pictures online - from the storage room below of the sleeping area. The buildup nears the finish state:



To get the visas is a real pain - but since yesterday we have both our 2nd passport - and should be able to get a faster progress!

more informations: Trans-Africa

Surfy

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Trans-Africa over the west coast

Here are our detailed route:



Currently we have 60% of our Visas - it looks like we can do it like planned - and are able to get 1-2 Visas who allows to change the route a little bit, if necessary.

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About Overlanding, Travelogues, Equipment
Trans-Africa over the west coast

Good day my name is Ivan, both times at the same time I plan a trip from Morocco. My motorcycle is now in Casablanca and I too am getting visas. I will be very nice to ride with you together. My email is 462466@mail.ru please write the details of the trip.

Good luck with the visas. Visa application in Switzerland is pretty straightforward, since most countries have an Embassy/Consulate/Mission, Poste is quick and it's a citizenship with little or no suspicions from other countries.

I'm Spanish and have applied for quite a few here with little hassle... except Iran the 2nd time, which took two months to get a 2 month valid visa. Then I found a Swiss couple in Iran who didn't ask for anything special and got a 3 month visa in just a week!

So, I'd be optimistic about your chances with visas. I don't have any experience in this region, but as Toby (and everyone) says, Angola it the very difficult one and your priority.

Happy travels,

Esteban

PD: If you plan to get a proper foam mattress, consider IKEA sofa-bed ones, very confy, cheap and still easy to fold (although bulky). A cutter and they fit perfectly in a R4 van!

Hi Ivan

All details we know jet - are stored in our blog. We dont think that we be able to do a more detailed plan, because we dont know how our progress will be. I know - google translate is not perfect

Our idea looks like this: we will do the trip very fast in the north - take a slower peace from mali to angola, want to spend much of our time in Angola - and then we will go quick to the south. But this we see relaxed - we dont know if we are able to handle it like we had planned ;-)

What timeframe do you have?

Thank you for wishing us luck! Mauretania is the easyest visa to get on the way, but they hold our passport for 13 days, until i call them approx 20 times on a friday (they dont even take the phonecall). And i sent an email asking for a tracking id.
Later i saw - on this friday they stamp the visa and sent em.

So the post works well here - the embassies - most of them .

We have bought a fanello inside - which is very comfortable to sleep. Therefore we will sleep most of the time in the car, we have done the best we can, to offer a comfort like at home (consider that my girlfriend comes with me).


Surfy

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About Overlanding, Travelogues, Equipment
Trans-Africa over the west coast

I easily called day after day the Embassy of Kazakhstan during the working hours some 20-30 times a day and sometimes I could talk to someone.

In my experience, at the end of each conversation it is always good to (be very polite and) set a date for your new phonecall: "I'll call back tomorrow, on Friday", etc... So they know that even if you are very kind and polite, you will still bother them for sure, so they sort of hurry up.

Good luck,

Esteban

Esteban, that sounds really bad! Go visit them personally! We also took one day off and was able to get 3 of our Visas personally.

Look when the embassy are open, and look them up where they are on google maps.

For us are monday or tuesday the days, where the most of the embassies have opens.

Here they also are divided in the cities Bern, Zurich, Genf and not only in the main capital Bern.

We plan too to visit paris, to get an additional Visa - because we cant get this visa in Switzerland. It looks like that we have to fight for crossing many countries..

Surfy

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About Overlanding, Travelogues, Equipment
Trans-Africa over the west coast