Wandering Savage went the overland route down the west coast of Africa from October 2010 to March 2011, entirely on public transport. Follow the route.
It started in Palermo, where I caught the ferry to Tunis. I ended in Nairobi about eight months later. Though I took a plane from Tunis to Madrid, from there to South Africa and then north again to Kenya, the route never left ground or water. (The 20-minute puddle-jumper to Zanzibar doesn’t count.) So I basically went three-quarters of the way around Africa on buses, bush taxis, sept-place Peugeots and rattly Mercedes, ferries, rowboats and the occasional truck.
Along the way, I wrote weekly dispatches for The National, a newspaper in Abu Dhabi, in a column called “Around Africa.” Here they are, in order:
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#1: First stop, Tunis
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#2: Tunis to Tangier by plane, train, bus and boat
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#3: Drawn into the Rif, Morocco
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#4: Moroccans! Grrr.
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#5: Winging it from Marrakech to Mauritania
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#6: Sleepless in Western Sahara
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#7: Daylight robbery in Dakar
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#8: Waiting for Salif Keita in Bamako
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#9: Mali, a land without a concept of time
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#10: In Burkina Faso, amongst “people of integrity”
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#11: In Ghana, relief from gastronomic hell
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#12: In Accra, plotting a course through Africa’s hairy bits
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#13: Togo to Benin: Close encounters with kings and butterflies
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#14: Into Nigeria: Three men in a mini-bus
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#15: Hey, Nigeria: Stop trying so hard!
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#16: Big Mama clears the path to Mt. Cameroon
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#17: Cameroon’s queen of Bafut wants her biscuits
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#18: DR Congo: No way around it
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#19: Denied entry into the worst country in the world
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#20: Little Congo’s road of horrors
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#21: Sleeping in no-man’s land
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#22: Across the Congo’s mouth with a rhinestone manicure
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#23: A soft, sticky landing in Angola
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#24: Strangers on the road across Angola
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#25: Out of Angola, into Namibia: Tempers, a wallet and a traveling companion lost
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#26: Comforts of the New World in southern Africa
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#27: Keeping it real in the township — or mere “poorism”?
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#28: Beads in the wind: a symbolic gesture at Cape Point
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#29: A fleeting song of Soweto
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#30: Across the mighty Zambezi from Zimbabwe to Zambia
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#31: In the end, it was nothing special
The end!
The final map should appear below, but if it doesn’t, try clicking on the Wandering Savage Travel Map page at Travellerspoint.