This is the thirteenth, and final instalment of a four-month trans-Africa trip from Johannesburg to London that I did with Exodus Expeditions in 1980, travelling by ex-army truck and camping. We were not sightseeing, though we did see some incredible sights. Our goal was to see and experience Africa from south to north by whatever route was open.

Four months. Twelve people. One truck. Fifteen countries. 18,000 kilometres.

Links to the earlier posts are:
1. The Drums Of Africa. Botswana and Zambia.
2. Tanzania Mania
3. Wildlife And Tribal Life In Kenya
4. The Opposite Of Glamping
5. Turn left At Sudan
6. Mud Luscious and Puddle Wonderful. Central African Republic
7. Becoming Unstuck. Central African Republic
8. Waiting For The Rabbit To Die. Bangui, Central African Republic
9. Between The Jungle And The Desert: Cameroon and Nigeria
10. Sahara Prelude – traversing Niger
11. The Land Of False Borders – the Sahara and Algeria
12. The Marrakesh Express – Morocco


                                                              *********************************


I’m leaning out the side of the truck. The awning at the back and sides of the truck is rolled up, and we’re all in there waiting. We’re in the huge Spanish customs and immigration compound in Algeciras. In every direction all I can see are lines and lines of cars and trucks waiting to be cleared for entry into Spain. There are many uniformed border guards with leashed dogs walking up and down the lanes of vehicles; the dogs are trained to sniff out drugs. It all feels a little ominous. My understanding is that anyone trying to import drugs from Morocco to Spain will be sentenced to death. Morocco is such a hash haven, and Spain takes this issue very very seriously. Tangentially, I have a friend who was caught importing Thai weed from Thailand to Australia. He was caught in Thailand and was imprisoned there. It feels like a fate worse than death. Either way it is an extremely stupid and reckless thing to bring hash from Morocco into Spain.

As I lean out the side of the truck idly watching the activity in the compound I spontaneously put my hand in the back pocket of my jeans. Oh shit! Suddenly my heart is in my throat, and my stomach is twisting in knots. My fingers have connected with a small ball of hash in my pocket. Ohshit ohshit ohshit ohshit ohshit! I make a kind of shocked groaning sound. Some of the others look at me. Then I make one of the stupidest decisions of my life. I go to the back of the truck and throw the hash out, but not far. I don’t want to be seen actually throwing something. It lands on the ground a short distance away from the truck, but not far enough to be next to the car behind us.

We wait. Tension descends on us all. Everyone knows what I’ve done. It’s not just about me anymore. My action has put us all in danger. No one says a word. We wait. It is the longest ten minutes of my life. Then suddenly the truck starts moving and we are free, and have officially arrived in Spain. I start breathing again.

One of the others had asked me if I could bring them back a small amount of hash from my date with Abdul in Fès. Abdul has no trouble getting me a big chunk of hash; it’s readily available. Then I find out it is actually illegal in Morocco so I flush it down the toilet, except for a tiny amount, no bigger than my smallest fingernail, just enough for one joint. Back in camp I put my hand in my pocket to give it to the one who’d asked me to get it and I can’t find it. I feel around in there and it seems to be gone. I try over and over and I can’t find it. Next morning I look again and it’s not there. Finally I give up, thinking it must have somehow fallen out. It’s a mystery that I don’t understand, a puzzle that I can’t solve, so I forget about it.

So yeah, bringing some hash from Morocco into Spain was an honest mistake. Throwing it out the back of the truck was just plain stupid. And ever since, I’ve wondered if someone parked right next to it and was falsely accused. Presumably those dogs can detect even the tiniest amount. I profoundly hope not, but wishing I could undo what I have done will not make it so.

From Marrakesh we had driven north to Ceuta, an autonomous city administered by Spain and surrounded by a double fence with barbed wire. It is here that we board the ferry to Algeciras. We are about to finally leave Africa. Our journey is not quite over, but traversing the length of Africa is; we’ve come to the north coast of the continent.

We still have a week to go to reach London, but for nearly four months the twelve of us have lived together in a truck, wild camping, shopping for and preparing our own meals, and absorbing the sights-sounds-smells, the energy, of the “Dark Continent”. I use this term  with some caution. Africa was originally dubbed the “Dark Continent” in 1878 by Welsh journalist and explorer Henry Morton Stanley, who saw Africa as mysterious and unknown. Certainly it can be legitimately perceived as racist, but I mean it in the simplest sense, to describe a place considered unknown, remote, inaccessible, all of which was true for us. We felt like explorers.

Almost every night, far from towns and villages, we hung out by a campfire, talking, laughing, sometimes silent, watching the flames dancing, and the red-orange coals glowing, until finally we’d retire into sleeping bags in tents to fall asleep to the night sounds of the savanna or the jungle or the wind of the desert.

Campfire Conversation
You said: “I’m glad I know that this time Haley’s Comet
won’t crash into the earth. That’s progress. That’s good. ”

Then you said: “And I’m glad that the United States
had the power to obliterate Vietnam
but still didn’t do it. That’s progress. That’s good.”

And then you said: “And I’m glad we have
the knowledge and the time and the ability to sit
and discuss these things. That’s progress too.”

And when I dared to question
the value of this progress you said
I might just as well worship the sun.

You said: “Go back to sun worship
and live in ignorance,”

“and if the moon should eclipse the sun
you’ll panic,” 

“you’ll think the world has come to an end.
You’ll be terrified.”

“Go back to sun worship
if that’s what you want.”

Well I say you have progressed
to worshipping progress,
and if the moon should eclipse
your precious progress
you’ll panic too,
just the same.






In the beginning, among the information we’re given about the expedition there’s this little gem that really says everything: It is essential to be mentally prepared for an African expedition, and part of that preparation consists of the realisation that once out in the depths of Africa there is no such thing as an itinerary or a schedule. There is only an objective – to get to your destination by whatever route is open. Africa takes no prisoners. It throws down the gauntlet over and over. When contemplating traversing the length of it, just the sheer size is daunting.

Map from Statista



But in a way we were too ignorant to be daunted. Two years earlier I’d done a four-month overland trip through South America from Columbia south to Tierra del Fuego and then north to Rio. It was a similar set-up – a group of people living in a truck, wild camping, preparing our own meals. But in South America there were half a dozen copies of The South American Handbook free-floating amongst us. Imagine a book 1.5 inches thick with tiny print on tissue-thin paper. This book was packed with every detail you could possibly imagine of every village, town, and city in every country of the continent, including places to stay, places to eat, transportation, what to see and do. And we all spent time looking through it, and so to some extent charted our own course.

In Africa there was no such thing. Except for Craig, our knowledgeable and competent leader, we were travelling blind. There were no guide books (at least none that any of us had with us), no internet, no google for searching, no socials for networking, no way to contact home, no GPS, little possibility to learn anything about where we were, or who or what we were seeing. And very few books had any information about overlanding in Africa. We could only look in wide-eyed wonder, and grasp onto the small crumbs of information scattered amongst us, or that came from Craig or brief encounters with locals. This meant that much of the journey was indeed the journey itself, the challenge of getting there. And Africa was, and still is, a huge challenge. Except for expedition leader Craig, and to a lesser extent co-driver Brett, Africa was a significant slog into the unknown. Frequently infrastructure, fresh food, and general supplies were minimal or non-existent. There was just us, our leaders, the truck, and the open road. Thousands upon thousands of kilometres of it.

We lived in our own little bubble, and Craig’s knowledge was rightfully focused on technical details – the best route, national border requirements (ranging from visas to a border staffed by convicts), truck maintenance, where to get fuel and water, where to find a bank for currency exchange. He had a wealth of knowledge of the logistics required simply to get us there, and an enormous responsibility.

To some extent the inward focus created by our bubble, and the deadline to reach London, did limit our possibility to engage with our surroundings, but the goal in itself was crossing the length of the African continent, and it gave us all a massive sense of achievement. We travelled the “Heart of Darkness” through central Africa, we faced almost impassable roads of mud, being bogged for ten hours, the shifting sand dunes of the desert as we crossed the trackless Sahara, being dirty most of the time, the fear of bilharzia, the threat of baboons on the truck, and an elephant contemplating charging. We built a bridge across a river swollen by the rainy season, we dealt with food poisoning, with mosquitoes and other bugs, and thieves in the night – twice. And with each other. It was a lot.

And yet, and yet . . . . .
In so many places children ran waving, screaming, laughing after the truck; people were curious and helpful and friendly; the markets fascinating; the landscape immensely varied and interesting, at times challenging, at times breathtaking; the wildlife magnificent. Our surroundings were a continual kaleidoscope of the exotic, the unfamiliar, and so were endlessly intoxicating. There was joy in all of this. And there was joy, and bonding, in overcoming the many challenges.

Large sections of the route we travelled are now extremely dangerous; it is no longer safe to travel in several of the countries we went to due to civil war, uprisings, kidnapping, and terrorism (Sudan, Central African Republic, Niger, the Sahara, even Cameroon). On the other hand in the countries that are still safe there is much better infrastructure including a wide range of really nice secure campgrounds. It’s not like it was; in some places it’s worse, in some places it’s better.

Crossing by ferry from Ceuta on the north coast of Morocco to Algeciras on the south coast of Spain we pass the famous British outpost of Gibraltar.





Then we make a mad dash for London. On today’s four-lane freeways it would take three eight-hour days to drive from Algeciras to Calais on the west coast of France. It takes us six days; drive all day, stop with just enough time to set up camp for the night, and do the same the next day. And the next. This mad dash includes a farewell dinner somewhere in small-town, middle-of-the-winter, Spain.

Twelve of us are seated around a long table and overflowing with a monumental relief none of us even knew we needed to feel, or could name. It’s like a volcano has erupted. We are talking over the top of one another, laughing, shouting, cheering. Loud! We are gleeful and exhilarated. We are free! We did it! Food arrives, dish after dish. And the alcohol. There is merriment and drunkenness more than enough to fill a restaurant that, given that it’s December should not even really be open. We are the only ones there.








This meal, this gathering, this celebration, continues for hours. We eat a lot. We drink even more. By the end most of us are very very drunk. There is an argument over the bill. Perhaps they’re trying to over-charge us. Perhaps we are too drunk to understand – not enough Spanish, not enough functioning brain cells. Finally it is settled and we stagger to the nearby campground and collapse into our tents.

Next morning we continue our mad dash to London, eating up the kilometres to Calais.

During the last month of the trip Eric and Dawn have started to get a bit sweet on each other. Eric has plans to wine and dine her in grand style as soon as they reach London. He is smitten.

In Calais we board the ferry for Dover. On the ferry Eric and I talk about British immigration. He says he’s going to tell them he’ll be looking for a job. I’m horrified! Eric, you can’t! You’re not allowed to work in Britain. He won’t listen to me. He thinks that because Australia is part of the Commonwealth he can just waltz into England and live there. He’s determined that he’s right, that he needs to demonstrate he won’t be a burden on British society, that he will work and pay his taxes.

Of course he’s refused entry. My enduring final image is of him in tears as he is sent on the ferry back to France.

Several of us meet again in London, all scrubbed clean now, at a Dutch restaurant for dinner,








and then afterwards at the local pub.





Finally it is over. Sadly I never see any of them again. I have a couple of leads. I feel that if I can just find one of them it will be a thread I can pull, and the unravelling will reveal more of them.


                                            *********************************


I wrote quite a lot for the first month of the trip, then stopped. The stories come in part from current research, but mainly from memories, and the giant scrapbook I made of the journey, 14.5 x 12.5 inches, and 1.5 inches thick (36.5cm x 32cm x 4cm).




















About the photos: They’re pre-digital film photos from a point-and-shoot camera, over 40 years old, and printed with a matt finish. Most are badly faded and discoloured. I photographed them, uploaded them into Lightroom, and restored them as best I could. A couple of before and after examples:














I travelled with Exodus Expeditions, a company founded in 1974 by John Gillies, a Philosophy graduate, and David Burlinson, an Engineer. Their first commercial trip took place that summer to Afghanistan. Their first trans-continental departure, from London to Kathmandu, was in 1975. Expansion into Africa and South America followed. Overland travel was based around multi-week camping journeys, using converted army trucks, with only rough schedules and limited budgets. They benefited from the open-borders of the 70s and 80s, much of which is no longer possible. Trans-Africa from London to Nairobi, Johannesburg, or Cape Town, or the reverse, was a true travel challenge.






Disclosure:
1. I’ve changed the names of everyone involved for privacy.
2. Obviously any photo with me in it was taken by another member of the group, but I’ve no idea who. We all swapped photos when we got to London.




Next post: perhaps I’ll take a short break to ponder my next move. As mentioned I did a similar trip in South America in 1978; maybe I’ll chronicle that next. In the meantime, for a change of pace, I have a bunch of gorgeous flower photos to share.






All words and images by Alison Louise Armstrong unless otherwise noted
© Alison Louise Armstrong and Adventures in Wonderland – a pilgrimage of the heart, 2010-2024.