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This page is really aimed at those who are interested
at doing a similar trip to the one we undertook. We'll attempt
here to put in all the lessons that we learned along the way.
Africa is not cheap.
Gone are the days that Africa was a cheap holiday destination.
It is now surprisingly expensive, especially some of the countries.
In Zambia a litre of diesel costs US$0.80, the average campsite
it US$5.00 per person per night, the National Parks cost US$20
per person per day entrance fee and camping fees on top of
that. Malawi is a little cheaper, but still surprisingly costly.
There is a significant difference in price between processed
and non-processed products, primarily - one assumes - because
all processed products are imported from South Africa.
Vehicle Roofracks.
Fortunately we didn't have to learn this lesson the hard way.
The golden rule of a roofrack is only put light stuff up there,
especially if you are going to be going on 4x4 tracks. It
is common to see a host of jerrycans on the roofrack (which
is what we initially had), but by putting all that weight
so high up, the risk of rolling is significantly greater.
We had to move around our entire setup in order to get all
the jerrycans in the cabin, and as far forward as possible.
If weight has to be put on the roofrack, it must be put as
far forward as possible, so as to keep traction on the front
wheels.
Vehicle Spotlights.
We were advised to put spotlights at the front top of the
vehicle (we actually attached them to the front of the roofrack).
The theory behind this is that when animals jump across the
road at night they usually attempt to jump over the lights.
With spots so high up the animals should be persuaded not
to jump at all, and therefore won't end up going through the
windscreen. In reality however, the reflection from these
spots back into the cabin makes driving with them at night
difficult.
3rd Party Vehicle Insurance.
At each border crossing it is necessary to purchase 3rd
Party insurance for the vehicle. This can be quite a costly
affair (US$27 for Malawi alone). However, there is an agreement
between many of the African countries now so it is only necessary
to purchase a single document (the Yellow Card or Codesa).
We were told that the Yellow Card was only available in Zimbabwe,
but now know that it is also available in Livingston - Zambia
and may be available in other centres.
Money.
How best to carry ones money is always a bit of a quandry.
We have most of ours as Travellers Cheques and then some US$
cash and of course credit cards. However in Mozambique we
couldn't find a single place that would change Travellers
Cheques so we had to rely on the cash and credit cards. In
Zimbabwe the difference between official exchange rates and
"parallel" rates is a joke. The "parallel"
rate is about 10 times the official rate. If you are lucky
you'll be able to find someone to change Travellers Cheques
at the "parallel" rate, otherwise you will need
to rely on US$ cash. All this means that you actually need
to carry a fair bit of US$ cash.
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