#RamadanMemories On this day last year (23 June 2015) at 2 am in the morning we drove into #AlQuds (#Jerusalem) completing the #Joburg2Jerusalem leg of our #overlandjourney. We didn’t know much about the city layout or where exactly our accommodation was located, just that it was in the #oldcity. Looking at the old walls that…
The fairly new tar road that we were driving on came to an end at the Abbasi Mosque in the village of Derawar. We were greeted by beautiful white minarets and domes invoking memories of the Badshahi Mosque in Lahore. A man walked out of the mosque courtyard and Farhaan went to greet him. He…
It has become somewhat of a travel custom during our nine months of overlanding that we end up in the lesser known and perhaps even less enthusiastically visited places. So when Farhaan’s cousin Rahil bhai suddenly asked: “Gwadar chalna he?” (Do you want to come to Gwadar?) Farhaan automatically responded in the positive. We had…
Thinking about it now, R1600 (approx. 114 USD) for a room in a five star hotel is pretty cheap, but when you are an overland traveler counting every penny that you spend, bargaining (and in some cases begging) becomes a habit. Our drive to the border began late morning, after we bade farewell to Ali …
We spent our first morning in Georgia on the tranquil shores of the Black sea. It is in stark contrast to the Mediterranean as there is no white sand and blue waters. But this is what makes its beauty so unique. The horizon line is quite close so the setting feels intimate. There is not a soul…
Three Customs officials, came to our car, started asking us where we were from and if we were here on business. We explained that we were on a safari all the way from South Africa. One officer explained South Africa to the others as “Waka Waka”. There was a quick search of our car, a…
Fareed invited us to his home in Ramallah for Iftaar with his family, took us for a tour of the city and shared his wisdom and thoughts with us at a time when we most needed a reality check. We met Fareed after South African Ebrahim Patellia, who followed our Facebook page made an electronic…
We often heard about the kindness of strangers from other Overlanders and got experience it firsthand in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia. The drive from the border town of Moyale to Addis Ababa took 3 days. It started off with a very stressful border crossing on Ethiopian side – more on this in an upcoming blog post….
We woke early with the sound of the Adhaan, prayed Fajar (morning prayer) and went back to sleep. We woke up again much later and had to rush as checkout time had approached. Being stressed about not getting late for checkout, K began taking the bags to the car and left them next to the…