https://www.maps.ie/map-my-route/viewMap.php?route=112545
A suggestion that turned out into an epic journey of 13500km through half of Africa.
Daktari on Safari brought together 5 classmates who pursued medicine and learnt that the only way to meet up was through travelling together.
When Huzefa first brought up this idea, it was greeted by laughter and ‘are you serious?’ comments from the whole group. Little did we know that this would turn out to be the greatest trip for all of us.
The Garden Route in Cape Town was our main focus and that forged the map for the rest of the trip. Numerous blogs were read, countless hours spent into research, meetings, meals, video calls etc were all employed in order to make this a reality.
The trip finally took off on the 25th of October 2019 from Nairobi en route to Cape Town. The next 21 days would serve a test for man and machine, a test for relationships, a test to prove all those who thought we couldn’t manage to pull this through. Below is the Iternary of how we travelled.
| DAY | DATE | FROM | DESTINATION | KM |
| 1 | 25/10/19 | Nairobi (KE) | Namanga Border (KE/TZ) | 164 |
| 2 | 26/10/19 | Namanga Border | Mbeya(TZ) | 1109 |
| 3 | 27/10/19 | Mbeya (TZ) | Kande Beach (MW) | 480 |
| 4 | 28/10/19 | Kande Beach (MW) | Lilongwe (MW) | 337 |
| 5 | 29/10/19 | Lilongwe (MW) | Livingstone (ZAM) | 1207 |
| 6 | 30/10/19 | Livingstone (ZAM) | ||
| 7 | 31/10/19 | Livingstone (ZAM) | ||
| 8 | 1/11/19 | Livingstone (ZAM) | Ramotswa (BOT) | 1041 |
| 9 | 2/11/19 | Ramotswa(BOT) | Kimberly (SA) | 493 |
| 10 | 3/11/19 | Kimberly (SA) | Knysna (SA) | 793 |
| 11 | 4/11/19 | Knysna (SA) | Mossel Bay (SA) | 244 |
| 12 | 5/11/19 | Mossel Bay (SA) | Cape Town (SA) | 534 |
| 13 | 6/11/19 | Cape Town | ||
| 14 | 7/11/19 | Cape Town (SA) | Noordoewer (NAM) | 690 |
| 15 | 8/11/19 | Noordoewer (NAM) | Swapkomund (NAM) | 1159 |
| 16 | 9/11/19 | Swapkomund (NAM) | Windhoek (NAM) | 432 |
| 17 | 10/11/19 | Windhoek (NAM) | Maun (BOT) | 811 |
| 18 | 11/11/19 | Maun (BOT) | ||
| 19 | 12/11/19 | Maun (BOT) | Lusaka (ZAM) | 1163 |
| 20 | 13/11/19 | Lusaka (ZAM) | Mpika (ZAM) | 647 |
| 21 | 14/11/19 | Mpika (ZAM) | Iringa (TZ) | 824 |
| 22 | 15/11/19 | Iringa (TZ) | Nairobi (KE) | 973 |
Pre-Planning
Initial planning was divided into Transportation, Meals, Accommodation and Excursions. Every member was handed a country to research about in terms of the above. Initially, Namibia was not part of the plan but Deepak and Huzefa managed to convince the rest of the team to include it. Our initial plan was to go through the entire trip in 11 days but we extended it to approximately 18 days. Work leaves had to be planned (don’t ask the excuses members came up with in order to get leave), approximate costs to be arrived at and most of all, sort out the transportation and other logistics.
daktarionsafari.travel.blog 