Laying out our options

It took some time to lay out our options and to choose the best one, but we decided to follow our initial plan. After all, it had been our plan to reach South Africa overland and from what we heard, it would only get better. We were definitely not the only ones done with West Africa, regardless of how beautiful and how rich of a culture it is.

After making that decision, it was time to speed up. We met some lovely couples back in Senegal, with whom we would love to cross Nigeria and Cameroon. They were all friendly, capable of driving the off-road stretch, and down to earth – something which is much needed in muddy and unexpected situations. We knew that with these people, we would be fine. However, they were far ahead of us and they were planning to cross the border to Nigeria at the end of April.

Traveling in a convoy

We will save you the details of those very stressful, fast-driving months as we can gladly say that we made it in time to travel with this amazing group into the country. Unfortunately, multiple car issues caused us to split up the convoy, after which we decided to stick with the broken car. After all, Tobias was the one with plenty of mechanical knowledge and I – as usual – was never out of work so I had no difficulty filling my time.

After all, Tobias was the one with plenty of mechanical knowledge and I – as usual – was never out of work so I had no difficulty filling my time.

Those two weeks of problem-solving and endlessly looking for spare parts were also a lot of fun. We cooked delicious meals over and over again, we played games and drank beers or gin tonic in the evening, and above all, we directed all our love to a puppy, whom we named Snickers, at the compound where we stayed. She was young, extremely thin, and generally in bad shape so she deserved all the love we had. That started with a dog treat, which she anxiously ate from the concrete flooring to a full body wash to remove all her ticks and flees. We earned her trust within a couple of days. It was inevitable that her owner would come to us, asking what our plan was with the dog. Yet, we did not expect his response to it, as he literally said (multiple times) “Grab and go!”. Uhh, okay?

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A new friend and a new mindset

If you’ve paid close attention to our social media channels, it might be no surprise anymore. But if you have missed all of our latest content, it might still be. We have survived the off-road stretch through the Highlands of Nigeria and Cameroon and you know what? We did it together with our little puppy! Although her name changed from Snickers to Nimba – we thought Snickers was cute for a while, but it wouldn’t be the name she deserved – she now accompanies us through Africa. She is growing incredibly fast, she is quick to learn, and above all, she seems to love all the attention and cuddles that not only we but also our overlanding friends are giving her.

Having arrived in Cameroon, we found what we were looking for. We thought we had a deep desire for wildlife, but even though we haven’t found that yet, we have found peace and quiet, happiness and adventure, and unknown yet extremely pleasant surprises along the way. Where Nigeria treated us with the most epic mountainous region and endlessly friendly people, Cameroon has given us some solitude, peace of mind, and tranquility again – including epic waterfalls and cold bonfire nights.

It’s been ten months on the road, and nothing is how we expected it to be when we left. We have found our jam again in the Nigerian Highlands, we are ready for any adventure that will come to us and we extended our family with the greatest gift of all: Nimba!

Africa 2022/2023 – the route after ten months

So we’ve been on the road for ten months now. In that time we covered 24.000 km and visited 22 countries, including the border-hops in Europe. Below you can see the route we’ve driven so far.