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Adventures with Kingsley Holgate - Afrika Outside Edge 12

Adventures with Kingsley Holgate - Afrika Outside Edge 12

Author: Kingsley Holgate
Date: 2017-07-07

Its dark by the time we limp into Djibouti city, dog tired but jubilant. 29 Countries behind us, four still to go. Of late it's been just tracksor a Garmin GPS course - dry, rocky riverbeds as roads and then tyres down to 1 bar as we race the desert dunes along the Red Sea coast. Hell for the Landies, murder for the Cooper Tires, tough on the team. But the deserts and coastline of Sudan and Eritrea are some of the last frontiers of adventure. Dramatic unspoilt wilderness and coral reefs in areas seldom, if ever, visited by tourists.

In the cool of the afternoon there's a buzz on the street corners in Djibouti City - the daily plane that carries the bunches of fresh thin green stems and leaves called khat has arrived from Dire Dawa in Ethiopia. Money changes hands and the traditional chewing of this calming hallucinogenic begins. There's the evening muezzin's call to prayer, French soldiers walk in groups, businessmen clutch mobile phones to their ears. Tall sinuous Somali girls hang around the clubs - Djibouti protected by the French and American military is an oasis of peace and prosperity on the troubled Horn of Africa. At the beautiful old French colonial white painted palace, the president Ismail Omar Guelleh endorses the expedition Scroll of Peace and Goodwill.

Our plan is to brave the pirates around the Horn of Africa by loading the expedition Land Rovers in containers on a ship. After five days of waiting we suddenly get the green light and race the three expedition Land Rovers down to Djibouti Port. The 130 Defender Landy has to have the big rolled up Gemini inflatable boats off-loaded from the roof-rack before being reversed into a container. The two Defender station wagons fit snugly one behind the other in the second container. The Landies are tied down to the container floors with cables and turn buckles in case of rough seas. And then we get the news that a Spanish trawler has just been taken by Somali pirates. It would be a shame if our Landies ended up as transport for gun toting Somali warlords.