Greetings from Egypt!

We have started travelling south, and write to you from the luxury of a friend's beautiful apartment in Maadi, a leafy green suburb of Cairo.
Libya was an incredible experience - 9 days of insane driving from the locals, plodding mile-munching from Mapenzi, spectacular mountains, stunning desert dunes, and a lot of rough camping...

We've got our diary up to date, and photos up on flickr, so thank you for your patience while we were out of contact! 

Hopefully we can collect our Sudanese visas this afternoon, and will be able to do Mapenzi's 6000 mile service over the next day or so.  Then we'll treat ourselves to the Great Pyramids in Giza before heading south to the oases, Luxor, Aswan and Abu Simbel, and the ferry to the Sudan...

Hope you're all well, healthy and happy,
love from Sarah & Mike
x

 

Propane gas, they say, is easier to find in Africa than butane.  Not in these parts it seems.

Well folks, a lot of hanging about but it seems our Libya visas are ready and we look forward to crossing the border tomorrow am.  Dont know the name of the guide whos supposed to help us through passport control but hopefully he will be looking out for us.

As you may have guessed from our diary, our sojourn into the dunes was cut short by a broken spring; thankfully not ours.  Oh well.

Our diary and photos are now up to date but we are unlikely to be able to keep it that way over the next 10 days or so. Please forgive us and stay in touch.

Mike and Sarah





 

A sandy hello from the desert,

Still in Tunisia but finally en route to Libya, we are really pleased that we should be able to cross the border on 4th November.  We are covered in the finest desert dust, writing from the oasis Douz, where the winds (mild ghibli) have picked up. Have had an incredible couple of days, described as usual in the trip diary (hope to upload photos tomorrow). Highlights so far: wild camels, traditional lunch in a Tunisian home, picking up salt crystals on the chott, smoking shisha with new pals in Kebili, scrummy dates, pomegranates and olives, finally meeting some other travellers. Most important = getting off the main roads and conquering our first dunes (about a metre high)...

Thanks for the messages, we love hearing from you all xxx Promise to try reply individually, but it will take us some time = thanks for your patience...

love Sarah and Mike

 

Hello all,

Hope you are still with us.  We have updated our diary and uploaded latest photos so have a look at the photo page for links to Flickr.

Enjoying Tunisia but a bit frustrated that we will be here longer than planned while we sort our Libyan visas: we have to go through an agency and will be accompanied by an escort whilst in Libya and a desert guide in his own vehicle while in the desert; so have no fear mom.

Thanks for the continued messages (and for the photos Ian - looking forward to meeting the little man in a few months).

Just to let you know that we have no mobile phone signal at present so have not picked up or sent texts:  Trying to sort it out with vodafone, but will keep on the internet in the interim.

Love
Michael and Sarah

 

Using an Arabic keyboard is our latest challenge, letters are in totally different places and punctuation goes in front of the sentence obviously.

Other than that, have enjoyed our first couple of days in North Africa. Havent yet found a campsite, but had our first proper bush camp last night near the northernmost tip of the continent. Thanks for all the new messages, hope you are still enjoying the diary.

Stay in touch,
Mike and Sarah x

 

Hi all,

Thanks for your encouraging words - great to know that you're all planning to stay in touch with us for the next few months! We've decided to create a trip diary so check out the link on the left for details.

All going well a week in, should be en route to North Africa in the next four or five days.  Going to book the ferry ticket now!

Love from Mike and Sarah

(PS Thanks Yolande for your nifty DHL research on Fri - we have our Carnet finally! Much appreciated x)

 
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