Preparations for our Africa trip
Summary
How it all started
One night in february two strange students did a little brainstorming about their future and what to do after being graduated. They both needed a refreshing holiday, but not such a dull beach-and-sea one : A combination of adventure, working together, doing something useful and original, all in one Pff...that sort of vacation isn't listed in the latest sunair catalog! We have to create our own vacation or what ?!
The first big issue was transportation. How about buying a second-hand car and selling it at our destination? Great! How far could we go with that car in a couple of months : Middle-Africa, India ...? We prefer Middle-Africa, no probs..okey let's go! How much will it cost ? A quick calculation : 50,000 à 100,000 BEF per person, without the car of course. After two months of driving, we will do some voluntary development aid, let's say another 2 months. Great, what we need now are a couple of other crazy people who want to join us.
First method : spoken word
All our friends and fellow-students had to hear what we were planning. Bingo: Wim Bommerez, a good friend, was immediately interested, and a friend of his, Jeroen Watté, would be interested as well. Great, now we were 4.
Second method : written word
On 2 A4 posters we printed some essentials of our plans, and hung it on a couple of strategic places in our faculty. Also on that poster was a date when we would give a short presentation of our project. 4 more people came and listened, but couldn't joint because of money or exam problems.
Third method : spreading the word
After a couple of weeks, the word was spreading rapidly around Leuven. There were 2 medicine students, Nele Tiels and Kristel De Lathauwer, who were also interested in going. In the mean time we were already collecting information on all aspects of our trips and we regularly had a meeting to inform the other members of the progress made. We were 6, till june when number 7 and 8, Joke Denys and Johan Michielsen, joined in. Because Wim wanted to finish some important publications, he had to give up the trip. But late june an other number 8 catched up,² Moïra Heyn. 3 more people would give up the trip, because they couldn't combine their future plans with staying so long in Africa (Jeroen, Joke and Jo).
So in the end we were 5 and needed only one Unimog.
Until Kristel dropped out for family affairs, so just 4 people will leave for Africa.
The Unimog : our Workhorse
After some contacts with experienced Africa-travellers, we left the idea of driving with our old Nissan Prairie. We started looking for a good second-handed jeep (Land-Rover or Toyota). Soon we realised that those vehicles were a little to expensive for us. So we started looking for something bigger, and not to expensive. That's right, the Unimog was the car we were looking for.
Security, Administration and regulation
Because we needed 9 Visa, it took us a great deal of time to arrange all these formalities at the respective embassies. As Belgians we needed visa for the following countries :
Roemenia, Syria, Jordania, Egypt, Sudan, Ethiopia, Djibouti, Kenia and Tanzania.
As you can imagine this meant a lot of driving to our capital city Brussels.
The Unimog conversion
Links to some interesting Websites
The Unimog our workhorse
Unimog Webring
Security, Administration and regulations
Belgian Diplomatic Website
British Foreign Ministry Website
Nomade travel site
Angelfire - Free Home Pages
KULeuven University
Belgium NGO net
