Transafrica Expedition: 4x4 West Route to Cape Town

After the crossing, you traverse the green northwest region known as Morocco's vegetable garden. In Marrakech, you have a full day for the old town, souks, and tanneries - in the Djemaa el Fna, you allow yourself to be carried away among street performers and spices. The next day, you go over the Tizi-n-Test pass into the Atlas Mountains and continue south along old Dakar tracks. Overnight stay in a kasbah in the middle of the desert sand, with a starry sky instead of Netflix.

Next, we head south to Dakar, the namesake city of the legendary rally. You cross the border into Senegal on a small river ferry and pass through the charming colonial city of Saint-Louis, where the Senegal River flows into the Atlantic. You are now in the Sahel zone - the transitional region between the Sahara and dry savanna - and enjoy dinner by the sea under the palms in the evening.

Through a small border post, you reach Guinea, a country full of challenges, traditional villages, and scarce gas stations. Near the Fouta Djalon Plateau by the Tinkisso River, a fuel depot awaits to cross the country. Guinea fascinates with rainforest in the south and dry savannas in the north. The population is young, welcoming, and ethnically diverse. Depending on fuel, you can reach Kankan, the third-largest city in Guinea.

Welcome to Ghana. Along the South Atlantic, you drive through authentic fishing villages before heading through endless construction sites towards Accra - a tough leg that challenges you physically and mentally. In Accra, you will spend the night in a simple accommodation run by “Bella” near an industrial area. Here you set aside a buffer day for maintenance or repairs, just a stone's throw from a workshop.

At the border to Nigeria, it is said: Stay calm. In the late afternoon, you reach Lagos, also known internally as "Gateway to Hell" - you check into a five-star hotel, where the manager organizes the complex transit. Every ten kilometers, there are checkpoints with passport and vehicle checks. After that, the route leads through fertile farmland to sparsely populated regions up to the border to Cameroon.

The barrier goes up, you reach the Republic of the Congo, also known as Congo-Brazzaville. In Odzala-Kokoua National Park, one of the oldest national parks in Africa, lowland gorillas still live. With two rangers, you travel by boat up the river and after about ten kilometers, you encounter a small population of gorillas. Back at camp, after dinner, you leave a donation for the rangers.

You reach the coastal landscape of Angola, passing lonely beaches and quiet fishing villages. In Luanda, the capital, you get fuel and food for the upcoming 1,700 kilometers to the Namibian border. The city is one of the most expensive in the world and combines colonial architecture with a vibrant nightlife. You continue along the coast to the charming port city of Lobito.

In Etosha National Park, you will take a safari through the diverse wildlife - the approximately 22,000 square kilometer protected area is one of the most important wildlife reserves in Africa. After that, it's on to Windhoek, the capital of Namibia and former capital of German South West Africa. Here, the relaxed part of the journey begins, before you continue to the Namib-Naukluft National Park.