Thorn Tree travel forum

Welcome to the Africa branch!

Welcome to the Thorn Tree's Africa branch.

We hope you find plenty of useful information about travelling to Africa here. It is highly recommended that new users check out the Africa FAQ thread before posting a new thread as you may find many of the answers you seek there. It also contains helpful information about how to search the forum, advice for how to post your questions, and obsolete information was deleted as recently as June 2008! If you are a returning user or an Africa guru, please help us keep the FAQ thread up-to-date by adding important information which is absent, or pointing out information which is no longer being represented accurately.

Choosing a country to post to:

When you make a post and choose a country from the drop down menu, your post will be added to that country but will also ... more »

communications in Kenya

I am having difficulty (Canadian here) trying to figure out how I can keep my family posted as to where I am as I am going for four months and am not certain when or where I will be in any certain place. My old cel will not work and I do not want to commit to a three year term as I only need it for the four months. I do not want to pack around my laptop and is too expensive. As I most likely will not be in the cities (internet cafe's) for most of the four months, and also having to deal with electrical outages, does anyone know any alternatives? Info on travel phones, where, cost?? Or possibly someone said I might get a pay as you go phone there??, then buy a sim card for that particular country. I am traveling to 4 differnt countries while on my treck. Companies (Remember, Canadian here) Where Of course keeping very economical in mind. Just trying to figure this out and com... more »

Visa on Arrival at the airport

Hi,

I've been reading through some old threads and I seem to get mixed info. I will be flying into Burundi, how long will my visa last and how much does it cost? I should be staying there for 7 days.

Thanks.

Travel partner Egypt-Kenya

Mid-aged man with long travel experience looks for woman travel partner for a two month tour in my 4-wheel car from Egypt to Kenya from mid-January. If you are interested and have travel experience, pls. send a mail to: hugo.gaarden@gmail.com

Trip Report - Cape Town to Dar es Salaam in 2 weeks via public transport

Cape Town to Dar es Salaam and back in two weeks using public transport

NOTE: This trip was dreamt up for specifically for taking the Tazara train. My cousin and I both don’t like to fly hence the decision to overland. Also I couldn’t afford any more days off from work.

Day1 Thursday 12 Nov Cape Town to JHB. I would have preferred the train because cheaper and you can sleep better and I haven’t taken the tourist class before but sleeper class trains don’t leave on a Thursday.

Day2 Arrived in JHB 12h30pm. I used the left luggage on JHB Park station and walked around JHB central. Pretty interesting in an urban sort of way. Got on bus to Bulawayo 8h30pm. It was a Greyhound bus R350 and it’s not the same standard as the national busses but still pretty good.

Day3 Arrived in Bulawayo at about 11pm (4 hour delay at the Beitbridge border). We took a taxi to the train station fo... more »

budget hotels in Marrakech

Hi again,

We need unexpensive accomodation in Marrakech. Do you know hotel Essaouira? Is it OK? One commetary in Trip Advisor said he found bed bugs and had 40 bites. That worried me, but all the other critics were good and the rough guide recommends it. Any other recommendations for unexpensive accomodation?

thanks!

URGENT - Portuguese journalists looking for contacts and advices in Africa

Hi,

my name is Tiago Carrasco and I'm a portuguese journalist. With a photographer and a cameraman, we're going to travel across Africa from Lisbon to Joahnnesburg, crossing 19 countries to reach South Africa in the exact day of the first match of FIFA World Cup.

Our itinerary is Morocco, Western Sahara, Mauritania, Senegal, Guine-Bissau, Mali, Burkina, Ivory Coast, Ghana, Benin, Togo, Nigeria, Cameroon, Congo, DRC, Angola, Zambia, Zimbabwe, Mozambique, South Africa. . We wil have our own jeep, so we just need one guide, friend or a local informed person, english, spanish or french-spoken, who could give us the following services: information, security and translation. We want to live as similar as we get with the inhabitants of different countries, we don't want a personal cooker, driver, support car, none of european luxuries. Just one person who knows very well the country'... more »

African a cappella group at the Cape Town Waterfront

Does anyone have any clue of the name of the all male a cappella group at the Waterfront in Cape Town? I saw they had a CD for sale while I was there, but didn't manage to snap one up and now would like to see if I could try and find on one on the web as a Christmas gift. Realize there could be several different groups working the Waterfront, but if anyone has any suggestions please let me know.

Thanks!

deb

Arriving in Entebbe at 9pm

I have a flight arriving in Entebbe at 20:40 and can't decide whether to spend the night there or travel on to Kampala. I need to catch a bus to Fort Portal at 8am the next morning. Can anyone advise how much a special hire taxi would be to go straight to kampala from the airport? Any ideas as to whether i'd be able to get to Kampala bus station in time the next morning if I spent the night in Entebbe?

Thanks