Looking back on a fabulous year on the road there, it’s a tricky trick to pick out the best bits of overlanding Africa. Can we briefly summarise the whole experience of 37,000 km through 12 countries?  Well… No!  But we have selflessly slaved over a few glasses of South African Cab Sauv to come up with a few bullets of the events that we can single out 🙂

Best wildlife experience: Africa is obviously full of awesome wildlife experiences, but we would have to put the gorilla trekking in Parc des Volcans, Rwanda at the top of this list (click here to see gorilla video and story). Also excellent were: kayaking with seals in Walvis Bay, Namibia (see seals video and story); elephants at Ivory Lodge/Tuskers Camp Hwange, Zimbabwe; hippo baby at Sitalike, Katavi Park, Tanzania (see story); the rhinos at Khama Park, Serowe, Botswana (see story) and the lion chasing in Kruger (see story).

Favourite country: every country has its ‘yeeehah!’ and its ‘bah-humbug!’ aspects, but it is hard to find anything bad to say about Zimbabwe (other than its depressingly abysmal political leadership). It’s a beautiful country, lots to see and do, easy to get around and without doubt the nicest, most friendly and welcoming people in Africa. Zimbabwe gets our vote for ‘favourite country in Africa’ (see why in our Post-script on Zim and also in our blog sections: Zimbabwe, Return to Zimbabwe)

Biggest ‘hold your breath’ moment: setting out in Cuthbert across the crust of the Sua Pan to Kubu Island, Botswana (click here to see story at Kubu)

Favourite city: the majority of African cities are s*#t-holes badly in need of a bulldozer, but Cape Town is a rare exception to this rule: it is scenic, cosmopolitan, civilised, has lots to do and last but not least, it’s near the winelands of Stellenbosch and Paarl etc.

Best cultural experience: Visiting the Himba village at Epupa, Kaokoland, Namibia (click here to see story and pictures).

Worst city: so many to choose from, but Kampala (Uganda) struck us as having no redeeming features whatsoever, closely followed by Lusaka (Zambia). Other than as a case-study example of how not to develop a city in Africa (which you should closely observe next time you happen to be undertaking such a task 🙂 ), we see no good reason to include either of these cities in an itinerary of travel around Africa. But that is not to say the others are much better!

Best campsite: so many to choose from, but in the end we had to give a shared first-place to: Tuskers Camp (Ivory Lodge) at Hwange, Zimbabwe and Lake Shore Lodge at Kipili, Lake Tanganyika, Tanzania. These two lodge/camps both have the full ‘top-notch’ camping experience for overlanders: the welcome, the location, the facilities, the food/hospitality are all excellent.

Worst road: Eeeisshh… the ‘Highway from Hell’ in south-west Tanzania between Mbeya and the Zambian border still scares us now thinking back about it 6 months later (click here to see story). Some weeks after this we unexpectedly found ourselves back on this road again on a different stretch that was possibly even worse (see story)!!

Campsite with best views: this a really tough one, so the accolade has to be shared between four camps: Chizarira Park Camp (Zimbabwe); Mushroom Farm (Livingstonia, Malawi); Mambo View (Usambara Mountains, Tanzania); and Sinamtella Camp (Hwange Park, Zimbabwe). All have such amazing views over vast distances that you really never want night to fall.

Best meal/restaurant: African food can be very tasty, but nowhere in Africa is widely renowned for its top-notch gourmet cuisine. Sadly there weren’t too many candidates for this category. Latitude 13 in Lilongwe is probably the best we found (click here to see story), very closely followed by the restaurant in the Lodge at The Crater Lake, near Lake Naivasha, Kenya and the Nile River Lodge at Murchison Falls, Uganda.

Best beach: we didn’t do many beaches, but the beaches south of the Pangani River in northern Tanzania stand out as the best, particularly near the lovely Beach Crab Resort.

Scariest moment: getting Cuthbert deeply stuck in very wet sand on the beach between Walvis Bay and Sandwich Harbour, Namibia. 21 minutes, 4 sand-ladders, a winch and 3 diff-locks later, we drove away (click here to see video and story).

Favourite safari park: Probably the Kgalagadi Trans-frontier Park between South Africa, Namibia and Botswana (click here to see photos and story). This would be closely followed by Amboseli , Kenya (see pics and story) and Kruger, South Africa (see story).

Most ‘try not to laugh’ moment: arriving as guest for dinner at a home in Rwanda, just in time to hear the unmistakable echoes of a chicken being strangled in the kitchen. Then 2 hrs later eating a most delicious (and fresh!) chicken curry 🙂  (click here to see story).

Funniest moment: seeing the look of sheer terror on the border guards faces and watching them run when they saw our (rubber, but very realistic) snake in Cuthbert’s doorway, then laughing with them as they pose for selfies with the ‘snake’ draped around their necks (click here to see story).

Best road sign: Zimbabwe sign for a ‘deadly hazard’ speed-bump

Worst day: the 24 hrs in the Mozambique ‘Tete-corridor’ (click here to see story)

Biggest disappointment: Thankfully we had very few disappointments, but one was the realisation that the cyclone flooding and bridge destruction would prevent us from visiting northern Mozambique (click here to see story). But putting things into perspective, our disappointment was nothing compared to the situation of the poor families displaced by flooding and the washed-away villages.

Toughest drive: Probably the rough climb up the northern track to Mambo View, Tanzania (click here to see pics story).

Best historical moment: the Spionkop, Rorke’s Drift and Isandlwana Battlefield Memorial Sites, KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa (click here to see story).

Best musical experience: Probably the Drakensberg Boys Choir has the edge in this category (click here to see story), but the Lake of Stars African Music Festival was also great fun (see story)