HIGHLIGHTS

EL HIERRO – SCUBADIVING

Departing Sundaymorning and after passing Valencia (Spain) and the old medina Fez (Marocco), the team went off to the small island El Hierro. El Hierro is part of the Canary Islands. El Hierro offers some great scuba diving opportunities. Our diving took place from the town of La Restinga in the south of El Hierro. After this dive the two pilots went off heading towards the African continent. The trip was planned over the Western Sahara to the city of Atar in Mauritania.

MAURITANIA – LONGEST TRAIN IN THE WORLD

In Mauritania they paid a visit to the city of Atar. Mauritania is rich in minerals, which are transported by one of the longest trains in the world to the sea harbor. Here we will be visiting a Dutch-German couple that works and lives in the Saharan desert town of Atar. They run a camping called Bab Sahara as well as are involved in the nonprofit foundation “Port to the Sahara”. This foundation serves the local community with dental care to students at local schools as well as in training of local medical staff.

After visiting Atar, they headed towards Bamako in Mali. This long flight took the team through the heart of the remote Saharan desert.

MALI – SAHEL AVIATION

In Bamako Sjoerd Jan and Lex paid a visit to Sahel Aviation. Sahel Aviation serves the Mali community and Western African region with their air services. Sjoerd Jan found it interested to hear how they are serving the Mali community with their aviation services in this part of the world from an operations point of view before the team flied onwards to Accra in Ghana.

SAO TOME – BEACHES LIKE NOWHERE ELSE

From Accra the ‘Across-Africa-Challenge’ team had to cross quite a stretch of sea to reach the remote tropical islands of Sao Tomé en Principe. These islands are not well known to the tourist masses and are a halfway point before reaching Congo and Angolo on the mainland of Africa again.

FLYING OVER THE BEACHES OF GABON

From Sao Tomé Sjoerd Jan and Lex flew towards the shoreline of Gabon. There they searched for swimming elephants, which they did not find while flying low over the beaches for hours.

NAMIBIA – OUT OF THIS WORLD SCENERY

After transiting Congo and Angolo the trip headed into Namibia. Namibia provided some stunning scenery with fast deserts and wildlife resorts and it was their last stop before entering South Africa.

SOUTH AFRICA

The destination in South Africa was a business networking event in Johannesburg that took place from the 14th until the 16th of Februari with amongst others Steve Wozniak, one of the co-founders of Apple. Just before arriving in Johannesburg, the pilots spend some days at the Sabi Sabi Game Reserve spotting wildlife.

Steve Wozniak is one of the founders of Apple. The team met him in Johannesburg during the JT Foxx business event.

ZIMBABWE – VICTORIA FALLS & DEVILS POOL

On the North-bound route, the team flew from Lanseria Airport near Johannesburg to the Victoria waterfalls. The pilots dream about overflying the waterfalls on their way North became true.

The Devils Pool was on the bucket list but was missed. A delay at Lanseria Airport that morning in South Africa resulted in a late arrival at the waterfalls. Just in time to see the falls, but not in time anymore to swim.

UGANDA – MAF AVIATION

A visit to the MAF aviation base at the Kajjansi airfield in Uganda gave the pilots a better understanding of how MAF operates in Africa.

Uganda is also known for its mountain gorillas. Together with some of the MAF staff, the team hiked into the mountains to track them down.

FLYING THROUGH A WARZONE

To get into Eqypt we had to pass South-Sudan, Ethiopia, Yemen and Saudi-Arabia. In Juba, South-Sudan we literally got stuck in a warzone.

PASSING EGYPT – THE PYRAMIDS

Just before leaving the African continent to fly back home through Europe to Teuge (EHTE) in The Netherlands, the pilots flew over the Pyramids in Egypt.

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