One Arab World

Ok, we’ve ironed out the trip to a slightly more acceptable form and it has got to be the dumbest route I’ve ever heard of. Please feel free to criticize and any alternative suggestions would be great.

We are going to post from each of these points. We are going to link to backgrounds of the city, post pictures of both the city and the route there, set up interviews with everyone from politicians to the average Joe (or Ahmed) and maybe give an opinion or two.

1: Start point, Alexandria, Egypt

2: Mars Matrouh, Egypt (Closest real Egyptian city to the Libyan Border)

3: Egyptian – Libyan Border: We are still working on the paper work but it seems to  be going smoothly.  Any help would still be appreciated though.

4:Banghazi, Libya

4-5:Optional stop en route to Tripoli (We’ve got a few of these depending on how interesting things seem)

5: Tripoli, Libya

6: Libyan – Tunisian Border

7: 2-3 optional stops en route to Tunis

8: Carthage ruins, Tunisia

9: Tunisian – Algerian Border (here is where it starts to get a little freaky; we read unpleasant things about disappearing tourists)

10: Algiers, Algeria

11: Oran, Algeria (and this is where the route gets stupid;  see Algeria and Morocco are a bit cross with one another over a little misunderstanding called Western Sahara and hence have no relations and the borders are closed. In the most simplistic of solutions we are going to ferry to Spain from Oran then back to Morocco, because Morocco is not to be missed of course, then back to Spain and onward… yes you read right.)

12 - 13: Via ferry we get to Alicante, Spain then on to Almeria, Spain for another 10 hour ferry back to Africa; Melilla, Morocco to be exact (actually I think it may be Spanish territory…we’ll find out.)

14: Fes, Morocco

15: Marrakech, Morocco

16: Safi, Morocco (option)

17: Casablanca, Morocco

18: Rabat, Morocco

19: Tangier, Morocco to Tarifa, Spain via ferry

20: The Andalusia leg of the trip starting with Seville, Spain

21: Cordoba, Spain

22: Granada, Spain (after this we pick up the pace. We’ve seen Western Europe and it gets real expensive from here on so we drive like hell to Eastern Europe. As far as the blog is concerned this is the end of the trip anyway)

23:Barcelona, Spain

24: Turin, Italy

25 – 35ish: Eastern Europe to Greece

Ship car from Greece and fly home.

Trip time: 5-6 weeks. Start date: First week of September 2006. Transportation: 01 Jeep Cherokee, 80,000 km. Protection: Mace, baseball bat, and I vetoed Tamers idea to bring an electric shock on the bases that the boarders are tough enough as is.  Gear: Mini DV cam, Professional Digital Camera, two laptops with extra batteries, satellite phone,  nav system, and 5000+ play list (Napster to Go). Desert experience: spent some time with some bedwen in Sinai and watched a discovery channel special; but we got a lot of heart baby.

I’ve been getting a lot of emails with important things not to miss and some great hook ups from places to crash to interview setups to paperwork setups and it is much appreciated… keep em coming. We are also getting some sponsorship for the trip.

-          Karim Elsahy