Travel Summary of Africa to Amsterdam. Flights. Miles. Time. Kilometers. Climate. Weather. Find it all Here!

Time to call this one a wrap!  Ben and I are just totally beat from the intense  traveling. Here we are at Schipol Airport in Amsterdam awaiting our flights.  Its 5am here, and Ben and I find ourselves watching the cleaning crew and graveyard shift getting ready to leave. We sit here reflecting on this trip, this was a trip of a lifetime!  I am heading directly back to Dallas, Ben to Atlanta then to Birmingham, AL, so saying adios in Amsterdam (shortly), until I see him in Dallas in January.

In 23 days we covered the following ground-

14,058.8  air miles

3 continents (US, Africa, Europe)

Crossed over 3 massive bodies of water

drove 2,394 miles (South Africa, Namibia, Botswana) map of our driving trip

consumed roughly 6 pounds of wild game biltong

walked roughly 40 miles each

drank 41 gallons of water

crossed 6 borders

experienced 8 climate & terrain changes

ate zebra, giraffe, gimmsbuck, warthog, ostrich (and egg), panakoken, and many other treats- (you will just have to go back through all the food finds in the blog from the trip!)

saw some of the best sunrises/sunsets, wild animals, art, & architecture in the world!

That is some intense stats to produce in the better part of 3 weeks!  Stay tuned for more  adventures, we spent the countless driving hours figuring out where next.  And of course how to  become a full time tri-lingual  “Ninja”-

Travel.Cook.Eat.

Thanks for following the Africa to Amsterdam Adventure,

Chef David & Ben

Car Ride to Johannesburg Airport

We were on track and heading back from Sun City to JoBurg to catch our flight.  Aside from a few street peddlers and general misfits we made it back safe and sound.  We drove straight into the JoBurg airport and returned the car, which only created one small problem.. we had to wait around since we made such good timing.  Unreal how the KFC had the longest line in the airports food court.    Off to Amsterdam for the final leg of the trip!

check out some random shots from our drive in to JoBurg-

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Traveling the Trans Kalhari Highway. Driving Trans Kalhari in Botswana, Africa

Written by Chef Dave | 22 September 2009

The Road through Botswana… We woke up bright and early after a scrumptious meal with Monica and Jofee at their Lake Lodge, to take the daring trek through on the Trans Kalahari Highway!  The first mission was to repair the “Flying Toaster”- which meant reattach the license plate, air the tires, reattach a hub cap, and for my OCD issue, clean the inside!

We took another route than the beach route, although our escort zipped off about 1 km. ahead of us. And we were swerving around trying to maintain some equal ground!  The ground clearance was a big issue, and we did hit a few sand patches, but like love the “Flying Toaster” prevailed!  (She only lost a hub cap, which I am quite certain will be found by some baboon and used as a Frisbee!

Mission II-

Racing the Clock….

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Immigration crossing South Africa and Namibia

We were not sure what to expect at the border crossings between these two nations.  Was there still any tension from the early days when Namibia was considered South West Africa?  We just were not sure and on top of that being two American guys..

Thanks to Ben and his genius mind he learned how to say “Hello, good morning” in the native tongue!  I had no idea he had researched this before hand, and that quickly brought a smile to the locals faces!  That was my segway into talking about the World Cup, about the only thing I knew all of Southern Africa was excited about.  It worked we made it across in one piece.

…of course I was internally freaking out since we had live rounds in our luggage to take up to Tambuti.

Cape Point, Cape of Good Hope South Africa

Our last night in Cape Town we met up with Hanns-Louis sister (who lives in Cape Town) and mother (who flew in from Namibia) . It was great having good laughs and visiting with everyone for a few hours… then the plan was to head home, pack up, get some sleep and head out in the morning…. Well-things never go as planned, especially on an African adventure   We did however managed to get packed, and while we were mapping the  2^nd leg of the trip we received a pleasant  call that Hanns and his friends were heading back for an after party!  ….Thanks Hanns, you’re a good man….

Mission: Cape of Good Hope

We drove all the way from Cape Town to the Cape of Good Hope (a national protected park) approximately 1 hour. We were there hanging around before they officially opened the gates- not a bad time to munch on those organic almonds my mom gave me right before I got on the plane! (her traditional parting gift to me)

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