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I quit my job, bought an army truck, and spent 19 months circumnavigating Africa

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Re: I quit my job, bought an army truck, and spent 19 months circumnavigating Africa

#101

Post by jonstewart »

DanBC wrote: post #87
jonstewart wrote: post #70

There have been so many of these self-congratulatory I-quit-my-job-to-travel-the-world posts that the New Yorker published a satirical piece on it: http://www.newyorker.com/humor/daily-shouts/why-i-quit-my-jo... . TFA doesn't even have any geek discussion of build details, design trade-offs, problems encountered on the road and how they were solved, etc.

> problems encountered on the road and how they were solved, etc. The solutions seem to be "someone else fixed it". >> Our truck weighed over 10 tonnes fully laden, and whilst driving through some marshland just before we got to Senegal we broke through the hard crust into boggy clay below. >> We were very lucky to be just ahead of the Amsterdam Dakar Rally, and they helped pull us out. It took about 4 hours of diggi…

> I'm kind of surprised there isn't a buddy comedy movie about something similar. (I guess Into the Wild, although very much not a comedy, is similar.)

I love the idea of _Heart of Darkness_ filmed as a buddy comedy.

Re: I quit my job, bought an army truck, and spent 19 months circumnavigating Africa

#103

Post by gambiting »

barking wrote: post #91
gambiting wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've said this before, but I'll say it again - I'm 99% certain that my local supermarket stocking fresh cherries from Chille every day(I'm in UK) damages the environment more than someone driving a truck in africa. It almost makes me angry that someone mentions that this sort of adventure shouldn't be done because of environmental reasons.

The odd person driving a truck around africa won't cause environmental damage. Killing a few elephants won't endanger the species. Are you in favour of allowing people to shoot elephants?

Why, because my attitude towards shooting elephants has anything to do with my attitude towards driving a truck in africa?

I'm just trying to point out that we're doing more damage demanding brand new phones every year, demanding that every shop around has fresh produce from every corner of the world etc etc etc. Him driving around africa has probably lower impact than an average tourist flying somewhere for holiday.

Re: I quit my job, bought an army truck, and spent 19 months circumnavigating Africa

#104

Post by tim333 »

michaelt wrote: post #37
georgespencer wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> An old truck is a vastly more practical vehicle in Africa than a landrover - LRs need a lot of maintenance, whereas trucks generally just keep going. This sounds like received wisdom. Is there any evidence to support it? Why would one believe that a land rover's engine requires more maintenance than the average engine found in all the aggregate "old trucks"?

Top Gear is not by any means a reliable source of motoring journalism, but they do have a series of videos [1] which make a 1988 Toyota Hilux look very durable. At least if you have a mechanic with a "basic set of tools" on hand. [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xnWKz7Cthkk

I've traveled a bit in Africa and in my experience the Land Rovers are temperamental and the well off locals all drive Toyotas, often Land Cruisers.

Re: I quit my job, bought an army truck, and spent 19 months circumnavigating Africa

#106

Post by tluyben2 »

sumang wrote: post #49
colmvp wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ha! I've travelled to remote parts of South America, Africa, Asia, and the only times I ever experienced getting robbed or deeply fearing for my safety was in Barcelona and Philly.

Barcelona really? I am from Barcelona but never thought people are scared to be in Barcelona. I heard people get robbed in Las Ramblas years back but now its quite safe. You will never get mugged in Barcelona according to my experience.

More anecdotal : I live close to Malaga and I travel a lot in and outside the EU: only place I got mugged (at knife point) was Barcelona.

Re: I quit my job, bought an army truck, and spent 19 months circumnavigating Africa

#107

Post by Redoubts »

ythl wrote: post #26
wil421 wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Right, because those cities have genocides and civil wars going on from time to time.

The USA is a police state where gun deaths exceed the rest of the civilized world combined.

How many gun deaths were there in Syria this year?

Re: I quit my job, bought an army truck, and spent 19 months circumnavigating Africa

#108

Post by todd8 »

colmvp wrote: post #31
MrDosu wrote: post #18

This is reminds of a story of friends of mine from South Africa. They took the kids out of school to travel all the way up Africa and into Europ and back down for a year. They got robbed three times. Two times in France and once in Spain...

Ha! I've travelled to remote parts of South America, Africa, Asia, and the only times I ever experienced getting robbed or deeply fearing for my safety was in Barcelona and Philly.

I've been to Barcelona twice. A beautiful city that I really enjoyed. I never felt threatened in any way (but see next paragraph). I went out at night to local clubs and didn't feel that there was any more risk than going out in a large US city. Take the same kind of precautions, ask people before venturing into areas that you are unfamiliar with at night.

Las Ramblas is a large interesting boulevard through the middle of town and is a lot of fun to see. However, in any location where there are tourists, there appear to be very talented pickpockets targeting them; be careful.

I'm an amateur (very amateur) magician so I was fascinated to see the street scams based on the classic shell game being performed openly on Las Ramblas, complete with confederates winning money etc.

Re: I quit my job, bought an army truck, and spent 19 months circumnavigating Africa

#109

Post by tim333 »

prawn wrote: post #8

It pains me that so many beautiful sights on our planet are in what is reasonably dangerous territory or at least perceived as such. I would love to see all of Africa, but have only been to Morocco, which seemed very safe at least.

There are always organised overland truck trips which are pretty safe eg http://www.intrepidtravel.com/uk/search/trip?f%5Bduration%5D...

or https://www.truckafrica.com/tour/london-to-cairo-trans-afric...

which does much the same route as in the article for approx £8k

Re: I quit my job, bought an army truck, and spent 19 months circumnavigating Africa

#110

Post by harlanlewis »

michaelt wrote: post #37
georgespencer wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> An old truck is a vastly more practical vehicle in Africa than a landrover - LRs need a lot of maintenance, whereas trucks generally just keep going. This sounds like received wisdom. Is there any evidence to support it? Why would one believe that a land rover's engine requires more maintenance than the average engine found in all the aggregate "old trucks"?

Top Gear is not by any means a reliable source of motoring journalism, but they do have a series of videos [1] which make a 1988 Toyota Hilux look very durable. At least if you have a mechanic with a "basic set of tools" on hand. [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xnWKz7Cthkk

Beyond Top Gear, the hilux is the standard light cav for irregular armies around the world.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Toyota_War

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Technical_(vehicle)

http://www.newsweek.com/why-rebel-groups-love-toyota-hilux-7...

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