After my little ride through Africa in 438 days and about 32,000km always riding my cool Vespa (OK – OK I also took some trucks and some 4X4), I collected some interesting facts and I’d like to share them with you. So take a small taste and stay tuned for the next post with all the data from my trip (petrol, food, accommodation and other costs)!

On the road for: 438 days

Countries visited: 19 (Italy, Morocco, Western Sahara, Mauritania, Senegal, Mali, Burkina Faso, Ghana, Togo, Benin, Nigeria, Cameroon, Republic of Congo, Democratic Republic of Congo, Zambia, Botswana, Namibia, South Africa, Lesotho)

Favorite country: D.R.Congo

Least favorite country: S.Africa

Most beautiful country: Lesotho

Distance covered on the Vespa: 32,000 km

Average distance covered per day: 73 km

Average fuel consumption: 4.315 lt/100km

Petrol I used: 1,380 lt

Longest / most difficult border crossing: Mauritania – Senegal (5 hours)

Quickest / easiest border crossing: Namibia – South Africa (5 minutes)

Longest visa application: Nigeria (took me a week in Ouagadougou)

Quickest visa application: for the 2 Congos (within few hours in Lome)

Most expensive visa: D.R.C. (2 months for 124 € / 2 months extension 147 €)

Cheapest visa: Benin (11 €)

Most expensive petrol: D.R.C. (3.78 €/lt but only in 1-2 very remote villages – in the rest of the country 1.61 €/lt)

Cheapest petrol: Nigeria (0.58 €/lt)

Most expensive sleep: Nigeria (13.8 € in a hotel)

Cheapest sleep: Togo & Namibia (1.4 € in campsites)

Most expensive meal: 15.15 € (Republic of Congo)

Cheapest meal: 0.15 € (Burkina Faso)

Most expensive product: yellow cheese 82€/kg (Burkina Faso)

Cheapest product: bananas 0.05€ per piece (D.R.Congo)

Worst meal: the thing that they call fufu or nsima or pap or bukarhi no matter if it comes with the best meat or fish (to be honest I’ve missed it a bit), and also the hundreds kilos of rice with tomato sauce that I’ve eaten!

Best meal: sandwich with fried bananas in Bamako

Worst bread: Ghana (it’s something like toast bread but it’s sweet)

Best bread: Morocco (simply the best bread I’ve ever eaten)

Worst roads: D.R.C.

Best roads: Morocco

Vespa troubles: dead pick-up after 120,000km (Cameroon), 2 sets of clutch disks burnt (one in each Congo), broken speed cable (South Africa)

Punctures: 1 (Mali)

Accidents: 0

Got ill: 0

Times robbed: 0

Bribes / fines: 0

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