During out three month journey through Africa we tried to blog about our experiences every day. We also linked up our blog with some of the social media tools available, such as Facebook and Twitter, to communicate back home. A few years back it would have been an entirely different story – sending postcards, writing in a diary and phoning back home once in a while. Now we could upload and share our photos on a daily basis, receive comments from people all over and keep in touch with what is happening back home. On the trip I even managed to talk to my father in China through Skype not paying a cent for the call.
On the trip we took a small netbook – Gigabyte Q2005 for which we paid about R2700. I carried it in my backpack on my back the whole trip long and even with a few bumps here and there we never experienced any problems. What’s cool about the laptop is that it has a card slot so we could easily download the photos from our GoPro and camera by inserting the data card. We also took along our Altech 3G modem which works with a USB connection. In every country we simply bought a local SIM card and normally we had to add a data bundle which you have to buy separately. It wasn’t a difficult task as long as you could find a bigger town with a MTN or Vodacom shop. The only country where we could not follow the process above was in Ethiopia, where their telecommunications are government-owned and run. Here we had to make use of local Internet cafes, of which there we quite a few, but they were incredibly slow. It was also nice meeting travellers from the North coming down South as we started swapping SIM cards as we went along which made the process easier.
I set up our blog on Typepad as I have used this before when we set up the blog for Franschhoek Wine Valley. I like the fact that I could customise many parts of the blog so that it works for us and have a look and feel we like. It is also great that you can link it with many social media tools such as Facebook and Twitter. I also registered our domain name www.crossingafrica.co.za and could link the blog and address directly.
But, a blog is only a blog when there are people reading it, so we would like to really thank each and every one that took the time to share our experiences with us in cyber space. Even if we could not reply to all the comments, we loved reading them every day as they encouraged us to keep on writing. Sometimes blogging became difficult due to slow Internet connections is some of the more remote parts of Africa, but it was a challenge that we loved so much that we’re not sure what we are going to do now that the trip is over and we have no more stories and photos to share!
Sometimes blogging was a challenge:
…but it sure was a pleasure outside of normal office walls:
For those interested in some stats, here are some of the basic stats of our blog www.crossingafrica.co.za. I used Google Analytics to track our stats on a daily basis which I set up on Typepad. We started tracking the stats from 31 August 2011 and the info below are from then until today.
– NUMBER OF TOTAL VISITS TO THE WEBSITE: 26,159
– NUMBER OF UNIQUE VISITORS: 12,179
– 42,487 Pageviews
– 00:02:12 Avg. Time on Site
We will also update our actual trip stats during the next day or so and will let you know as soon as we have uploaded the information.
It was a pleasure to follow your adventures. We’ve never met and i was sent the link to your blog via a friend, but i feel like i know you and could share in your trip by reading your posts.
All the best for settling back into reality and the mundane day to day life.
Until the next trip that is….
Best Wishes
Oloff Burger
London
Hi
Ons sien julle dan vroeg Feb iini Kaap.
Voorspoed en ek hoop julle het n goeie volgende jaar.
Was lekker om van hier af in verbinding te wees.
Mooi bly en voorspoedige nuwe jaar
Fanie
Die lewe gaan beslis valer wees, sonder julle stories en foto’s elke dag. Is daar nie iemand wat weet van ‘n avontuurtjie wat ons op iemand se blog kan volg nie?
Vrek julle, dis regtig impressive! Well done! Al daai moeite was VERSEKER dit werd…!
Ai Julle, ek weet regtig nie wat ek nou na kan uitsien as ek die aand by die huis uitkom nie. Dit was nou my hoogtepunt van die dag. Ek het sommer dadelik te werk gegaan ek vir my n motorfietsie gaan koop en beplan my trip ook nou.
Dankie, man ek wens ek was Richard Branson Dan het ek julle sommer gesposor vir nog n trip
Dankie dit was nou regtig nice gewees
Sjoe maar julle het baie “fans” gemaak op hierdie trip! Dit was so-oo lekker om julle blog te volg. Wat is volgende jaar op jul program? Luv. V1x
Gerda, ons sal maar moet wag vir Jolandie by “jolandie-rust.blogspot.com” – sy sal seker oor ‘n maand of twee vertrek vir haar motorfietsrit rondom Afrika, nadat haar fiets die eerste keer in Angola gesteel is.
Nogmaals DANKIE Francois en Tania vir die wonderlike voorreg om julle blog te kon volg, en BAIE GELUK met die reuse prestasie!!