Ebola outbreak in West Africa

In Guinea, the Ebola virus has broken out. Since in the meantime, cases have been confirmed in the capital, the risk of spreading is given to neighboring countries, even in Canada there is a West Africa-traveler in quarantine because he showed the symptoms after return.

Here is a contribution of the SRF:

http://www.srf.ch/news/international/ebola-fieber-erreicht-guineische-hauptstadt

For all who are traveling just to the West Route and West Africa, this means that the borders can be closed at any time to prevent a further spread.

2009 Angola had, for example, respond to an outbreak in DR Congo in this way (https://de.globalvoicesonline.org/2009/01/15/angola-mit-ebola-um-die-ecke-sind-die-grenzen-geschlossen/).

Who is just getting started or who plan a Trans-Africa soon, should probably watch at a safe distance the development of that outbreak. Or avoid that area with driving to Mauritania, Mali, Burkina Faso, Benin and Nigeria bypassing the region.

 1976-2008 Ebola Outbreaks: Wikipedia http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ebolavirus

So far, it never came to a broader distribution of this viral disease, against which there is no vaccine.

The virus is transmitted through blood and body fluids, so we overlanders belong probably not  to the classical risk group. 

The ferry from Iskenderun (turkey) to Damietta (egypt)

You can read in many blogs and websites, that we overlanders can't travel with the ferry, that we had to ship the car and take an airplane. These Informations are pretty outdated, when we watch these pictures:

 

A swiss guy who blogs under the name Cruise-the Planet did the crossing from Iskenderun (Turkey) to Damietta (Egypt) at march 2014. And he had manage it to stay in a cabin. Great news for us Overlanders!

At the Port in Iskenderun (Turkey) you can organize everything for the ferry. If there is no cabin-space left, you can organize there a flight and the whole transfer.

There are not many cabins, so you better should book the cabin early, or bring the time with you to wait for the ferry coming back. Or to be a lucky guy who get a cabin without a reservation like this guy.

The cabins are for two persons, if you travel alone you will have to share them. There is no entertainment or so, but you will get some food.

The first stretch from Iskenderun to Haifa (Israel) needs around 20hours. In Haifa the ferry does a stopover and some cars and trucks leave the ship, new one comes. After that the ferry needs around 12 hours to reach Damietta (Egypt).

The whole process is described thrilling, of paid bribes to a small odyssey until the vehicle finally could be driven out of the harbor.

Here is the Link to the Blog:

http://cruise-the-planet.ch 

Translated to English with: Google-Translate

A beautiful well written blog, i hope that google Translate did the job for you readers! Many thanks to Lukas, for allowing me to use his pictures!