With the departure date set for early spring 2020, we planned and prepped our journey from our hometown in The Netherlands to Cape Town in South Africa. Then COVID hit. At first, we hoped to just wait out the storm at home. In September 2020 we realized waiting wouldn’t solve things. We decided to just go south and see what happens. We aimed for Morocco.
The border with Mauritania was still closed at the time, but we hoped that by the time we would get there, the situation would change. The opposite is what happened. Right after we entered Morocco, the country shut all its borders and we found ourselves trapped. With the freedom of wandering around through the deserts and mountains of Morocco, we cannot think of a better place to be locked in during the COVID-pandamic.
Finally Morocco opened its borders again. With Europe, not with its neighbouring African countries. After six months we decided to go back to Europe. Not to go back home, but to keep on travelling. We loaded our bikes onto a container in Rotterdam bound for Cape Town. A new chapter started, when we hit the start buttons of our bikes a couple of weeks later in South Africa. Open borders and new countries to explore, right in front of us.