A Radical Change in Travel

Once back in Kokrobite we learned that Ben, the English overlander we'd spent so much time with during our first stay, had decided not to ship his Land Rover to S. Africa but to drive instead. This decision of his was prompted by the arrival of Kees, a Dutch overlander in a massive truck. Why do I mention all this? Well, one thing has lead to another and we are now going to be joining them on the ride down. Kees (pronounced "case") has plenty of room for us so hopefully we will go together all the way to Cape Town. We weren't the only people to get included, there is also Kerry, from Hong Kong, a solo backpacker that in the last 10 months has travelled much of the route we've done over the last 3 years, and Alex, an Aussie girl who is a cousin of an awesome guy, Matt, who is going to be taking over the Big Milly's camp soon.
Of course this arrangement will require a lot of adjustments in terms of timing and routing as we no longer have control but it gives us the best chance of actually making it to S. Africa alive. We expect to have some great 4WD adventures too as the rains are here and the road will be mud in many places.
Of course the whole thing has not gotten off to the best start. Oddly enough or strangely typical, the biggest problem has come from the Canadian government. We put in 3 passports to be renewed as soon as we arrived in the country. It's supposed to take three weeks so we were all just waiting around here getting prepared for the road ahead with lots of planning and trying to secure some visas for difficult countries like Angola and Nigeria. Bre's application had problems with it, which were really unnecessary and only caused by the ridiculous procedure for the "non-renewal" of passports that only the retarded government of Canada could come up with (as far as I know it is the lengthiest and most involved of all western countries for a renewal) and her passport has taken over a month to come back. I swear I have never had a good experience at a Canadian embassy in any country.
Ben is on a timeline and needed to leave so yesterday all of the group, including mom, dad and Savannah left to start the journey south. They should be in Togo or Benin by now. Bre and I have been left behind to wait for the passport and then collect the visas and try to catch up in about 10 days in Calabar, Nigeria if all goes well. So far so good as the passport has now arrived and I should be able to start work on it on Monday. It's just a hassle to miss the first part of a much more comfortable ride than what we've been doing all this time. It will also mean that we should be getting down south a lot faster and our arrival is tentatively scheduled for some time in June. Anyone feel like going to Southern Africa this "summer"?
Ammon
PS. If anyone is interested in who or what we've become involved with visit Ben's website at www.afritrex.com