Cape Town, South Africa to Cairo, Egypt and the Capital to Canada

By Papiso Matsau

Ethiopian portion of the Cape to Cairo highway. PHOTO/File

“So, what time is your flight?” my mother asked.

“We are not flying, we are driving from DC to Toronto.” I replied.

My mother then paused and let out a hearty laugh and said, “That is like driving from Cape to Cairo.”

I had not been out of the DMV (District of Columbia, Maryland and Virginia), since I came to complete my final semester of graduate school so even if it was going to be like driving from Cape Town, South Africa to Cairo, Egypt, I welcomed the change of scenery. However, my mother’s response got me thinking about travel in Africa and infrastructure. My geography is not the best so I pulled out a map and realized that my road trip to Canada was nowhere as far as a drive from Cape Town to Cairo. I calculated that the distance was only a tenth the distance that it would have taken to cross Africa.

However, to cover the same distance from Cape to Cairo in the United States would be a seamless, though tedious, endeavor. You would not need to have a passport or visas to go from state to state. You would not have to be concerned about currency changes at every national border. You would not have to consider customs, trade laws or any red tape and nuances. The contrary is true about traveling within Africa. All of the above are crucial factors when considering your travels and on top of that; accessibility is limited due to poor infrastructure and border control.

Imagine for a moment you were an apple farmer in South Africa attempting to get your produce to Egypt. They say the fastest way from one point to another is a straight line. So a direct line from your farm to Egypt would be ideal. However, Africa’s trade embargoes and tariffs hinder the effective produce mobility that the United States enjoys which is one of the reasons that makes it the powerful economy that it is today. With different nations having various trade agreements it means that the farmer is likely to have his produce rot somewhere while the paperwork was being sorted out. I know we are only at the dawn of having a United States of Africa, but the thought of taking a smooth road trip from the Cape to Cairo is an enlivening and thrilling thought.