Overload!

The photo above is just to show what the roads in Guinea, West Africa are like in wet season

While travelling to Johannesburg on business last month, we passed the weigh bridge just outside a neighbouring town. My husband and I began to discuss the fact that many trucks we see on the roads are grossly overloaded. Not only is this detrimental to the road surfaces, (South Africa’s regional roads have fallen badly into disrepair over the past decade) it is also highly dangerous. It is dangerous for the truck driver and dangerous for other road users.

And then we look at each other and burst out laughing as we both thought of the roads in West Africa.

As they say in the classics: you ain’t seen nothin’ yet until you’ve travelled on third world roads.

In 2006 my husband moved an entire fleet of heavy earthmoving machines (13 in total) from the gold mine site in Guinea (the project had ended) to an existing gold mine operation in Mali. The trip which took 53 days was 1800km / 1100 miles long. He started off during the wet season (which means horrific conditions in Guinea where there are mostly dirt roads) and skirted the Sahara desert passed through Mauretania and down to Sadiola (a town 400km south of Timbuktu) This is a complete post on its own so I won’t go into any more detail. I will do a post on his Safari later on this month.

However, while going through his photos, I came across dozens of overloaded vehicles that he’d snapped. Some of them are on the dirt road. The real traffic started once he entered Mali and the roads (which are in very good condition,) are tarred. Taxis, passenger cars, busses, trucks, lorries, donkeys and bicycles were loaded to the hilt.

Here are a few...

Yes, that is a human hand waving from the top of the pile! Apparently he's called the conductor


Everything including the kitchen sink is loaded here!

You hold your breath when you watch
a vehicle like this travelling in front of you.
Will it toppled over onto its side?



This guy meant business!

My heart always bled for the poor donkies of Mali...

Have bicycle, will load!