Last year my wife and I decided to take a sabbatical and see the world. Our plan? Visit Africa, South America, and Asia to experience how bitcoin is impacting the global south. Having never set foot in Africa we settled on the Cairo to Cape Town overland route. It allowed us to start from the north and head south across the east coast.
We went in with surface-level knowledge about Africa: Egypt = pyramids, East Africa = animals South Africa = Cape Town. Boy were we wrong! Africa is so misunderstood starting with the fact that it’s a continent, not a country. Each country is unique and we are humbled to have made them our home for the past year.
332 days, 10 countries 37,000 km, 2 flights, 17 buses, 21 taxis, and countless bitcoin interactions later, our African journey is complete. (Almost! Need to visit a friend in Namibia)
Due to safety concerns, we had to skip Sudan and flew in and out of Ethiopia. Except for these two flights, we completed this entire journey overland using buses and taxis. (shared taxis are fun – a game of how many can squeeze into a van before it breaks down)
One post won’t do justice to this adventure so we will be spending the next two months catching up and sharing experiences thus far. Some highlights include:
- Founded 2 bitcoin preferred businesses (a juice shop and an Airbnb)
- Onboarded 12 merchants and a charity to accept bitcoin as payments
- Spoke at our first bitcoin conference
- Attended 8 community meetups (presented in 4)
- Paid 35 businesses in bitcoin (includes 3 safaris)
- Invested in a bitcoin preferred business
We look forward to sharing stories from each country and hope you enjoy them.
-A Student of Bitcoin
PS: Shout out to Man Like Kweks for the amazing background track ‘No Paper No Visa’ https://wavlake.com/track/4912094c-15fe-4aa3-8454-62c934357991