Ten years ago I was still young, foolish and inexperienced enough to take on a southern African road trip that still gives me the shivers when I think about it now. I packed my backpack, tent and camera into my Opel Kadett and, after first driving to Durban to see my girlfriend, headed alone to the Limpopo River and crossed into Zimbabwe for what would be a five-week, eight thousand kilometre trip.
It was a trip filled with wonder and beauty, like being the only camper along the shores of a lake near the Great Zimbabwe Ruins, crossing the Zambezi River in Mozambique, driving along extensive baobab-lined roads in Malawi, sleeping in a reed hut a hop, skip and jump from the warm waters of Lake Malawi, being caught in an almighty thunderstorm in Zambia and walking along the smoking edges of the Victoria Falls in both Zambia and Zimbabwe.
But, it was also a trip filled with potentially disastrous consequences, mostly during the Zambian leg, like having a Zambian soldier stick the muzzle of his rifle through my driver's window when I mistook a police check point for road works, or was threatened by a Zambian policeman with jail time for exchanging money on the street at the Zambia-Zimbabwe border crossing (he let me go after I paid the bribe he was after from the start) or, as the recent election fiasco in Zimbabwe has freshly brought to mind, my encounter with President Robert Mugabe.
It was my second day in Zimbabwe and I had driven from the Great Zimbabwe Ruins to Harare where I was going to spend the night in a backpackers' hostel in the city. The problem started when I was advised by some locals not to enter the city itself, because there were some demonstrations taking place. So, instead of heading to the hostel I had originally planned on, I headed for another one on the outskirts of the city, near the airport.
Just as I approached the airport I heard sirens and then saw, approaching me, a convoy of police cars and motorbikes. As I was on the opposite side of the road to them, I just slowed down, but continued moving along the road. Suddenly a policeman on a motorbike sped toward me, gesticulating and shouting vigorously. I had no idea what he was on about, but was in no doubt that I was doing something wrong, although I had didn't know what. Then I realized that all the cars ahead of me had not only stopped, but had completely pulled off the road and, checking my rear-view mirror, noticed that the same was true of the cars behind me. I was the only car, besides the police vehicles, on the road.
I hastily swerved off the road and the policeman sped on his way just as a black car with darkened windows and Zimbabwean flag pennants fluttering on its front shot past me. Realization dawned. My first thought wasn't "Wow!" but "Whew!" My brush with a dictator was over and I had emerged unscathed.
Dion Marc Delport
9 May 2008