30th
September - 6th October
After an extended loop through Malawi, Mozambique and Zimbabwe
we were back in the now familiar territory of Zambia. About
100km into the country we encountered our first story worth
relating. A lorry had jackknifed across the highway when attempting
to to a U-turn. All the traffic on either side of the road
was backing up at a rapid rate. An extremely ineffective traffic
policeman showed up at some stage, but didn't help the situation
in any way. Typical to Africa, every single person had a view
on how to solve the problem, and no-one was particularly keen
to help others on their ideas. There was a culvert on the
one side of the highway which if we could have filled in would
have allowed traffic round. The other side was a cliff. However
it was clear right from the beginning that there was no way
that we would be able to fill in the culvert. It was also
clear that the small vehicles could have made it through without
any work. It was only the buses and other lorries that wouldn't
be able to pass. This didn't stop a gang of locals from scurrying
up the hillside and tossing down all the boulders. A number
of vehicles narrowly missed being wrecked in the resulting
hail of rocks. After much talking and persuasion the hail
of rocks finally stopped. About an hour later the cost was
sufficiently clear to get one of the small vehicles through.
Suddenly lightbulbs lightup all round and all the vehicles
(buses included) storm the culvert from both sides. After
an hour of removing the stuck bus and convincing the people
on one side to wait their turn the traffic finally started
flowing again. It was an amusing scene.
As the sun was starting to sink to the horizon we made it
back into Lusaka. The first people we met at the campsite
there was the Getaway team in their TDi 5 Land Rover. Robyn
Daly - one of the reporters/photographers went to school and
university with Rob, so much talking and general catching
up. The Getaway vehicle was in the middle of a Cape-Cairo
trip. We met the again right in the North of Zambia.
Two days in Lusaka allowed us to catch-up on emails, do all
the necessary shopping and change money. It was then off on
the Great North Rd towards Tanzania. 100km into the drive
and we were stopped at a roadblock and fined a stack of money
for a faulty breaklight. We had checked the breaklights two
days before. There is a slight suspicion that Nyathi may have
been punishing us for some less than polite names we had been
calling her. When leaving Mozambique Nyathi's gearbox started
making a worrying knocking noise. The stop in Harare had unfortunately
not fixed it, and we were hoping to make it into Tanzania
where we had heard there was a good and cheap Land Rover garage.
She sounded like she was going to croak any minute through.
It wouldn't have surprised either of us if the gearbox had
simply fallen out of the old girl.
Limping along with the chunk-chunk in the gearbox getting
louder and louder we made it (after a nights stop along the
way) to Shira N'gundu. This farm/estates was started by an
Englishman about 70 years previously and is now being run
by his grandchildren. The campsite on the estate was situated
alongside a river and within 100m of a hot spring. It was
such a lovely setting that it took us 4 days and a completely
depleted stock of food to finally pry us out of there.
With one days driving we made it to the Tanzanian border.
The Zambian side went pretty smoothly. The same unfortunately
could not be said for the Tanzanian side. It didn't take us
long to realize we had horribly underestimated the amount
of US$ cash we would need to get into Tanzania. The visa cost
us US$60 each. Then there was US$5 for a road tax, US$50 for
3rd Party Insurance and finally US$20 for a Foreign Vehicles
Permit (different from the Temporary Import Permit). Phew,
talk about paperwork. So, we needed US$195 cash. We only had
US$175. Bugger! The only bank in town was now closed, so we
had to spend the night at the borderpost till the bank opened
the next day. It needs to be explained that borderposts in
Africa are only an issue for non-locals. The locals seem to
come and go at leisure. Our night on the tarmac next to Nyathi
was therefore a long one, sleeping with one eye open the whole
night to ensure that nothing went walking off the vehicle.
Ha - all part of the adventure.
That next morning we managed to change some travelers cheques
into Tanzanian Shillings and managed to argue a reasonable
Shilling to US Dollar rate out of one of the black market
money changers. Finally we had our US$20. Exciting. Now we
only have 70km to go before we can safely deposit Nyathi at
the garage for fixing. Only 70km. We were pretty anxious about
her making the distance.
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