High Speed

Well it’s that time of year when most people head to north to ‘the Port’ for a short break over Easter but this year I’ve actually travelled away from ‘the Port’ for my Easter adventures! That’s right Port Elizabeth is officially renamed ‘the Port’ in honour of Northern Ireland’s finest tourist attraction! As I said in my last blog I have just returned from an 11 day road trip encompassing 4 countries, over 5000km and 3 speeding tickets! I’m going to document my travels in 3 blogs over the next 3 days to make it easier for you to read and more importantly, for me to write! So the trilogy begins in a country far, far away…

Before we even left on our trip we hit a minor snag in that two of the people who were intending on going had to pull out, so two days before we were meant to go we were frantically running around trying to find people to come with us to ease the financial load of the trip! Thankfully we found Veronica who was up for coming with us and so our quartet was complete. Hans ‘MacGyver’ Fischer, Sebastian ‘Slumdog’ Häll, Veronica ‘Our Lady’ Chaidez and me, Jonny ‘The Pope’ Harper. We left ‘the Port’ on Wednesday evening not really knowing what an amazing adventure lay awaiting for us.

I should mention at this point before I go any further, that we had a fantastic night the night before watching Bayern Munich beating Man United at the sports bar…just thought I’d mention that! The drive to Johannesburg was just over 1000km and we were planning on driving through the night. I had the leg between Colesberg and Bloemfontein , a long straight stretch of road through the incredibly featureless Free State. Driving at night was tough as I had to contend with cows crossing the road and and a truck driver who had no rear lights which was an absolute nightmare to drive behind…I was so glad to get to Bloemfontein and switch drivers! It wasn’t long after that I fell asleep and sleeping seemed to be quite high on everybody’s priority list so we pulled into a service station in Kroonstad, a couple of hours south of Jo’burg because we had a bit of time to spare. Trying to sleep with four people in the car was horrendous…I actually don’t know if I’ve ever tried to sleep in worse conditions! To make matters worse some mosquitoes had got into the car and were whining infuriatingly but worse still was Sebastian’s snoring! The other three of us couldn’t take it and so bailed out of the car into the forecourt where we sat and chatted and I even got an hours sleep on lying on some wall. I was so tired that it’s a pretty hazy memory!

Anyway, after a rough night’s sleep we got on the road again around 5 and began our assault on Jo’burg. Before the trip we had been talking up how dangerous a city it was, and Hans was determined not to stop at any red lights and made sure to have his trusted pepper spray and Swiss army knife close to hand! As it proved though we only drove on the highways and arrived at O.R Tambo International Airport in no time! When we got there we deposited the car and made an attempt to change some our South African Rand into American dollars, the currency of preference in Zambia and Zimbabwe. After several pleas and attempts at the Bureau de Change and some heated comments we left dollarless, which was later to come back and kick us in the teeth! Being empty handed wasn’t enough for me though, my body also decided that it should be empty stomached due to my taking of my malaria tablet without eating. I felt wretched and was really praying that the sickness would be lifted because it was horrible!

Thankfully, my sickness was quickly removed during the period of our picking up our incredible 4x4! At first the company had brought the wrong car with only one tent and no camping equipment but due to their mistake we managed to get upgraded to a Ford Ranger with two foldable tents on the roof and complete camping equipment including fridge, gas cooker, all our cutlery, sleeping bags and pillows to name a few of the accessories! On the road again we somehow managed to navigate Pretoria, mainly thanks to Hans’s Blackberry and passed through several toll gates which were slightly ridiculous in price considering the distance we travelled between them! The most expensive outlay of the day was still to come though just south of the Botswanan border.

Travelling along a fairly normal road we spotted a man jumping up and down on the side trying to flag us down. Our initial thought was to keep driving because the guy looked pretty dodgy and Hans certainly wasn’t for stopping for anybody. As we drove closer though we noticed the police car parked beside him and so thought it would be a good idea to pull over. The big policeman came running up to the car and after moving maybe 10m he was sweating and out of breath and panted, ‘Sir, you were going too fast!’ After some further conversation Hans was issued with a speeding fine to the value of R700 (around £60). The police officers were very friendly though and were constantly joking with Hans throughout the whole thing, even teaching him some Botswanan phrases. This wasn’t to be our last encounter with the law though!

We crossed the Botswanan border shortly after, with much toing and froing as we attempted to speculate and guess what forms we might need to cross without ever actually being instructed or guided by the officials. This was something we would come accustomed to but really these countries need to sort their borders out because they are a disaster for anyone who is unfamiliar with them. Unlike my visit to Lesotho, I did also successfully stamp put of South Africa on this occasion though! After crossing the border we set up camp for the first time at a lodge/campsite and walked to the local petrol station to get something to eat. At least we tried to walk but we were picked up along the way by the two owners of the lodge because we were told there was a hippo living in the water running alongside the road! That would have made for an interesting encounter!

The next day saw another long drive as we covered Botswana south to north in one day! The roads were very, very straight and very, very long between towns, and when I say towns I mean settlements, and when I say settlements I mean a few small houses and a bus stop if you were really lucky! Along the way we had to regularly stop at vetinary checkpoints which are set up to control the spread of foot and mouth disease. At one of the posts the ‘official’ wouldn’t let us past unitl we paid him 10 pula (the Botswanan currency) for airtime for his phone…my first experience of corruption! We also saw our first elephant on the road and we maybe made it a bad mad by getting too close and blowing the vuvuzela at it but after giving a small show of it’s frustration it simply lumbered off into the forest. And…Hans picked up another speeding ticket! This time it was really funny because we were driving along the road and Hans noticed a 60 sign on the road. Now the road was very straight and there was no sign of existence so Hans flashed the middle finger at the sign and kept his foot on the pedal! Two cars pulled out just in front of him and he overtook them only to notice on the other side of the two cars there was a police car parked on the side of the road! We tried to flee but the police quickly caught up with us and brought us back to their camera. Again Hans was told that he was driving too fast through the ‘village’ and was issued with a fine of P940 (around £85)! Slightly delayed we arrived at our destination for the night on the Chobe river front at the border of Zambia, Zimbabwe and Namibia…the only place in the world where four countries share the one border at a point!

We walked around a simply beautiful waterfront area at sunset and saw hippo tracks and elephant dung, a reminder that these animals are real and do live in the wild, not just in the zoo! Our campsite was located right on the river due to high water, and being new African campers we felt a little bit vulnerable that night. We cooked our stable diet of noodles/pasta and sauce and sat around chilling out. That was when I felt something hit my shoulder with a tremendous force. I thought Sebastian had thrown something at me but when he and all the others said they hadn’t I jumped up out of my seat and everyone else gasped! The next thing I knew Hans and Seb were hitting me and then they shone the torch on the ground to reveal an enormous roach like creature. Like I mean enormous! This thing was easily the size of my external hard drive and it had just jumped down from the roof onto me! We were now slightly more on edge and when we heard an elephant trumpeting followed by a hippo growling, or whatever noise a hippo makes, we were even more panicked! That was when we realised the hippo noise was actually only coming around 30 m from our camp! We saw the large outline moving through the bushes beside our site and shining the torch revealed that it was indeed a hippo but thankfully was on the other side of the fence! Still, it was pretty strange sleeping 30m from a hippo!

And that is where we will leave the tale for now. Camped on an African border with a hippo for a neighbour and hearing some pretty strange sounds in the night! If this was Botswana, a relatively developed country in the African context, what experiences were we to have in Zambia, which was virtually unknown to us? What mishaps would we have and what incredible sights would we see? And the question on everyone’s mind was would Hans make it 3 in 3 for speeding tickets? Some people travel and collect stamps, or maybe coins but Hans was seemingly make it his mission to pick up speeding tickets in every country! So, tune in tomorrow for another exciting instalment of ‘The Bantry on Tour 2010’!!!