Damsel in distress

I have arrived in Hoedspruit! Woohoo! So, lots to tell you, again. Lets start with the drive from Harare to the border at Beitbridge. I got up yesterday (Wednesday) at 5 in the morning, in order to leave before 6. Everything went smoothly. No obnoxious police or fines; if I got stopped they were perfectly friendly. No one tried to rob me. I didn’t break any speed records (thank god, as a couple of times on a 60 km/hr part of the road (for no reason that I could see) there were policemen with speedguns), but I went at a steady pace and made good time, also because I didn’t get out of the car and only stopped once at Masvingo to top up the tank.

There was very little traffic going to Beitbridge and even the roads were in “good” condition. I say “good” because by European standards they were still dreadful, the sides were eroding, there were humps and bumps everywhere and now and then there were potholes. Ralph and Barbara had warned me about the potholes, basically holes where the asphalt has caved in, as they can cause horrible accidents. But almost all the potholes had recently been repaired, so there were only a few small ones. And one big one, which was a pothole/eroded side of the road.

At about 12 in the afternoon I had reached Lion and Elephant at Bubi river, which is a collection of houses with a motel about 60 km from the border. This would have been the first option of stopping and sleeping over if I were tired or got delayed. I was tired after 6,5 hours of non-stop driving, but decided to go on to the border and get it over with. I was musing to myself that this was a very uneventful trip compared to the last one. I also thought to myself: “boring and uneventful is very very good!”. Within 20 km I had hit the only big pothole in the whole entire crappy road and 5 km after that… Put! Duhduhduhduhduh. Flat tire. Figures.

Girls, if you ever have a flat tire, you can probably just hang out the damsel in distress, and within 2 minutes some guy will have stopped and started the very manly job of changing your tire. Of course, this being Zimbabwe on the part of the road with a bad reputation: Thank god Ralph had given me a crash course tire changing and I had a perfectly good spare on the back of Terrance. So the first thing I did was call Ralph telling him what had happened and he started repeating the crash course. I speedily and quite efficiently got everything ready.

I must still have looked a little like a damsel in distress though, because within 2 minutes two gentlemen from South Africa (one “English” and one “Afrikaans” (I love the way they speak Dutch! Sorry, Afrikaans)) stopped and asked if I needed any help. Which I gladly accepted, though Ralph did call me back every 5 minutes to check if I was still ok, which was great. They changed the tire in record speed and I took the opportunity to ask if I could convoy with them to South Africa. Them being gentlemen agreed, though I’m sure I slowed them down considerably.

Especially at the border, their presence was invaluable! They knew the way through both the Zim border and the SAf border, which is a nightmare of stamped papers, passport checks, car checks, paper checks, etc. No one bothered me with nasty questions. No one tried to imply my papers weren’t in order. The police didn’t check my vehicle for smuggling and took my word for it when I said I wasn’t. The final security guard started asking questions, but stopped. I didn’t need to bribe anyone! All because I could say: “No I’m not travelling alone, I’m travelling with them!”. Wow. Really, if you’re reading this, thank you so much.

Of course I needed to get the tire fixed asap in case I got another flat, so I said farewell to my saviors and they dropped me at a garage. Apparently my tube had been completely ripped to pieces, so they had to put in a new one. While I was waiting I got a new sim card for South Africa.

Apparently you need to register here for a sim card and that needs a lot of paperwork and security measures, god knows why. However, the guy at the shop fixed me up with an unregistered one. I’m not sure if that is quite legal, but that way I could call people immediately, so I’m happy. By this time it was already 3.30 with still at least 4,5 hours of driving to go. So I decided to stay over at Louis Trichardt.

I found a place called the Mountain View Hotel, which was lovely. Here’s a picture with the view in the morning. I sat down to enjoy the view, ordered a Windhoek beer, then went for dinner and ordered deep fried camembert with berry compote and Thai curry with lamb, papadums and chutney. It was quite cheap so I figured it wouldn’t be much, but man do they have big portions here! By the way, have you ever eaten alone in a restaurant? It's awkward I tell you. So I started feeding the half-grown kitten lamb meat to have some company. I’m sorry mom, I know you taught me better, I’m sure its terribly rude and disgusting but well they won’t see me again and they don’t know I’m your daughter either xD.

After dinner I had a cup of coffee outside and met a South African (Dutch descent) who was there attending a conference and into water related sustainable development in South Africa, which was interesting. He also gave me some tips about what to visit in the area and which route I should take to Hoedspruit. In the morning I had a mega huge breakfast with some kind of porridge made of sourgum which you eat with some butter and sugar, a little unusual but quite nice. I was back on the road at 8 and, apart from a friendly chat with a police officer and a discussion at a gas station about the value of my US dollars, everything went smoothly -truly smoothly!- this time. I arrived in Hoedspruit and Eduardo & Louisa’s house at 11.50 and went to check up on my caravan. The owner had lived here for 2,5 years, but has now moved in with his girlfriend.

Right now I’m just settling in. Tomorrow (Friday) I will go to my fieldwork site and meet everyone there. My fieldwork has suffered some delay, separate from the fact that I arrived late. Last week there was a storm that washed away all my seedlings. So now we’re waiting for the new seeds to arrive, which we need to germinate again. Sigh.
I need to go and buy some food for tomorrow and look for an internet café to post this. Know that I’m safe, content and geared to go.

Hugs and kisses!