| That
was a bloody long day…
There
was little chance of a lie-in even if we’d
have wanted one as at 5am the bus terminal next
door to Doogles kick starts into life with a barrage
of air horn blasts and large engines revving.
By 5:30 am we were up and washed and by 6:30 all
packed up and ready to go. The bumpy dirt track
back to the tar was a testing start for Lisa as
with her shock having dumped all its oil she now
has no rebound damping at all and so with her
bike acting more like a pogo stick she carefully
negotiated the holes and troughs…not fun.
We
had a long ride ahead of us and a border crossing
to get through, and for no apparent reason I was
anxious about the Mozambique border. An hour out
of Blantyre and we were at the border, the usual
gang of eager boys were pulling at our clothes
offering us their money changing services. Leaving
Malawi was a simple affair although came close
to going bad. When we’d come into Malawi
we’d been asked how long our stay would
be and without too much thought I’d replied
a week or two and so without me realising the
official had stamped our passports and hand written
7 days, now bearing in mind that as UK passport
holders we didn’t need Visas for Malawi
so stamps and dates seemed like nothing more than
a formality. How wrong was I? The exit guard has
picked up on the fact that the exit date written
in our passports was the 29th and then sternly
informed me that we had overstayed our time and
that I should accompany him to the holding office
where Lisa and I would be required to fill out
countless forms and where we would be charged
with the ‘serious offence’ of overstay,
when we would then be entered into the register
of ‘illegal immigrants’ which would
bar us from ever returning to Malawi. How can
that be I argued? With the UK passports we don’t
need Visas, so how could we overstay? It was then
that he explained the date written in our passports
that I’d not seen. I put on my best English
annoyed voice, took an offensive stance and demanded
to see the commander of the border post, this
caught the officer a little off guard. I needed
some bullshit quick and so proceeded to explain
that Lisa and I were performing crucial fund raising
solely for the benefit of Malawian charities and
that the repercussions of both his actions and
that of the stamping officer upon our entry would
be serious, possibly irreversible and of course
this would then be relayed to our good friend
the ‘Honourable Mr. Wombeyo the Malawian
ambassador’, all of course complete bullshit
and where I dragged the name Wombeyo from is anybody’s
guess? It seemed to do the trick and after a few
minutes of talking with his superior the young
officer explained that this infringement would
be over looked, we would be checked out as normal
and could we please pass on his personnel best
wishes and highest regard to ’The Honourable
Mr. Wombeyo’! I had to leave the office
quick otherwise the nervous grin, which was now
starting to get the better of me, would give the
game away.
The
Mozambique countryside is rugged and dry, not
that dissimilar to Tanzania although seemingly
on a grander scale. We needed to get a move on
as we still had a long ride ahead of us. We were
aiming for the town of Chimoio. By late afternoon
the day was getting hot and with a seemingly endless
road in front of us Lisa concerned voice came
through over the Autocom “shit, shit, Oh…shit”.
I doubled back to find her pulled over to the
side of the road and inspecting her rear shock
and chain, which had launched itself from the
oily grasp of the rear sprocket and was now wedged
tight in between the sprocket and rear swing arm.
An hour later and with the benefit of simple brute
force we finally managed to get the rear wheel
out from the back of the bike and could porpoerly
inspect the chain.
The
chain had seen better days with half a dozen links
bent when it had jammed against the still moving
rear wheel. Another hour later we’d managed
to straighten a few of the worst links by placing
them under the centre stand of my bike and using
the weight of R1100GS bend them, not pretty but
reasonably effective. Not soon after we had the
wheel back on, the chain back in place and a good
amount of chain lube used. All we can do is hope
it last until South Africa.
The
miles came and went and we soon realised that
we weren’t going to reach Chimoio in daylight.
By 8pm we’d reached the city limits and
by 9pm come to the worrying conclusion that the
few hotel were prohibitively expensive and that
camping was not existent, to top it off we both
had a strange feeling about the place it didn’t
feel safe.
By
9:30pm we’d been going for 16 ½ hours
and didn’t feel to bad and so following
a coffee and a few snacks from our stores we decided
to bite the bullet, take a reasonable risk and
drive on through the night and hope to reach the
coastal town of Vilanculos by day break. This
was a big decision as driving in Africa at night
is a pretty firm no-no and if I said we weren’t
anxious I’d be lying.
The
roads as we’d expected were quite and after
a few more hours only the overloaded ‘unlit’
lorries were passing us. The bright moon often
being the only help in seeing these huge vehicles
without lights. How the hell the drivers stay
on the road in the pitch black is a miracle although
of course often they don’t. The number of
overturned buses and trucks testament to the madness.
As
today became tomorrow the bad road worsened as
verges became softer and sandier and the road
a collection of large holes, an endless gauntlet
waiting to be run. And so it continued for hour
upon hour, a slow careful ride made even more
painstaking as every small bump would see Lisa’s
bike rear end rocketing skyward. Things were getting
exhausting.
Around
3am a freezing fog chilled us to the bone, misty
visors didn’t help and even loud and frequent
swearing wasn't making us feel any better. We
crossed the Rio Save around 4:30am, the toll bridge
attendant couldn’t be bothered to move,
so we coldn’t be bothered to pay.
At
last the end was in sight as our first sign for
Vilanculos came into view and the Sun’s
first warming rays burst through the cold mist
and illimnated the forest to our left and right.
As
7am ticked by we were pulling into the aptly named
Vilanculos Camping right on the beach and agreeing
a price ($10 per person down to $7, we were warned
that Mozambique was expensive). With the tent
up we simply collapsed for three hours and slept.
With pasta for supper we’ve decided to explore
tomorrow. |
