Day 3: Monday 20/06/05

We were up early. We had to drive straight through Mozambique to get to Malawi. Dr Jones lost the car key and had everyone searching everywhere for it. It was found after about an hour of digging through and unpacking and repacking his bag. We had a quick breakfast and said goodbye to our gracious hosts. Emptied the jerry cans into the 83l tank and hit the road.

The scenery definitely improved after Harare. It was stunning. It was mostly green farm lands with granite mountains, baobabs and little mud hut villages everywhere. we arrived at the border early enough, got our passports stamped and were ready go but the stupid morons at the gate wouldn’t let us pass without a police clearance (that we know you don’t need to have when travelling through Zim) eventually we had the local piggies down there trying to sort it out.

We saw 1 guy who arrived there after we did, also without the correct documentation leave and Dr Jones ran to ask him how he managed that. Corruption!!! Those arseholes took a $50 bribe. (United States dollars) so Dr Jones flipped out in front of the local pigs and this accusation did not make the guys at the gate any happier. We were not about to bribe these guys either. Dr Jones had it in his head that we’d just drive back a km or 2 and drive up to the fence cut it open and drive across the border that way, we already had our stamps, then drive to the gate and pull zaps at those guys cause they cant do a thing to you once you’ve crossed over to the other side. Fortunately Bush Pig sweet talked the rotten rubbishes. All Dr Jones had to do was apologise for his disrespectful behaviour for them to let us leave their wonderful country. This little delay cost us 2hrs driving time. After going through the gate we tossed them a poo sarmie… I for 1 will not go back to Zim.

Because we were held up in Zim we were behind on time. We drove through Mozambique via Tete where we had to make a quick fuel stop. We didn’t have any of the local currency (kwacha) with us and when we paid in rands they tried to rip us off by giving us a ridiculous rate. We filled up and Dr Jones just gave them a poo sarmie and what we owed them using the proper rate and we drove off hee hee. At the border post (going into Malawi) we met up with Chris (the guy who bribed those Zim guys) and he told us of a country club we could stay at in Limbe.

It was almost sunset and there’s no way that you can drive at night in an African country. There are just too many obstacles from people and animals walking in the road to pot holes. It’s definitely not safe. But we had no choice plus we got lost but we made it and that was the first night we pitched our tents and camped. It was 20 degrees outside that night. Wow! It’s just crazy thinking that we did 4 countries in 3 days. We had dinner at the restaurant and a couple of Carlsberg’s to wash it down with. The meal was cheap. It wasn’t amazing but it was late, we were hungry and we didn’t bring anything that we could braai with anyway. Bush Pig and j-lo weren’t quite as tired as the other 2. We were like little kids who didn’t want to sleep and it was past their bed time. We laughed and joked and giggled till we decided to have another drink and talk shit for another hour, then go to sleep.