Travelling for one year today!!, and loved every minute of it.

 

I cut Garry’s hair outside in the back yard and hacked it to pieces. Lisa - what is the secret? Just as we were finishing, it went from hot sunshine to pouring down. Carrie came home on a half day and her mum came round. She’s a good lady and works for the Helpline. We talked to her for ages, whilst watching Carrie, with amazement, as we created the image of her stiff life on to a plain piece of paper. The thunder and lightening exploded all afternoon and shook the house.

 

Carrie invited her Mum and Dad to come out to dinner with us to celebrate our leaving. We all went to the Chinese restaurant at Rocky street. Had a lovely meal while their strange Dad talked like a voertrekker all evening.

 

They paid for the meal though, so we let him off. Got back and after the parents left, talked for ages.

Hurray Hurray!, the car is ready. We have to collect it at 10am. Just before we left to go the phone rang and Wiggel said, “by the way, we’ve taken your radio cassette and put it in one of our trucks”! You can imagine our reaction as we told him we were taking it home. Eventually, as he didn’t want to give in, he arranged to put it back! Met the mechanics in Landy at the corner it didn’t look like they had done much work on it, except the new windscreen.

 

We drove straight into town and again used my well worn Amex card to get some more travellers cheques in case they wouldn’t let us into Zimbabwe with such a lack of funds. From there we went to the East Gate shopping centre and wandered round the white mans luxury boutiques and coffee shops. Just as we thought we’d never find presents for the girls, we found all 3 within an hour. Green candles and dried flowers for Dessie, a wicker basket with lace and dried flowers on top for Carrie and mauve earrings and necklace in chunky wood for bold Jo.

 

Couldn’t find anything for Trevor so we gave him 2 police tapes of ours that he liked. Records and tapes are so expensive here because of sanctions. When we got back I started wrapping them up and Jo found out and was so curious the whole house was excited. It was when they started whispering and locking their door I started to worry - this was supposed to be our surprise to them.

 

Garry cooked a nice salad and pizza with pasties as well. He set it all out nicely and gave us all a glass of wine. After eating we gave them their pressies and they appeared with the same for us. Dessie gave me two cute china animals and me a pill box with S on top. Jo gave us a novel by a South African writer with a lovely earthy poem about the natural beauty of Africa in the front, and Carrie, bless her heart, gave me a leather purse and her pencil portrait of her and Des with a photo of Jo. I was so touched by this generous act; I harped on about it for ages.

 

We were just mellowing out quietly, Jo was asleep on the coach and Carrie was painting the mad hatters tea part in heaven, when Trevor and Luke arrived with “hire a party”, 20 people all dressed to the nines. It felt a bit awkward as we were so relaxed and they were raving. The crowd stayed an hour and then went to a night club. They wanted us to go out with them but we couldn’t afford it. Luke and Trevor and Wallace stayed longer and then went out. Staying goodbye to everyone was strange, I feel like I’ve known them for years.

 

Later Shaun came round and stayed talking to us for a few hours till it was quite late.

AND WE WERE ON THE MOVE AT LAST!

 

Jo woke us up and we got ready to leave the same time they did for work. Said our farewells to these good friends. I hope we’ll meet again some day. Took a photo of them as they left and then said goodbye to, and took a photo of Evelyn.

 

Drove the 500klms to the border town Messinen, stopping only once for lunch. We arrived at 5.30 and bought pasties for dinner. There was a caravan site there, where we stopped for the night. It was nice to leave the town again. Even at 6, the sun was sticky hot so we sat in the shade. I had a bath to cool down then cooked dinner. A beaten up car pulled in next to us with a couple and a teenage boy. We were saddened to realise that they’re leaving here with no tent and even their bedding was just on the roof uncovered. They’ve probably just arrived from Zimbabwe looking for work. Not the place to be for a poor white man.

I woke up in the early hours and heard it raining and couldn’t stop thinking about that poor family next to us sleeping under the stars.

We arrived at the border with Zimbabwe at 8 and were cleared easily, although our visa had expired 3 days previously. Had to help a man fill in his forms as he couldn’t write - a sin to the government here.

 

The Beitbridge border was another story altogether. The buildings were in a shambles and there was a long queue at customs. It was a hectic rush and when we got outside realised we didn’t get a declaration form. They’ve run out of them! I hope that won’t cause problems on the way out.

 

We drove straight to the bank to change money and it was 11.01. They had just closed! The manager there told me, unbelievably, we could change money with any garage, shop or hotel! So we went to a hotel that couldn’t do it but at the garage we filled up, using Rand. Stopped at the next town where a hotel manager kindly changed at the bank rate and even gave us a receipt.

 

We drove through the splendid green fields with stone rounded smooth rising high from the ground before passing through some craggy hills. Gave a white guy a life, who we had seen at the border post, he had walked a long way in the searing heat. Stopped for a snack in a café and sat outside. It was so refreshing to see whites and blacks enjoying each others company after SA.

 

Decided to go for it, and drive all the way to Harare today. Arrived there at 6pm and went to the shops to try to find some strong boxes to pack our things but to no avail. Grabbed a bite at the Crazy Pool burger bar then went to the campsite we were so familiar with. The guards remembered us and welcome us. The 2 SA coloured were still living there with their kittens. What a way to live.

And Harare made us welcome by raining as usual. We couldn’t cook breakfast so decided to try the hotel that the New Zealanders recommended for a slap up brekkie.

 

We waited ages and when I sat down to eat felt sick, all of a sudden, so it was wasted. Garry enjoyed his though. Filled up with diesel then set off. A new day and a new country such globetrotters as we are.

 

We were both worried about getting into Zambia with our SA stamps and also getting out of Zimbabwe with no declaration form.

Saw giant mounts of elephant poop in the road and then saw a great beast was calmly eating a tree just by the main road. It made my day. Late there was 6 or so around a garage and people waling about as normal.

 

Drove non stop the 400k to the border and arrived at 3pm. First stage, successful they didn’t even ask for our currency form - must have slackened up regulations. Now the biggy - Zambia - I had forgotten just how friendly the Zambians are. The customs officer was chatting away to us and stamped our passports without looking, but then he starting flicking through and found them. We tried changing the subject but he asked how long we had been there, we told him and it was fine. Ah such relief. They didn’t even search us, after we had meticulously hidden every trace of South Africa.

 

Drove the last 150k to Lusaka, a town whose time is sadly past. Some modern office blocks remind us of its former glory but the pot-holes and empty shops tell the real story. We drove straight to the airport as we wanted to sort out our unaccompanied baggage as soon as possible. The only airways office open was Air Zambia, they explained that its a fixed price to fly from here to we’ll go British Airways - patriotic as we are!

By this time it was 6.30 and we found out there’s no campsite here, so drove to a hotel we saw earlier. They had a live band playing so loud that the receptionist and I shouted to each other half a dozen times until I heard - it was fully booked.

 

The only other hotel in our price range was really out of it at $80 a night, but we had no choice. It was very nice and Garry was over the moon when we saw a 24 hour video service in our room. He watched one film before dinner and another one after. I made the most of a lovely hot bath with bubble bath.

After breakfast we checked out and went again to the airport. We found BA’s cargo departure, a lovely man helped us so much, he even gave us packing boxes, we packed all our treasures and were amazed when we weighed everything that only one box had to go as excess. He got it cleared through customs and said he’d look after it for us till Saturday. We gave him some books to thank him.

 

We then went back to town to pay for our tickets but it was closed so will hopefully be able to do that in Kitwe.

 

Drove non-stop from 1pm to 6pm to Kitwe on a fairly good road. We found Watch Tower, by getting instructions from a garage man - he said “you’ll find them easily, you know the way they put signs up everywhere bragging about how much money they’ve got, Oh yes, say a prayer for me”, as he said we found it neatly manicured down a quiet road.

 

We walked into their reception expecting to be greeted with open arms in gratitude and learnt that the man dealing with us wasn’t there. No-one knew anything about it, and even when we explained we had just driven all the way from SA to bring them their new Land Rover, they weren’t impressed. Garry was close to blowing his fuse, so I took over and eventually they rang him at home and said we could stay in their guest room.

 

It was an awful experience to meet all these perfectly dressed and so god-dammed puritanical, with a permanent smile on their faces. We were told we could have some dinner and was escorted to the dining room and given some horrid meat and rice.

Escorted back to our room, we hid until Winston arrived. Garry told him all about it and when I got there I was just in time for the finish of their prayer meeting and all at once 80 people introduced themselves to us. A few whites were there and they seemed most eager to talk to us. In fact, Tanya and Roger invited us for a cup of tea in their room. They’re South African and because she is pregnant will have to leave the Bethal as families aren’t allowed.

 

We were soon on to the subject of religion and Tanya showed me their magazines and explained that every congression all over the world has a set timetable, down to the smaller 5 minutes debate. She was so reassured by this but the thought frightened me. We left them after an hour or so. I think this is going to be such a difficult week.

We were called for breakfast after everyone had finished and escorted again to the dining room. Garry found Winston and waited for him to go to the customs office. The man was at a funeral today so that was the start of a beautiful relationship.

 

Instead Winston took us to the British airways office where we booked our flights home.. How exciting, if all goes well, we’ll be home on Sunday! We had packed our bags as we thought it best to leave our friends untouched by our blasphemy!

 

The only problem with this theory was the run-down Hotel Edinburgh, which cost $77. Garry went to the only other hotel in town, but was more a brothel than a hotel, so dear Winston invited us back for another night at the Bethan instead of a brothel.

 

They were very sweet and said we could stay for 3 days while we were doing business with them. They gave us the little rondavol, which was perfect, with a brand new bathroom in it, and surrounded by a pretty garden of orange and lemon trees among others.

 

Tanya came over in the afternoon and invited us to Bible ?????????