DAY 11 – THE ROAD GOES ON AND ON AND ON AND ON

The Kitty and Dani are losing their sense of humor with the elusive Inflatable Mattress Puncture as we patched it up for the second time and still woke up on the floor. Grump.

With Manda and Dani feeling slightly dazed from the previous nights activities but Kitty in high spirits we piled up camp and crossed over borders back into Zambia easy peasy. We’ve learnt that politeness and respect goes a long way in dealing with border crossings to the point that Mary Poppins herself couldn’t be prouder. The Carnet du Passage is also a green card into Africa. Border posts love that. Sorted.

Zambian roads are like soft fudge that has melted into tar Scale Electrics. They ripple and bulge and pucker and bloat and it’s almost near impossible to avoid a scrape or two. We’ve learnt to read the road and tyre skid marks are a good indicator that potholes follow shortly after. Tertius has been a trooper though. He now has a buncha bugs on his grill and has been sticker bombed by other Put Foot teams but still dashes like a silver bullet through Africa (Affrrriiccaaaaaaahh!!!!). He also boasts an “I Heart Zambia” sticker on his behind. Nice. 

We enjoyed a cheap lunch at a roadside restaurant; flame grilled chicken with nshima and chips. Kicked the hangover in the bum and we were off again. Little did we know how disastrous the next 12 hours would be.

We usually try to find campsites before the sun goes down so that we avoid travelling at night and also because it’s nice to set up camp in the daylight, but after four failed attempts at near non-existent campsites we were forced to drive through the 750km to Chipata. The road was tricky and used by plenty of trucks that like drive like drug cartels in getaway cars. Passed a couple villages and truck stops on the way that were drunk with lights and vibey music on their Saturday night.

Our drive / navigate / nap rotation system worked well. We arrived at 1am in the morning and crawled into Pine View Guest House after spotting a cat-raccoon-rat-squirrel-cat, a man juggler and quite possibly what might have been the Tokoloshe. Grumpy and tired we set up the tent and passed out.