The Two Underprepared Mlungu's

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When one man says to another; want to fly to Cape Town, buy a 4X4 and spend 7 months exploring most of sub-Saharan Africa? On agreeing yes, they would normally then set to work really thrashing out the details, the logistics, the task at hand. For this trip however, that didn't happen. Maybe it's because one lived in London working till late in a theatre bar and the other 9-5 in Bath, or perhaps we were too busy putting our all into our final couple of months on home soil. Most likely however is that between Dan and myself the sum total of our camping experience comes from a collective total of 6 Glastonbury's and one night in a field in Farleigh Hungerford with a couple of girls we liked aged 14, and as for mechanical knowledge, there’s nothing but the one time I have changed a tire (in doing so leaving the headlights on, thus making my dad drive an hour at 3am to the middle of nowhere with his jump leads). It might be fair to say we underestimated a few things, plenty of things that haven't come to light yet, but one that has - the logistics of buying and registering a car in South Africa, and mainly the expense involved in kitting it, and ourselves, appropriately for the task of driving from Cape Town to Rwanda, and back.

At the top of the ‘to do’ list was something the pair of us could understand, ‘find and buy car’. In order to do this we hired a car to dart about in, and the car we hired pleased the two of us immeasurably. For those who have seen the movie Three Kings with Messrs Whalberg and Cube and remember the old 70’s Mercs they ploughed through the dessert in, it was like that, for those who don’t, you should watch it its great. It sure was fun, like a big old double bed to cruise around in, but the handbrake didn’t work on any gradient, the entire dashboard with speedometer would intermittently fall out, and the overpowering facefulls of petrol that would regularly hit you weren't tasty or cheap. In fact it was almost the exact opposite of what we wanted to buy. For this what we had in mind was something 4X4, preferably a Toyota. We had done a fair bit of looking on South African Gumtree (I had been told that this was THE way to buy and sell second hand in South Africa) so had a half decent knowledge of what could be bought on our budget. I had foreseen in my head this preparation time in Cape Town taking a good few weeks of looking at different cars, measuring everything up, really thinking it all through and getting the perfect one for the right price. Instead, what happened was that on day three we went to see our first one; a blue 2002 Toyota Hilux KZTE 3.0 Diesel with 156,000K on the clock, which was well over budget, and fell in love with it, apart from the slightly girly light blue. The seller, Paul, who if you were to judge him by his horses, boat, and idyllic home overlooking the coast in the Peninsular, was a well off Afrikaans man who worked on an oil rig, one who was already selling at rock bottom price to be fair to him, he wanted to get it sold before going offshore again. He was a cool, slightly rotund guy who clearly likes a big Ostrich steak and bottle of red, probably nearing his fifties. We liked him, Dan couldn’t go five minutes without referring to him as a ‘an absolute boy’, and this meant we then spent the next few days calling him, and calling him, partly because we liked talking to him, but mainly trying to get him to lower his price further. Something we have both noted in our time here is the way people treat the 4X4, or Bakkie, here, Bakkie being an official word on all paperwork and documents. Bakkie's are a way of life, they are everywhere and everybody seems to have or want one, and people seem to refer to them as if they were lovable children or animals. A tap on the bonnet, ‘good Bakkie this one’. Paul was no different, you could tell he loved that car, a weakness I tried using against him. One of the lines I spun him was that surely he wanted it to go onto some great adventure (I neglected telling him of the clueless hands he'd be handing her to), and even his wife seemed attached for a woman with her own separate 4X4 on the drive. Finally, after three days, probably because he thought we were great guys, but mainly because his next stint on a rig was just two days away, he caved. Pending a roadworthy test and certificate, a complicated UK to SA bank transfer, and us actually being able to summon the cash, she was ours.

A phrase I have heard several times in the days I have been here is 'those things you learn by the side of the road'. My understanding of this now is that it applies to things that you may be forced to learn about one day due to chance or luck - good or bad, and when you do you learn quickly, then and there, and you move on with that little bit of extra knowhow. I'm mainly applying this in my head to the future African roadside mechanical trouble we will undoubtedly face if you listen to the stories of others, that and how to deal with bribe hungry officials. For us so far however, the learning has been heavily trading estate and shopping mall based. For any out there who want the Cape Town locations of window tinters, roofrack fitters, rooftop tent suppliers, mechanics who attempt, and succeed, at ramping up repair work and costs (I didn’t know grease cost that much), roadworthy centre’s, and of course the council civic centre, can come to me. The lesson; who knew that a continent teeming with wildlife, endless horizons and friendly people could boast such an array of trading estates, shopping malls, and mega outlets. But alas these are the places that one needs to visit when planning an overland adventure such as ours, and I am by no means complaining. I have also learned a new outlook on time, specifically African time, someone says 'it'll take an hour' - it takes 4, 'we can do that for you this afternoon' - block tomorrow off, and the classic 'get here for 08:30 if you want that done' - you arrive at 08:30 and then wait for the guy - who turns up at 11:00. Things take time, which Dan and I passed by sitting on tarmac and playing shithead. But these weeks haven’t been all work and no play, I would be deluded, mainly lying, if I said that there were mornings that could have productive that weren’t spent sleeping off what Cape Town offers by night, a Hunter’s overdose, or an Ocean Basket platter, the size of which got bigger on each of the three visits. Something the pair of us also find very hard to resist is a decent pool table, which is exactly what our hostel offered, and we easily lost between fifty and seventy games worth of time in our three weeks of preparation. Then there was club 31, Neighborhood, Café Caprice, Shimmy beach club…..I could go on. None of these exactly necessary, and not exactly ‘TIA’, but we’ll most probably use these places as frames of reference for some profound and well measured reflections on the state of the world at a later date. We did also play the tourist, climbing Lions head for an amazing view of Cape Town and back over Table Mountain, a climb which was not only rewarding for the summit, but for the fact that at the top Dan managed to get a girl in between my legs without her even realising, which you need the photo of to fully appreciate.

By two weeks in Dan and I had become a running joke, in our own heads, but mainly from the mouths of the people that worked in our hostel. We were the guys who were perpetually two days away from leaving, ‘let me guess, you want to extend again?’ they would say with relish. We’d never tell them our plans; always assume the beds we were in were free the following night. But they weren’t, apparently they can be booked, so our favorite game became the pack and move – to a different room, at 10am. All the rooms had names, we liked Fynbos best, Fynbos is a type of vegetation that occurs only in the Western Cape. Three weeks staying in the same hostel makes you feel a little like Van Wilder in a coming and going of travelers, people on business, and strangely, American high-school groups, which the hostel was constantly teaming with. These big groups would stay for up to a week, and sometimes a couple at a time, and could get insulted if you didn’t know what group they were from, ‘you don’t think I’m one of those Minnesota losers do you…..?’, ‘Um. No?’ While we played pool we would listen to the impromptu classes that they would have in the bar area, occasionally learning, but mainly feeling cleverer that 19 year olds. On our penultimate day in the hostel we were in for a treat. The lovely people at Wine Flies, a tour operator specializing in vineyards, came in with some free biltong and vino. The poster advertised it as a buffet with ‘lots of free wine and bill-tong' so you can imagine our excitement. The poster turned out to be an exaggeration, but by the time we realised this it was too late and we were trapped. It was more like a pub quiz, they put us in teams, Dan and myself with three eager and excited school girls, and asked questions for a series of lengthy rounds, some wine related and some general knowledge. If I was in the mood to be honest I would say the schoolgirls did most of the answer writing whilst we hoovered up the few nibbles that were intermittently dropped on the table. The wine did flow, and to be fair it was extremely nice. It’s probably down to this, or an underlying guilt over our lack-luster question answering, that when we were informed that the last round was to be a rap-off with one person from each team performing, I was so quick to volunteer. The rival schoolgirls didn't stand a chance I told myself, my group seemed less certain. We were given five minutes to come up with our preferably wine and South Africa influenced rap, and before I knew it I was standing at the front of forty expectant faces representing team Bafana. What followed went to the tune of the Dr’s classic, forgot about Dre, ‘Ya’ll know me, I drink pinot g…….’ I began, and could later be heard rhyming ‘spent a dime (which I threw in for the Yanks) ’ with ‘glass of wine’. For those who want to see it, Dan made a video, but I wouldn't recommend it. The round was judged by clapping and whooping technique, and the winner remains unclear to this day. There was one thing however that was becoming clear to the pair of us, and this was that despite our gas canisters not being filled yet (a camping thing rather than a euphemism), we were pretty much ready to go. So, with the 'they're putting my kids through college' tears on the hostel owners cheeks drying, on a Wednesday afternoon, which should have been a morning but we ended up sitting in a F-ing bureau de change trying to buy American dollars for three F-ing hours only to not be able to because Dan’s f-ing card got declined again, we set of for Namibia. Well, not Namibia as we left too late, so to Springbok on the South African Side of the border, on the biggest game of pack and move yet.

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