We Made It To South Africa!!

Blog posted by: Aly

Well the last four days have been spent entirely on the road – we’ve been getting up early and arriving late; had to make a few changes in routes along the way and we’ve been to 4 countries in 4 days – wwwoooaahh!! We hadn’t planned on doing this much continuous driving but between border crossings, police road blocks, animals crossing the road, pee breaks, and other unforeseen obstacles, we haven’t had a choice. We’ll make it to Johannesburg by Sunday and then we’ll have some time to relax. Although it’s been a ton of driving, I must say we’ve seen a ton of beautiful countryside, met some great people and mastered the immigration process – clearly an important accomplishment... We’re all excited to finally see some soccer matches and be able to stay in one place for more than 10 hours!
Here’s a quick recap of where we drove each day – the others may add some thoughts later, but for now this will do!
Day 1
Dar es Salaam (Tanzania) to Makambako (Tanzania) [750 Kilometers]
Tuesday 15th 8:30AM – 7PM
We started driving a few hours later than expected because Willy’s trip from Nairobi took much longer than we all thought it would – he was driving through the entire night!!! When the van (Stan) rolled into the parking lot at Jen’s place, we were all waiting by her gate with our stuff packed and ready to load – we were so antsy and couldn’t wait to finally hit the road. Poor Willy barely had time to go inside before we were off! As soon as we left Dar I felt a sense of relief and a weight lifted off our shoulders that had been building up over the weekend. That’s not to say we don’t have a huge haul ahead of us; it just felt good to get going. Willy’s a great driver and we all feel really safe with him. Danny even took over for a couple hours and did wonderful, even in first gear driving up the mountain! I’m still embarrassed that I grew up on a farm and never learned how to drive stick… I’ll blame that on my brother and dad. Thanks guys.
Other than the giraffes and baboons along the side of the road (it was like our own safari!) the drive was pretty uneventful through Tanzania. We barely stopped at all and didn’t make it as far as we had anticipated; pot holes, speed bumps, and random officers pulling you over tend to slow down the time a bit ;) We stayed in a nice little guest house in a small town, had a hot shower, and one toilet seat to share between the three rooms – we couldn’t have asked for a better place!!
Day 2
Makambako to Lilongwe (Malawi) [1050 Kilometers]
Wednesday 16th 5:30AM – 7:30PM
Today we wanted to maximize our hours on the road so we took off bright and early. We had Stan packed, fueled up, and on the road by 5:30 – still pitch black outside and not even a hint that the sun was going to come out. It finally popped up around 6:45 – still a few hours from the Tanzania/Malawi border. The last part of our drive through Tanzania was gorgeous. It was beautifully green, with banana trees all about, and small towns scattered through the countryside. It’s been my favorite part of the drive so far. It was so jungley and lush – I loved it! Crossing through the borders is something we’ve all been dreading a bit – between making sure everything with Stan is okay in terms of registration, insurance, etc., as well as getting each of our Visas and being able to do it in a reasonable amount of time. The TZ/Malawi crossing was relatively painless until the man at the immigration counter on the Malawi side said he had to go to a quick meeting (2 minutes he said) with the big boss – we tried to talk him into stamping our passports first – EVERYTHING else was already finished! He left… and 25 minutes later we were back on the road – hah. We drove along Lake Malawi for a large portion of the drive and it was beautiful – we’re planning on coming back here and staying a few nights on our drive back – but who knows, considering how well our plans have held together thus farJ! The people here have been the nicest and we’re excited to come back!!
Day 3
Lilongwe to Chimoio (Mozambique) [800 Kilometers]
Thursday 17th 5:00AM – 5:30PM
Today was a little rough – we’re tired of this driving thing and aren’t getting quite as far as we’d hoped. Plus I don’t think we’ve eaten a real meal – thank god for all the snacks we brought along with us. We got to the border around 6:15, and everything went pretty well… Mozambique hasn’t been all that pretty, the people weren’t as nice as in Malawi, and it’s pretty expensive. But, their beer is good, and their roads are nice. Jen heard that the beaches in Mozambique are the best, and that Maputo (pretty far South) is awesome. Our plan was to make it there by Friday evening, spend all day Saturday there, and then drive to Johannesburg on Sunday. We arrived in Chimoio and needed an oil change on the car – we wanted to get it over with today so we don’t have to worry about during our precious driving time tomorrow… next time you get the chance try figuring out how to ask where you can get your oil changed in a Portuguese speaking country… between the six of us we were throwing out some Italian, Spanish, French, Swahili and English and then the few Portuguese words from the back of the travel book (why would they NOT have the translation for ‘oil change’!?!?)! Anyway, we found a place and they had just closed; just our luck. Jen begged, and Tago (Tiago) hopped in the car, took Willy to the place to buy the oil, came back and changed our oil – he was our angel for the evening!! While the boys were figuring out the car, the four of us girls walked across the way to the supermarket and picked up a few bottles of wine – turned out to be a great decision. (But when is that not!?!?) We drove around looking for a place to stay for a while, and in desperate need of food. We never got our food, and instead ate the PB & J from the back of our van, watched some soccer, finished the wine, and did some major discussing about the route we had planned. It turns out that the road from Chimoio to Maputo is not a well kept road at all. The people Jen and Danny had talked to told us our plan was a bad one, and if we did drive to Maputo we wouldn’t spend any time there because we would have to wake up early the next day in order to get to Johannesburg by the time we need to. With Jen’s dreams of Maputo crushed, we decided to take the alternate route through Zimbabwe down into South Africa.
Day 4
Chimoio to Messina (South Africa) [600 Kilometers]
Friday 18th 5:00AM – 5:00PM
Another early morning for us!! Maybe it’s because it had been hyped up so much, but we all agree that Mozambique sucked! Plus they tried to charge us another $75 for road tax at the border (we already paid $125!) Although we only drove through, we all really liked Zimbabwe. We stopped in a little town and ate some lunch (our first ‘real’ meal in 4 days – it was heavenly!)… and the roads were all pretty good. We made great time, passed through the South African border fairly quickly – they’re definitely the most efficient of the countries!! And then we drove to Messina – we didn’t think we would be here in time to watch the USA match, but we made it for the second half!! We were actually able to sleep in today, which was GREAT! It’s a relatively short drive to Johannesburg now… we’re thinking that we’ll split it up into two short days, and get there early tomorrow. There we’re meeting up with Blake, and our good friends Andrew Engel and Jason Koch. We’re staying in an apartment between Johannesburg and Pretoria for 6 days and going to our first World Cup matches – we can’t wait!!