The back bench and the two small seats in Kijani were removed to provide more space for packing. On the 1st of September I turned the key and set out on a journey of more than 5700km down to Cape Town. The instability in the North Eastern province of Cabo Del Gado in Mozambique meant that I had to travel at least 500km extra. The roads in Zambia and In Mozambique were equally bad, but with the dangers of sharing the road with a lot more traffic in Zambia, and also needing to cross more borders made the option to go through North Western Mozambique the preferred option.
The first night I spent at a place called Namtumbo. I was looking for a place that I had seen on Google Maps, but when I was asking for directions from a lady at a restaurant she told me I needed to be at Samaria Guest house. I had a quick look at the place and soon realized that she was absolutely right. (Ask for Tembo room or Simba room if you ever end up there.)
Mozambique
The next day I crossed over into Mozambique where I spent 2 days in my old stomping grounds near Chiconono. The vast forest areas that were characteristic of the area when I first went there in 1996 have been replaced by fairly large villages, and the small village of Juanjotta is now a fair sized town with electricity. I visited for nearly two days and returned to Lichinga to visit friends whom I haven't seen since 2002.
The covid restrictions in Mozambique only allowed me to travel until 9:00pm at night. I don’t have very good lights on the vehicle, and I seriously advise people against driving after dark, but the bad roads over the next 1100km made it very difficult to travel during daylight hours only. The constant shaking and dodging potholes had its toll on my body, and after about 10 hours on the second day I had to stop because of motion sickness. (The Ricoffy I had that morning in Mocuba probably didn’t help either.)
I spent the second night with very good friends in Gondola, and rested for the first half of the day as my body was still reeling under the punishment of the previous 1100km.
The road down from Gondola to Rio Save was also quite broken up, but fortunately not as bad. I spent the night at Inhassorro and the set off from there at 4:00am the next morning, after setting off the intruder alarm. That night I crossed the border at Komatipoort 20min before the Mozambique Curfew kicked in. Friends of ours who had been pastoring a Church in Komatipoort, arranged accommodation for me with friends of theirs.
The road South Of the Tanzania / Mozambique border. The new leaves on the brachystegia family of trees come out in a variety of colours, from orange to a very deep reddish brown before they all turn green.
South Africa
The well paved roads of South Africa brought very welcome relief. I chose to deviate from the toll road and went through the mountains south of Barberton. I passed to the south of Johannesburg near Soweto. I was 50km from Carletonville when the engine began to run very roughly. I couldn’t stop for safety reasons, but then about 2km further there was a small army of traffic police who were pulling random cars of the road. A raised hand signalled me to pull over, and for the very first time in my life I was very relieved to be pulled over by a traffic cop. They wanted to check out the trailer's details, and after they were happy to determine that it wasn't stolen, I was able to look at my engine, I discovered that one of the injector pipes was broken. This meant that the engine was only running on 3 cylinders and spraying diesel all over the place. I drove the rest of the way to Carletonville and made the necessary repairs the next morning. On Saturday 11th I set off from Carletonville with Kijani running smoothly again. My goal was to try and get as close to Vredenburg as possible, so that I would not need to travel too far on the Sunday morning before the service.
I managed to get to Calvinia by 9:00pm. The next morning I left at around 4:00am and drove as fast as I safely could under the circumstances.
I arrived about 20min before the service started. I was able to get a nice cup of hot coffee and calm my nerves after 320km (200 miles) of rushed driving.
The service was very special, and I was able to introduce myself on behalf of my family. I could give through information on the work that we are doing. It was also special because this fairly small congregation had taken us in as their first missionaries without ever meeting us. I spent the night with my friends who are pastoring the congregation, and caught up on 17 years of news that had transpired since we last saw each other.
On Monday I drove the remaining distance down to Kendal Road in Durbanville where we had lived for the previous 6 years.
It had been 12 days and approximately 5700km of driving. I was the only driver, but I was never alone. God had been with me every step of the way.
Kijani getting a very necessary wash after the worst part of the dust roads had been left behind.
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