Five Kilometers to Adventure
Travel Africa by car; go ahead, I dare you. Flat tires and sore bottom from endless dirt roads are guaranteed, and so is a generous load of adventure. During our driving trip to Central America, we had our self-fixed 1971 VW old-timer GreenGo, and in six months it took us to drive it from Florida to Honduras and back, we haven't had half the trouble we are now having with 1997 Toyota Hilux named "Columbus", which is on loan and was supposed to be fixed up by professional mechanics for our nine-country loop from Cape Town.

Funny things have been happening from the very beginning. Loose steering and faulty gearbox are long lost in the dusty pages of history books and will only surface upon our return back to the company which has sold us Columbus. We had small problems every week since. A few days ago, a particularly bumpy stretch of the road made the car sound like it was dragging something behind it. Turned out, a leaf spring was broken. Further investigation, many carefully driven kilometers later, showed that Columbus had suspension parts missing in its rear, which most likely had led to this newest mechanical failure and the calluses on my behind. Columbus underwent yet another session at the mechanic's, and finally, two month into the trip, we got shock absorption. Yey!

Hopeful, but knowing our mechanical adventures will not end with this recent breakdown, we moved on. This was the longest and most boring stretch of driving on our Southern African loop – from southern Malawi to the coast of Mozambique.

Trying to dilute the journey at least with a few interesting side stops, we visited Zomba Plateau to experience high-altitude temperate forest with tree ferns, waterfalls, and orange blackberries we stopped to feast on every few meters.




The plateau had a loop road going through its highest point, and we planned to drive around it before continuing our migration to the coast. We kept climbing, Columbus making heavy though not strenuous breaths. I became nervous as we passed many forest fires, but the guys were quick to explain that the fires were controlled, as much as you can control a fire, and were started by villagers expecting the upcoming rains to turn the burned hills green so they could feed the cattle. We reached an already burned portion. The ground, rocks, and surviving plants were covered with a thick layer of soot and ash. This must have been too depressing for Columbus to see – he began sobbing and then fainted. Knowing what a prima donna our car can be, Shurik and Vova have tried to revive Columbus, but it showed little will to live and remained unconscious. A paramedic with a defibrillator could give us a chance to see sweet Columbus flash his headlights again, but we were high on a mountain, miles away from any villages, with only a few passers-by giving us curious looks. We would still be standing on top of that mountain if one of them didn't approach us to strike a deal. "I go to hotel and bring mechanic and then I charge you." "How far is the hotel?" "Five kilometers." Everything was five kilometers away according to our new friend – the hotel, his village, the river, the moon... "I come back, and I charge you, ok?" "How much do you want?" "I come back, and I charge you, ok?" he answered after a minute of what looked like intense brain activity. Another half an hour of the same discussion did not generate a price tag. We wrote a simple letter for the hotel manager and sent the man off, promising to keep an eye on his cargo - an umbrella and a big bag of celery.

Half an hour later another man came by. He asked what was wrong. "Breakdown," we replied. The man seemed to be satisfied with the answer but didn't leave. He just stood there, looking at us preparing dinner, until I asked what he was doing. "I wait for my brother." Apparently he was sent by our messenger buddy to make sure we didn't revive Columbus ourselves and just leave or, worse, take his cargo with us. This man's company made us feels like we had a guard. Trying to make the best of it, we invited him for a simple dinner of noodle soup and tried to engage him in conversation, but his answer to most of our questions was (you've guessed it) – "five kilometers".

Long after the sky turned as black as the charcoaled plateau, the messenger returned with a mechanic. I gave him all the kwacha we had, though he wanted four times as much, probably because the hotel was farther then the previously estimated five kilometers and he had time to think about his bounty, but that was all I had. The dollars we saved for the mechanic, who quickly confirmed our diagnosis: Columbus had a dirty carburetor. He gave the car an awakening jolt, and set us back sixty dollars the way any respectable doctor who makes house calls should.