Swaziland...the horror....

(Our cottage by day)

It was Monday, I felt almost over my cold/flu (passed it to Kim) and we planned to get going early to see a few sights before arriving nice and early back at the Klipkop Reserve so Kim could catch her 11pm flight home to Canada that night.

And the car would not start.

No matter what we did, how we tried to clean out water from the engine collected during last nights drive, nothing would happen. There was no instruction manual or toolkit with the car and we were 12 km from phones, electricity, clean water, food etc...we were a bit freaked. We found a cottage cleaner and begged her to call a mechanic. After first telling us he was away she relented and told us to patiently wait. African time is not time as I know it. 6 hours later, after boredom, no toilet,no food, little water, spiders and sun, a trinity of mechanics turned up. After money, work and time they diagnosed it was the hijacking prevention/car disabling custom job playing up and we just needed to reset it. We angrily noted to ourselves how it would have been nice to be told about this feature of the car and how to reset it or be given a manual before we were rented the car but anyway...'Thank God' the mechanics told us to do.

We were on our way, got a bit lost, ended up in a busy market, got guided out for a fee by a taxi driver, were on our way again when the car started shaking. Just a bit. Kim was getting quite worried about her flight as it was 6pm and we still had the border crossing and a 3-4 hour drive after that. We went smoothly through the border back into South Africa, it was dark, the car was shaking more and more and then with a crash, the bumper came loose, followed shortly by sparks and a side panel of the car which tore the front right wheel down to the inner tyre. $hit. We were stopped hundreds of kms from home on a deserted highway with scenes saying 'Do Not Stop!-Crime Zone'

(Our crew assesses the damage by the side of the road while I helpfully document this for posterity)

A terrified looking motorist stopped by us for 2 seconds, thought it was a ruse to shoot him then raced off. Our hazard lights did not work 100% (The uno was dying) The ancient wheel brace, the worn down nuts and my puny arms meant we could not get the damaged tire off. Then 2 cop cars turned up, alerted by the scared motorist. They escorted us to a service station in a cesspool called Carolina, South Africa. A town of trucker stops, beady eyes and security cars everywhere. We vainly tried to find a mechanic, while Kim (sucessfully)changed her flights. The cops stayed around for a while 'You are safe so long as you do not move from this spot' I went for a quick recce and quickly darted back to the car...there was no street lighting at all and too many unfriendly faces and shadows.

We got hold of our Reserve whose staff started the 2 hour drive towards us as we hoped the service station did not turn off its lights. The cop cars took off leaving me the lone male to protect my herd.

At 10ish thankfully the reserve staff turned up with the right tools to rip off the tire. They got the car driveable, heard our tale of woe, then with us all piled in their Mercedes, we did a tandem 160-170km breakneck drive back home. We got there 12pm, its 212AM now as I sit typing this horror down.

I think our guardian angels got hazard pay tonight

Well off for the next few days to an off site bird sanctuary for some restful tending of injured owls and feeding of raptors. Will catch up after that.

Manfred.