see the sights. However we nearly pulled the plug on the whole thing when we saw the state of the vehicle that pulled up. "Ah, our normal car is at the mechanics receiving a service". Alarm bells were already ringing, African cars are seldom repaired, let alone serviced. Aborting the tour would mean having to rearrange it for tomorrow and we really couldn't be bothered hanging around for another day. So we decided to give it a whirl as we squeezed into the cab of the 'bakkie' truck, a kind of canopied 'ute'. It turned that the 'vehicle' was the loan car from the mechanics, which seemed to fit the bill, as it looked like only a good mechanic could get this thing started. Surprising it started first time, but little did we know that this would be the final time this vehicle would start in the conventional way for the rest of the day, and hopefully, for the safety of the other road users of Bulawayo, it won't start for much longer. Not a lot of things seemed to work in this car, the suspension was gone,the steering was all over the place, the exhaust hanging off. If this car had been a family pet, it would have been put down years ago. Unfortunately this is all pretty much par for the course out here. But the most wonderfully unique quirk of this car was that the passenger seat (the one shared by myself and Andrea) was missing it's platform that fastens itself to the car's floor, and in it's place, propping up our seat, was, incredibly an ancient, hardened cob of corn. And yes, we do have photographic evidence. I know Africans use corn for many purposes, but in my experience these purposes are generally of the edible nature. Every time the driver hit a pothole ( as the steering was dodgy) we felt the full force of the impact (as the suspension was gone) and then this force being transferred to the cob
sent hardened corn kernels flying all over the place as if we were being shot at by a sniper. If this hadn't have been so funny we would have been terrified. We were half expecting to find popcorn around our feet. We'd occasionally try and get a glimpse of the speedometer to see how fast (or slow, as the first and second gears didn't seem to have any power at all ) we were going. Of course this was wishful thinking as non of the dashboard dials worked. In fact the only other thing working in this car apart from the maize shock absorber (which for the record was rapidly running out of kernels) was the clock. I was even a little dubious about the accuracy of this clock as time seemed to be passing very slowly in this death trap.To cut a long story (and even longer afternoon) short, we had to push start this heap of junk at the park entrance, the war memorial, the rock art sight, Cecil Rhodes' grave ( which should ha
ve also been the resting place for this vehicle) and then the 'museum'. However, the push at the museum required even more effort for our rapidly tiring bodies, as not only did we have to push the vehicle up hill, over exposed tree roots, on a gravel road, we now had the addition of a flat rear tyre to contend with. 'Spare tyre?' you ask, of course not, we were fortunate to have actually started with 4. So there we were trying to push start this car, and every time we got it started, it would splutter along for about 100m and then cut again. Another push start and then another 100m. After the 4th or 5th time it was getting quite boring and we gave up squeezing ourselves into the front seat and instead we just jumped into the back of the truck, which seemed to do the trick as this time we actually made it back to the main road. So we are driving along in the most unsafe, unroadworthy car ever......but this time on three tyres and a rim. It was absolutely hilarious, the noise was deafening but we could still hear our laughter over the grinding of metal against bitumen. We actually made it a few kms along the road before the car just gave up and we came to a stand still. As I mentioned earlier, mobile phones are everywhere (so far) in Africa and mobile reception coverage is ever present.....except in this national park. Our 'guide' told us he would run up to Rhodes' grave on top of a substantial hill. Rhodes' resting place is called 'World's View', and as you would imagine the 'great man of African colonisation' didn't do things by half, and a little thing like passing away didn't get in his way. He was laid to rest on top a remarkable outcrop of rock, strewn with huge spherical balancing boulders carpeted in bright lime green lichen with an amazing 360 degrees views of the sweeping landscape below. So high that a lightening conductor is placed there. This is where our man had to run to phone for help. Needless to say we waited by the side of the road for 4 hours without seeing him again, with no real idea of what the plan was, if indeed there was one. Just as we were considering eating the scattered corn ker
nels (primarily to pass the time and secondly as a source of nourishment) our guide showed up, just after dark, with the mechanics and their slightly more road worthy vehicle. A quick tyre change, some tinkering under the bonnet which actually allowed the car start without a push, and we were off again. We stalled again going up too steep an incline. We started again after another push but we didn't get far before we ran out of petrol. More pushing then to get the car to the side of the road, out of the way of the big trucks that were flying past us. By this time we were over pushing this vehicle and the sound of our laughter seemed like an ice age away. At last we were back on the road again. We thought riding in this car was scary during the day, however during the night it was terrifying. Definitely in the top 5 scariest rides off all time (and some of the top 5 include small aircraft in electrical storms and demonic horses hell bent on breaking the world land speed record on an African beach.) White knuckled and white faced we made it 'home' and drank a bottle of red wine in record time, no top 5 contender for the fastest, but THE fastest ever. Ah, Matopos National Park, such a memorable day out.
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