Ask anyone who has ever done field work in rural Africa what is the most important piece of equipment and I suspect every time the reply would be a 4×4 truck. Now, one might assume that such a statement has an implied “solid” or “good” or “sturdy-isque” type adjective put in front of 4×4 but that would just be silly. One rule of thumb when buying a truck for the bush is to make sure nothing is electronic that does not have to be – meaning no security alarms, automatic windows, transmission or any such perceived luxury that would be preferable in town. Sand, terrain, and the punishment offered so generously from the area quickly sheds any illusion of the usefulness of these extras. And if one was really smart about it the two brands of choice out here are either Toyota or Land Rover.

Yesterday morning, similar to the past few mornings, we went with crossed fingers to get our Isuzu truck started. Automatically unlocking all four doors at once and turning off the automatic security alarm (a requirement to start the truck), Luke tried to start the engine to no luck. Arno, part of the management at the lodge was also outside tinkering with Luke and Jg about the engine to try to get it started. I stayed out of the way. The fiddling went on for a good thirty minutes until one became nauseated by the smell of fuel anywhere within thirty feet of the truck. We were already late for the meeting we were supposed to be at when an executive decision was made that if we could get the truck started into Katima (the main population area for the area) we would go to get the truck looked at…It was about this time that Arno went and pulled his Land Rover round to the front of the Isuzu and hooked it to the back of the Land Rover. It was a slightly amusing, if frustrating, sight to see him pulling the Isuzu along behind in an attempt to get the engine up and running – for whatever reason a rolling start did it for the Isuzu and we were off and running. For fear of the engine never starting again we left the truck going while quickly grabbing camping gear in case we stayed the night in Katima…

…we made it to Katima in the afternoon (after attending the meeting we had scheduled) and found out that indeed we would stay the night. We camped at a place called the Zambezi River Lodge which sits literally right on the Zambezi. Now, the campsite was quite nice but the whole lodge area is under construction – thankfully though the day was ending when we arrived so most of the hammering and banging was at a standstill. We unloaded gear and then Luke and Jg took the truck to drop it off in town leaving me to guard all the stuff…it was only when they returned that poor Jg discovered he had done a brilliant packing job managing not only to NOT bring his sleeping bag but didn’t grab his sleeping pad out of the back of the truck. That was a minor blip considering it gets cold at night and it gets even colder at night when sleeping 30 yards from the river. But we got the tents set up as the sun was setting over the river. After settling in we were enjoying the peacefulness and beauty of our surroundings when all of the sudden a collective blaring of voices was heard over yonder. It became readily apparent that a gathering of some sort had started and what turned into a religious revival did not end anytime soon. So much for the gentle laps off the river and sounds of birds and insects all around. For the most part though the camping was nice – Jg made it through in one piece with Luke loaning him his sleeping pad and layering himself with every possible article of clothing he owned. Truck is ready to go today – hopefully the problem is fixed, fixed (as opposed to just sorta fixed) and we can move on to doing those things that might be called research.

This entry was posted on Saturday, May 31st, 2008 at 9:29 am and is filed under Africa 08, travels. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.