Tuesday, September 22, 2009

More Car Trouble

When it was finally time to say goodbye to our beloved village of Chihota, we waited...and waited...and waited. Apparently our taxi driver was operating on African time because he showed up over 4 hours late. But, when he finally arrived all was well, and we took off for Harare...and by we I mean 25 people plus luggage in a 15 passenger van. Again, this is Africa, and that's just how they roll around here.

I kid you not, we got about 3 kilometers down the road when we heard a loud "pop!" Yep, our tire burst. I'm going to go out on a limb and say that cruising with 10 extra people didn't help that tire much. So, we got out to assess the damage, and I asked the taxi driver if he had a spare. His response: "No, this has never happened to me before!" I had to laugh.

So we waited as the taxi driver tried to jack up the van.

It took 45 minutes and a handful of people just to get the tire off.

When they finally got the tire off, one of the guys rolled it back to the nearest town.

Out in the middle of nowhere, and with no spare, I was pretty sure that we were looking at a 4 to 5 hour wait. So I just chilled and played guitar on the side of the road. But, to my shock and delight, within just a couple hours, the tire was patched back up and we were back on the road and headed to Harare. African travel is always an adventure!

2 comments:

Breuer Adventures said...

Deja vu!

Adam Cramer said...

Yep! This was Paraguay and the infamous trip to Villarica all over again! Good times! :-)