I did the guys in the other truck a massive disservice. They were almost exemplary, and the campground was soon quiet. It turned out that they too were to surface at 0430 for a 0500 breakfast and a 0600 getaway on the long haul to Lusaka. Since they are on a similar schedule and also end at Cape Town, we may be shadowing each other quite a bit from this point on.
The 'long haul' to Lusaka is long in terms of time rather than distance. It has been known for groups to take from 0600 to 2000 to complete the trip. Traffic is not to blame, since there is almost none. Roadworks, or rather huge stretches of started-but-currently-comatose roadworks, are the tediously frustrating culprit. Worse still, for the first three (yes, THREE) hours out of Chipata, we crawled, bounced, lurched, pitched and rolled along a cart track of a service lane, yet alongside was a magnificent-by-comparison, two-lane blacktop highway. 95% finished. It just needed a small bridge here or a storm drain there and it's good to go. Why on Earth traffic isn't using it and fed off & onto it around the dodgy bits we shall never know. I am convinced I could have cycled it faster than Malaika was able. Gary must have been tearing his hair out, given the prospect of a 14-hour drive.
Lusaka. The sudden, incongruous appearance of the capital was, for me, remarkable. A shock. We had spent the entire day bumbling along the regular iffy roads with a few trucks (nothing at all like the volume in Tanzania or anywhere prior), the odd MOT-challenged coach and perhaps twenty private cars throughout. Otherwise virtually deserted. Then, a roundabout. A link to the airport approach road. In moments our road is a super-smooth dual carriageway with private vehicles, most new and sparkling, of every hue and manufacturer, purposefully dashing hither and yon. Full parking lots everywhere. Bustle. It is as though Lusaka has been constructed as a pre-fab city, with all the predictable world 'names' on the hoardings, flown in and dropped into place. A paltry five minutes on the road out the other side and it's back to as you were. Unsophisticated, normal Zambia. Did I just imagine all that?
The 14 hours wasn't. Today a mere 11. I have used the word remarkable quite a few times in my ramblings. Gary is ..... remarkable.
No comments:
Post a Comment