PJ Part 5 – Uganda… We Made It!

After the brief ferry ride, we managed to navigate our way through immigration and customs to enter Zambia. One item we did not have, and that would become a point of contention during our next few border crossings, was a police authorization letter. Apparently, we were supposed to go to a police station in South Africa and get a letter stating that PJ was not a stolen vehicle. We got asked for this letter at three different border crossings for Zambia and Zimbabwe and thankfully we were able to plead ignorance at each one and they finally cleared our vehicle. These two countries will also send out an officer to check the car and make sure the license plate and VIN match your paperwork. This was by far the most thorough inspection at any border up to this point, but thankfully all of our paperwork matched. PJ – we hope you aren’t a stolen vehicle, but if you are, please keep it to yourself!

We cleared Zambia customs and bought third-party insurance from some dodgy agent outside the border, fully intending on buying new, legitimate insurance in Livingstone with an extension to cover us for the rest of the trip. It was a waste of $12 but it got us out of the border quickly and saved us during a couple police check points.

After spending a few days at a laid-back hostel in Livingstone where PJ rested, we packed up and started to leave, but there was one problem… PJ wouldn’t start. Great! Turns out the battery was dead but thankfully another overlander in the campsite had a portable battery and gave us a jump to get us back on the road. We assumed that it had just drained from sitting for a few days and didn’t think much of it. That would prove to be a false assumption.

Other than a dead battery and some border issues, PJ gave us no other problems throughout Zambia and Zimbabwe. The roads in Mana Pools National Park required some 4×4 driving but nothing PJ couldn’t handle. After some more 4×4 driving in Zambia on the way to Southern Luangwa Nation Park, we were across the border to Malawi.

We spent a whole day driving south through Malawi, constantly hassled by police and forced to adhere to very low speed limits. We were getting close to Mulanje and passed through the town of Blantyre to fill up before the last hour to our destination when we ran into some trouble. We had heard some news about protests in Malawi, but knowing they were politically motivated and not targeting foreigners, we weren’t too worried. Of course, it was just our luck that protests and riots had started that afternoon in Blantyre. Halfway through the city, it turned into mayhem. Cars were driving towards us on the wrong side of the road to get away from the disturbance. Pedestrians, noticing our skin color and foreign plates, were yelling at us, only sometimes in English, to go in all different directions to get around the disturbances. After a few wrong turns, we were stuck in traffic when a well-dressed Indian man pulled up next to us in a new Toyota Hilux.

Nicely dressed Indian man: “Where are you guys going?”

Us: “Mulanje.”

Nicely dressed Indian man: “Ok, follow me.”

And just like that, we pulled a U-turn and took off after him. We were speeding through small backstreets and alleys and twisting our way through the streets of Blantyre – Coons felt like Jason Bourne. Sadly, our good fortune came to an abrupt end when two women pulled up beside us, despite oncoming traffic, to tell us we had a flat tire. Our hearts sank. Not now! After signaling to our navigator (we later learned his name was Nadeem), we pulled into an alley where we were immediately swarmed by children and a few adults.

One thing about Africa is it’s very difficult to actually do anything to your car by yourself. People always come over and start helping, whether they know what they’re doing or not. So we were relegated to the sidelines while Nadeem and others swarmed around the car to change the flat. Back on the road, we immediately noticed the tire was wobbling and feared that something else had gone wrong. We drove to a service center where Nadeem’s mechanic, Kasim, stopped by to make sure nothing was wrong – it wasn’t – and after refitting the tire, we were finally on our way. We would see them again on our way back through Blantyre as they helped us grab a new spare tire.

Malawi was also where our battery really started to give us issues. We were able to start our car by linking it to the secondary battery that ran our fridge if we were just parked overnight, but if we were in a location for longer, both batteries would be too drained to wake PJ up. We found this out the hard way in a hostel parking lot on Lake Malawi. No one in Africa seems to own jumper cables, but they’re more than happy to pull the battery out of their car to replace with yours to get you started. After swapping batteries, we decided to start disconnecting the battery every night so it would have enough juice to get us started. This strategy would persist until we made it to Uganda.

After Malawi, we had to cross western Tanzania from South to North in as little time possible to make it to Uganda for our volunteer position. It took us two and a half days of near constant driving, but we were able to wild camp for free both nights and made it to the Uganda border uneventfully. After one of the most difficult border crossings (paperwork wise), we noticed one of the other tires was looking a little flat. The tire gauge confirmed. We still had a couple of hundred kilometers until Kampala, so we pulled out the inflator, filled the tire up, and kept on going, stopping every so often to make sure it was still holding.

The final injustice struck us once we got to Kampala. We had spent the first four months in Africa in the heart of the dry season – we hadn’t seen rain in months. Uganda was a different story. It rained like clockwork, morning, afternoon, and evening. This was an angry rain, as if the sky was getting rid of the water as quickly as possible each time. It was here, in Uganda, that we were made aware of the leak in our sunroof. What started out as a minor drip turned into a flood once we reached the hostel. Unable, and unwilling, to deal with it after seven weeks of driving, we booked our first room since we left Johannesburg, grabbed a beer at the bar, and decided to deal with it later. Our windshield wipers were shot, the battery wouldn’t hold enough charge to start the car after a couple of hours, we had a slow leak in one tire, needed an oil change, and oh yeah — there was a lake of water in the driver’s side. But we had made it.

Limping over the finish line, we had made it to Uganda.

The next morning, we went to Uganda’s version of Jiffy Lube and Tire Warehouse. We got a new tire, new battery, new windshield wipers, and an oil change. We made sure at least one of us had an eye on PJ the whole time — we’re sick of playing “what did the mechanic steal this time” after we get our car back.

We even managed to use the compressed air to clear out the drains in the sunroof. A few rainstorms later, we were confident we would stay dry. In much better spirits (which would be slightly dampened by the ticket/bribe/extortion from the local traffic police) we headed to Lugazi to start our four-week volunteer stay.

Johannesburg to Lugazi. Eight countries, seven weeks, just under 7,000 miles, and only four trips to the mechanic. Not bad PJ, not bad.