Comically Good Luck

It has been about 2 1/2 hours at this point. It's completely dark and we have no means of communicating with Dan or Jon.

Finally a car drives up in the same direction we're headed. I flag them down. "Have you seen our friends?" Sure, they're with us. People come streaming out from every direction of the car. Finally, Dan and Jon emerge.

JP:
While I tell Mellissa and Katy the story of our last few hours, Dan, Ryan, and a number of guys we rode with start changing the tire. As a gesture of goodwill, we offer our pit crew beers which they devour in a matter of minutes.

RS:
The man I would learn to call Prince Daniel soon takes control of the situation. He grabs the tire-changing kit and starts to remove the flat tire. He embarrased us with how quickly he was able to erect the jack, and in the dark no less (so that's what that extra piece to the jack was for . . . Oh, I get it . . . ).

Dan and I help as Prince Daniels places the tire they had borrowed from a car they had found up on blocks at Mr. Mhongo's camp. When we start to tighten the lug nuts, we realize that this tire is a different size than the others; the lug nuts don't fit completely flush against the wheel. It's pretty close, though, so we think it should hold until Chelinda.

Now, about that gas. By the time our second tire went flat, I think it was pretty clear to us that we were very unlikely to make it to camp on the little amount of diesel we had left. The gauge was on empty so our only hope was that the gauge was wrong.

So Dan negotiated with Prince Daniel for us to use some of the diesel they were taking up to sell at the Chelinda camp. Prince Daniel was very accomodating; he didn't think twice about letting us use it.

So, in a matter of seconds, someone retrieved a 25 liter container of gas from the back of Prince Daniel's truck and Prince Daniel jury-rigged a plastic bottle into a gas nozzle.

We also developed a plan: Prince Daniel and his crew would follow us the rest of the way to Chelinda to make sure we got there alright. The next morning at 9:00 a.m., he would find us to reclaim the tire. We were to get another 25 liters of gas from the Chelinda camp and give it to Prince Daniel in repayment for the amount he let us use. Prince Daniel also told us about a pilot at Chelinda that makes a run to and from Mzuzu everyday. He suggested we find the pilot and ask the pilot to pick us up a tire in Mzuzu.

And just like that, we were back on the road.

Now, let's review. We were stranded on a dirt road in the middle of a seldomly touristed national park without a tire and without enough gas to get to the nearest town that might have a tire. Jon and Dan happen upon a group of workers who are heading up to the camp we're trying to reach with the purpose, in part, to sell the extra canisters of diesel they're carrying. They take Jon and Dan to a garage near the Nyika gate where they find a car that's similar to ours up on blocks with a tire to spare.

In the middle of nowhere we came across a group who had at their disposal an extra canister of gas and a spare tire to fit our car. That's pretty good luck if you ask me.