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.

Good Luck and Godspeed

So we blew our second tire of the day no farther than 5 km inside Nyika. Just as we started to celebrate our good luck and look forward to getting to camp, our car fails us again. This time we've got no spare. We've got just about no gas. And we've got about an hour before the sun goes down.

The good news is that we're not all that far from the gate. Maybe they have a radio or something there.

We all get out of the car to inspect the tire. Sure enough, this thing is flat.



The only sensible thing to do is split up and look for help at the gate. If we run, we can probably make it there and back within the hour. So we decide that Jon and Dan will go the gate while I stay back to keep an eye on the womenfolk.



Dan and Jon take off with fleeces, a bottle of water, and two head lamps. Katy, Mellissa, and I stay behind with the car. Dan and Mellissa have cell phones that they've been using in Malawi, but the battery on one is drained and there's no reception to be had out in these parts. Dan takes the operable cell with him but we've got no way to communicate with each other. Mellissa, Katy, and I will just have to wait . . .

JP:
So Dan and I start back to the park entrance, where we entered the gate by the small village. It's about 4:30PM, the sun set the previous night around 5:30PM. We realize we need to pick up the pace if we want get there before it's dark so the two of us begin a cycle of running and walking, running and walking (running the flat and downhill, walking the uphill portions). I don't know how fast we were running nor how much distance we covered but it took us about 40 minutes to get back to the gate, stopping to talk to some guys working at a little construction site (weren't able to help) and waving hello to a bunch of kids asking, "give me my money!" [DY: JP clearly had previous trail running experience. I could barely keep up with his clip.]

As you would guess, the person at the gate was rather surprised, maybe more perturbed, to see us again so soon, especially on foot. Dan proceeds to explain our situation and she responds by telling us the following:

1. There is no phone line
2. There's a radio but it's turned off, we can turn it on but it won't be of any benefit since they've turned off the radio at the other end
3. There's a lady in the village with a cell phone we may use but we'd have to negotiate with her ...
   

Brilliant! Within minutes, we find this lady with the cell phone (which she keeps in her cleavage) and the gate guard explains to her in a local language why two azungu are asking to use her phone. The peanut gallery of villagers that has formed around us finds this absolutely HI-larious but she agrees to walk with us 1km down the road to where her cell phone receives a signal. But before doing that, she sends a young girl to fetch her coat. Meanwhile ...



RS:
Katy, Mellissa, and I are having a grand ol' time of, well . . . you know . . . umm . . . sitting on our arses waiting for Dan and Jon to return. Actually, it was quite relaxing. We sat in the car and chatted it up. Now, I can't speak for Mellissa or Katy, but I was completely convinced that we'd be spending the night in the car. And this was just fine by me. We had food and water with us as well as all of our clothes. No one was around to bother us, so I was sound as a pound.

About a half hour after Jon and Dan left, we spotted a truck coming down the hill back towards Rumphi. We quickly brainstormed about what to do. Ultimately, we opted not to call attention to the fact that we were a separated bunch of five azungu in an expensive 4-wheel-drive vehicle with all of our stuff in the back who were positively stranded in a remote section of Northern Malawi. We let the truck pass us by. We figured, apart from not wanting to advertise our vulnerability, they really had nothing to offer us if they were heading in the opposite direction of where we needed to go. Plus, with a plan in place, it didn't seem smart to deviate without means of communicating our audible to Dan and Jon.

We'll just wait right here . . .

***

JP:
Alright, so Dan and I are waiting for this lady's coat to arrive when a truck pulls up and stops at the gate as a number of people spill out of the back of the truck. Not confident with our plan of walking down the road with the cell phone lady, we cruise up to the truck to see where they're heading when we meet Prince Daniel, the one in the group who speaks the best English. We discover that they're going to Chelinda lodge, exactly where we're going, so Dan explains to Prince Daniel our problem and he agrees to help, telling us to hop in the back and they'd take us back to the car, we'd just need to make one stop. (I was relieved, at one point, Dan said I might have to go back alone, in the dark, back to the car to tell the others what's going on and that he would stay there to figure out how to get a tire.).

Dan and I jump into the back with about 7 or 8 others, one of whom is pregnant, sitting on bags of something and cans of diesel fuel (did we tell you that we were also running out of diesel?).

The stop we make is to Mr. Mhongo's residence, the park director, who lives just inside the gate down a side road. Mr. Mhongo emerges from his brick home dressed like Dr. Huxtable. After a few minutes (I think they were there to drop off his mail), Dan is summoned by Prince Daniel to speak with Mr. Mhongo. I don't really know what was said since I was still in the back of the truck with the others but basically, Mr. Mhongo said, your problem is my problem. These are the events soon after:

1. Return to the gate to locate local mechanic(s)
2. Head back towards Mr. Mhongo's home to a garage area where they remove a tire from a truck that was up on blocks for repair
3. After loading the good tire in the back, we set off towards our stranded vehicle

So after about 3 hours away, it's now dark, the moon is out and you can barely see into the woods, we finally make it back, pulling up to see Ryan waving us down ...

Blown tire . . . #1

Leaving Lilongwe, once the dense fog cleared,
driving became much easier

JP:
Maybe we should think of a better title for this post, it really just gives it away, OOOOOO!, what's going to happen, a blown tire, I'm shocked. It's like J.K. calling Book 7 something that gives away the ending. Why even continue reading?

Well, you continue reading because you want to find out how it happens, at least that's our hope with our blog, to tell you about our adventure, not just what happened but how it happened. So let's begin:

It's Tuesday morning in Lilongwe and we're off to Nyika. The plan for the day is pretty simple, drive from Lilongwe to Nyika, a few hours in the car and we should be there in no time.

Except, we hit a little bump in the road (only figuratively). Cruising along on the "tarmac"
__________
Sidebar: Things we learned about motoring in Malawi

1. The paved roads are called "tarmac"
2. The roads are used by motor vehicles, bicycles, animals and pedestrians! (no sidewalk and not much of a shoulder) which makes driving at night dangerous, everyone really needs to "share" the road
3. Traffic lights are merely suggestive

OK, back to the post.
__________
So we're cruising along the tarmac when we suddenly experience a bit of a jolt and a kulump kulump kulump sound, I don't remember if anyone said anything but I'm sure one of us said "What the @$&#*???!!!" probably Dan, who did a wonderful job controlling the vehicle as it fishtailed before coming to a stop, Pandretti was very impressed.

The reason behind the blow out, who knows, I think we'll just chalk it up to Africa. [RS: After looking at photos of the blown tire, my brother said it looked like a retread, but who really knows. I sure don't.]

Fortunately for us though, we have two ND graduates, a fine institution in many respects but mainly because of the core requirements for graduation which include:

1. Swimming, all ND grads have to pass a swim test;
2. P.E. for freshman;
   
3. Changing a flat tire (aced it!); and
   
4. Foosball

Changing a flat, no problem. After about 45 minutes (all you had to do was pass, no grades were handed out), we were back on the road. If you don't believe it happened, here's our proof:

Melissa and Ryan enjoying the weather

Blow outs look the same in Africa as they do back home

Melissa, Pit-Crew Chief
Dan and Ryan, Jackmen
Jon, Airgun guy sans airgun