Wednesday, August 17, 2016

Main Camp, Hwange National Park, Zimbabwe

It was a day of driving and a short period of great worry.

We drove down to Bulawayo today in Josh's camper and got the gas cap. We found taillight lenses and also a tire pressure guage. When driving in soft sand, of which there seems to be a great abundance of here, you want to lower you tire pressure by almost ½. We have compressors with guages, but both of the guages are broken, so we had no real way of telling when it was right or when we had pumped them back to the right pressure when we got back to better roads.

We managed to make the whole trip with no tickets. We passed at least 10 roadblocks and all but the last time were waved through. The last time they didn't ticket us or anything.

So we got a pressure guage. We had looked for one in Kasane and Victoria Falls with no luck. We found one in Buawayo. But, it came at a price.

I have a folder full of papers, one is vital to traveling in the camper around Zimbabwe. The police ask for it at stops. I had taken the folder into the parts store where we got the lenses because it had the Land Cruiser model information and, after being distracted about paying for the items, left it on the counter. I didn't discover it was missing until we were nearly back at camp – 3 hours later.

After much anquish, one of the ladies at the registration office called the store and verified that they had the folder. We then made arrangements for a friend of hers to drive down tomorrow and get it. I will pay him $100 for that. It would have cost us about $50 in fuel and another whole day of driving. It would cost him much less in gas and the $70 or $80 he would make is about a month's pay around here for many.

Hopefully, by tomorrow evening I'll have the papers back.