Thursday, February 22, 2007


7 years since we left Africa and this little thing didn't even know how good life was, that was until Uncle Bob messed things up. We had been running the buses fairly full up until the BBC and The Daily Telegraph reported that the British Embassy had been shut in Harare. Wrong!!!! the ambassador had just returned to London for one week to report on what was happening and then they reported that Mugabe had said that Whites were the enemy of the sate. He actually never said that but while all this was going on, reservations were canceled and very few bookings were made. End of an era!!! Ruth and I packed up the house and Doo Doo our wonderful maid sold all our belongings outside the house to anyone passing and made a fortune for all of us. $5000 Zim dollars and that was before inflation!!! I then had to drive the three of us in our little Fiat all the way down to Cape Town. In the buses it was always fairly frenetic trying to keep the passengers happy and comfortable while trying to keep to our time table of 24 hours door to door but in the car it was fun. The guys at Plumbtree border control were all very unhappy to see us leave, probably because their income of bribes was about to drop dramatically but in all sincerity they were upset. Then we drooped into Francistown to say goodbye to a few chums before rolling down to Mafeking in SA to stay at the Crocodile ranch we had used for three years as our breakfast and dinner stop for the passengers. I stopped a few times to take photo's of places we had been driving past at 100k per hour in the buses. One memorable one is of a sign post that said "No Fences" and underneath it said "Stolen" When I get a scanner I will share it with you. Joanna slept nearly all the way (Two days solid driving). Now whenever she gets in a car all we have to do is turn the engine on and she's asleep.
We arrived in Cape Town to a very warm welcome form the guys at Carnaby who looked after us for nearly a week before we departed for Heathrow.
So here we are 7 years later and Joanna has grown into a little lady playing the guitar she got for her Birthday.
More to come soon

2 comments:

ExAfrica said...

Aww Stu - got tears in my eyes. Yeah - they'd miss those bribes ... but they'd miss the jokes, the laughter, the friendship and all that, too. No one knows what it's like, do they.

Single and Happy said...

They will definatelly be missing the bribes now poor things