Trip Report #11 (27 June 2009): Cars run on fuel…

While I have the opportunity and before we leave Cobue (pronounced Cob-Way according to the ‘Lonely Planet for amateur phoneticists and travellers’, but probably the best way to explain this awkward word to English speakers) I need to note that I had my first shower in one of Carl-Hein’s ‘gadgets’: solar-jerry-can shower with submersible pump and pop-up shower cubicle the evening before leaving.  Please may I express my sincere gratitude in black and white for a hot replica of a normal shower after my longest stretch without running water – surprisingly Mozambique-ans living along Lake Niassa/Malawi equates the lake with ablutions?! I am officially appreciative for another of the gadgets we schlepped along on this journey :-).

Coffee break in Miombo forest between Cobue and Lichinga

We have jokingly said that Lichinga is like a black hole that, in spite of its severe lack of charm, makes it difficult to escape from.  Can’t exactly recall why this was even discussed before, but with unease it is recalled and repeated this morning. We arrive in Lichinga on this Saturday morning with a tactical plan of distinction.  Parallel details to the market, cell phone shop, Supermacado, bank to exchange currency and fuel station to procure petrol to rendezvous at exactly eleven o hundred for the first stretch to the extremely remote Niassa Reserve. Stumped by: No petrol in the whole of Lichinga and none expected until Monday if we understood the Portuguese correctly.

In desperation we called on Neville Slade – one of the network of contacts provided by Willem Olivier whom we hoped never to have to bother. With his assistance and Portuguese we got 80liters of fuel reserved for pre-paid customers from one fuel station. Awesome, but hardly making a dent towards the 300 litres required to take us through the Niassa and across Mozambique to Pemba.  Hell, who can contemplate roads without shell ultra cities, Engen One Stops or even a dodgy small town lonely petrol pump (we would later understand however).

With the leave clock ticking we regrouped over surprisingly spectacular espresso machine coffee at a dingy petrol station to deliberate and deliberate AND deliberate options.  Rumour had it that a tiny town on the way had bought some fuel on Friday from one of the fuel stations in Lichinga so with a high appetite for risk we headed in that direction choosing to move towards our destination and get out of Lichinga.  But we quavered and when the road deteriorated and the sun started setting shortly after leaving town with no clear plan of where to spend the night and no certainty of whether we would get fuel, we turned with our tails between our legs and headed back to Lichinga to knock again on the door of Neville, Veronica and their son Lawrence for assistance.  [And I thought fickleness was a feminine trait only?!]

We camped that evening close to their home (with Veronica acting as chief negotiator and interpreter with the relevant and eccentric (check the crashed plane he bought, disassembled, transported and reassembled which he displays on his plot) landlord) just outside (phew!) of Lichinga giving serious reconsideration to plans, routes, leave days and fuel constraints. 

Neville and Veronica are both Kenyans working in the impoverished Niassa province of Mozambique to develop commercial and sustainable forestry and eco tourism respectively.  They, along with their menagerie of pets briefly joined us for drinks and input into our planning session that evening.  We blatantly picked their extensive knowledge of local road conditions (appalling at best), local contacts and sights worth seeing. 

And still the generosity and kindness of these complete strangers were hardly exhausted.  I will say this again in the next few posts, but can’t say it enough: Thank you from the bottom of our hearts to the Slade family!

M-L