Martin:
Change of plan. Rather than head directly south from the Serengeti and Ngorongoro Crater through Tanzania to Malawi we’ve decided we can’t miss out on seeing the Indian Ocean. On the way we decide to stop at an eco-lodge built upon a cliff top in the Usambara mountains.
By the time we turn off the main road to take the 4x4 route up to lodge it’s mid-afternoon and blisteringly hot in the scrubby desert at the base of the mountain range. We pull over for a short break but when we try to start off again the engine won’t turn over. The starter motor is completely dead – first time that has happened. Thirty minutes of fiddling around with the contacts and it fires. Phew we’re on our way again.
We have the GPS on and find the turn off through a village that we’ve been told to take. A few miles further on our instructions say take a diversion and cross through a dry river bed. We descend down into it and out the other side but fairly quickly the road on the opposite side disappears into bushes. This can’t be right. And there are no tyre tracks anywhere to indicate other cars may have passed by recently. We re-cross the riverbed and find what appears to be a dirt road leading along the bank of the river towards the mountains. Maybe it’s this way now – routes change quickly around here.
We know we’re definitely on an old road, and it seems to be going the right way, but it’s not easy going. There are a couple of tricky descents in and out of stream crossings and then the road begins to climb.
The narrowing track is now steep and crumbly on the edges. Large boulders have fallen down from the cliff above and there’s a sheer drop to the left.
Annemarie climbs out to walk ahead. At one point I have to coax Hector over a largish boulder and I stall. Starting up again the car slides alarmingly towards the cliff edge as the passenger side rear wheel loses grip. I try again – it slips some more. This is getting a little dodgy. I can’t get out of the car because the handbrake won’t hold it. I have to keep my foot on the brake pedal.
Annemarie suggests she takes her phone out of the car just in case she needs to call for help. I hope she’s not envisaging me going over the edge! She puts some large stones under the rear wheel and I try again. It’s just enough to give the car some traction and I’m off again. This time I don’t stop and continue on round a couple of switchbacks much further up the mountain.
Annemarie jumps back in. The road begins to level out and we’re beginning to think the worst is over. Then we round a corner to find a huge boulder the size of a car blocking the road. There’s no way through this time. We’ll have to turn round and go back.
The twenty-point turn is a bit of a drama with only a few inches to manoeuvre in between the cliff edge and the rock face but eventually we’re on our way back down. Descending is a little easier than going up but its now getting dark. Then the rim of the tyre falls along a sharp rock and we have a puncture. The first of our trip and not the time or place for it. We make it to a bit of level ground and change the tyre in the dark.
But there’s a tricky dry stream bed to cross and the climb out of it is just a little too narrow before a short drop. If we slip sideways it’s only a few feet to fall but we could tip over.
We get out and Annemarie starts piling rocks on the driver’s side while I dig out some of the earth bank on the other – widening the space for our wheels. Suddenly, she yells out “Snake!”
“Where,” I say.
“Snake, snake,” she screams.
I’m frozen to the spot – not wanting to move in case the snake is by my feet. “Where is it?” I ask.
“Big … Snake,” she replies.
“Are you sure, where,” I yell.
“Really big snake!” she says. By now she’s scrambling up the ladder and continuing to tell me how big the snake is from the top of the Land Rover.
It occurs to me this is not overly helpful. Then, as I look around I see the back of a very large puff adder disappearing into the darkness beneath the car. It had come from the pile of rocks Annemarie was moving – she’d just had a very narrow escape. Puff adders are considered the most dangerous snakes in Africa because they are sluggish and don’t always move away when humans approach. That means there’s far more chance of disturbing one and getting bitten. If one of us had been bitten out there in the dark with the car stuck we would have been in trouble.
Once we were sure the snake had gone we finished our road repairs and managed to get going again. Managing to get a call through to the lodge they explained that we must have gone wrong at the first river crossing. We should have followed the dry river bed for a few hundred metres and then climbed out of it rather than just cross it. They suggested we might like to camp where were rather than come up the 4x4 route at night – it’s a little tricky. But there was no way now that we were not getting to that hotel – and the promise of a meal and a hot shower. Nothing could be worse than the drive we’d just had.
We head off the right way or rather we nearly head off. Hector’s starter motor refuses to kick in again. It takes a few threats – and a few more minutes of twiddling around beneath the bonnet but finally he plays along and we carry on up the cliff road.
An hour later we’re eating pizza – bliss.