After finding a bank that accepted Mastercard (again, mental note: bring VISA to Africa) we took to the road again enroute for Chimoio, our next stop before Vilanculos and the Bazaruto archipelago. A word of warning for any potential overland travelers of this route; for the last few years the roads have been under reconstruction from Tete all the way through to the EN6 near the township of Inchope. Don’t let small patches of great tarmac fool you! From Changara which sits just less than 100kms south of Tete through to Cantandica is severely potholed and mashed road surface. Although we were told that a full 180kms of road was in need of dire repair we experienced on around 100kms of this to be true and if you plan enough time and drive sensibly then you should have no trouble. With Helga (our ’83 Toyota Landcruiser) we hit an average of 30-40km/h through the bad sections. From Cantandica onwards we had no trouble.

Once successfully navigated through the tarmac holes our destination was The Pink Papaya backpackers and campground in Chimoio. We promptly discovered that three years ago the government of Mozambique upped the licence costs for owning a campground. After talking to a number of locals it appears that this price hike has put the majority of campgrounds out of business and those that used to offer backpacker dorms and camping have been forced to drop camping  from their list. This was the case for The Pink Papaya. Good old Lonely Planet, even after a reprint about a year ago they still manage to miss the details! Even still, the Pink Papaya had great dorms and the people are lovely. We shacked up for about AU$12 each per night which is the going rate for most dorms throughout the country.

We have recently found that there exists a second Pink Papaya campsite, about 90kms North of Chimoio and is known as The Pink Papaya Overlanders Camp. From here you can experience the pink papaya forest walks and we are pretty certain that camping is still an option here. If you are traveling North, it sits a few kilometers East from where the Pungoe river crosses the EN102 highway.

On a mission to meet our friends in time at the Inhambane airport in Southern Mozambique, and also in part to escape the fuel crisis stricken Malawi, we crossed the South Western Malawian border through the town of Mwanza (no, not on the Tanzanian banks of Lake Victoria!) and landed in the Mozambican town of Tete. The city itself leaves a lot to be desired, as it’s primary purpose is served by providing a stopover for heavy laden cargo trucks. We quickly checked out the primary campground in Tete which is located left of the Zambezi bridge as you drive towards town. Just looking over the fence was enough for us. A ramshackle shed sat in the centre of a hard, dry dirt yard with scrap metal piled in the corner. Although it does have prime real estate on the banks of the Zambezi, we weren’t all too keen on leaving Helga out in the open in such a dodgy looking area with no security.

We took off, crossing the mighty Zambezi for the first time, with the toll only costing us around AU$0.40, and zigzagged through the dusty side streets until we found a potential campsite. Originally named the ‘Zambeze’ the bar/restaurant/hourly rental accommodation had hints of Spanish influence (which makes sense, seeing that Mozambique was a Portuguese settlement), and the gardens were kept immaculate. We were allowed to pitch our tent next to the pool, under the shade of a towering tree and as the sun sank and the day slowly disappeared we swam laps in the rather shallow pool drinking grande Manica beers, planning the next week’s journey that was to take us on towards Tofo Bay.

Picture it: Its the 4th of November. It is early morning, the sun is just starting to stretch into the sky, we are perched atop one of the most stunning mountains we have ever seen and our Landcruiser is stuck.  High up on the Zomba plateau in Southern Malawi we have switched off Helga’s engine andpopped the hood. There is no smoke or steam but the temperature gauge is teetering dangerously on the line. Over the last few days we have been listening to a slight knocking sound coming from the engine bay. At first we assumed it was the front grill which had lost a screw and was tapping on the radiator brackets but after Ben maticulously pulled bits from the engine and around the radiator he found that the radiator fan, if tilted up and down (when the car is off obviously!) would move in ways that it really shouldn’t. This could only mean one thing: that the water pump bearings were on their last legs.

The day before, we had driven up the plateau and after getting hopelessly lost at the peak with night rapidly approaching we rolled into a disused trout fishing farm and bargained with the groundskeeper who for a few kwacha to let us sneak in and camp, just until first light. Given Helga wasn’t overheating too much and didn’t seem to be losing any water we escaped from the trout farm before the owner arrived the next morning and started down the hill. It was hear, 2kms down, that we switched off the engine.

Popping the hood revealed steam and after letting the engine cool, we realised the bearings in the water pump (connected to the radiator fan through a series of cogs) has melted together and ceased working. It is amazing that no matter where we have had car trouble in Africa there has ALWAYS been someone willing and able to help us out. At this point two men wandered down the hill, assumingly heading to work or into the town of Zomba. They offered to fetch a mechanic and ran off down the hill in search of one. Four hours later, after a group of mechanics had removed the water pump in front of a growing crowd of onlookers and returned from Blantyre with a brand new replacement, we were on the road again. Albeit the brand new part cost us a fortune and after dishing out small sums of money to everyone that had helped in the process, our wallet was hit heavily but ‘Helga’ had never been in better shape.

Moral of the story? Look out for that wobbly radiator fan.

Its been just over a week since we crossed the Kasumulu border from Tanzania into Songwe on the Malawian side and we had hit problems. After a blissful five days camped up on the Mushroom Farm away from civilisation we have driven down into a major issue. The entire country of Malawi has no diesel. With half a tank remaining and two empty jerry’s on the roof we have only just made it from Nkhata Bay, lakeside on Lake Malawi, into Lilongwe. Out of the previous four service stations we’ve driven through, none have had any diesel and only one, a small BP station on the outskirts of the capital, has mentioned that they may receive a small supply in a weeks time.

We spent the next few days relaxing and sitting out the fuel-less days at nature camp with Jan and Trevor (check out their 4×4 blog on our links to the right). Apart from Ben having thousands of fire ants running up his legs and having to rip off all his clothes in front of everyone, our time has been fairly eventless. That is until we had a tip off from a local that a big fuel station in the centre of town was receiving a delivery of diesel that same night. This was yesterday, and not letting any time waste we climbed into Helga and made tracks for the station, hoping and praying to the fuel gods that they were in fact getting a shipment, as our diesel reserves probably would not get up back to the camp.

The sun was low yet still shining when we rocked up to a chaotic mass of trucks, motorbikes, and 4×4s in the hundreds cramming to fill up on the liquid gold. Katie took the aggressive approach and weaseled her way into the middle of what looked like the queue while I ripped down out two 20L jerry cans and stuck it out in the separate queue for those with containers. But the pumps weren’t pumping, and the next hour and a half was more of the same. As the sun dissapeared the crowd of at least 200 people with containers and jerry cans started to get restless and several arguments started at the front with what looked like the station owner. It wasn’t until the police pulled through the crowd, armed with Ak47s and one with a rifle, that the flow of fuel began. As we both edged closer to our turn on the pump the police began rationing at 20L per person. A few of the locals advised us that the rationing is because  the majority of the locals with containers were taking the small amount of fuel they could scavenge and selling it blackmarket style in the city at inflated prices, once the reserves had dried up again. Not a problem for us, but just as we managed to get both of our 20L jerry cans filled, at just past midnight… the power cut out. being Malawi there are no generators and no alternative to the automatic pumps, so we were done. What remaining fuel we had in the 4×4, combined with the 40L we managed to score should safely get us to Zomba in the south, where we are hoping to find another station with diesel to help get us to Blantyre. Here’s hoping.