Road Journey From South Africa To Kenya

By Dr.Paul Bundi Karau

Day 1: Johannesburg, Botswana.

 

We landed in Johannesburg at 12 midnight, and waited for 6 hours to catch the next flight to Gaborone. 

Sir Seretse Khama International Airport is less busy and less imposing compared to our own JKIA or OR Tambo in Johannesburg. It resembles our Kisumu Airport. The staff were welcoming and jovial, and nobody questioned our reasons for visiting their country. We were to learn over our day long stay in the city that this is a contented and peaceful nation, enjoying plenty, and they have no hint of disatisfaction or suspicion over foreigners. 

A note on history; Botswana comprises chiefdoms which became a British protectorate. One of the famous chiefs was Khama, Chief of the Bamangwato, and Mashoeshoe, Chief of the Tswana. The founding father, Sir Seretse Khama, and his son, the 4th president, Ian Khama are scions of this heritage.

On Thursday 20th we visited a number of government offices to seek clearance for our journey north. We were met by smiling officers at every turn. In one police station, the police officers were so friendly we wondered if they actually enforce the law.

Our silence in the police station was shuttered by screams of agony coming from one of the rooms. I enquired what was happening. Apparently, some thieves were being caned. Punishment is rare, but swift and brutal. Throughout the journey, my sister-in-law Betty and my wife Winnie Saumu kept on reminding us to behave well otherwise we would receive some canes.

We bought huge metal jerricans to stock fuel along the vast Kalahari stretch. We were told that we could drive for over 1000kms without a fuel station.

At times, we worried what would happen if we got a tyre burst or brake failure in the middle of nowhere.

But again, in a journey, as in any journey of life, there are assumptions to be made:

1. That all will go well

2. That whatever obstacles you encounter are surmountable.

3. That you will somehow find help even in the middle of nowhere.

In life, if you wait to be fully prepared for a journey, you will never begin. It pays to trust instincts and start and face the music.

So, on Thursday 20th October 2022, at 7pm, we left Gaborone enroute Kazungula border. Distance: 1000km. We were determined to conquer the entire stretch in one drive. We were warned that while there were no bumps and the road was straight, cows or elephants on the road were a real danger, and could bring our journey to a grisly end.

I was at the wheels with my brother as the co-driver. His main task was to spot cows or stray elephants, while mine was to maintain speeds of 120-150kph.

We were later to learn that our goal was overambitious.

Day 2: Gaborone to Francistown 

I was at the wheels when we left Gaborone at 7pm on 20th October 2022. We divided our roles: I was to drive, my brother Muriira Karau was the co-driver, while the ladies at the back were to help spot elephants and cows crossing the road. My sister Betty Nkatha was to prove the most reliable co-driver and instructor along the entire 4000km journey.

We quickly attained the agreed speed of 120kph, and left the quiet and sparsely populated Gaborone behind us. The highway had no bumps, but had multiple warnings about animals.

Within no time, some of the passengers were snoring away, no doubt exhausted by the overnight flight the day before and the long and hot day around the city doing clearances.

We passed hundreds of kilometers of what looked like desolate land, with the highway so straight I could see several kilometers ahead. Our only companions were heavy duty trucks which we passed at break-neck speed.

We came across a police check-point which had one lane closed. Instead, I maneuvered by a side road and stopped where the tall imposing officer stood. He greeted us and declared he was charging us for passing the stop sign. Apparently, we were supposed to stop where the sign was, and he was to walk 200 metres to where we should stop. We muttered our apologies, and added we were visitors and didn't quite understand the signs. He forgave and wished us a safe journey.

We had quickly covered 500 kilometers when I noted my co-driver had gone silent. Only Betty remained active, and she engaged me in small talk to avert sleep. By that time, my speed had reduced to a mere 80kph. I felt my vision getting blurred, my head heavy and my thinking clouded. I tried to remain steadfast, but in a short time, I was driving in the middle of the road.

We thankfully reached Francistown, and we all admitted our goal of reaching the Kazungula border, another 500km was far-fetched and unrealistic.

We circled the near-deserted city looking for signage of a hotel. After a few rounds, we came upon a noisy club with youths streaming in and out in pairs.

We stopped one of the pairs and asked about a hotel nearby. They pointed us to City Inn, which we easily located.

I threw myself into the bed and blacked out. It was 2.30am Friday. We had agreed to wake up at 6am to continue the journey. Again, we had overestimated our stamina. 

Dusk broke so quickly we didn't believe it. My muscles were sore. But most importantly, our spirits were high and none among us at any one point thought of giving up.

My deep sleep was rudely disrupted by a hard knock on my door at 7am. Muriira was up and ready to go. 

We began the smooth drive across the vast and picturesque Kalahari desert.

Day 2 cont'd: Francistown to Kazungula, onwards to Lusaka

On the morning of 21st October 2022, we woke up sore and tired, but in high spirits. We had planned to set off before 6am, but 7am found us in bed. We took off without breakfast. For those of us who get headaches on skipping the morning cup of tea, it was a torrid day.

My brother Dr Muriira Karau was at the wheels. We came up with another strategy. Since we agreed the two men would be the drivers along the way, whenever I was not driving, I would sit at back left and take a nap if needed. My wife would instruct Muriira, while Muriira's wife would instruct me. Winnie Saumu is used to my driving and would rarely criticize me for some mistakes, and the same to Betty and Muriira.

Our early morning view of Francistown is that of an organized city, with wide streets, clean and well paved. It has modest buildings. Botswana has no shortage of space, so wide gardens and empty patches punctuate every city and town. It has almost no bodabodas, for I saw none along the entire drive.

Soon, my brother was hitting speeds of 200kph, thanks to the clear streets, good markings and sparse traffic.

For hundreds of kilometers, Kalahari desert spread ahead of us like a grass canvas, with short shrubs and thorn trees interspersed with grasslands. There was little sign of life, although we passed cows grazing lazily along the roads.

We sighted ostriches crossing the road, and in one instance, a massive elephant stood next to the road. 

The main feature we enjoyed was the mountains of anthills, which we nicknamed the Anthills of the Savannah, after Chinua Achebe's book.

The baobab trees were a sight to behold. Once in a while, we passed villages or townships, possibly planned by the government to enable people live together. Each has a school, a government station and a water supply.

After 4 hours of driving, the mighty Zambezi river, calm and majestic, lay before us. We passed rows of trucks and immediately knew we had reached the Zambian border.

The suspended bridge is well done, and we were told it was completed a few years ago. Before then, small ferries used to assist vehicles cross the wide river.

There were several agents jostling to help us clear with the customs on the Zambian side, and we settled on a guy called Chanda. Apparently, almost everyone in Zambia has a name starting with CH.

I presented the vehicle documents to the Botswana customs.

"I'm sending you back to Gaborone because you are missing an important document." The lady declared in a matter-of-fact manner.

"Which document, madam?" I enquired, a little rattled.

How do I know that this car will get back to the owner once it gets to Kenya? She asked.

"Ok. Please help me. It was an oversight on my part." I pleaded. 

She agreed to help, and stamped my documents, effectively clearing me.

The Zambian side was more complicated, as bribes were demanded at every step. Our agent, who evidently knew the guys at Zambian customs, did the necessary. I heard the police officer at the Interpol desk complain that the two hundred Kwacha he was getting to clear us was very little. The agent took me aside and asked me to plead that we had no money left.

The fellow dumped the documents onto our faces and left us. Moments later, the agent followed him behind some buildings. An agreement had been struck. He cleared us quickly.

We wanted to take tea to sooth our throbbing heads, but the border point didn't seem to have any cafe.

We imbibed on water, soda and biscuits, and the occasional packet of milk. Saumu Mueni took on this role with gusto, but within a short time, she declared we had taken too much sugar and would henceforth serve us only water.

With my brother still at the controls, we turned south east and started the dash to Lusaka. 

The change in landscape was dramatic. From now on, we encountered villages made of small grass-thatched houses. We wondered how many people could fit in one. The toilet consists of a square structure made of grass. On the road, bundles of grass for roofing and making toilets were on sale. Another change we saw were the sacks and sacks of charcoal for sale on the road.

The roads were still good, and soon, we entered Livingstone City. 

Perched on the highway to Victoria, Livingstone is a historic city named after the famed missionary doctor, David Livingstone. 

The city is clean, well manicured, quiet and therapeutic. I have read lots of work about David Livingstone. I felt like I was reliving this history.

We stopped in the next town called Choma, perhaps the Kenyan equivalent of Naivasha or Mwea, and we spotted a Steers cafe, where we decided to take tea. It was 4pm.

Day 2 cont'd: Onwards to Lusaka and Kabwe

Zambia has a vast countryside, and the road to Lusaka from Livingstone is well paved.

There are endless bushes and shrubs, and the people there clear bushes by burning the vegetation. We passed hundreds and hundreds of kilometers of recently charred bush. At almost every corner, there were sacks upon sacks of charcoal. Long distance lorry drivers coming from Kenya or Tanzania buy charcoal on their return journeys.

Zambian villages have small huts made of mud and grass thatches, with no fencing. The toilet is a makeshift structure ringed with elephant grass with no roof. 

One of the wonders we encountered on the road were speeding lorries with loads covered with canvas. Perched on the loads would be a goat, evidently not restrained by any rope, but comfortable and not attempting to run away. We also encountered chicken on top of the loads, not restrained by the legs, yet not attempting to flap away.

Drawing on our experiences from the legendary tales we hear of human goats and chickens in Mombasa, we started joking that these were not goats or chicken, but lorry conductors. 

This joke caught so much and broke our monotony of the long drive. Henceforth, my brother would joke whenever we encountered cows or goats that we had to be careful because these "were not cows or goats" but humans.

From Choma Town, we sped south East to Lusaka, passing the cane growing Kafue belt. It was already evening.

From Livingstone to Lusaka, and all the way to the Tunduma border with Tanzania, we passed at least 6 toll stations. Here, you pay a road toll fee of 20 kwacha for a car, and much more for a lorry. The Zambian Kwacha is more valuable than the Kenyan shilling. This meant we parted with 200 Kenya shillings at every toll station.

We arrived at the outskirts of Lusaka at 7pm, and stopped in a fuel station to breath in fresh air, relieve ourselves and refuel our machine.

Lusaka struck me almost like Nairobi. We followed the main highway, much like Uhuru highway as one drives from Mlolongo to Naivasha. The jam was crazy, and notable for the many tuktuks which turn at dizzying speeds and anywhere.

The jam set us back by at least 2 hours, and dampened our hopes of making a dash for Kapiri-Mposhi, the terminus city that connects Zambia to the highway to DRC Congo and serves as the termination of the historic Tazara Railway.

Passing through Lusaka at night cost us the opportunity to see the configuration and history associated with the city. 

At the next toll station, I asked the gentleman how many kilometers we had before reaching the Tanzanian border. 

"Just one thousand sir," he said with that famed Southern Africa inflection of thousend instead of thousand.

This somehow broke our spirits, for the roads were becoming rougher and busier.

Since I was the one on the wheel, I declared I had utmost 2 hours of driving left in me.

We continued our trudge, turning north west. 

We stopped in a petrol station to ask about a suitable hotel nearby. The small town has no name I can recall, but it had noisy clubs and hordes of youths streaming in and out.

The lady at the petrol station told us that this was not a town but a village, and that the next town, 45km away, had good hotels.

We drove on to Kabwe, the next town, and lodged in at a motel whose name I forget. We knew, by looking at the rooms, that bedbugs would have a field night on our bodies, but we were too tired to worry anyway. Perhaps because of the apprehension with bedbugs, I felt objects burrowing under my skin the entire night. 

Here, they don't take cards, only cash. We had some kwachas on us which we paid. Surprisingly, the lady at the reception said we could pay her the following day when we got to a place we could use Airtel money. She gave her number. I sent this money when I got to Tanzania. Winnie Saumu kept reminding me to send the poor lady her money. Our superstitious minds would not allow us to forget sending, for we reasoned that strange things would happen if we refused to.

In the morning of Saturday 22nd October, we drove around Kabwe looking for a good place for breakfast. We chanced on a mall where we ordered for breakfast in one of the cafes. A 15 minute wait became one hour. 

We set of for Kapiri-Mposhi, with Muriira at the wheels.

This was to prove the most difficult phase of the journey, one that saw us drive 13 hours nonstop, until we landed at Tunduma-Nankonde border at 10pm same day.

Day 3: Kabwe to Kapiri-Mposhi, onwards to Tunduma-Nankonde and Mbeya

We set off north from Kabwe towards Kapiri-Mposhi at 9am on Saturday 22nd October 2022. The road now resembled the battered versions of Kenyan roads; with heavy trucks having dug ridges into the tarmac. Traffic was heavy with trucks carrying maize from Zambia into DRC Congo and other countries. Although we saw no maize plantations along the road, there was enough evidence that Zambia is a breadbasket of Africa. We met a few trucks bearing Kenyan registration numbers and we knew they were coming to source for maize.

Kapiri-Mposhi is a paradox. It is famous as the termination of the Tazara railway, and also serves as the Makutano into DRC Congo and the Zambian Kitwe copper belt. Yet all we saw were a few shops and thousands of trucks, and the famed railway terminal.

We took a sharp eastward turn, having been warned that any other turn could get us into Congo. Our car could disappear without a trace if we found ourselves in Congo, we had been forewarned.

The road suddenly became straight and smooth, and Muriira Karau revved the engines as we cheered with optimism.

It only took 30 minutes before the smooth road gave way to a rough road, with over 30 diversions. We ate so much dust over the next 300 kilometers that we almost have up our spirits.

Once in a while, we would pass a truck that had stuck in the dust or has broken down, and the crew would be sleeping underneath it. Some crew had made fires and we saw some cooking meals on the side of the road.

Chitambo is a historic name. It is here that Dr David Livingstone, a famed Scottish missionary doctor, died in 1872. His heart was buried in Chitambo's village, while his body was transported to Bagamoyo, a journey that took 63 days. His able assistants, Chuma and Susi, preserved the body so well that when it reached London a year later, people were amazed that it had retained all the features of David.

Having been lost in the African interior for 6 years, another marverick called Henry Stanley Morton was dispatched to look for him. He found him in Ujiji, near Kigoma Tanzania. Their meeting have birth to the legendary greeting.

"Dr Livingstone, I presume."

Yes, and I feel honored to be here to receive you, replied Livingstone.

Refusing all entreaties from Stanley to accompany him back home, he continued inwards into northern Zambia. He met his death through malaria. Because he had said his heart belonged to Africa, his African assistants therefore removed his heart and buried him here.

In Chitambo, we came upon women selling boiled yellow maize. This is the only place we alighted, bought some cobs of maize. Unfortunately none of them spoke English or kiswahili, so our efforts to ask them questions failed.

The journey meandered through bad roads, but at every turn, there was a toll station where we duly paid 20 kwachas.

I don't remember much of this stretch apart from the endless tropical rainforest, the small grass dwellings inside the forests, and the endless rows upon rows of trucks.

Eventide came and darkness enveloped the earth, but we continued our journey, guided by our reliable vehicle GPS and the maps app of our phones.

We got into Tunduma-Nankonde border crossing at 10pm.

First, we found a group of lazy officials who declared they were tired and we should wait until the next day to be cleared. We protested until they acquiesced.

After back and forth of what looked like an eternity, we drove into east Africa. We had a goal of driving and spending in Dodoma, but being past 1am, all of us were exhausted.

After one hour of driving, we reached Mbeya, and immediately searched for a hotel in the area. 

We lodged in at Hill View Hotel, a nice apartment style hotel. Our haste had reduced because we were now in familiar territory.