Driving Johnny

Cross border vehicle travel in Africa is not for the faint hearted. The Royal Marines have a saying: 'no plan survives first contact with the enemy'. The last 3 days has confirmed that for me, particularly where driving into Mozambique is concerned. My objective was to drive Johnny the Toyota Hilux from #Cape Town to #Malawi through Mozambique, in order to deliver him to our #mbora project in Malawi. mbora is desperate for more mobility and Johnny is sorely needed there. Buying vehicles in Malawi is not easy. New vehicles are exorbitantly expensive and it’s hard to find a reliable used vehicle at a reasonable price. Hence we found Johnny in SA and planned to drive him up on a Carnet de Passage import permit.

I took the 1st 17 hour leg from Cape Town to Jo'burg alone. It went off without a hitch as hard as the wind tried to blow Johnny off the road through the Great Karoo; not helped by having a 6.5m long surf ski on the roof. (As an aside I can't wait to introduce the surf ski to my artisanal fishermen friends on our beach in Malindi).

On Day 2 Johnny and I picked up @Stavros Yiannakis in Pretoria, my co-pilot for the long journey north and a very old friend. Stavros works in security in Mozambique and knows the place inside out. So off we set for the Mozambique border at Komatipoort(SA)/Ressano Garcia(Moz). Getting there in good time mid-afternoon we sailed through the SA side with fistfuls of car and covid papers. Then the drive through no-man’s land into Mozambique to be confronted by a very different scene to the better organised South African side. I got the immediate impression that this border crossing could be slow and painful, which would've been great in retrospect. Sadly for us their e-Visa system was down so we were turned around and had to go back through the process in reverse. Maintaining a sense of humour we sprinted for the neighbouring border post at Mananga to find it had just closed. So licking our wounds we retreated to overnight in Malelane in South Africa to freshen up for a new attempt on Monday morning, when surely the e-Visa system at Ressano Garcia would be back online.

Day 3 kicked off with a big feed and a thousand coffees at our lodge. Johnny needed his brakes checking first and we were fortunate to find ACB Autos in Malelane, managed by Marionette. I doubt a cleaner tidier more organised garage exists anywhere. We need more women running car workshops! We left ACB feeling perky and ready for anything a Mozambican border official might throw at us. How disappointed we were just a couple of hours later when we again passed through the SA border with ease to find that the Mozambican side at Ressano Garcia was without electricity, and therefore no e-Visa system for a second time. Once again, we were turned around and reverse processed, passport pages starting to blacken under the weight of pointless border stamps.

Now what? We still had a 2000km drive ahead of us and we couldn't even escape South Africa. Johnny is needed at his new home with mbora in Malawi to do important work with groups of smallholder farmers and village bankers in Malawi. #mbora in #Malawi sets up joint venture community farming projects with groups of predominantly smallholder farmers, who also have access to a network of mbora Hubs for #financialinclusion, #healthinclusion and #digitalinclusion.

We decided to try crossing into Swaziland and head across that beautiful country to try the Naamacha border post as a route into Mozambique. Hopefully their e-Visa system would be working. We enjoyed a simple crossing from SA into Swaziland with warm coffee, biltong and good tunes pumping, morale was sky high and the views were great. This time we'd surely win. To our delight the e-Visa system at Naamacha was working but our hopes were soon dashed as we were no match for an officious immigration officer that just decided on a whim that the permissions I'd obtained from Maputo were not going to get me through his border. Stav was on a work visa so he could pass. We were told to wait outside and we waited for 3 hours before we were told 'no chance'. The most difficult thing I've ever had to do was to accept that bad news with good grace, turn around and walk out. Now to get to grips with the consequences of his decision. The mission was to get Johnny and me into Malawi, with the odds now stacked heavily against us. As we weighed up the options I stared at the flimsy rusty border boom sitting at an awkward angle, with not even a guard in sight. After pointlessly driving an extra 300km probing borders this was the only insignificant physical barrier that stood between us and our route to Malawi.

This was when we noticed another vehicle with 3 guys parked close by under an enormous fig tree. They also seemed to be having similar problems. We started chatting to them to discover they'd also been needlessly turned away despite having valid work visas. It was now approaching 1600 and a decision needed to be made quickly. What were our options:

Option 1) Do we do it all in reverse again and drive back through Swaziland and try our original border post at Ressano Garcia, who would've issued my transit visa had it not been for their system being down. We would just wait for the system to be back up if needed. One problem was that my co-pilot Stav was on a work timeline and needed to be in Tete for meetings. We'd already exhausted any fudge factor time we'd had.

Option 2) Stav calls a driver from Maputo to collect him at the border and I turn around with Johnny, return through Swaziland and try to re-enter Mozambique through Ressano Garcia.

Option 3) Stavros and Johnny crack on alone into Mozambique and leave me behind to find a way back to Johannesburg through Swaziland and find a flight onto Malawi. Stav would then meet me at the Moz/Malawi border at Mwanza to hand over Johnny. This was a tough option for me having spent 3 weeks buying Johnny and preparing him for the trip. I was also looking forward to seeing parts of Mozambique I'd never seen before.

The other guys that had also been turned away by the same official had decided to drive back into Swaziland and lick their wounds before making a new plan. They kindly offered me a lift but they were leaving immediately. It forced a quick and painful decision to go with Option 3. Stav would do the trip alone with Johnny. I would find a way to get to Jo'burg and fly into Malawi. I would then find my way down to the Mwanza border to pick up Johnny from Stav.

My lift back into Swaziland with Neeraj, Keenan and Reginald, supported by Chad and GuGu turned out to be a pleasant experience. They are rare very kind people indeed. They have a base in Swaziland as an agri start-up called Artemis, and offered to put me up for the night. Not only that, I'd found a 1230 flight to Malawi leaving Jo'burg the next day, so they arranged a lift and a hire car for me for the next morning so I could try to make that flight. I enjoyed a great few hours with my new Swazi friends and ended the day talking nonsense with good people with a gin and tonic in hand. So not all bad in the end!! Perhaps things do happen for a reason and we're better off just riding with the blows rather than expending negative energy fighting battles we can never win. I went to sleep on my couch knowing that we were now executing a Plan B that should work, one which would see me winging my way to Blantyre on a Malawian Airlines 737 out of Jo’burg at 1230 on Tuesday. I knew Johnny was in very safe hands with Stav.

I woke early to catch my lift to the hire car company with the lovely GuGu from Artemis. It would be tight with the 3 hour drive to Jo’burg but I would be on that plane.

What I didn't factor in was the length of time it would take the hire car company to prep the car and process me. There was an issue to do with the car not being able to cross the Swazi border and then be dropped and left at OR Tambo airport in Jo’burg. I'd need a driver but there were no drivers available with up to date covid tests to cross the border. I admit I muttered a few choice words under my breath as I realised I would probably now not make my 1230 flight. It was now 8am on Tues 16th March and I needed to be crossing the Swazi border at 8am at the latest to make the 1230 flight from Jo’burg. The border was still a 20 minute drive away. My frustration morphed into amusement and resignation that I'd bumped into yet another barrier. I remembered back to the smirk of satisfaction on the Mozambican Immigration Officer's face on Monday as I walked out of his border post for the last time. There was not a cats chance in hell that I would allow him a win and prevent me and Johnny from getting into Malawi. So back to the drawing board.

The next flight to Blantyre was only on Friday, so I've booked to fly from Jo’burg to Addis (Ethiopia) on tonight's (Wednesday) flight, connecting to Blantyre tomorrow morning. I'd then just need to find a way down to the border at Mwanza to hopefully meet up with Stav and Johnny who would've stronged their way through 2000km of Mozambique. I hope that Stav is ready by then to hand Johnny back to me! Judging by the pic below, possibly not.

So the original plan to drive Johnny through Mozambique with Stav has ended up with me retracing my steps to Jo’burg and flying into Malawi via Ethiopia of all places. It’s been disruptive and costly to say the least but we're on track to achieve the mission. I'll keep you posted on progress.