First week of Driving

I have described how I ran out of fuel in the Toyota Hilux when we were going to river sand. Well the next day Ben, Matt, Gitte and I headed off with MD and Maguwe to the ferry. On the way there it was very uneventful, arriving at the ferry in good time. On the way back Matt had the first drive, after lots of revs he also had an uneventful drive. I then took the wheel, I successfully navigated round the deep sand while we hopped from tuck shop to tuck shop in search of mobile phone credit for one of the teachers. We then headed back to the school. I picked up an old man with a bag of fish to give him a lift to the nearest village and a local worker a little while later. Then after going sideways through a deep bit of sand the car ground to a halt. Ben looked out the window and exclaimed loudly. I rather optimistically asked if the hub cap had come off.  Then I went round the back of the car to see the back left tyre had completely shredded. We went to find the spare tyre, jack and wheel spanner in the boot. Unfortunately only the spare tyre was in the back. This was because someone had taken out the jack and spanner when the car went to the services recently so they didnt get knicked. We were in trouble. In the middle of the Okavango Delta in the searing heat and a broken car. several minutes later we stopped another car that drove past on the sand road, he had a jack but not a wheel spanner. We decided that it would be best to jack it up on some stones and then wait for another car with a wheel spanner. While we were waiting i managed to use a pair of plyers to pull out the nail that caused the puncture, I will frame it and put it on my wall. About and hour later another car went past and luckily he had a wheel spanner we could borrow. We swiftly got the shredded tyre off and the spare on. We decided to look at the broken brake hydrolics cable when we got back. Brakes are not important in Botswana.