Fancy A Trip To Jo'burg?

The phone rang around 8am in the morning, never a good sign when I'm not working. I was still in bed, though I can't remember if I was awake or not. Patty asked "Do you want to go to Jo-burg to do lives in the bureau with Stuart - about the Zimbabwean elections - leaving tonight?" Hmmm... Steph was supposed to be coming down for a few days and we had some gourmet mussels planned and a possible day trip to France. I called Steph, waking him up and let him know the bad news. Big shame & very frustrating.

Packed for a week, bundled everything into the car and headed up to London. Not until I had phoned around the local outdoor shops though to see who had a pair of Brasher Superlite boots. Sounds obsessive I know, but they really are fantastic boots - lightweight, very comfortable and excellent for hot climates. My previous pair - traveled across 4 continents, with over 6 years of daily use, resoled twice - they had just given out through leather fatigue and had a huge titanic sized hole in them. Thankfully the local Oswald Bailey did and with a 10% discount secured started up the motorway.

All was ready at the office - picked up my ticket details, some cash and packed all my kit ready for transfer to Heathrow. Taking the bus with Andy, one of our engineers who would help run the dish with Mick (who was already there), we met up with Stuart & Nick at the airport. Whilst waiting, Stuart casually mentioned the fact that the plan was to go on to Zimbabwe on the 4pm flight tomorrow afternoon. A couple of quick paniced phone calls then followed looking for extra kit. JT - who was flying that night by a later flight would be bringing me a Bgan - essential for feeding and lives from basically anywhere. By the time we had checked in, been to customs with the dreaded carnet, we only had time for one beer before getting on our flight. Why can't someone invent a more freindly way of travelling.

From London (somewhere near the top of the world) to Jo-burg (the southern most paw) - our flight arrived first thing in the morning. The plan - to go the the hotel, shower change, grab some lunch and take the flight to Harare to see if we could get in. Well if you don't try you don't know what you can do!!




At the hotel the first thing was to have a long hot shower in a cubicle with a window overlooking the city. Strange but cool and really refreshing. That done time to sort the kit out - which basically meant leaving everything and just taking the bare essential kit we would need. Paring down about 100kg to less than 5kg! When I say 'we' would take - 'we' couldn't as if we were stopped on arrival we would have been immediately clocked as journalists - which wouldn't have been good. So we used a "Mule" to take the most obvious stuff. The Mule, strangely, was a bit nervous at seeing what they would be carrying - though not a great deal to be honest. We tried to allay their fears and conceal what they were to carry as much as possible. We still carried a fair bit, which we could justify as normal holidaying stuff.

Nick and I worked on our story - we would enter together as tourists - staying for a night in Harare - at the Miekles Hotel - and then be heading up country to Victoria Falls, see some game, do a bit of fishing, and then cross to Zambia, and fly to Cape Town for Nick's Stag weekend. Sorted. Sounded a truly wonderful holiday. Stuart, as the name, face and previously banned from Zimbabwe, was on his own.

After a very good burger, Stuart, Nick, The Mule and I headed back to the airport. All was going well - even time for two beers followed by a quick walk to the gate - only to find The Mule had mysteriously lost their boarding pass - with minutes to go before the flight was to leave. We had to go so left them there and hoped they would be on the next flight. Nerves or just plain bad luck - not sure but wasn't the best of starts.

And so we landed in Harare...