FRIENDLY ZAMBIA

Adventurer Dan Grec is sending us updates from his two-year trip around Africa’s perimeter, covering 30 countries and 130 000km. He is driving a four-door Jeep Wrangler Rubicon. Follow Dan’s ongoing adventure around the entire African continent across social media @theroadchoseme or go to www.theroadchoseme.com

I stare intently at the petrol gauge while trying to drive with the least possible amount of throttle. I’m in sixth gear, moving at 50km/h, and trying to keep the revs as low as possible to stretch every possible kilometre from what little petrol remains.

After 30km, I’m not really surprised to find the dusty town does not have a petrol station – rural Zambia is not a densely-populated place, after all.

With little choice, I roll on, towards almost-certain failure.

A handful of kilometres later, the engine dies. There is no coughing or spluttering, no indication that anything is amiss. It simply dies without fanfare.

Manhandling the almost three-tonne Jeep onto the shoulder without power-steering is not easy, and it eventually comes to rest less than two hundred metres from a police roadblock.

As I walk towards the police, I try not to think about any gunk that may have been sucked into the fuel pump.

Into Zambia

We drive over the bridge at mighty Victoria Falls, and are stamped out of Zimbabwe in five minutes. After purchasing a visa for ourselves and obtaining an entrance stamp from Immigration, I begin the process at Customs for the temporary importation of the Jeep. I soon learn that Zambia is one of those