Wee stop

The alarm blared before 4am for the second day running, and it felt brutal. From Lichinga we are driving into Niassa Reserve, which I’ve previously entered by air. At the best of times this journey is a pre-dawn to post-dusk affair, not including tyre blow-outs or muddy stretches because of Cyclone Kenneth’s rainy legacy.

The driver and two others travelling with us stopped to relieve themselves. Photographing people whilst urinating may be an invasion of privacy. However men piss so flagrantly here that I don’t imagine they’d give a fig. And they invited it by choosing a serene location along a stretch of roadside woodland not long after sunrise.

On the left is Manuel, the driver. The others are workers from Chuilexi Conservancy, our destination within the vast Niassa Reserve. I was oblivious, stuck in the back of the truck, but at one moment, the driver fell asleep whilst absolutely ragging it on a smooth patch of road. Adrian, the donor, not an ideal audience in front of whom to do such a thing, had to admonish him so that the car wouldn’t be written off. At a food break I bought Manuel an energy drink and urged the need for more sensible driving. ‘Sim, mas nós somos acostumados.’ ‘Yeah, but we’re used to it,’ he said, dismissing that I may be making logical sense due to my poorer familiarity with these roads. Everywhere there are cross-cultural attitudes to driving, risk and safety that may never be bridged. The notion that a fatal accident has not yet happened, therefore I must be fine to continue as I am, is extremely dangerous by any real measure of objectivity. From my observations of driving it’s the prevailing attitude in much of the world.

In Marrupa, the only sizeable town between the provincial capital and the Reserve, I found a functioning ATM. A woman dressed in a matron’s uniform hung around, informing me that it’s a National Day of Appreciation for doctors and nurses. We shared a moment of international solidarity when I told her my sister is a nurse.

In the back of the truck I had only a side view once we’d pinned back the canopy, and I was sandwiched all day between cartons of UHT milk and sacks of sweet potatoes. After 15.5 hours of bumping along, comfort and patience were wearing a little thin, despite the generally peaceful scenery. In the dark of the morning we’d missed the scenic descent from the escarpment where Lichinga sits, and in the blackness of evening we missed the chance to wildlife spot when entering the most pristine areas of the Reserve. We happily arrived in Chuilexi at 7.30pm, had a delicious dinner and retired. Gloriously, tomorrow I don’t have to set my alarm for 3.30am.