The joys of getting ready for the trip

As mentioned in Jessica’s previously post, I had to move house, exactly a week before we go on our trip. We were up at 5:40am, went over to the new house, and started cleaning out the place, corner to corner, getting it ready for the furniture to arrive later the same day. The friendly team from Cubemover arrived at 8:30am exactly (impressive!) at the apartment, had everything in the apartment packed by 12:30pm and again with our help, had everything unpacked in the new house by 5:15pm.

 At 5:30pm it was time for a break…

Jessica did an incredible job to get the kitchen sorted out. I apparently now have an intuitive kitchen. When I asked Jessica’s mom about it she said “It means - you would be a real dummy not to know where every single item should go and then you must put them in their natural habitats! She is her father's daughter.” 

The only issue is finding the stacks I started of stuff to take with on the trip. The stacks were distributed all over the house as it was unpacked. The next few evenings will be spent going through all the drawers and cupboards looking for things again.

Starting to get ready for the trip, Rhino (as Jessica calls my car) now has the roof top tent and water tank on the roof rack. Great idea, right? Yes, until I got to work this morning and could not get the car into the undercover parking. The car is now parked in the office park’s loading bay!

One more important document for the trip is the Carnet de Passages en Douane (CPD). It is a customs document that identifies a driver's motor vehicle and it is required in order to take a vehicle into a number of the African countries without having to pay import duties, leave your registration documents at the border or deal with any of the other headaches you will otherwise have to deal with to get your car in or out of another country.  

Picked up Carnet from AA Kenya…

With only 6 days to go, we still have a number of things to get done, stuff to install in Rhino and test before we can get going, but we have a whole weekend to do that...

Rhino is ready...

This week the Prado aka Rhino had to undergo some major modifications as you will see in the photos. First Rhino had to have be serviced for the journey. Toyota in Westlands, Nairobi, informed us that the shocks needed to be replaced, so Daniel had to spend two hours waiting at Rob's Magic for the work to be done. The car will next be serviced in South Africa.

  

Rhino as you would have seen her on the Kenyan roads before modifications

Rhino in good company at Rob's Magic

That’s when I will also be meeting Daniel’s family. They have already read my nomadicchameleon blog and have told Daniel that I have a big heart. But you all can still pray that I make as good an impression in person as I do in cyber space. And I will have to learn some Afrikaans, for those of you who know how much I've struggled with Swahili, you will know I’m not optimistic about my ability to add yet another language to my repertoire. I have exactly 33 days to learn enough Afrikaans to impress Daniel’s family. Gulp!

After weeks of Daniel’s blood, sweat and tears (okay, maybe not tears), of building a YouTube inspired drawer system for the back of Rhino, our kitchen complete with a refrigerator, drawers for canned and dried food, table, and cooking utensils is now complete! Well from the pictures you just see the frame…but believe you me…we almost were dancing in the parking lot when the bloody thing actually fit in the back of Rhino! However, a bunch of tenants all came home about the same time our dancing should have commenced, bummer!

However, the most hilarious part of the installation was the squeezing the frame out of the apartment where Daniel was busy putting the finishing touches on it minutes before. All I can say is its HEAVY! It wouldn't actually have been that difficult if we weren't having fits of laughter trying to get the bloody thing down the stairs! In the photo on the stairs, I really am hanging on to the stupid thing for dear life and Daniel managed to get his phone out of his pocket and take a photo with one hand.

Laughing while carrying heavy
objects is hazardous to your health.

Isn't it beautiful, and it all actually fits.
The luggage rack you can't see, the water tank behind the
frame and the the kitchen frame I'm showcasing.
It barely fits, but the door closes! SUCCESS!

We have yet to see if everything we plan to bring will actually fit in. You have to remember that we are two people going down but there will be three of them coming back with only so much space for packing…only two pairs of underwear each…just kidding!  We also hauled all the camping supplies from Daniel’s apartment (entryway bathroom/closet) to his new house which has a man cave!!! We have failed to mention that besides packing for the trip, Daniel is also moving houses on this Wednesday (today is Sunday)…only one week before we leave. Just like a man to think that would not be an overwhelming experience. The moving company said Daniel was supposed to move anything that was particularly valuable so we moved all the camping equipment and the birdbath. Enough said. 

He thinks I’m making him sound like a weirdo, so let me set the record straight. Daniel is an amazing man. He can create anything that requires man tools to put together. I felt like a little girl again helping my father who is a carpenter. I don’t think I could love a man who wasn't good at working with his hands. He wouldn't be enough like my father. I’m still daddy’s little girl at heart. 

So now Rhino is sufficiently tricked out. But we realized we still have some things to move and will have to stuff them in around the frame because taking it out is not an option! 

Road to Somewhere

In 1985, Talking Head's had a hit "Road to Nowhere" with the lyrics:

"Well we know where we're goin'
But we don't know where we've been
And we know what we're knowin'
But we can't say what we've seen"

After months of reading, googling and talking to a number of people that have done this before us, we have a pretty good idea of where we are going. Below is a map our upcoming trip through Southern Africa. The total distance is 15,000km / 9,350mile.  There are only 20days 19hours 59minutes and a few seconds left before we leave and we still have sooooo much to do.

Jessica and I will be doing the trip down south from Kenya, through Tanzania, Malawi, Mozambique to South Africa, at which point she will sadly have to fly back to Kenya. Peter Barton (a friend from Kenya) and Alet Steyn (my sister) will then join me for the return trip via Namibia, Botswana, Zambia, Malawi, Tanzania and finally Kenya again.

Our Route through Southern Africa

Our version of Talking Head's song is titled "Road to Somewhere" and the lyrics are:

"Well we know where we're goin'
And we will tell you where we've been
We know what we're knowin'
And we will show you what we've seen"