Is this safe? Fording the Limpopo

We leave Vilankulos on Sunday morning and decide to take a different route back to the Parfui border crossing between Mozambique and South Africa (in the northern part of Kruger Park). We quickly leave the tarmac (paved roads) and don’t see it for two days. While we have a GPS, there are no maps of these roads and we use it primarily to make sure we are basically headed in the right direction (we are aiming for a corner that sticks out in the map between the two countries).

This leg of the trip is a little hard to explain. We face many forks in the dirt road and simply “guess” which one it might be. We try to confirm that we’re on the right path at several small villages but without Portuguese language skills we don’t get far.

We usually ask the name of the town on the map we think we might be near often with the response of a very confused look and then revert to saying, “Parfui?” which is the name of the border crossing which most people seem to know. Several gesture in the direction we’re going in and say, “Eee, straighty” which of course doesn’t really which option to take at the next fork in the road (where the choices are left or right).

We go through areas with radically different feels to them. In some places people look very suspicious at us. We wave and get dirty looks in reply. In other areas, the people we see wave first and are all smiles. It is not until two days later, when we get closer to the border that small children come running up to the vehicle with their hands out begging. When we don’t stop to give them something, they give us dirty looks.

Driving these back roads is no part-time job. Two hands on the wheel at all time and picking the best spot to avoid the biggest holes or bumps. We go through one area where cement dips have been made (for water drainage?) with cement cylinders on all four corners of it. They present quite a hazard and seem almost invisible until you are up on them. If you hit them going too fast, you get launched. My job is to keep an eye out for them and yell, “Dip!” if I see it coming.

We bush camp on Sunday night and at 3 AM I hear something scratching around our tent with no idea what it is. I wake Paul (who sleeps through everything) and he dismisses my concern stating it is a bug (a bug the size of a raccoon maybe…). It doesn’t help that I’ve been reading The Road by Cormac McCarthy a post disaster odyssey of a father and son forging where they are constantly on the lookout for “bad guys” who might steal their limited possessions, rape and/or eat them -- makes my imagination run wild when we’re in the middle of nowhere in the bush. Fortunately, since Paul drives, I can sleep in the car the next day. In the morning we are harassed by bees. It is super dry and hot and our coffee and dish water (and perhaps arm pit sweat) are the only liquid they’ve seen in a while. We don’t hang around long.

Back on the move, we quickly come up to the water crossing we know we were going to face. We’ve been told by people back in Maun that the Limpopo is “crossable,” but when we get there, on first glance it seems impossible. It is no small river to cross…probably 200 yards long.

We watch as a truck full of travelers prepares to be pulled across by four oxen. They strip to their underwear (so as not to get their clothes wet) and prepare to push as the oxen pull. Paul decides he needs to walk the route to see how deep it is and if our vehicle will make it. We have a snorkel on the vehicle (a way to keep the water from coming into the engine air intake) but the current is swift and if the water goes up over the bonnet (hood) we could lose traction and it could sweep the vehicle downstream (in the crocodile filled Limpopo).

We watch the vehicle in front of us make it. Ask around and confirm that there is no other option (unless we drive all the way down to Maputo which would put us way off course by a couple days of driving) and decide we’ve got to do it. I foolishly ask, “Is this safe?” (I have a tendency to do this sometimes, even though I don’t really want to know the answer). I videotaped the whole thing (Paul is bragging about his Land Cruiser in this one).

We make it through and continue on to the border crossing which takes another few hours. Beyond the border crossing we are in Kruger National Park in South Africa. We decide to spend the night here.