A ROAD TRIP GONE WRONG
Missed flight proves costly while plotting out Cape- to- Cape journey
Alanky, slow- moving teenager sweeps the floor at the far end of the empty terminal. My flight is scheduled to leave in an hour and the airport is deserted. Why? Things just don’t add up.
The Kamikaze driver of the bent Peugeot taxicab that drove me from the Marriott Hotel in downtown Bujumbura, Burundi has departed, grumbling something I assume was related to my puny tip. I’m alone, save the sweeper.
I encounter a ticket agent napping on a bench behind the Kenya Airways ticket counter.
“Err, excuse me, is there any sign of the plane from Nairobi? I’m supposed to catch the continuation of that flight to Dar es Salaam.”
“Oh, you must be Mr. Sowerby. You were the only one missing, so it left about 20 minutes ago.” He is most apologetic.
My partner Ken Langley is on the flight and I’m supposed to fly on to the Tanzanian capital for meetings with the Tanzanian Automobile Association. I had flown to Burundi, a tiny African country on the western shores of Lake Victoria, five days earlier and I’m anxious to move on.
It’s Nov. 18, 1984. Ken and I are on a month- long fact- finding trip to determine the best routing through Africa for an assault on the land- speed record from the southern tip of Africa to the northern tip of Norway, high above the Arctic Circle.
We had scored a new Suburban from GMC Truck Division of General Motors to establish a new Guinness record for the Cape- to- Cape drive. The junket is a high- stakes affair, so a month’s reconnaissance of the hot spots along our proposed route seems a prudent investment.
In Kenya, we decide to split up for a few days. Ken stays in Kenya while I fly to Burundi to investigate routines from Tanzania east of Lake Victoria. If feasible, the shortcut will save us hundreds of kilometres.
Bujumbura is steamy and lethargic. I meet with the president of the Automobile Club of Burundi, who arranges a get- together with a man who claims to have contacts in the southern part of the country.
The next morning, Mr. Collette, a jovial Belgian engineer driving a Toyota pickup, picks me up at the Marriott.
A half- hour south of the capital, Mr. Collette stops on the side of the road and fishes a blindfold out of his briefcase.
“I hate to do this but my contacts are very private people.” He seems embarrassed.
We drive for about an hour. The road becomes rougher. I doze off and awake when my door opens.
“You can take the blindfold off now.” Mr. Collette laughs at my squinting eyes.
We’re parked in front of an imposing, two- storey stucco house. A servant appears and leads us into a cavernous living room with four languid ceiling fans and a massive mahogany table planted in the middle of the room. Four men sit around the table in wingback Victorian chairs. There is a fat Chinese man, a blond American with a southern drawl, a slight Pakistani and a speedy African man who does most of the talking. From his accent, I assume he has been educated in England.
A notepad with a few scribbled notes and four pistols are the only things on the table. I naively wonder if they are loaded.
Everyone is cordial. We sip black tea while I brief them on our quest to drive from the bottom of Africa to the top of Europe in record time. They tell me there are routes, but they are slow, difficult and unpredictable. In no uncertain terms they advise it will be too dangerous to try to find our way through the mountains of northern Tanzania and enter Burundi from the south.
The meeting is over in 15 minutes. As Mr. Collette slips the blindfold across my eyes I assure him the Burundi shortcut will be deleted from our routing option list.
I arrive back at the Marriott just in time to pack and grab the white- knuckle cab ride in the battered Peugeot wagon to the empty airport for the news that my plane has left early.
“How long before the next flight to Tanzania?” I ask the dozy ticket agent.
“Four days if the weather holds. There is a Marriott Hotel in the city. It has a lovely swimming pool.”
I walk through the deserted airport. The warped Peugeot taxi is parked out front in a “no parking” zone.