People, people, people

So after months of writing posts about what we would wear, what we should see, what crisis contingencies we had in place and most importantly where we would pee I find myself back at my desk in London unable to concentrate and contemplating how on earth to consolidate 17 days into a readable piece. Yes, I know we should have been blogging on the way but we couldn't keep even one of three phones charged (which lead to parental panic on the grand scale) let alone figure out internet on it. And, to be honest, the freedom of not being connected to the world was one of the best parts of the trip. For 17 glorious days we didn't know who had killed who, divorced who or made what social faux pas, for 17 glorious days it was just Lyn, Robs and Laura on an epic adventure doing a ridiculous number of star fives.

Now I know you don't want to know verbatim what we did each day - there would be alot of  hour 4 in the car, round 1000 of questionable car game in full-swing, huge amounts of laughter - which while hugely entertaining for us wouldn't be so much fun for you. What you want to know is all about....

The awesome people we met like Ferdie who fixed our car in Livingstone when the muffler detached from the rest of the exhaust. Ferdie who not only fixes cars but has patented and makes paper maiche coffins. We got a tour of the process - literally from paper to coffins - before he fixed our car and a photo of him afterwards which he requested a copy of to "show to his ex-wife".
Then of course there were family friends like Colin and Mary who gave us amarula and a two course breakfast and Candice who saved us from the chaos that is Tete, fed us roast beef and gin and tonics and whose favourite story of ours was the underwear drying in the car two days after we'd washed it. Like a mobile underwear factory there was literally underwear on every sunny surface. Robs now swears by underwear drying across a steering wheel, although she may or may have lost some of her underwear in the process. Not every plan is perfect.
And who could forget the home made prego roll from the strange but really sweet couple in Mozambique with their badly-beahved but ridiculously amusing pet goat. And the Afrikaans family who we amused no end when we had to ask them to fix our window which wouldn't wind up or down (but was "manual") and had sunk right down into the door.
And then there were the most questionable characters we met - the army officer that made me get out the car and wanted me to stay with them because he thought I was pretty or the other army officer who wanted Lyn's camera after she'd taken a somewhat ill-advised picture in Kariba. Or perhaps the suspected witch doctor on a road we dubbed death alley one hysterical evening in Mozambique on completely the wrong road. She was neither a witch doctor nor was it a death alley but anyone we met on the road did run from us so I held the mace, just in case. 
 And then of course there were the other ralliers themselves - some of the funniest and kindest people I've met. People that would flag you down for lunch or a sippie at a picnic site, push you out the sand, let you ride on and/or in their 4X4 when all three of you couldn't travel in the car (various reasons); who'd share their dinner, sippies and nail clippers with you and tell you all the gossip you'd missed along the way. People to swing dance with, do shooters with, swim in the sea with and chill by a camp fire with - people who had tyre pumps, cable ties, sweet potatoes and a cool beer or bottled water when you needed it most.

As I write this, I realise how long it's gotten so I think I'll finish up today's post here. You were brave enough to read our preparations so I hope you'll stick with us now - we'll tell you about Constance (the 4th member of the team), the roads, the animals, the music, the countries and the books.Drip-fed tales if  you will - as they say, all good things come to those who wait!

Pictures on facebook as Lyn (the official photographer) can upload them. Again, good things and waiting!

And then there were three..

Great weekend! The Pedal Pushers were re-united, we reached our goal of raising R10 000 (thanks to all of you, generous friends!!) and Constance has been declared rally ready!

OK LET’S GO ALREADY!

Top ten road trip tunes!

There's a lot to get done in the next 5 days! Rather than deal with any of important to-do's I chose instead to make us a mix of the ultimate tunes for the road - fasten your seat belts, it's gonna be a bumpy ride :)

1. Prince - Little red corvette

2. Steel Panther - Party all day



3. AC/DC - Highway to hell

4. Dire straits - Heavy fuel



5. ZZ top - La grange(A haw, haw, haw, haw, a haw. A haw, haw, haw.)

6. Fleetwood mac - Go your own way

7. Bruce (we're on a first name basis) - Born to run



8. Meatloaf - Bat out of hell

9. The Beach boys - Fun fun fun

10. War - Low rider (featuring some ridiculous dancing cars)

This time next week...

...Robs and Laura will be in Johannesburg braaing meat, drinking gin and seeing many folks they haven't seen in far far too long. They will also be T minus 2 days from RALLYING! And so, this weekend we've been SHOPPING! As you can see, the excitement has me capitalising. That's always a bad sign.

Image from a website which speaks of "sensible shopping" - lesson not learned. 

Things I have bought this weekend....include but are not limited to:
1) A Michael Crichton - MICRO - unfortunately set in Hawaai rather than Africa so I shall have to read it on the plane. Manageable. Other reading material - Dark Star Safari (Theroux's own Cape To Cairo - fodder for our next adventure perhaps...) and some sort of action novel set in the Congo - I believe the tag line is "if Bourne sold shares this is what would happen" - so ready!
2) On the reading front I also found audio books in Poundland - a total of 26 hours entertainment for 2 great british pounds! One set in Africa, the other set in turn of the century Germany - we've our entertainment fairly covered I'd say!
3) Many many little costume pieces. Space be damned!
4) Clothes - so many new lovely things that I claim I need for the Rally - moohaha - almost all of them come from Primark so I'm calling it a test of their endurance...
5) A notebook - unlikely we'll be able to blog our adventures that often so we'll have to do it the old fashioned way. It's not a moleskin but you can't have everything.

EEE! I'm not sure it's healthy to be as excited as I am but c'est la vie!

<--------- And this is totally my excited face!

Friday procrastination..

Thanks GraphJam :)

You've helped us before, you can help us again!

Surprisingly enough, this post is not about money. Although if you haven't given us your money yet, you should be ashamed and the donate button is RIGHT THERE. ------->

No, what we need advice on now is much much more fun but challenging in it's own way. Whatever are we going to wear?! Obviously along the way I'm going to look the best I've ever looked in shorts, tracksuits and T-shirts of somewhat dubious cleanliness vintage...but what about the parties! As we're previously discussed Lyn, Robs and Laura like dress up so we can't be out-done. However, we're also on a pretty tight space budget so we need awesome costumes fashioned out of things that can be squashed up into tiny spaces or that we can reasonably pack into the car. Here are the themes - suggestions anyone....?

From here.

1) Crew Theme - we'll, we're Penny Pitstop and the Pedal Pushers - this seems like it should be fairly easy. Although I'm not sure pedal pushers are actually in fashion and therefore they can't be that easy to find. Perhaps I can just roll up my track suit bottoms. That's hardly inspired though....
2) Animal Kingdom - Lyn thinks zebras, Robs like lambs, I want to bring my stuffed toy giraffee on the rally and am totally going to use this party as the excuse. This is early on in the rally so we won't be able to use it as an excuse for our crazy "wind-swept" hair and general bedraggledness (watch out for the end of rally)
3) Royal Gala - Robs and Laura live in London, we watched the flotilla in the pouring rain - if anyone can do royal surely we can? Maybe I'll buy my mum that royal novelty tea towel that she wants - use it in the rally - and then hand it over at the end...?
4) Ai Kariba Kariba - Lyn has the sombreros, all we need is an excuse to fit them into Constance. Any suggestions? I don't think holding a bottle of tequilla counts as dress up, but it is mexican....
5) Almost full moon - I'm thinking there's a werewolf reference here that we could totally work to our bedraggled good. Thoughts?
6) Only being announced on the way....

I've said it before and I'll say it again - hell yeah!

Top ten Tuesday: Our Put foot bucket list

Well we feel that we’ve done quite enough stressing of late about all the things we still need and the all things we still need to get done. I'd much rather think about all the rad stuff we’re going to get to see and do. Here’s Put foot HQ’s must-do list for Southern Africa:

Our personal bucket list includes some of these classics of course - but with a few more food and drink based experiences..

1.   Jumping for joy at Etosha pan.

2.   Feasting on some Namibian Biltong.

3.   Cooling off in the Ngepi camp’s floating swimming pool (read croc-proof cage).

The famous Ngepi camp near Popa falls.

4.   Feeling the spray of the Zambezi as it tumbles over Vic falls.

5.   Taking a dip in the devils cauldron at the top of Vic falls (although this is apparently only possible in Oct - Dec. Sad face.) 

Flying tourist courtesy of Google images. From here.

6.   Taking part in the 2012 Put foot rally shoe drop at Senkobo Basic School.

7.   Staging a pirate take-over of the Kariba ferry.

8.   Tasting the fabled Malawi gin in an mgt.

Gin + sachet = genius

9.   Skinny dipping in Lake Malawi.

10. Enjoying an R&R (Raspberry and Tipo tinto rum) with some scrumptious prawns on the beach in  Moz.