Our time back in Livingstone felt really strange. We were back here - together - a year after leaving (Jeroen was here in the meantime to fix the Gigi's papers), but the overlanding vibe was far from being back. Every day we had one or two things scheduled, none of them really touristy.
The first morning back in Livingstone meant trying to get our SIM-cards back to work. We know how things work in Africa, so we planned the whole morning (after breakfast at Jollyboys) for it. Emma went for a new MTN SIM. The whole process, including the waiting time, was about 30 minutes. This was quite fast and we were pleasantly surprised as we know things can take at least twice that time. Jeroen was sure that just re-activating his Airtel Simcard would only take 5 minutes. With another 5 minute waiting time, we should surely be out and about in 10 minutes. Just like it went last time.
Of course it wouldn't.
There were already quite a few people at the store, so a security officer showed us to the queue. How that queue was resolved, nobody really knew. The security officer seemed to just point at random people, since people who came in much later than Jeroen were already helped quite quickly. After waiting for about half an hour, all people who came in before us had already been helped. Jeroen stood up and the security officer told him he was next. What a coincidence.
Funny thing, after waiting in line for half an hour, it also took more than half an hour for Jeroen to be done at the register. The reason: there was no network. At a network company...
Anyway, the employee was very helpful and tried to do whatever he could while working around the networking issue. He used his cellphone to contact coworkers at other locations to enter Jeroen's information in order to re-activate his SIM-card. Thanks to the helpful employee, after about an hour we walked out with a working Airtel SIM, despite the network issues.
Our afternoon activity was picking up Emma's bag from the airport. It had been put on the flight from Jo'burg to Livingstone and had arrived around lunch time. We had a nice lunch at (of course) Kubu and used one of Russel's contacts to drive us to the airport and back, after being stood up for over an hour by another driver who would be there 'in 10 minutes'. Emma's bag had arrived safely, so we finally had all our stuff. After that we had a wonderful shower, a nice dinner and we went to bed just before the beer pong tournament started at Jollyboys, since we are such fun people.
Day 3 in Livingstone meant another day at the workshop. This brought back memories, good and bad. Over the course of the last few weeks, Russel had to give us some bad news. There was a strange noise that was difficult to pinpoint. He had tried many different things, some of them quite expensive, at his own cost. All options had failed and he was left with the last, most extensive option. He and his team had taken out our rear differential to replace the bearings in it, hoping that this would solve the deafening sounds. The final bearing had arrived just the day before, and he had spent a lot of time reassembling the differential.
After spending some time at the workshop, watching the team carefully and skillfully reassembling Gigi, the work was done. We had lunch with Russel and Mercia and the tension could be sensed by all. Not towards each other, but the feeling that 'if this doesn't work, we have no idea what would work and we would have to start from scratch again'. Russel, having made it his personal task to get Gigi up and running again, felt it most of all. She was running perfectly and in very good condition, just this noise was terrible.
After lunch, it was do-or-die. Jeroen went with Russel in the car and it was just like the last time, tensions kept rising. This time the tensions settled much quicker. The sound was nowhere to be heard and whether braking or accelerating, Gigi sounded very healthy. She ran super smoothly and it seemed like Russel did it again. He had spent so much time checking many different aspects of the mechanics, that we were very sure she was in optimal condition. Russel and Jeroen kept driving for a while to make sure the issue was resolved. When they arrived back in the workshop, a thumbs up was greeted with cheering by the team of mechanics, Emma and our new friends Stefan and Anastasia.
Our new friends were also confined to Livingstone, due to car issues. They had to wait for their spare part to be transferred in from South Africa, and having to wait at the workshop because your car has a breakdown, creates a certain bond. Their spare part would arrive later that day, after waiting for 5 days. In those days we met each other a few times. We talked about our travels and experiences, good and bad.
With a working Gigi again, it was time we packed our stuff, picked up our bags from Jollyboys and went to our next place: A lovely BnB at Maramba farm, the same farm where we spent some days last time, just another cottage. We were extremely happy that Gigi was driving again, after having been dependent on others for moving around Livingstone. That evening we went to Kubu again, for dinner. When we were there, we received a message from Stefan that their spare part had arrived! Super happy for them, we invited them to join us for dinner. We had a lovely evening, exchanged more anecdotes, and said goodbye as they would soon be able to drive again. Unfortunately, it would take some time for us to drive away again. There was still some work to do.
When we left Gigi, we were stupid enough to leave multiple food items inside. Some time in the past few weeks, a rat (or a family of rats) had found Gigi to be perfect for nesting. A safe place and plenty of food! There were rat droppings and pee everywhere in the car. We had taken everything out of the car, when we arrived at the BnB and we just started to clean. Some of our stuff had been chewed on and was unusable, so we also had to throw a lot of our stuff out and make a new grocery and investment list. The next day, we took Gigi to the car wash. We told the guys: I don't care how long it takes, clean her REALLY well, especially inside. The car wash was next to a restaurant/bar, so we had a drink and did some admin work while we could see how Gigi was skillfully cleaned.
The Easter weekend comprised of two things: cleaning and shopping. Jeroen cleaned out the tent and the cover, after having stored it for over a year. Emma did A LOT of laundry, as that had also been stored for a year. The rat(s) had had a wonderful time in our "kitchen" bags, so we really wanted to throw them out and buy new, sealable containers/ storage units. We couldn't find any suitable ones despite going through most of the shops. Without new containers that were rat-proof, there was no use to buying new food. We had a feeling that the rat might not have left Gigi alone yet.
After working on Gigi and all our stuff over the weekend, we had another activity planned for Monday. Gigi had to drive some kilometers, and we hadn't seen our Zambian grandparents Rob & Claire for over a year. It was amazing to see them again. We planned to visit them for a coffee in the morning and do some additional cleaning and shopping in the afternoon, but we ended up spending the entire morning and a good portion of the afternoon talking, laughing, and reminiscing. Emma had brought a candle in the same of a guinea fowl from her trip to Eswatini because Claire makes her own candles and is in love with guinea fowls. She was over the moon with her gift.
The trip to Rusco farm was a nice way for us to get re-acquainted with Gigi and the next day Russel did some final checks and tweaks. Jeroen took Gigi to the workshop and in the meantime Emma did some more laundry, after which we again tried to do some shopping. We had bought quite a number of things that we had to replace because of the rat pee/droppings/chewing that we couldn't get cleaned or fixed (head pillows, pans, cutlery, cups, kitchen towels and cleaning stuff, it is crazy how much had been eaten or ruined). Unfortunately, we hadn't found any container yet. Until in one of the shops we found a metal trunk. The trunk was lighter than expected, but unfortunately it was broken. None of the shops we visited in Livingstone had the containers we were looking for, and we visited many... An IKEA would have been amazing here, and we are sure that there would be great demand.
Finally, the last shop did have some plastic containers. Most of them were broken, so still no use. Fortunately, they did have a metal trunk that wasn't broken, so we just took that one and a smaller container than we actually wanted. Hopefully our stuff would fit inside and it would all fit inside Gigi. That was of later concern.
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