Visa

We contact Mike and Emma regularly to check they are okay. Sometimes they whisper if it is after dark and they don’t want anyone to hear where they are. We meet them briefly in Chinhoyi before heading down to Harare, Zimbabwe’s capital, to wait for them.

DCIM100GOPRO — They look pretty happy to me

Harare is beautiful.

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I couldn’t decide between that pretty photo or this weird one, so I gave you both:

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Robert disappears to see his family and go back to project work for a few days, whilst Woocash gives Cleopatra a health check. I find the best café with internet and spend a lot of time there: photos, blogs and contacting journalists. Luckily for us, friends of the family, Bobby and Margie, generously put us up which saves a huge amount of money. Harare isn’t cheap. As a thank you, Woocash fixes Bobby’s car and we donate some spare car parts. We do a lot of scrubbing and cleaning kit. We also give a surreal children’s TV interview. Thankfully it is live which means that it will never be seen again. Hooray!

First the monkey now a dog, everyone wants to drive Cleo

At the children’s show

Harare traffic, usually only bad at rush hour

A few days later Emma and Mike arrive:

The team takes a trip to The SEED Project’s office to catch up with Robert and meet friendly Nyasha, who is SEED’s only other full time employee . Driving through the city, Emma photographs stallholders, people start shouting and frowning at us to put the camera away, it’s an uncomfortable moment.

Stunning architecture where The SEED Project is based

Look how clean we are!

Emma and Mike enjoy a couple of days of rest at Joy’s lovely home. Emma fits in an interview with a journalist, from the magazine Out of Africa, who writes a beautiful article. At a delicious dinner, organised by Bob and Margie, Emma meets Mike who decides he would like to join Emma on one of her marathons. Which is great.

“Queen of the Night” flowers one night of the year and it flowered the night Emma arrived!

Thank you Specialized for helping out with Mike’s bike

Emma and I found this chick confidently wandering the streets

Fantastic article in “Out of Africa”

Water

The Water-to-Go bottles are perfect for Harare as otherwise the tap water isn’t safe to drink without being boiled. With the bottles we can simply fill up and er, go out and about on our business in the city!

Visas

We have decided to head on in to Mozambique. Last year there were civil disturbances and vehicles were attacked. But there has been nothing recently and we are avoiding areas that are considered at risk. Rumour tells us we may have to wait 3 weeks to get visas! Rumour turns out to be wrong. It is all sorted within 48 hours by a very organized and helpful lady.

Over at the Malawi embassy, Woocash has to write a letter explaining why he wants to visit Malawi. He does and the lady bursts out laughing when she reads it. We never find out why.

*****

Huge thanks to Bobby and Margie Warren-Codrington for having us to stay in their gorgeous home, loaning us essential kit and arranging for us to meet with someone from the BBC. And perhaps most of all for linking us up with the wonderful Dora in Mozambique who looked after us through two medical emergencies.

Huge thanks to Joy Peacock for having Emma and Mike to stay and for all the help and connections to journalists that you provided.

And thank you to the Specialized workshop in Harare for helping Mike out with his bike.

*****

Day 55 distance run: 56.21 km, 34.92 miles
Day 56 distance run: 52.85 km, 32.84 miles
Day 57 distance run: 53.43 km, 33.20 miles
Day 58 distance run: 32.11 km, 19.95 miles
Day 59 & 60: Rest days in Harare

Number of Days: 60

Total distance run by Emma: 2412 km, 1498 miles

Daily average distance run by Emma (including rest days): 40.2 km, 25.0 miles

*****

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Donations can be accepted up until 15th August 2016.

We have had complications at each border crossing, one of which has resulted in our current detour to Mohembo/ Shakawe.

Here are some mistakes …

#1 UK to South Africa (Capetown by air).

Upon arrival in South Africa, the nice lady on the desk told me that the longest she could give me a visa for was 90 days (that’s great, I only need 12 hours) but I won’t be able to restart my visa unless I returned to my home country. Eh? Apparently, unless I return to the UK during those 90 days I will have overstayed my visa and on my re-entry in 5 months time, am likely to be arrested or refused entry! It seems too illogical to be true. I think/hope she must be confused and file it in my head under ‘problems to worry about later’. I ask her to give me a week’s visa. Wanting to be helpful, she gives me 3 months.

Woocash sleeping in Cape Town airport, it’s about 1am

#2 South Africa to Namibia (Windhoek by air)

This is, frankly, a disaster. As I was monitoring changing visa requirements for 3 nationalities across 6 countries, I enlisted the help of a company who advised me that none of us needed a visa in advance for Namibia. So I was more than a bit surprised when I happily zipped through border control, collected our bags and turned round to see Woocash waiving and shouting for me. Polish people it seems need a visa in advance! I took some convincing that this was not a mistake on the customs lady’s part. To her absolute credit, she was amazingly helpful. Your average person would have found my disbelief annoying. Lucky for us, she was exceptional. She was not going to allow Woocash in but allowed me to check her assertion on the internet, helped us sort out return flights and allowed Woocash out to buy water and to go for a smoke, which he needed amidst all the stress (not that he was admitting any stress but this is his first time out of Europe). Woocash had to take the next flight back to South Africa and sleep another night in the airport, bus it to the Namibian embassy, where he was soundly told off alongside a lady from Slovakia who had made the same mistake, and then granted a visa 4 hours later. He and the Slovakian woman flew back that evening.

Very relieved to see our mechanic walk through the doors.

Emma, who arrived a few days later, in her turn, stepped away from customs only to discover that her passport had been stamped for 1 month, which is why she has been running so fast – in order to get to a border on time.

#3 Namibia to Botswana (Mohembo/ Shakawe by land)

So here we are at Mohembo (which is inside a game park!). We have decided that we cannot risk taking Woocash out the country, as he might not get back in again. Which means Emma and Mike are stepping across the border, turning around and coming right back in again. We have been warned that customs officers do not take lightly to this kind of mucking about and can make travellers wait indefinitely.

A sleepy Emma helping to pack up the tent

Mike, making sure the bike is secure. Cleo is carrying about a tonne in weight! — Mike, making sure the bike is secure. Cleopatra, the car, is carrying about a tonne in weight!

We arrive at the crossing at 6.30am in the hopes that the officers are still in that sleepy stage when the most important thing is how many sugars there are in your coffee. Woocash and I settle down to wait in the car. I get to write two sentences in my diary and we see Emma and Mike are on their way back. I was told Africa was slow! What is this super efficiency? Emma and Mike have had a perfectly easy friendly crossing there and back.

And back again. — And back in time for breakfast.

I hope UK customs officials are as helpful and welcoming to foreigners, especially foreigners who accidentally mess about with the official rules.

For now, Emma is about to run through Bwabwata National Park, we make safety action plans in case we see a carnivore or elephants.

Advice for other travellers

Check your own visa requirements and advice regularly up until you leave (Mozambique became much more strict due to the civil disturbances they had).
Do NOT rely on advice from visa companies.
At the Namibian border tell them how long you would like your visa stamped for as you hand your passport over, before they stamp it.

*****

Many thanks to the customs lady in Namibia, you were amazing.

*****

No of days: 27

Total distance run by Emma: 1138 kms, 707 miles

Daily average distance run by Emma (including rest days): 42.15 km, 26.18 miles.

Feel welcome to post stories of border crossing disasters in the comments or links to your stories.