On the road to Ilha...day 2.....

Quick update...what you're reading is several days behind.  The area we went through that I am getting ready to describe has been under rebel attack.  The town we spent the night in was attacked by rebel forces the day after we left.....

We left our nice rest and stay at 4:00 a.m.  Before I go on, let me say that my beach front room cost $45 per night.  There we other properties that charged considerably more, but this was a great deal for a great location.  There are very few hotels close to the highway because the highway goes through desolate and remote parts of the country.

The goal was to drive to Beira and spend the night with one of Rodger's co-workers, have a nice dinner and leave the next morning.

We first had to drive through an area known for rebel activity.  The day before we got there, 7 soldiers had been killed in a small weapons fight with the rebels.  We drove for about 4 hours and came to the bridge where the military escorts take a caravan of vehicles through the danger area.  

We arrived at the check point to find out the caravan had just left a few minutes prior to our arrival.

The soldier at the guard post told Rodger we could go on through because everything was OK.  All the fighting was in another area.

I did not think we could possibly drive through any area more remote than what we had been through, but I was wrong.  We drove for another 3 hours and saw maybe 12 people other than the 6 people on the highway with us.  Eventually we came to a town that was the staging area for southbound traffic and drove on through....for about 15 minutes.

 As we were driving on up the road, I was still "admiring" the scenery, when, BOOM....the right wheel of the trailer snapped off the axle!  I watched as the right side of the axle hit the road and Rodger managed to pull off to the left shoulder..they drive on the "other side" of the road, British style. I somehow managed to keep my left eye on the trailer and not run into Rodger, and my right eye on the tire as it bounced along the shoulder and into the brush.  WOW!

We stood on the side of the road and then quickly began looking for the tire.  Two men on bicycles came by and helped us look and fortunately found the tire, wheel and hub.

 

Of course Rodger took the truck and headed back to town to look for help and left me with the van in the middle of Mozambique by myself!

He found help and the short version is, they unloaded the traile onto a flatbed truck the then we all lifted the empty trailer onto the truck as well.