This morning over breakfast we find out that Gilly is very ill, most likely with malaria. We are planning on heading into Lusaka anyway, so we will take him to a clinic. We pack up the campsite and are off shortly after 9 AM. We arrive into town shortly before 10 AM and during the ride in, Gilly has gotten worse.
We quickly stop on the side of the road in down town Lusaka and grab a taxi. Gilly needs to be carried out of the truck and Paolo and Lars get him in a cab. Without going into too many details on someone else's medical condition, suffice it to say that we were both quite scared as we took him to the clinic. We got there quite quickly and the clinic was very helpful and efficient. They admitted him and examined him quite quickly.
We hung around until we were certain that everything was under control (and took the opportunity to discuss with Gilly in one of his more lucid states what the next steps were). The nurse told us to buy lots of chocolates and other high sugar snacks and bring them back. We headed back into town and met up with the truck. After we had gone shopping for some candy and the rest of the people showing up, we all drove to the clinic so that Gina could agree on the plans with Gilly and to give him some money and his passport.
We had to leave Gilly behind, so we headed on our way to Lake Kariba and Zimbabwe. It was almost a four hour drive and we arrive at the Zambia side of the border shortly before 6 PM. As we were processing our passports, we were told that the Zimbabwe side of the border closes at 6 PM. We had then rush through formalities.
We then drove across the Kariba Dam and got to the Zimbabwe immigration just at 6 PM. The were kind enough to process us even though we were a bit late. We got through just after 6:30 PM. We then headed to the campsite, which was only a 5 minute drive away - but our adventures are not yet over for the day.
This is a hilly area. First we went to far on the road and need to back down the single windy lane in the dark. This took some time - maybe because there were too many people giving directions. Then, as we were on the last turn just before entering into the campsite, the right rear wheel all of a sudden dropped and the truck leaned to the right. It was quite a strong tilt, so we all quickly got off the truck.
The paved road, most likely because of all the rain they have been having, had collapsed with a big hole being formed. It looked bad, but after some consultation, it was agreed that the best thing to do was to apply lots of forward power to get out. The only problem was that a couple of meters in front of the truck was a 100 meter cliff, so this needed to be done carefully. We were able to get out, but then as we could not back up the truck very much, we had to do about a 10 point turn to get the truck around the corner without going over the edge or falling back into the deep hole.
We finally got to the campsite at 7:30 PM. After setting up camp, we took it easy prior to dinner. After dinner, we had a few drinks and then went to bed around midnight.