Sparks between borders

After bartering for more artwork we left Moshi at 3pm and, ignoring all our instincts and putting good judgement aside, we pushed on to the Tanzanian/Kenyan border. We didn't count on the roads to the border sucking so badly...and the roads on the other side of the Kenyan border sucking even more!

Jittering from the corrugated roads two South Africans made it between borders...where we would go no further for several hours. Customs and immigration had already stamped us through at this point and need I mention that our goal is to prove our car is roadworthy enough not to be abandoned in their country. Anyhoo, as life (and murphy's law) goes, we broke down on the other side of the Tanzanian border in no man's land.

Several hours later after two dodgy "electricians" (we nicknamed them sparky cos that's all they managed to create - sparks), many prying unhelpful eyes and one very annoying, demanding, pushy fixer my incredibly clever and quick-thinking man got us back on the road with a temporary fix.

We couldn't believe how ridiculous the Sparkies were. Essentially, the corrugated roads knocked our cables out of position from the battery to the starter motor causing the car to lose power entirely. The Sparkies, who came highly recommended as the best in the business (wa'eva!), had a small wire that they linked up to the battery and created sparks on all our fuses to try find the problem. Our translator (the Sparkies couldn't speak English) was a very helpful guy from immigration although he kept insisting that these guys were brilliant and that the job at hand was very very difficult. Along with they Haynes manual Campbell managed to figure out the problem in no time but couldn't get the Sparkies to let him test his theory. Eventually Campbell managed to push his way to our car and give everyone the fright of their lives when Kaspuur roared back to life.

Can you Adam and Eve it, the Sparkies still wanted to be paid - for doing nothing!!! - and they wanted our Haynes manual - as if! We gave them a fair tip for their time to which they scoffed at and we made our way to Kenya. What a long long night.

We broke down again less than 24hours later - hmph! Despite all odds, we rolled into Nairobi and will roll the car to Land Rover for a major service on Monday.

In the grand scheme of things it is a minor problem that can easily be repaired, so we aren't worried but I am so proud of my man!