On Saturday my housemates and I set off on a mini-adventure to the Sorwathe Tea Plantation, a place I know zero about. I guess I know that they grow tea… but that’s about it. I had no idea which direction we’d be driving in, but I did know that we’d be driving which basically meant me sitting in the car and not having to think about a thing. Perfect.
Our house gets along really well and we hang out a lot together but we hadn’t been on a road trip yet. One of my housemates is, very rudely, leaving us and heading back to the UK to study so we figured cramming in a short trip all together would be a nice way to say bye. The plantation is meant to be pretty, it’s close, none of us have been and they have accommodation there so we figured it’d make a nice destination.
The day started our promising. Despite drinking far too much wine the night before, I woke up without too much of a hangover. Then we piled into the car and headed to the African Bagel Company here in Kigali which does doughnuts on Saturday morning. Not those crappy Krispy Kreme-style pink icing type doughnuts either… the good ones. Like we get in Canada (yes, I’m referring to Tim Horton’s). We gobbled those down, drank some coffee, loaded up on some chips and hummus for the road and we were off! Road trip!
Well… we were off. And then, soon after, we were wondering about the strange noise coming from the rear wheel. A bit of clunking and clicking… never a good sign. But it was ok. Just a loose tire. No big deal. The boys got out and did their manly things and we were on the road once again. Road trip!
We zigged and zagged through the beautiful Rwandan countryside for about an hour, singing along to the ipod, chatting, snacking and doing road trippy type things and then we lost power and the car rolled to a stop. Well I don’t think we lost power… it just shut off. The battery still worked but the car wouldn’t start. It just made a very sad noise each time we tried to start the car. Thinking it might have overheated, we added some water somewhere and let it cool off for awhile. No luck there.
Eventually two of us wandered off to the nearest town and two of us stayed with the car, the children and the curious onlookers on the side of the road. At one point one of the kids yelled across the valley to a guy on a bike… an alleged mechanic. Saved! He had a look under the hood, poked and prodded some things and then proclaimed the problem to be the fuel pump before riding away.
At this point two mechanics from the next town and my two other housemates were rolling back to us on bicycle taxis. Two mechanics with mechanic-y looking jumpsuits. Saved again! They looked under the hood for a few minutes and then proceeded to attempt to rip the back seats out of the car. Or at least that’s what it looked like. They eventually got the seats propped up and started unscrewing some plate underneath them. I know less than nothing about cars so I was amazed that these little secret panels that apparently lead to the petrol tank (or something) even existed. Most of their time was spent trying to get a rusted screw off but once they did, about an hour later, they pulled out a gizmo that I’m told was the fuel pump. It looked fancy.
They thought it might be clogged so they started to suck on the thing. Covered in gasoline. One dude, at one point, was drinking petrol. I kid you not. Hey I guess they make them though out in the countryside. This disturbing gasoline drinking incident aside, they seemed to know what they were doing so we were all very sad when the car still didn’t start. Even more concerning was that the sun was going down and we still had no plan.
Eventually, through a friend, we got int touch with a mechanic man in Kigali who allegedly had a tow truck. We probably should have known that a tow truck meant a car with a rope but I guess we were expecting a bigger car, especially since the broken car was a pretty large Rav 4. Kigali Mechanic Man showed up in a Toyota Corrolla or something similar (again, I don’t know cars), looked under the hood, decided that the problem was a broken timing belt and that he couldn’t fix it here and would have to tow us back.
It’s 9pm at this point, we’re all tired from standing on the road for 7 hours, it’s cold, the sun is down, and we all just want to get back to Kigali. I haven’t felt so defeated and fed up in a long time and I really just wanted my own bed. So we attached the rope and off we went on the scariest slow-speed rollercoaster ride of my life!
The cars were tied to each other with less then two metres between them. We were all sitting in the broken Rav 4 with one of the Mechanic Man’s workers driving the car. Early in the journey our battery died (and therefore the lights and brakes) and the only way to stop was the hand brake. Given the crazy hills of Rwanda, that meant a lot of hand brake action and some scary moments. I was very happy not to be sitting in the front seat.
After about an hour and a bit cruising the hills we got back to town and had to make our way to the complete opposite side to this guy’s garage. He had a route that avoided the major hills but at this point it seems the rope wasn’t so strong anymore and we managed to detach from the tow car three times… probably in the three most busy parts of the city!
The third time we detached, we were completely holding up traffic and tying the rope seemed to be taking an eternity. At this point a police van cruised by and suddenly they were very interested in us. The main police guy seemed pretty agitated and was angrily asking questions of the mechanics as we sat quietly in the car twiddling our thumbs. It turns out the policeman was just amazed that the small car was even able to tow the big car anywhere… we didn’t tell him how far we’d already come.
Fortunately for us, the mechanic’s garage was just across the intersection so we pushed the car across the road and through a parking lot and we… were… finally… home. Well. Almost. We left the car there to be repaired, put in an order to our local Indian restaurant (we hadn’t eaten anything but doughnuts and chips all day, and the mechanic gave us a lift home.
The ride home was terrifying, waiting on the side of the road for ages was mind-numbing and our house trip was an epic fail. But nothing a bit of 30 Rock and a late-night Indian food binge can’t solve! It wasn’t what we had in mind but, hey, we’ve got a story to tell.
We’re going to make a second attempt at the trip this weekend. Same car. Same place. Same people. We might be tempting fate but here’s hoping the car gods look favourably on us next weekend!
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