Driving home for Christmas!

Whilst Europe was battling with blizzards, freezing temperature and many travellers faced alterations to their festive travel arrangements, I also got stuck, however in the mud rather than snow drifts! My journey 'home' for Christmas from Lubumbashi to Katoka took 2 days. The second involved leaving Kolwezi at 4.20am and arriving at Katoka at 21.30 that night. Despite it being the main transport route from Lubumbashi to Angola that part of the road is not tarmacked at all and is mainly made up of compacted earth and laterite. We past many broken down trucks overloaded with people, sacks of flour, manioc, pineapples and fuel. Thankfully we managed to tackle the very difficult holes, sometimes with water coming right over the bonnet of the car having to take deviations of the road into the bush. However we then got stuck in thick mud near Divuma, we attempted to get out using tree trunks and spades to no avail. As night began to fall we heard the sound of an engine in the distance. The truck pulled us out, free of charge! They then got stuck ahead of us so we then had to wait behind them until they dug themselves out! All 7 of us arrived safely albeit rather tired and smelly! A good Katoka Christmas has been had by all, pictures to follow when the rather slow internet connections allows me to upload!