Africa becomes your heart

“You can do a whole trip through Africa wearing nothing but plakkies (flip-flops).”

This was one of the lessons Rudi Botha learnt when he joined the Put Foot Rally on a tour through Namibia, Botswana, Zambia, Zimbabwe, Malawi and Mozambique earlier this year.

He travelled from Cape Town to Lake Malawi in 19 days and then back to South Africa via Mozambique in another four.

Botha originally planned to take part in the rally in his own vehicle but as fate would have it his much needed gearbox only arrived the day before the start and, after working all day to install it, he found that it was faulty and still would not work.

“I was planning on giving up right then but when I let the rally group know, I was overwhelmed by the responses saying ‘get your butt down here, we will find you a spot in someone’s car’,” Botha told The Courier.

Botha ended up switching between different crews during their trip through Southern Africa and he said in hindsight he would not want it any other way.

“I thought the rally would be about me and my dreams to see these places but in the end, it was so much more about the people I was amongst.”

According to Botha, the toughest part of the trip was passing through Northern Mozambique.

“The roads there were some of the worst I have ever seen, to say nothing of the Renamo armed rebels.

“At one point, we stopped near the remains of a bus that had been ambushed by these rebels. There was still evidence of the burnt remains of the passengers and the bus itself was peppered with bullet holes.”

However, Botha said he never really felt unsafe.

“When we saw some of the rebels, we just waved like tourists and kept driving. The worst they did to us was make a throat-cutting gesture.”

Overall, Botha said he was blown away by how friendly people were, particularly in Malawi, Botswana and Namibia.

“Malawi was a little bit sad because of the extreme levels of poverty. I actually saw school age kids on the side of the road selling rat-on-a-stick to make money.”

Rats aside, he said he enjoyed the food in all the countries he visited.

“I look back and feel the rally confirmed that life is short. We must not get so wrapped up in our day-to-day bubble that we start pushing our dreams aside until ‘one day’.”

Botha said the rally was just the start of a new chapter in his life.

“To me, the rally was about friendship and caring about people – not just those I met on the trip, but all of you out there, even the people I just meet out and about in town.”

>>  Expect to find the latest trends in Health, Wellness and Beauty in Ballito.

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