2010... Here We Go!

By Natasha


Alright… so it is officially 2010! It always seemed so far away, but now with 2009 already being such a blur.. I can hardly believe it, but it is actually here! It wasn’t that long ago when the four of us met – at a Christmas party 2 years ago – and hit it off like a house on fire. And it wasn’t long into our newfound friendships (and I say friendship”s” because we all get along with each of the other 3 in our quad in a unique and special way), that we discovered that we all have the same dream of taking a journey through Africa!

The overall vision of what it would look like varied tremendously, but the desire to travel overland to see and experience the true Africa was undeniable for all. Even though Lana was raised Zimbabwean and Nick and I are South African… we all still have a desire to experience the real Africa… the Africa unspoiled by western civilization, rugged, rough, wild and authentic. And Tim by default being married into Africa, has been lured into the dream as well. Once we discovered that we all shared the same dream, we would talk about it often as a “wouldn’t it be nice” scenario.

Then somewhere in the beginning of 2008 while watching an episode of The Long Way Down – a very popular documentary series about actor Ewan McGregor and his friend Charlie Boorman’s journey through Africa on motorcycles from Edinburgh, Scotland to Cape Town, South Africa – that the “wouldn’t it be nice” all of a sudden became a “why the heck not”! We realized, like Tim said in his previous blog, its now or never for all of us. And so the dream started turning into a “maybe”.

The boys dove head first into the challenge researching what it would take to make such a journey happen by watching endless YouTube videos and reading tons of blogs. Before you knew it they started making shopping lists and even going as far as looking at buying Landy’s! It was during one of their (what seemed like daily) searches that Nick found a miraculous deal on a Defender 110 that had just finished a journey up from Cape Town to Jersey Island… it was just unreal… a must buy in a sense. Not only was the Landy in reasonable condition considering the things it’s seen, but it was fully kitted out! So they bought it… and from that moment on I knew the trip had officially begun.

In what felt like a blink of an eye… we were also the proud owners of a basic, somewhat rusty, spider-invested 110. These boys couldn’t have been happier… they were loving it and looking for any excuse to take the Landies out for drives. I’ve always loved Land Rovers as I have fond childhood memories of climbing up the ladder and onto the roof of my uncle’s 130 to pick plums from the trees which gave it cover. And then as a teenager my dad owned a similar 130 that we would drive onto the beaches in the Western Cape for crayfish diving. We would camp out right there on the beach, cook up the fresh crayfish all the while listening to either Peter Tosh or Bob Marley (during my dad’s rastafarian stage) playing on the crappy… ahem I mean “vintage” tape deck. I truly felt alive.

However, even though having the cars made the trip seem like it was becoming a reality, I think for Lana and myself we were moved more to find ways to incorporate all our dreams of doing missions work with orphans, the widowed and the sick of Africa with a journey down. We all then started making it our mission and goal to do this trip for a purpose greater than just our own personal journeys of discovery. The idea that is now Change Thru Hope was born.

Several hours (I’m not sure if hundreds are fair… but I can’t be far off), tons of calculations, and a mountain of xcel sheets later… Tim came to the conclusion that (sadly) it would work out to about 3 times as much to kit out our Landy and to get it travel ready (with insurance, maintenance and carnet just to name a few) than it would be to hire a vehicle for the journey. Early on we connected with Foley, the very resourceful Land Rover specialists/outfitters (run by two brothers) who helped us prepare our Landy to be exported to the US and who are currently working on Nick’s Landy. So we eventually decided to go ahead and hire through them as they take care of all the details and have a ton of connections.

Gosh, and it seems like just yesterday when around Christmas ‘08 we started telling people about this trip through Africa that we want to do in 2010. It was so funny to us how everyone was like “Oh that’s nice” when we first told them about it. But then when people started realizing that it was actually a big possibility that it might happen, they changed to “Are you crazy?” “Oh my gosh this is huge” and even “Are you seriously going to go through with it?” My parents and grandparents respectively sat me down when I was down in SA in July to try and talk me out of it! They even threatened to call Tim and to try and talk him out of it since apparently I’m “too stubborn and Tim will listen to reason!” Too funny!! But shame, they were just doing it out of care and concern.

Tim and I went back to SA to spend Christmas with my family this year, and we were truly amazed. The family went from sitting me down and trying to talk us out of it, to genuine interest and involvement. We were so blessed by a tremendous amount of very thoughtful and practical Christmas gifts of gear and goodies for the trip. On top of that we spent about R8000 on safari/4x4, camping and first aid gear to bring back with us. In our preparation and research we realized that South Africa is known for having the best outdoor gear in the world and that with the exchange rate it would be so much cheaper to get the majority of our gear there. We will also be able to take advantage of the cheaper tools and spares available in the US during our upcoming (quick) visit to the States.

So here we are… tons of gear in boxes and bags in Nick and Lana’s spareroom, most if not all of the needed vaccinations under our belts, most of the visas taken care of (except for the Libyan one that is still proving VERY tricky.. so please pray), Land Rover Driving trained, packing in anticipation of the move, wrapping up life in London, 40 days before we depart… and just reeling to get going… after we finish all the 236 items on our to-do-list of course!! BRING IT ON!!!