Appointment in Zambia : A Trans-African Adventure

‘We could always go overland now that we have wheels,’ Ross had suggested out of the blue. I’d pulled out an atlas and we’d traced a route down through Africa via countries still marked with their colonial names. Only two strips of water interrupted the flow of land between Edinburgh and Chingola; the English Channel and the Straits of Gibraltar. Fourteen months had passed since Neil Armstrong walked on the moon, so crossing Africa couldn’t be that difficult could it? A month later we boarded the ferry for Calais... In 1970 Ross and Sara set of with extraordinary naïveté, and a lack of proper preparation to drive from Edinburgh to Zambia in a standard saloon car. Appointment in Zambia is the story of their epic car journey. Sara was 21 (and couldn’t drive) and Ross was 23 when they set off with their brand new Hillman Hunter (in Golden Sand...a colour they’d chosen before they’d opted to go through the Sahara.). For eight weeks over 20,000 kilometres kms they slept in the car, coped with illness, and looked up the barrels of rifles from the wrong end. Apart from the car their only technology was a compass. The journey encompassed the Sahara, where they had to dig themselves out of trouble with Tupperware containers. They also braved war-torn Biafra in Nigeria, navigated storm-wrecked roads in equatorial forests, and crossed the main tributary of the Congo (on a raft cobbled together by locals from dug-out canoes) They met lepers, pygmies, drunken officials, prostitutes and missionaries while their journey took them across 13 countries with widely different frontiers, currencies, customs and language before they reached Chingola...just in time for Ross to start a new job. Appointment in Zambia is a unique take on an epic journey - a young couple travel in their basic car across Africa, not because they want to challenge themselves or prove something, but because they decide it is the best way to get to a new job in Zambia.