More than a year on the road and I never had to face such uncomfortable (scary) situations in such a short amount of time. Actually, I never had to face that in my life.
In real time, I’m somewhere in Southern Africa and since I got into that specific country, many things have happened.
On the 5th of January, I contracted malaria, but you know that already.
On the 15th of January, I was physically assaulted by 2 policemen on the road. Something that could have ended up very, very badly.
I then celebrated my 35th birthday with my friends we.are.adventure.riders , two bikers from Germany, and one South African overlander. We had such a lovely braai and time all together.
But the following morning, on the 24th of January, I couldn’t find my black knife anymore. You know, this black knife you often see in my stories and that I use for many things. A good quality knife I always keep on the driver’s door. The South African overlander, Joshua, discovered his fridge almost empty and his big speaker disappeared as well. I don’t want to go deep into details but basically we’ve been robbed by the watchmen of the camping.
On the same day, we all had different plans with my friends, and I personally decided to leave the area and to drive South to the next town, located one hour away.
When I entered that town, I went to the shopping centre to buy bread, three bottles of water, and some vitamins. I could find everything I needed and I was already on my way to leave the parking lot when one car overtook me, out of nowhere. The car suddenly stopped and started to reverse towards Rafiki. I looked in my rear mirrors and started to reverse when a second car (same type of car, small, damaged, with black windows) appeared behind Rafiki, all of a sudden. That second car drove forward and finally hit Rafiki.
I got out of the car when more than twenty men came my way in the same time! I was feeling sorry and guilty while they were insulting me and started to pull my t-shirt asking me for money. They started to be closer to me, surrounded me all over. F***, I’m trapped.
I have no idea how I could manage to get into the cab and to be able to lock myself inside straight away. The only escape for me was to drive between the car in the front and this line of cars parked on the right. When I started the engine, some of them jumped on the load bed, trying to damage what they could. No choice, I had to drive on plants and flowers to reach the exit road. I was shaking, sweating, and my heart was screaming. When I looked ahead of me, the security guys of the parking lot were closing the two gates, apparently in connection with all the men.
It’s over, I’m trapped, once for all. The men ran to me and started to hit the windows, the handles, the rooftop tent, the front bumper, etc. They were threatening me when a police car arrived out of nowhere -since it was impossible to access the parking.
Only one policeman was there and he asked me to get out of the car -which I refused, I was too scared to get out with all these men angry at me; their eyes were full of rage and hate. But the way the policeman talked to me, I understood that I better have to get out, which I did. He asked me to do an alcohol test, twice. Negative, both (obviously). And then he asked me to follow his car to the police station.
At the police station, it was a nightmare. I had to stay with one of the guys in the gang, standing right next to him. One guy behind these little ‘jails’ (mostly when they’re drunk and they can be a danger for the people around, they are sent to these jails for a few hours, time to be sober again) was screaming at all the policemen saying that they have to leave me alone. It was a movie. Also, this guy from the gang was not speaking English anymore, pretending he does not know English, while he was threatening me with good English an hour ago. Anyway, I was losing my mind, I was feeling so small, so vulnerable, so nothing. The policeman advised me to pay the amount of money so they could leave me alone. I had NO choice.
Please do not tell me I should have done differently; I had no choice.
But I had no cash with me, so we had to go to the nearest ATM. And the policeman put me in the same car, next to the guy from the gang! We were the three of us, in the small police car, heading to the ATM. Anyway, I could withdraw the money. The guy snatched the notes from my hand and disappeared. The policeman drove me back to Rafiki, joking about the circumstances. Disgusting.
Since then, many things have changed in my head. I am traumatised. It’s been way too much in 2,5 weeks’ time that I do not know what to do anymore.
I want to leave Africa for now. I need to rest, to take care of myself, to disconnect, to settle down somewhere while I’m healing my mind and my heart. I was so not ready to experience all this, and all this in such a small amount of time again.
I will obviously keep sharing the rest of this incredible expedition with you.
And I will work on a new plan as soon as I can. But first, let’s rest.
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