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We wandered around the town looking at the market and
the buildings. The Cultural Ministry was where we had our passports stamped. It was fascinating to see the way the people lived, the houses, the small shops and the food.
We stopped in at a pharmacy and bought some malaria
tablets. From here on until we reach Namibia, we will be living in malaria epidemic areas.
After buying some food at the market and eight litres
of water, we headed to the airport. Earlier in the day we had refuelled and so after rigging and repacking to find space on Olivier's trike for Ines, the Lithuanian girl, we prepared to take off towards the south
and into the desert. Before taxing onto the runway, I checked the two ignitions of the engine to discover that the engine ran very badly on one ignition. Very quickly Olivier and I changed the plugs (which were due
to be changed, anyway – my trike has now done 400 hours). There was no change, so I said that we should go anyway because the engine still ran well on just one ignition and that I would try to fix the problem after
we landed.
We flew for thirty minutes before deciding to look
for a good spot to spend the night. Again we battled to decide on a good landing spot, eventually after flying around looking at all our options for twenty minutes we landed on the edge of a dried up pan.
Olivier made a tomato, onion and garlic salad while I
tried to find out what was wrong with my engine. I established which ignition unit was faulty, but was unable to fix the problem.
Lying on my back looking at the stars I noticed lots
of bats flying past us all the time – good on them … probably the reason there were so few mosquitoes.
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