Story & Photos by Louise Orlando and Andrew Barbour

[Louise Orlando and Andrew Barbour, Cape Charles, VA, took their 1960 Series II from London to Capetown 16 years ago. This is the final chapter in their remarkable trip –ed.]

When the Ugandan border guard stamped our passports to make our escape from Zaire complete, we kissed the ground - literally. Freed from the mud, bugs, and cloying jungle of the Ituri rainforest, our spirits took wing again. Ahead lay the fabled Mountains of the Moon and Uganda, once described by Winston Churchill as the “Pearl of Africa.”

After a month in Zaire, we were physically and mentally exhausted. We decided to recharge our batteries at Lake Mburo, one of Uganda’s lesser-known national parks. It consists of classic African grassland, dotted with thorn trees and thickets of scrub. At its center lies Lake Mburo itself, home to crocodiles, a large hippo population, and myriad birds. We set up camp on the banks of the lake, pulled out our lawn chairs and kicked back. We were the only visitors in the park.

Over the next 10 days, herds of zebra, antelope, and Cape buffalo flowed past the tent, a moveable feast for eyes tired of bogholes and rotted bridges. At night, we could hear the animals grazing just feet from the tent, their teeth cropping the sweet grasses. Even the threat of being trampled to death in our tent by a two-ton hippo could not persuade us to move our camp. And when a rifle-toting ranger stopped by to warn us that he had seen leopard tracks near the camp, it served only to increase our excitement. This was how we had imagined our trip—the Africa of Born Free, with us in our Series II Land Rover watching game on the golden savannah.

We moved on only when our bodies reinvigorated and our supplies were exhausted. From Lake Mburu, we headed north to Murchison Falls, a much larger national park that lay close to the border with Sudan. Here, on its winding course from Lake Victoria to Egypt, the mighty Nile is forced into a narrow gorge before crashing down Murchison Falls. Only the southern portion of the park was open. The Lord’s Resistance Army, a loony-tune rebel group led by a man who believed that he was immune to bullets, was active on the other side of the river, making it too dangerous to explore further north. We arrived at night and, once again, we were the only campers in the entire park. A ranger directed us to our campsite. While we could hear the water, we could see nothing. When we awoke the next morning, the view simply stole our breath away. We were right on top of Murchison Falls. To the east, the Nile was several hundred feet wide; directly in front of us, the river narrowed to a mere 20 feet. The water raced through this gap with unimaginable power before cascading over the falls. A billowing cloud of spray surged up the cliff face as the river

slammed into the rocks below. A small dirt trail led through the bush to some rock pools above the falls, with stunning views over the Ugandan lowlands and the Nile. We spent an afternoon doing laundry in one of

the pools, drinking in one of the most spectacular sights in Africa while picking out the dark shapes of giant

Nile crocodiles patrolling the river below.

The next day, after a spectacular boat ride on the river, we headed back to our camp. We drove slowly—as you must if you want any chance of spotting camouflaged animals—looking for telltale movements in the bush. As far as we knew, there were no more than a handful of visitors in the entire 1,500- square-mile park.

Imagine our surprise when a Land Rover Defender came barreling around a curve in the track, red dust billowing in its wake. The driver saw us, swerved expertly, and hit the brakes. He was a young, powerful white man who, tellingly, carried a pistol in a shoulder holster. Lowering his window, he explained in an English accent that another Land Rover had rolled a mile further up the road and now lay on its side. He was on his way to find help. We offered our services, but he dismissed our Series II 88” with a wave off the hand and shot off in a cloud of dust.

Cresting a small rise, we arrived at the scene of the accident. Sure enough, a white Defender 110 lay on its side, blocking the track. An older couple, both in their 50s, sat on the edge of the road, looking pale and shaken. Another young man, as powerfully built as the one in the earlier vehicle, stood in the track. He, too, carried a holstered weapon. Fortunately, no one appeared hurt.

The older couple was none other than the British High Commissioner to Uganda and his wife. The two bruisers were their “minders,” otherwise known as bodyguards. The minder explained how he had been driving, caught a wheel in a deep rut, and flipped when he tried to correct. The guy must have been traveling at extreme speed to flip a Land Rover like that. We introduced ourselves and offered to right their Land Rover. When they expressed their doubts, we told them about our experience using the winch and that seemed to convince them. We identified a good hook-up spot for the winch–on the underside of the chassis, midway along the Defender but as close to the upper side as possible. We wanted to avoid a situation where we simply dragged their vehicle along the road. Fortunately, it appeared that the Defender’s wheels would catch on the very same rut that had proved its undoing, giving us a fulcrum by which to rotate the car.

Positioning the Land Rover was the trickiest part, requiring that we scale the side of the track, which lay below the level of the surrounding land, and then turn around in thick bush to bring our winch to bear. With thorn scrub scraping our flanks, we performed a five-point turn and prepared for action.

Moving like an experienced AAA team, we spooled out the winch cable and attached it to their chassis. We chocked our wheels, set the brake, and then assumed our positions– Andrew in the car controlling the throttle, and me on the hood with the winch lever. Andrew cranked the engine and I started reeling in the cable slowly. As the cable tightened, we could hear our engine take the load. The Defender shifted slightly as its two wheels snuggled in tightly against the ruts. Slowly, the car started to rise, its coil springs groaning and creaking. Using the winch lever to control the rate of rise, I gradually brought the Defender to the tipping point. I wanted to give it as soft a landing as possible. The minder had the same idea, preparing to ease the vehicle down with sheer muscle power. It was his second dumb idea of the day, but at least he didn’t get hurt. The Defender balanced briefly and then crashed down onto its four wheels. It bounced impressively, before settling on an even keel. The car wasn’t even damaged!

The High Commissioner strode over, shook our hands, and thanked us profusely. “I can’t believe it—rescued by the Americans again!” he said with a smile. “I’m glad to see that you’re driving a Land Rover at least.” We headed back to our campsite feeling really quite chuffed with ourselves. The antique cavalry had done it again!

The next day, to celebrate the rescue, I decided to make a pie, a culinary challenge I had not yet attempted in our camp kitchen. While we were in West Africa, a Peace Corp volunteer had showed me how to build a makeshift oven using sand and a wok. I had picked up a bunch of rhubarb at a little market outside the park, so I figured a rhubarb crumble would fit the bill.

The experiment was a great success judging by the sweet smells that wafted down to us as we washed yet more clothes in our aerie overlooking the falls. We were back up at our campsite pinning up socks and underwear when a Land Rover pulled up alongside our tent. Our hearts fell. Couldn’t these campers find another spot? Out popped some familiar faces— the High Commissioner and his wife, along with two other friends. They had made the journey to our camp simply to thank us again.

They were absolutely astonished to discover that I was baking a pie in the middle of the bush, and it didn’t take much to convince them to stay for tea. By the time they drove away two hours later, we had invitations to stay at the British High Commission in Kampala and at the home of the head of the World Bank in Uganda! In a matter of days, we were doing the rounds of parties and dinners in Kampala, our much-celebrated rescue of the High Commissioner making some amends for our shabby clothing and dog-eared shoes.

Between our experiences at Lake Mburu and Murchison Falls—and on the Kampala cocktail circuit—we felt as if was made the full transition between West and East Africa, between the old colonies of the French and those of the British. In West Africa, our interest lay primarily in the colorful, vibrant culture; in East Africa, animals and the beautiful landscape took precedence—with a few colonial-style parties between safaris!

We spent the next two months tooling around East Africa in search of large game. We found it in far-off places such as Lake Turkana, in Kenya’s far north, where the water was a deep emerald green, the Nile crocodiles improbably huge, and the surrounding land a desolate moonscape of boulders and rock. In Tsavo, we fell asleep in our tiny tent listening to the roars of a pride of lion that we hoped was further away than it sounded. At Lake Nakuru, we camped near soda lakes teeming with flamingoes. Then there was Tanzania’s Ngorogoro Crater, an enormous natural cup of staggering beauty, filled with rhino, giraffe, wildebeest, leopard, and lion. At Liwonde National Park in Malawi, where poaching had become a problem, we were chased by a herd of irate elephants that burst out of the thick bush next to the car with every intention of flattening us. We combined our game experiences with some beach R&R at Malindi and Zanzibar, but we slowly followed the Rift Valley south toward our goal.

It was only when we were on the point of leaving Malawi that our faithful Series II faltered. As we negotiated a rocky track on a steep hillside, our rear differential shattered. We could hear sheared metal and debris grinding inside the casing. We stopped and chocked the wheels as best we could on the severe incline. Andrew shimmied under the car, while I prayed that the Land Rover wouldn’t jump its chocks. In 30 minutes Andrew had removed the rear prop shaft, stowing it in the back of the Landie. He then engaged four-wheel-drive while I removed the chocks and climbed in. The rear differential still made ugly noises, but the car was moving again and she carried us the three miles back to our campsite.

We were fortunate that we hadn’t been in Zaire or in the rocky wastes of Lake Turkana, since we no longer carried a spare differential. Instead, we were on the shores of Lake Malawi, at a comfortable travelers’ lodge with cold beer in our reach. Even better, we learned later, was the fact that a police depot was just a few miles away, with a whole bunch of old Land Rovers.

Maybe we should have been a little suspicious when the bartender offered to get us a spare differential, but you take your breaks where you can get them. The next day, an old differential found its way to us for $20. It, too, was inoperable, but we now had all the parts needed to rebuild our diff. There were only two problems: The diff had been stolen from the Malawian police and, more importantly, we had never rebuilt a diff before.

Out came the factory manual, by now well thumbed and greasy. Again, we worked our way through the instructions, slowly completing the most complicated repair we had attempted so far. The manual called for us to mark the gears to help us mesh them together properly. A pen couldn’t do the job.

Finally—and most reluctantly, I can tell you—I came to the realization that my favorite lipstick was all we had. Not just my favorite lipstick—my ONLY lipstick. Clinique’s Blushing Nude. I figured we could mark the gears with a little lipstick and then turn them. Wherever they rubbed would end up with a bit of Blushing Nude. Believe it or not, Andrew had made plenty of noise about me bringing something on our trip as useless as lipstick—so I had hidden it. Now, we had a definite need for it, not to mention an opportunity for me to show off. Still, I hesitated to use my only tube on the car. We must all make sacrifices. I applied it to my lips for the third and last time (remember, Kampala cocktail parties?) and then began marking up the gears. It was a brilliant idea, thank you very much, and, much to the amazement of the Africans watching, I was able to adjust the differential perfectly. And which Malawi policeman would ever expect to find a Blushing Nude on his differential?

By the time we arrived at the house of Andrew’s brother in Johannesburg, we had both run out of gas (and lipstick). A year of living in our SWB Land-Rover had taken its toll, and we were ready for a break. I think our Landie felt the same way. She broke down repeatedly in a matter of days, as if she were aware that the hard stuff was behind her. After surviving the wilds of Zaire, it was embarrassing to break down in the parking lot of the Sandton City Mall in Johannesburg (Andrew had to buy a screwdriver in a hardware store since he had removed our toolkit from the car).

Two days later, we pulled into the driveway of Andrew’s childhood friends, only to have the dashboard burst into flames. That’s right, flames. We saved the car only through the quick use of our fire extinguisher. Needless to say, the wiring was toast. We spent two days rewiring the car from front to back.

It was now time to bring this particular adventure to an end. And the only way for that to happen was to complete our trip to the bottom of Africa. While tourist guides like to pretend that Cape Point, near Cape Town, is the southernmost point in Africa, the truth is that the continent ends at Cape Agulhas, a bleak peninsula about 100 miles east, where the Indian and Atlantic Oceans officially meet.

On a cloudy day, reminiscent in many ways of San Francisco, which we had left a year before, we arrived at the tip of Africa. We had traveled about 25,000 miles, many of them over tracks that boggled the mind, and tested us—and our Land Rover—to the max. Along the way, we collected a lifetime of memories and adventures that we still talk about regularly. We popped a bottle of champagne at Cape Agulhas. We could drive no further. Andrew reached into his pocket and pulled out a ring. “After six years together, it looks as if I’ve run out of road,” he said. “Will you marry me?” What can a girl say in a situation like that?

Celebrations aside, it was time for us to face reality. We had been traveling for more than a year and we had run out of money. In fact, we didn’t even have the cash to fly back to the United States. With heavy hearts, we did what we had to do: We sold our beloved 1960 Series II. It was heart-rending, but we took solace from the fact that the buyers intended to drive it all the way through Africa again—doing just what Land Rovers are supposed to do. Saying goodbye to the old girl left a void in our lives until four years ago, when Andrew bought a 1962 Series II-A 88”. Same color, same smell. Same everything. The only question that we—and our two children—must now answer is: “Where next?”