I recently went up to Manica, Mozambique with a high school group from Johannesburg. Now taking teenagers to ‘the bush' entails its own fair share of tales and stresses, but this little writing has the sole purpose to account and elaborate on my trip home.

The Jo'burg team came back to Jo'burg on Saturday, but since I wanted to watch our team play soccer on Sunday I boldly planned and stated to let them leave and that I would take public transport back home. The goal: Manica to Jo'burg, via Zimbabwe. My travel buddy: Kuthlano Toko, alias Scotch. Firstly, lets describe my buddy: Scotch is a 19 year old South African, first year at university, short, cool, black (this will be shown to have importance later on in the story) and according to himself a cute little guy.

So, on Monday morning 11:00 we took a taxi (chapa) from Manica to the border. The taxi was a Toyota minibus and besides being a 16-seater we managed to seat 22 people without much fuss or frill. Things went well and 40 minutes later we were at the border. The border was crossed by foot without much difficulty.

Getting into Zimbabwe (Zim) we looked for a taxi and applied the first rule of travel in Africa: Whatever the price, if you're a foreigner and especially white, argue to pay 50% of the mentioned price and then you know that you are only mildly over charged. Our taxi driver told us that he will drop us at a place where we could find trucks traveling to South Africa, because there were no taxis or busses that day. And thus we were dropped, ZIM$ 1200 later, hitch hiking from Mutare to hopefully Beitbridge (Border) or at least Masvingo (halfway to the border). We stood, we waved, we turned our heads side ways, we clapped our hands, we waved our money, we pleaded, but no luck and no lift! At last a car showed up that was going to Masvingo, but we didn't manage to out sprint the other 12 Zimbabweans and we lost the chance. Hence the adaptation of our strategy: I as whitey would target the rich more racist drivers, so I stood by myself away from the buzz. Scotch had to stay in the crowd and fight it out! At one staged I called Scotch and gave him some orientation: "Scotchie, this is Africa, you have to fight for it, dog eats dog, there's been one car, we missed it, if another one comes by you need to get it."

Enter ‘Da Boys'. After we stood hitch hiking for 4 hours, a Toyota Camry with tinted windows drove into the taxi rank where everyone was waiting. Everyone ran towards it, Scotch was in about fourth place, someone started getting in, and then little Scotch with an authoritative American accent shouted: "We've got the big bucks, I'm with the white guy" and to great annoyance of all the onlookers, including the poor chap that had to get out of the car, we squeezed in and off we went, towards Masvingo!

First thing we noted was the driver who greeted us in friendly fashion holding a court (half liter) of Castle Lager. Next to him was sitting his Rasta buddy, on the back seat some Zimbabwean that kept explaining how lucky we were to get a lift and then Madala, the 80 year old Basotho that called Scotch and I his ‘home boys'! People traveling through Zimbabwe would have noticed the hundreds of Shibeens (little informal bar's) all along the road. Well on this trip we got to understand their function.

After every 20 kilometers we stopped, everyone got new beers, let out the old ones, and off we went again. Scotch and I participated in round one and six of the beer drinking, but our friends including the driver had at least 8 big ones each! That's about 13 normal beers! The Rasta also had some other stuff to help him relax, but since the windows were open we at least didn't get high from the ‘guidance in a bucket'.

What made our trip with these fine gentlemen entertaining (that's besides the beer and extremely loud music) was the coincidental fact that they were diamond smugglers and as chance would have it busy employing their trade. They had all the equipment and only bought the best ones the sellers had. And to the tourists; yes the people next to the road in Zimbabwe making a triangle with their hands, really do have and do sell diamonds.

The old man uses his age well: with about 12 dealers around the car he ‘accidentally' dropped a diamond of a young boy in the car and despite the kids protest our driver drove away unperturbed by the confusion and chaos of the group of teenagers seeking their fortunes with the little shiny stones. Now, the police in Zimbabwe knows well that people are currently selling stones, so we were stopped at 10 roadblocks, and searched for diamonds.

Then I understood why our driver bought about 200 loose tomatoes and packets of beans which he threw in the boot (trunk) of the car. Needle in a haystack or should we say: diamond in a trunk full of tomatoes! Our driver didn't have a license and the car didn't have number (registration) plates, so at each stop the driver paid a friendly bribe and so we continued on, towards Masvingo.

Half asleep I overheard the old man speaking to my friend Scotch who was explaining how it was easier traveling with a white guy because people seemed to trust lighter skinned individuals more easily and to this the old man bemoaned the state of affairs and with the shake of his head said: "Yes, as you know ‘a black man is always a suspect!'" Now the irony in this coming from an active criminal was quite humorous indeed. The criminal bemoaning the fact that his looked upon as suspect! Nevertheless, our new friends (suspects or not) even invited us to stay over for the night at their place, but somehow, for some funny reason we felt that we should rather push on with our journey towards South Africa.

After driving 300km in 5 hours we arrived in Masvingo, paid ZIM1600 and to our great surprise at 21:00 at night stopped right next to a half full bus ready to go to Beitbridge! We hopped on, occupied the back seat and were off to the border. 300 kilometers to the border (and civilization!). We calculated that we should be at the border around 01:00. At 03:30 the bus (or was it a fridge on wheels?) broke down the final time 5 kilometers from the border. Tired and bruised from the bumpy ride Scotch and I decided to go by foot and get outa Zimbabwe. After a freezing 400m we found a taxi parked next to the road and offered the driver the customary 50% of the asking price, which he accepted and he drove us to the border.

At the border all went well and we walked out of Zim onto the bridge. But for good times sake we were stopped once more by Zimbabwean police asking for our passports, which we gladly showed them. The one officer asked: "How far are you going?" and I replied: "South Africa", which he didn't think was funny. I couldn't understand what it was to the bridge guard how far into my own country I wanted to travel, but after saying Jo'burg, he seemed please and gave over to his colleague.

Now the next officer, after staring at Scotch's (Kuthlano Toko) and my (Schalk van Heerden) passport photos, studied my face for about two minutes and went on to ask: "Which one of you is Toko?" We wanted to explode with laughter, but before I could manage a "the black guy" or some sarcastic remark, scotch stated the extremely obvious and declared: "I am, I am Toko" So that we guess made me the white guy- Van Heerden, and so we were off...

South African side the first policeman to open Scotch's passport started laughing and couldn't stop saying: "Toko? Toko! Are you Toko? Are you traveling with the white guy Toko? White guy, are you traveling with Toko? Ha, ha, ha, ha." at 03:00 in the morning...very funny... ha, ha, and so we got to South Africa. 600km to go to Jo'burg.

At the taxi rank we saw that there was absolutely no transport to Jo'burg and everyone was just lying there in the open, sleeping, waiting for the next day and hopefully transport. By now we were starving after our little voluntary fast (minus 2 beers) and we decided to walk to the Shell shop to get a bite. At the Shell we saw a huge luxury bus, engine running, written: Lusaka (Zambia) Jo'burg. We went to the driver, asked if the bus was full and paid the R150 each he demanded. We asked if there was a minute to buy food, to which he promptly replied: "No! We're leaving." Scotch said: "Wait, I need to get some bederfies (Afrikaans for treats) and off he ran. I was amused since I didn't know non-Afrikaners knew the word bederfies and it made me think of my grandmother, biltong and cookies.

My enthusiasm about the treats started to disappear when the bus wheels started rolling without any Scotch on the bus! But just then Scotch hopped on the bus cruised off and out came the bederfies... I nice carton of Maheu! Now, this is traditionally not something Afrikaners put their mouths on and definitely not to be called bederfies! Yet Scotch (Sotho speaking) thought he was in heaven and we both just smiled- enjoying the reality of being different people from different cultures doing life together. The bus was awesome: tv, soft seats, heater, curtains, high speed, everything.

After 7 hours we were home in Jo'burg CBD walking around like two confused yet proud little penguins dropped in a shopping mall. What a ride! We survived. Tired, alive, grateful, full. We walked around reflecting on how we ‘toured' Africa and how different it would have been in our own comfortable air-conditioned 4x4 where there's no need to interact or be dependent on any local African, whose country people like to visit.

I think I understand why people like to speak of life as a journey, and for us to speak of a journey as life- real life.