Zimbabwe/Botswana outdoor mobile camping safari adventure: Day 4 22/10

Early start means 7.30. It takes more thanthree hours to pack down the camp and provide us with breakfast. We heard their soft voices out in the dark at 4ish in the morning. Make the camp fire going, heating up water for our foldable water basins outside our tent where we are supposed to take a morning wash.
O has promised us very bad roads today, but we start out on nice paved roads in high speed. See a sign saying 110 km to our next destination, Savuti. We will easily be there before lunch, just as it says in the program. Don't know why O sounded so worried about the road.
Oups! Where did the road go? After an hour or so, all we can see is sand. Eventually with some tracks in it. And a sign saying we have 76 k to go. And speed down to 10 or 15 k/h (not joking). And elephants have used this "road" frequently so there are big, big holes. And we bump up and down, shaking our bodies like crazy sitting rave dancers. And the trailer hops and flops and one of the cooler boxes decides to leave the vehicle and we have to stop and go off and get it. No animals in sight, just big piles of elephant poo. Not even a scorpion while I am peeing in the thorny bush. It is too hot for all living things. Even for our car. Both its cooler systems are boiling and we have to stop again. "No worries, this is very normal", reassures O. P takes one of the 25 liters containers with water and almost empty it. We might have travelled a couple of k, still 70 to go, at least. I wonder how long the water will last, there are two more containers. And then there is our drinking water. And the 12 cans of beer of course. Impossible for anything to cool down in this temperature, but on we go after waiting twenty minutes. And the road gets even worse. And the poor engine is working so hard, and O does not seem super confident with how to drive because he is using far to high gears, and I almost feel I could do it better. We are getting used to the frequent boiling stops. I thank God for the sun roof of the car. Down to walking pace, and then, black smoke, and the engine stops.
I don't recognize the swore words in their language but I am sure P is using loads of them. He is the one driving, O has given up. And the car belongs to P's friend, and here we are in the middle of nowhere with a broke down engine and no cell phone coverage. They try the water trick again, there goes the last drips in the last 25 liters container. How far have we travelled, how far yet to go? Can we walk 40 k? No way, not in this heat. Hakuna matata, O tells us not to worry. I am not worried, just a bit concerned.
Two cars are approaching from opposite direction, have not seen many of those today. And a miracle arrives. In one of the cars is a German car mechanics. All men dive together with heads down in the engine and discuss in different languages a lot of solutions. All tools are taken out. Turbo charger is removed.
"We need a sock, does anyone have a sock?"
I give them one of my Happy Socks, red with white dots all over it. It becomes a very pretty air filter. And the engine starts and we all say danke and thank you and bye bye. The advices ringing in my head. "Do not use high gears." "Go very slow." "The engine is weak, don't over heat it." and so on and so on. And in jumps O and puts his foot on the gas pedal and puts in the third gear and I can't sit silent any more and shouts. "NO, you have to go gentle!" And of course they laugh at me but P takes over the steering wheel. And he manage to take the car all the way to the entrance gate. With boiling stops, every ten minutes, using up all our drinking water except one litre. But not the beer!

An hour before sun set we reach our camp site. We have been on the road for almost twelve hours and are totally exhausted. We do not at all want to go out on an afternoon game drive as mentioned in the itinerary. We just want to eat and sleep, and I think O is very grateful for that.