Rain doesn’t necessarily fall all day every day in the rainy season. As you can imagine, big black clouds roll through and sheets of water descend, followed by bright hot sun and steaming humidity. Roads that were mud yesterday may be passable today if the equatorial sun shines long enough. Hillsides and national parks are so green you’d think you are in the Pacific Northwest and the wild flowers make us think of spring in Idaho.

Peril exists however. That you may be able to travel a track doesn’t mean the track will passable on your return. Few people are about in the parks who might assist in case of error. Rangers and guides don’t want to struggle down the roads looking for trouble. Phone numbers for park entrances and headquarters rarely work, in our experience. As is often the case in Africa, you are on your own.

And so we found ourselves in Mikumi Park, mired in mud to the axle on one side, tipped precariously and very much alone. We’d been in the park for a couple of days, managing to avoid the trap of going down an impassable track with no way to turn around. On the final game drive we followed the rule for mud, we found a road that had recent tire imprints on it – a good sign of a passable track. The gravel turned to a dark surface, we could see, but others had been here – we kept going. Mistake. The dark surface turned to butter, slippery and spread across the way. In a second we were off the road and into the black cotton mud of the barrow pit.

Black Cotton is a common mud in Africa and much has been written about it on forums and 4×4 sites. No one likes it; why would they? It is relentlessly sticky, everything near it is quickly coated. And it is slick, heavy and hateful to shovel. What to do? Jim worked the truck and I attempted to contact someone at the park to advise them of the situation. Not one number they gave us is working. Hmmm. Ok. The truck is not moving. Darkness is coming on. We hear lion. It is beginning to suck to be us.

But we’d seen a safari vehicle earlier in the day and through ever-amazing technology wifi is reachable if I stand in the right spot. I retrieve the number for Tan-Swiss, the company that operates the vehicle we’d seen. Being a lodge, there was someone there to answer the phone. Through fits and starts I ask, could they call the park for us? Better than that she gives me the phone number of their guide. He passes on the word and presently we are informed that someone is coming. Now in African time that could mean soon. Or not. We aren’t going anywhere.

Robert arrives as dark falls, alone in a lightweight Toyota bakkie with average tires. Oh no. (Or words to that effect). There’s no way that truck is going to pull us out. Robert parks a ways back and hurries over, looks around, and says “get back and stay here”. To our utter astonishment he gets in the Beagle, puts it in gear and guns it. He would not stop, pedal to the medal, and damn if the truck didn’t start to move, sliding further off into the mud but inching forward. Mud is flung off the tires as the ruts deepen. He keeps working it, pushing the truck on and soon he has gone 40 meters, far enough to scratch his way up onto the road surface. It was way too dark for photos but we won’t forget what happened – that man can drive. We all managed to get turned around, easing our way back to the campsite with Robert escorting. There’s water at the camp and we clean the truck and marvel over Robert’s skills; telling ourselves we won’t be stuck again. But when we do sink the truck in yet another mud hole a week later, we knew we could extract it. It’s a damn good truck, the Beagle. Just gotta drive it like Robert.