Saturday, September 22 -- Holy Cow!

We got up early, ate breakfast and then hit the road... again... for a 3 hour drive to Tana (to pick up Byron's pack that finally arrived in Mada) and then a 9 hour drive to Mahajunga. The terrain was beautiful, too awesome to describe. I'm sure that even the photos won't do it justice! Well, all was going great, we were just chatting and trucking along after dark when Byron (who was in the front seat with Kyle) said:
"There's a cow in the road..." with a calm, monotone, non-chalant voice.

"There's a cow in the road..." with the same calm, monotone, non-chalant voice.

"There's a..." THUMP...THUMP... Z-E-B-U!

Kyle: "Oh, you mean THAT cow..."

Kyle after continuing to drive a few hundred yards, "Should we stop?"

Passengers: "YES!"

So we pulled over. We had hit the zebu on the right front edge of the truck and the impact spun the cow around, knocking it into the right rear passenger's side door. We got out to assess the damage and discovered a leak in the radiator and a broken fan... not a good problem to have at dark in the middle of nowhere and several kilometers from anywhere that even had electricity. Byron decided that the leak in the radiator was up high enough that if we kept adding water as the engine heated up we might be able to crip into a village. Hopefully we would either get more water to keep us going or we would find a mechanic to help us out. (Madagascar doesn't exactly have 24 hour emergency roadside assistance!)

We all gathered up the water we had stored and poured in about 4-5 liters and headed down the road. We were able to go about 15 kilometers before the engine started to overheat. We added another 4-5 liters and again, went about 15 kilometers. At this point, we came to a larger village that actually had a gas station. While we were contemplating what to do (buy water and try to get to Mahajunga, take a taxi brousse, find a mechanic), Kris asked some of the locals if there was anyone around who might be able to help us out. Now, what are the chances that the village even had a mechanic... much less one that was available and willing to help us out? You know that it had to be a God-thing! We conveniently found a mechanic almost instantly after pulling into the gas station. He worked on it immediately and thought that if a replacement fan could not be found that he would just patch the radiator and bypass the thermostat. Kyle discussed a price for the labor and then the mechanic got to work. We pulled the truck across the street to his "shop" which was basically a little 3 sided tin hut along the road. His helpers pulled out a generator which was attached to a light bulb. They hooked it to the raised hood of the truck and got to work. While he was removing the radiator he had someone go track down an engine fan that could be used. We thought that it would only be a couple of hours before everything was repaired and we were on our way down the road, however, 6 hours later we were still in the "shop". The radiator was removed and fixed (JB Weld), and they had apparently tracked down a fan that could be used. They even removed the truck hood and banged out some of the dents! When the fan was brought to us, the mechanic had disappeared... someone said he was out getting a "drink". At this point, it was the middle of the night and all of us were tired: tired of waiting, tired of driving, tired of wondering if the mechanic actually knew what he was doing and we weren't real thrilled that the guy who was supposed to be getting us back on the road was allegedly at a bar! Well, he finally showed up and put on the replacement fan, put the radiator back in, put the hood back on and 7 hours after we stopped, we were on our way again. God is so good to us! Oh yea... what do you think it set us back? About $105.00! Labor was under $20.00 total. I'm sure that is only a fraction of what it would have cost state-side!