Garry Sowerby gets blindfolded en route to investigate safe travel routes

The airport was empty except for a lanky slow-moving teenager sweeping the floor at the far end of the terminal. Things just didn't add up. My flight was scheduled to leave in an hour and the airport was deserted.

The Kamikaze driver of the bent Peugeot taxicab that drove me from the Marriott Hotel in downtown Bujumbura in the east African country of Burundi had departed, grumbling something I assume was related to the puny tip. I was alone, save the sweeper.

Upon further investigation I encountered a ticket agent napping on a bench behind the Kenya Airways ticket counter.

"Err, excuse me, is there any sign of the flight from Nairobi? I'm supposed to catch the continuation of that flight to Dar es Salaam (Tanzania)."

At least the fellow knew who I was.

"Oh, you must be Mr. Sowerby. You were the only one missing so it left about 20 minutes ago."

He was most apologetic.

My partner Ken Langley was on the flight and I was supposed to fly on to the Tanzanian capital of Dar es Salaaml for meetings with the Tanzanian Automobile Association. I had flown to Bujumbura, Burundi, on the western shores of Lake Victoria five days earlier and, with my mission completed, was anxious to move on.

It was Nov. 18, 1984. Ken and I were on a month-long fact-finding trip to determine the best routing through Africa for an assault on the land-speed record from the southern tip of Africa to the northern tip of Norway, high above the Arctic Circle. Our trek, dubbed the Africa-Arctic Challenge, was a sequel to the around-the-world-driving record we set in 1980.

We had scored a new Suburban from GMC Truck Division of General Motors Corp. to establish a new Guinness record for the cape-to-cape drive. The adventure would help GM launch the new 6.2-liter V-8 diesel engine it had recently introduced in its light trucks and sport utility vehicles. The adventure was, to us, a high-stakes affair, so a month's reconnaissance of the hot spots along our proposed route seemed a prudent investment.

In Kenya, we decided to split up for a few days. Ken stayed in Kenya while I flew to Burundi to investigate routings from Tanzania east of Lake Victoria. If feasible, the short cut would save us hundreds of miles.

In Bujumbura, a steamy and lethargic city, I met with the president of the Automobile Club of Burundi who didn't offer any solutions to our routing dilemma. He did however call a man who claimed to have contacts in the southern part of the country.

The next morning, Guy Collette, a jovial Belgian engineer, picked me up at the Marriott Hotel. The humidity was ridiculous and I was drenched in sweat by the time I strapped myself into his Toyota pickup.

We maneuvered through the capital. A half-hour south of the city, Collette stopped on the side of the road and fished a blindfold out of his briefcase.

"I hate to do this but my contacts are very private people." He seemed a little embarrassed.

We drove for about an hour. The road became rougher. Once in a while we would stop and Collette would talk to someone, in French once but mostly in a local dialect. I dozed off and woke when my door opened.

"You can take that off now." Collette laughed at my squinting eyes, as if I had been at an afternoon matinée watching "Out of Africa."

We were parked in front of an imposing two-story stucco house where a servant led us into a cavernous room with four languid ceiling fans. A massive mahogany table was planted in the middle of the room.

Four men sat around the table in wingback Victorian chairs, including a Chinese man, a blonde American with a Southern drawl, a small Pakistani and a speedy African man who did most of the talking. From his English I assumed he had been educated in England.

A pad with a few notes -- and four pistols -- were the only things on the table. I naively wondered if they were loaded.

Everyone was cordial. We sipped black tea while I briefed them on our quest to drive from the bottom of Africa to the top of Europe in record time. They told me there were routes, but they were slow, difficult and unpredictable. They felt it would be too dangerous to try to find our way and through the mountains of northern Tanzania and to enter Burundi from the south.

The meeting was over in 15 minutes. As Collette slipped the blindfold across my eyes, I assured him the Burundi shortcut would be deleted from the routing options.

We arrived back at the Marriott just in time to pack and grab the white-knuckle cab ride in the battered Peugeot wagon to find and empty airport and news of my plane that had left an hour and 20 minutes early.

"How long before the next flight to Tanzania?" I asked the ticket agent.

"Four days if the weather holds. There is a Marriott Hotel in the city. It has a lovely swimming pool."

Back into the taxi for another Burundi cab ride.

Garry Sowerby, author of "Sowerby's Road: Adventures of a Driven Mind," is a four-time Guinness World Record holder for long-distance driving. His exploits, good, bad and just plain harrowing, are the subject of World Odyssey, produced in conjunction with Wheelbase Media. You can send Garry a note online at www.wheelbase.ws/media using the contact link. Wheelbase Media is a worldwide provider of automotive news and features stories.