From Windhoek to Pretoria

Windhoek
Windhoek is shopping heaven! Prices are low and shops are absolutely great. You can actually go shopping for fun and you have a choice. Wow, we don’t have that in Malawi! So with the argument that we need some new clothes in Holland anyway, we got ourselves some nice new outfits ;) And that feels great haha! But we agreed we can only wear them when we reach our new goal: the Indian Coast in Mozambique!

Windhoek (Namibia) – Kang (Botswana)
We left Windhoek on the morning of the 3rd October. Our goal was the Botswana border. But Bertha was driving great and we arrived at the border by 2 pm. Great job! We might as well drive some further and see where we will get. We followed the Trans-Kalahari Highway which goes straight down Botswana through, well, the Kalahari. Actually this drive is pretty boring. It’s not a sand desert, but more grass and bushes and hundreds of stupid donkeys, cows and goats crossing the road right when you reach them.
We did not find any accommodation for the next 350 km. So we arrived in Kang at about 8.30 pm! We drove for about 12 hours straight! The last part in the dark as well, which was quite an experience. But our long drive was rewarded with the sighting of a beautiful ‘caracal cat’ which crossed the road (almost a ‘flat cat’).
We spend the night at Kang Ultra Stop. Nothing more then a big petrol station with a campsite. But they had a cold beer and we were happy that we made it so far that day! We actually thought that 706 km would have taken us two days, so in a way that meant we had earned an extra beach-day in Mozambique!!!

Kang (Botswana) – Zeerust (South-Africa)
The next morning we continued our journey. Still tired from the day before, our aim for the day was to reach South-Africa. Bertha was giving some problems, but nothing big. We crossed the border at Skilpadshek. Suddenly the big open plains of Botswana where replaced by houses and people everywhere! It never ceases to amaze me how the atmosphere in South-Africa is so different from any other southern African country. You feel the tension almost as soon as you cross the border. Suddenly you get the urge to lock your car doors and windows. Watch over your shoulder when you walk down the street. It’s a habit of Tinus to waive to anybody walking on the road and normally people waive back. Here you get the strangest looks. You can see them think, was that white guy actually waving to me? There is no place on earth where I feel whiter then in South-Africa. And that’s not a good thing.

We found a place to stay in Zeerust. A sleepy town where apparently nothing ever happens. Our campsite was more or less a trailer park with a space for free camping, but again, a cold beer and spare ribs, so no complaints here.
There are some things in life though I just don’t understand. For example, why, if we are almost the only ones camping there on a big area, do two South-African families pull up and park 10 cm (true story) from our car to pitch up their camp. I just don’t get that! Are they lonely? Do they wanna stand as close as possible next to a real car ;) Some people…

Zeerust – Pretoria (bearly)
The part where we are in South-Africa is quite hilly. The road is excellent, but you go up and down small hills all the time. Normally this would not be a problem, but during the morning Bertha got some big problems going up hill. She lost power and Tinus could not give her the extra power to push her up the hills. We went slower and slower till the point we went uphill with less than 20 km an hour and she was making a hell of a noise by the extra acceleration necessary…oh no, this does not sound right!
We kept on the emergency lane of the highway and managed to get her to a petrol station. We checked all the oils and stuff, but nothing seemed out of the ordinary. Well, we wanted to do some big maintenance in Pretoria anyway, so we might as well do it here. Within no-time Tinus was covered in oil and grease again (I stopped wondering how he does that). It did not really help that not one, but two buses full of tourists stopped behind us for a break. 108 people gathered in a circle around us, asking really intelligent questions, like: did your car break down? No, we just like to cover ourselves in grease at a petrol station in the middle of nowhere to put on a show for tourists…
Tinus managed quite quick to change the fuel filter, refresh the air filter, change the oil filter and check everything we could think of… The big challenge was to prevent an air lock in the engine after changing the fuel filter. Since the pump to bleed the fuel is broken, Tinus had to crawl in the hood and suck the fuel out ;-) Mjammie. But what do you know… she started again! Tinus went for a test drive and all seemed well again!!!

So we continued and for the first 10 kilometers she drove like a happy Landy again! But then…the same problem occurred again. The sign on the road indicated ‘Pretoria 80 km’. Hmm, that’s gonna take a long time with a max speed of 40 km an hour!!! But we continued, since there was no better option anyway.
We kept our spirits up, following the emergency lane. Closer to Pretoria it got quite confusing with all the exits and big intersections. Which way to go? We did not have a good map of Pretoria and we could not safely cross two lanes on the highway if the road we needed to take would go in a different direction! So we just kept our fingers crossed and followed whatever we thought made sense.
At a certain point we entered Pretoria and saw…a MacDonalds! No way! That’s like an oasis in the desert ;) Tinus actually marked the spot on our GPS, that’s how surprised we were! We walked in to get some good stuff and asked for directions. Pretoria is a very big city and we had no idea where we were.
Get this…it seemed we were only one street away from our intended accommodation! How unbelievable is that! We slowly drove Bertha there. We knew Bertha had a big problem, so our challenge would be to find some spare parts and a good workshop for Bertha, but that would be something for tomorrow…

In Pretoria
Yep, no problem, we have a place for you guys. Just get your car around and park it there. Happy to be at our destination, we went to the back. Oops. That gate made out of bricks looks quite low. You think it will fit? Sure! Ow, maybe not. Take the jerry cans of and try again. We tried again. Nope. The spare tire has to come off as well. Almost! Only the back rail of the roof rack did not make it. Hmm, what now? We deflated the back tires and tried again! And still did not make it…at about 1 cm. The guys wanted to take some bricks out of the gate, but we decided to look for another place. There was one just down the street and I walked towards it.

While I was walking, a woman pulled up her car into her house. I saw a Landrover standing there and asked her if she knew a place for spare Landrover parts. She laughs and points to our Landy.
- Is that yours?
- Yep.
- Do you have some problems?
- Yep.
- Well, my boyfriend has a Land Rover workshop and is actually specialized in old Landrovers, he will be home in about two hours and I could ask him to have a look at it…I could not believe my ears! How amazing is that. Call it coincidence, luck, the guidance of the universe, but of all the people in Pretoria I talk to her!

We continued our quest for accommodation. The second place had no space, but send us to another place. He said that if we could not find accommodation there, we could come back to him and we would make a plan.
Accommodation number 3 had space, but not for the car. We asked if it would be okay to leave the car outside? NO! are you crazy. It will be stripped tomorrow morning! Eh, ok.
We went back to number two. Eh, no sorry, I think I can not help you after all. Aaargh.
So we went back to number 1. We made the plan to put up the tent and leave the car outside, but to take everything out. And that’s a lot!!!

We hoped our car would be too much one-of-a-kind that potential car thieves would think twice before they would touch Bertha. By the way, they would probably not be able to start her anyway, and if they did, not without us or the whole neighborhood hearing it!

Pretoria is just as crazy as the rest of South-Africa. All houses are fenced of from the street with big walls and electrified wires. They all have dogs and sometimes a personal guard. Besides that, every single house has an emergency button and or is subscribed to a private security company. Not that that really helps, because everybody knows those companies are so corrupt they actually initiate more robberies than they prevent… And everybody knows somebody or have been victim themselves to one thing or another. Although this is true and crime rates are scary high in South-Africa, this whole fear-atmosphere is also fed by the media. You read about violence and robberies and crazy stuff all the time. This makes it a downwards spiral of fear and crime. Welcome to South-Africa!
The funny thing is, people who have been born and raised here, all take it for granted and promote Pretoria as the best place in the world. There’s no place like home ;)
In the centre of town you see no white people and we were told some white people living in Pretoria haven’t been in the centre of town for years.
The whole apartheid has left big scars on the nation. Although a lot of efforts have been taken by government and media to unite South-Africa as one nation, the general idea persists that whites will always treat black people bad to get themselves better and it will always come down to that. Together with the problems on areas like for example education, equal opportunities, unemployment or the general longing to get ‘easy money’ (people even stool bronze from the national monument); even with your best efforts you can’t easy change a mindset which has been forced into the heads of people for over a century! Of course there are white and black people living here who are not like that and try to be better then the former generation. But it’s a hard battle. And sadly there are still a lot of people who haven’t changed at all…

I know I don’t live here, not now and not back then, and can only observe what I see, feel and experience from the sideline through the eyes of a visitor and stories heard by other people. This makes my experience very subjective, but it still makes me think that because this is the case, I therefore can only pick up the obvious things. I’m scared to think what is hidden beneath that first layer.

Ok, enough with the doom and gloom. Besides the fact we can’t park our car on the street and are not allowed to walk on the streets in the dark, this is not a big difference from bad places in any big town in the world, right? So now we are at North-South Backpackers. A very easy going place in the suburbs of Pretoria. Situated in a beautiful street because of the many bright-purple Jacaranda trees.
We've found a nice square with bars and pubs and the sun is still shining...

In the evening we met up with Jacques. A funny guy and Landrover crazy. Excellent! He told us the diagnose…it was the gearbox, again. We thought this was the case, but did not really want to believe it, since we fixed the whole gearbox and replaced the main things with new stuff!?
So the gearbox has to come out, again. And of course that’s gonna cost us money, again. But he would be happy to help us out and told us not to worry about anything.
We had some beers and he told us the story about one of his friends who was just released that day from a snake cave. He had set the world record of spending 113 days in a room with 40 poisonous snakes. Green mambas, black mambas, puff adders, cobras, all there! To raise money for charity. Google him: Martin Smit, aka Mad Martin. Unbelievable!

And the good news was we could park Bertha at his house for the night…so she was secured as well. A big relief. And that was just another day in the lives of Tinus, Amy and Bertha ;)

Bertha back in the workshop
The next morning we drove Bertha to his workshop. I know it’s an old car and I know we were to expect some problems, but come on, the gear box for the third time?!?
We have been lucky though that big problems only happen when we are near big towns (Blantyre, Lusaka, Pretoria) and not in the middle of nowhere. And this will be alright as well, right?
We just got a phone call from Jacques. Yep, it is the clutch plate. He says the one we have now must at least be 10-15 years old. That’s strange; we just replaced it with a new one in Blantyre... Tinus asks if it is possible that is has just worn out after 7000 km. No chance, he says.
Great. We think back what could have happened. The only thing I can think of is that in Lusaka they have changed it….and kept the new one…which means we have been f….., big time. And that sucks…
Somewhat later he calls again with bad news. The pressure group obviously has been swopped as well, since the one he is holding looks worn out as well. AAARGH!!!

But there’s nothing we can do about it now. So we just have to swallow the sour taste of the loss and the high bill down with a cold beer.
Which is exactly what we are gonna do tonight! There’s an African rock ‘n roll band playing who are staying in our accommodation as well. Since we are - after months of no live music – in for anything, we’ll go down and have a look, with Jacques and his girlfriend.

Lots of love,
Amy, Tinus and Big Bertha

PS I forgot to tell that in Swakopmund we had dinner next to the actor from The Storyteller ;) His dog was not there though…
PPS All the people that leave messages on Hyves: I'm sorry, I can't read them since in most of the internet cafes, Hyves is just too big to download...So you just have to wait till I'm back in Holland!