1. I didn’t have the ownership papers for my boss’ car.
2. I didn’t have police clearance for the border.
3. I didn’t have a letter from the bank giving me permission to take their car (which is in fact paid off) across the border.
4. I didn’t have a letter from my boss allowing me to take the car anywhere.
Now, if I had known I needed any of these things, I’d happily have started collecting them prior to 6:45am on the day of an 8:00 departure. But, I didn’t. My bad. So after finding the registration, I went to the office and forged a letter from my boss on university letterhead giving me permission to use the car. We then went to the police station, where we were sent upstairs. There, we were told, no clearance without bank permission. Now, again, it’s not my car – so being me, I went to the bank anyway – on a Saturday morning – and demanded a letter for someone else’s car based on a fake permission letter from the owner (who was in Canada). Which I got. Returning to the cops, I was told, “Oh, the guy with the keys to the office where the stamp is that goes on the letter has knocked off.” The woman who was ‘helping’ me said I was out of luck. But then there was a small tinkling sound against the tile as she rifled through a stack of papers…a spare key hit the floor. Et voila, we were off. And across the borders of three countries over the next two weeks, no one ever asked to see so much as a shred of all my paperwork.
Cows, donkeys, goats, minibuses, potholes, dirt hills, twisting mountain roads, and twenty-six hours later we arrived in Cape Town on Christmas Eve. I hung some plastic Santas on the aloe plant and went to bed. But Christmas Day we spent by the sea with some friends, eating curry and drinking Jack Daniels in the sun. Not bad. Not bad at all.
A full travelogue would require more space and energy than I’ve got right now, but let me share a few things I picked up along the way:
Zimbabwean and American definitions of a ‘good road’ are even more markedly different than I previously thought.
Karaoke is apparently a universal language of its own – even in Korean, on the side of a mountain in Africa.
There are, in fact, baboons in Cape Point.
Breaking and entering is sometimes easier than you think.
Even at the end of the world on New Years Day, you might see someone you know.
Some wine has enough legs to run a marathon.
Slapping yourself actually does keep you awake in the middle of the night.
Every safari has it asshole. And sometimes, she’s Canadian.
When you need it most, there is no tonic water in Botswana. Or fish.
Rain drives all wildlife into deep hiding. Really. I saw it once.
When a bar in Africa floods, you really don’t want to be there to see what floats out.
And, elephants apparently may prefer the side of road to the park:
happy new year, everybody...
