On Our Way to SA!

Woohoo… July 27th… my birthday! Thank you all for the bday shout outs and good wishes. I appreciate your thoughtfulness very much, especially being that I am on the other side of the world. Hey, this is the 2nd year that I’ve spent my bday in Africa. Crazy cool! Anyway, Nigel and Joel planned to leave for Windhoek midday today and stay the night to pick up Scott, who was returning from Copenhagen the next day. Since they planned to leave from Swakop, it was more convenient for Garth & I to stay over at Scoot’s place after last night’s rehearsal, so we could leave together from Swakop. While Nigel and Joel packed, Garth & I had a lunch date with his dad, Titus, in Tamariskia (within walking distance of Vineta where Scott lives) to celebrate my birthday. We had a braai and just chatted and caught up. It was a very nice lunch. What a yummy sendoff for the trip! =)

Got back to the bachelor pad, Nigel and Joel finished up their packing. We were ready to leave. Then Nigel asked, “So does everybody have their passports, kids?” At which point I stared at him in astonishment. Lo and behold… I FORGOT MY PASSPORT! And I surely needed it in order to get into SA. Haha… Garth had planned to take the taxi home after he saw us off, but now…
Nigel: “Guess we’re driving you home (Walvis Bay) after all, Garth.”
Garth: [Turns to me and says] “Thanks Hunny!”
Bah! I felt like such an idiot! I remembered putting my passport out to be packed, but it totally slipped my mind to do so in the end. So… we were on the road again to Walvis Bay to pick up my passport and drop off Garth. Since we made the 30-minute drive out there, we might as well head to Windhoek from that end because there were two alternate routes we could take. The only catch was that we would be driving on gravel road for the most part. Nigel thought it was fine because Squeaky Sam could easily handle gravel roads. Why not right?
The drive out was spectacular! We got to see a variety of beautiful landscapes and wild animals. More so than had we have driven on the main highway. We were amazed by the amount of animals spotted on this drive… almost comparable to a game drive.
Overall animal count:
Mountain Zebra – 16
Mini Bunny – 15
Ostrich – 10
Oryx – 6
Kudu – 4
Bat – 2
Bugs on the Car – 378
All was fine and dandy and we were making good time. Then Nigel made a quick pit stop for us to stretch and do our thang, when I noticed and pointed out the strong smell of burnt rubber. Hmm… not knowing where it was coming from, we shrugged out shoulders and hopped back into the vehicle. We drove not another km or so, when we suddenly heard a THUMP THUMP and thought, “OH CRAP.” Yup, upon inspection we saw that the whole left backside tire was blown to smithereens. Crazy nuts! Good thing Nigel knew how to change tires and went to work quite efficiently. Bad thing the tire had an anti-theft bolt keeping it from being removed. We searched the whole vehicle for the lock nut’s key to no avail. CRAP INDEED! So what now?!! We were stranded in the middle of nowhere in total darkness, 100km away from Windhoek, with a flat tire and no way to remove it. One major thing to be thankful for was the strong cellular coverage. My word… I was impressed. Both Joel and I were limited in our phone credit though, so we had to be wise with its usage. So of course, I called Garth to tell him about our dilemma. He in turn made most of the calls for us. We ended up getting connected to two nearby desert ranches, which was no real help to us since they didn’t have the tool to remove the lock nut. Long story short, we eventually called Tow-In from Windhoek to come and fetch us. Ooo… this was going to be pricey, but we were desperate to get to Windhoek as soon as possible. We still had to pick up Scoot in the morning remember? Yea… so 10pm we made the call. (Imagine how long the evening had been for us already… waiting for help and making calls. Seriously not one car had passed by us.) Then we had to wait another 2.5 hours for the tow truck to come. After which we had to drive about 2.5 hours back into Windhoek. Haha… we didn’t reach the Roof of Africa (our accommodation) until 3am!! All I could say to this was, “WHAT A BIRTHDAY!” - my most unforgettably whack bday ever! Sigh… at least we made it to our destination safe and sound. The three of us were so grateful to see the beds in our room! We crawled in and immediately dozed off into la-la land.

The next day, Jan (the Tow-In company’s owner) personally gave Nigel and I a lift to the airport to pick up Scott, while the garage dealt with Squeaky Sam’s situation. Ooo… what a surprise Scott will get! All in all, Scott took it pretty well and got roped into our tire bust-out adventure and we all decided to spend another day in Windhoek instead of rushing to be on the road again. This was most definitely the ideal plan because we all needed more sleep. I was looking forward to relaxing in Windhoek and chowing down at Joe’s Beerhouse – a restaurant that is reknowned for serving an assortment of wild game and *ahem* beers. Everything worked out in the end.