Checking In and Setting Out

Continued from here.

With visions of Johannesburg squarely in our rear-view we started making our way out of Gauteng province and through Mpumalanga, towards Kruger National Park. As multi-hour car trips go, this one has to rank among the most underwhelming in my life. The landscape was flat, vast and unchanging. The only notable breaks in the monotony were nuclear power plants at regular intervals and a packed, very Westernized shopping mall in perplexing proximity to absolutely nowhere.

We had booked a guided sunset drive at Kruger to start at 5:30, and as the afternoon stretched out and the drive took longer than we had anticipated, we started watching the clock a little more closely. We pulled into the parking lot at Kruger's Crocodile Bridge entry gate at around 4:00, and with only one other family in the office getting their permits and paying their entry fees, we thought we had plenty of time. We were wrong.

The long rectangular office was sparse and silent, with three largely uninspired South Africa National Parks employees sitting behind the counter. Dated posters hung on the walls, while brochure racks sat empty and ceiling fans waged a futile war against the stifling afternoon heat. The simple act of paying our entry fee for the week and confirming our in-park accommodation and pre-booked game drives turned into an hour-long ordeal thanks to the woman who was “helping” us, whose attitude could generously be described as disinterested.

As we were getting sorted out, a mini bus crammed with fifteen or so native South Africans pulled up, its passengers excitedly spilling out while a few spokespeople came into the office.

“We have come to see the animals!” one of the group excitedly declared, while others stood next to the vehicle and sipped liberally from bottles pulled out of the cooler they had with them. More than one of them were unsteady on their feet, and the park's employees didn’t seem too keen on letting them in to the park.

“You don’t have enough time to come in on a day pass,” the most senior among them explained. “The gates close in ninety minutes, you can’t get across the park in that time. And besides, you have been drinking.”

“But we paid a lot of money and came a long way. We just got lost.”

“You should have looked at a map.”

Some of the passengers were clearly drunk and not bothered, while others were disappointed that their adventure to Kruger seemed to be ending at the entry gate, especially after they had shelled out for the mini bus ride and come some distance. South Africa is full of born and bred locals who have never seen its most iconic sights. It is rare for someone selling animal sculptures in one of the country’s towns to have seen the flesh-and-bone versions of the cheap, mass-produced likenesses they are hawking. I thought it a shame to see this group of residents get turned away.

“OK, we will come back tomorrow,” said one especially deflated young man. That prospect seemed dim.

By the time we finally had our accommodation and permits sorted out and drove to the dusty and seemingly post-apocalyptic free-for-all camping area, we had less than ten minutes until our guided game drive was set to start. I threw the tent up in record, frantic time (with no assigned campsites, we needed to assert our space) and we each took a quick bath in bug dope after donning our long sleeves - malaria being a bitch best avoided.

We sprinted the hundred meters from the campsite to the meeting point for the game drive, on the wide swath of road in between Crocodile Bridge rest camp's modest gift shop/restaurant and even more modest two-pump gas station. We arrived frazzled and sweaty. "Slow down, you're in Africa," a fellow guest told us. "You're throwing off the balance." Realizing that we were in no danger of missing the boat, so to speak, we both took a few sheepish and calming deep breaths as we climbed into the back of the game vehicle: an oversized, deep-green pickup with a canopy over several rows of benches in the bed, an aisle running down the middle, and no glass behind the cab. We plunked ourselves down on the right hand side, halfway back.

While they are an added expense, guided drives are a near-necessity in Kruger. Park roads are closed to private vehicles before sunup and after sundown (at nighttime, overnight guests are confined to Kruger's rest camps, which are the only parts of the park that are fenced in), so the guided drives are the only way to get around the park at those times when the animals are most active.

Our fellow passengers consisted of three small groups of people. One was led by a wordy forty-something mother who would wear two different hats over the course of the drive, each of which perfectly matched her club-ready teal tank top - a garment which left little doubt as to the volume of her two most prized assets. She was adamant that she ride in the cab of the truck next to our driver and guide (whom she insisted move his rifle so that she could sit down), rather than in the back with the sinners and gluttons. She made it known almost immediately that she had become bored with the large number of lions she was seeing in the park, and she came equipped with a novel and iPod, I suppose in case we suddenly changed course and decided to take a family road trip to Des Moines rather than spend the evening wildlife watching in Kruger.

The driver and guide she cozied up next to was named City (yes, City): a tall, young, black man, whose crisply pressed, short-sleeved khaki uniform billowed off of his slight frame. City was soft spoken and to the point, but it was clear to see that he loved his job, and he would prove to be as passionate about the park's animals as anyone we would meet over the coming days.

On the first row of benches in the truck's bed sat the busty mother's similarly-endowed daughter, and the daughter's camera happy boyfriend. A few rows behind them were Sarah and I, while a couple similar in age to us was immediately across the aisle on the left. In the back was a family of five. Near as we could tell, we were the only foreigners on the drive.

City rose in the cab and turned to address the passengers, giving the stock "hands and feet inside, no littering" speech that is common to roller coasters, school buses and, evidently, sunset safaris. The excitement welled in Sarah's eyes and rolled slowly down her cheeks as City listed the animals we could expect to see, speaking matter-of-factly and without a pandering enthusiasm. He then fired up the engine and took us slowly through Crocodile Bridge's towering gate and out onto the silent roads of the park, while the fading sun feebly breathed the day's last warmth onto the stunted landscape.

CSI Jamestown

When our landlord saw the smashed car window and noticed that our front door was hanging wide open in the still summer morning, he thought we'd been killed. He knew, of course, that we'd been robbed, but when you live in a country as prone to violence as modern South Africa is, you quickly accept the petty theft and begin to rationally fear for the worst. He scurried down the backyard hill from his house to our cottage, calling out to us with panic in his voice.

"Sarah and Hart?! Sarah and Hart?!"

It wasn't our typical seven AM wake-up call on a Sunday morning, so we knew something was up. I said a groggy hello as I jumped up and made my way to the door.

"Your car's been broken into," he said, "and your door was open. I think they came into your house, too. They probably took your computer."

By this point I had pushed past him to look at the car, but Sarah was still inside.

"Yup," she said. "Harty, the computer's gone."

I walked around the back of the cottage, knowing what I would see. Or rather, what I wouldn't see. My bike had been stolen.

Son. Of. A. Bitch. (That is the family-friendly version of what I actually said).

It would seem that the thieves came up from the river out back, hopped the locked, chest-high gate and approached the rental car that sat beside our cottage. Sarah's parents are visiting for a couple of weeks - though they aren't staying with us, due to a lack of space - and the car is theirs. The thieves smashed the driver's window and then reached in and rolled down the other ones, so as to have access to the goodies inside without tripping the alarm by opening a door. And what goodies were inside, you ask? An iPod, two pairs of binoculars and some smaller odds and ends. We have been vigilant about taking everything from cars inside at night, but when we'd returned home late Saturday night, exhausted after a day of wildlife viewing in and around Table Mountain National Park, we omitted to bring some things in.

After helping themselves to what was in the car, they tried our front door and found it unlocked - again, we'd been tired and complacent after a long day. I have previously posted about the size of our one-room cottage (comparable in area to your basic kitchen/living room combo in a small apartment), so for someone to have come in while we slept is as brazen for them as it is unsettling for us. Once inside they made a quick sweep and did quite well for themselves: laptop, camera, another pair of binoculars, my shorts (including, as a special bonus: cash, credit cards, my driver's license and passport) and our jar of change which had swelled handsomely in the past few months.

Apparently the white noise from our fan drowns out more than just our neighbour's rooster, and neither one of us heard a thing.

After cleaning out the apartment, they grabbed the bike and a pair of my trail runners that were sitting outside (kindly leaving me with my dirty socks that were inside them), hopped the fence out back and made their way across the river and through the lemon grove on the other side.

Obviously, there is some self-blame here, as we'd been told to always keep our valuables out of sight (something that falls squarely in the "common sense" category) and my landlord had explicitly told me to keep the bike inside. "It will get stolen" he had told me. But bringing the bike into our modest digs made things just a little too crowded, so every so often I deliberately forgot to bring it in. Truth be told, we had just gotten a little too comfortable. Our neighbourhood is friendly and people of all stripes - shack dwellers and those in gated single family homes alike - have welcomed us with open arms. A quick walk down the street always involves stopping to chat with people we may or may not have met previously. Amid all of this warmth, it was easy to rationalise easing up on the exhausting level of vigilance which we had been warned to exercise at all times.

The police came relatively promptly, and took quite a while following the bike tracks on the other side of the river until losing them at a paved road. My shorts and passport were found down by the river, as was my bike helmet (gee, thanks) and the empty change jar. The police then spent over an hour taking detailed statements, before a forensics officer came and lifted prints from the car window. I am aware that most of this was an effort in pacification, but to a modest extent, it worked.

As is always the case when things like this happen, the biggest losses are the things that can't be replaced. Among other things, a good chunk of our once-in-a-lifetime pictures from our recent stint in Kruger National Park are gone. Beyond that, we lost all of the pictures from our post-Kruger country-wide road trip, and most of our other pictures from the past couple of years (the recent pictures were on a memory card in the camera, while older ones were on the laptop's hard drive). Sarah gets a real joy from the pictures she takes along the way, and they help to frame her memories, so they are a major loss for her.

As for my community of Jamestown, I still stand behind it as a great place to live. Our neighbours have been all too willing to help us out, with one of them anonymously naming names of likely suspects, while another helped the police officers follow the bike tracks through the lemon grove on Sunday morning. One of my friends in low places has told me that he knows exactly who to talk to in the neighbourhood about stolen electronics, and offered to check into it even before I asked him to. I choose to define my neighbourhood not by the tiny minority of people whose desperation manifests itself through bold and frightening criminal acts, but rather by those who stop and offer us rides on sweaty walks home from the grocery store.

That being said, my anger runs deep. More than once over the past four days I have circled my neighbourhood in a car, looking for someone riding my bike, with visions dancing in my head of shoving it so far up his ass that he has handle bars coming out of his ears. But below the violent anger - well below, but rising ever so slightly each day like a persistent, compassionate tide - my heart goes out to the people who did this. These are people who are likely addicted to methamphetamine, or tik, as it is known in the townships here. It is a drug with a grip so tight on a segment of marginalised South Africans that when people run out of things to sell to support their habit, they will part with beloved pets for a pittance just to get their next high. Tik has made its way into Jamestown, and property crime has followed.

And even if they are not addicted, we are talking about people who come from a set of circumstances so drastically different from my own that it would be absurd for me to pass judgment on them. Naturally, if they had the same access to education, social services, family support and other opportunities that I have been presented with throughout my life, they would not be taking the immense risk of waltzing into someone's house in the middle of the night in the hopes of getting a few dollars richer. And notwithstanding the heartbreaking sentimental losses and the fact that I currently lack the resources for material replacement, it's tough for me to rage about the loss of material goods when every day I am surrounded by people living in shacks. Surrounded by people without running water, reliable health care or the means to turn their lives around. Surrounded by people, all too often, without hope. And while impoverished South Africans are not a meek and helpless people to be pitied, circumstances such as these help to explain - though not excuse - what happened to us.

At the end of the day, when I look at the dire circumstances of literally millions of the people around me it is very difficult to feel sorry for myself. I hate what happened to us and wouldn't wish it on anyone, but I hate the Petri dish of injustice that breeds these sorts of crimes even more. And while solutions are complicated and hard to come by, my resolve to work towards them - personally and professionally, in Canada and abroad - grows unabated.

More road-trip posts coming soon.

The Gates of Johannesburg

If travel is supposed to be about opening doors, then this was not a good start. Nor was it an apt metaphor for breaking down barriers or crossing some sort of symbolic threshold. No, by any analogy this did not bode well. Less than 24 hours into what was supposed to be an epic, three-week pan-South African odyssey, and there I was in Johannesburg with a metal security gate just having t-boned my mint condition rental car. I stepped out to assess the damage, while the apologetic wince of the woman who had her hand on the gate's open/close button did little to smooth things over. I was not feeling pumped.

The trip had started smoothly enough the day before, with Sarah and I driving from Stellenbosch to Capetown and then flying from Capetown to Joburg. There, we picked up our rental car: a shiny, scratch-free four-door silver hatch-back with just enough bells and whistles to make me feel extravagant. The plan from Joburg was to drive to Kruger National Park in the country's extreme northeast for a week of wildlife viewing, and then take a two-week drive all the way back to Stellenbosch - in South Africa's bottom southwest corner - via the coast, covering a significant chunk of the country's bi-oceanic waterfront in the process. Previous lessons having been learned, the car was rented from a trusted international agency and at no point did I have to meet a suspected dope runner in a parking lot to trade vehicles. Movin' on up.

Before making the 6-hour drive to Kruger, we spent that first night of the trip in Joburg, enjoying dinner on a quaint second-floor patio and drinks at a buzzing two-room bar with fellow expats who, like me, are a part of the Canadian Bar Association's Young Lawyers International Program. My social life in and around Stellenbosch had been uncharacteristically quiet to that point, so it was a real treat to see some familiar faces and compare notes at the halfway point of our South African experience. Funny, though, that at a table full of human rights lawyers working abroad, the conversation more than once turned to concern about the human rights ramifications of new legislation being passed back home. But while the topics weren't always pleasant, it was nice to be able to talk Canadiana with actual Canadians, rather than trying to piece together the current national consciousness by reading comments below articles on the CBC website (an exercise which can lead to no other conclusion than that we are a confused nation whose public school system eschews grammatical instruction in favour of name-calling and the indoctrination of politically extreme schools of thought).

I also appreciated getting a take on the city we were in from a semi-local group of people. While this is always something I seek out while traveling, it was especially appreciated here, because at first glance I had a hard time getting past the architecture of violence which pervades Johannesburg. By any measure, crime is an atrocious problem in South Africa: over 30 murders per 100,000 people annually, and sexual violence (most rapes per capita in the world, according to the United Nations), assault and property crime occurring in equally jarring numbers. Being the country's major commercial, cultural and industrial center, Johannesburg is also a lightening rod for criminal activity, and the towering security walls, spike-topped wrought-iron gates, and super-charged electric fences that fortify even the tiniest swaths of residential or commercial real estate in the city - many of them topped with gleaming coils of razor wire - serve as constant reminders of that. (I should note that tall gates and razor wire are common in Capetown and Stellenbosch as well, but the walls seemed that much thicker, taller and sharper on even the prettiest of Joburg's streets). As such, hearing my colleagues wax enthusiastic about the city and its people served to remind me that the fortresses the city's residents build for themselves do not tell anything close to a complete story of life in Johannesburg.

Owing to those security concerns, once our post-dinner drinks had wrapped up and I was ready to make my way solo back to our room (Sarah had called it a slightly earlier night than I did), I took the locals' advice and flagged a cab to get me the four blocks back to the guesthouse where we were staying. A walk home in the summer breeze is usually a highlight of warm-weather nights out for me, but apparently for an out-of-towner in Joburg it is a dangerous luxury best not undertaken.

When I returned sober after only a handful of evenly spaced Coronas, Sarah was still awake. I was glad for that, as our room was quite lovely and I wanted to enjoy it before falling asleep. Character furniture was scattered throughout, including a sizable, ornately carved armoire with mirrors on its doors. A bricked-over fireplace with plush chairs facing it and a nearby antique writing desk oozed a classical energy. I felt like I should have been dipping my quill in an ink well and signing the Declaration of Independence as I sat at the solid wood desk next to the armoire to make my day's journal entries, and the en suite bathroom with sunken tub only added to the room's aura. In the daylight hours, birds chirped in the garden outside the room while the resident cat chilled on the roof.

Up early the next morning for the included full breakfast (a nice surprise, and something that didn't seem to make sense given the reasonable rate we were paying) and then out to the car with Kruger on our minds.

The parking area of the guesthouse was tiny: a barely functional patch of brick that gave just enough room to complete a nine-point turn before exiting through the solid-metal security gate. I opted to back out at an angle rather than turn the car around. Apparently, the employee with her finger on the sliding gate's controls thought I should have moved a little bit quicker, because I was only halfway out the gate - moving slowly so as to avoid a tree on the sidewalk - when it started closing in on the car with the sort of slow-motion inevitability usually reserved for B-grade horror movies.

The gate hit the car with a hybridized crunching noise that can only be described as the sound of a trip to Kruger being postponed.

Sarah and I both swore in a way that can only be described as yelling.

I took a deep breath and stepped out of the car to survey the damage, while the woman who had been operating the gate's controls stood back and let the manager deal with me. Christine, the manager, was a large, soulful woman with whom I had developed a rather jovial rapport during our 19-hour stay.

"What happened?" she asked, not yet seeing it necessary to rise from her chaise lounge next to the pool which was down a small, grassy hill from the parking area.

"Well, your gate hit my car, and I don't think I should have to pay for it," I responded, in a friendly but to-the-point tone. I hoped that she would agree with me and that we could all remain on friendly terms with good vibes prevailing.

Christine rose to her feet and ambled over to take a look, her relaxed attitude helping to keep the situation mellow.

Mercifully and owing the design of the gate, the only nick on the car was a circular scrape about the size of a South African five rand coin (or Canadian toonie) just above the rear passenger wheel well. A crowd had gathered and one bystander taught me the useful trick of buffing out scratches using a corner of t-shirt soaked in the car's hydraulic fluid. Still though, the scratch remained. If it was my car I probably wouldn't have cared too much, but I wasn't so sure that the good folks at the rental company would share my laissez-faire attitude, so Christine and I negotiated a modest cash settlement on the spot. With that, Sarah and I were on our way, cash in hand, with the scratch quickly becoming not only an endearing birthmark on the visual surface of our trip, but also a helpful way to tell our car apart from the many others of similar size and colour which populate South Africa's roads.

Kruger National Park, here we come.

A Short Survey of Contemporary African Literature (likely non-exhaustive)

Nelson Mandela's autobiography is quite long. I'm sure there are more refined critiques to be made of Long Walk to Freedom, but that's all I've been able to glean in three months of trying to read it, first in the form of a copy borrowed from the Yellowknife Public Library, then as a second-hand edition I picked up in the small town of Franschhoek once in South Africa. I had planned for Mandela's book to start a shift towards a theme in my reading that would be relevant to this period in my life. While the book has yet to catch on with me, the theme - cleverly, "Africa" - abides, and I have had more success with other recent picks.

After my first failed liftoff with A Long Walk to Freedom, I moved on to Carl Hoffman's The Lunatic Express. The book recounts a round-the-world journey on which the author strictly obeys a self-imposed rule to take the cheapest, most dangerous and out-of-the-way means of conveyance he can find. This is travel in the strictly utilitarian sense, undertaken among people with little or no concept of the privileged notion of tourism. I picked this one up in YOW's departure gate bookshop, and lest I dared to think of my 36-hour trans-Atlantic journey as epic, the author's tales of crammed ferries, frozen trucks and rusted tin planes put me in my place. While not at all limited to African travel, this is a favourite among my recent reads.

I once again flirted with A Long Walk to Freedom after finishing The Lunatic Express, but after the first few pages I gravitated instead towards a more everyman account of apartheid-era South Africa (which is not to say that Nelson Mandela enjoyed a privileged brand of legislated racism and inhumane imprisonment). Erich Rautenbauch's The Unexploded Boer unfolds on the streets of Cape Town in the 60s and 70s, before shifting to a prison in Johannesburg when the author gets arrested for selling weed. The account of everyday life during the brutal heyday of apartheid was as unsettling as it was matter-of-fact. And, naturally, the reader learns that prison in Joburg in the 70s was not exactly sunshine and lollipops, though apparently it did include more alcohol and assorted other intoxicants than one might have predicted. The book was at turns a little too self-aggrandizing for my tastes, and I find it hard to believe that Rautenbauch was as cavalier a young man in the face of a violently oppressive regime as he claims to have been (and even if he was, the fact that his primary objective was to fight for his right to party detracts from the moral high ground he claims). That said, he did exude a sort of social colour-blindness that could be commendable. If nothing else, the book offers a glimpse of life in South Africa during Mandela's imprisonment that Mandela himself would be unable to provide, seeing as how Nelson Mandela was in jail for the entire time that Nelson Mandela was in jail.

Half-cooked though they were, the South Africa-specific racial critiques in The Unexploded Boer left me wanting to follow that literary path, but in a more contemporary context. And so while perusing the highly recommended (by me) Clarke's Bookshop in Cape Town a week ago I was quick on the draw to purchase Khayletisha: Umlungu in a Township by Steven Otter. Khayletisha (KYE-a-LEATCH-a) is perhaps South Africa's most notorious black township, its colourful assortment of shacks and houses dominating the horizon outside of Cape Town as up to a million people call it home (exact numbers are impossible to pin down given that much of the township is settled informally). The book tells the story of the the white journalist author's daily life in the township after moving there for eleven months (though not, he claims, for the purpose of writing a book). While the chapters are more stand-alone anecdotes than a connected narrative, the story was especially relevant to me, having recently moved into a community that is almost entirely non-white. I expected to read about muggings, booze, and HIV - none which are sugar-coated or glanced over - but the way Otter was embraced by the Xhosa people of "Khaya" was unexpected and beautiful, even as it played out against a backdrop of crippling poverty.

I decided to sail my ship in a more epic and pan-African direction after reading Khayletisha, and so have just started Paul Theroux's ambitious Dark Star Safari: Overland from Cairo to Cape Town. If the book is half as good as the excerpted reviews on the back cover claim, I can anticipate weeping like a schoolgirl and being baptized anew in Theroux's bold reinvention of the written word before the end of chapter 4. Theroux is the reigning Grand Poobah of travel writing, and smug though he can be, this one is meticulously researched and boldly lived. I have yet to follow him out of Egypt, but am excited for the journey that awaits.

I know that eventually I'll need to man up and read Long Walk to Freedom. Indeed, knowing that it will likely never again be as relevant to me as it will for the next five months should guilt me into giving it a few more good faith attempts until it takes. And I anticipate being richer for further exploration of a story as courageous and important as Mandela's. Meantime, I can enthusiastically recommend it as a heavy and slightly pretentious prop on the nightstand. Two thumbs up.

CA Car Rental, Part Three: An Unlikely Hero

The third in a three-part series. Part one is here and part two is here.

Even the most agreeable of Canadians has his breaking point, and the lack of tail lights and subsequently discovered absence of seat belts in the back of the car has pushed me past mine. I call David on Friday morning.

"David, it's Hart, how's it goin'?"

"Good Hart, how are you?"

"I'm not happy, man. The car has no tail lights."

Silence.

"What do you mean? The tail lights are out?"

"Yeah, both of them."

"Alright, give me a half hour, let me call you back."

"No. Let's just be done with this. How about you come get the car, give me my deposit back and a refund for this final week and we can just go our separate ways." I have zero interest in rolling the dice on a fifth vehicle in three weeks from CA Car Rental's fleet of joy.

"Alright, let me talk to my boss."

A couple of hours later, he texts me (texts are reproduced verbatim):

"Hi boss says you can return car and monies will be refunded as per lease agreement."

I have no intention of driving the car to Cape Town, which is what he is suggesting here. Furthermore, I am not interested in conducting things "as per lease agreement," as it is skewed heavily in their favour in circumstances like these, and is so porous, legally speaking, that I could use it to strain my mac and cheese. I decide to high-road it with my response, being polite while playing a little bit dumb.

"Good to hear, thanks David. I know this is not your fault. Let me know when you can meet me with 3950 in cash for my deposit and final week's rental fee."

"The deposit only gets returned 7 days after the car gets returned. Let me know when you can return the car."

"No, I will need the deposit as soon as I return the car. I have had this one for four days and barely driven it. I know what the lease agreement says, but given the condition of the cars you have given me, I will not hand the car over until I have my full deposit back and refund for the final week." David has a snowball's chance in hell of getting the car from me before I have all of my money back in my hand. Things are on the verge of getting testy, but at this point I feel entitled to draw a line in the sand, so to speak.

"I will talk to my boss. You will have to return car and pay us for delivery as we only do free deliveries on monthly rentals."

"This was a monthly rental until you gave me four shitty, unsafe cars."

In response to this, David claims that all of the cars I have given back to him were immediately rented out to other customers without complaint. Given the front control arm situation of the last one, among other things, I find this hard to believe. I tell him as much.

A few more texts go back and forth. My initial request was for R3,950 for them to come get the car. After some more negotiating, I suggest R3,500, with me therefore paying for both delivery and collection of the car. I am willing to budge somewhat in order to get my money back in my pocket and CA Car Rental out of my life.

"He said you can bring car tomo and get R3500 refund in cash."

I tell David that I won't bring the car to Cape Town, as we have been dealing in Stellenbosch all along, and my offer of R3,500 factors in their standard delivery costs. We go back and forth a few more times during the rest of the afternoon - with David insisting that they are being altruistic and never acknowledging that they have been giving me horrible cars - and arrangements get finalized. I will meet the driver in the usual gas station/fast food parking lot in Stellenbosch at eleven o'clock the next morning. I make a point of confirming that the driver will have R3,500 in cash for me. David says that yes, he will.

Sarah and I awake early on Saturday to take a scenic drive along the coast and try to drain as much gas as we can before handing back the car (we even consider trying our hand at siphoning at one point). We make a scheduled stop so that I can buy a bike - something that I would be doing whether or not we were keeping the car. At twenty after eleven, I pull into the parking lot. Amid the frenetic weekend morning buzz of people and cars, I spot Rasta over by the gas pumps. We greet each other like old friends.

"Hey Rasta, howzit?" I ask, having adopted the local slang.

"Good. Do you have a South African account?"

"Um, no."

"Oh, well Boss [David] gave me his bank card, but there's a limit of two thousand. We can't give you thirty five hundred."

"Well, that's a problem. I'm going to need thirty five hundred to give you the car back. That was what David and I agreed on." And we had. Explicitly and unambiguously.

"OK. I'll call him."

Rasta gets David on the phone, and quickly passes the phone over to me.

"Hello, David?"

"Yes Hart, do you have a South African account number you can give us?"

"No I don't."

"Do you have a friend's account number you can give us?"

"No, I don't David. I'm not from here and haven't been here long."

"Well, Rasta can only give you two thousand now."

"Well, that's a problem. I need thirty five hundred, like we agreed on."

"Hart, you will LISTEN TO ME," David is clearly within an inch of his boiling point. "I am sick of this and I AM NOT WORKING FOR YOU. You will give him the car, take the two thousand and we will get the rest to you."

"David, we made a deal here. Thirty five hundred or I don't give you the car."

Boiling point reached.

"HART I AM SICK OF YOU JERKING ME AROUND!" He is now yelling every word. "YOU ARE WASTING MY TIME AND MY BOSS'S TIME! WE DO NOT OPERATE LIKE THIS! YOU WILL GIVE THE CAR TO RASTA AND COME TO TABLE VIEW [Cape Town] TO GET THE REST OF THE MONEY!"

"Listen man, we made a deal. We said thirty fi-" David cuts me off.

"DID YOU READ THE CONTRACT? IT SAYS SEVEN DAYS TO RETURN THE MONEY AND YOU GIVE ME A BANK ACCOUNT NUMBER! DID YOU READ THE CONTRACT?"

"David, we made a deal yesterday. You agreed to thirty five hund-"

"DID YOU READ THE CONTRACT?! YES OR NO?!"

"Yeah, I read the contract. But I also know that we made a deal yesterday for thirty five hundred today. You agreed to that, and that is why I came here. I need thirty five hundred bucks before you get the car."

"HART I WILL NOT NEGOTIATE WITH YOU! YOU CANNOT ACT LIKE THIS! WE DO NOT OPERATE LIKE THIS AND I DO NOT WORK FOR YOU! WHY DID YOU GIVE ME CASH WHEN IT SAYS NOT TO IN THE CONTRACT?!"

"Well you were OK with taking the cash from me, weren't you? I am not giving you this car without thirty five hundred in my hand. I don't know what else to tell you. You agr-"

"THAT'S NOT WHAT IT SAYS IN THE CONTRACT! WHY DID YOU SIGN THE CONTRACT IF YOU WERE NOT GOING TO OBEY IT?!"

We go around in circles like this, with David acting like a child whose toy has been taken away while I firmly maintain my broken record stance. He refuses to acknowledge that he is trying to back out of yesterday's deal, and at one point threatens to call the police and report the car stolen. My scoffing response of "Fine, but the f***ing car isn't stolen, is it?" put that to bed immediately. People coming out of the convenience store start to stare as I become increasingly emphatic, and I feel just a little bit shady.

Around and around we go. Rasta hangs out, unfazed, while Sarah watches intently from a few cars over.

I feel emboldened, but am being careful not to get dragged down to David's level of discourse despite raising my voice every so often, and employing increasingly colourful language. Had they not given me four dysfunctional cars and been conveniently unreachable at various times, I might be a little more open to negotiating and trusting of them. As it stands, though, they haven't given me any reason to believe that I will get a dime from them once the car is out of my sight. I am sticking to my guns.

David chastises me for dealing in cash with them, even though he was only too happy to take it on the front end. He is insistent that I take the two thousand and give Rasta the car, after which point I can either give him a South African bank account number (he does not seem to understand that I did not have one when we started this charming little back-and-forth, and have not signed up for one in the interim), or drive with Rasta to Cape Town to collect the balance owed, thus leaving me without wheels to get back from Cape Town to Stellenbosch. Not interested.

"I WILL NOT SEND ANOTHER DRIVER OUT THERE JUST FOR FIFTEEN HUNDRED, DO YOU UNDERSTAND ME?! I DO NOT WORK FOR YOU, AND I WILL NOT NEGOTIATE WITH YOU! I'M SICK OF THIS!"

I'm not keen to negotiate either, as it is clear that it will get me nowhere. My time in front of judges in both the formal and makeshift courtrooms of the Northwest Territories during the preceding year sharpened my skills of argument and persuasion, but clearly I am dealing with an irrational character with little regard for civility. He insists that I put Rasta back on the phone ("YOU ARE WASTING OUR AIR TIME!"), and when I don't, he hangs up, only to call back ten seconds later in an attempt to circumvent me.

Rasta answers, talks to him briefly, and hangs up.

"So, what's the problem?" he asks, as if he is a curious passerby only just now arriving.

I tell him what the issue is. I say that I am sorry he is caught in the middle of a dispute that has turned somewhat nasty, as I know that he just works here, so to speak. Despite the fact that I'm not the one signing his paychecks, there is an air of impartiality in his understated demeanor that I find reassuring. He pauses and gives me a conspiratorial nod as the sun reaches its midday apex.

"Let me see if I can find some money. I'll call you when I have it."

Seeing no other glimmers of hope, and steadfastly refusing to hand over the car, I agree. We part ways and Sarah and I head out of town for a bit of a drive. We head due north, driving parallel to the mountains as we exchange the stunted, early season wine fields of Stellenbosch for golden brown pastures speckled with grazing cattle. I don't say much, reflecting on the scene that just unfolded and trying to figure who has the upper hand. I have their car and some stubbornness, they have my money and irrationality. The contract isn't worth the paper it's printed on, so that's a wash, and David doesn't seem to think that the fact that they have given me such brutal and broken cars is relevant. We seem to be deadlocked, leverage-wise. I wonder whether Rasta is actually trying to rustle up some cash or if he has just high-tailed it back to Cape Town.

After driving for a half hour without much change in scenery, we turn around, opting to visit the friends who staff the hostel where we stayed when we first arrived in town. Draining another hour's worth of fuel from the car gives me a small sense of control.

We have been at the hostel for half a beer when Rasta calls me.

"Hello?"

"I am there."

"At the gas station? And you have the money?"

"Come meet me."

Back we go. I have no idea whether I am going to be greeted by a handful of money or a fist full of rage - though I am doubtful that Rasta himself would resort to violence - so I suggest that Sarah wait in the car. I approach Rasta's ride for the day: a dented, aging blue Camry with a Haile Selaissie t-shirt neatly splayed in the back window. He pops out of the passenger seat and immediately hands me a gangster-sized wad of mixed bills: 200s, 100s, 50s and 20s. My hands shake slightly as he watches me count it. Sure enough, 3,500 on the nose. I don't dare ask where or how he rustled it up so quickly, apparently without a working bank card. We exchange smiles and hand shakes and he mumbles something that I don't quite hear as we begin to part ways.

"Sorry, what was that?"

"I said don't forget us when you go back home."

Rasta, my friend, I don't think that's possible.

CA Car Rental, Part Two: Grinding my Gears

The second in a three-part series. For part one, click here.


The son-of-a-bitching car has no gas pedal.

I point this out to Rasta, to which he enthusiastically replies "Oh." I don't bother to ask whether or not he noticed the pedal was missing when he delivered the car to us not three minutes ago (the metal rod that the pedal attaches to is in place, so the car is marginally functional). When I ask what he's going to do about it he responds "I don't know. You should call David". So I call David, who asks to speak to Rasta, who then informs me that he is going to get the car fixed at a nearby garage and call me when it's ready. I go into the fast food restaurant to lunch on a milk shake and french fries, vegetarian options being limited. Sarah and I write postcards while awaiting his call, and I am still supposed to be at work.

Ninety minutes later we pick the car up from Rasta and are on our way. It turns out to be a smooth-riding vehicle, and we are so relieved to have a nicely running car that we overlook the fact that it lacks a rear-view mirror and its registration sticker is not only expired but clearly transplanted from a different vehicle. Also there is a hole where the stereo once was, patched up with a piece of cardboard that has been colored black with a marker. Like the two other cars we have been given, the fuel gauge is resting on the red when we take possession. We decide to drive it at least for the weekend, after which we will decided whether to keep it for the duration of the month, or sever our ties with CA Car Rental and ask for a refund of the balance of our rental, due to the shoddy nature of what they have been giving us.

We are still in possession of more vehicle than our rental fee + deposit is worth, so I feel confident that I will come out ahead in the not-entirely-implausible event that CA Car Hire turns out to be a fly-by-night operation and closes up shop while I have a car of theirs. And we do have all of the freedom we were hoping a car would bring us, while paying far less than we would with any other nearby operation.

We spend the weekend exploring beaches, surf towns, and roads precariously etched into mountainsides that drop sharply into the waters of False Bay and the Atlantic Ocean. The car treats us well and I move up from novice to intermediate when it comes to driving a standard. After a few days we both feel that it is safe to exhale.

Then Wednesday comes, and a tire blows.

It would seem that the cue-ball shiny go kart tires on the Golf don't hold up so well when nudged against a curb during a parallel park. After some deliberation we decide to take care of it ourselves and avoid testing CA Car Rental's "24 hour roadside assistance guarantee" or giving them a reason to hang on to any deposit money. A further complication arises when we discover that the spare in the trunk does not fit on the car. While it proves to be an afternoon's headache, the tire is eventually fixed at a garage for R25 (about three bucks and change, Canadian). But not, I should add, before it becomes a certified gong show involving a group of homeless men, a Baptist pastor, a bag of groceries and some stolen tools.

A couple days later we head into our third weekend of CA Car Hire patronage, feeling exasperated but grateful for a car nonetheless and making the most of it. Saturday afternoon sees us at a nearby nature reserve, hiking to some hidden mountain waterfalls and watching for leopards and honey badgers (none to be found). Coming back from the hike we opt for a pizza from our favourite take-out joint, nestled in the corner of a strip mall at a busy intersection which is on our way home. Sarah is driving, and as she turns left into the parking lot, the car exudes a grinding sound so loud that I can only assume that somewhere along the way we have run over a bag of Ski Doo parts and are now dragging it behind us.

"Harty, what was that?"

"Ummm...I don't know. Pull into the parking lot anyway, it was probably just a one-off thing." I am pretty sure it wasn't.

We pull slowly into the lot, and as we make a left turn into a parking space in an empty row, the grinding comes back. It is clearly coming from somewhere around the wheel well on the front driver's side, so I get out to take a look.

The bumper has been a little bit loose since we picked the car up (with no rear-view mirror and an expired registration that belongs to a different vehicle, complaining about a loose bumper seems like splitting hairs) so I start to tinker with it in an act of maintenance that is the vehicular equivalent of jiggling the handle. A bystander jogs over after watching and hearing us turn in.

"It's not your bumper, mate."

"No?"

"No, it's the wheel. It's loose. Looks like your ball joint is shot. Watch." And with that he reaches through the open driver's side window, grabs the steering wheel and gives it three quick shakes back and forth. As he does this, the front driver's side wheel wobbles like Boris Yeltsin at closing time, so I can see why it would be grinding against the bumper. This could be a problem.

We head inside and enjoy our pizza. As we emerge I make the potentially dangerous decision that we will drive the car home, slowly. It's only about ten minutes away, and I'd rather have the car at home and deal with things there than have to worry about finding somewhere secure to leave the car and getting home after dark on a Saturday (no real public transit, remember). We cruise home with the hazard lights on and the car half on the shoulder. Sarah is at the wheel while I take on the duty of shrugging apologetically to everyone who has to pass us.

More texts and phone calls back and forth with David. I imagine he is as sick of me as I am of him at this point. He arranges to have a mechanic meet us at the gas station off the highway in Jamestown - the neighbourhood where we live - first thing on Monday morning. I am aware that he and I have different ideas of what "first thing" means, so I let work know that I'll be late.

Monday morning we get the call that the mechanic is at the gas station. We hop in the car, limp down the road, pull in to the parking lot and I spot my new buddy Rasta - everyone's favourite pint-sized, mumbling, dreadlocked mechanic - inside. He is buying two bags of potato chips, apparently having somehow worked up a hunger at this early hour. I explain to him the problem: wheel grinding against the bumper when turning and, in a new development, a sharp pulling to the left. He takes the car for a spin around the parking lot, which corroborates my story. He gets out and looks underneath the car, and is rather surprised to see a front control arm which is snapped like a twig, its now-two pieces pointing limply at the ground in 45 degree angles. I don't know much about cars, but what I know about the English language tells me that a "front control arm" is probably something that you want in one piece.

Rasta shows annoyance at the fact that someone has clearly welded the arm back together, rather than replacing it when it broke previously. We offer to give him a ride to a garage, to which he resolutely replies "No. I need to stay here and work out a plan."

Might I suggest finding a new employer?

We trade cars with him and pull away in yet another VW Golf. This one is bright white, with a rear-view mirror, working radio and legit registration. I feel like a show off. This is car number four in a little over two weeks, and I am starting to think that the CA Car Rental people are just really patient scammers who keep out-of-towners in marginally functional cars as a way of pacifying them before stealing their deposits. I can't come up with any other rational explanation for how these people operate. I silently resolve to not hand back the keys to them until I have my deposit back in full, despite the fact that the contract gives the company seven days to refund the deposit after a car is returned. I am forced to reconcile my inclination to count down the remaining days I have to deal with this company on the one hand, with my desire to not wish away my time in South Africa on the other. I continue to focus on the positives at this point, as we once again have a car that will get us from point A to point B (for now, anyway). We have also realized that the occasional weekend rental from an upstanding agency will certainly suffice in the future, as we aren't using the car much during the week.

We periodically cruise around in the white Golf over the next few days. Thursday night we decide to make an after-dark run to the grocery store in Jamestown to grab a couple of things for the weekend. Sarah drives, and I open the gate at the top of our steep driveway, waiting for her to pull out so that I can close it behind us. I do a quick walk around the car before jumping in, making idle chit chat as we pull away.

"Sarah, are the headlights on?"

"Yeah, why?"

"Well..."

"Don't tell me there are no tail lights."

"Nope, no tail lights."

"Jesus Christ."

This is the last straw. I have been patient bordering on pushover with these guys, but there is now no question that I need to get my money back in my hands and end this thing ASAP. I plan to get in touch with David on Friday morning to arrange an exchange: I'll give him back the car, he'll give me back my full deposit plus a refund for the final week's rental (which I am bailing on), in cash, on the spot. I do not anticipate that he will take kindly to this proposition, but I know that I won't accept anything else.

To say that he does not take kindly is an understatement. I could not have anticipated just how contentious things were about to become, nor could I have foreseen the unlikely hero who would emerge to save the day.

Will Lassie save Timmy from the evil car renters? Click here to find out in our thrilling conclusion.

CA Car Rental, Part One: Waiting on a Rasta

It is early on a Friday afternoon, and I am sitting on a curb in a parking lot. Behind me, a constant stream of locals flows in and out of a fast food restaurant and convenience store. In front of me, a chaotic ballet of cars jockey for position among the gas pumps and parking spots, while attendants in matching hats and jackets scurry in all directions. The sun is unimpeded by clouds, and even though the calendar says that it's still spring, I haven't felt a summer day this hot in a long time. If this weather was a person, it would be Shania Twain: hot for a Canadian. I am supposed to be at work, rather than sitting in this parking lot, waiting for a delivery.

Heat radiates upwards from the asphalt and I start to sweat in the afternoon sun.

I don't know the name of the guy I am meeting, and the transaction has been set up by a third party whose business card curiously omits his last name. "He knows who he's looking for," my contact person assures me beforehand. When I call him back after his guy is late, he responds with "I'll call him and check, but he knows to look for you. If you need to spot him, he's sort of a Rasta man." And so I sit in the parking lot awaiting the delivery guy who I realize I had previously met during a meeting a few days ago, when he was introduced to me in all his dreadlocked glory as "Rasta". Clever.

This all feels dangerously under the radar, but when you rent a car from an undercutting operation in South Africa, I suppose that sketchy deals in parking lots are the cost of doing business. Indeed, Rasta is not bringing me something weighed by the gram and sold in plastic bags. Rather, he is delivering me a car. My third car in a week from the questionable operation known as CA Car Rental.

Let's back it up.

For a combination of financial and environmental concerns (it is really easy to be a self-righteous environmentalist when you are on a modest budget) I had not planned on using a car while living in Stellenbosch, save for occasional weekend rentals. It soon became apparent, however, that this is a spread out community sorely lacking in reasonable options for public transportation, and conventional taxis as I know them are non-existent. There are "mini-bus taxis," which I take to and from work, but they can be tantamount to seventeen-person death cans with flashy paint jobs, and cannot be relied on for consistency in scheduling, nor do they venture to many of the places I have been hoping to explore.

We need a car.

With buying price-prohibitive, we discover a few options for long-term rentals, some of which are budget outfits catering directly to students and international workers. Based on price, availability and online reviews, we narrow it down to CA Car Rental, based out of Cape Town but willing to deliver to Stellenbosch, about an hour down the road. The company has a generic website and a somewhat disconcerting lack of an online presence in the digital age (though it is my sincere hope to help them build their online brand identity with this post). Still, after some deliberation and discussion with their employee "David" (name that was given to me but may not be real), we arrange to have a car delivered to us one Friday afternoon for a one month rental.

On Thursday afternoon David calls me and asks if we could move things to Saturday, as the car he had promised me would not be available until then. No can do, I tell him. We need the car in order to move out of our hostel and into our new home, which is a few clicks outside of town. Fine, he says, and offers to bring me a temporary car smaller than the one I had reserved, which we can use for 24 hours and then trade on Saturday for my proper car. I say that is fine, but inform him that I will be withholding half of the rental fee until I am driving the proper car. I am already getting the sense that I have to be extra vigilant when dealing with this outfit.

The company prefers to deal in electronic funds transfers, but those requires a South African bank account, which I do not have. I check with David to make sure that we can deal in cash up front, and he readily accepts. I have to make two ATM trips to get the combined rental feel and deposit, which total somewhere around $900, Canadian, or R6,200.

On Friday afternoon David arrives at the hostel and we retreat to the picnic table in front of the sliding glass door in the kitchen to conduct business. Jeans and a slightly torn Springboks rugby jersey are his unconventional uniform, although with the price I'm paying I don't exactly expect an elderly man with a British accent in a proper chauffeur's get up. David is tall and stocky yet boyish in appearance, and certainly personable. He has with him with a bearded, dreadlocked and almost silent sidekick that he introduces as his mechanic, Rasta, the man who I will meet in the parking lot a week later. I resist the urge to ask Rasta where he got his name from, and he mumbles obediently when spoken to as he does some final tinkering with our short-term rental. The car is a bright green VW Golf sitting on rims with its windows tinted and a muffler that seems to do more amplifying than muffling. It looks and sounds like the third place finisher on Pimp My Ride: South African Redneck edition.

After signing a contract and getting David's business card (no last name) I watch him count the money I hand to him, aligning and stacking the hundred rand notes in separate piles. This is the only attention to any detail he exhibits. The business being done, we head on our way, excited to be leaving the hostel behind for a more permanent abode. The car is a stick shift, and given that my manual transmission skills are lacking, Sarah takes the wheel. I am promptly informed in no uncertain terms that what the car has in style, it sorely lacks in functionality. We look forward to making the switch for our proper car on Saturday afternoon.

David and I text back and forth on Saturday and I abide a few excuses as to why he is running late. He eventually tells me he is in town and asks where I can meet him. I remind him that I have suggested multiple times that we meet at the Shell station near my house, but he insists that he is unable to find it and inquires as to why I can't just meet him at the bar where he is waiting for me. Fine.

I should mention at this juncture that I was not raised in a barn, and have engaged in enough questionable behaviour of my own to develop a few street smarts over the years. I knew from the get go that I was dealing with somewhat less than a straightforward operation. Having said that, as long as they provided me with a car which I could sell for more than the deposit they had taken from me, I knew I was in OK shape and could come out ahead in a worst-case scenario. That said, selling a stolen car was a situation which I was certainly hoping to avoid.

We arrive at the empty upstairs bar and find David and his "driver," Jeff (must have been Rasta's day off) each on their second beer, smoke rising from the ash trays in front of them. We head outside to exchange cars: the VW Golf gets traded for a Daewoo Cielo, a Camry-sized four-door sedan from South Korea. My historical relations with Koreans have been generally enjoyable, so I superimpose some residual positivity onto the car. After some initial problems getting the driver's seat adjusted I hand David the balance I had withheld pending delivery of this car. "Oh shit, I forgot all about that. I guess that's what two beers will do to you." I feel it is less likely that I am being scammed given that the other side forgot to ask for my money. I also regret offering it to him.

We shake hands and go our separate ways, again with Sarah driving. We pull out of the parking lot and start to cruise the streets of Stellenbosch, which are muted and sleepy on a gray weekend afternoon. We aren't long out of the parking lot before the car starts lurching like a carnival ride in a death rattle. You would think the thing had squares for wheels, the way it is jumping and pausing. Shifting into second seems to alleviate the problem, but first gear remains a challenge that, when compounded with some questionable structural issues, make for a car that is, well, not of the ilk we had been hoping for, and not really drivable. I immediately call David, but his phone has been turned off, and there are no other phone numbers to be found for the company.

The next day I am able to rouse him, and have barely finished telling him what a joke this vehicle is when he offers to swap it out for me. This bout of top-notch customer service perplexes me, and I wonder if their motto should be "CA Car Rental: Our cars are crap but we sure are polite!" After more back-and-forths over the next couple of days, during which time Sarah and I are able to use the car but not necessarily enjoy it, David and I agree to exchange cars on Friday afternoon in the gas station parking lot in downtown Stellenbosch, where I sit on the asphalt in the hot sun, waiting for Rasta when I should be at work. He is late because he went to the wrong gas station.

He eventually shows and presents us with a teal VW Golf (no, not the first one we had) that he has just picked up from a previous renter. I thank him and take the keys and we go our separate ways. I am forced to run back to the Daewoo and jump in front of it as he pulls away, however, after sliding into the driver's seat of our replacement car and casually noticing that one crucial piece of equipment is missing.

But what piece was missing? Will Rasta get all MacGyver on the car and save the day? Click here for part 2 featuring the answers to these and other burning questions.