Carnet de passage in Afrika

Six months ago we had ordered a replacement part with Fisher Panda in Capetown. Unfortunately this delivery timeframe was not good enough and we had to wait another 15 days in Durban until the part arrived with the help of the headquater in Germany. A bit a pitty in terms of timing, but we’ve learned something.

Registering our Carnet de passage, a must have paper for foreign vehicles in Africa, took again a lot of time at the borders. In Swasiland customs wanted to stamp the Carnet. As we – correctly – didn’t stamp it entering Swasiland, we couldn’t do it leaving the country. We tried very hard to explain to the customs officer the rules and regulations of the South African customs union and achieved finally after 1 hour talking our way out without a stamp. However, he still wasn’t really convinced. Completely different was the interpretation of these rules at the border between South Africa and Botswana, when we left South Africa. Here the officer explained us that they never ever again stamp Carnets as they have a customs union with Botswana. So far so good, so right. But our old Carnet with the entry stamp of South Africa was finished and hence needed to be stamped out as well as the new one had to be opened officially. This has nothing to do with the customs union or the expire date. It just a turn over from one document to another. This tricky situation wasn’t understood neither by the officer nor by the expert sitting in Joburg. She didn’t understand the situation with the opening/closing of the Carnets as she thought she would revalidate the old one with that transaction. Which is complete bullshit, but hey what can you do. The lady in Joburg somehow believes that we need to wait for the exact hour when the old Carnet expires, then stamp it, then spend a night between the borders, to then stamp the new Carnet in Botswana. This is Africa! We decided to leave South Africa without stamp and convinced a nice officer in Botswana to at least open the new Carnet. He did so as he understood the dilemma, not without saying, that it would have been the task of South Africa…..

In the Hluhluwe-Umfolozi National Park we met a lot of wild animals. Aside of the really massive amount of rhinos everywhere in the park we had our personal rhino visiting us in our campsite. It was grazing just a few meters away from our chairs and ignored us completely. We didn’t mind. The rhino left us and our neighbour and us started our barbecue fires. The neighbour was faster and did already grill his porterhouse steaks, when we got another visitor: a spotted hyaena. From 3 meter distance a hyaena is really big and the teeth are quite impressive. The hyaena didn’t want camper-steaks, but was keen of the porterhouse steaks. She has stolen the steaks from the grill in front of our slightly astonished neighbour and went away with it. Our learning was to guard the grill and observe the cooking equipped with our STEINSCHLEUDER..

In the Kruger National Park we met Brigitte and Edy again. That was really great fun and we camped together for a few days. It was interesting to analyse our feelings regards this reconnection with them. We certainly don’t know them as well as old friends from home, with whom we spent a good part of our life. However, the experience and the joy to see them again were as intense as with old friends from home.

We left Kruger to get some things sorted out in Nelspruit. Unfortunately Peter became really ill, so we decided to see a doctor. A campsite neighbour offered a lift to the town to see the doctor, which we thankfully accepted. We really appreciated his support and think this is just one good example of the friendliness and helpfulness of most of the locals here. That’s really great hospitality.

When we arrived the second time – just a few days later – at the Kruger we all of a sudden had to pay an extra fee for heavy vehicles. We were puzzled and started a longer discussion which resulted in a small discount at least.

We were quite lucky with the animal sightings: one day we even saw the big 5 aside of many other animals. On the other hand we arrived at a spot where already 4 or 5 other cars were around to observe a leopard, which only we couldn’t see!!!

One of the camps we camps we wanted to approach via an old fully overgrown backroad, which unfortunately stopped somewhere. The map had shown it differently…. Peter had therefore to drive back over one kilometre in the back gear. What a nightmare. But Peter was well trained from a similar situation when we had to drive backwards the entire way from an outlook to the main road.