car stuff & shopping

Christmas tree at the Makro

Within a week after he had his accident Johan called to tell me he bought another car. It was again a Toyota Land Cruiser. It was an older model, but when he came to pick me up from OR Tambo International Airport in Johannesburg I could hardly tell the difference between the current and his previous car. I hadn’t seen the old car in almost a year and being a total nitwit when it comes to cars (I mostly distinguish them by their colour) it looked pretty much the same to me, except the tent on the roof was missing. Apparently he most significant change was under the hood. The “new” car ran on petrol, not diesel and besides the difference in price I would learn there are other differences, like a petrol car needs spark plugs… More about that later. 

It was good seeing Johan again, all healthy and in one piece. He hadn’t lost as much weight as I thought he would after reading his stories about eating monkey soup and other “unusual” foods. 

We drove to the hostel he was staying at, where we managed to upgrade from the dorm to a little cabin for the same price. I always feel like I haven't washed in week when I had a long flight and had a quick shower. Then it was time for work. We had a car but that didn't mean it was ready to go. It still needed all kind of things. A towrope, oil, a new packing box on the roof, spare tyre and stuff like that, so on my first day in South Africa I did what any tourist would do; going to the Makro, Tiger Wheel and Tyre and Home Builders.  We drove all over Pretoria and it gave me a good chance to see how stretched out the city is.We found most of the things we needed except a spare tyre, which we couldn’t find in the right size and had to be ordered.

In the evening we ordered some Indian food and I listened to the stories of a Kruger Park guide bragging how once he showed the big 5 to his clients in under 15 minutes. This just left me wondering what he showed them the rest of the day…