Forget the Animals -- It's the Bureacracy that will Kill You (10/28/00)

On Monday, Oct. 23, we each contacted our respective shipping agents to get the process of clearing our bikes through customs going.

We soon learned that we had some unexpected hurdles to clear, which in the end boiled down to the same old thing--MONEY.

A brief summary: Normally, people who import vehicles for their own use that they plan to drive out of the country have something called a Carnet de Passage \KAR NAY DUH PASSAJ\

It is a document that a vehicle owner obtains through his or her local auto club by depositing 20-50% of the vehicle's value on account. When he returns with his vehicle and the Carnet, he gets his money back.

Many European countries use them as does Africa. USA does not use them nor issue Carnets.

We were aware that many African countries use Carnets, but were told by several sources, including the South African embassy, that because America does not issue them, they waive this requirement.

But, in lieu of a Carnet, they wanted me to put down a deposit of approximately 25% of the value of my bike. Oddly, Stephanie would be required to only deposit 2%. We didn't bother to point out the discrepancy for fear we would cause ourselves more difficulities.

Although the deposit would resolve the issue with South Africa, the authorities here have suggested that we would face the same situation at other borders, and that some would require a deposit as high as 3 times the value of the bikes! [e.g. Egypt]

We learned that we could get a Carnet issued locally by the Automobile Association (AA), which would resolve many issues, but send us into yet another paper morass.

Nevertheless, one of the distinct benefits of getting the Carnet issued locally in South Africa is that it would apply to Kenya and Egypt, countries that are normally not covered by Carnets issued outside of Africa.

In order to get the Carnet, we had to deposit 100% of each bike's value into a bank. This of course meant a) getting estimates of the bikes' values, and b) getting the money.

Steph had an estimate of her bike already. I had to send a frantic email to some friends requesting them to get me an estimate.

As for the money, the quickest (but not cheapest) thing was to take a cash advance on my Visa card. (And in the end, this wasn't that quick anyway!)

So, we got the estimates. We set up accounts. Indeminities were issued against the accounts. Carnets are being processed. THIS IS STILL GOING ON--you would not believe how many details I am leaving out here.

Long story long. We should have Carnets by Tuesday, and our bikes by Thursday (there's still the customs agents to deal with). No promises on the timing, we're doing everything we can. We hope if nothing else, that other potential adventurers are reading this and learning!

More later.

Note the second photo for this entry is of a public taxi--a van that people ride for R2.50 (about 30cents). We have been spending a lot of time shuttling between offices in these things.