A geezer by any other name

We're in the South African wine district in a little town named Stellenbosch and staying in a very nice B&B for the last two nights. I tried to take a shower but couldn't get any hot water, so I went down stairs and asked the woman at the desk what the story was. She was very apologetic and told me that she had forgotten to turn the geezer on. I told her not to worry, that was my wife's job, but she assured me that it wouldn't take more than a half an hour. I wanted to tell her it didn't usually take that long, but couldn't see any way that the conversation could go anywhere but downhill from there, so I just left it there and walked away. Turns out that the geezer is the hot water heater, and each room has an individual one.

We went to a nice restaurant for dinner and had a nice conversation with our waitress, Nandi, when another waiter who had heard our conversation came up and asked us where we were from. We said: "California," he responded: "Where?" we said: "Central Valley," he said: "Where? Be more specific." we said: "East of Lodi, Clements." which brought an: "Oh my god, I'm from Valley Springs," which is about 15 minutes from us. We got his mom's telephone number and promised to call and tell her that he's doing well.

But back to the chronological order of things. When last heard of, Chico was limping his way across the Namibian desert. The new tires held up well, and we stayed that night at a hotel which had a cross on the brochure. Not a good sign for Jim, but choices were limited. We actually had a nice stay, but it turned out to be a Christian retreat, which meant that there were two bibles in the room, but no condoms. Christians don't do that thing, I guess, or at least not while on retreat. Certainly different from the church camps I went to as a lad.

It's near winter here and we had been forewarned that an early season cold snap had arrived just before we left Windhoek. There was snow in the mountains, and it was very cold everywhere else. These people don't know how to adapt. The rooms are freezing, and there's no heater in the rooms. They all stand around wearing several layers with hands in their pockets to keep warm, or cupping their hands to their mouths blowing warm air on them. They keep saying things like: "It's not supposed to be this cold this early." Okay, so it's not supposed to be this way, but it is. ADAPT, dammit!
They leave the doors open in restaurants and the cold wind blows in and makes things colder. One guy in a place we stopped for coffee (the Christians only served instant. They didn't understand when I told them instant coffee was not coffee) told me as he served hot breakfast to another customer that was probably cold by the time it got to his table, "Nobody can move until 10 a.m." Well, they could if you closed the door and turned the heater on.

But back to Chico. The reason we were on these god-awful (can Christians use that term?) roads in the first place was that we were going to the number one attraction in all of Namibia, the sand dunes. Okay, if they're the number one attraction, wouldn't you think they'd make it easier for people to get there? But no, you've got to go 200 miles on gravel roads to get there, then 200 miles in any direction to get out of there. But they are fantastic. They are a band of sand 300 miles long and 100 miles wide. The tallest ones are over 1,000 feet tall. Check them out on the web. Google "Sossusvlei" and look at some photos. I climbed one called "Dune 45." It took me 36 huffing and puffing minutes to get up and only six to get down, and that included stops to film lots of cool bugs and lizards who scoot across the sand and bury themselves in it if you get too close. One thing that was very trippy was if you step on the crest of the sand, the leeward side of the sand, the side away from where the wind blows, just over the crest, becomes a "Sand slide." Just like a snow avalanche, it's really neat just to watch it "sandball" down the slope. Nobody came up the dune after me, and on my way down, I saw that my footprints had been totally covered over by blowing sand, as if I had never walked there.

We spent time exploring and checking out the scene, then hit the road since Chico was anxious to get it over with. When we had the tire problems, we stopped in at the garage where we bought the tire because the man wanted to check our tire pressure. He told us: "Well, the problem is that your tire pressure is too high and the tires can't give enough." He lowered the pressure, but told us to keep checking them because he was worried about one of the others. Next time we checked them, the guy told us: "Well, the problem is that your tire pressure is too low, and a rock can break the sidewall." AAARRRRGGHHH!!!
We told him that we had had problems with them too high, and nothing lately, so we were leaving them alone.

Chico did fine until a he pitched a coughing fit about 65 miles away from tarred road. He sputtered, coughed, choked and generally refused to run at normal speeds and RPM's. We'd go 60, then crawl at 10 mph as he wheezed his way down the road. I figured he had a clogged fuel line or air filter and I had to nurse him along. At one point while we were going slowly, a car went by and raised a cloud of dust at the only point where there was no wind to blow it away. It just hung there and we couldn't see anything. Since we were coming to a hill, and I couldn't see, I had to get back over to the left. I had just regained speed, and knew that if I slowed down, I'd play hell getting back up to speed. The road grader had just passed by and left a high barrier which Chico had to get over. I took it faster than I wanted to, and when I got over to the left the road narrowed suddenly and severely. I banged some rocks on both sides of the car and damaged the skirting beneath the doors on both sides. Hey, that's why I take out the insurance.

I nursed Chico into town and when he got a full tank of gas and no more dust, he cleaned up his act, so to speak, quickly. No more complaining. When we were pulling into our B&B that night, (the place was reputed to have the best breakfast in all of Namibia, and it was true) we heard a loud pop. We didn't know what it was, but everything seemed okay. That night when we returned to our cold room from the cold restaurant, Carol noticed a cable hanging on the ground. I didn't want to even think about it that night, but the next morning, I checked it out. Maybe it was the odometer cable, or the speedometer cable, or who knows what. The cable came from the right rear wheel housing, but everything seemed to work all right. We had the choice of letting it dangle behind us as we made our way to South Africa, but thought that was just too weird, even for us, so Carol came up with the idea of bringing it around in front of the tire and looping it up into the rear window, which we could close, more or less, and keep it in place. All well and good, but when we started up, there was a "Whirrrrrrrrrrr" as something from inside the cable housing was spinning. Well, we didn't have a lot of options since it was a national holiday in Namibia and all garages were closed, so we just went merrily down the road. Every time people passed us they gave us a very weird look, and when we stopped for gas, the attendants just looked at the cable, then looked at me, then looked at the cable again, but nary a word was ever said.

We made it back to South Africa, I wasn't sure they were going let me back in with that vehicle, the customs guy was very suspicious, but everything went okay. Chico did his thing, just kept on ticking. He never complained about losing yet another part. We had banged him around severely and he had taken his lumps, but he just did his job.

We turned him in today telling him he had performed admirably and that we were happy to have him along for the ride, but it was time to put him to rest. We had a 30-day rental agreement for the best price, and since we needed another vehicle for our last days here, the Avis gal said that we could keep Chico or we could have a different car, bigger, more bells and whistles and at a lower price. Gee, let me think about this.

Well, we loved Chico out of necessity, but given those options, we said a fond farewell to the lad. In fact they upgraded us to a Nissan that feels like heaven. It's cold here, but I'm running the air conditioning just because I have it. I‚'m using the power windows, mostly on Carol's side, just because I can. I've got arm rests, power steering, remote locking, power mirrors, tons more leg room. It's heaven-sent, I believe, because I never bad mouthed Chico. When the guy brought out the Nissan, we told him that we had put over 4000 miles on him, and he looked at me, tall, then at Chico, small, and said: "Weren't you uncomfortable?' Well, yes, but what's your point. He was cheap and he was the ever-ready battery. He just kept on going. Ed and Tasha told us what we were in for, but, hey, it was a trip, literally.

Love,
j and c