Our incident at the border:
We usually collect the client's bikes a week or so before the crew leaves for Windhoek. This time was no different and with our trailers fully loaded we drove to Upington from where we headed towards the Nakop/Ariamsvlei border where we have crossed countless times.
Hennie (@Oubones) and Jacques Tredoux (@Jacques650) was in the Unimog, Chantal was in the Cruiser D/C and Jaco (@Hartebees) and myself was in the SC. Both the cruisers were pulling an eight bike trailer.
Hennie and Jacques had their passports stamped first and crossed after a quick visit to the customs office who gave them the thumbs up.
Next was Jaco and myself and as we were about to cross, two female police officers came out of the border police office and asked for a lift to the Namibian border (30km away)
I agreed that we would give them a lift and told them to jump on the back. "No" we do not want to drive in the back was the reply. Now - just to be clear, I was driving a SINGLE CAB Cruiser with me and Jaco in the front.
Suit yourself I replied and drove away.
About a minute later Chantal called me over the radio and told me that the Customs lady (who were friends with the police women) said I must come back and report to her office. If Chantal were not still on SA soil I would not have turned back, but in this case I had to.
Once I arrived back on the SA side and reported to the customs office, the black customs official informed me that I now had to officialy export the customer's bikes.
I have no exporters code and I have transported customer bikes many times, and in all my years I have never had to do this.
Despite me showing her the authorisation letters from each customer, the certified copy of ownership from each customer, and receipts from our previous tour (three weeks prior) she still refused and told us to speak to a clearing agent and to start the export process.
For this process I needed the original purchase invoices from each customer and my customers were already on their way to Windhoek.
I went to the clearing agents who told me that she was crazy and that they could not legally do what she required.
There we were - the 3 of us standing at a clearing agent that told us it was not possible to do what she wanted, and we still needed to get to Grunnau. Oubones and Jacques had already crossed into Namibia and were waiting for us on the other side with no hope of us crossing that night.
After contemplating our situation (an hour later) we drove back to the border with the clearing agent and he explained to the customs official that she requested the impossible. She threatened him by saying she would make his job difficult and basically told him to piss off.
I will be banned if I tell you of the things I contemplated at that moment.
I have never had to bribe an official and always were able to make things work by doing things the right way. This situation though made me feel so helpless as I was at the mercy of a power hungry woman who had an axe to grind it seemed. It was now tho hours and forty minutes after I have already crossed the SA border and had to come back. It was already dark outside, and getting cold quickly. I then decided to go the police at the gate. This meant that I literally had to make sure that the customs official did not see me through the window as I walked towards the gate. I also had to hide the cars and trailers so that she could not see it either.
I called the clearing agent (coloured guy) and asked him to be present as I stated my case to the two black police officers at the gate.
After listening to the whole story which started with the women that needed lifts, the police officer replied.
"This woman is a vindictive ***** and a racist. She does this to white people. She knocks of at 7'and if you could hide from her till then, we will let you through."
I then embarked on what has to be the most difficult thing I have ever done. - Hiding myself, my people and my vehicles, trailers and bikes from a corrupt official for another 40 minutes.
At 7:15 we drove towards the gate where the police officers waited for us and did as they promised.
On the Namibian side it took us exactly 28 minutes to cross.
4 hours and 12 minutes after I went through the SA gate for the first time we crossed into Namibia.