you can't scam us...and stepping dog poo

Posting this a day late because the internet wasn't working last night..

My friend Caroline had rented a car for the night last night and didn’t have to turn it in until noon today, so we thought we would take advantage of the freedom and drive along the coast. If you have a handy dandy Cape Town map available ☺ we drove down Victoria Drive, past Camps Bay and ended up at Hout Bay. It was an absolutely gorgeous morning and a beautiful drive. We tried to go further past Hout Bay, but Chapman Road was closed for some reason. We saw the sign, but went a little further. There was a guy on a moped who hollered at us and let us know the road was closed ahead. We started to turn around and he was talking to us letting us know how to get around. We told him we didn’t care that much and would go back in to town. Then he started talking a million miles a minute to tell us who he was and where he was visiting. His story was very detailed and he was going on and on. In the back of my head I thought – where in this story does your money get stolen and you ask us for some cash. As soon as I thought it, he reached the part of the story where his camera got stolen along with money and he needed gas, etc. Caroline and I gave him a few Rand and drove on. It’s that same situation I’ve been talking about earlier. It’s so hard in those situations to know what to do. Everyone driving by looking at us gave us one of those…he’s taking advantage of you looks, but we’d gotten sucked in so easily. And if someone is in need, aren’t we supposed to give and not judge? It’s such a source of confusion for me!

Anyway…

We found a little restaurant right on the beach and had muesli and yogurt. The mist was still rising off the water and the mountains framed the little bay. After breakfast we dipped our feet in the freezing cold ocean water and tried to continue on our journey. We met a guy from Amsterdam who’d just sailed his boat from Brazil, so we took a picture of him. I don’t even know if that’s true. I’m so skeptical of everyone over here. I’m always second-guessing and doubting. It’s a really awful feeling because I’m usually such a trusting person. It makes it hard to meet people because you’re constantly wondering what they want from you.

Anyway…We headed back toward our apartment because we had to have the car there by noon sharp so Caroline wouldn’t get over charged. On the way back we stopped by some roadside beaches and trails…some were sandy, some were boulder-y. One even had a sign that warned us nudity was not allowed along the trail…not sure what that implied about the end of trail – we didn’t make it far enough to find out! We also stopped along the road at some of the markets people had set up so sell some of the traditional African souvenirs like soap stone and ebony carvings. It was such beautiful stuff. It’s so hard to say no. I’m such a sucker! And I think that’s obvious. I did say no, but it was really hard.

Anyway…I’m showing too many of my weaknesses in this blog…let me get to my bold smart traveler story. ☺ On our way back to the apartment we were driving on the super narrow road and a big truck came barreling at us. Caroline swerved to get out of the way and hit the curb with her tire. She’d paid for zero reliability coverage – which had become our motto for the scary Africa driving – so we didn’t worry much about it. We made it back to the apartment by noon but the guy was nowhere in sight. We milled around out front and in a shop next door, but finally went upstairs after about 20 minutes, figuring the guy would call. I went up to the apartment where I found the door to my room was locked (I share a room and couldn't get ahold of my roommate) and I had no way of getting in. I went back down to Caroline’s and luckily had things with me to change out of my beach clothes. Caroline got ahold of the company who said they had no documentation of her renting a car, but she could just drive it in and drop it off at the office. We’d decided to go down to the Waterfront that afternoon anyway, so we thought we would drop the car off on our way. We went to get in the car (not before Caroline warned me not to step in the freshly made dog poo right beside the car) and the guy we know from the coffee shop and one of the security guards from the apartment both ran up to us to tell us the car guy had been looking for us and we were supposed to call them at the number they’d been given. We called him and he said he’d be there in 30 minutes, so we milled around the coffee shop to be sure we didn’t miss him.

Note: I’m realizing this is a really long and detailed story. I promise I’m not going to ask you for money at the end. ☺ but I hope you don’t get your hopes up thinking that the longer and the more detail this story has, the better it’s going to be. It really doesn’t get much better, so please don’t get excited. You’re welcome to stop reading now. If you want to continue I’ll try to make the end a little faster. ☺

Continuing with the story… In the mean time my roommate came back and let me into our room. That’s another story for another time (again not exciting, I just don’t want to post it on here). I walked into my room to get some money and turned around to see there was something light brown on the floor…very similar to dog poo. I looked at the bottom of my shoe and …you guessed it. Yuck!! Caroline had reminded me not to step in the poo when I got into the car, but I had totally forgotten when I stepped out just a few seconds later. I should have known where this day was going by this point. Anyway…the guy finally came to get the car. He looked around it to see if there were any damages. He came to the front tire and noticed the hubcap had been bent from the curb check when we were escaping the big truck. The guy started talking to Caroline about paying for the damages. She questioned that due to her zero liability policy. Evidently the fine print of that policy says that damage to tires and other specific areas of the car are not covered. Now – don’t worry. If the car is stolen – covered. Mess up a little rim – not covered. The guy told us we should have just reported the car stolen and then we wouldn’t have to worry about it. Why didn’t we think about that?! Anyway… by this time we were tired and frustrated, so Caroline asked the guy if he would drop us by the Waterfront on his way back. That was our first mistake. Once inside the car the guy started telling us about a friend he had that would fix the car for Caroline and then this guy would take it back to the dealer and they would never know it had been damaged. He said it would be way cheaper for Caroline and she wouldn’t have to worry. Unfortunately, with the accent and the way he was talking, things were confusing and we weren’t sure if he was saying that’s what we had to do or if it was just an offer. Anyway, he told Caroline it would be R1000 (about $100) and then he explained a whole bunch of ways we could take care of the transfer of money. It ended up being “best” if we just gave him the R1000 up front and he would take care of it all. I know this seems pretty cut and dry as I write it out, but you have to understand it’d been a long day and we were really confused by what he was saying, etc. Caroline agreed but had to run to the ATM to get the guy the money. I got out with her and told her I thought this deal sounded pretty shady. Once we were able to get away from the ordeal and think without the guy talking, we could see more clearly. She went back out and told him she just wanted to go through the dealer. He kept trying to persuade her, bringing up more damages, letting us know he was the guy that took care of making sure the cars ran correctly, so he knew what he was talking about, etc. He was so adamant about helping her get the better deal that it made him even more suspicious. Somehow in the discussion it came up that if he did fix it, when we went in to the dealership, Caroline wouldn’t be able to let them know that there’d been damage, etc. Caroline finally convinced him we just wanted to return it to the dealership and he left us. It kind of ruined our day, but I was convinced we’d done the right thing. Later Caroline got ahold of the car place and they were looking into it. Anyway…we felt somewhat scammed and became very suspicious of anyone offering us anything. The guy at the Indian restaurant we went to even made us both change our minds about what we ordered and we were defensive about it. ☺ We tried hard to get over it and it looks now like everything’s going to get worked out, but it just kind of ruined the fun. By the way – did I mention that when I got back in the car to go to the Waterfront, I stepped in the dog poo again – I should have known!

I just hate how cautious and even suspicious you have to be here. Tonight we were walking down the street and some guys pulled up and hollered at us, so we just kept walking. Typically, I don’t make eye contact with anyone. So a few minutes later when another guy came walking toward us waving his hands and saying hello, we just ignored him. We realized after he’d passed us that he’s the guy that works in the coffee shop below our building and we talk to every day. We yelled after him and were able to say hello and apologize, but we felt horrible that we’d ignored him. It’s so hard to be so untrusting. I think that’s the one thing I don’t like about living here. I miss the safety of home.

My battery is dying on my computer and our electricity is getting low, so I think that’s all for tonight. Sorry that was a really long story for no real reason at all. ☺ Good night. Love you.