The Car Rental.

Car rental is not an easy thing.
That is a universal truth.

However, it can be hilarious, as well. (Here, people pronounce as well as one word, making it sound like "asswell." That, too, is hilarious in its own way.)

After we realized that we needed a credit card to rent that cars, Philipp, Mike's roommate stepped forward and gallantly offered his. Without him, we'd never have left Cape Town.
The two of us were the only drivers throughout the 2200 kilometer adventure, meaning that we each spent at least 24 hours driving over a five day span.

Anyway, the whole trip went off without any major issues, but there were a couple of minor ones that presented a few problems.

I hit a curb.
The first day was a 9 hour adjustment period. It's really hard to remember that you have an entire vehicle on the left side of you and nothing on the right, so you naturally want to orient yourself to the left side of the road. But you're on the right side of the car.
So - we were driving, I was too close to the left, I hit the curb, I bent part of the hubcap and scratched the rim a little bit.

We checked it out and the car was fine, but we knew we'd be in some serious trouble with the car company. Apparently, the fine print (which we examined quite closely) tells you that even though you've paid for extra super executive cover, the "tyres, hubcaps, rims, and wheels" aren't covered.

And of course, one of my hubcaps got stolen or went missing along the way.
One day, Philipp was driving next to me when he noticed that I was missing a back hubcap.
(This is where I would like to insert the fact that I've never lost a hubcap before in my life.)

We knew we had only one option: replace the two hubcaps. If the rental car company saw the damaged one, they'd immediately do rim inspection and realize that I was the source of the problem and then proceed to charge us wild amounts of money for a problem that wasn't really a problem.

So - we started looking for Nissan Tiida hubcaps. And we didn't see any. Well, that's not entirely true. We did. We were stuck behind a South African police vehicle at a checkpoint for a good ten minutes and they had a Nissan Tiida with exactly the hubcaps I needed.
I told Philipp that I'd give him R10 if he stole them right then and there, but obviously, that wasn't an option.
Had I been smart, I would have offered them cash to buy them off of the police officers right then and there.

But I'm not.
Either that or I'm cautious, especially when it comes to shady dealings with the law.

We drove back to Cape Town.
We woke up early on Friday - we had to have the cars back in the city before 9:30 or we'd be charged for another day of rental.
So we drove toward the city looking for hubcaps on Nissans, whether they were parked or in a shop.
We didn't see any that could be conveniently stolen, so we went into a wheel shop and inquired. We were told that they only sell real Nissan hubcaps in Nissan dealerships.
So we went to Cape Town, but by the time we got there, we were out of time.

We pulled over into a parking lot. I pulled the damaged hubcap off of my car while Philipp pulled two hubcaps off of his car. He put them back on my car and then we threw the damaged one away.
Carol suggested that we take all four off since they were "stolen" but we decided it'd be better just to go with it as it was.

So we drove them back to the rental place. We made it with three minutes to spare. I drove conveniently into a dark corner so that the vehicle inspection wouldn't necessarily be so thorough. I signed off on the car after the man had inspected it and declared it perfect.
Whew.

Then we told them that the other car had had two hubcaps stolen. What's the procedure from here? I asked.
The woman's face grew grave. "You should have just stolen some," she said. We tried to look like that hadn't even been an option. "It's normally a R450 handling fee, plus the cost of hubcaps, plus a percentage of the cost of the hubcaps," she said. I felt my heart sink. "But," she said, "I'll take you. You can just buy new hubcaps."

Relief.
She drove us to a dealership that even my GPS couldn't find and we proceeded to cut a deal with the people there. Instead of R700 for each hubcap they charged us R550 (making the total R1100), and we slipped her a R100 bill for her trouble.
They took one hubcap off a new car and then gave us another, and the deal was done.

And when we left, I felt so much better. When it was all said and done, we paid less than R6500 in total for ten people to rent the car for six days and for replacement hubcaps and wheel-greasing - it's the South African way.

I felt so relieved, overjoyed, immensely pleased.

It was such a lovely trip.
I also really enjoy driving on the wrong side of the car on the wrong side of the road.

More of the trip to come.
But first - Bafana Bafana, tomorrow night at 9:30 at Green Point Stadium in Cape Town.
I bought my shirt today off of a vendor on the street who was in no mood to negotiate - none of them were, so I settled on a jersey for less than R70 ($10) and a flag for R30.
Deal done.
Excitement is setting in. Mike and another American kid are cheering for the USA.