Passport Troubles and Administrative Tasks
Good day. This is for February 5th, 6th, and 7th. I mean, I’m doing this in a bit of a shorter time because I’m basically just hanging out. I cannot leave the country without my passport. An emergency passport is on the way, but I have no knowledge on exactly when. Hopefully early next week. And then I do not know what the implications will be, how much I can use it for further travel.
Real Estate Broker Fingerprint Renewal
Anyway, other things came up, such as I needed to get new fingerprints in for being a real estate broker in Washington State, and I did try to get an extension for that. It’s something you have to do every 6 years, and it so happens that this is the time. I only found out about it in November and tried to get an extension but no such thing. So that’s a whole new adventure.
So I ended up going to a company called Timeware that just do fingerprints. However, that’s the modern type. They do it electronically and it use it as a system for employees to come to work and they have to fingerprint in every time and fingerprint out every time. How exciting. Well, learned something new.
Police Station Adventures
Next on the list was a police station. See how successful we are with that one. Well, the first one, uh, isn’t gonna work. They said they would do it, but they don’t do it at that station. Had to go to a different station. Now this of course is ahead of time. I had to go to a print shop to get the correct card printed that fingerprints do go on. And generally they use thicker stock to do that. So that was another adventure. And the first place wasn’t able to do it, but the second place was, and that was very close by.
So next I go to Klein-Wintuuk’s police station, and every time there’s a big lineup, but somehow I ask a question or two and get ahead of the whole thing and, and get out of there real fast. Again, this time they pointed me to the lady that did that kind of thing, and she rolled on my fingerprints like she’s done it before. And then to top it off, she didn’t charge me for it. Well, that was a good thing.
Mailing and Online Challenges
So now all I had to do is find an envelope to send it to Florida, which I found envelopes in the supermarket across the street. However, you could only buy 10 at a time. All right, 10 it is. And the post office was right there, so airmailed it to Florida. So that’s out of the way.
Then I have to go and order it online and pay for it. Well, that did not work out so well. I was blocked every time, and that may have had to do with not using the right VPN. I never did get to try it with the right VPN. I opted for another option and found someone in the US to do it for me while I’m— I was calling with that person. That also was much of a help. So now I have that paper to be sent as well. So I was able to sign it online and then mail it to the— no, email it to the person that needs to then send it in, in snail mail, so that hopefully both documents get together once they get to Florida. And I should be okay. It wasn’t for lack of trying, I would say. So that’s another big one out of the way.
Overland Travel Community
Then on Overland Now, which is a WhatsApp group that has been in place I think since 2021 by a person named Duncan out of South Africa, and they own a place where you can stay and camp. And basically when you meet other travelers that are doing similar things like I do, you pass them on to Duncan and he puts you on the list so you get messages from all over, you know, about rainy seasons, about inoculations, about visas. Could be Morocco, it could be Kenya, it could be Tanzania, could be Zambia, but it might also be something useful. I’ve already had a few things coming out of there that were very helpful. So altogether, lots of fun.
Meeting Fellow Travelers
I got to meet that way, I got to meet Ordono about Nico, Nico Leontes. It turns out Nico is riding a motorbike, a Yamaha. Yamaha, Yamaha, that’s a sort of a breed between a motorbike and a scooter in my book. And he’s been driving that all the way from Cyprus, Cyprus where he sometimes lives, to all the way to Namibia. So we met up actually in Angola first at the Floor Hotel, uh, south of Luanda. And that was really fun, especially since he grew up in around Bellevue, which is across the way from Lake Washington of Seattle. So that was fun.
And so we arranged to meet up again on this Friday in the Paradise Backpack, uh, guest house where he was staying, and then decided that we better go on a trip on Sunday and see some animals. So then that meant, uh, basically because he did not have his bike, motorbike, at the time, it was in for service. That’s a really, really, really good thing to do. So that was that on that Friday. It all worked out nice, nice going. Lots of things done and time to move on again. Thanks for coming along.
