Early Morning at the Toyota Service Center
G’day. It’s January 28th. I’m in Oshakati in northern Namibia. So it was car service day. I got there by 6:30 in the morning for the 7 o’clock opening because the order that you arrived determined when you would be serviced that day. Well, at 6:30 I turned out to be number eight, so that wasn’t necessarily very early.
Brake Drums, Shoes, and Regular Service
Eventually it was my turn and they figured out what needed to happen and one of the things that it was necessary to do was to replace the drums of the rear brakes as well as new shoes. Well you don’t mess around with brakes so that had to happen. And then there was a bunch of other things, basically regular service but no really big unexpected things came up.
Communication Issues at the Dealership
So finally, there was not a lot of good communication between the service people and myself, which I kind of was unhappy about. But eventually I got to go and take a look around town a little bit while they were doing the job. And then after I got back, they finished and didn’t let me know that they were finished. So there was a lack of communication, uncertainty, and I just wasn’t too happy about it.
Meeting Fellow Travelers at the Hotel
So then it was time to go back to the hotel. And there I encountered two couples, one from Cape Town and one from Maun — that’s in Botswana. They had moved there in the 90s, and they were just touring with the two cars on their way back to Maun. So then we had some conversations and I had my plans for also going to Maun, taking the most northern road in Namibia.
Route Advice and the Road to Maun
We also had a lot of rain that day and several days, so in the conversation it became obvious that those people suggested that I would not take that northern road because it was less of a good road, potholes and what have you. I’ll never know, but that did have some influence on my decision on which way to go. So they suggested a route further south, anything further south other than that road.
Good Conversations and Ready to Move On
We had a few conversations and the other couple had bicycled through part of Europe for several months earlier this year or last year. So it was good times altogether. At least I got my car back and got it all finished and ready to go by five o’clock that afternoon and happy about that. Time to sleep and move on to the next day. So thanks for coming along, we’ll see you tomorrow.
