I woke up early to make a move for Lesotho. Karoo mornings are fresh - perfect for driving. I dropped in at the local truck stop and filled up with petrol and coffee... Just passed Bethuile I passed a car that had rolled some time the previous evening. The car belonged to the provincial traffic department. The driver was lucky to escape unharmed as the car had rolled at high speed for about 150m, jumped a fence and missed a few trees. Needless to say the VW Polo was a right off. I stopped and chatted to the lone policeman on the scene. He had been dropped off by the local station to 'observe' the scene. We both observed and speculated as to cause. My suspicion was that the driver fell asleep... There were practically no skid marks.
I pulled up to the border and put on my efficient guise. The Border I go through (Van Rooyens Hek) is pretty chilled and I didn't expect anything untoward. Well. What do you know? The previous time that I had been to Lesotho I had neglected to get the necessary stamp when I exited the country... Now the officials were getting difficult. They called me into the office and I knew that they were waiting for the 'offer'... I offered: "what can I do to 'fix' the problem"? We came to an arrangement and money passed hands. The missing stamp was inserted, as was the entry stamp. I left knowing that I had contributed/conspired to the age-old problem of corruption. I wasn't too distressed. R150 isn't a lot of money to ease the way in a sticky situation.
Before I left the immigration official gave me the nudge nudge wink wink say no more look and whispered that this 'matter' was between us. I didn't argue and left on my merry way.
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