Pay it Forward......

We've sent a few nights in Windhoek and not gone anywhere so if some other traveller wants to tell me I should have gone "here" or "there", don't bother please. Its just another town/city and we've walked around a bit and not gone to any of the places we should have gone alegedy. Who makes these descisions anyhow. Its Friday night and we didn;t even go to the Beer place. I cannot remember the name.

We're on the hunt for Tyres and there are damn expensive in Africa. In fact thay are much much more expensive than they should be. I can get them in the UK and ship them here for less. How does that work ??? I've emailed my tyre manufacturer of choice for an explanation. Will they respond ? I doubt it.

There are certain people who travel with sponsorship and get all sorts of free gear and theres people that profess to do the trips for charity whilst collection less money for charity than they will actully spend on their GPS and Camera for the trip (example). How do these people manage to get sponsorship or manage to convince themselves they are doing it for charity. In my mind if you do it for charity you should collect more money that you spend or surely you might as well give the money you are spending to the chartiy you are so selfless in supporting. We got no sponsorship and nothing for free and have helped 15 stranded motorists on our trip. Yes, FIFTEEN who were going nowhere and some of which would have likely waited hours (maybe days) to get help. We've collected a hitch hiker and delivered him to the nearest campsite. We've let down and hitchiker whos now contacted us having safely arrived at home. If thats not chartiy what is? Do we deserve any sponsorship. Probably not but a little bit of help would be nice now and again to reciprocate for all the help we've dished out. I've not forgotten the free accomodations afforded us in varios countries, Egypt, Tanzania, South Africa (more than once). We answer questions for other travellers as soon as we get them and we are nearly finished with the financial report to go with Nick West Coast one. Ours of course covering the East Coast. Julie has spent a great deal of time recording the information. We are also donating the route map and waypoints to T4A. I'll not talk about them as they seem to be selling the info given for free for a lot of money.

Now can I get some free tyres please? You can have a logo on the side of Matilda. She won't mind and in fact she will have no choice. Karma ?

Lets see if the tyre manufacturer in South Africa lives up to the now legendary (with us) South African generosity. Julies going for an emphatic "NO" as we're not delivering footballs to schools or collecting bottle caps or some other crap for charity. 

Rant over.......

Thanks to: LR4x4, Mike, Chris Parsons,  Intercontinental Hotel Staff Cairo & Aqaba, The Staff at Marriot Sharm, The guide with the wire like wiskers at Karak, Mustafa & Family, The Police Mess Musoma, Dragonaires & Guy & Family, Kobus & Alett, Des & Brenda, Bruce & Family, The Kruger Pensioners, Oppi Koppi & Vital, Ivan & Family, Walvis Bay Yacht Club. There will be at least more in a few weeks....Des and Hennie.

Hope we've not missed anything or anybody.