Toto’s Near Death Experience – by Ellen

We had a potential buyer for the Toto (yes, we named the car Toto, and yes, after the band, not after the dog in the Wizard of Oz) in Cape Town, so we were up nice and early to leave Polokwane and head south.

But Toto wouldn’t start. Ten thousand and three kilometres into our epic adventure, our trusty car died – but fortunately not in the middle of a desert...

Despite the best efforts of some workmen to push-start us (into a wall), he still would not start. A friend of the receptionist’s came over to jump start him, but even after swapping batteries, still no joy. Oh.

Eventually we got there (without hitting the wall) and set off to buy a new battery. As the old battery was removed I could hear the tick-tock of his hazard lights faltering, getting weaker, and then...silence... I half expected to hear the long ominous beep of a heart monitor announcing a flatliner. (Sorry, I’m quite attached to this little car!)
As the new battery was hooked up, a feint tick...tick-tock...could be heard, then a full, healthy tick-tock, tick-tock. Yay! There was life!

We turned off the engine.
We tried to start the engine.
Nothing.

And then started the pushing of the car around the back yard of a back-street shop in Polokwane. It dawned on me – as it probably dawned on you car-savvy folk a while ago – that it probably wasn’t a problem with the battery. We decided that, seeing as the new (R550) battery didn’t make the car go, they should probably give us our old battery back. As, despite what they tried to tell us, we didn’t think that our battery was ‘f***ed up’.

We found a service centre who directed us an auto electrician who’d have alook at our started motor. But not until Monday. Today was Friday.

Deciding it probably wasn’t sensible to drive anywhere in a car that couldn’t be switched off (especially as we needed the ignition key to open the petro cap) we surrendered the car to the auto electricians who drove us to the tiny airport to collect a hire car.

We went to AVIS.
‘Do you have any cars?’
‘No.’
Oh.

We went to Europe Car
‘Do you have any cars?’
‘No.’
Oh.

By this point we’d exhausted half of the car rental options. Luckily Budget had cars, so we were back on the road!
It took us longer than anticipated to leave Polokwane (mainly as we were driving round in solid traffic trying to decide which of the three KFC drive-thrus to go to). So (much) later that day, as we were on route to Kruger along a road that had an 80k speed limit which took us up and down windy, misty mountain roads, we realised that we weren’t going to get to the park gate in time...and that I had forgotten my camera so I’d be sulking all weekend as I’d be camera-less on safari. So we went back to Polokwane and indulged in room service, beers and a film.