Raiders of the lost Carnet
The things that cause a lot of frustration, is the paperwork. We thought that if you drive to Africa, you get yourself a few visa, you just drive your iron horse to the border, you hand over soms baksjiesj to pay for a quick processing and that you celebrate your first meters in the new country with an impossible high exchange rate. Wrong! What you really need is a Carnet de Passage. This is a booklet with 25 coupns that you have to get stamped upon entry and exit of every country. These little coupons namely prove that you don’t sell your vehicle to an eager African buyer and that we, Western tourists, don’t ‘forget’ to pay import taxes. This couponbooklet is supplied by the ADAC (the German sister organisation of the ANWB), who want to see a 5000 EUR guarantee on their bank account before they start lifting a finger. No stamps, no money back. This means that when your ride gets stolen or you drive it total loss, you probably won’t see a penny back from your 5000 EUR. In case of a total loss, ADAC advises that you detach a part of your chassis with a saw and bring it in a suitcase with you to Germany. Very Reservoir Dogs for cars. ‘But no guarantees’, they add quickly. He? On what does it depend then, how sad you look with your piece of chassis under your arm there at the ADAC counter in Munich? Anyway this Carnet is the most important travel document and is therefore sent to be signed by receiver. The Carnet is also important for the Sudanese visa, because without this paper, the Sudanese ambassy regards you as unreliable trampler and you you’re not allowed into their country.
However, when we arrived at the german Post, we entered the first phase of desparations. The lady behind the counter told us briskly that she had had the document in her hand, but that is was nowhere to be found now. She shrugged her shoulders. Tsja, she didn’t have a clue, she told us. Again shoulders. It it wasn’t in either of these 2 boxes, the package wasn’t there. Could have been sent back, or with the mailman again. Or somewhere else, she didn’t know really. When threw into the conversation that it was sent to be signed by receiver = bloody delivery guaranteed, she shrugged her shoulders again. We gave up. We called the ADAC in desparation. They were so generous to supply us a second version for administration costs only. How much these admin costs were? ‘Exactly 200 EUR, the amount that we paid initially. Why?’
After many calls here and there, visit the Post again (again shrugged shoulders, this time by another Post lady), deeper phases of desparation, the coupon sheet was finally delivered back to Dietlingen through Pforzheim and Stuttgart. Thank god for that.
So were were back in action: we sent our passes to the Sudanese in Berlin, scanned the coupons and mailed everything to Berlin. I called every day to Berlin to check if our paperwork had their attention. And it worked! 5 days later we received our passes with visa by express. Now focussing on the last details before we are off towards the Turkish harbour Iskenderun!
