S.B. 1: the border nightmare

i dont want to enforce stereotypes here, but this definitely deserves a mention! crossing from the South African border into Zimbabwe took us the better part of 5 hours, and involved lots and lots and lots of waiting, corrupted officials, redtape and queue-cutters.

this is the immigrations tent where we went to get our passports stamped. its super easy to slip past the border! when we needed the car registration paper to be faxed over to us (long story), we already had SA departure stamps in our passports, but we were still waiting and having lunch in a small town about 4km away from the border.

the STOP sign really characterised our entry to Zimb. we were at this sign on 3 separate occasions. this was taken when we FINALLY had everything we needed (after 5 hours).

the car inspection office. and its not a temporary office, contrary to what i believed when i first saw it.

the sign at this building is just for show. this building wasnt for customs nor anything! i dont know what it was for because there were counters, and empty seats. we were directed to the tents which was fully staffed. i.e. 3 border control officers and 3 computers with passport scanning devices.

amazing start to my journey!
more pictures to come.