Southeast Africa

Well, my initial estimates were off by around two hours. We ended up at the South African border post at around 01:30am. We were all made to stand in a long queue that was barely moving. Since we were a small group we diverted from the queue one by one and left to brush our teeth. Personal hygiene is especially important on trips such as this.

I would have been very uneasy had I not read up on the trip beforehand, because they took away our passports at the immigration office. In total we had to wait around 60min until the paperwork for everyone was sorted out.

Then we had to walk next to the bus to the luggage inspection area. We all had to collect our carry on items from the bus, and then put them in front of the customs agents who searched all of the bags. With differing levels of thoroughness. For example, I was only asked to demonstrate how to open my theft proof backpack. I showed the hidden zipper, the guy was happy, and moved on. Oh well...

After the luggage inspection spiel, we were called one by one by name to come forward and collect our passports. With over 60 people on the bus, and many African names being very difficult to pronounce, this also took a long time.

Once everyone had their passports back, we took a two kilometer long ride on the bus through no man's land, the zone between border posts. The immigration office on the Namibian side was staffed by a single officer... We were standing in the queue for over an hour, and there was a poor soul who got denied entry into Namibia because they couldn't give him a visa on arrival. He was deported back to South Africa, and the bus drivers were nice enough to "drop him off" on the South African side instead of letting him walk the 2km with luggage.

Then the bus was directed to enter the large vehicle X-ray scanner, and I was confident we were only talking about mere minutes until we could continue our journey to Windhoek. We'll, they have the hyper modern scanner there, but didn't use it. Instead, customs officers boarded the bus, picked out about 20 pieces of luggage from bus and trailer for spot checks, and ordered people to find their luggage so they could open it for an inspection.

Of course, this all took foreveeeer. They actually caught someone with something illegal in the luggage. He had to forfeit the goods and sign some documents, but we weren't told what the confiscated goods were. Fortunately, the customs officers were satisfied after that catch and let us go.

All passengers were visibly and audibly frustrated at this incredibly annoying border crossing. We decided to make the most of it and played some party music on my Bluetooth speaker somewhere in a holding bay next to the scanner 🎉🔊

The whole experience was only made worse because they refused to start the next process if there was even just a single person still stuck in the previous process. In a more efficient scenario the customs agents could've selected the spot check bags already while we are getting our stamps, then when the guy got deported the bus could've dropped him off while we do the luggage inspection, there could've been more immigration officers on duty (the bus only comes twice a week and they know exactly when), etc pp. It was very frustrating

When the drama was over, we had spent (rather: wasted!) a total of 4h30 to cross the border. From 01:30 until 06:00. Our drivers kept telling me that this was a very unusual situation, and that they usually manage to cross in 1-2h. But with the crossing taking sooo long, we could've traveled to the airport, done the trip by air, and gone through immigration on the other side, all within those 4h30. I have no problems at all with the bus, but this border crossing was a complete cluster fuck of inefficiencies. I rate this experience 2/10, because not much more could possibly go wrong.Read more