Joburg to Kasane

Joburg , South Africa to Kasane, Botswana would be a long journey… 

After doing some last minute shopping in Rustenburg, we headed out of South Africa, but not before getting pulled over by the police in a small speed trap town just before the Botswana border.  The South African Police Officer politely asked me to step out of the car and come over to read the speed gun which read 98k in a 60k zone…according to his chart I would have to pay a ticket of 700 ZAR…700 Rand equivalent to $93 US dollars and I would have to go to the police station to pay the fine.  Of course I didn’t see any signs announcing the lower speed limit and apparently neither did the other 3 cars that got pulled over during my discussion with the police!  He politely informed me that there were several signs along the last kilometer.  Just as he is starting to put the ink to the pad I say “can’t you and I settle this?”  He asked me how much Rand I have and I told him I didn’t have anymore Rand (I conveniently separated my Rand in another pocket earlier…but he noticed I had Botswana Pula in my hand when I reached into my pocket.  He says “I’ll take Pula, how much do you have?”  I told him I needed my Pula when I crossed the border and would have to pay vehicle entry taxes.  I then slide a US$20 out from the roll and he looked interested, but not interested enough…I knew I had a $50 dollar bill in my wad and I didn’t want to reveal that to him!  I slide out an additional $10 bill and he seemed interested enough to talk after looking around at the other pulled over cars and the other police officers…no one was looking…no one else was getting out of their cars either…Were the other cars getting off with a notice and not I??  Or where they handing over bribes without getting out of their cars???  The polite officer took the $30 US from me and told me what the correct speed limit was when leaving the town limits.  I’m so glad I didn’t rent that sports car I was looking at in the car rental parking lot…I would have probably gotten pulled over doing twice my infraction!

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