Right! That's it! LAZY CAMEL!!!!!

I know you can't wait any longer, so I'm going to have to take the reins here. I think he's stuck in Cafe Caprice for the weekend. My recommendation? Screw the camel - get a mule.

(DR 650's for world peace. Don't you dig the painted toe nails?)
I also know you love a little backtrack. Let's talk petrol.
You know what I find truly bizarre? Clearly there is a frustrated artist inside every national minister of energy affairs. You know how our stuff is green? That's pretty normal, right? Sly colour designed to make you think it's not toxic shit ruining our planet. Calming on the nerves when they're increasing the price every day until it costs more than a fine single malt?
Well, Angolan juice is yellow! Yellow?? And the Aussies's stuff is pink. Is it so spiedcops can play a funny game of what-fucking-country-are-we-in-now with drunk drivers? Confusing stuff, man... especially when you're trying to take a relaxing jaunt through a neighbouring country. Of course you only notice this with a transparent petrol tank, and not many cars have one. And then you start wondering if the dodgy shit you bought on the side of the road is actually extremely diluted used cooking oil. Not good when you're trying to use all you've got left of an N'gola-addled brain to navigate down a rutted and sandy track southwards.
The big plus of a transparent tank is you can see how much stuff you've got left. And in my case it was always less than I expected. Until two weeks before this trip I rode a BMX with a range of a camel, and I was keeping my fancy new toy on the road with a collection of fuel bags stuffed into my panniers. But after the Doodsakker we didn't strictly need those, and it was a pain, so I didn't use them. Which meant I had to fill up often.... which is never a problem in Angola.
Remember this?


R6 petrol. Well that's only in the major centres. In the slightly smaller towns on main roads, they also have them, but there a funny little game is played in the interests of Angolan entrepreneurship. See, despite having half the oil fields of Saudi Arabia, you'd be mistaken for thinking that there was a shortage of fuel outside of the cities. What happens is huge truck arrives carrying yellow magic. Cue vey large queue of petrol scalps who buy all said petrol and cart it away in big drums. Then they set themselves up on every street corner - sometimes only 2km away from said petrol station, and sell it in little green bottles - like wine bottles - with these flip off plastic lids.... for R10 a litre! Genius.
OK, there's an upside too... which is that in just about any tiny little hamlet in the middle of godforsaken nowhere, you can also buy petrol-by-the-wine-bottle for R10. Fair enough... suits me with the fuel carrying capacity of a thimble.
So, after our camel-apple-head-target-practice incident yesterday we were about to turn off the main road and scoot down through the bush for three days, and I was dry. No problem.

You have to admire community spirit. I mean where in Cape Town can you pull into a petrol station and immediately be surrounded by a throng of thirty well wishes commending you on the fine looks of your steed, or enquiring about its fuel range or magnificent strong tyres, or just generally shooting the shit and enjoying a break in the midday sun??
Nowhere, right? They're all too busy schnaffling up cocktails at Cafe Caprice and perving the hot 21 year olds. Or welding up luggage racks.


These guys were fancy - they actually had a filter on the end of that funnel.

I say Viva Petrol Entrepreneurship in Angola, Viva!
Time to head for home.
