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Cape to Cairo Part 4

We waited for six weeks in Cairo for Libyan visas that were never issued. The saga of our Libyan visas was a long, sorry tale of dishonesty, incompetence and sheer bloody mindedness. While we waited for the contrary Libyans, we made a couple of tours out of Cairo to escape the filth and chaos of Egypt's capital. First we headed south into the western desert. Between the oases of Bahariya and Farafra we left the paved route and headed out into the sand in search of the New White Desert, an eerie place of fabulous giant chalk sculptures. The local guide who led us there in a 4x4, said our bus was the first two-wheel drive vehicle he had ever seen in the White Desert.

We returned to Cairo for another round of tangling with the stonefaced bureaucrats at the Libyan embassy, before heading out again, this time to Sinai. On our return from Sinai there was still no sign of our visas. We had been in Egypt for more than six weeks and our visas and customs clearance and temporary licence for the bus had expired. We realised we had better find another route out of Egypt and began researching shipping the bus to Italy or France, but this proved prohibitively expensive. We were running short of time and money, and we had to find another route out, fast. Eventually, fearing arrest or other hassles with the Egyptian authorities, we decided to make for Europe via the Middle East. This was a long way around and completely unplanned, and we did not even have road maps for the Middle East, Turkey or Eastern Europe.

As it turned out, we left Egypt without hassle, and crossed to Jordan via ferry across the Gulf of Aqaba, to avoid crossing Israel, which would have made it impossible to enter Syria.

The last thing we did when we left Egypt was to buy a full load of bad fuel. It was either adulterated, or it was the nasty Egyptian 80 octane instead of the 90 I thought I was getting. This led to severe detonation in the engine on our first day in Jordan, which combined with hot weather and a 150-mile climb from sea level to 6 000 feet to cause the engine to overheat a few times, which caused terminal damage. In the north of Syria it caught up with us when a valve broke in the town of Aleppo. Luckily a stripdown showed that the broken valve had not holed the piston, and I had a spare cylinder head, so I stripped the engine in a side street and got it running again the same day. Next day we crossed into Turkey and about 60 miles later, in a remote area of the countryside, the piston that hit the broken valve completely disintegrated (it must have cracked from the initial impact) and all but destroyed the engine. We were very lucky to get a tow back to the city of Gaziantep, where we placed ourselves in the hands of the local air-cooled VW expert. He was very kind, but he worked out of a dark, filthy, dingy basement workshop. A stripdown showed that the bits of broken piston had damaged all the other pistons and cylinders, but luckily there was no serious damage to the case or other internals. There were no new parts to be had, so we rebuilt the engine using a set of used pistons and cylinders that he had been hoarding. That got the car going again, but the parts were badly worn, and we had a serious oil leak and the engine smoked badly, with number 4 plug oiling up regularly.

We contacted Bullikartei guru Michael Steinke in Frankfurt, Germany, and he gave us VW contacts in Vienna, and said he would come and rescue us with a trailer if necessary. We limped across Turkey and Eastern Europe, moving as fast as we could with speedily diminishing finances. We made it to Austria, where we spent a wonderful day with members of the Vienna Bulli Club, before pressing on to Germany. On our first morning in Germany the bus began to run very poorly, and the oil leak deteriorated from a steady drip to a stream. And then, as we passed through Stuttgart, we were pulled over by autobahn cops. They took grave offence at us dripping oil on their clean German roads, and they put the bus through a roadworthy test. The German roadworthy test is the strictest in the world and we didn't stand a chance. Our bus was deemed unroadworthy and our licence plates and registration papers were impounded, and we were left at the roadside, unable to drive our faithful bus anywhere in the European Union.

We called Michael Steinke and he graciously agreed to make the 300 mile round trip to come and tow us to his home in Frankfurt. Thanks to Michael's contacts we were able to sell our beloved bus within 24 hours to a local collector, who intends to preserve the ZebraBus as is.

We spent another week in Frankfurt as guests of the wonderfully kind Steinke family while we disposed of our possessions before flying back home to South Africa. Although it seemed a very sad way to end our epic journey, we were very happy that our beloved Zebi had a good new home, where she could retire gracefully. Michael also eased the pain somewhat by letting us drive one of his buses for the week. I was amazed that he loaned us his 1967 ex-fire department double cab, with just 22 000km on the odo! It was a privilege and a pleasure to be allowed to drive a nearly new vintage bus.

The Bus: Our Bus is a 1975 Volkswagen Fleetline Kombi. These were probably the last Split-Screen Buses built anywhere in the world. They were assembled in South Africa for one year only, from knocked down kits imported from Brazil. The Fleetlines were sold alongside the German-built 1975 Bay-Window Buses by VWSA dealers. Only 789 of these unique Buses were built in three versions: panelvans, wide-bodied pick-ups, and 15-window Kombis like our ZebraBus.