It was Saturday afternoon and I was in maximum recovery can't speak mode after an epic booty ghetto shakin’ session in Maputo with Guelton. My mates Vitor's crazy cousin. I was wondering alone down the street in the pretty well off residential area of my couch surfer when a police pick-up rolled up next to me. 

One of the four cops in the trailer (all with rifles in hand) asked me for my ID.

I gave him my driving license. 

He ask d me for my passport which I said I didn't have on me (I just couldn't be bothered to find it at the bottom of my bag)

......

Oh look, I found my passport!

Oh. You lie to us. Now we have big problem.

"How can we solve this problem?" He asked me. 

Now he had my passport and driving license and was ordering me into the back of the car. 

"Get in the back of the car" he said.

Ahha c'mon guuuuys, 

As much as I hated it, I conceded to handing over m last 5000 (€7.)

I simply didn't have the energy to fight it.

Despicable cheating cops. if you can't trust the police who are suppose to be there for your protection, who can you trust?? The whole system falls apart.

Shame on you Mozambique police. 

I went home and got some rest.

The next day my bus left at 630am bound for Johannesburg, SA.

We crossed the border at 9:45am and by 10:15 I had already been robbed. 

How did that happen?

Now I'll tell you how it happened. 

The bus pulled over to a service station for a 15min break. I ran over the road to withdraw some cash from an ATM. I tried to get in the side doors which were locked but a dark person shaped silhouette from inside waved me towards the other side. That was nice if them I thought, but when I walked in there was nobody stood in there. Strange I remember thinking. Instead there were 3 people, one at each ATM (and a skinny 60yr old security guard dozing at the entrance)

The central one freed up first and so I stepped forward.

There was an issue getting my card in, it didn't seem to want to take it. As the person to my right peeled away from his machine I saw him do a double take. He was half walked my away with his keys in one hand and cash+receipt in the other. 

I got back on the bus a nervous wreck. Exactly 15mins has passed, and I still hadn't had time (or money) to eat of drink. A new guy had got on the bus and sat next to me. He looked shifty. As the bus pulled away I tried calming myself down. I did all I could, What's done is done. The assailants have had their 15minute spree with my card and cash. It's just money. I was fucking stupid and too trusting. Learn from it. It could have been much worse. 

The guy next to me leaned forward and whispered to his friend sat in front. 

"Fuck! They're gong to scam me too" I though. I'm a sitting duck. They're all connected. MUST. BE. ONE. STEP. AHEAD. I stared planning the scenario of how they would potentially rob me once we arrived in Joberg, and the series of moves I would respond with to teach them a lesson. I'm chuck fucking Norris. YEAH I AM.

I looked out of the window and saw some commotion up ahead on the duel carriageway. The bus slowed just to give us a perfect show of the disturbing scene. One pickup on its roof on the central grass area. Several female bodies lying facedown beside the vehicle. Random clusters of people running in random directions, some groups watching, an ambulance parked up ahead with another mashed car on the side.

We cruised past. Fuuuuuuuuck. A horrible sensation hit the pit of my stomach.

What the hell was I letting myself in for. It felt like the road of hell.

10mins passed as I reflected on my first impressions of SA.

More commotion up ahead. I took out my camera and I ok a single shot, the picture you see above.

As we passed, I looked back from the other side yo see the yellow lifeless body of a woman slumped on the dashboard and everything below completely compressed, crushed into a block of flesh and metal. Phhhhhh. 

Presumably husband and wife, toodling along when BAMMM a combi f on the other side loses control flies over and hits them head on, their lives flipped in a heartbeat.

It got me think my about life. The husband calmly sat in the drivers seat. Still there presumedly because h was crushed in. His wife beside him dead.

Probably having a mundane conservation the second before they were hit. 

Yesterday I set off early hitching from Cape Town towards Namibia. My third ride was with a trucker driver called Andre. He told me that stretch is called the road of death. I'm glad I didn't know beforehand. Intercape..

I write this now from the back of my fifth ride, a couple of SA dudes name DERK and ...squashed into the back of their pickup p, next to their fridge, beer in hand, soon to be dropped in .....