Crtd 12-11-29 Lastedit 15-10-27

November 25, 2012. I return to my car. From golf in Costa Ezuri. I turn the starting key. The start engin runs. But no ignition. A little red flashing light indicates that the "system" does does "recognize" my key and blocks diesel supply. The familiar misunderstanding. Car factories have no idea that security means always being able to start your car (and that a thief then can do it as well is a risk every customer, knowing the millions of annual key recognition repairs, is ready to take). I had two Dutch garage "repairs" and one by Renault Porto replacing the start decoder, total expenditure close to 2000 euro, twice I was guaranteed the problem was solved. This car is dead.

I go to sleep. No more light battery power. No engine to recharge it. I look around with my torch. A live man will sleep tonight in a dead car. Spooky. My 14 year life with this car rushes by in my memory: the parasailing  school, meeting wolve expert Werner Freund, while the car was brand new, I was still running in the engine: go [in Dutch], my sister protesting while I saw a power socket in the shiny metal (see photo below), then becoming a certified paraglider pilot and almost disappearing in the Alps (go [in Dutch, with video]). Summer 1999 high above the clouds in the Alps, writing my first article about African philosophy (go  [in Dutch], and what came of it later).

In the morning I dress and pack for a few days in Sevilla to buy a new car. Swearing, of course.

... in the morning, a live man creeps out of a dead Kangoo equipped to buy a new car in Sevilla ...

By bus to Huelva, then by train to Sevilla, I cannot help summing up my Iberian experiences thusfar. My naive African expectations had been that an Iberian South coast winter would not be colder than a good Dutch spring. But it is. Only in the afternoon I sit outside my car. And when the rest of the time I sit inside, most often the doors have to be closed. Rivers come running from the Iberian high planes, often freezing in winter with their semi-continental climate. Swimming is heroism. Pools are warmer but very rare. In the few months I am here a saw no pool or lake where I could nicely put my cabin. Trees and forest are relatively rare and the landscape looks a bit empy and battered generally. As if Napoleon passed by only a few days ago. The languages are easy if you know Latin and French, as I do, but I feel weary of learning another one to the level required for easily mixing in local companies.

Off into Sevilla, were even tourist office workers do not speak English. Cars are cheap!!! In the best of my Spanish and improvising the weirdest of gestures I start talking to sellers. No Sir, we can only sell cars to people who live in Spain. You can have a Dutch passport, but you will need to move and have an official address in Spain. You should have a Spanish number plate. Renault Sevilla, who so nicely had repaired my clutch, just repeated the hopeless message.
Gone my dream of dropping some euro bills and screwing my Ugandan number plates on a more lively Kangoo of similar colour and make-up. Had I talked rapid Andalusian Spanish I would have stood a chance, but as it stands it won't work, even criminals speak Spanish only. Government sabotage as usual, but this is Europe. Just be happy you are at least allowed to drive your car  in another country. O my God, Europe! Now I fully realize that even Dutch government will prohibit a car sale to an inhabitant of Uganda!

The Renault Sevilla manager offers me a free espresso to recollect my brains. I decide, in despair, to have my dead car brought to Sevilla (100km) and make a fourth attempt to get this repaired. Recovery is less than a third of the Dutch tariff. I finalize with the lady at the reception desk using Google translate.

... I finalize with the lady at the reception desk using Google translate ...

"These guys are good", I try to convince myself. I board a hotel in the old town centre near the bull fight stadium. Nothing programmed. Sevilla is known for winter cold. People wear thick coats in the morning, when it can easily be 5^oC and windy.

After two days my favourite mechanic tells me, in fluent Andalusian but typing me the key words in his smart phone English dictionary that wires between the keyhole and the decoder were eroded, have been replaced, ha sido resolver. Of course I dare not believe it, but I just hope to reach Holland. The repair fee is not even 200 euros, wires and labour are cheap in Spain. If this was the real cause, what about the close-to-2000 euros spent by the previous garages? Of course I learnt, the hard way, ^[details] to not even consider writing an email.

I drive to Holland, stopping only a few times, only switching off the engine when sleeping, which I only do next to garages. In the mountains North of Madrid I already drive in snow. No breakdowns, all the way to Holland, while I plan my Africa trip.