15 Jul 05
Cape Town, its café society and its rush hour, its internet culture and its 24-hour awakening, is behind us - now almost a day away. We passed the last fast food joint three hours ago and it has been two hundred miles since tarmac last spooled beneath the tyres of our Rolls-Royce Phantom. Now the real Africa, dirt and rocks and ruts and holes, rumbles softly beneath us. In a matter of minutes South Africa will be yesterday and Namibia will be today, and tomorrow, and the next day. Through the gathering dusk, the lights in the distance indicate the border crossing. We waft out of the gloom. Even through some of the most in-hospitable terrain on the African continent, the Phantom wafts everywhere.
Like bugs to a bulb, travellers on foot and on wheels seep out of the darkness and make for the lights of the frontier. Never before has the latest Rolls-Royce Phantom made this journey. Never before has Rolls-Royce sent its new Phantom to any African country except South Africa. Little wonder that everybody at the frontier, travellers, police and customs officers, all want to touch it, touch the iconic Spirit of Ecstasy that adorns the grille. And, of course, they want to sit behind the wheel.
Eyes stretch wide as they peer in through the back window. They make clucking noises of either bewilderment or approval with their tongues when we pull the two seat-back screen covers apart to reveal television screens. Questions are fired in quick succession: how fast does it go, how much petrol does it use, what is it like to go really fast in? And: how did we come to be in such a machine?
