A German is well organized and plans his trips quite extensively. Not for nothing there are companies like GLOBETROTTER which have a nice turnover with “the first German Black Forest Expedition”. Well, we also belong to this species and plan and think about how our trip is well organized. One of the considerations was not to ship the bikes’ keys with the bikes. We wanted to prevent people from thinking silly and preventing the loss.

As Thomas needs the keys for the adjustments we wanted to use one of the well-known freight service providers with the dispatch of the keys. UPS and FEDEX wanted just under 300 € for sending 200g keys to south africa. This seems a bit overdone and so we decided as good patriots for DHL privat as insured shipment – average 8-11 days from door to door. Our bikes need about five weeks and so a standard shipment should be enough for us. That was the plan. On 12.2. we gave the keys in the shipping. On 13.2. they were at the customs departure. And then nothing happens anymore. After four weeks, I call the customer service hotline and get the info I should inquire a follow-up. The next day I got an e-mail to send my bank account data. Another three days later the info, something went wrong with the shipping and I get the shipping costs plus 20 € credited.

Another call at the “service hotline” brings me the info that there is no information what happened to the package and if I do not like the amount I should file an objection. DHL great customer service!

I asked Thomas what is a reliable postal service in south africa. The answer is as well interesting: “The word reliable does not exist in Southern Africa!” 😉

We assume that South Africa may not be so reliable – well Germany does not seem to be better…