I never thought easy car hire would be something I would have to worry about. My experience with car rental went as far as the airport car rentals I would organise for friends and family visiting our lovely country from abroad. And since it never came out of my own pocket I rarely looked at the charge when I booked them cars to get around in Europeans have that lovely pound/rand exchange rate going for them. Suffice it to say, I was in for a surprise.

I once had a lovely little car. Nothing fancy, just a champagne coloured 1400 Volkswagen Golf. No power steering, no air conditioning, just the basics. The only thing that set him apart from the host of other Golf’s littering the streets of Cape Town was the fact that he was mine and that I was covering the monthly payments with my own money earned with my very own blood, sweat and tears. We had a good run, Aragorn and I. We had beautiful trips up the Garden Route, to my grandparents in Bredasdorp and my parents in Riebeek Kasteel. Not once did I encounter a flat tire, an disinclined battery or a uncooperative starter motor. Smooth sailing, really.

Imagine my absolute shock and horror when I walked out of my cousin’s beautifully appointed town house in Upper Woodstock to find that Aragorn had been purloined. Gone a’ la poof. Along with my gym bag containing my trusty running shoes, my favourite pair of ski pants and the one shirt I own that can withstand sweaty Yoga sessions without revealing any lumps and bumps. The experience was quite perplexing to say the very least.

I proceeded to call up the Woodstock Police Department to get a case number. Living in South Africa I didn’t really anticipate them finding Aragorn; he was probably being dismantled or spray painted a different colour at the time in any case. I simply needed the case number so I could start the very irksome and needlessly complicated process of having the insurance company provide the very service I pay them for providing the money to buy a new car. Four nerve wrecking hours later the police showed up, took my statement and quickly left, leaving me without any means of getting to work. Woodstock is not really a neighbourhood you want to go meandering around in and taking a taxi is equally risky. The only option left to me was to locate a quick, efficient and easy car hire company to get my out of my annoying pickle.

Luckily for me, Cape Town is quite well supplied with these. A speedy flick through the telephone book and I had the numbers of three car rental companies on hand. The first one I called turned out to be a lemon they required a mountain of paperwork and a time consuming credit check before I would be allowed to rent a vehicle. I will never know what the third company would’ve had to offer because by the second try, I had what I needed. The lady that handled my inquiry was professional, sympathetic and offered to send someone round to take me to work while she sorted out the paperwork. I gratefully accepted and by the time I finished work that afternoon there was a courier waiting outside my building with a spunky little number for me to get around in.

I know that it’s not a good idea to live your life always expecting the worst to happen, but on the other hand it always helps to be prepared. After this experience I changed my insurance policy to include vehicle replacement rental coverage. My premium went up nominally, but the money I will spend on this yearly is less than it would cost to rent a car from even the cheapest vehicle rental agency. All I know is that my experience of becoming part of South African crime statistics would have been much more troublesome hadn’t I stumble upon the easy car hire company I did.