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Driving the not “right” side in South Africa

February 22, 2010 By Danny

Preparing to drive for the first time was more than a bit stressful. As I tested out all the controls to make sure I knew where they were, we had the following conversation:

D: Right, that’s the blinker, not the shifter.
(Car eased out of parking space in first, into the wrong lane.)
J: You’re on the right side.
D: So I am…..was that the wrong right or the right left?
J: Better practice using the blinkers.
(Wipers go on. Somehow we make it out of the parking lot. Approaching turn.)
J: Put on your blinker.
(Wipers go on again. Then wrong blinker.)
D: This is a left, that means its a short turn and I’m going to stay on this side of the street.
J: Good, you’re on the right side.
D: What (swerve) I’m on the left.
J: Left, that’s what I meant.
(Some time, and a few ostrich, pass.)
D: Shit, now its raining.
J: At least you know where the wipers are.
(Blinker goes on.)

And so it went, somehow we’ve survived a month of driving already and to be honest it has been a pleasure. Our car is little, so little in fact that it isn’t even sold in the US. With all four cylinders contributing to a massive 1.1L engine it struggles a bit on the big hills. Most of which are on one-lane highways. People here use the shoulders to allow others to pass. Although this is something we’ve seen everywhere we’ve been since Mexico, this is the first time I’ve actually driven in it and it is rather nice. If I scoot over for someone I can expect them to flash their hazards once they’ve passed me, saying ‘thank you’ and I am to respond with a flash of my high beams to say ‘you’re welcome.’ Oncoming cars will also scoot into the shoulder to allow more space in that imaginary center lane.

After 9 months through Latin America we only rented a vehicle once, and that was our final week with others doing the driving. It may seem surprising then that we’ve had our own set of wheels here in South Africa, driving on the left side of the road and all, for 6 weeks through 4 countries. The decision was a financial one, along the main route the car for two was cheaper than bus, which has allowed us to explore far more of the country while allowing us to camp and cook ourselves everywhere we’ve gone.

The thing I like the least about having the car is that, like the backpacks, our entire life is inside of it. The difference is that the backpacks are never left out of our sight in public whereas we frequently leave the car in public parking lots. Theft and vandalism here is such a problem that most parking lots have attendants in each lane to guard the cars…a service that you “optionally” pay for when you return to your car. We’ve seen this in other countries (Brazil, Argentina, etc) but needing to payoff the guard is something that still seems alien to us.

We’ve made it this far without a problem, driving through South Africa, Swaziland, Lesotho, and finally Namibia. Sometimes we find ourselves on the right (wrong) side of the road, and the wipers continue to make non-raining appearances, but otherwise we’re doing OK. The most amazing thing though, is when we’re approaching an intersection and Jill says “make a left at the light” and we both know that means to make a right.

Is elephant damage covered under our car insurance?

January 13, 2010 By Jillian

It’s not often that we find ourselves behind the wheel of a car, but to see Kruger properly it was necessary to rent a car. So in our tiny little rental we took to the roads of Kruger, the paved, the dirt and the gravel. Our days were the same, get up early (sun rises at 4:30 a.m in the summer) pack up our tent, hit the road for some game viewing, arrive at our next camp around noon, rest until 3pm and head out for another game drive. The game drives are always exciting, sort of like a scavenger hunt through the bush- herds of elephants in the distance, giraffes eating from the tops of trees, but it wasn’t until our third afternoon when things got umm… up close and personal?

On our afternoon drive we had been severely disappointed. Game viewing is all about luck, being in the right place at the right time and so far we hadn’t seen anything that afternoon besides a few impala. Disappointed we came around a curve face to face for a giraffe. Moving out of the road for us, he trotted into the bush and continued eating the leaves. Carrying on our way, we hoped to see a lion or cheetah, but as we continued down the road nothing happened. Over taking another car we came around a bend and there in front of us was a huge maseth bull elephant standing in the road. Thankfully it was not turned towards us, but he took his dear sweet time getting out of our way.

For nearly twenty minutes we followed this bull down the road, each time Danny inched the car forward I nearly had a heart attack. There is no way I wanted to be that close to a male elephant, umm.. in “the mood.” Somewhere I remembered hearing to stay 20-30 meters back from an elephant, and as many things in life, husband and wife had a difference of opinion as to the exact distance of 20-30 meters. So there we were inching along behind the elephant that wouldn’t clear the path. Looking at the clock I realized that time was winding down fast, and we would have to either turn around or make a run for it if we wanted to get to the camp gate before it closed. Unwilling to turn around, we decided to wait the elephant out. Finally the bull stepped off the road and into the bush far enough that we could no longer see him. Making a run for it, Danny gunned the engine and we took our chances passing the elephant. Startled by the sound of our engine, the elephant, who wasn’t exactly as far as we thought from the road, turned towards us as we passed and made an angry grunting noise and motion, which prompted me to hit my darling husband in the arm and scream “move, move, move.” We were soon out of harms way although it took a good 20 minutes for our hearts to stop pumping.

Putting the petal to the metal, we sped along towards the main road and our camp gate. Each time we saw fresh elephant dung in the road my heart skipped a beat, and it wasn’t long before we saw a breeding herd along the side of the road. This time they were further away from us and thankfully paid no attention to us. Speeding along, we turned onto the paved road hoping and praying that we could convince the guard at the gate with our video footage that indeed the elephant had made us late. Cruising along we saw the familiar stopped vehicle ahead. Slowing down for a quick view, we thought the car was only looking at wildebeest in the distance, until a hand came out the window and pointed to the lioness not more than 5 feet from the road.

Of course we stopped. Screw that 1000R (about 135 USD) fine- the lioness was hunting. Within a minute we saw the wildebeest start to scatter and from a distance we could see the herd split in two. My family uses the phrase “national geographic moment”, which I think is rather self explanatory. This was indeed one of those moments. As we watched the scene unfold, several other lionesses came into view and a large male. We could see the lions rounding up one half of the herd and sorting through the chaos to find their target. Unfortunately the chase continued over the hill and we turned towards the people in the first car in shock and awe. The car behind us sped off towards the gate as we had about 10 minutes and 15 km to go. Gathering ourselves, we quickly did the same. Half way back to the gate we came over a hill and saw a man standing in the road with a gun. Great I thought, speeding ticket. Fortunately the car that left the hunt before us was already pulled over and we were waved on.

Sneaking into the camp gate behind another car, we couldn’t believe our luck. We had almost been trampled by an elephant, witnessed a lion hunt, avoided a speeding ticket and snuck in through the gate without a fine.

What a ride.

Rain, rain go away!

November 4, 2009 By Jillian

We woke up to rain at 5:30am the day we were going to summit the volcano. At 6:30am we´d finished our breakfast and it was still raining, no actually pouring. We decided not to even bother walking into town to see if we were on and we went back to sleep. Several hours later, it was still raining. Did I mention the air temperature is just above freezing? We eat lunch, and then dinner, and it is still raining. Tomorrow we´re going to be leaving town. To say we were disappointed us an understatement, but bad weather had to affect us sometime right?

With the constant downpour we were needless to say depressed. No volcano, and no possibility to do much else. Fortunately, a guy at our hostel had a rental car, and it didn’t take much to convince him to go to the hot springs with us and a young British guy that night.

Two Americans, an Australian and a Brit set off down the dark road, in the rain, in Chile. Did I mention that our driver thought he was a Formula One driver? It doesn’t take a genius to figure out where this is going. Zipping through the dark country side at almost double the speed limit, all three passengers braced ourselves for whatever was to come. We flew over a blind hill to see a disabled car in the road.

Within seconds we hit a huge pot hole forcing our driver to slow down. It was clear we had a flat, but it took Danny stating to obvious several times before we pulled over. Rolling to a stop 20 feet in front of the first disabled car Danny jumped out to inspect the damage as our driver said nothing. It was flat all right, and there was no hiding the dented wheel rim. Popping open the truck we searched for the spare and the jack as a wet figure came running towards us in the dark.

Turns out he was Argentinian and let’s just say we learned a few new words in Spanish that night. Like jack, wrench, wheel rim, tire lever. They just don’t teach that vocabulary in class. Turns out his wrench was too short to get any torque on his tire nuts and our rental lacked a jack. Great combination.

Not changing a tire in the dark, but here’s the rain!

Lacking a jack and a flash light, Danny (without the help of either the driver or our other passenger) changed our tire using “spanglish” by the light of a lighter. What couldn’t be communicated in Spanish or English was communicated through charades in what must have looked like the most bizarre game to anyone driving by. Our wrench didn’t fit their tires, so after assuring us that they had called for help, we continued on our way to the hot springs.

Unfortunately our driver didn’t learn his lesson even after the paved road ended. Flying down the gravel path, he seemed not to notice the rocks hitting the side of the car or the pot holes. We were sure we had missed the turn off, and said so, several times. As the road grew narrower and narrower, you’d think that even a Formula One driver would slow down, especially on the only spare, but our driver did not. We hit every bump and hole in the road for about 5 or 6 kilometers before it appeared that the road might actually end. Finally the driver agreed to turn around. Not 1000 feet after we rejoined the paved road did we see the sign for the hot springs. Nice.

The night’s torturous ride had ended, and while we couldn’t relax too much at the hot springs knowing we’d have to go back into town with Formula One, we did enjoy soaking in the water.

With rain in the forecast for the next few days, we headed to Argentina the next morning. Sometimes we get lucky and do incredible things. Sometimes we don´t.

Driving the not “right” side in South Africa

Is elephant damage covered under our car insurance?

Rain, rain go away!

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