On the motorway...

During our travels here in Africa, we have spent some quality time on the highways (also known as the motorway). Life in Africa is different, to say the least, and you get a pretty good feel for just how different it is from the motorway. Where do I begin...

For starters, how about the radio. We didn't bring an iPod hookup...it is a pretty big deal for Ryan to be going 18 days without his iPod but he's handling it very well! So we're left to whatever's playing on whatever radio station we get in. All stations play the same thing: American top 40 and 80s power ballads. Lots of Rihana, Black Eyed Peas, Britney Spears, Foreigner, Elton John, and tons of Barry White. It is very rare for a song to come on the radio that we don't know.

As previously mentioned, they drive on the left over here. Roundabouts are very common. Besides for routinely mixing up the blinker and the windshield wiper, Ryan has done a great job of getting us around. My driving was limited to about 3 kilometers in Franschoek and I am fine with this! In the passenger seat, it means I can close my eyes whenever things get a little scary out there...

Like the first time Ryan pulled over onto the shoulder of the road to let someone pass him. I yelled what are you doing! And he said, letting this guy pass me, duh. Apparently he had read some driving manual before coming to Africa, thankfully, and was aware of this practice. If someone is driving faster than you, it's encouraged that you pull over (while maintaining your speed) and let the faster car go by. The faster car then flashes their taillights at you to say "thanks." The cars here even have a special lights setting for this, like a blinker but for the tail lights! This practice works out well because cars seem to travel at whatever speed they want on the motorway, from very very slow to fly-by fast. Most of the traveling we've done has been on 2- lane highways -- not big 4 lane interstates like in the U.S. Sooooooo it gets a little tight sometimes, 4 cars wide on a 2 lane highway. Hence the need to close my eyes from time to time.

Because English is the national language, most of the signs posted are in English. But some are in Afrikaans, and all of the towns have Afrikaans names, so trying to pronounce the words on these signs has become our number one travel game.

As Ryan mentioned, we have seen various animal crossing signs. A lot of "don't feed the baboons!" signs, and unless we would have seen a little one crossing the road, I would have thought they were posted as jokes. There are a lot of cow crossing signs, posted with a phone number underneath. Not sure who that call goes through to....the farmer who owns the cows?? "Hello, I'm sorry, I hit your cow!" that's not a conversation I want to have but we have seen a number of cows walking down the shoulder of the road, so I'm guessing that conversation happens all too often.

Speaking of cows, I am always staring at the farmsteads...guess it is the farm girl in me. We'll see a field of dairy cows grazing and then look to the nearest barn, and see that it doesn't have any power lines/electricity. How are all these cows getting milked?? Doesn't sound like fun to me. We've also seen a fair amount of field work being done...tractors in the field, baling straw, etc.

But tractors, cows, monkeys aside, what we see the most of on the highways is people. People walking, trying to hitch a ride, some offering money. Most of these people are men and I think it's because the women get picked up right away -- anytime we have seen a car/truck stop to pick people up, it's always for women. Sorry guys! No reliable means of transportation definitely makes life tougher...how are you supposed to hold down a job if you can only make it there occasionally? We learned the unemployment rate in Cape Town is 47%...and we think America's is bad! We've seen quite a few construction work zones and there always seem to be ample people working at them...always a couple people extra just watching or waving a flag. But I guess, when there's no guarantee how many will hitch a ride to work that day, you've got to hire 10 for a 6 person job and hope at least that many show up?

Enough of these ramblings for now...clearly I have too much time to bethinking about all of this from my passenger seat!