Weather/Roads/Police/People

I know I mentioned the one day of hot weather, but other than that one day getting extremely hot our weather has been great here in the Eastern part of South Africa!  Ranging with our lows at night around 16-17C which converts to around 60-62F...great temp for sleeping.  During the day it has been in the range of 22-25C which is 71-77F  WOO HOO, I knew it was nice, but just now stopped to figure out the conversion!  It was PERFECT both days for Safari with overcast and the one hot day we were inside the mall.  Everyone has told us the temps we are having are very unusual for this time of year.  I had checked a long-range weather forecast before we left and they were expecting temps ranging from 93-96F (average), but the cool front came in ...just as I had ordered! 

Roads have been really good for the most part.  Because of the World Cup, many improvements have been made and we have driven on toll roads much of the way.

Look at the Broom he is using to sweep the toll booth area!!
Unbelievable the manual labor done!!

Driving is different here as they use the shoulders as a lane - calling it "yellow lane".  In the mountain area and the smaller blacktop roads, most people just  automatically move to the yellow lane letting people pass, it's kinda scary at times because your traveling 70+ mph and the 2-lane turns to a 4-lane and you all meet at once sometimes. Most of the times it's big trucks you're trying to pass, so the space is limited, I keep saying I'm going to take a pic of it, but never think to do it... guess I'm just hoping we can all squeeze by at the same time because the yellow lane is not always wide enough and they use part of the regular lane too!

They have tons of Police and they are parked randomly along the roads and have road checks everywhere.  Who knows what they are looking for...but they are good at creating road jams!

Seriously, road checks are everywhere!!

I don't know how they determine who they pull over and who they motion on through, but only once so far  did Dennis look like a criminal and they requested to see his passport and driver's license, rest of checks we were always motioned through.

They have speed cameras mounted everywhere and I mean seriously EVERYWHERE.  If you are speeding, they take your pic and just mail you the ticket!  They also just sit in wide open areas with lights flashing holding radar. We "mostly" just didn't speed... of course, I never speed anyway, and so far Dennis is doing all the driving!

Fuel converts to around $5/gal (They charge by the liter)

Something interesting... we saw an ambulance driving with lights flashing and no one pulled over, in-fact everyone was passing him... after a while -- including us!!??

Road signs are funny, we saw this one on a toll road!

Hippo Crossing on a Toll Road!

One sign read: "Do not stop at vendors" and then you see a whole row of vendor shacks...

Another read "No stopping - High Crime Area"... but I didn't get a picture of it.

In the outskirts and smaller towns, half the time you can never find a sign to tell you where you are going and if you find one, it rarely tells you how far anything is! I guess they figure if you're headed that way, you KNOW where you are going... which was not always the case for us!  We would have PAID FOR a road sign at times!

It is interesting to see the people and their transportation mode.  They do have route buses and taxi vans, but many-many walk along the highways in the middle of nowhere or they hitch-hike. They use hand signals depending on where they want to go... It might be one finger or two fingers pointed  in a direction, or a full hand up or down, or whole arm, and each meant something different-- next town, far as you can take me, etc

Waiting for a ride is very common

The other thing we noticed was that lots of people ride in the back of pickups.  They truly just catch a ride however they can.  We saw one pickup unloading that had at least 12-15 people packed in the back.

I don't know if these rails are for business or for people riding??

One day at quitting time, we saw 50-60 people coming in from the fields running across the 4-lane road loading into the back of a box van... standing room only.   I just can't imagine.

So much manual labor is done.  We saw workers on side of roads with pick axes trying to get through some rock, and they were sweeping the concrete drainage ditches with those little whisk brooms.  They were hand carrying rocks from one point to the other.

There is a very distinct difference for those with money and those without, I guess it is like that in most countries.  We drove by lots of tall fences with razor wire and sharp spiked posts around most homes and businesses.

I have not felt unsafe, but we just don't put ourselves in a bad situation.  People are very friendly and the country is beautiful!

Continued:  Industry