Day one of our two day trip to Cape Town kicked off today. The GPS calculated it at nine hours and forty minutes (I shaved an hour off that, Carlos was proud.) We went through two really cool towns on the drive, cool in that we went a little inland and were quite a ways away from a major city. So, to put it in perspective for you, as we rolled in to Mount Frere I dropped the windows, turned up some gangster rap, and let them know the Yanks were in town. OK, maybe not really, I turned the gangster rap down, I didn’t crank it up. I did hear someone say, “Whoa, look! A white guy!” Apparently I’m a hot ticket around those parts…or someone wanted to kill me. There were street markets, old run down stores, people everywhere, it was exactly how I’d pictured Africa to be.
I also, albeit accidentally, got to see how little the Police care here. Well, there was an instance the other night where we were sitting at a red light in the straight ahead lane when a huge semi truck went barreling past us in the right turn only lane, only he went straight, blew through the red light and sped through the intersection making pedestrians who were crossing the street dive out of his way and cars swerve and jam on their brakes. We all sat in disbelief at what just happened as a cop car crept up to the line next to me, he was behind the semi who just broke who knows how many laws and didn’t do a thing about it, or even look like he cared for that matter. There are all kinds of other things as well, mass passing, speed limits (regardless of construction zones or not) just seem to be a laughing point, and solid or dotted lines on the road are more of a suggestion. Today we were reaching the top of a hill where our two lanes were about to narrow back down to one and there was a semi truck going painstakingly slow, so I decided to pass him. There was an American equivalent to a center lane (they’re a little different here since everything’s reverse) coming up so I figured I could just use that as a passing lane if I didn’t get in front of him on time. I came around to the front of the semi, reached the top of the hill, used the center cautionary lane, and as I was maneuvering back in to the lane in front of the semi I realized there were three police officers standing there. I don’t think they saw what I did, I’m not sure how they didn’t, but whether they did or not they didn’t care or do anything about it.
We reached our stopping point for the night with time to spare before the Spain kickoff and our hosts invited us to stay for dinner. Our plan was to just hit up the pub across the street that they talked up on their web site, but as soon as we arrived and told them that was our plan they told us the food there wasn’t very good. Of course once they put the plate of roasted lamb, potatoes, corn, and various other five star side dishes in front of me I saw their scale of “good” and bad might be slightly higher than ours. Regardless, what an incredible dinner!
Up early tomorrow to head to Cape Town, should be about a twelve hour drive. I’m looking forward to it. Everyone who has been to South Africa keeps telling me I’m going to love Cape Town and it seems like every new city we get to I like more than the last. And how could I not be looking forward to it, you can go swimming with great whites!
Added a few more pics to the random trip photo album.
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