South Africa – Port Elizabeth

Nonna told we were going to Margate in her last story. True we did go to Margate (stayed for one night) and went on to Mosselbaai, with a stop in East Londen. Margate and East Londen are pretty boring places. Instead of talking about that I might as well tell you about the roads in SA.

SA is a big country. According to Wikipedia it is about 30 times the size of the Netherlands. The largest road (in this country) is the N2. It starts in Ermelo. No folks. It’s not Ermelo on the Veluwe, but an obscure, small town between Johannesburg and Swaziland. It might have just the same number of churches as Ermelo on the Veluwe, but we didn’t count them, nor did we go inside or even stopped to look at them.

Anyway the N2 ends in Cape Town, which is a f****ing long way. To be precise, it’s 2255 km (again, according to Wikipedia). Needless to say that, when we reach Cape Town, we have done most of those km’s. On parts of the N2 you have to pay toll. I don’t mind, we just don’t get the system behind it. In France there is a strong correlation between distance travelled and amount due. Here, it has to do with luck. There seems to be no relation between distance travelled and amount due. If you have bad luck (and let’s be honest: If it wasn’t for bad luck, we wouldn’t have any luck at all), you have to pay, if you’re lucky, just go. At some completely random places there are toll booths. If you pass one, you pay. The amounts are never high, most we’ve paid was 57 Rand (a Rand is about 7 euro cents). We don’t complain, but it is always nice to understand something.

When you pay toll, you expect a correlation between having to pay toll and road quality. There is none. The toll roads aren’t better (or more to the point: worse) then the non toll roads. At some points the road is bad, at some points it’s worse. There is no difference in quality with other numbered roads. But, the speed limit (on most places) is 120 km/h. But that’s just a limit and not a promise that you can actually do that. Because large parts of the road just has two lanes and there are a lot of trucks and there’s a lot of height difference, one does drive 40 km/h just as often as 100 km/h. A 500 km distance takes all day. When we go to Austria from Apeldoorn, the 800 km’s just take about 7,5 hours.

The South Africans actually behave very well on the road. Of course they’re all crazy, but so are we. We just didn’t figure out the rules yet. In The Netherlands a ‘stop sign’ means: stop and yield to everyone on the other road. Which also means that only one of the roads can have stop signs. Not here. There are many crossings where all four sides have a stop sign. Which would result in chaos in The Netherlands. We wouldn’t know which car would have to go first or last. Here? No problem. It seems that the one who comes first, is allowed to go first. Not always, but we don’t understand the details yet. Up to now the people here don’t seem to object when we go first.

If you’re going faster than somebody else, they move to the shoulder (if there is one of course). When they do, you pass them, blink with your alarm lights (to say; Thank you) they respond with their headlights and everybody is happy.    

We rented a Toyota Corolla in Joburg and we already told you about the potholes. Now (at last) we understand. We have made our first error @home. If you go to the RSA, rent a Toyota Landcruiser. We’ve travelled all over the world and in countries where people really have to rely on their cars, you see a hugh amount of Landcruisers. I can tell you now that we whish we rented one. One is never too old to learn.

Ok, let’s switch to Port Elizabeth. We had a great B&B there. It was situated in one of the black parts of PE. On the outside it didn’t look very promising. But, what the F**ck. We talked to the lady who was the manager and she showed us in. On the inside it was impressive! A great place at a very reasonable rate.

Speaking about colour. 20 Years after apartheid, the schism in this country is no longer skincolour but poverty. Now, you might say that most of the poor people are black people, and that is true. But we have seen white people begging as well. Nonna and I are totally accepted and nobody is surprised about interracial couples. We have spoken to a lot of black, coloured and white people and everybody is very friendly here.  There is (still) a lot of difference between individuals but no as a result of skincolour alone.

Going back to PE. At last we took the time to have some shooting fun. We went to an indoor shooting range in a mall. Yep, you read in right: In a mall. We bought some ammo on the way and we had to try it before the match (in Cape Town). I can tell you that the match will be a problem. The ammo is shit! It’s not that we would have a chance in the first place, but now we’re playing roulette. But who cares anyway…..

Next time: Mosselbaai by Nonna