Notes from Hans

Driving in South Africa

Being able to drive in Africa is wonderful.  After having no choice but to take all sorts of taxis/buses for three years in Cameroon (and Susan in the Central African Republic for two), many wedged in like a sardine between other brave travellers - including one time a big mommie on one side and  a goat on the other -  it’s pure freedom to have a car!  

We lived our first two weeks in SA in a fairly posh gated community that ALA housed us in called Jackal Creek Golf Estates.  It’s about 3 miles from ALA so it’s a quick taxi trip.   Not all people have cars and public transportation is quite spotty.  As such, lots of people walk here and there’s a neat energy, particularly in the morning and early evening, as people hustle or simply mosey to whatever destination the day calls for.   Despite this significant human foot traffic, I’ve seen only one or two white people walking.  You’d expect 1 in 5 to be white considering whites are 20% of SA’s population, but that’s not the case and it’s yet another noticeable example of inequity in this nation:  whites rarely don’t have cars.

Though the Jackal Creek to ALA walk sounds like it might be a nice walk now and then, we’ve been advised by on multiple fronts that it’s not that safe to walk around, even in the daytime.

Before we started driving, we used Taxify, an outfit out of Estonia that is developing a strong presence in the Joburg area, and is a rival to Uber.  We loved Taxify.  Taxify cars have to be 2012 or newer and the drivers are friendly.  From our experience around 50% of the drivers were from SA with the balance coming from “Zim” (Zimbabwe) or elsewhere.  All sorts of personalities but for the most part all very friendly and talkative and, as it turned out, our early mode of transportation to ALA, the market, restuarants, and the like.  They were also my primary source of information on buying a car in SA.

You can find all kinds of cars here but three things should be considered:  what’s the petro mileage like (~$4/gallon here), how “hot” a car is it for thieves, and how easy is it to find parts?  Turns out the ones for which you can always easily find parts are Toyota, Ford, VW, and Nissan.  All the others - Jaguar, Puegot, Nissan, Honda, Chevy, Opal, Audi, BMW and some brands we’d never heard of  - are on the roads but not as many, thus influencing how many spare parts are in country.  At least according to my Taxify driver buddies.

We bought a 1994 Toyota Tazz with 63,000 miles on it (odometer read 101,000 km).  Low mileage was important to us and this car was clean and owned by an older lady who only put just over 2500 miles/year on the car.  It’s nothing glamorous, has power nothing, no evidence of ever having even a radio, but it’s paid off and it’s ours.  

Our first two weeks with it were interesting as it was without a front passenger seat which I’d asked the dealership to fix (couldn’t be adjusted, so they took it out and told me to come back).  This made for interesting looks from others whenever I’d pick up Susan or she’d pick me up.  Whoever got picked up had to sit in the back.  Not sure what was going through the locals mind, but I wouldn’t be surprised if some were asking themselves, “so, in their country the guy (or girl) isn’t allowed to sit in the front??”.  Funny stuff but it was great to get the seat installed and return to the same plane.

If they’d only put the steering wheel on the right side of the car and if we didn’t have to drive on the wrong side of road, we’d be all set.   Shifting with the left hand and having the turn signal on the right side of the steering column (seems odd... isn’t it?) forced us  to resort back to actually thinking while we drive.  Now I just need to pay attention to the robots (traffic lights), roll up the windows at robots (vigilance against thieves - has the advice been too overzealous?), and remember to stay in the left lane when on the freeway so the speedsters can pass us on the right, we’ll be all set.  Whatever the case, it’s great driving in Africa!