Mark is back with some new adventures. Plus; do’s and dont’s on the SA road!

It was a calm weekend this time, no alcohol (what?!). On the other hand I have been very active. But first let me tell something about the days before. At Wednesday we went to a bar in Grabouw. It was like the strangest bar until now. There was like a big fence between you and the bartender, you had to order your beer trough a gap in the hole and you got it trough that. The beer was very very cheap though. Strange experience. Also there were some homeless (or very poor) people spending their last money on alcohol.

When I arrived at work on Friday everyone was in a party mood, I asked why and it happened to be that there was a braai in the backyard. They were pre-celebrating heritage day. At lunchtime I went to the backyard of the building and before I even took a seat someone gave me a plate with a lot of meat and bread on it. It was way more then I usually eat for lunch and I already ate 4 slices of bread. I had enough for the rest of the day there but it was delicious. In the evening the Genadendal group came over. We were invited to a party from Paddy where he would perform. We drove there with a few cars and when we arrived it appeared to be some kind of church. When we came in it was a big big hall with in the middle a dance floor. People were dressed super fancy and we were like not dressed that fancy compared to them. So the music started playing and people started to dance. And they could dance, all the storied you heard about Africans that they can dance. They can! We were so ashamed to go on the dance floor so first most of us had some alcohol. Eventually everyone started to dance and the girls got invited to dance with the men there. All together we had a really fun evening and met a lot of new people.

The morning after we wanted to go to Greyton pretty early, but not everyone managed to get up that early so around 12 we left. We went to a festival in a restaurant where they were celebrating heritage day. It is also called braai-day. So everyone is braaing that day. Everyone! There was some very nice music at the restaurant and you could order fresh meat from the braai. I had a lovely hot-dog. In the evening we had a braai from Paddy, because it was his birthday that week. There was a lot of food of course, and it was all so damn tasty. Again I ate way too much and gained another 10 kilo’s. I think I will roll my way back to The Netherlands. Nevertheless the party was very very nice with a lot of nice people and even some live music from Bela (guitar), Paddy(piano) and Lisa (singing). On our way back home we sat with 7 people in one car, because it was very close to our home. It was not save to walk, this was more save.

Sunday was the day I had been looking forward to for the last few days. We went to Hermanus and found a very nice spot to look over the sea. At 2pm we arranged a kayak tour. We fetched our kayaks and went into the sea. The guy did not see a whale that day yet, so we hoped to see one anyway. Unfortunately we did not find one, but we had a really really nice time on the sea. The waves were pretty big and it was hard work to paddle trough them. We saw 2 seals chilling around and looking at us, very impressive how close we could come. We sailed along the coast and saw the sea ‘attacking’ the rocks. The water splashed up to 10 meters high, astonishing! After the kayak tour Rob, Mare, Bela and I went for a little hike on a naturally formed rock formation in the sea, from there the view was amazing and you could feel the water splashing up the rocks. In the evening we went to a sushi restaurant. Also from there the view was very good. Because I am not a very big fan of sushi, I ordered codfish. It was the best piece of fish I have ever had. So delicious!

Tuesday evening we had a little meeting with the group we are going to the festival with next week. We bought some tents, mattresses, a boat and beer. It is a really good concept, you can pre-order beer and fetch it at the festival itself. Everyday you can get yourself the cold beers and if you beer gets warm you can trade them for cold ones. Next week will be the first multi-day festival ever for me, I am really excited!

What keeps on amaze me is the way the people drive here. It is amazing, like they just buy their drivers licence. Let me sum up a few facts about the traffic here.

• You drive on the left side of the road, instead of the right side;
• Steering wheel also is on the other side of the car;
• At an even intersection, the one who stops first, can go first. So if there are people at all four the roads approaching the intersection you have to pay very close attention;
• Let faster traffic pass by. When you are driving on a single lane road and there is a car approaching behind you and you see he wants to go faster, go to the side of the road, on the emergency lane, to let him pass by. Otherwise he will stick on your ass and pass by you very aggressively;
• When you let someone pass by, they normally thank you by using their alarm lights. You say ‘no problem’ by flashing your headlight twice. So communication is important;
• A lot of people will drive too slow, they put their alarm lights on on the emergency lane and drive like 50 where you can drive 80. I still have no clue why;
• People don’t care about lines on the road, if there is a continuous line where you are not allowed to take over, they do it. If there is a STOP-line at the traffic lights, they go over it way too far;
• There are traffic lights at the other side of the intersection as well, so you don’t have to look like out of your side window to see the ones next to you, you can look to the other side of the road;
• Overtaking can be done at the left or right side, just make sure you are alert at all the sides around you;
• Like 50% of the cars driving around are bakkies (pickups). And most of the times there are people sitting in the back side of the bakkie. I have not seen police stopping them for doing this.

So that’s it for this week, this Friday our holiday starts and I have a lot of great things planned for this week. Most of the people leave to do the Garden Route, a beautiful tour along the coastline of about 9-10 days. I did choose not to come with them because the group already is pretty big and I don’t feel like the discussions that will arise when activities are planned and when you have to wait for the other cars to arrive at the destination and stuff. I preferred the festival and will do my own sightseeing in the first days of the holiday and in December.