Driving in Africa is unique. The first obstacle to overcome is driving on the right side of the car and on the left hand side of the road. When first learning to drive here, one tends to simply keep looking both ways until cars are a great distance away before attempting to cross a road.

The roadways of Africa vary a great deal from the smooth national highways of countries to the rural, dirt roads of far away places. The speed limit on most non-urban roads in South Africa is 75mph. This is fine on the interstate-like highways, but on the curvy country roads, it is an adventure. Numerous pedestrians walk on the side of the shoulder-less road as you fly by them. They never seem to worry as cars whiz by at top speeds. We will never forget as we drove in a desolate area of northern Botswana, we came across an elephant standing in the middle of the road, not in a great hurry. It moved to the shoulder and posed for some great photos.

Another interesting aspect of driving is the way posted speeds are monitored. In South Africa, a mechanized camera takes a picture of the speeding car and the “car” receives a bill in the mail. Speed traps are also manned in certain stretches. The officer by the speed device radios ahead to his partner who jumps out in the middle of the road and waves the car over. Of course, these events are not something we know of first hand, but our speed-happy friends have told us how it works.