ISLAND LIFE:
control at the airport, we picked up our antiquated car, a Nissan Sunny, which had no redeeming qualities at all and dated back to the ’80s.
I was the appointed driver, given my familiarity with driving on the left-hand side of the road, and with traffic circles and kilometres (as opposed to miles).
As we left the airport I headed to the main road, called the “Leeward Highway”, though this erroneously might have implied orderly rows of traffic and perhaps clearly marked speed limits. Neither was the case.
As we rolled to our hotel at a comfortable 80km/h, I familiarised myself with the automatic car and the unfamiliar roads. Then I saw a single sign on the “highway”, a small red circle around the number 40.
My tactful travelling companions gently suggested that perhaps it was the speed limit. I heartily reassured them that, no, in South Africa, a small circle was always an indication of the minimum speed allowed on the highway. Believing this to be beyond dispute, I accelerated to a moderate 100km/h.
When we arrived at our luxurious resort, my newfound road confidence was rudely upended when the obliging concierge confirmed to my anxious passengers that, indeed, the speed limit on the highway was 40km/h max — and on all other roads it was 20km/h.
Oh, how I wish I was making this up. Hiring a car suddenly seemed like a waste of time and money — we could have cycled faster. Swum faster. Walked faster.
As if the speed limit wasn’t bad enough, there were also horrendous speed bumps to remind me to go slowly. They would creep up on a road without so much as a hint of notice, high and unmarked, enough so that the first time I flew over one it almost turned my Nissan Sunny into a Nissan Nunny, one hump away from being a toy model without a floorboard.
The locals also seemed to have a penchant for sticking the most murderous bumps on the most scenic stretches of road, where I was distracted by the sea views.
Then a really unexpected thing happened. After a few days of downtime, I got the hang of the speed limit to the point where I could have been mistaken for a local. An old jalopy and a slow crawl along the beachfront at a murderous 20km/h and all that was missing was a rum cocktail in a coconut. With a little umbrella. But that would come later. — © Tania Auby