Driving out of Jo'burg

This time around, I had everything regarding the car rental set up in advance, or so I thought. I was able to get some South African Rand in the Johannesburg Airport before finding my way outside the terminal to the car rental offices, which were outside and quite a distance from the airport terminal. Once there, I found that very little of what I had arranged online meant anything; a bunch of papers had to be filled out, and questions asked anyway. But my main question, since I faced the prospect of driving on the "wrong" side of the road anyway, was how to get out of there and out toward the Kalahari without driving through Johannesburg proper. I was directed to take a highway almost to Pretoria, then head west.

Now, I knew that I'd be driving on the left side of the road. And I knew that the steering wheel would be on the right. Somehow, when I reserved the car, the implications of all that on other aspects of what I would be doing did not compute. At home, I always drive a straight shift car and, since I was trying to save money, that's what I'd arranged to "hire." Somehow, the fact that that meant I would be shifting gears with my left hand never dawned on me, though it did once I sat down in the car. Let's just say that the spectacle of me shifting gears left-handed was not a pretty one, and it would not be for quite a while. It was a four lane highway, and I kept turning on the windshield wipers every time I changed lanes. Fortunately, I only had to parallel park once during the two weeks I had that car. That was even uglier than the gear-shifting.

I actually went too far on the four lane and had to double back just before heading into the heart of Pretoria. But once I was headed out west, things were better. There was less traffic as the area became less populous. I stopped in Krugersdorp to get something to eat--actually, I drove up the wrong side of a driveway into a small shopping center, but fortunately, the only other car was the one I was passing on the wrong side. I ate at a little fast food seafood place called Something Fishy--a sort of South African Captain D's. Only when I got back onto the road did I realize that I had somehow gotten off the highway, but that was no problem, because the road I was on rejoined it, and I probably would have missed out on Something Fishy had I not gone the wrong way.

Soon it began to turn dark, and the effects of the 16 hour flight and my lack of sleep began to take their toll. I was near a town called Ventersdorp, which I was later informed (by several people) was a hotbed of Afrikaner nationalism. There did not seem to be any hotels there, and it was miles to the next town. I stopped and asked a white guy directions, and it was clear that he barely spoke English. He directed me out of town, to a town which was not in the direction I was headed. So I tried at a local market, and there I was informed of a little guest house just down the road.

The Mosaic Guest House had no signs advertising its existence, and it was quite clear that they did not normally have guests in the dead of winter. When I drove up, a young man of about 18 or 19 came outside, puzzled, but once he realized that I was actually there to spend the night, he was wonderfully friendly and showed me to a nice room, starkly furnished, very Dutch--a combination of rock and wood. The room cost next to nothing, and something told me there would be a really good farm breakfast in the morning. Actually, nothing told me much, because I was semi-comatose. The room was really cold, even though the boy brought in a space heater. I fell asleep while attempting to write in my journal. The room was cold, but the bed was very warm.

The Marrakech Airport

The Menara Airport in Marrakech is small and basic and when I got through all the security, customs, etc., I found myself faced with a choice between the door headed outside and various interesting looking little car rental agencies. I had originally intended to go from Marrakech to Essaouira and spend a few days at the beach, but since Royal Air Maroc had decided to give me an extra day in their country, I had been toying with changing my itinerary and driving out into the Sahara first. I saw no taxis immediately in front of me. I saw at least a half dozen car rental agencies instead. Allah had intervened. I was headed for the desert.



The owner whose agency was fortuitously located closest to the door made himself difficult to ignore anyway. He had a car for $30 per day, if I rented it for 5 days. When I hesitated, he insisted that I go out and inspect the car. It was nothing fancy--most notably, it didn't have an air conditioner. But who needs air conditioning in the Sahara in May, when you can just leave the windows open and take your chances with the wind, the sand, and whatever else flies into the car?



There was one additional snag. He could only take payment in cash. The little exchange office in the airport was closed, and I had no Moroccan money. So one of his employees got into the car with me, and we headed toward town to find a bank. That's when I caught sight of what I the world I had entered. I seemed to have stepped back in time at least a century. Driving to the bank involved dodging loads of pedestrians, donkeys, and donkey carts; people's dress varied from Western to very traditional Moroccan, though I saw no veiled women covered head to foot in black. The ATM at the bank started with the worst of nightmares for a foreigner trying to get cash--it swallowed my card and would not give it back. Fortunately, the bank was open, and I was able to retrieve it, get my cash, return to the airport, and conclude the deal.



In Morocco, you do not start off with a full tank of gas. In fact, you had better find a gas pump pretty quickly. I headed back into town and soon needed help with that, but a local provided it. Whether he expected payment, I do not know. He did not ask. I gassed up, and then I am sure that had anyone traced my route on a map, it would have looked like a complete jumble as I tried to find my way out of town in the direction of Ouarzazate and the Sahara. At one point, I found myself driving through the narrow streets of the medina (the old town), which is a recipe for getting lost. Asking directions helped some. Eventually, I did find my way out to a highway which led out of town and could be taken in various directions. I set my sight on the High Atlas Mountains looming in the distance, turning south. It was still early in the day, and I hoped to make it across the mountain range by nightfall. Having gotten little sleep, I should have been really drowsy, but the place was so exotic and exciting, like nothing I had ever seen before, that my adrenaline was running plenty strong. I would be going strong all day and well into the night.