Jo'burg

This weekend i had the grave misfortune of being inside a 4 wheeled motor vehicle. Friday and saturday saw me driving around johannesburg in a friend's bakkie, going as far as pretoria and back, and around the "northern suburbs" of this mine dump.

Thank god for motorbikes. The utter carnage on the roads was mind boggling to say the least, and in about 400km i saw about 4 serious accidents, and 3 minor bumper bashings. A broken down bus, with the mechanic's bakkie next to it, efectivelyt reducing the busiest road in jhb, which at that point is 3 lanes wide (enough said) to ONE lane (!!??!?!) So everyone driving home and starting their weekend was late, and of course in ill humour.

I don't get it, i was just out there, in no hurry at all, not even watching any sort of time. I was polite, cautious and patient, and jees, i hated every second. If not accidents, it was the police closing off highways for road blocks. The construction that has reduced every highway in town to a rubble heap just added to the misery.

And the good news is that we'll pay for the priviledge soon! Strange though, how people are prepared to sit in traffic for hours at a time, yet get all aggresive when you don't do whatever it is they want you to do. Like letting them in front of you, when frankly, their natural "turn" is behind you. Not a big thing, just .... normal human stuff i guess.

Sunday was my reward. Did the Race for Victory, marshalling the little cycles along. Ended up riding through a nature reserve, koppies with no signs of humans, wonderful. I didn't see any game, but there was plenty of bokdrolletjies all over, so they must have been hiding ... i wanted to go join them!

It was a cold wet morning, and the clouds turned into mist we were so high .... man what an amazing, if brief disconnect from the world at large.