Other info about South Africa,
There are 9 provinces making up the country. We have been to 3 so far. Mpumalanga, Gauteng, and Kwazulu Natal. We will probably be in a couple others by the time we have done our travels here.
The school year starts in mid January here. When we have been in the malls it seems back to school was a much bigger event than Christmas shopping was.
Everywhere we have been travelling so far, eggs are not kept in the fridge. Even in the highest end grocery store they are all stacked in the regular isles witht the groceries? We have been served eggs many times and haven’t got sick from them yet, so I guess it is okay!
The people here are nuts about quad bikes, they rent and sell them everywhere. We could not believe our eyes when we saw them for sale right in the grocery store. Just infront of the produce. Some strange things here!
Pap is a major staple of the african diet. I think it is in most of the countries here, it goes by different names in different countries. It is maize (or corn as we call it back home)made into a porridge. Some people make it thick or thinner acccording to their preference. The blacks eat it totally plain, they don’t even put salt in it. They eat it for breakfast, lunch and dinner. They love it and will eat it every day of the year, it doesn’t matter what income level, it is not just a meal for low income people. We have yet to try it, but we will, and let you know what we think.
It is kind of strange but we have been more disturbed by the poverty in South Africa than we were in Tanzania. In East Africa we saw poverty everywhere. There were some rich white people living in their nicer homes, but for the most part when you looked around in the average town it was a community of shambled shacks, dirt, garbage sometimes and generally what you would expect to see in Africa. Here in South Africa it is so different. For the most part when you look around, it doesn’t look any different than North America, but the difference is you will see very rich manicured suburbs within minutes of poverty stricken townships. It makes it seem so much worse to see the extreme of the two right next to each other.
Traffic lights here are called robots
hotwater tanks are called geezers
Much of south africa consists of a vast plateau averging 1500 metres in elevation
south africa has over 20,000 species of plants which make up over 10 percent of the worlds total, this is a amazing considering the land of south africa is less than 1 percent of the worlds land mass
the mullet is very big here, men, children, and woman! we are not sure if it came back in style or more likely just never went away
mopane worms are eaten, they are catepillars collected off mopane trees, dried and then served in a spicy sauce as a crunchy snack
another very popular thing to eat is called bunny chow, it is half a loaf of bread hollowed out, then filled with everything you can imagine, meat, eggs, cheese, chutney, and bigger than can fit in your mouth