Okay!  Our time in the booming metropolis is ending, and our time driving begins!  We’ve got a long day today, so we get up early and call an Uber to take us to the Avis location.  Unfortunately, the Uber driver gets a flat immediately outside our apartment, so we had to get another car.

The line at the Avis dealership was a little long, but that was nice, because Brett needed some time to get amped up about driving on the left.  We ended up with a Ford Ecosport, which was great!  Because we were burning liters and driving meters, we have no idea how eco the car really was, but we were happy to have it.  Crucially, it came with a USB charger!  No more worries about phones dying in the middle of the desert.

This is wikipedia photo of an Ecosport! Thanks, Wikipedia!

We headed out of Capetown toward the Northeast.  Our car came equipped with an EZ-pass type thing for the toll roads, but we discovered that it didn’t actually work as we entered our first toll tunnel.  But that wasn’t a big deal, cause there was a toll booth operator, so we could pay in cash.  But we didn’t have cash, which wasn’t a big deal because they took credit cards.  But they only took South African-issued credit cards (?!?!), which finally wasn’t a big deal when the South African patiently waiting behind us exited his car and walked up to pay the toll for us!  Whoops.

The tunnel was frightening!  In Brett’s zeal to not drive in the right lane, he tended to drive partially in the left shoulder.  Which is fine when there’s a shoulder, but less fine when it’s a curb and you’re in a tunnel and there’s a giant 18-wheeler on the other side!  Whew!  But the tunnel eventually ended and everyone agreed Becca should feel comfortable warning Brett when he was sliding leftwards.

Driving was mostly fine, actually.  It was super weird, but South African drivers are fanstastic!  We’d been warned otherwise, but it was really smooth!  People pulled over to le tyou pass them, and when they wanted to pass you, they’d  get close without tailgating too hard, then flash their blinkers in gratitude after they passed!  So nice!

Our first stop was in Montagu, a nice little town with an ibis garden (?) and a church and some shops and people that spoke to us in Afrikaans  Which we didn’t know what to make of, feeling so foreign, but so it goes.  There was also a Hadassah resale shop that seemed to specialize in wine carriers.

I really thought you could see more ibises in this photo.

After a little wandering, we kept on to Barrydale, where we had lunch at a weird little restaurant (previously identified in our thorough itinerary!) called Diesel and Creme.  Food was delicious, though we didn’t spring for the milkshakes, despite looking really super delicious.  Also did some grocery shopping and attempted to visit a local artists’ studios gallery, but it closed early that day.  Bummed.

From Barrydale, made our way to the Place, a little cabin on a farm (way) outside of Ladysmith (NB: the Ladysmith in the Western Cape is Ladysmith.  Ladismith is in KZN.)   The cabin smelled delicious- we’ve been meaning to follow up with the owner to see what her homemade atomizer fuel was.  We spent the afternoon walking around the dry riverbed running through the property, following animals tracks and listening to the wind through the reeds.

Also, there were a lot of dead crabs, which went sadly unphotographed.  We cooked dinner (curried potatoes!) and ate outside, then spent hours staring at some of the most amazing stars we’d ever seen.  The kind of night that makes you realize why they call it the Milky Way.  We thought the hood of our car would make a great place to search for shooting stars and ogle Venus, and it would have been, had Brett not dented the car.  Thankfully, it went unnoticed by Avis.  Whoops!