At home in the USA, we drive on the right side of the road, and most cars are automatic. In fact, if you can drive a manual car, it’s regarded as somewhat of a special skill set in the States.

For the majority of our tour of South Africa, we would not need a car. We’ve elected to take the Bazbus up the coast. There were, however, a few instances where a rental car was a necessity and things got interesting.

Cape Town was our first go at renting a car. We used Rent-a-Cheapie because, well, it was cheap. The only caveat about this particular car company, really all rental car companies in ZA, was that all of the cars are manual. Since Nick had a couple of weeks driving manual on the left hand side of the road while working in the UK, he became the driver.

We did a few practice laps around the relatively deserted streets surrounding the Rent-a-Cheapie warehouse. Nick felt confident enough to tackle the mean streets of Cape Town proper; I was having serious misgivings about renting the car. Not only would navigation have to be spot on (there are certain areas you just don’t want to go to) but the driving aspect of things wasn’t exactly a guarantee either. Every time we approached a stop on a hill, both of us would grow quiet. Nick would be concentrating at the proper clutch and gas release while I would be holding my breath. It didn’t help that our car had as much power as a wind up toy. We both breathed a sigh of relief once the car was rolling (forward) and we could change into second gear.

Our Hyundai i10

Of course less than an hour after we got the car we hit Cape Town traffic on our way to Stellenbosch. We only stalled a time or two before Nicholas got the hang of how much winding our toy really needed to get going. Still, we both were ready for that glass of wine when we arrived in Stellenbosch an hour later.

Since that fateful day, Nick’s driving has improved significantly. He only flicks the wipers instead of the blinkers every third or fourth time, and stalling seems to have become a thing of the past (knock on wood). It just took a bit of practice, though I think we’ll keep our automatic trucks and right side driving.