No, it’s not apartheid or even the current riots.  It’s the government.
If you want to understand South Africa, and in much of what plagues all of Africa - read this editorial on the criminal incompetence of Thabo Mbeki, South Africa’s current president.
You’ll begin to understand why Robert Guest, the Africa editor for the Economist and […]

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The amount of white-collar crime in South Africa is surprising. The press is rife with incredible accounts of blatant, mad-dash-to-the-border embezzlement and fraud. All of it is sloppy, but the sloppiest of all wind up in prison, such as J Arthur Brown, the former CEO of Fidentia Asset Management, a formerly giant Cape […]

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If you have been following the news (or picked up Tuesday’s NY Times - see here for the front-page article - if you read anything it should be that or this or this), you’ve seen the anti-immigrant riots in the Johannesburg townships. The mass influx of Zimbabwean refugees, combined with general unrest over immigration […]

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The guest book at the Waterford Estate winery in Stellenbosch, South Africa.
(Here’s a primer for those a bit confused)

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If you’ve been noticing some funny stuff happening (pictures not loading right, maps disappearing, fonts changing) etc. you’re not going crazy - I’ve been having some trouble with a finicky piece of the website.
The good news is that it is (mostly) all sorted out, though there may be some problems using Internet Explorer 7 for […]

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This is the first in what could an endless series about African bureacracy. And considering how tame South Africa is compared to the rest of the continent, I really have no friggin’ idea what I’m talking about.
When I purchased my motorcycle in Port Elizabeth, the motor vehicle department naturally wanted to know where I lived […]

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Cape Town Tourist Edition
On white sand beaches
Tourists hide wallets in shoes
Both stolen, dumbass
The only people
eating trad African food here
are all the tourists
Zebra print decor
Rooms named after animals
Only in hostels

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This is the debut post of what is obviously going to be a very, very, very long series of posts.
One tough thing about riding on the left side of the road after you’ve spent your whole life riding on the right, besides the whole holy-crap-I’m-going-the-wrong-way-on-the-freeway-again thing, is turning.

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The Elders of Zion, Opus Dei, The Paul is Dead-ers, the list of supposed shadow organizations that are controlling goes on and on, with special thanks due to crappy episodes of the X-files, Dan Brown, and general ignorance so thick you can spread it on toast.
Now I have no real understanding of your average Afrikaner […]

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On of my favorite aspects of traveling outside of the US is the complete inversion of the role that US citizenship plays in everyday interactions. Americans love to think of themselves as the blessed few in the land of unbridled opportunity, with billions of unwashed masses clamoring for a glimmer of a chance to […]

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