Pack a Cellphone! and other South Africa Packing List Tips

Miscellaneous: Definitely bring a cellphone a.k.a. mobile or GSM along when you. If you're coming from the US, Canada, or Latin America, make sure it's a tri-band, though, because it needs to function with the digital GSM system used there. And if yours happens to be locked into a system at home, they will be able to unlock it for a fee, which, believe me, would be pretty small based on the cost of the Vodacom SIMM card I bought while I was there. I paid a princely R10. You then buy top-up cards to add time. These come in rather strange increments of 29, 51, and 121 rands. There are bigger ones as well. Incredibly, my SIMM does not expire until Septermber 2005. This is great value for money! BTW, you can get top-up cards -- and SIMMs, too, for that matter -- just about anywhere.

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Clothing/Shoes/Weather Gear: We discovered, much to our astonishment and horror, that South Africans -- even worse than the British, the Aussies, or the Kiwis -- seem to have an aversion to central heating. In three weeks, we found one restaurant that had a heating system and only a single hotel room. With highs in the 60sF and mid- high-teensC, we were freezing all the time. A few places we stayed had fireplaces, but most had (nearly) useless electric heaters! Restaurants keep their doors and windows open, too, regardless of the outdoor temps. North Americans and Continental Europeans, be warned!





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