What is drop-dead gorgeous is the countryside of insular South Africa — even from the motorways, it is a country of immense beauty. It’s at the very top of my list of places to visit, maybe even immigrate — I could be one of those white people who are headed in the opposite direction as the ‘affected Afrikaner’ who is packing for Perth.

Welcome to the Eastern Cape — Naturally South Africa’s Best

So far, in my “travels” to South Africa, I have noticed a few interesting things:

• The lingua franca IS English — Afrikaans is only seen on official welcome signs and a few businesses. Otherwise, English is highly dominant.
• The country is vastly empty — not Australia empty, but more like United States empty. This is all the more fascinating considering that the population of South Africa is now 50 million.
• The infrastructure approaches first-world standards (most likely the domain of the 11% of the country that is white and the richest blacks, Coloureds and Indians.)
• South Africa is insanely gorgeous.

I will probably do a second rural South Africa tour later on.

Perhaps in time for the World Cup, much of South Africa has been added to Street View. Other than Mexico, this is the only ‘middle-income’ nation on the list — and as such, Western eyes now have a chance to see a far-off, culturally and geographically distant locale. In the spirit of timely events, I am going to show off some parts of South Africa, starting with its largest city Johannesburg.

Now, I know Joburg is not exactly the “tourist destination” that paints the prettiest picture of South Africa, but it is the “nuts and bolts” South Africa, which is where I wanted to start. I’ll probably do a series on Cape Town and then rural South Africa (from the motorways).

But Mexico is a different story, having an income stratification that makes New York City seem like Denmark. So the side streets of its major cities have the potential to expose us to a very different, but very interesting, urban landscape.

So far, it appears Google has added Guadalajara, Monterrey, Puerto Vallarta, D.F. (Mexico City and suburbs), and Puebla. Those cities alone accounts for much of Mexico’s upper and middle classes, so it makes sense.

Let’s go on a quick journey.

The first thing about Guadalajara I noticed was the shocking amount of graffiti. It reminded me of New York in the 1980’s. The trees are more shrubby and subtropical than I thought (jacaranda trees and palms); the terrain quite flat. It reminds me of what I saw in Colombia — a lot of 19th century buildings mixed with early modern mid-rises. It seems that the 1950’s-1970’s were good times for Latin America based on the prevalence of mid century skyscrapers.

If you pan around this map, you will see a traffic circle with a gigantic ugly supermarket taking up most of the real estate. But I love those directional signs!

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This is the upper class and relatively new commercial district, Puerta de Hierro. Pan around all the way and you’ll see a shopping mall with a Chili’s!

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The intersection of “Montreal” and “Bogota”, not too far from Puerto de Hierro:

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An older part of town with a fair amount of graffiti:

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A few political murals in a more run down part of town. PAN is one of the major political parties of Mexico. This resembles some of the political “billboards” I saw for local candidates in Barranquilla, Colombia — the same painting schemes, painted on similarly short walls.

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More to come!

‘Twas A Merry Morn In Malta!