Driving me crazy

I cannot remember if I have written about driving in this country before but it really is a life changing experience. Having lived in London for the last 4 years I hadn’t been driving very much with just the odd trip home giving me the opportunity to steal my mother’s car. I had a few rental cars for work which kept my skills from rusting over entirely but I always felt a little nervous initially.
Then I moved out here. Chaos is a good word to describe what’s happening on the roads here a good proportion of the time. Unless you take your life in your hands and take some chances you won’t get anywhere. You also will be subject to severe horn beeping from those stuck behind you.
At any one time you can be driving at a reasonable speed with cars overtaking on whatever side they fancy, local buses trying to butt into the line wherever they can, men with handcarts blocking an entire lane as they slowly push their goods to their destination, ice-cream sellers cycling by on their little mobile freezer bikes, hawkers wandering up and down the lines of traffic trying to sell everything from handtowels, cds and car accessories to coat stands, fish tanks complete with fish and large pangas (knives), beggars sitting perilously close to the side of the road and to top it all off massive potholes can appear at any moment endangering your wheels and your suspension.
This makes for challenging and interesting driving conditions. Constantly on the alert, your thumb hovers over the horn to assert your right to be on the road over that of anyone else. Initially I was in a small family saloon which had trouble managing the potholes and made me feel small and puny compared to the big SUV’s that dominate the traffic here. Since then I’ve moved onto a big SUV myself and it makes me feel more secure.
Where initially I sweated bucket-loads on a simple trip through town in the middle of the day, I now swan from spot to spot pulling off maneuvers that make my passengers uncomfortable but fit right in with the driving ethos here. A friend over visiting jumped at some crazy traffic and commented that you really need to be alert all the time to drive over her. And it is true. Even when sitting in the never ending traffic jams of rush hour you can’t let your eye off the ball for too long or someone will nab your spot as the traffic moves forward.
There is one thing you can be sure of though; It’s never dull driving around here.