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To further the cutting-edge research first published in “21 things you can buy at South African traffic intersections”, we present: 15 things you can buy at the side of the road. For these you’ll actually have to get out of your car, or at the very least pull over to the side of the road.

(List correct at time of publication. No credit cards or travellers cheques accepted. Transportation is the sole responsibility of the purchaser unless otherwise negotiated and remunerated. Inclusive of value added tax (VAT), but no tax refunds available. All verbal guarantees and warranties are invalid unless goods are returned with original purchase receipt. No purchase receipt available.)

* Half-grown trees
* Braai mielies
* Cellphone airtime
* Bad art (wood carvings and oil-on-canvas, mostly)
* A gas refill for your car air-conditioner, and windscreen repair
* Exhaust repair services and tyres
* Mosquito nets
* Prostitutes (rental only)
* Furniture (wicker, wood, cushions)
* Mirrors (framed and unframed)
* Cigarettes and sweets
* Fruit of every description
* Raw seafood (snoek being most popular)
* Rolled-up lawn (the real thing, not fake grass)
* Tree-felling services

South Africa’s currency, the Rand, is very liquid on international markets. Sometimes a little too much so for our tastes, to be honest. On occasion we have such vast fluctuations in the value of the Rand that we appoint expensive commissions of enquiry to listen to conspiracy theories involving bank malfeasance and profit-seeking traders. The truth, of course, is much simpler than that: your Western governments just want to keep the black man down.

Such technical reasons aside, all you really need to know is that the exchange rates against the Dollar, Pound, Euro or Yen can move by three or four percent in a single day. Under exceptional circumstances – such as when the black man requires a particularly good stomping – the rates have been known to move by more than ten percent in a week, in either direction.

So, basically, your money may suddenly be worth more, or less, than when you left home with, and unless you are watching the exchange rate you won’t even know it until you reach the front of the foreign exchange queue.

If you can’t afford that kind of risk, pin down the exchange rate before you leave. Depending on your bank there are a couple of ways to do this: rand-denominated travellers cheques (or travellers checks as you bloody Americans insist on misspelling it), pre-paid debit cards that pretend to be credit cards (also denominated in rands), or a foreign-currency account with your bank.

Most of us locals don’t take those kind of precautions when we visit abroad, because the risk isn’t really all that big unless you plan to spend hundreds of thousands of rands. A couple of percentage points either way just doesn’t impact on small sums, and one fewer beer from the hotel mini bar isn’t going to kill you. But don’t say we didn’t warn you.

For excellent, free and real-time currency conversion, check out xe.com

You’ve heard that South Africa is a little bit third-world and a little bit first-world, but did you know that the banking system is more sophisticated than just about anything in the world? True story.

Don’t worry about bringing cash of any kind. Your dollars and euros are worthless: nobody will accept them outside of the airport duty-free zones. Four-star hotels (and up) as well as all banks and fairly common change bureaux will change your cash into rands for you, but they will universally slaughter you with fees and rates. Do not, whatever you do, engage in back market or on-the-street money changing. It is illegal and there is no way that your new “friend” can beat the bank rates, so you are being scammed and probably robbed into the bargain. Travellers cheques are fine and can be widely changed. But by far the best is the humble credit card.

Anyone who wants to sell you anything will accept a credit card from Visa or Master Card, and most will take American Express and Diners Club too. Restaurants, cafes, hotels, bed-and-breakfasts, guest houses, liquor stores, clubs and strip joints. There are only two exceptions: petrol stations and roadside vendors (including informal sellers of curios and the like). Petrol stations because they aren’t by law allowed to accept credit card payment for fuel (which is a quirk of the fixed-price retail petrol system) and vendors because their volumes don’t justify the expense.

There is a simple solution to those problems too. Automatic teller machines (ATMs) are pervasive; no town is too small to have one. You’ll find them in malls, at petrol stations, inside hotels and shops. In deep rural areas you’ll find mini-terminals inside general dealer stores, which use a system whereby you are paid your cash from the cash register on presentation of a transaction slip.

There are occasional problems with card-skimming, where credit cards are cloned and then misused, a form of identity theft, basically. The incident rate is pretty low, but it’s worth watching your card just to be on the safe side. Any good restaurant will bring a portable card reader to your table rather than walk away with your card, and no retailer should need to take it out of your sight for any reason.

So one good credit card should meet all your requirements, just make sure it doesn’t run out of money while you are here.