The weather in South Africa is really odd …
Here we are, in the middle of winter (i.e., August) with relatively cold weather at 16 degrees (Celcius) daytime temperature and about 12 degrees night temperature when suddenly a shift in wind brings very warm weather from the north, resulting in temperatures of 32 degrees during the day and around 20 at night! This change happened in about 2 days and lasted about just as long. At the end of the two days, which happened to be weekend :-), temperatures dropped back to 16 degrees daytime temperatures.
In general, July has been a very pleasant month with comfortable daytime temperatures around 24 degrees and chilly night time temperatures around 12. It has been very sunny and dry. So dry, in fact, that “veld fires” have been a very common occurance with several fields going up in flames a day. We witnessed a specatular fire on Saturday where several houses across the valey from us caught fire, seemingly independently, and at least one of them burned down completely! The trees also caught fire, resulting in what looked like a volcano erupting on the dune. Here are some of the pictures (click on them to get a larger version):
