A 22-hour bus ride… Yeah, what a
great idea! It has actually not been as bad as you might think. I slept through
most of the night and it’s really more like an 11-hour ride. It’s been a little
cramped but besides that, I’m feeling alright. But what a way to end an awesome
trip!
We started on the 17th
from outside our apartments in Rosebank, waiting on Cali (one of my fellow road
trippers) to get her bus ticket home in order. Our plan was to drive a rental
car for the next few days all over the country. Because we got a slightly later
start than intended, we only made it as far as Cape Agulas or L’gulas (Leghulas
if you will). That was the beginning of some recurring references… Lord of the
Rings, Star Wars, and Toto.
On our way to Agulas we decided
to Brai (yum) and ended up stopping at a Spars (grocery store, kinda like a
smaller Albertsons) in some little town. By the time we left the sun was
setting and lighting up the sky in the most exquisite way imaginable.
The Backpackers we ended up at
was a really cute place, pretty standard though. It had a great common room
filled with signatures on the walls (to which we contributed). They also had a
parrot, who was a lovely conversationalist. We had dinner and went to bed right
away so that we could wake up and watch the sun rise over the most southern
point of the continent. One word: Breathtaking.
Time for the road again. This
time we drove with the prospect of some bungee jumping, except Cali got sick
(she had actually been sick it just worsened) so we had lunch instead and than
hit the road again. It was a lousy day in terms of weather anyways.
I took on the role of navigator
for the entire journey, which meant I also had the job of locating our end
point each day complete with hostel. The first one in Agulas, Pete booked but
the one on day #2 was all me! It as right outside of Grahamstown in the middle
of nowhere but it was by far one of the coolest backpackers I’ve been to. This
place had a tame pet Impala named Rudolf and get this, a pet Zebra who just
happened to have a wild friend who hung out with him. We got to pet him, feed him,
and play with him. SO COOL!! I have now fed a Zebra, Giraffe, and Elephant
while I’ve been in Africa. The shaggy dogs they had were also quite a treat
(they looked like there owner, reminded me of 101 Dalmatians).
We got this private room called
the monastery. It lived up to its name because that night we all got into a
seriously great religious/spirituality discussion (made me miss MHC and
multi-faith).
In the morning, before we began
day #3 we went out and chilled with the zebra’s, than we were off to Lesotho.
What an interesting country. It is located in the middle of South Africa and my
middle I mean SA is its only bordering country. Its like a pocket of true
Africa in the middle of a wanna be European country (no offense). While I was there,
I got really into its history and its historical relation to the land and
people around it. Lesotho was pretty much founded and maintained as a
relatively independent territory by King Moshoeshoe. He was super diplomatic
and began taking refugees form the Anglo-Zulu and Zulu-Boer skirmishes of the
time and incorporating them into his kingdom. He built up a sizable population
this way and was able to resist a lot of incursion. In the end, they made a
deal with Britain so that they were technically a part of the British Empire
but had relative autonomy in most decisions. They also had their first
democratic elections almost 30 years before South Africa, which is really cool!
Anyways we drove ALL DAY to get
there with only one long stop in Ladygrey for lunch. We began at 9:00am and
didn’t get to our destination until 100:00pm. SO MUCH DRIVING!! I’m actually
quite impressed with Pete’s ability to drive that much.
It took us so long because we
kinda got lost at the end. We could have probably been at our destination by
8:00pm if not for that. I know I was the navigator but Lesotho is not set up
for road tripping unless you have a land rover. They don’t have signs and there
are random dirt roads that show up out of nowhere (and by dirt road I mean
giant rocky cliffs). Because there is a lack of towns, there are very few
lights, which means a pitch-black night and impossible navigation. We also
didn’t really have a map… It also
didn’t help that none of our phones worked since we were outside of South
Africa. We ended up finding somewhere to stay in a little town called Morija,
which was the first missionary town in the entire country of Lesotho (granted
it is a tiny country).
We ended up getting there so late
the owner (this lovely French lady named Bridget) gave us the entire cottage
for half price. We were so exhausted we just crashed. When we got up the next
morning, we were all blown away by the gorgeous view.
Turns out we arrived in Lesotho
in the middle of elections. When we went into the town to explore there were
tons of people on their way into the capital Maseru to vote. Everyone was
sporting a flag supporting their respective parties. It was quite cool. We
ended up stopping at a little shop/gas station to get some cokes and talked to
these young Sotho guys about the election. One of them really likes my bracelet
of the SA flag. Someone gave it to
me for free at Green Market Square (an open aired market in the middle of Cape
Town). He asked me for it, since it was given to me for free I though, why not?
And gave it to him.
After that interesting interaction,
we went on a hike in the Drakensburg (which is the name of the mountain range
we were staying in). Lesotho looks so much like Northern New Mexico, its weird…
I couldn’t get over it the whole time. We hiked for near 5 hours. With lots of
figuring out what path we were going to take (apparently the hiking trails are
no different than the roads). On
our way down we were walking along this road that look exactly like the road to
Mordor… The nerd in me busted out into the Lord of the Rings theme song.
That night for dinner, we didn’t
really have any idea what we were going to do (no restaurants in the town and
we forgot to buy food) so we improvised. Pete and I made an awesome camping
meal. As we were cooking a kid from the village came by and Cali entertained
him. Popi was a smart kid, quite though. He wants to be a pilot or join the
army. The people in Lesotho are great! They are some of the nicest people ever.
We learned how to say good morning: Dumela, which we used all the time.
The next day, day #2 in Lesotho
and day #5 of the trip, we made our way to Maseru (the capital) and than to the
border. Maseru was quite a city (if you can call it that). We walked round for
over an hour and in that time saw about 2 other white people… Much more
“Africa” than Cape Town will ever be (or could ever even claim to be).
Made to the border and back into
SA without a problem and after another nice long ride we found ourselves in Bloemfontein.
We checked into our Backpackers (a converted old pump house). It was a super
grungy but super awesome place. We had another Brai and than saw Cali off. She
had to get back to Cape Town for an exam.
Pete and I woke up ridiculously
early the next morning so we could make it to Joburg by noon to drop off our rental
car. We ended up waiting in the airport for 3 hours until I finally got a hold
of Atma and he came to pick us up.
We had dinner with him and Bhaj
at Shwarma (the same place they took my Dad and I when we were there
before). Beside that, we played SO
MANY VIDEO GAMES!!! That was a nice change of pace.
It turned out that the next day
when we woke up Pete’s brother Robbie was also in Joburg, completely unplanned.
He was on his way to Mozambique from Zimbabwe. Because Pete’s plans to go to
Victoria Falls had fallen through, we met up with him and went into Pretoria to
see the capital buildings and such. This was all after waiting at the
Mozambique embassy for two hours. We walked around in Pretoria trying to locate
the “touristy” areas… it was dark by the time we found them but still super
cool.
When we got back to Joburg, (on
the fancy Gautrain) we played more video games and did some MPA reminiscing
(which is always fantastic) before bed.
The next morning or the 23rd
of May, Pete, Rob, and I caught an Intercap bus to Durban. We spent almost
three full days there exploring.
We ended up getting in at about
4pm that day and found our hostel. We settled in, went down to the beach and
than got some seriously excellent Thai food.
Day #2 in Durbs, #9 of the trip
we walked and walked and walked some more. It was great, but my feet still
hurt… I feel like I know that city pretty well at this point. We saw most
everything worth seeing (minus the art museum, we saw but didn’t go into).
Later that night we met up with
Rob’s friend Darshan who he used to live with when he was teaching English in
S. Korea. He took us to an Indian restaurant (Durban has the largest population
of Indians outside of India). It was… Ok. I am really picky when it comes to
India food though so you probably shouldn’t trust my word for it.
After that, we went back to our
backpackers on the beach and hung out by the ocean, under the stars for a bit.
When Darshan took off we finally got to bed.
The next day was our last. We had
breakfast courtesy of our backpackers and than went to the beach for one last
romp in the waves (which were super intense and SO MUCH FUN!) We were thrown
around for a few hours and than got ready to head out.
Darshan came back and picked Pete
up to take him to the airport for his flight back to Cape Town. Rob and I
headed into town to catch our separate buses. Mine wasn’t until 4:30pm and Rob
still had find out how to get to Swaziland. It is pretty much impossible to get
there unless you are with s tour specifically going there or you get a
long-distance minibus (essentially the best place to get robbed if you are
white, a tourist, and alone in SA). He decided to take one regardless… I never
would but it seemed to work out. After walking about 2km away from the bus
station into a pretty sketchy neighborhood I had to walk back alone. Being the
badass that I am, I was completely fine but thank goodness for that!
27 hours later, back in Cape Town
and back home.
Today, the 27th of May is my
roommate Missy’s birthday so right when I got home we’re going out to dinner. I’m
exhausted but hey, I don’t wanna cook anyways so this works.
What a long awesomely fantastic
trip. I have now been in every major city in South Africa (except Kimberly, but
that doesn’t even count). I have seen a great deal of this country and have
fallen deeply in love with its beauty.
