Travel writting and photography from backpacking on seven continents by Johannes auer
St. Lucia was a save heaven in terms of getting mugged at night but instead you could easily loose your head if you would get into the way of a hippo. Hippos might look nice, but you better run when you feel that they don’t like you. Not to mention that 90 % of the crocodile population of South Africa live in and around St. Lucia. So going for a swim in the river behind the hostel also might not be a very refreshing idea.
The Transkai is a very hilly area, with little round huts virtually everywhere. At one point of the trip, Kim and I where just jumping around in the bus, filming and taking pictures of the beautiful scenery. She had a video-camera and a Rexlex-camera just as me and we started laughing at each other because we felt like Japanese tourists. The driver (Jetty) was very friendly and since neither Kim or I had made a reservation he called Banana Backpackers and made the booking for us.
Funny little storie upon my arrival in Durban:
Can you tell the nationality by someone else’s shoes? A German guy thought so and when I entered the Banana Backpackers claimed that I’m Scandinavian. Well, I might be tall, and at the time I was in South Africa I even had bleached hair, but that doesn’t make me Scandinavian.27th May, Durban
After the 13 hour trip on a bus on the previous day there was nothing to keep me away from spending the day on the beach, doing nothing but watching surfers riding the waves and catching a tan. At night I went to cinema with a South African girl. First the bar-keeper told us to not go to the cinema and take a taxi instead, but then the receptionist told us that it would be fine and we should just carry the money for the movie’s. I guess thats kind of a South African paranoia… Instead of taking a 2 minute taxi-ride we decided to run to the cinema. We left the hostel and started running when a truck stopped next to us and offered us a ride to the cinema. We hopped on the back and arrived at the cinema in no time. Since there was no one selling tickets at the cinema, we just walked into a movie called “Half Past Dead” (I did not talke that as a bad sign) and didn’t pay at all. That’s what I call a cheap night out. Unfortunately, two English travellers got mugged that night at 4 am in the morning, just outside the hostel. But they where also lucky, the robbers where friendly, told them their names and asked kindly for their money and even gave them back their drivers licence.
But as we all know, Apartheid-laws are gone so things have changed. The problems are still big in this country and it will take many years to solve them, but its much better then it was before.
My personal feeling is that South Africans are very proud of their country and there is one person everyone is looking up to, and that’s Nelson Mandela. They are going to change the name of Port Elisabeth into Nelson Mandela Bay, with a 25 meter high statue of him at new harbour they are currently building.
But on to the Elephant Park. Unfortunately for us we didn’t get to see a lot elephants and the tour guide told us that it was one of his worst days. Usually visitors end up seeing hundreds of elephants, whereas we only saw about twenty to thirty the entire day. But since it was my first game-drive ever, I didn’t mind at all and was fully satisfied to see Zebras, Antelopes., Giraffes and yes also a few Elephants.
A little advice: When driving around in the park you are not alowed to leave the car, so keep in mind that lots of drinking will fill up your bladder and then you will, just like me, pray for a stop.
I left Plettenberg Bay after the amazing dolphin tour and took the bus to Port Elisabeth. I didn’t use the Baz-Bus this time since a normal Bus looked cheaper, but after my arrival in Port Elisabeth I had to pay another 40 Rand for the taxi- to get to my hostel, the PE Backpackers, which equalised my savings. At night I went bowling with an English couple (guess what, on an around the world trip for one year…) and Peter, a guy from the Czech republic who was running the hostel as part of his pratical training. I also booked a tour to the Addo Elephant park for the very next, to keep me busy and not waist to much time just hanging around on the beach or at the hostel.
Side-Note: Robberg is about to become a world natural heritage. If you are on Robbberg and look at Plettenberg Bay, you realise that, like in every other bay, a big chunk is missing. Well, the big chunk that is missing and makes Plettenberg a “bay” is actually the Falkland Islands close to South-America. The rocks that you find on Robberg are exactly the same rocks you will find on the Falkland islands and that is one of the major proofs that there once was one big continent called Gondwana or Pangea.
The day ended with an typical South African Barbecue, organised by the owners of the hostel. Plenty of steaks and “Borkworst”, some kind of sausages, accompanied by my favourite drink, a cider called “Savana”.
I continued to walk to the main beach, which was very crowded and after a short rest took a Rikki back to Sea Point.
In the late afternoon the guy from England and I tried to hike up Lions Head, to watch the sunset. Unfortunately, he was vertigo and had to give up after only 500 meters. I made it half way up, but then I realised that I wouldn’t make it up to the top and back in time before darkness falls, so instead I enjoyed the wonderful sunset on my way back and promised myself to climb the top another time.
After the most south-western point of Africa, we headed back to Boulders Beach, the infamous Penguin colony. A short break was caused by family of about 20 baboons, which where fighting and screaming around on the street. The penguins occupied Boulders Beach about 20 years ago, and became a major tourist attraction in the resent years. There are hundreds of them, and the only thing they seem to do is to breed their eggs, protect their childreen and shit around. Honestly, the smell caused by penguin-crap was almost unbearable.
We finished our stay in Simons Town with a nice dinner in a fishrestaurant on the main street before we went back to Cape Town.