Garden Court Umtata
Nelson Mandela Drive, Umtata, Eastern Cape 5105 Umtata, Eastern Cape, 236008, South Africa
Other Umtata Hotels
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Garden Court Umtata
4 reviews
Last review: Nov 01, 20114 miles E of Garden Court -
Ocean View Hotel Umtata
2 reviews
Last review: Jan 01, 20112 miles E of Garden Court
Travel Blogs Nearby
Staying over in Umtata
This happened just a little over a year ago, shortly before Christmas in 2009.
I cycled from Ugie, high in the Maluti mountains to Umtata, down in the foothills, an important stopping off point on the N2 the big national road that runs from Cape town up to the north coast of South Africa.
It was a memorable ride all right, cutting down through those awesome mountains through rural Xhosa princedoms. Umtata I found to be an intimidatingly rough looking place ...
MMMtata
... The Transkei is hilly and green and scattered with sprawling townships that are made up of a mixture of small brick buildings and tin shacks. There were barely any cars on the roads for the whole trip but plenty of hitch hikers or people waiting on the edges of the towns for one of the white van taxis that usually squeeze in around thirty people despite their fifteen person capacity.
We were definitely the minority ...
Mdumbi
This is a top pick!
... water are a rare commodity. The backpacker's lodge has it, when it works.
There were no backpackers when I was there, though I was told the odd one found his way there. A jumble of mostly white South Africans seem to have settled down there, more or less permanently. Life seems to just drift on for them without much sense of urgency, purpose or direction.
It is quite surprising, and touching, how readily you are regarded as one of them, as if they already knew you and will ...
This Ain't No 4-wheel Drive
... backpackers to tell them we wouldn't be coming. The lady was very apologetic and said that they had just sent someone to look for us. We found a B&B in town and stayed there for the night. The place was really nice with a kitchen, bed warmers, a satellite TV, and a beautiful tile bathroom. One of Beth's favorite films, the Triplets of Belleville, was on TV, so we made dinner, watched the movie and fell ...
Ahoy!
... beginnings of this project. The village will have solar and wind power, grow all of its food, and have a bio-digester (a septic tank system which harvests methane from waste and makes the solid waste into compost). They even hope to some day have a water habitat where they will raise fish and grow water crops (rice, water chestnuts, watercrest...). With this project I worked in the gardens at the village and also behind the ...
