In the beginning almost everyone on the ...
Trip Start
Feb 01, 2001
1
7
Trip End
Sep 05, 2001
Cape Town,
South Africa
Wednesday, March 7, 2001
Almost everyone on the plane had already left Cape Town airport an hour ago and still no sign of Natty and Bushy. So Dave's pacing up and down composing a speech to the Director of Immigration as to why they shouldn't be deported when finally they appear smiling - last off the plane - going off to Matt Clarke on their stereo.
And so Africa 2001 begins.
We spent 2 weeks in Cape Town browning our pale London skins and checking out what The Best City In The World has to offer... (this is Dave writing obviously!)
We were on the palm-lined Camps Bay beach within hours of getting off the plane - falling asleep in the sun is never a good idea so we were only temporarily brown before we spent the next week peeling back to white again
2nd beach, Port St Johns
. Now there are really only 2 things to understand about Cape Town: the mountain and the sea.... So we climbed the mountain (which has more plant species on its slopes than in the entire UK) which was a tough 5 hour hike followed by dinner on top and a stunning sunset. We also spent many mornings and evenings at the beach - Camps Bay and Splifton mainly - which was awesome. We viewed the symbolic meeting point of the Indian and Atlantic oceans at Cape Point which was more wind blowing than mind blowing... Cape Town's ceaseless South Easter blew most of the time we were there.
We went off the tourist track for a while and had a braai (bbq) and a boogie in Gugulethu township with a friend working in the HIV/Aids field and then had another more crazy boogie ("Simunye, we are one!" screamed the residents as they bestowed us with gifts of welcome) in a shebeen (local pub) in Khayelitsha squatter camp where we spent the night in a little B+B.
We clubbed it up London hard house style in Studio 47 and chilled out African style in funky chillout spots like Getafix (anything goes) and Cool Runnings (reggae style) with old friends, new friends and surprise deportee friends..
Beach view from our lodge in Port St Johns
. Generally speaking Cape Town is developing an increasingly international feel with thousands of backpackers and tourists as well as a healthy dose of immigrants from the rest of Africa. A large percentages of the African immigrants can be found selling all sorts of funky contraptions at the robots (traffic lights) from chickens made from old plastic bags to crocodile CD racks made from wire to peak caps made from Coca-Cola cans.... The rest of the immigrants all seem to be self-employed as car guards which involves them walking up to you as soon as you've parked and giving you the internationally recognised gesture meaning "I'll watch your car" and then when you get back you give them a rand or two never knowing whether they would have been able to stop thieves had they appeared... and sometimes they conveniently forget to tell you that you got a parking ticket which they kindly removed before you got back! Either way these guys have helped to make Cape Town - and its markets in particular - the funky, colourful city it is.
In between the leisure time, there was a kombi to be bought and fixed and countless other tedious things to get organised before heading north... but after 2 weeks we were eventually on our way... saying a sad farewell to friends and family as we left
Camps Bay Beach in Cape Town
.Twoey (or 102 on the move) has a fridge, a bed, cupboards and an engine which leaks a lot of oil... but has not given us a single hassle (other than needing a new spark plug) in 5000km I'm lying on the bed typing this as Natty drives through the rolling hills of the Eastern Cape. (Ok I just took a photo which kinda came out: you can see Natty plus our dash board with our collection of thingys we've found or been given a long the way stuck to it.)
We first travelled along the lushly vegetated Garden Route where our first stop was Plettenberg Bay an affluent beach town about 550km from Cape Town. There we stayed in absolute splendour with Annene, Bushy's friend from a Contiki tour, for 2 days. Annene wined and sumptuously dined us and in between we wandered through the amazing Knysna forests (where a few elephants still roam), watched the sunrise over the dolphin-filled ocean and generally lived like kings and queens - thanks Annene. Then the day we were dreading dawned as we had to say bye to Bushy who was in search of the surfer's dream - the Jeffrey's Bay wave... as he turned off the highway in his car he stopped us and surprised us with a beautiful dream catcher and a blue whale's tear now on our dashboard - a tear of happiness he explained although there were a few of the other kind shed as Bush left us in search of his wave
Cape Town's Two Ocean's Aquarium
. Good luck Bushy, we miss you crazy man.That left the 2 of us heading for Gonubie to visit Dave's gran. The countryside slowly changed from the lush forests of the Garden Route to the rolling hills of the Eastern Cape with scattered mud huts and numerous cows and goats on the hills and on the roads which we had to dodge. We spent a lovely evening in Gonubie - a beautiful coastal town - and then the three of us (Dave's gran couldn't resist Twoey) headed inland to Dave's uncle's farm. As luck would have it a spark plug went so we crawled up the numerous hills until we finally found a town where they could change the plug. Once we were at full speed again we rapidly climbed up the Winterberg mountains until we neared the summit of a giant hill where we found Nigel and Ash's sheep and fruit farm. We spent a fantastic weekend there - again living like royalty - exploring the farm's mountains and river as well as doing a few Magyvers (adaptations) to Twoey. All too soon it was time for more good byes and then we were off to Hogsback - a village high in mountain forests where Tolkien lived and wrote the Hobbit. There we stayed with Dave's aunt, Di, who is an artist and has created the Ecology Shrine which is a huge outdoor combination of sculptures and paintings dedicated to the theology of Deep Ecology - humans as an element of rather than separate from nature (see her website for a much better description plus photos - www.webfactory.co.za/ecoshrine ).
We spent a peaceful evening with Di and Joel and walked down to the beautiful mother and child waterfall after which it was again time for more sad goodbye's as we headed off to the mountain Kingdom of Lesotho (Nat needed to leave SA and re-enter to get a new visa). We spent a night en route at the Aliwal North hot springs (our first night sleeping in Twoey!) and then we crossed Natty's first land border into one of Africa's smallest countries
Eco-Shrine in Hogsback
.Only a tiny fraction of Lesotho's area is actually flat so there has been terrible erosion in some parts. We had no idea where we were going and so took a hint from the friendly border guard and headed far off the beaten track (and the tar road) to Malealea lodge situated on top of a flat hill overlooking a stunning series of valleys and mountains. This lodge has been nicely integrated with the poor rural communities in the area who take visitors on long pony hikes into the mountains where one can stay in village huts. We did a long walk to a waterfall and spent the evenings chilling out around the fire with an assortment of interesting travellers from Europe.
Then we were off again along some atrocious dirt roads - which Twoey handled in style - on our way back to SA and on towards the coast again. We crossed stunning mountains with giant red rocks jutting out like animal faces as we descended the Barkley Pass (2000m high) towards the town of Elliot. After a night there we dodged lots of animals as we drove all the way down to Port St Johns - a sleepy coastal town with forest which stretches right down to the beautiful beaches. Yesterday we fetched Daniel who has just flown in from the Czech Republic and we've just spent the day body surfing in the warm water (yes Bush - we finally found the warm water!) where dolphins play
Eco-Shrine in Hogsback (2)
. And Dan got to swim in the sea for the first time!We left Port St Johns a few hours ago and we're now driving further up the coast to a small village called Umzumbe. We've just passed through a bustling market town called Bizana with anything and everything for sale by the side of the road - reminiscent of many an african town north of SA. On my right are green hills dotted with round mud huts with thatched roofs surrounded by maize fields. There are lots of people walking on the side of the road (actually in the road) as it's a good path so we're driving pretty slowly. Dan's getting to know what it's like to be famous as he's our waver - he has to wave at the kids who wave at us as we drive past. Hopefully we'll be arriving in Umzumbe in an hour or two.
That's it from me - Natty and Dan will give you the view from Oz and Czech respectively a little later.
lots of love to all of you
Dave
