Living the Life in South Africa

Our flight from Mumbai landed in Johannesburg, but we had heard that it isn’t the safest city, so we decided to book an onward flight straight to Cape Town, and we sure were glad we did! Arriving in the city, we almost froze due to cooler weather that we haven’t been accustomed to. Beanies, jackets, and scarves all came out of the bottom of our bags. However, Cape Town was having an unusually cold week when we arrived.

We had booked 2 dorm beds at The Backpack Hostel, which was a super nice place to start out. Nice clean sheets and comfy down comforters and pillows only helped us like it more. It’s been a little difficult getting used to sometimes sleeping with others in dorms after all of Asia affording us our own room, but it’s been fine. Something we loved straight away was the Afrikaans language, a derivative of the Dutch language, but with a few English and native African words mixed in.

The day after arriving, we took the metro down to Simonstown, a cute quiet town about an hour south of the city and facing the bay. We were there to see a penguin colony, and they definitely didn’t fail to entertain.

We followed the penguin viewing with lunch/dinner of delicious fish and chips with a tasty beer and we were already commenting “I think we could live here.” We did errands the next day (got all the Indian dirt and smog out of our clothes), enjoyed a delicious braai (bbq) and decided to climb table Mountain the next morning.

We got lucky with a beautiful day for hiking. The Platteklip Gorge trail is the most common way to the top, and it’s a tough uphill climb most of the way. We made it, and got amazing views as reward. You could see all the way past Cape Town out into the ocean, to the other side of the big bay, 360 degree views of the entire peninsula! We even spotted a whale!

We enjoyed a little picnic up top, a beer celebrating feeling alive again, and then took the steep cable car back down. What a great wonderful day that was.

After a lot of financial debating, we decided to hire a car for our stay in southern Africa. We had taken local transportation since Australia, and this was a country to explore on our own. We picked up our rental, stocked up on some groceries (good cheese and bread again, yes!) and a pair of binoculars, and drove to a great lookout to eat lunch. Our ultimate destination that day was Stellenbosch in the wine country, so we booked it out there to find a place before dark. Ryan had been craving some good steak, so we finally enjoyed a nice dinner of steaks and wine. No wonder we like this country so much!

Wine tasting the next day was okay. Most of them charge for tasting, and most of the wines were so-so. Guess we really are spoiled Californians! But it was wonderful weather again, and we were one of the few people tasting, so we had a good time.

Our next stop, after a beautiful drive along the coast, was Hermanus, close to the town of Gansbaai, where we booked a shark cage diving adventure! We paid quite a bit of money for this, but were a little disappointed – not with the sharks, they showed up! The boat was tiny for the 15 people onboard, and there was a swell that was just enough to make a few people sick and made getting changed in and out of their inadequate wetsuits (the water was freezing) nearly impossible. But, when the sharks showed up, they were what you think of – eyeing you as they swim past, showing lots of pointy teeth, and wrestling around with the bait. We saw 6 different sharks, the biggest of which was 4 meters long! We have an underwater camera that we haven’t developed yet, but here’s an above water photo:

That same night we drove down to Cape Agulhas and stayed at a very nice, almost empty hostel. South Africa’s wintertime is their low season, which has been obvious in many places with a lack of people. The next morning, we proudly stood at the southernmost tip of Africa!


After indulging in that accomplishment, our drive took us inland along the Garden Route, with port tasting, cheese and elan (a type of antelope) jerky buying, and ostrich sighting. We ended up in Wilderness, a little town back near the coast, where we were again 2 of 4 people staying in our hostel, and where we got to pick chard and sweet potatoes from their garden for our dinner that night. Not a bad day.

Our good weather was coming to an end, as the next day brought super-winds, and dark clouds. We were headed to Jeffrey’s Bay, home of the famous surf break Supertubes. En route, we again got to stop and buy some yummy homemade cheeses and bread. Once in J-Bay, we found a wonderful, modern 2 bedroom apartment at the Zen Guesthouse that was probably the best valued accommodation we’ve had yet (thank you low season)! Helping matters were the owners, Logan and Lisel, who were extremely friendly and helpful, and had a killer DVD collection that we got to borrow from! Even better, we could see Supertubes break from our bedroom window, a view that Ryan would take advantage of every day. A gigantic swell was rocking J-Bay at that time too, so all the breaks were going off.


It started to rain the day we arrived, but we were perfectly happy watching movies, taking advantage of a full kitchen, and not driving for a couple days. Another plus was watching the U.S. beat Spain in the Confederations Cup that had been going on here in South Africa! After 4 nights in J-Bay, we decided to check out, but it happened to be on the day the clouds cleared and the surf got more surfable, so Ryan decided to rent a board and wetsuit and get some waves before we left. He was pooped afterwards, but stoked that he got out.

We had casually looked at the mini-laptops that are for sale everywhere now, but on our way to East London, we stopped in Port Elizabeth, found a great price on an Acer, and bought one. So far, it’s been a great addition.

Our stop that night was at Buccaneers, a hostel in Chintsa, a little off the beaten track, but that’s what we were aiming for. Well, we aimed wrong, as the hostel was almost completely booked with a volunteer group. We got the last 2 dorm beds in the place, which were in the middle of a room full of drunken volunteers. Needless to say, it was a rather sleepless night.

It was raining the next morning, which didn’t help our already crabby moods. On our drive north, we saw at least 5 accidents, some of which were kind of funny (“how did they end up backwards up that embankment?”) but a couple that did not look good. Passing one, Anna viewed a man lying covered in a quilt, being comforted by his family, but the look on his face was agony. Ryan had been driving super safe all day, but as we came up to a curve, another car came around it obviously out of control. At that point, we knew we would not be the cause of an accident – the others would be. It was the most scared that we have ever felt while driving in a car. And, to top that entire wonderful day off, driving toward our hostel after getting something to eat, we ran over a piggy. Yep, didn’t even see it until the last second. Poor little thing. Oh wait, did we say the awful day was over? Not quite…that evening the U.S. lost to Brazil during the final of the Confederations Cup, and our “hut” at our hostel was about the same quality we had in Laos, for about 4 times as much. Ughh.

Durban was the next destination, where we stayed 2 nights at an overpriced hostel that at least had comfy beds and wireless internet for our computer! We didn’t explore the city much as it’s pretty dangerous and the owner of the hostel had just been mugged the night we got there (not near the hostel!). Instead, since the weather had turned nice again, we relaxed in the Botanical Gardens, Anna got her hair trimmed up, and we finally saw Transformers 2 for only $2.50 per ticket (not as good as the first, but they never are!).

After our quick Durban visit, we decided to drive to St. Lucia Estuary, a little town near the big Hluhluwe-Imfolozi Park, where hippos and crocs live on the banks of the estuary and the supermarket closes at 5 on Saturday nights. We got a good deal for another apartment rental, complete with its own braai, so Ryan got to braai up some good steaks, though we’re now lugging around a huge bag of charcoal! Everything was within walking distance, and we explored the beach, complete with resident hippos. Anna found some tall wood giraffes that she knew she wanted to get when in Africa, and we bargained hard for them.

We took the wooden giraffes hostage and bagged their heads

On the 4th of July, we took a trip into the Park, which contains a good variety of wild animals, and these “loop” roads that turn off the main road to more easily see the animals. We weren’t disappointed! And by the end of the day, we had seen hippos, crocodiles, warthogs, deer, kudu (a type of antelope), dolphins, buffalo, eagles, zebras, and the elusive rhino! See some pics below:



The sun was shining, and, being farther north now, it was much warmer, so we relaxed on the beach for a few hours. We could’ve been at home for the 4th of July, there were so many families out! All in all, it was a wonderful day, and one that was much needed for our bodies and souls.

Then, it was out of South Africa and into Mozambique. En route, we stopped one night in Swaziland to break things up, where Ryan had some of the best chicken he’s ever had. Secret ingredient? Peri-peri, a mild chili pepper that grows in this region, and which Swazis and Mozambicans use constantly. Easing through the borders the next morning, we got into Maputo, the capital of Mozambique. We only stayed one night as the warmer waters and weather are calling our names, and Ryan is getting antsy to surf again.

Mozambique has an interesting background, as it’s the only country in Southern Africa to have not been ruled by the British at some point. Instead, the Portuguese colonized it. Today, Portuguese is the main language, which we don’t mind as it’s very similar to Spanish. That and we can practice for when we meet Anna’s parents in Portugal in August.

We had an interesting experience after we left Maputo, but that’s for another blog entirely…