South Africa

There are 3 posts tagged South Africa (this is page 1 of 1).

IMoL: Update From Durban, South Africa

IMoL logo from original 2003 blog Well I’m in Durban and almost out of time!

(Note: This is a post from my 2003 travel blog IMoL: Travels and Travails.)

I left Storms River for Port Elizabeth where I stayed only one night then headed to East London. I stayed at a place called The Sugar Shack right on the beach – a surfer’s hostel. I met a surfer dude named Andy who is my age and working there and saw what could have been had I become a surf bum…

From East London, I headed up to Hogsback in the mountains to do some hiking. Tolkien used to live in this area when he was a boy and rumour has it the Misty Mountains and some of the other things from The Lord of The Rings came from this area. I can see why people might think that as it is quite stunning.

After a couple of days there, I went to Cintsa, back on the coast. I did a day trip into the Trans-Kei and visited a job creation project in the area. They have a little village where they do tours to show the traditional lifestyle of the people. In order to maintain and expand the place, they cut down alien wood (trees that are not indigenous to South Africa) to make furniture, they create leather goods, and they sell seedlings to local farmers. It was quite interesting and I even joined in with the traditional healers to do a little dance and bang on the drums. We also visited a ship wreck on the coast, where we saw lots of dolphins, and stopped at a nice lagoon for a swim and a bit of cliff jumping.

From there, I went to Coffee Bay where I partied a bit, chilled on the beach, and took a drumming lesson. Last night I arrived in Durban to pick up some more anti-malarial drugs before heading up to Swaziland. Unfortunately, I’m almost out of time, so I’m going to have to skip KwaZulu-Natal to get to Swaziland and Kruger. I guess that leaves me some things to do when I come back.

Talk at you later.

IMoL: Update From Storms River, South Africa

IMoL logo from original 2003 blog I’ve done quite a lot since the last update… Read on for details.

(Note: This is a post from my 2003 travel blog IMoL: Travels and Travails.)

Well, my last day in Cape Town I went to a couple of museums – the South Africa Museum and The District Six Museum. The South Africa Museum is basically a natural history museum, but there was a lot under construction. They do have the only quagga in Africa though. The District Six Museum was interesting, though I spent more time thinking about the concept of the museum than the content really. It’s basically recreating, in the words of the people who were removed, what the area was like when they were living there. The area was never developed after they bulldozed it and the old residents are in the process of reclaiming land from the government.

From Cape Town, I went to Stellenbosh for a wee bit of wine tasting. After our all-day wine tour, we went to dinner then out for more drinks, so it’s a good thing I spent two nights there!

After the educational wine tour, I headed to Oudtshoorn, a little bit north of George. I stayed at a great backpackers there called Backpacker’s Paradise and went on one of their organized tours. This started with the Cango Caves, then to an ostrich farm, and finally a game reserve. The cave tour was an hour and a half and quite cool because we had to go through some pretty tight places including Devil’s Chimney, which is not for the large or the claustrophobic. When we got to the ostrich farm, we sat in the pub and drank a couple of beers while we chatted with the locals and watched the World Cup Rugby match (Australia – New Zealand). After this, we went on the tour which included riding an ostrich. Yes, I DO have the photos, cuts, and scrapes to prove it. The final stop of the day was the game reserve where we checked out the standard lion, tiger, cheetah, leopard, croc, etc… What made this different is that I went into the cages with the white Bengal tigers and the cheetahs to pet them! Very Cool.

After a fine dinner of ostrich steaks at the backpackers, I headed to Wilderness, just down the road to chill for a day. Yesterday I arrived in Storms River and did a canopy tour in the Tsitsikamma National Park. Basically, you are strapped into a full body harness and you slide on a wire from platform to platform between the trees. It was pretty neat and quite relaxing actually. Today, though, was reserved for the adrenaline rush. Somehow, last night at the backpackers lodge (at the bar actually), I was convinced to join a group of people to head out to the Bloukrans River Bridge today to jump off. Yes folks, I just completed the world’s highest bungy (bungie or bungee for North Americans) of 216 metres. Wow, what a rush!

Tonight I head to Port Elizabeth, then on to Hogsback for a couple of days hiking. I’m beginning to feel that I might not make it all the way to Kruger on this trip…

Talk at you later.