Lesotho& Drakensberg

Lesotho, the land of no fences. A land where you can walk freely. A land where artfully constructed stone huts cling to unlikely places and jangling cowbells and the reedy voices of goats harders are the sounds of everyday life. Here a woman may walk for a day just to buy a packet of tea, but at the end of it her lined face will still have time for a broad smile and warm hello (coast to coast).

Driving through Lesotho, a little independent country in the south-east of South Africa, was an experience itself! Everyone was astonished we managed to get through the roads with a 2x2 car, not getting a flat tire with all the potholes :)! We stayed in the Malealea Lodge the first night, a very open and friendly place full of warm-hearted people. They have little huts where you can stay over and as swiss and weather-proof kids we thought we could manage with just our sleeping bags, ha! I guess we did underestimate how cold Lesotho can get! I was freezing all night even though wearing lots of clothes and trying to snuggle up to keep warm! But hey, we survived :).

The next morning we went on a pony trek to a viewpoint which was a really fun experience. We got to talk to our guide which was the same age as us and told us more about life in Lesotho. For example that like in many other cultures in SA the guy has to pay the girl's parents cows or horses if he wants to marry her. And if the girl doesn't want to get married to you, just give her parents one extra cow and it's ok :).

On our way through Lesotho we definitely got a lot of attention from the locals being one of the few tourists travelling there in this time of the year. Like from the policemen that stopped us about 5 times in two days just to have a chat with us, ask us why we are not married and why we are travelling by ourselves. One particular stop was quite amusing. There was a police block and we should've stopped at the stop sign and waited for the policemen to wave us on. But as we didn't know and just followed the front car they stopped us and told us it was an offense in Lesotho not to stop at the stop sign and they would want to take us to court. We just smiled at them and had a bit of a laugh. Different police officers kept approaching our car asking us all kind of funny questions and in the end one girl came to inform us that they just wanted to be friends with us and visit us in SA and get our numbers. We refused politely and continued our drive....:). The second night we stayed over in a farmers training center. As it was already getting dark there weren't many people around and not really an office to sign in. So this one guy phoned around and we had to drive to the next village to get the lady with the keys for the guest house. Astonishingly we got our own house, a comfy bed with lots of blankets and not surprisingly no electricity. So we lit some candles and made food and had quite a good time. There was no hot water also and only a bath and no shower. In the morning we thought we would give ourselves and experience of the good old days, heating up some water in a pan and taking it to the bath to take a ‘shower’. Quite amusing and actually not that bad :). On our way through the country we also managed to give quite some people a lift, like these guys that had to walk for two hours just to get some milk!

We gave them a lift on the way back and they were very thankful. If every kid in Europe would learn to appreciate transport a bit more and maybe having to walk every now and again….!!! I can’t believe how lazy our modern community has gotten.

On to Drakensberge in KwaZulu-Natal province. The Drakensberg mountains of South Africa or uKhahlamba (the Barrier of Spears) is a 200-kilometre-long mountainous wonderland and world heritage site. The Zulu people named it 'Ukhahlamba' 'The Dragon Mountain'. The Drakensberg Mountains tower over the area and form a gigantic barrier separating KwaZulu-Natal from the Kingdom of Lesotho. The only road access to Drakensberg is via Sani Pass that boasts the highest pub on Africa, 3000m above sea level. This is really the place to nurture your soul, a place with endless hikes around the mountains where you can see all kinds of vegetation and plants. In the southern part we stayed in the Sani Pass Backpackers and went for a hike around the mountains in the Drakensberg National Park.

At some point this area feels like Switzerland, which may also be the reason why there is a place called Little Switzerland :).

Further on we stayed close to the Amphitheater, a towering arc of crescent-shaped cliffs.

Our drive back home was through the lovely Free State which is a province in SA full of nothing. It’s predominantly farmland but also has some gold mines. Basically miles and miles of potholes, stop and go signs and endless roads! And a place called Bethlehem :)

And here we are pack in Potch again, a week of classes left although most of them get skipped without us knowing beforehand! Time is running out, soon it’s travelling again and back home to sweet Switzerland.

the eastern cape& kwazulu-natal

Let me just share a few experiences with you from our easter trip to the eastern cape and kwazulu-natal...
The three of us, meaning Giannina, our flatmate Ben and myself rented a car to drive to the lovely and warm east coast to spend some days off there!

From Potchefstroom we drove all the way to Pietermaritzburg which is the capital and second largest city of the Kwazulu-natal region. The city was originally founded by the Voortrekkers (emigrants who left the the Cape Colony moving into the interior of what is now South Africa). Here, we visited the natural and history, the Voortrekkers and also the apartheid museum, which was all very interessting! Just look at the homemade weapons built and used by the ANC members during the time of political violence in the 1990's....not that long ago if you think of it!

From this city we decided to drive all the way down to coffee bay, which is a very popular and known touristic spot along the southern part of the east coast! What a drive that was, south african roads can be crazy and only at the easter weekend about 150 road deaths were reported, including the one we saw! those local minibuses that usually transport coloured people do not hesitate to take any risk to overtake other cars and then sometimes just end up crashing frontal into a truck, not nice! There were also lot's of dead dogs along the road and we were also suprised about how many kids just play besides the road! So we call ourselves very lucky to have arrived safe and sound at the coast!
Coffee bay is beautiful I must admit and defenitely one of the highlights of our trip. we took a walk to the famous 'whole-in-the wall' with our funny tourguide john. a beautiful, but also very long and tirying trail that granted you with the most stunning views along the coast.

Later that day, John also took us to a xhosa village where we got to shake our booties with the mammas :), eat some traditional xhosa food and try their self-brewed beer. it was such a lovely experienced because it didn't feel staged at all. we were like a part of their family, the teenage girls had their sellphones on and just naturally danced along as well when they wanted to.

Our next stop on the route was Umzumbe, close to Port Shepstone along the coast where we stayed in a lovely backpackers just about 3min walk from the beach. I really liked this place as it felt like being far far way in some sort of rain forest. They had a jacuzzi and even a tippi tent we slept in for one night.

The oribi george national park was also close by so we also spent a lovely day there. You can't believe how much it took for me and I think especially Giannina to dare to jump for the highest swing on this planet!

and by the way...would you vote for this guy :)?

Our last stop for our trip was Durban, where we took a days walk around the city. As it was easter monday, sadly all the arts and craft shops were cclosed but we still got to see the stadium, the beach and most of the city centre. Not really a top-of the list priority to see this city in my opinion, but at least we ticked it off of our lists and they have a nice botanical garden ;)

So that was it concerning our trip, it's unbelievable but we only got 4 school weeks left at uni before our exams start and then we're off to travelling Namibia, Botswana and Mozambique for another month, and I can't wait :)

Into the wild

For our ten day holidays we took the chance to visit Cape town and the garden route, and we LOVED it!
We got a flight from Lanseria airport down to Cape town and rented a car to get there. Now it was Giannina’s turn to ride on the ‘wrong’ side of the road for the first time and also with an automatic car! You bet we had a laugh! But we got there safely and had a great flight down to the coast.
As we arrived only at 10pm in the mother of the cities there were no more buses and the transfer to the hostel would’ve cost us the same amount of money, so there we go, more driving!
The penthouse back packer on long which we booked the first two nights was absolutely stunning, lovely dorms of 6, very clean, friendly personnel and on top of that equipped with a ROOFTOP bar!!!
We decided to do a trip to Cape of Good Hope and Cape Point the next day as we only rented the car for one day and this was the ideal opportunity to get there! The guy at the front desk coincidentally knew about two other girls from Argentina that wanted to do the same trip and didn’t have a car so we were very happy to take them along! I can’t believe how blessed we were with the weather. Cape town had been foggy and rainy for a couple of days before we arrived. But the next day, oh wonder, it seemed like the sun was just waking up turning up behind the clouds and giving us the most beautiful sunshine along the coast! Cape of Good Hope and Cape Point are definitely worth a visit and everyone who gets a chance should go there! You will be impressed, I promise!

In the evening we met an Australian girl that was staying in our dorm so we decided to climb table mountain with her the next morning. Early morning to be precise. We still wanted to go out for dinner and drinks though. So we head down to the street and found this cool restaurant that looked kinda shabby but the food was great! The Australian girl went to another bar and came to fetch (get) us later. We started talking to two other guys from Wales that also wanted to join in for table mountain! We had a really fun night (just look at what some crazy guy did to the McDonald’s advert!), there are so many cool bars on long street and people are much more open-minded and also much more European than what we’re used to in Potchefstroom.

This kinda made us only have 4hours of sleep before getting up really early in the morning to grab a taxi to the mountain. Well…there should’ve been six of us, but in the end only Giannina, the Australian girl and me managed to get up on time! Lucky us we just managed to get up the road where the trail started before they closed it for shooting some film with Denzel Washington! The climb wasn’t too bad, luckily we started early and the sun wasn’t out too much, but still it’s a steep 2hours walk up the mountain! All the pain and sweat is worth it though when you reach the top and can be proud of what you have achieved! The views are spectacular!!! But you do feel quite exhausted so we took the cable car down!

New day, more sunshine! On the 3rd day we walked around in Cape town exploring the city center. We arranged beforehand to go couch surfing (www.couchsurfing.com) for two nights at Ryan’s place, a guy Giannina contacted over the website! It was the first time that I’ve done couch-surfing and I must say I really enjoyed it. It’s just a great opportunity to meet locals and hear about their experience with the country and also have the opportunity to get their tips on what to see. We were very lucky with Ryan, as he rented out his own flat to another girl for two months we stayed at his parent’s home just outside Cape Town. We got our own guest room which was brilliant! As Ryan had arranged for some german guys to go to his parent’s beach house in Hermanus over the weekend and do shark diving, this was the perfect opportunity for us to spend some time at the sea! With 9 other people we ventured out and spent two wonderful days at the beach, swimming, relaxing and just enjoying our free time! We ended up staying two more nights at Ryan, probably just because we weren’t able to say goodbye yet to the beautiful city.

One day we also spent with the two guys from Wales on a wine tour. The only money not spent wisely on this trip! We paid far too much but hey, we got to see the three different wine regions, namely Stellenbosch, Paarl and Franschhoek. In the evening we went for Cape Malay food (traditional food from the area) and also out to the bars again.

The next morning the two of us started our trip towards Garden Route in our baby blue Chevrolet Spark! Ryan’s dad had drawn us a map of places we had to visit, so we could just easily follow that without having to make use of our lonely planet! Great! The first night we stayed in Mossel Bay and where you can eat the best sea food!!! Sadly the weather got a bit worse the next day and we weren’t able to do skydiving as planned! I must say the garden route is one of the most beautiful places I have ever visited! Nature down there is just breathtaking! Places you definitely don’t want to miss out on along the coast are: Victoria Bay, Wilderness (where we took a trail to the waterfall), Plettenberg bay, Nature’s valley, Stormsriver and if you’re into surfing: Jeffrey’s bay! We found the most amazing back packer in Stormsriver, they even had a rooftop Jacuzzi!!!

Last but not least, I managed to visit my dear friend Eva (who used to be a Flight attendant also and now does an exchange semester in SA) in Port Elizabeth! We had a great time with her and her flatmates, going out, sitting at the beach or in a café overlooking the sea!
I can’t believe how fast time went by, after this amazing trip we took a bus back up north, back to university!
Unbelievable that we have already been here for more than two months, time flies! But I’m enjoying every second of my stay and will keep you guys updated on life here! We’re already planning our next travels!