Feel free and scroll around our lunch spot by dragging the picture with the mouse :)
We have gotten a bit behind on the blog, as we have arrived at Jungle Junction in Nairobi. Luckily for you this means we have plenty of time, now that we have to wait for our Ethiopian visas. In the next few weeks you should be able to read the rest of our story including the reason why there are pictures missing... Enjoy! Our time in the rented apartment in Cape Town had come to an end, we met up with our friend Bryan again, got our winch nearly stolen in the city centre and had a brilliant braai with Kate and Paul who had been following our footsteps on the west coast. It was time to commence the second halve of the trip, this time starting out with Bryan with us in the car. Bryan had to wait at least another month before his bike would show up in Cape Town. Us having an extra seat in the front created a perfect opportunity for fun. Together we travelled the popular Garden Route in the south of South Africa. We visited the Cango caves, hot springs and all the surfing towns down to Port Elizabeth. We even visited the observatory in Sutherland hoping to experience one of the best star gazing places in the world. What it turned out to be, was us wildcamping on an end of an abandoned airstrip with too much moonlight, a cloudy night and minus 5 degrees. We woke up with frost all over the car and bryans tent. The blanket from Norway came in handy here! Fortunately we were able to sneak in a few good pictures before going to bed. In Port Elizabeth we visited a motorcross event and eventually said goodbye to our buddy bryan. Its strange saying goobye, but something tells me again that we will soon meet somewhere else on this world. We decided to visit the country Lesotho, landlocked completely by South Africa. The country being on a plateau of around 2000 metres high, we had to drive up a lot from sealevel. Entering the country was easy and very painless, we drove through the backroads of the country seeing happy faces all over. Everyone that we passed had a big smile and was waving to us, no matter whether we left them in a big dust cloud behind us. Wildcamping was amazing in this country, so much space and everyone left us alone. The country was full of stunning views and clean and crispy mountain air. On the other side of the country we came down from the plateau via the popular Sani pass. After nearly being blown away by the winds during stamping our passports we started our steep decent bringing us towards Durban. (This is where the pictures start going missing, as our laptop was stolen in Mozambique, read more soon!) Arriving in the beach city of Durban, we couldn’t really find a nice spot to overnight as most places were fully booked. We ended up at a hostel playing their music loud late into the night. Us being used to the rhythm of the sun, we were well tired and unamused by the time the music stopped. Earplugs didn’t help… To make matter worse, we found a leak from the rear axle dripping down from the right wheel. Nothing serious but nobody was going to help us on the Friday as everyone stops working in the afternoon to celebrate weekend. Parts were not available and instead of waiting over the weekend at this partyhostel we just bought some more oil and decided to address the problem at a later time in Johannesburg. On the way north we visited the amphitheater hostel at Drakensberg national park. In the middle of nowhere they converted a farm into a big hostel, campground and lodge. It had a live show in the evening of a Swahili man singing songs and flapping his legs and slippers on the floor. Truly hilarious. We enjoyed the infra red sauna and the next day we hiked up the mountain. The whole day we enjoyed hiking in the park so we were completely broken in the evening. Thankfully we were able to try out the sauna again. Us being used to no exercise at all, made our following days stiff of muscle pain. Arriving in Johannesburg we couldn’t find a place to stay again, as everything was booked or didn’t have the permission for campers. Eventually we found a place in Pretoria next to a highway in a park. Not very comfortable but we had to get the car fixed. The next day we visited the local Toyota dealer and coincidently we bumped into Jan and Margriet whom we have had contact before through email a few months earlier. What a small world! Unfortunately for them they had a bigger problem with the car. Their gearbox started failing and needed a complete overhaul. They were staying at a little farm outside the city which belongs to a Dutchman, Ronald. We were invited to stay over as well and before we knew it we were eating speculaas and ovenbaked dishes. What was supposed to be an overnight, ended up staying at his place for six days. We had such a good time and we were able to fix every little thing on the car. We exchanged stories and tips for further travels with Jan and Margriet as they had come the way we are going. Ronald had some interesting stories about his experiences in South Africa for the last 30 years. We were amazed he was still confident about living in the country. It made us happy to know we made the right decision not to settle down in Cape Town. Amazingly fast, Jan and Margriet had their car finished in these 6 days and we ended up leaving on the same day. What an amazing place to be and thank you Ronald for sharing it with us! To read more about the stories of Jan and Margriet visit www.deeindervoorbij.nl After hearing about the Boabbar from Kate and Paul, we decided we must visit this place as it wasn’t far off our route. It’s a humongous baobab tree with a little bar inside. Unfortunately the bar isn’t active anymore, but its still amazing to see what it once used to be.
The next day we entered Zimbabwe. This border is known for its waiting lines and slow processing. We expected the worst. |
Time on the road:
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