Category: South Africa

We were constantly reminded is how much easier travel is now than say 20 years ago. Among the changes: English is indeed the international language and was spoken effectively everywhere we went. Credit cards and ATMs are almost universal too.  We ran into minor trouble just once (Zimbabwe, effectively a failed state) but this was solved when the owner of our guesthouse, who had previously worked in the US, still had a US bank account and I was able to use Zelle (US Bank’s way to transfer money to others via email or text) to send her $400 electronically and she handed us four crisp $100 no more than ten minutes later. It’s much cheaper now too – we are getting cash back on credit card purchases rather than being subjected to the usury of exchanging notes.

Communications – I remember tokens and pay phones at foreign post offices and other oddball arrangements – but it’s all very easy and nearly free now.  Finding lodging, transportation, restaurants, guides – it’s all much easier than before. AirBnB is a bargain and I think has impacted mid-level lodging prices; we have probably been averaging about $75/night for bed and breakfast.  Car rental has really been changed too; our nine day rental here is $140; it was $115 until I changed the dates, all via an app on the mobile phone!

The rise of all the low-cost airlines like RyanAir – which I think prompted many of the bigger airlines to each start up a low cost subsidiary – have changed more than just price: they don’t use a “spoke and hub” system, but instead fly smaller jets directly between the second tier cities.  That turns out to be a huge bonus.

On our trip home, we flew Emirates, which uses Airbus A380 aircraft. These are pressurized to 6000 feet rather than 8000, and have better humidity control, which supposedly greatly reduced jet lag. We think that might be real – we didn’t feel as wrung out as we expected.

I signed up for Kindle Unlimited – for $10/mo you get quite a lot, including every Lonely Planet publication. How nice to just download the guide for any country that might spark interest.  Amazon’s music and video work internationally too – yesterday we downloaded Hamilton and listened to much of it on a drive.  Entertainment in the form of podcasts, music etc are now effectively free.

We use weatherspark.com to see what weather might be like where we are looking to go and it has been a major help too – we have had really good weather nearly everywhere.

It goes on; the main point is that the hurdles are gone or way, way small.  It’s not as difficult, debilitating or expensive as it used to be. So much easier that I’m seeing articles written on the theme of “travel ruining travel”.  That may be an exaggeration but it is certainly true that many previously exotic destinations are now routine (a Utah high school group at a Slovenian mountain hut, two days trek from the nearest trailhead!).  Cruises and package tours have probably altered the experience many previously nice cities with so-called “over-tourism”, about which much has been written lately. These places are easily avoided though, and during much of our travels we were surprised at how little tourism there was. This was particularly true in parts of Africa. We were there in shoulder season but even so things seemed strangely quiet quite often.

We set out from our Storms River mouth cottage for the long drive to Hogsback, a popular hiking destination. On the way, street vendors were selling huge bags of oranges (just harvested off the trees lining the road) for ZAR15, about $1.25, which Seong later gave away to some hungry and appreciative individuals.

It sounded as though The Edge was going to be the nicest accommodation in Hogsback, but it appeared to be booked. It turns out, they did have a cottage available due to late cancellation. Had we opted for “serendipity” and just showed up in town and asked around, as we keep promising to do, we could have had a fab view from our room. We thus ended up at Granny Mouse House B&B, despite a few bad reviews including accusations of racism. We asked Ingrid, the owner, about the bad reviews, but she was at first reluctant to address them as she was afraid of yet another online review maligning her. With our promise to not put up controversial reviews, we were able to draw her into a series of fascinating and incredible conversations.

Racist? Maybe. Ingrid is a native South African of German descent, about 70 now, and has lived in SA all her life. She has seen it all, from the simple but poor farming life of her youth in Stellenbosch, the apartheid years, the great dual disappointments of poor governance by the ANC post apartheid and a prospective soulmate whose cocaine addiction was revealed only after the move to rural Hogsback (she had chosen to give up her ophthalmology career to move there with him). She’s smart and outspoken but unfortunately spends too many hours per day (six, by her reckoning) on the internet and has slipped down an extreme right wing rabbit hole. Climate change is a hoax, NASA is privately funded, and do we support infanticide as New York does? That sort of thing. She is lives in constant fear of blacks one day storming her gate to forcibly take away her property, and has a plan to shoot each of her dogs in the head, then shoot herself, rather than be taken alive to be tortured for days on end. This despite her German citizenship, which guarantees her right to move to Germany at any time.

We rented mountain bikes for an afternoon and did a pretty long ride through Hogsback. Then a nearly all day drive to Ardmore Guesthouse in Champagne Valley, central Drakensberg. We had reserved two nights but spent four there, in part because it rained but mostly because we liked it so much. Rustic but tasty meals and staff that anticipated our every need (“shall I build a fire for you in the lounge this morning?”). Here, we ran into a young black South African waiter who told us in fully formed, well worded, well reasoned paragraphs why he has hopes for better future now that Zuma is out of office. It was incredible how polar opposite two persons’ realities in the same system could be.

Next, GreenFire. It was a dramatic and fairly remote spot, requiring us to leave our car about 4km away and get taken by 4WD to the lodge. There we met Jeremiah.

With the help of hand signals from a shepherd sleeping under a bush, later confirmed by local horsemen, we survived a mostly unmarked hike. After leaving GreenFire, we did a really nice hike at Royal Natal. Then on to Johannesburg

Fleeing rain in Stellenbosch (our first serious rain in 6 months!), we headed to Wilderness to start exploring the Garden Route. We stopped a a little lunch place in Knysna on our way to Storm River Mouth.

Then, a pretty amazing little cottage at Storms River Mouth, by the SA National Park service. Sweet!

Evening view from our cottage

We could have spent more than six nights in Cape Town but it was time to head to the west coast. I was feeling poorly and it was bleak and overcast when we arrived to Paternoster, and I was disappointed. But it got better; we had some sea sounds and a fireplace. A good meal at The Noisy Oyster, where we met Mark and Vanessa, who gave us a lot of hints about what to see on our way to Johannesburg. On the way to the Weat Coast, we stopped at little known West Coast National Park, with fantastic bird blinds from where we watched numerous birds like spoonbills and flamingoes. Then, onto Stellenbosch!

We awakened to fantastic weather and it didn’t let up for days and days. It’s mid fall here but it feels like late summer.

We found a group mountain bike tour for our first morning, and a group guided hike up Table Mountain for our second. We were the only people on them so we changed the bike route to go through town and end at a place with great mussels and oysters (Mussel Monger). Nice! We saw Equus that night; great!

Next day started early, for a 7am hike with Lynette. She too gave us lots of hints about what to do in South Africa. We saw Chicago that night, excellent.

After that, we finally got to sleep in, then a Stellenbosch wine festival at the V&A waterfront. I fell for a preposterous ruse (that our bus card required us to print something using the ATM, because it was Sunday!?!?) and my ATM card was stolen! But no money was lost and we were safe.

A drive down the cape, with a snack at Cape Point Vineyard. We may have eaten a bad oyster there and for the next several days had a lot of trouble. It wasn’t getting any better so eventually we started doxycycline.