Today, March 29, we are in St Lucia on the far east side of South Africa 200 m away from the Indian Ocean. This is a World Heritage site by the way. The ride here (300 km) was exhausting, especially the first part because it was very bad due to the huge amount of trucks that drove it. Maximum speed 60 km/h if you are lucky and you can ‘enjoy’ the life-threatening overtaking, also by 30 tons trucks. Fortunately, the road became wider and better after about 100 km. We are now completely in Kwazulu Natal and it is beautiful here with beautiful villages, spacious and a lot of livestock but also sugar cane. Everywhere things are sold along the way from home-fired beer to onions or carvings. The people here are tall and dark and drive like crazy. You don’t see much police here.
I haven’t heard of yesterday’s collision. By the way, nothing of my insurance so I will use the general email address for the notification.
Tomorrow we will sail for a bit and the day after tomorrow drive into a tropical forest. Or we turn it around! We also go for a walk. During the day because at night that is not possible because of the hippos.
Saturday, March 30th we did very little. It rained a large part of the day, hot water by the way. In the afternoon we went sailing on the estuary by boat. The nature reserve is huge here, 250 by 100 km in size and has a rich history. At the beginning of the 20th century, the British wanted to practice breeding livestock there, but the tseetsee fly prevented this. In the sixties, the areas were made drier by the planting of pine trees, which ensured that the lake was no longer connected to the sea, which made it very salinate. The animals were evacuated so they could survive. At the beginning of 2000, the new government made the right decision to cut down all the pine trees and restore the area, which has succeeded so that a beautiful and huge nature reserve has now been created. From the water you can see a huge variety of trees and grasslands where just about everything lives. Beautiful just.
We like the guesthouse very well. The hostess is an older Flemish lady who knows exactly how to welcome her guests and she serves a very tasty breakfast.
Today we are going to drive a bit towards Cape Vidal
Just after St Lucia, north, the national park begins and we weren’t the only ones who wanted it. Half the village, the tourist visitors, wanted the park in the direction of Cape Vidal to lie there on the beach, sail and bray. A much more fun way to spend Easter than such a stupid residential boulevard, right?
The landscape is very reminiscent of the tropics at least the areas I know (Panama and Java). A huge variety of trees that grow almost impermeable close to each other, interspersed with soaking wet grasslands. Our road was even flooded although not very deep. Along the way we came across a rhino.
Yesterday we heard that Michael, Lisa’s brother, had suddenly been given 2 weeks off and had flown directly to Cape Town. Of course we want to see him for a while so we are now driving westwards over the N2 towards Cape Town. That’s a long drive so our first stop is in Uvongo on the southeast coast of Kwazulu Natal. Nice campsite, good enough for tonight. Tomorrow we will continue on the N2 through the former home countries Ciskei and Transkei towards Graaff Reinet where we hope to meet Lisa’s old colleague.
We have a campsite, at 1500 m altitude according to my watch, near the town of Elliot which is just south of Lesotho. We drove about 450 km on the N2 and R56 today and what stories we can tell. This is really the East- Cape and this is where the Xhosas, Mandela’s tribe, live. He was born nearby.
The area is beautiful with beautiful hills and valleys over which the road has been laid out. The houses along the road have a lot of land and are fairly large. If you come to the villages or cities, it is completely different. Left and right everything is displayed on the street, a little further from the street are shopping centers, fairly modern and along the road, 2-3 rows thick are the taxi vans. The through traffic has to cram through it over pitly bad asphalt with deep holes. Pedestrians really walk everywhere. Unbelievable what a mess they make of it!
Tomorrow towards Graaff Reinet, about 450 km away
It is now April 3 and we have arrived in Graaff Reinet and are at a campsite in the middle of the village. We have now visited Lisa’s colleague and we are going to have breakfast with her tomorrow. Well and where are we going tomorrow?
Mooi, man!