brandt: Country Livin'

We decided to bag our plane tickets and rent a car to drive from Cape Town to Durban with a couple girls from Norway who we met at the backpackers hostel. They are both really cool and fun to travel with. Couldn't have chosen a better group to drive across the country with. Our first stop was in Hermanus where we watched some whales. A lot of the country side looks similar to Ireland or some European country with all the large rocky hills and mountain ranges. They do have a decent amount of horses, cows and sheep roaming the hills.

We spent the first night in the car parked on the beach since we started out a little lost and uncertain of our destination that night (they have no signs in South Africa).

Day two we drove to an ostrich farm where we were able to ride an ostrich. Bryson had one run him into a wall, then throw him. The one I was on threw me as well and to top it off he decided to step on the side of my knee. We went to Congo Caves where with the typical stalagmites and stalagtites. The caverns were massive! They once had an indigenous group of Africans living in the first cavity. We arrived in Mossel Bay for the night.

Day three we woke up and decided we wanted to jump off a 15 meter bridge we came across. It was into some disgusting redish/brownish river that leads into the ocean. Afterwards we found an amazing private beach to spend a couple hours with a castle on the cliffside which is now an expensive hotel. The drive off to get there starts on a dirt road past a squatters camp and continues for some time and eventually opens up to a view of the ocean with the largest homes I've seen in South Africa so far. You would never know such a place existed without a little help from locals. We stopped at a nice winery for some lunch that was delicious and reasonably priced. On our way to Port Elizabeth we drove over this enormous bridge called, Bloukrans Bridge and saw signs for the "World's Largest Bungee" so of course we had to stop and jump! What an amazing rush of liberation and freedom. On one side it overlooked the ocean while large lush green hills were on the opposite while I wide river lay beneath us. Finished the night with some old fashion bowling but being in Africa we played bare foot.

Day four, we mostly spent driving. The roads are completely torn up along the way so we hit a few pot holes and bumps along the way and ended up cracking or transmission casing. We continued driving until we reached our destination an hour later and found a local mechanic to patch it up with putty for the time being.

Day five while waiting for our car to get fixed we spent a few hours at yet another awesome beach in Coffee Bay. The water is getting warmer the closer we get to Durban. While driving I passed another vehicle in a no pass zone and found myself bribing a police officer to not take me to jail for the night. Cost me 210 Rand. Finally made it to Durban.

Our awesome crew