Yes! I have been waiting AGES to write about backpacking the last few days I was in Africa. Since I will probably see you all very soon I will keep it brief, but just wanted to jot down some highlights of the trip :)
Leg 1: Cape Town to Johannesburg. Hello 18 hr bus ride with a bus company that many people warned us was the least reliable/ most likely to end in an accident. Don't they understand travel budges? You do what you have to lol. Had a blast spending 2 days in Jo'Burg with a friend of a friend who lives right in the CBD. Managed to see all the sites highlighted in my travel book in 48hrs! Highlights were the Apartheid museum and a bike tour of Soweto where we even visited a local shebeen and Nelson Mandela's house.
Leg 2: Johannesburg to Hazyview. Picked up a rental car on the way through Nelspruit (yay our little yaris!) and stayed at Bushpackers with the dorm to ourselves! Couldn't work the stove so made dinner with only a kettle and a pocket knife.
Leg 3: Hazyview to Kruger Park. Safari time! Drove ourselves through the park seeing zebras, springbok, giraffes, elephants and buffalos. Stayed at lower Sabie Rest Camp and did both a sunset and sunrise game drive where we saw rhinos, bushbabies, chamelions, rhinos and LIONS! Sooo worth getting up at 3am!
Leg 4: Kruger to Nelspruit. Seriously, one of the craziest towns ever. Everyone we met was absolutely insane, and not in a good way. As soon as we got to Old Vic Travelers lodge we were promptly greeted by a plethora of the most deranged looking cats and asked by one of the long term residents to go out to fetch her some milk and rolls (she doesn't eat the white ones, so don't get those). Seemed like crazy Dave the landlord was really the only semi normal one, ironically.
Leg 5: Nelspruit to Maputo. Bus about 2 hrs late, per usual. Also, our first border crossing experience of our travels. When we got to the border the bus attendant told us to run (literally) to get in line. Sprinting through the longest no-man’s land in 35 C weather looking very foreign = unideal. Managed getting onto the same bus and therefore not left at the border trying to get a visa = ideal.
Leg 6: Maputo to Tofo. Maputo is kind of intense, very big, very sketch. Had just enough time for a few hrs sleep at Fatima’s before catching the early shuttle to Tofo. Enter the beginning of our long love/hate relationship with public transit. You haven’t traveled in Africa until you have taken a 10+ hr minibus ride 8 people over capacity. So worth it though, Tofo’s beaches and chilled attitude was just what we were looking for. Also, I have decided that the Indian Ocean is my fav.
Leg 7: Tofo to Maputo. Minibus ride slightly shorter despite getting a flat tire and the engine overheating. Was able to see all 3 of the sites there are to see in Maputo and procured a tuk tuk ride to the bus rank for the following day.
Leg 8: Maputo to Manzini: Best minibus and most chill border crossing yet. Swaziland is absolutely beautiful, love being in the mountains and really liked our Legends backpackers we stayed at in Ezulwini Valley. Visited Mantenga Nature Reserve and the Royal Palace to witness the Incwala festival. So amazing!
Leg 9: Manzini to Durban. Got up at the crack of dawn just to wait at a taxi rank for 4 hours to fill up our bus, but still manged to get into Durban before sunset. When we called a taxi to get to our backpackers I got ridiculously excited for seatbelts again. Loved visiting the ISKCON temple, Indian market and being reunited with the ocean again. Disliked being locked out of our backpackers at night and being forced to hide behind trees and call armed response to get back in.
Leg 10: Durban to Cape Town. All of our travel fiasco’s happened in the very last day of travel. I suppose that’s what you get for 18 days of relatively hassle free travel across three countries. Ridiculously happy to make it back to a place where I understand where to get where I need to go. Bittersweet being back where it all started because all the people I associate with this place are gone now, but liked having time there to myself (getting bored was not a pretty sight though, involving too much coffee, solo dancing, fort making and pantry cleaning).
After all this, 27 hrs in transit back home seems like a piece of cake.
