After we left the berry farm in Swellendam, we moved to a vineyard in Stellenbosch. (I know, we were really roughing it in South Africa.)
Our drive along the Garden Route and through the Western Cape had been a constant stream of activity (there were beaches to explore and ostriches to ride!), and we were looking forward to a few leisurely days in Stellenbosch in the Cape Winelands. We splurged for three nights at a hotel located on a vineyard – in a room with a view overlooking the surrounding hills, no less.1
After we left Lesotho, we made our way to the Garden Route, a string of mostly seaside towns along the southern section of South Africa’s Indian Ocean coast, and one of the country’s most famous tourist trails.1 The Garden Route officially stretches around 300 kilometers from Mossel Bay to just beyond Plettenberg Bay, and is dotted with dramatic scenery, countless beaches, and more opportunities to engage in adventure tourism than anyone could possibly utilize. We took a relaxed approach to the Garden Route, taking in the scenery as we drove along and stopping at various points and towns along the way, mostly eschewing the adventure tourism.2
Iconic Garden Route: Plettenberg Bay (as viewed through an Instagram filter).
On Easter Sunday, we disassembled our little camp in the Drakensberg and drove to Ficksburg, a town in South Africa’s Free State province on the border of Lesotho. The drive was beautiful, skirting around the Drakensberg mountains and right through Golden Gate Highlands National Park.
Golden Gate Highlands National Park
After a night spent luxuriating in a warm, spacious hotel room (so different from our tent!), we crossed into the Kingdom of Lesotho, a landlocked country that is completely surrounded by South Africa.1 Lesotho’s geography is dominated by mountains – its lowest point lies at the lofty elevation of 1,400 meters (4,593 feet). 2
Welcome to Lesotho!
Our first stop was in Maseru, Lesotho’s capital and largest city. (More accurately, our first stop was at the Pick n Pay in Maseru, where we grabbed some lunch supplies to make a picnic in our car in the parking lot. The glamorous life of travel here, folks.) Maseru isn’t large on attractions, and we didn’t spend long in the city. Continue reading Hiking & Pony Trekking in the Kingdom of Lesotho→
April is full of South African holidays,1 and all parties (from our guidebooks and the internet, to guesthouse hosts and kindly strangers) warned us to book our accommodation during and around these dates well in advance.
We intended to follow this advice (honest, we did), but we have been enjoying planning our African adventure as we go, oftentimes only booking a hotel room an hour or two before arrival. Not having everything planned out allows us the freedom to stay longer in places that are unexpectedly amazing, duck out earlier than planned if there’s bad weather or the area turns out to be overly touristy, and make use of advice from fellow travelers we meet along the way.
And it’s also how we found ourselves heading for the Drakensberg,2 an UNESCO World Heritage site and, more importantly, a popular vacation destination, on the Thursday before the long Easter weekend without any accommodation arranged.
Understandably popular location for the long weekend.
To be honest, I wasn’t that amped about visiting Jo’burg. It has something of a rough reputation. As someone who lived in New York for five years and Chicago (which has more than its share of gun violence) for three years before that, however, I always take breathless warnings about big city crime with a grain of salt. I’ve found that if you are smart about where you are going, discrete with your valuables, and aware of your surroundings, you’re generally going to be fine.
Marc atop the ramparts at the Old Fort prison complex, with the Hillbrow Tower in the background.
When we arrived in Maputo, we had a vague idea that we could reach Tofo and Vilankulo “by bus,” but we did not have the details down. The process seemed fuzzy at times, and our best information came from reading the accounts – sometimes several years old – of other travelers. In the hope that it might help others plan their travel through southern Mozambique, here is how we made the journey:
Maputo to Tofo.As we have mentioned before, we took the Fatima’s Backpackers shuttle from Maputo to Tofo. Although Fatima’s does not actually operate the shuttle, it contracts with a local minibus operator to make the journey directly (albeit not nonstop) to Tofo. The shuttle leaves from Fatima’s Backpackers in Maputo around 5:00 a.m.1 and arrives at Fatima’s Nest in Tofo sometime in the early afternoon. (After leaving Fatima’s, the shuttle goes to the Maputo bus station to pick up more passengers before departing hopefully an hour or so later, and also stops a couple of times along the way at petrol stations for refueling, toilet breaks, and the purchase of refreshments.) The journey costs 700 mets per person, which is a decent price considering that taking the Fatima’s shuttle saves you the trouble of i) getting yourself to the bus station in Maputo – which was nowhere near where were staying, ii) locating, and then getting yourself and your baggage2 onto a bus heading to or through Maxixe, iii) taking the ferry across the bay to Inhambane, and iv) catching a chapa3 from Inhambane to Tofo.
Actually, mayonnaise is one of the only foods that I do not love. (Happily, this is a South African brand of drinkable yogurt that we purchased as a snack for the Maputo-Tofo journey.)
Somewhere around the three-quarters mark of our 11-hour flight from London to Johannesburg (the second of three flights), when I was tired, hungry, cold, and unable to remedy any of the aforementioned problems, I thought that we would never reach Mozambique and that we would be on that flight forever. (I may occasionally tend toward the dramatic.)
Happily, I was wrong, and we made it to Maputo, Mozambique this morning. We arrived tired and in desperate need of a shower, and, while we’ve each had a nap and a shower, I think I still need a good ten hours more sleep before I feel like a human again. (If this post rambles or is incoherent, now you know why.)
We left cold, snowy Chicago on Saturday afternoon for our three-part journey to Maputo. The first leg took us to London, where we lucked out and had a gorgeous day. It was sixty degrees and sunny, and so we wandered around the city, soaking up sunshine and admiring the springtime flowers. We ate samosas alongside the Thames and watched the London Eye spin, and met a former colleague of Marc’s for coffee and got a tour of her neighborhood.
London Eye & River Thames
We boarded the plane to Johannesburg exhausted and prepared for a nice long nap, but we ended up only sleeping minimally. (I got four hours, more than Marc.) Instead, we watched movie after movie (and, in my case, three episodes of Cheers, which I was delighted to find in the British Airways in-flight entertainment system) in the darkened cabin and lamented our inability to sleep.
Finally, that flight ended and, after some typical international transfer formalities, we boarded a plane to Maputo. The flight from Johannesburg to Maputo was short (basically just long enough to be served a tiny bagel sandwich and cheese danish). It seemed like we spent more time waiting in line for a visa at the Maputo airport than we did on the flight, but that’s probably just an exaggeration. (After all, no one was serving me cheese danishes to distract me while in line for the visa.)
Our friend picked us up at the airport and brought us home, leaving us with the all-important decision of what we should do first: nap or shower. Having done both, it may finally be time to pick up the guidebooks and decide what we are going to do now that we are here.
I almost can’t believe it, but TODAY IS THE DAY THAT WE LEAVE FOR AFRICA.
After months of dreaming, planning, and anticipation, it’s finally here. Our bags are (mostly) packed, and our farewell tour (which stretched from Manhattan to Brooklyn to Indianapolis to Champaign to Galesburg to Chicago) has concluded. (Thanks to everyone who came out to see us and/or sheltered us at various stops along the way! We love you all.) We’re just finishing up some last-minute details, and then, before you know it, we’ll be boarding the plane …
In just sixteen short days, we will be leaving for Africa. Please allow Jessie Spano to illustrate how I feel about all the things that we must accomplish between now and then:
Fairly accurate rendition of how I feel this morning | source unknown
The main chore standing between us and Africa is figuring out what to do with all of our stuff. You would be amazed at the amount of stuff we have managed to squirrel away in this one-bedroom apartment. We discovered stuff that we didn’t even know that we had, some of which was useful (an old iPhone plug underneath some shoes in our closet, score!), and some of it which was decidedly not (my pre-BAPCPA copy of the Bankruptcy Code that is helpful to exactly no one).
We devoted a large chunk of last weekend to sorting our stuff into six piles: take to Africa, store at our folks’ houses, sell, donate, give to friends, and throw away. There were a few minor disagreements (I didn’t think we needed to retain free hotel shampoos, Marc didn’t think we needed to keep the Twilight books),1 but we managed to sort a good percentage of our stuff.
But you know how, when you’re cleaning, things get worse before they get better? That’s the state that we’re living in right now. It’s time to execute on the piles: carrying the sacks of give-away stuff to Goodwill, boxing up our books, selling our remaining furniture.
We’ve got a lot of work ahead of us. I think we’re going to need a lot of coffee, and to keep our eyes on the prize:
1 Admittedly, Marc is probably right on both counts. Miniature items from hotels are probably useful for traveling, and I think it goes without saying that reading Stephenie Meyer’s saga about sparkling vampires once is more than enough.
In less than a month, we will be in Africa. I know, I kind of can’t believe it myself. Our itinerary is far from set (note the conspicuous absence of any “Our Itinerary” posts or pages), but we’ve drawn a fuzzy, imaginary line through Southern and Eastern Africa in a close approximation of a Cape Town-to-Cairo trek.
One of the questions we are most frequently asked (besides “Have you gotten all your vaccinations?”) is how we chose Africa.
The answer: not easily. When we first began seriously considering the idea of taking a career break to travel, we didn’t have anywhere in particular in mind. When friends would ask where we were going, we would shrug and respond, “Anywhere but here.” (Such responses were usually given on days when the Q train was running with delays, we couldn’t find anywhere to eat that didn’t have an hour wait, and/or some sort of cartoon character had impeded my path through Times Square to work.)
Beyond not knowing where we would go, we didn’t know how to go about making the decision. In the past, our destinations have been driven largely by how long we have to get away and the cost of the plane ticket to get there (see our trips to Guatemala in 2008 and Istanbul in 2013). Now, with nothing but time and the price mitigated by the length of our intended stay, we found ourselves unable to make a decision.Continue reading Anywhere But Here: How We Chose Africa→
