Month: June 2013

Lesotho

Lesotho, The Mountain Kingdom

Joel

Had a free day to pursue local activities around our ecotourism resort in Lesotho. It is a very cool place where the locals all contribute and benefit from the success of the enterprise. I signed up for a bit of mountain biking and a walking tour of the village nearby. Some of my fellow travellers opted for a bit of horseback riding on the same trails we mountain bikes on.

Feeling a bit overly confident, I signed up to do a 25km ride – even though I was nursing a bit of a cold I picked up a few days ago. It was intended that we finish the ride within 3 hours, but our guide decided to cut it at about 15kms because we weren’t peddling fast enough. I was keeping up okay, but some of my fellow travellers kept falling behind forcing us to wait. Honest, it wasn’t me! I was kind of relived to cut it at 15kms, anyway, because of my cold and the very hilly terrain.

It was a beautiful ride around the rim of a canyon that ran through the valley where our resort was located. It started out as nice single track with low scrub and ended up on dirt roads. About 4/5’s of the way through it I ended up with a flat tire. Our guide forgot to bring a spare tube so he loaned me his bike and rode the cycle I was using back to the resort – stopping every so often to refill the deflating tire. His bike was MUCH nicer than the one I was originally riding and much more like my bike back home, so the last stretch was a lot easier for me!

After lunch we took a walking tour around the village to see how things were done in traditional Lesotho culture. The people are extremely poor, but most are very friendly. We visited a small fruit and vegetable shop, a beer making enterprise (where we taste-tested their local brew), a craft shop where crafts were made by locals with AIDS to raise money for medical care and testing, and finally to a museum of their historic culture. Our guide grew up in the village and knew all 600 names of the locals that lived there – because you are expected to know and greet everyone you meet if you live there. She was dressed very nicely from used clothes donated by tourists who have stayed at the resort.

For dinner we were invited to one of the local homes for a traditional Lesotho meal. The cook was just a local villager who had been recommended by the ecotourism resort and money was paid by our tour group to give support to local communities. He came to the resort to escort us and our guides through the pitch black village (which has no electricity) to his home to feed us. We sat in a room which served as a bedroom / lounge for his family who were dispersed among several local huts. We sat on chairs and a couch and ate by a single gas lamp in the corner of the room.

The food was very nice and consisted of barbecued chicken, spinach, and pap – a corn meal based food mixture with mashed potato consistency. Corn meal based foods are far more commonly eaten here than wheat or oat based foods. On our return walk to our resort, we had the chance to see the Milky Way amongst beautiful bright stars that had no interference from any man made light all the way to the horizons.

Lesotho, South Africa

Another Day, Another Country

Joel

We drove through a national park full of springbok, zebras, and some leopards on our way into the mountain kingdom of Lesotho. The drive was beautiful and appeared similar to desert areas of Utah in the southwestern U.S. Lesotho is a very poor country with few resources other than water and some diamond mining. The border crossing was much busier than the two we encountered going into Swaziland and Mozambique due to the fact that we were arriving in the capital of the country, Maseru.

Inside, the place seemed poorer than other countries we have visited. Not sure about Mozambique though since I only saw a sliver of it. In Lesotho the landscape was barren and void of much agriculture. It appeared as though some people were scavenging through harvested fields of corn to find any loose ears that may have been left behind. We drove for about an hour before reaching our resort at the end of a long bumpy dirt road.

The resort is very nice and full of thatched roofed cottages with private bathrooms. There are no ceilings. When you look up from your bed you just see the underside of the thatched roof. There is no electricity except for what is generated between the hours of 5pm and 9:30pm. It will be a very cold sub-freezing night, but I do, thankfully, have my very warm sleeping bag with me.

Every evening the resort is entertained by a few local African bands. There were two that performed tonight: a choir and a traditional African music band that played on homemade instruments. I missed the choir, unfortunately, but the band was great and very enjoyable. It was great to hear their homemade instruments and see their unique dances while that sang in the local Lesotho language.

South Africa

Drakensberg Amphitheater Hike

Joel

We had two days in our spectacular digs for the first time on this tour, so with a full day free I signed up for an all day hike along the crest of the cliffs representing the Drakensberg Amphitheater. Normally people take several days to hike the whole way up and camp overnight on top, but our hostel was offering a single day version in which they drive you most of the way up. There were about 15 of us in total, including several Germans, Canadians, Americans, and Australians.

That being said, it was still a pretty gruelling hike! The elevation climbed about 800 meters along switchback trails that just skirted the edges of very steep hills and cliffs. The views were amazing and there was a few inches of snow around from that storm we encountered while in Durban. Our route was somewhat unconventional because it suddenly left the trail to make a scramble up a rocky ravine for a 250 meter incline.

At the top of the scramble was a lunch spot where we could sit with our legs dangling over the edge at 3100 meters above sea level and enjoy the views while we nibbled away. After lunch we hiked along the rim for a little while until we got to the source of and top of the first the waterfall and took another break. Then it was time to hike back across the plateau to get to the side of the mountain we initially hiked up on.

The descent was very scary because in involved climbing down a 30 meter and another 50 meter chain ladder down the side of a cliff. We were warned about this so I knew to expect it. I just focused on each rung in front of me and didn’t dare look down or up and I finally made it to the bottom of both ladders.

This was the route most hikers take up to the top. We encountered about 27 students and their university lecturers who were ascending the same ladders with full packs! They were all studying emergency rescue techniques as part of their university degree and were planning to camp up in the freezing cold mountains for three nights.

Once at the bottom of the ladders, we found our original trail and followed it back to the van. On the long drive back to the hostel, we may well have seen our first leopard crossing the road. On one long straight stretch that dipped down to a river, we saw a pair of red eyes on a long low body slowly cross the road. By the time we got up to it it had disappeared into the tall grasses.

South Africa

Drakensberg Amphitheater

Joel

We left Durban bright and early to get to another spectacular UNESCO World Heritage Site near the border of the mountain kingdom of Lesotho. This was a really spectacular place known as The Drakensberg Amphitheatre because the crest of the mountain cliffs surround you down in the valley. Our hostel was really quite lavish with pool, sauna, jacuzzi, and individual accommodation units private kitchens and baths that were built out of clay and sticks with great views of the mountains and surrounding valley.

The day we arrived we headed up to one section of the national park there where there is a series of waterfalls descending from the mountains. It was a pretty nice little walk, but nothing overly strenuous.

Durban, South Africa

Deserted Durban

Joel

We said goodbye to our host family early in the morning so we could get ourselves into the coastal city of Durban and spend the day. This was officially the last day of the first part of our tour, and a few of our fellow travellers were splitting off for other pursuits or heading home from here.

While the weather was very warm and sunny and beach-like yesterday, today was much colder, cloudy, and very windy. Not a great day to be on a beach! While Durban is considered the beach capital of South Africa, its beaches were deserted today. It appeared as though it might be a nice place in summer with long bike paths, lots of piers, surfing lessons, sailing, and other activities about.

We stayed in a funky hostel just a few blocks from the beach and a few blocks on the other side from the port. It was built out of an old warehouse and had lots of big open communal areas with rooms on the sides.

A group of us went traipsing off to explore the city and find a decent cafe for some coffee. I found one in a touristy mall near our hostel, but after that it was endless walking to find anything worth stopping in for. After blocks and blocks of walking, we finally ended up at a seafood restaurant near the marina and had some lunch – giving us a chance to warm up a bit.

That evening we had a farewell dinner for our departing travellers at a restaurant near an aquarium not far from our hostel. It was deserted and quite cold, obviously built for the summer months. I never bothered to take off my coat the whole time I was there. I had a lamb stew that was full of sharp bones I had to keep picking out. Not the best meal I’ve had, but everyone else seemed happy with theirs.

Durban, South Africa

This Zulu Life

Joel

Today we made a beeline south along the coast and up into a beautiful area northwest of Durban, South Africa’s second largest city. The area we went to is called Botha’s Hill and it was located among a thousand other hills (allegedly) known as “The Valley of A Thousand Hills”. Most of the region seemed to be occupied by Zulus and the place we went to that hosted us for the day was an organisation meant to introduce outsiders to Zulu life. Our tour even included a homestay overnight with a local Zulu family.

After arriving around mid-day, our first activity was lunch as a local restaurant. As with all our visits throughout the day, we walked through the neighbourhood up and down hills and in and out dirt paths to get from place to place. Everything we did was meant to be a real Zulu experience, and this included the food that we ate. I have had many good experiences eating South African food in years past so there weren’t too many surprises for me. Lunch was indeed very tasty and everyone I ate with seemed to enjoy it. There was a seasoned beef stew, heavy bread, and lots of vegetable dishes.

Afterwards we walked down to a traditional Zulu healer for what turned out to be a somewhat disappointing photo-op. She rocked up a bit late, wearing her traditional clothing, and then invited us into her hut. The hut was round with a corrugated steel roof, like a lot of traditional Zulu structures. On one side she had a collection of plants and other concoctions to use in her therapies. None of our Zulu guides seemed to believe in any of it, but it was interesting to see. She did burn a few dried plants at the beginning of our meeting but never really performed any kind of demonstration for us or explain much after that. Instead she seemed most keen on testing our knowledge of the Zulu language for which we all had cheat sheets. My fellow travellers got somewhat of a kick out of the fact that she claimed she could cure colds and flu while her daughter sat sick with the flu right next to her.

After the medical visit, we walked up to the top of a hill with a pretty spectacular view over a part of the valley of a thousand hills to hear some Zulu music and watch and participate in some Zulu dancing. Along the way we stopped in a local shop for snacks and a chance to see how typical local life was. It was a very unseasonably warm day smack dab in the middle of winter here, so we were enjoying being outdoors very much. Once at the dance place, we were initially invited inside a hut to see how married Zulus dressed in traditional clothing with various animal skins, feathers, beads, etc. This included dress up time for a few of us. Then we went outside to watch some of the local children perform some dance routines for us.

The setting was really quite spectacular with a great view overlooking the valley of a thousand hills and the light just starting to head down for the night and give off a beautiful golden glow. The kids were very cute and ranged in age from about 4 or 5 all the way up to older teenagers. This was the part of the day that everyone seemed to enjoy the most. Of course, we were all individually invited to dance with the group and make fools of ourselves trying to get our feet up above our heads (a common Zulu dance move). We thought the dancing was finished when all of the sudden an adult dancer showed up out of nowhere to step through his moves. Did he oversleep? Not sure, but I think he was meant to be there a lot earlier.

After the dancing we continued walking through the neighbourhood to get to a children’s orphanage. This place was seriously depressing! I would try smiling and joking around with the kids a bit but none of them seemed to have any capability of smiling or having fun. They gave us a dry tour through their house room by room and all you could see was that there was no joy anywhere. Some of my fellow travellers suggested that creative activities should be done with the children instead of just going their to invade their privacy and look at them like animals in a zoo – which is probably a good idea.

I was told the children were there primarily due to their parents dying from AIDS or due to being abused by alcoholic relatives. Overall, the neighbourhood was very poor and allegedly quite dangerous. One two separate occasions while walking between stopping points the guy who lived in the neighbourhood and was touring us around made mention of the fact that a ‘hijack’ (robbery?) could happen at any time and we should really all try sticking together as a tight group. It was a little unnerving.

Once we finished our Zulu neighbourhood tour, which was a good, important experience even though such an idea may not work its way into too many tourism brochures, we headed to our host family’s home for our overnight stay. Like everyone else we had encountered in the neighbourhood so far, our host family was very warm and friendly and eager to learn as much from us as we were to learn from them. Like virtually all houses in the neighbourhood, it was quite poor. Although it had a roof, it lacked a ceiling. We were lucky to be there on a nice warm day, but you got the impression it would be a very cold or very hot place on other not-so-pleasant days. It also lacked any kind of running water – other than a single tap back behind the house. That meant toilets had to have water scooped into them to flush and dishes had to have their dishwater brought in and heated up before they could be cleaned.

We slept on mattresses laid out on the floor, but not before they served up a big Zulu feast and performed some singing and dancing for us. They were very friendly and very generous about everything while we were there, insisting that we all think of their home as our own. It always amazes me how some of the poorest people you meet can be the most generous!

Saint Lucia, South Africa

Hippos and Crocs

Joel

It was time to say goodbye to Mozambique and start heading south back into South Africa and along the coast. In most cases I’m finding us moving on a bit too quickly, but then again, there is a lot more to see and not much time. The beach and neighbouring camp in Mozambique where we stayed was really very beautiful and the swimming was perfect, temperature-wise, even though we’re in the middle of winter here. Nevertheless, it was time to venture south again, along the same track we drove up on from the South African border.

Instead of giving us the the rusty old pickup truck that we had to cram into last time, we were given a big military-type all terrain vehicle that looked like it didn’t even have to rely on roads of any kind to get around. They threw our gear in another trailer on the back of it and we all piled into a caged back area to sit on milk crates. I’m not sure which drive was the more comfortable of the two, north or south, but I at least felt more safe and secure in this one.

The border crossing was painless. I can now say I’ve visited South Africa 3 times – even though I have only been here a week! We transferred all of our gear back into our normal two-wheel drive vehicle (which was left at the border) and made the 4 hour drive south to Africa’s largest estuary, Saint Lucia, where we pitched our tents behind a local hostel.

The Saint Lucia Estuary is famous for its population of crocodiles and hippopotamuses, but it also has many of the other animals we’ve been seeing and looking for like leopards, buffalo, and a wide variety of birds. We all went out for a bit of local seafood lunch and then headed out on a 2 hour hippo spotting tour just before sunset.

Evidentially it is common for the hippos to roam through town at night to graze for food. They are nocturnal, hide underwater to keep cool during the day, and are responsible for the deaths of more humans than any other wild animal in Africa. Hopefully we’ll be okay sleeping outside it our tents!

The tour was nice and we did see a far few hippos, but it probably wasn’t quite as good as other river wildlife cruises I’ve done in Australia. We did see one crocodile and one buffalo, as well as several fish eagles – that look very similar to bald eagles.

At the moment the weather here is very unseasonably warm, which has been great. They are warning us that is all going to change, however, on Sunday when a big winter cold front moves through.

We might even see snow! But not until we move up into the mountains.

Mozambique

Mozambique Beach Camp

Joel

For the first time on this trip we were allowed to sleep in until 8am! Prior to this the latest we have been allowed to get up is 6am. That may not sound late, but considering that it is winter down here at the moment, it is still pitch black outside at 6am and not easy to wake up naturally.

Our guides made us our first hot breakfast of eggs and bacon as well. We really had nothing scheduled to do for the day, so we all took off to do what relaxing we enjoyed most. I had a bit of a walk on the beach and a snoop around some tide pools at low tide before going for a nice beautiful swim. It may officially be winter around here, but it sure doesn’t feel like it!

Around midday many of us took a walk out to the local ‘town’ for a bit of lunch and a look at some of the souvenir stalls set up. We chuckled at the big sign saying “Genuine Italian Pizza” on the way in, but decided to stop there for lunch since there was really nothing else. Imagine this town of about 10 shops on a sandy track in the middle of nowhere with a pizza joint on the corner. As it turned out, it was GREAT pizza and the owner did seem to be an Italian surfer, obviously setting up shop in the neighbourhood to surf locally and support his lifestyle.

During the afternoon I took a long walk up the endless beach to see what was around the bend – as one does. There were a smattering of nice looking vacation houses up on the hill overlooking the ocean for part of the way and then nothing but wilderness for a little while. Most vacationers here are purported to come from South Africa in their 4wd vehicles, packing the place out during certain times of the year. Overall my walk ended up covering about 7kms of perfect beach and I never did find where it ended. Along the way I took several swims in the perfectly warm water.

We had a traditional African barbecue for dinner with several very tasty African dishes and lots of grilled lamb and sausage. All cooked over log fire embers in the sand. It was very nice!

Mozambique, South Africa, Swaziland

Three Countries in a Few Hours

Joel

After a night of listening to a variety of big game animals making loud noises just over the fence from our campsite, we got up early (yet again) to pack and start making a move for Mozambique.

In order to get to Mozambique we had to drive through rural Swaziland for a while and pass back into South Africa briefly before we got to a useful border crossing. On the way down to South Africa we had a chance to see quite a bit of rural life in the Swaziland countryside. There were lots of school kids making their way to their village schools and lots of locals confusing our van for one of the taxi vans they use for public transportation between villages.

In theory we could have crossed straight into Mozambique from Swaziland, but it was quicker to drive back into South African for a while. Mozambique is a country still recuperating from over 20 years of civil war so much of the infrastructure is very poor and many roads are dirt – requiring 4wd vehicles. Because of this it didn’t make sense to just cross into Mozambique directly from Swaziland, but rather to ride as close to our destination as possible in South Africa, which has better roads.

Of course, this required that we make two border crossings in a single day – one back into South Africa and another into Mozambique. The South African crossing is the most modern and efficient of the three, but I was scrutinised when they found too many stamps in my passport. Sure enough, after flipping through every page, I was asked to present my Yellow Fever immunisation certificate due to my recent swing through South America.

We stopped for lunch in the last town in South Africa before arriving at the Mozambique border. The customs officials were much nicer than in Swaziland and even gave us all a steep ~50% discount for our required visas because we only planned to be here a few nights. US$30 instead of US$60.

The drive into the beach camp we stayed at from the border was very much an adventure in itself! We had to change vehicles at the border and shuffle all our gear over into a 4wd pickup truck with trailer because the road to the camp was little more than a very sandy track. It was a very slippery trip with lots of and swerving and dips and crests. At one point our driver gave up trying to get through a stretch and backed up and turned around to pursue another track in order to find enough momentum to punch through the slippery sand dunes.

The camp is very nice and right along a beautiful beach on the Indian Ocean. The water is a perfect temperature and great for swimming. Our tents were pitched just behind some dunes and under some nice shady trees. There are no lions or gibbons to worry about, but there still are snakes and scorpions to keep an eye out for we were warned.

We all enjoyed a beer down at the local pub, overlooking the beach, just before dinner. Every place we visit has a different selection of local beers to try, which keeps things interesting. We looked into snorkelling and diving options for the next day, but none sounded like very good value.

Swaziland

Swaziland

Joel

Yet another early rise to do one last game drive on our way out of the Kruger National Park so we could make our way into Swaziland and camp in another national park for the night. The border crossing guards were a bit grumpy with our tour guides when we got to the Swaziland border, but we but we all got in okay after our tour leaders were chastised for having the wrong paperwork. Oddly, they didn’t even look at our passports when they stamped them. They just wanted us to have a blank page open so they could stamp them more easily.

It became quickly apparent at the border that there is a very high AIDS rate throughout area. There were big piles of free condoms at the border gate and lots of billboards encouraging men to get tested and to stick with one woman throughout the country. Ironic considering the King of Swaziland has so many wives. A whopping 70% of people living in the area are considered to be carrying the AIDS virus.

Swaziland is surprisingly very beautiful with lots of green mountains and tropical agriculture including sugar cane, bananas, and pineapple. Surprisingly because it really seemed different from dryer, flatter South Africa. The cities seems modern enough with good facilities and modern shopping centres – at least compared to what I saw in South America.

Just before arrival in Swaziland I disclosed to my tour guides (and my group group) that I once had a Swazi wife and was especially curious to see the country. Of course, my guides made endless running jokes about me having to pay off my cattle debt (10-50 cows to the bride’s family depending on a number of circumstances).

We camped at one of the biggest national parks in Swaziland and went on game drive and walk in which was really quite different (being on foot) and quite good. It was a bit unnerving to be walking on the ground amongst baboons, zebras, giraffes, and other big animals. There were no lions though – they were kept in another area of the park. On the drive out to our walking area our ranger had to stop the safari jeep twice to clear a string of caterpillars crossing the road in single file without killing any.

After our walking safari we returned to our camp for dinner and an opportunity to be entertained with traditional Swazi singing and dancing by the national park staff. Lots of good high kicking that I first saw with a performance by Juluka in Philadelphia in the mid-eighties.

Overall the camp in the national park was a very nice place with a warm atmosphere. There was no electricity, but they put gas lamps for us out in the bathrooms which warmed the places up nicely during the cooler evening and first thing in the mornings.