Our final country

We’re down to our final country – South Africa; and last few days. But let’s back-track for a week or 2, and it will take us back to Maputo, Swaziland, and even Lesotho for some.

Maputo is the capital of Mozambique and we spent a day and a night in this interesting city. Patisseries, Pizza restaurants, espressos all bring home the European influences, along with Portuguese being spoken more commonly than English. The city has a great vibe to it with this merge of African and European cultures and beautiful old buildings in the narrow one-way streets that surround the busier weight-restricted streets (sorry- probably too much info – you notice these things when you’re in a truck. I probably also shouldn’t mention that some of us get excited when you find a shop or go into a supermarket that sells new dustbins, brooms, tupperware, fancy cheese and/or other truck accessories and delicacies...).

Moving on, we left Mozambique and spent almost a week in Swaziland. Shewula Mountain camp was our first stop, with awesome views camping on a cliff down to the farmland below and watching the sugar-cane fires burning in the night. Some people paid a visit to the local sangoma – a traditional healer or ‘witch-doctor’, to learn a bit about how he operates, so to speak. The women at the camp also prepared for us a wonderful local meal including peanut chicken and spinach dishes. Mmmm, wish I had that recipe.

Sangoma

Our next stop was Mlilwane Nature Reserve. While it’s not a ‘big-5’ park as such, what was nice about Mlilwane is that you are free to walk around the reserve. No hectically dangerous animals – if you stay away from the hippos and crocs, so you can be out walking/cycling/horse-riding and encounter antelope en-route.

Bob and a friendly Nyala

Swaziland is also pretty well-known for their arts and crafts. There are quite a few projects that encourage recycling, making jewellery out of glass, weaving, candle making, and lots of beadwork. We visited a couple of these craft- centres in the Ezulwini valley, while Paul and Zoe opted for the more adventurous activity of caving.

Here was also where we had to say good-bye to faithful Athena. South Africa has implemented new laws this year that no longer allow foreign-registered vehicles to commercially carry tourists in this country. Poor old Athena is British (and can’t help it) so we jumped ship for our last couple of weeks in SA, but look forward to picking up Athena (or the other way round) on our way back up.

South Africa – big freeways, petrol stations with smart toilets (and toilet paper) and Steers burgers, supermarkets with all the products you want, and more, cheap wine, drinkable tap water, ATMs everywhere. These are just some of the things that you notice here, coming from other African countries.

St. Lucia wetlands provided some more mostly-antelope spotting and great views and walks on a pretty untouched coastline. It was also Nick and Di’s last night with us on tour, as we left them hitch-hiking home the next day – they have work they had to get back to urgently, and have been trying to get home to SA for 10 years... They overtook us though and were spotted in Durban before we got there!

Di and Nick heading home

From here we headed inland, to the southern Drakensberg, the largest mountain range in South Africa. A fantastic setting for camping, with walks on your doorstep to waterfalls and natural pools to swim in. But the big draw card here this time was a trip up the Sani Pass, the steepest mountain pass in South Africa, only accessible with 4x4, and a different country, Lesotho, at the top. Our 14^th country on this trip. It was a great day out – fantastic scenery, a bit of eland-spotting, some hectic hair-pin bends, with ice on the side of the road. At about 2800m above sea-level, Lesotho is pretty cold. Odyssey in Africa found snow! We had the opportunity to go inside one of the huts in a village and taste the locally-brewed beer and some freshly baked bread, and hear a little about life in Lesotho. And then there was a visit to what claims to be the highest pub in Africa. The gluwein was great, the pub-visit too short.

Sani Pass border control

Lesotho flag

Nice t-shirts Jon and Claire

Welcome to Lesotho

High altitude living

Friendly and welcoming

Africa's highest road?

Glenn

Not a truck road...

Switchbacks galore

Glenn and Bob

Local dress, protection against the cold and high altitude sun

Local village

Glenn and Kaye

Cheers!

A cold early start (neither of which we’re used to anymore) took us out of KwaZulu Natal, into the Eastern Cape and down to the Wild Coast. A visit to the Nelson Mandela Museum in Mthatha for a dose of South African history, and as a slight detour on our route (and because we needed a place to stay for the night), we headed down a windy road to Coffee Bay. And what a windfall – definitely one of the biggest bargains of the trip, and a really really nice surprise. In the small settlement that is Coffee Bay, we ended up at the Coffee Shack, a backpackers right on the waters edge of a lagoon and the sea. Apart from a welcome drink, Sunday night just happened to be free dinner for all, and it was an awesome potjie and home-made bread – even Glenn was defeated.

From there we headed further down the Wild Coast to Cintsa, another beautiful lagoon and beach. And that’s where we are now. All of a sudden the 134 days are almost done and Cairo seems an age ago. No doubt a few parties and celebrations and reminiscing in the next week as we follow the Garden Route into Cape Town. See you there.