So it has been a busy time since you last heard from me! Our 2 day adventure tour was great! It was us, plus 2 canadian girls, who have been in Tanzania for 4months teaching human rights for people with AIDS, or something. Our guide (Alfred!) picked us up from Durban and we drove about 3hours to a place in the mountains called Underberg. We stayed at a horse ranch here, and in the morning went horseriding from there up some mountains. It was beautiful, and totally silent apart from the horses, and the occasional squeal as our horses got ideas of their own!
this is my horse, and a bit of an idea of the scenery:
We had lunch at a restaurant, then drove into the National Park area and went on a short hike. Again, very beautiful, and we went into a small cave behind a waterfall to look at some bushman paintings. Apparently they're really old and impressive and important, but to be honest they just looked like some orange blobs to me!
The next day we went for a 4x4 drive (driver's name: Ernest!) up the Suni Pass. Absolutely amazing mountain views the whole time! Really really amazing. Photos don't do it justice - it was so awesome!
The road was windy windy all up the mountain, and right on the edge, and very rocky and bumpy (Ernest called it the 'African massage'). Occasionally spotted baboons or antelope-type things. We went through the SA border control, and then had 8km of no-man's-land before the Lesotho border! Lesotho is right at the top of the Suni Pass, and we went to a village there, and into a lady's traditional house to learn a bit about the Basotho culture. We also tried some home-brewed beer (awful) and fresh-baked bread (amazing).
Then we went to the highest pub in Africa (2874m) for lunch, and a local Lesotho beer! Incredible views of the valley we had just climbed.
Back down the pass we headed back towards Durban, although Caroline and I actually got dropped in a place called Hillcrest, where we met David and Jean (and their 10month old grandson Noah). They are a couple that Caroline's friend stayed with when he was in South Africa. They are white Rhodesian, David was in the Pretoria SAS, Jean was a nurse, and they now run a Christian kid's outdoor activity camp charity, as well as a special needs school. They have their youngest daughter (19) still at home, and currently 2 guys from the UK staying at their house too. We stayed with them Sat and Sunday night, and just had a lovely relaxing couple of days, chilling out, eating good food, and chatting about our research, nursing stories, and South African politics, wars and history!
On Monday we got a lift to Durban with Meg (the daughter) who had finished her exams (occupational therapy) and was going into Durban with her friends to celebrate. We went to a sushi restaurant with them and had a nice meal, before going to our backpackers.
Yesterday we got the local bus to an Indian market (every single person we asked directions from or anything told us to watch our bags, so we were a bit scared!) and had a nice time wandering around the stalls there, buying a couple of bits. We then were walking along the street and i decided to get an icecream. An elderly Indian couple were running the stand, and asked where we were from. When we said England, they said their niece is a doctor there. When they discovered that's what we're going to be doing, they proceeded to give Caroline an icecream for free! (even though she didn't want one!) We then asked directions from them to a museum we were heading to and the nice icecream man walked us part of the way there, chatting away! We eventually found the museum - an apartheid museum looking at social history of Durban and some ANC activist people etc. Interesting. After lunch we walked to the beach and walked along, before getting a taxi back and making dinner.
Today we flew to Cape Town (cheaper than getting the bus!). Everyone has been telling us how cold it would be here, but it's actually really hot today! We found our backpackers and went exploring around the area - it's very central, and Cape Town seems safer than Durban. We found a cool sidestreet with little market stalls, and we had lunch. Wandered around some souvenir markets, which was nice. We soon got annoyed with all the sellers saying 'hello ladies!', 'look at this!', 'i'll give you special price!' though! Found a food shop to get some bits, then headed to the internet cafe!
In other news, I have a cold. I know - who goes to Africa and gets a cold?!
We have 2 weeks here in Cape Town - going to do things like Table Mountain and Robben Island etc, then we are flying to Zambia for about 5 days before we come home.
I'll hopefully do another update sooner than this past time!
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