In the second week of our holiday from school we made our way back towards Grahamstown along the Garden Route, which runs along the southern coast of South Africa between Cape Town and Port Elizabeth. Through our travels we stopped in Mossel Bay, Wilderness, Knysna, and Tsitsikamma. Throughout our travels on the Baz Bus (a door-to-door bus for backpackers in South Africa) and stays in several backpackers lodges we met a bunch of interesting people from all over the world. Though we didn’t meet too many South Africans, it was totally interesting to meet people from the US, Argentina, South Korea, Germany, Sweden, England, France, and probably a couple other places that I’ve forgotten. There were some people traveling solo, some in groups, some for two weeks, some for two years, some just for fun, and some for research. At one point in Tsitsikamma we were playing a game of pick-up barefoot soccer outside our backpackers lodge. There were four people from the US, two guys from Argentina, and two guys from Germany playing in a mixed four-on-four game. It was pretty cool and international.
The outdoorsy adventures included beaches, hiking, more hiking, waterfall rock jumping (an incredibly rush…Amazing!), kayaking, and mountain biking. There are some incredibly beautiful landscapes in South Africa and I have been totally blessed and fortunate to have the opportunity to explore some of them. One cool story from the mountain biking…PJ and I were nearing the end of our 22km biking adventure around some beautiful trails and mountains in the Tsitsikamma area (so fun!) when we ran into some baboons. At first we just thought it was a couple of them, but then we realized that 6 or 7 of them were scattered across the path ahead of us blocking our way through. And then we noticed that there were probably 8 or 9 more in the woods on our left. They were eyeing us pretty suspiciously and started to make some really loud, awkward, and aggressive yells. So here we were, in the middle of nowhere in the mountainous woods along the southern coast of South Africa, stopped dead in our tracks by a whole bunch of baboons. It was pretty wild. We stayed basically still for about 20 minutes, after which they had all gone into the woods far enough away from the trail that we weren’t too worried. Somewhat scary at the time but really funny looking back. Overall I’d say the two week adventure was a success. I met a lot of diverse and interesting people, learned more about the social conditions in different parts of South Africa, saw a bunch of cool sights, had some fun outdoors adventures, and traveled with a great group of people. I think in future endeavors I may try to find the insider’s perspective on exploring South Africa (I don’t exactly know what that means, but we’ll see) but this was a really solid trip.
The outdoorsy adventures included beaches, hiking, more hiking, waterfall rock jumping (an incredibly rush…Amazing!), kayaking, and mountain biking. There are some incredibly beautiful landscapes in South Africa and I have been totally blessed and fortunate to have the opportunity to explore some of them. One cool story from the mountain biking…PJ and I were nearing the end of our 22km biking adventure around some beautiful trails and mountains in the Tsitsikamma area (so fun!) when we ran into some baboons. At first we just thought it was a couple of them, but then we realized that 6 or 7 of them were scattered across the path ahead of us blocking our way through. And then we noticed that there were probably 8 or 9 more in the woods on our left. They were eyeing us pretty suspiciously and started to make some really loud, awkward, and aggressive yells. So here we were, in the middle of nowhere in the mountainous woods along the southern coast of South Africa, stopped dead in our tracks by a whole bunch of baboons. It was pretty wild. We stayed basically still for about 20 minutes, after which they had all gone into the woods far enough away from the trail that we weren’t too worried. Somewhat scary at the time but really funny looking back. Overall I’d say the two week adventure was a success. I met a lot of diverse and interesting people, learned more about the social conditions in different parts of South Africa, saw a bunch of cool sights, had some fun outdoors adventures, and traveled with a great group of people. I think in future endeavors I may try to find the insider’s perspective on exploring South Africa (I don’t exactly know what that means, but we’ll see) but this was a really solid trip.
