Tasting the incredible South African hospitality

We are almost at the end of our Africa journey. Originally, we had the idea to travel for a full year, but we feel that nine months in total has given us a very full and rewarding experience already and that staying here another few months wouldn’t add up to this experience. We are longing to be home, to see you all and digest on all the beautiful events, images and stories we have in our heads. As the Dutch would say: ‘t is prima zo. But before writing the last blog post with reflections on our journey, let’s share some of the things we did in the past few weeks.

The bungee jump

Jumping off the highest bungee point in the world: it sounded epic. I had pictures of myself soaring through the air with a broad smile on my face, arms spread like an eagle before bouncing with pure delight, upside down, over the valley.

It was not like that.

I must admit, I was pretty frightened about the whole thing. I wanted to do it at least once in my life and especially now. The older we get, the more scary we tend to get. So I though If I don’t push myself now, I’ll probably never do it. And I wanted to see if I had the guts to do it.

Quite nervously I checked in at the reception where I was weighted. 59 kilo. The reception woman pulled out her Edding marker to write my weight in my hand (so that the cable men can calculate how long your bungee cord should be), but I quickly said “please write 60 kilos.” I mean, that one kilo doesn’t make the difference between life and death, but I was so nervous I thought it is better to be on the safe side and have a slightly shorter cord. By the way, it was the first time I lied my weight up instead of down 🙂

Then, getting to the jump spot was the first scary part. You walk not on the bridge, but under the bridge on a open, metal roster that bounces under your feet as you take your steps. When you look down, you gaze 206 meters beneath you. It gave me weak knees. I thought, shared anxiety is half anxiety, so I approached my fellow jumpers, two robust Germans. If they were also nervous? “Not at all, at home we work as windmill technicians. Just wanted to have some fun” and they walked on without blinking. The bastards. They could at least have pretended, for my sake.

The second scary part was getting the straps on. I had a mountain climbers thing around my butt and chest, and then the ankle straps. But the climbing strap thing was only for pulling me up afterwards. I thought. But to my horror the ankle straps were quite loose and I could slide my ankles up and down until it almost went over my heel. It didn’t feel safe at all, and I started to panic a bit. I kept repeating to the preppers ‘they’re not tight enough, they’re not tight enough, I’ll slip and die!!’ but they just kept repeating that I shouldn’t worry and shoved me to the ledge. ‘Madam, it’ll get tighter once your weight pulls the rope’ and with that last comment they pushed me down. Not proud to admit it, but I screamed like a baby. The ankle strap got a little tighter for a second, but then loose again when I bounced up. And even when I hung still in the air, I felt myself slipping through. It was the most horrible feeling I ever had. It sounds overly dramatic, but I actually thought I was about to fall. When I got to the platform I tried to hide the wetness in my eyes and accused the men that I hadn’t been fixed correctly. ‘Sure you were. You even had a second security rope, your climbers strap thing. Didn’t we tell you?’ No. Thank you very much.

Afterwards Cornelius had expected that I’d be filled with adrenaline the whole day, like he had been when he jumped a few years ago. But I was impressed, a bit disappointed and was mostly quiet the rest of the day.

A few days in paradise

You remember that story about that we learned how to slaughter and cook a chicken from two die-hard South Africans we met in Tanzania, Wimpie and Leonie? We stayed in contact and they invited us to come and visit them in their beach house in Mozambique. They bought property and developed some beach cottages and villas for renting purposes and a beautiful beach house for themselves. Mozambique may be the nr. 1 holiday spot for South Africans and also Wimpie & Leonie drive over 1000 km over there to wind down. In general, in Mozambique you can only buy land if you also commit yourself to improve the local community by building for example a school, a police station or a hospital. W&L built a school and employed some of the local people from the village.

We didn’t quite know what to expect when driving up there. We had only met them once, and besides telling us what to pack, we had no idea where we were going and what it would look like. Wimpie made a point of keeping it a secret. And when we got there, we still didn’t understand why they didn’t tell us anything before, but stunning it was. The full bounty beach works that reminded me of that old ‘sipping on Bacardi rum’ commercial. Though we on the picture weren’t so thin as those commercial people then thanks to Leonie spoiling us with amazing food several times a day. It was again a nice holiday within a holiday with not having to drive ourselves, to sit back and play old school rummicub and having Wimpie explain us a lot about South Africa and Mozambique.

Later they also invited us to stay with them a few days in their house (or should I say mansion?) in a Pretorian suburb. In Tanzania, we had asked how they lived. Wimpie got into a poetic mode and told that they lived so close to nature, that they woke up to zebra and antelope in the morning, having exotic birds flying around and that there were also kudu and other wild animals roaming the gated community. At that time, I thought he exaggerated, to be honest. But I turned out to be wrong:  indeed we saw all the animals on Wimpie’s list, we fed the zebra that came around for a visit bread and apples and saw how the curious little banded mongoose smashed and indulged in raw eggs from Leonie. It was amazing. I mean, who can say they have zebra and antelope in their garden?

What we found so special, is that these two people invited us into their homes and into their families (the Van S. family braai was one of the highlights), after having met us only once on a remote campsite in Tanzania.  That’s something that is very, very rare in The Netherlands and Germany. I don’t know if that’s typical for this family or for all South Africans, but we are looking forward host them when they visit Germany next year.

Besides Pretoria, we also visited Johannesburg and the Soweto townships. Especially the visits to Johannesburg and Soweto were different than we expected. Johannesburg is infamous from the stories you probably know: don’t go there, you’ll get robbed/shot immediately. Or: as tourist you can visit the suburbs, but don’t even think about heading towards the city center. So we expected the worst, but when we got there (okay, during the day), we didn’t feel uncomfortable at all. Not that our few hours downtown-experience is evidence that you are absolutely safe there, but we expected at least to see people hawk-eying us or our pockets. The city center however was a dump, really. Litter everywhere, run down houses, scruffy people on the street and cheap stores everywhere. Not worth a visit.

Soweto on the other hand was a very pleasant surprise. Not at all the corrugated, iron shacks we have seen everywhere else in Africa, but mostly simple but well-kept one story-one bedroom houses, paved roads and simple but friendly makeshift shebeens (local bars) and shops. Obviously there were some tin-roofed ‘informal settlements’ covered in plastic, but not so much as we had expected. Actually, many regular towns and villages in other African countries were far and far more township-like than Soweto. Compared to some small villages in Ethiopia or Kenya for example, Soweto was a cosmopolitan, well-to-do city.

What we also enjoyed greatly, was the positive vibe. People were laughing on the street, primary school painted in bright colours everywhere and many venues and initiatives show that people are trying to make the most of it. Although this positive characteristic is necessary to cope with their daily problems: a 40-50% unemployment rate, low wages, forsaken promises by ANC politicians, difficult access to medical care and horrible rape and domestic violence figures. But a friendly and inspiring place all the same. Definitely worth a visit.

Our plans for the last few weeks

What our last plans are before flying home? We are in the Drakensberg Mountains now to do some serious hiking there before driving to Durban.

Here we get the car serviced and ship it home. The last week of April, we’ll be home. Or actually, Cornelius will be. I’ll come a week later because I’m handling the car shipment. Weird, that after 9 months of travelling together, we come home separately. But no worries, still a happy couple 🙂

Home sweet home. We are looking forward to it. And where home is? We don’t know yet, but the battle is between Munich and Amsterdam. Because we feel that ‘real world’ sneaking upon us, we enjoy the last weeks on African grounds even more!