I Laugh in the Face of Bad Weather

We are now back in the US, but we have a few more posts on South Africa before we can wrap up the trip.  I may even badger Magge into contributing one last time.

One of our last stops in South Africa was in the Drakensberg region.  The country's highest mountain range, it has been designated a UNESCO World Heritage Site for both its natural value and its cultural value as home to San rock paintings.  I took in some of both, doing the Sentinel Peak hike and seeing some rock paintings in Lesotho.  Thanks to Marcus from Stuttgart, I have pictures of the hike, so that's what I'm posting today.  If Sarah from Ireland sends me pictures of our Lesotho day trip as promised, a post of those pictures will be forthcoming.

Two Wild Coasts

From the Bulungula Lodge website

Magge and I had never heard of South Africa's Wild Coast before coming to this country, but after reading about it we were eager to visit.  Located on the southeast in a section formerly known as the Transkei, this rural and poor area receives far fewer tourists and backpackers than the more famed Garden Route.  This lack of British and German 19 year olds was actually a drawing card.  After a little research, we decided to stay in two places: Bulungula Lodge in the small village of Nqileni, and the Coffee Shack in Coffee Bay.  They ended up providing very different experiences.

Like Oregon, but with Baboons

Note: Due to a boating mishap, our camera and memory card are no longer working, so we will no longer be able to post any of our pictures for the remainder of this trip.  Hopefully, we'll be able to guilt other travelers into sharing their pictures with us so we have some to post.  This picture was taken from Wikipedia.

Storms River mouth / courtesy of Wikipedia

We stopped in Tsisikamma National Park because it was a convenient resting point on the way to the Wild Coast, not because we had any real particular interest in seeing it.  It is located in South Africa's "Garden Route", a heavily promoted and popular stretch of coastline east of Cape Town.  Although the Garden Route is part of the standard backpacker circuit in South Africa, we decided to largely skip it because the guidebooks make it sound like merely a collection of upscale, vacation beach towns.  We figured we could do that scene back in the US in places where the water is actually warm.  Driving past Knysna and Plettenberg Bay, two of the most popular stops on the route, we felt confident that we made the right decision.  Sure, the environs were pretty, but the areas were overdeveloped.  However, as we neared Tsisikamma, we could see what drew visitors to the Garden Route in the first place.