South Africa in Two Weeks

With only two weeks away from my 3-week backpacking trip to South Africa, I think I’m ready. Or kind of. Believe it or not, I’m really excited to fly with KLM Airlines again because my experience with them last year to Tanzania was great. We were stuck in the place for over 6 hours due to the weather conditions and KLM kept us informed and fed us the entire time. So with a quick stop in Amsterdam and then a long flight to South Africa, I’m looking forward to an enjoyable experience- yet again! We’ll be landing in Johannesburg late at night so we decided to take a taxi to our friend’s house, where we’ll be staying for a few nights. It’s always nice to visit a city with a local. When we’re ready to head to Drakensberg, we’ll pick up our rented car and make our way there slowly but surely. We’re a little hesitant about driving on the other side of the road but we won’t have a choice but to learn.

I’ve been so busy with everything else that I didn’t put too much effort in planning this trip. So far, the rental car is booked for 3 weeks, one night t the lodge in Central Drakensberg is booked and two nights at the Bulungula lodge is also booked. We’ll decide what hiking tour we’d like to do once we arrive to Drakensberg. What I need now is a sleeping bag and tent! But worst case scenario, we’ll have to stick with day trips, which I’d like to avoid. I’d like to really experience Drakensberg by sleeping on the mountain. Although I’m really looking forward to hiking again (first time hiking after Kilimanjaro), I’m also dying to be in Bulungala on the wild coast. After some reading, it seems to be a really cool and somewhat remote place. I read that I can spend the day with a local tribe and honestly, if this happens, it would make my entire trip worthwhile. There is nothing better than mingling with locals when traveling.

Although I have the first week of the trip somewhat covered, the other two weeks are open. We’d like to take our time driving down the garden route coast but how much time we have will depend on how long we stay on the wild coast. I guess we’ll just take it as it comes. We’re saving 6 days for Cape Town/Vineyards. I’m actually really excited for Cape Town because I think it will remind me of Rio. Very curious of how I’ll feel when I’m there.

At this point, I’m just waiting for March 3rd to arrive and hop on the plane. I’m most nervous about the driving around South Africa factor but I think we’ll be ok once we actually hop in the car. Feel free to share any advice on traveling in South Africa!