The past three months went by in a blink of an eye, but they have been wonderful. We left our camping life and had many friends visiting us from Switzerland, and we made many new friends here in South Africa, as well, so writing this blog was not at the top of my priority list. Now I finally have time again to write, and I have to dig far back in my memory to tell you about our first weeks in the very south of Africa…
The border crossing was the shortest ever in South Africa; we got a free visa on arrival for three months and did not have to stamp our Carnet since Namibia and South Africa share a customs union. The border post in Vioolsdrift is in the middle of the desert, and the landscape stayed dry for the first few hundred kilometers in South Africa. We passed a couple of towns, but none of them seemed so appealing to spend a night in, so we pulled through to the Highlanders Campsite just before Clanwilliam, a place Tom already knew from his previous travels. It was a very long and exhausting driving day, but the owner Mike warmly welcomed us at the campsite, and we really enjoyed our first night in South Africa. Of course, we started with a proper braai as well as a wine tasting to get into the right mood :)
The next day, we had to continue because we needed to get sim cards and some groceries. The previous day was a Sunday, and everything was closed when we entered South Africa. We found everything we needed in Clanwilliam, and after a short lunch at the Rooibos Tea House, we continued into the Cederberg to the Jamaka Organic Farm & Resort. Karin, the owner, is German and was happy to greet some German-speaking guests. She and her husband own a huge area where they farm, but they also built super cool campsites with over 150(!) spots to choose from. We even could go on a 3-hours hike on their premises; it was unbelievable how big their plot of land was.
After two nights, we continued towards Stellenbosch, but not before going on another little hike, starting from the Algeria Campsite in the Cederberg to a beautiful waterfall. It was not a very long hike, but one of my favorites on this trip; once you reach the waterfall, you truly get the feeling that you have reached paradise; it was a magic spot
From there, we continued further South because we wanted to meet our friends Claudia and Florian in Stellenbosch on the last day of their honeymoon. After missing their wedding in Switzerland, it was super nice that it worked out to meet them in South Africa just before they flew home again. Therefore, we rushed southwards and spent the first night at the famous African Overlanders Campsite, a place well-known amongst Overlanders. The owner, a guy from Germany, helps anyone with shipping their vehicles in and out of Cape Town, and he also offers storage of vehicles on his premises. The place, therefore, looks more like a car storage than a campsite, but we met nice fellow overlanders there, like the Australian couple who had just arrived in South Africa at the beginning of their trip. The next day, we decided to move closer to Stellenbosch and check out another campsite at a lodge. We met Florian and Claudia the next day for lunch and went to eat at Tokara, a wine estate and amazing restaurant we can highly recommend. We enjoyed a couple of hours together, hearing all the news from back home and had a delicious meal and wine. Then, it was already time to say goodbye again, the two had to catch their flight, and we continued towards the west coast.
Before we entered Cape Town and its big city life, we wanted to check out some other nice places and campsites along the west coast. We drove north again and checked out the West Coast National Park, where we enjoyed a lovely picnic at the beach.
The night we spent at the caravan park in Langebaan, usually not our favorite camping spot, but it is right next to the famous Strandloper Restaurant, where we went for dinner and had a seafood feast (do not go there if you don’t like or eat fish and seafood, it’s all they serve). We enjoyed it a lot and went to bed with a very full belly.
The next morning, we continued north and visited Paternoster, a very charming town on the west coast. The night we spent in Tietiesbaai, where you can camp in the Nature Reserve. They have ablution blocks there, and it’s a famous spot amongst the locals for camping as well; the one night we spent there was quite busy, but it was nice to see all the South Africans enjoying the weekend.
The following day, we drove back to Cape Town and moved into a cute little apartment in Hout Bay, where I would start my Yoga Teach Training in a couple of days, and Tom wanted to join some Jiu-Jitsu classes. Our very first stop after entering the city, even before getting the keys to our new home base, however, was Table Mountain. Since South Africa and Cape Town marked the symbolic destination of our whole trip, we wanted to celebrate “reaching our goal”. We, therefore, brought a nice bottle of wine, some cheese, biltong, olives, and freshly baked bread to the top of the mountain (it was already late afternoon, so we had to opt for the cable car to go up and down) and cheered to us at the top of Cape Town. We were lucky and had a view without any clouds; it was a magical moment for us.
We then drove to Hout Bay and checked into our apartment, and it was a very weird but also nice feeling to know that we would not be moving for a while. We unpacked everything, all our clothes and everything else we had in the car - the two-bedroom apartment soon looked terribly crowded, and I kept wondering how everything of our stuff fitted into the car.
Tom, who had already spent some time in Cape Town a few years back, got in contact with some of his mates. That’s how we found out about Pangea, a festival happening in the Karoo a couple of hours outside of Cape Town. Luckily, we still got tickets and spent a fun weekend at a beautiful festival; it has been a while since we last danced, and we enjoyed our time. Of course, we had to decorate our Defender accordingly :)
The Yoga Teacher Training was a great experience as well. I chose Wellness Connection in Hout Bay because this Yoga School seemed beautiful, located in between the forest, but also they have a science-based approach of teaching, which I liked a lot. The Yoga studio was indeed very beautiful, but also our group was super nice, mostly South Africans and some other international students from Germany and France. I loved my time there, learning a lot of new things, not only about Yoga, but definitely improving my practice a lot, and making new friends.
Tom, in the meantime, went to a few Jiu-Jitsu classes, which he also enjoyed a lot until the very last lesson, where he accidentally bruised his rips. An injury which still, two months later, hurts him occasionally and is only healing very slowly. The rest of his time he spent meeting some mates, and we soon started running into people we knew from back home; Cape Town definitely is a popular winter escape destination for the Swiss. We also visited people we met along our travels, Kris and Karoline from Norway, who we met in Malawi, stayed in Cape Town as well. Ed and Mike, the guys we met in Tanzania and then later in Malawi again, invited us to their homes to meet their families. We met for sundowners with Leo and Paddy, a couple who also traveled in a Land Rover Defender and were just shortly behind us on the trip. After exchanging many messages and tips, we finally got to meet in person in Cape Town. We really enjoyed our time in this city a lot. After only a few weeks, it felt like a new home, just when it was time to say goodbye again.
At first, only for Tom, who picked up our friend Flo from Switzerland. He was the first one to arrive before all our other friends would come as well. Tom and Flo enjoyed a week out in nature in the Cederberg area while I finished the last week of my Yoga Teacher Course. The two had a blast, roaming around in nature with the Defender.
I met them again just before Christmas in Piketberg, where the three of us rented a cute little cabin and spent Christmas in between Zebras and Springboks :) For another two nights, we moved to a lovely cottage in Tulbagh, where we went for a hike and enjoyed the big pond in front of our cabin. Then, it was time to drive to Franschhoek, where we would meet the rest of our friends who arrived during the following days; we were, of course beyond excited to finally be reunited with them all.
