Traveling through South Africa

A short story about our travel from the last two weeks: hitch hiking with Sander through South Africa.

Top 3 of the best travel vehicles:
1) hitch hike in bakkie (car that you see a lot in South Africa and Lesotho - has an open boot in the back where you can take everything, like hitch hikers ... )in Lesotho. In the bakkie Sander and I enjoyed the nice moutain view. After an hour we got a friend with us at the back: a living sheep. Quite soft actually.
2)Taxi minibus in Lesotho. In such a minibus you sit with the driver and 17 people, quite cosy together. The tyre had to be replaced before we left and that didn't seem an easy job, so it took us a few hours before we could leave. When we finally left, every 30 minutes we had to get out, because they had to lift up the front seat to fill the engine with new water. The engine was getting hot quite fast. Maximum speed of the bus was 50 km/h and sometimes 70 km/h when we went down. But than as well, I liked the 50 better than going down in this thing at 70 km/h. When we had to climb I suppose we got a maximum of 4 km/h. But we got where we had to be: safe and quite in time.
3)4 by 4 drive in the wild coast with a closed bakkie with strong engine. So that was more like a ride in the rollercoaster. At one point I was thinking am I now sitting or am I lying down in this car ...

Top 3 of best places we stayed:
1) Rondavel hut in a little village in Lesotho. This was one of the chiefs rondavel huts and they welcomed us really well.
2) Stay in township house in Mthatha; We arranged this stay with somebody we met in the taxi, because we didn't have a place to stay in this city. The house was quite full with all the relatives visiting. So I slept with one of the kids in one bed and Sander had to sleep on the ground. But again we felt really welcome.
3) Big luxurious house in Jo'burg. We hadn't actually planned to go to Johannesburg, but since our drivers went to Durban, we thought we might go as well, in stead of going to Durban. So we finished our travel in a big house with electrical security fence and security guides.

More stories later or in Belgium!