South Africa and Lesotho: 2 weeks of taxis, narrow roads, and living out of a backpack
It’s been just over a year since my trip to South Africa and Lesotho and I’m honestly still exhausted by it. I learned two very valuable things about travel adventures a: always finish with the relaxing part b: never leave your bag unattended at the beach. If you’ve never been out of the country I highly recommended it, even if it’s just to a resort. Until you are out of your comfort zone it’s hard to know what you are truly capabably of handling. (original medium post)
I believe most American’s have a disolussioned view of Africa, fueld by Hollywood movies of tribal communities and news reports of turmoil and destructions, being uncivilized and unmodern. The truth Africa is far more complex with a wider range of culture and levels of development.
After 20+ hours of travel, I landed in Durban, South Africa to meet up with a friend. Other than being severly jet lag, gaining/losing 6 hours of time is not fun, I was happy to walk on solid ground again; I’m still convinced NO ONE should ever be in a metal tube pushing itself through the atmosphere for that long. My first evening was spent dragging myself to the hostel and taking an impromtued night walk on the beach. Boy was I glad to finally sleep on a bed again.
None of my friends being planners, we spent breakfast deciding what the days adventure would be: should we hang by the beach, go to a musuem, be adrenalin junkies? Let’s take it easy today—so we rented bikes and just rode. We headed in the direction of the Victorian Market, following the bay as we rode. Durban, like almost every city I’ve been to, is a city of contrast. Up by the beaches, and the tourism, you’ll find shiny/trendy resturants, soveniours galor, and clean streets, but as you move away from these “hubs” you’ll begin to feel the real essence of the city.
As we moved along the bay, and beyond the shiny veeners of business by the beach and ventured to the city center, you could see just how modern a city Durban is, with it’s industrial and recreational parks, and street vendors.
I LOVED the outdoor markets and Palm trees that seemed to be everywhere we went. Everything felt so vibrant and alive! It was the same feeling I had going to the farmers market in Union Square or to the Highline Park in New York. You are completely surrounded by buildings but everything just feels so natural.
The city just felt alive as we were exploring it; colors were more vibrant, the sun more sunny. And it was still morning!
After a morning of the city center we rolled our way to the beach and rode the shore up and down. Taking lunch on the patio of a beach resturant, we relaxed with some drinks and enjoying the ocean view. The rest of the afternoon was spent riding down the coast, ending with a little splash in the ocean.
We should have known better!! In our eagerness to head to the beach and go swimming, we got careless—NEVER LEAVE YOUR BAG UNATTENDED!! It is easy to forget when you are on vacation, that other people aren’t; Durban is a thriving city and like any city, crimes happen.
We all decided the day before that a relaxing day at the beach was in order. So we packed a beach bag: sunscreen, books, speakers, iphone, and towels, and prepared for a relaxing day. We made a quick stop at a local store to pick up a sim card for Ryan’s phone. South Africa requires that all cards be registered, so Ryan need his passport for ID. Instead of heading back to the hostel, where we could have locked up Ryan’s passport, we headed straight to the beach.
It is hard to write about this, knowing how obvious of a mistake that we made, which quickly changed the tone of our visit to Durban. At the beach we quickly found a spot and headed into the ocean. Maybe 30 minutes passed. At first we could see the bag from our spot in the ocean, but we quickly became distracted and floated further away. When we finally returned to “our spot;” the bag and all it is contents we gone.
There wasn’t much the local police could do; they did take our statement, gave us an affadavit and direct us to the local US Embassy. We rushed to the embassy in a taxi, scrambled around an empty retail space, only to find the embassy closed. Because of the weekend and South African holiday on Monday, the US Embassy was closed until Tuesday. We were, however, able to get in contact with someone at the embassy who guided us through the documents and information we would need to get Ryan a temporary passport.
We returned to the hostal in defeat—we attempted to recover from the days events by playing The Game of Life and watching Frozen. The next two days we tried to enjoy the rest of Durban as much as we could, but getting the temporary passport was always lingering in our minds.
Tuesday at the US Embassy went off rather smoothly. Our passports seemed to be a golden ticket to bypass all of the lines at the entrance. Other than some confusion about us wanting to bring in an Ipad, Ryan’s mother had emailed some documents to verify his identity, we enter without a problem. Unlike a lot of the visitors to the embassy, many we applying for visas to visit the States, we seemed to be the only Americans there. Ryan left into some mysterious room, while Lisa and I waited. Within an two hours Ryan officially existed again!!
Travel in South Africa and Lesotho is very different than the States—YOU TAKE TAXIS EVERYWHERE! Now get the idea of the New York yellow cabs out of your mind, taxis are very different in South Africa. They are more like large passenger vans; You have three rows of seats and your luggage is carried on you lap. The passenger sedans you would consider taxis here in the States are called 4+. There are basically two ways of getting on a taxi; in larger areas you’ll got to a taxi depot, kind of like a bus depot but for taxies, and in small areas you’ll flag someone down, which feels a bit like hitch hiking. Taxis from the depots tend to travel large distances and depending on the route may or may not pick up people on the way.
We took four taxis to get to Lisa’s site and it took all day to get there; we arrived at her site, well more the drop off by the road, after dark. I am glad Lisa was there to help us navigate the depots and transfers; signage is non-existance there so you are best bet is to talk to a driver to find a taxi going to your next location.
Most of the taxis we filled to the max, sometimes with people standing in the aisles. We definitely took up more room than most with all our bags, plus the extra stuff we brought for Lisa. We hit one of the last taxis traveling through Sani Pass and back into Lesotho; it was nice having a whole taxi to ourselves and one other Peace Corp Volunter heading back to Mokhotlong, the nearest town to Lisa’s site.
Sani Pass is beautiful in a way that seems like it was a landscape designed for a movie: sweeping mountains, crisp blue sky with this perfect mix of cloud and sky, and slow moving streams, and terrifying roads that wind up the mountain. The road is completely unpaved and immensely bumpy; there are some plans to pave the road but not much has happened. It was a relief to finish the pass and enter Lesotho.
With one more taxi made drop off for Lisa’s site, it was a steep walk down the side of a mountain to get to her actual site. We scrambled to find her lights she had backed in her bag and climbed/slide down the mountain to her hut. We collapsed on her bed. After a quick dinner of mac and cheese, we all curled up to sleep.
Lisa lives in a tiny little thatch roof hut by her Entate is in charge of the villages in the area. Her hut has just enough room for a bed, wardobe, heater, stovetop, and a small table. Because of the status of her host family, Lisa is fortunate to have a water tap near her little hut. Some volunteers may have to walk a mile to the nearest water source. Few places have running water or electricity (you’ll see this in the larger towns in the lower valleys).
Peace Corps volunteers are instructed to filter and boil water before use and to remain indoors after night. So Ryan and I got to experience the joys of peeing in a bucket! Lucky for us, Lisa’s Entate had a spare mattress we were able to use, but with the mattress on the floor, well there was no floor after that, so I hope you are acrobatic.
It was challenging preparing for the day the next morning. We had to shift the spare mattress onto the bed just to have some room to move. And none of us were prepared for waking up sooo early! We moved around in a grougy state as we brushed out teeth in a bucket and prepared some coffee/tea for breakfast.
Lisa teaches math at a local secondary school about a forty-five minute walk away. Lesotho students receive free primary school education; secondary schools are tuition based. Students are expected to arrive at the school by 6:45am for a free period. It is not uncommon for students to travel miles each day to attend school, some even stay in dormatories on site because the distance is to far to travel each day.
The classrooms have neither electricity or heat, so Lisa warned us to bundle up for the day. It was much colder in the mountains, than the sunny warmth we experience in Durban. The walk to school took us through some tall grass. The altittude difference definitely made the walk harder than I was expecting (and made me a little more motivated to find a gym when I got home).
With it being the first day back from break only half of the students were in attendance for class. Lisa had been telling the students about us coming to visit for a while so they were really excited to meet us. We started off with a bit of Q&A from the students.
Why don’t you have children? umm I just don’t
Are you married? No
Will you marry me? …
What do you do? I’m a UX designer.
Do you know Rihanna or Chris Brown? I know of them, but no I don’t know them!
Lisa had warned me about some of these questions, particularly the marriage proposal. And I can officially say I’ve been proposed more times than I’ve been in relationships! It was a bit like going home for the holidays and being “interrogated” by your relatives about your life. They were all very curious about our lives. And my hair!
It was a bit overwhelming speaking to the students in smaller groups, I don’t particularly like being surrounded by people or having people touch me. I’m a big fan of personal space! And for some reason the circle of students kept getting tighter and tighter!
After the small group sessions, Lisa decided we should throw a dance party! We showed them some of our hella tight moves and they showed us theirs.
Exhausted from the day of travel and waking up early to head to school. Ryan and I voted to stay and huddle in sleeping bags in the hut the next day. We spent the day watching The Mindy Project and drinking tea and coffee. When Lisa returned from school, we decided to tackle laundry. It was challenging hand scrubbing and rinsing all the clothes; wringing out the jeans was the worst!! I will never take a laundry machine for granted again.
Ryan was in desparate need for a bath, so we boiled up water and set up “the tub” in the middle of the hut. To give him some privacy, Lisa and I went on a hike around her site. The wind made it a bit chilly but the view as AMAZING!
The next day was our last day at site, so we woke up early with Lisa and made the trek to school. We hung out in the teachers lounge in the morning and helped Lisa with her afternoon math class. Her students we going over study guides assigned over break. I haven’t taken a math class in years and I’m pretty sure I was as lost as some of the students. Some students seemed to really grasp the concept, others seemed completely disenthralled with the process.
At the end of the day we hiked backed to Lisa site, packed up our bags and prepared for a trip into town. We had two days worth of travel in order to get back to Durban, for our return flight; we needed to be in Mokhotlong early to catch our taxi, so we crashed out the Volunteer Resource Center. Luckly for us the VRC had both running water and electricity.
It would take us several days to get back to Durban, for our flight home. We work up early in the morning, after sleeping on mattress pads in the VRC, ate a quick breakfast and headed to bus depot in town. These taxis would take us to Butha Buthe where we would crash with Katie, another volunteer.
It was a long ride on the taxi; it took up most of the day. Butha Buthe is located in the lowlands; you quickly notice the different in landscape. Butha Buthe is much larger of a town than Mokhotlong. In order to get to Katie’s site we still needed to find a 4+ to take us out of town. Before grabbing a 4+, we had dinner at KFC.
Katie’s hut was HUGE in comparison to Lisa’s. It had been lived in by her host family before they built their new house. The space was a welcome change from the tight spaces we experienced in Lisa’s hut and the VRC. Katie is from California and we talked about her experiences and why she choose to join the Peace Corp, until we all started to drift to sleep.
It was a quick trip 20 minutes and border crossing (hello again south africa!) before we arrived at the bus depot. Lisa help us with getting tickets and finding our bus. Luckly this bus would take us ALL the way to Durban, no bus transfers on this trip. And then the waiting began! Half of your travel time on these taxis and buses envolves waiting, if you are luck enough to rent a car (and know how to drive a manual) DO IT!! You’ll have soo much more time to explore.
It took hours to get back to Durban; it was almost dark by the time we arrived. Now to get to our Bed and Breakfast for the night. Unknown to me I had book a hotel outside of Durban and many of the taxi drives wouldn’t take us there. We did find one who was willing to find it for us . . . after a couple stops and turn arounds of course. Being both tired and hungry, I started to wonder if we end up a cautionary tale on one of those Lost Abroad travel shows.
Luckly after an hour of driving, we arrived at our Bed and Breakfast. It was gated and we had to ring a bell to be let in. Both Ryan and I were exhausted but a shower was a must!! In the morning we had a complementary breakfast and the B&B owners helped us get a car to the airport.
With the B&B being farther out of the city than expected, both Ryan and I were a little low on Rands. The driver was nice enough to allow a pit stop at an atm and we were set for our trip to the airport. In a little over 14 hours Ryan and I completed, 3 flights, 3 in-flight meals, and 3 security checks to get back to the States. Both of us were exhausted and excited to be home. NOW TO SLEEP!
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