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The Amphitheater: “South Africa’s Best Day Hike”
Note: for no particularly good reason, we split the narration up between us. Claudia goes first: Claudia’s Part After our excursion in Lesotho, we made our way to a lovely backpackers’ called Karma in the “Northern Berg”. It is the closest to the start of the famous Amphitheatre day hike, which was the main reason…
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Pony Trekking in Lesotho
Lesotho is a bit of a geographic anomaly: a country smaller than the state of Maryland, high in the mountains and surrounded on all sides by South Africa. It was founded in the 19th century by the charismatic leader, King Moshoeshoe, who led his people into the mountains and negotiated a peace settlement with the…
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Weekly Twitter Updates
made it to #Maputo in one sweaty piece. I suppose we should've known Africa would be hot. Heading to #Tofo beach in the next day or 2! #Moz # on the bus to Moz. already missing our rental car that left on time & didn't stop every 30 minutes or force us to watch Fast…
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The Wild Coast
Having had our temporary fill of the mountains in Hogsback, we headed yet again for the coast to a backpackers’ called Wild Lubanzi. Yes, this is the third place we’ve stayed whose name starts with the word “wild”, but this backpackers is perhaps the only one where the adjective is 100% spot on. It is…
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Hogsback: Living Off The Grid in the Amathole Mountains
We came here on the suggestion of Ola, the daughter of the owner of Wild Spirit Backpackers’ (the same lovely lady who gave me an awesome haircut during our stay there). As usual, our Lonely Planet book was brief on the Amathole Mountains, but one interesting tidbit we did learn was that Hogsback was a…
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Addo Elephant National Park
In the 19th century, due to sport hunting, expansion of local farms, and a growing brickmaking industry, the population of elephants in and around Addo, South Africa dwindled from a peak in the many thousands to just a few hundred, and lions and rhinos were killed off completely. Under the pressure of agricultural interests, in…
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The Garden Route
The Garden Route, a coastal drive that spans roughly from Mossel Bay (a few hours’ drive east from Cape Town) to Port Elizabeth, about 250 km further east, is one of South Africa’s most popular and most hyped tourist areas. While we found some of the bigger cities overly developed and overrun by tourists seeking…
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Weekly Twitter Updates
driving to #Kruger National Park to see more animals. Our #SouthAfrica leg is almost over- love it here & looking fwd to #Mozambique # Narrowly avoided being above/on 100ft of chain ladders in a hailstorm. Got soaked and pelted but had an awesome time on "SA's best day hike" # Narrowly avoided being above/on 100ft…
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Western Cape: From False Bay to Oudtshoorn
One regret we have about the start of the African leg of our journey is not renting our car sooner. Cape Town is a wonderful city, but many of its best attractions lie outside it and are only accessible by car (or expensive taxi). We spent our first two days with the car not more…
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Cape Town
We’re sorry for the lack of updates lately, but we’ve been too busy experiencing all that South Africa has to offer (not to mention that much of our accommodation has been off the electric grid, running on solar power, wind power, or generators, to say nothing of Internet access). We hope to get a few…
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