Back to South Africa

The border crossing back into South Africa from Botswana was our shortest one yet. This time the guard told us he was going to be the second black president of the USA 8 years from now when Obama was finished. We did not want to burst his bubble and tell him it was an impossible feat as he was not born in the USA.

We headed south and west from the border and into the capital city of Pretoria. Our destination was the Mozambique Consulate with the goal of securing our visas. We arrived only to be told we were 20 minutes too late and had to return the next day. We had the full day ahead of us so we headed to the local university area of town for some shopping and hit up an actual laundromat for the first time in weeks. We hoped to camp near the friendly university area but heard through the grapevine that the backpackers we intended to stay at had a reputation for theft so we headed outside town to a campground.

The next day we were granted our Mozambique visas (the cost was over 2 times what the guide book listed but at least it was processed the same day!) and headed south for our last few nights camping with the rental car. Our destination was the town of Clarens in the most well known mountain range in South Africa, the Drakensburgs. If the Drakensburgs were the Rockies of South Africa then you could call Clarens the Aspen. We arrived to find the quaint town we expected tucked against the mountains but were a little overwhelmed at the number of high end accommodation present. We spent 2 days in Clarens, hiking and hanging out. The town even had a small microbrewery, which made Chad extremely happy. We had 1 night left before we had to head to Johannesburg to return the car, so we decided to go to a national park that a couple had recommended to us farther south in the mountains, Royal Natal. The scenery was absolutely breathtaking and we were able to fit in a 5 hour hike up a gorge. All in all it was an excellent park and we wished that we had a few more days to spend there.

After 30 days of living the high life in the Land Rover, the time had come to return him. We have been so lucky to have such a safe and reliable car for the past month and it has afforded us countless opportunities that we never would have had with a tiny 2 wheel drive. Camping for 30 days was not nearly as hard as we had expected, and it has been nice to wake up every day outside. Tomorrow we head to Mozambique and the next leg of our African journey. We are extremely excited for the next 2 months and have no idea what to expect. What we do know is that internet is going to be very scarce, so there probably won’t be a lot of pictures posted. Stick with us though, we will post when we can and you can expect a massive upload of pictures when we arrive in Asia.

Car/Camping Stats:
Kilometers Driven in Dougie (yes Colleen named the car): 8,635
Countries Visited: 4
Highest Road Toll Paid: $9
Number of Birds Hit: 5 (they fly into cars so they actually hit us)
Average Bed Time: 8:30pm(hey it gets dark here early and there are a lot of bugs!)
Average Wake Up Time: 6:45am(easy to get up early when you go to bed early)
Average Hours of Sleep: We’re guessing 5, the ground is really, really hard here
Times we were asked what nationality we were then when we told them they tripled the price of entrance or accommodation: Around 10