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Since we took a day off yesterday, we needed to make some ground as we head west towards Port Elizabeth. We have two days to get there for the Brazil - Holland game.
I’m finding the South African roads excellent, really nice to drive on and there is plenty of good etiquette on the road. The drive from Umzumbe to Cintsa took about 5 hours, but we stopped in Umtata to visit the Nelson Mandela Museum. After filling up with gas in Kokstad, we drove towards Umtata and got to see little villages all over the place. The houses are randomly spread out on hilltops and are multi-colored. Janel kept trying to take some pictures while I drove but we were not able to get a good shot of how neat the villages look. As you drive on the highway, lots of people are hitchhiking, holding up signs that showed two letters representing their destination.
I saw a lot of CX's and CA's but I don't know what that means.
Anyway, Umtata is a city of decent size compared to the little villages; same sort of style, just much bigger. The center avenue is busy, but with traffic and
with people. On several occasions, when driving through a town, we would drive through their main avenue, and boy were they chaotic. It was interesting to see such small towns have so much going on in the middle of nowhere.
In Umtata, we parked our car and visited the Nelson Mandela Museum. It took us about an hour and a bit to go through it all. This museum covered his entire life, elaborating on where he came from, where he ended up (as President) and not so much on the details of his imprisonment. It did get to the part where he was meeting other influential members of the ANC, and what they were looking to do, but it seemed to skip a little because next thing you know, he was negotiating his release in the 80's. It makes no mention of when he was arrested and of his time at Robben Island. There are clips in some rooms from the early 60's and after he was released in the 90's...pretty cool. One of the clips we thought was strange, because it showed Mandela's morning routine: getting up from bed, shaving, brushing his teeth, picking his clothes, etc... All
in all, we thought it was interesting and worth our time because we definitely learned some things.
At the recommendation of the guys from our last hostel, I called and booked a room at a seaside backpackers (hostel) in Cintsa. Staying there would allows us to break up the drive to Port Elizabeth nicely. Cintsa is just north of East London. We were pretty tired once we got settled in the room. We had stopped for some groceries on the way out of Umtata, so Janel made us some grilled cheese sandwiches and made an instant pasta meal that was pretty delicious.
Even though we were in the car for the majority of the day, I did enjoy the drive because it was so different than any drive to Saskatchewan or BC. Time went by relatively fast and we got to our destination safely. Tomorrow, we continue our drive, this time all the way to Port Elizabeth, where we will pick up our tickets. I called all of the hostels in Port Elizabeth (known here as PE) that I knew of, and they were all booked. So I decided to look for a place just west of PE, in
Jeffrey's Bay, so that we can easily drive towards Cape Town the day after the Brazil - Holland game. When I called the hostel, they said they were booked, but said there were some flats available for rent across the street from them. I made the reservation hoping for the best, and as I type this entry, we lucked out.
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