The Happy Hippo

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Day 53 - Durban - 20/9/09

Up early to get packed and sorted to get the shuttle at midday. Actually wasn’t up that early; about 1000. Aaron and Rachel went to ride a horse for a couple of hours whilst I baked in the sun, still pissed off at the 600 rand being taken out of my wallet. Finished my breakfast and went over to reception to see how much damaged the tab was going to do to my wallet, by itself it came to 800 which would have been about $600, that in itself was pretty good but when you add the $50 stolen, it was pretty expensive..

We jumped into the shuttle and started to drive back to the petrol station where we were being picked up, the journey seemed to go on for ever, passing the rolling South African countryside. Eventually we were there but the Baz Bus wasn’t, we waited and relaxed with a burger and drink until it arrived. The bus going to Port Elizabeth came first and Laura jumped onto this bus so we said our goodbyes and waved her farewell as it pulled away. It wasn’t too long until my bus came and Me, Sebastian, Aaron and Rachel started our journey to Durban. Like usually the time was spent watching a couple of films, reading and playing card games.
We arrived very late in the evening, said goodbye to everybody and checked into the hostel and after a couple of drinks with some Swiss girls went to bed

Day 54 - Manzini (Swaziland) - 21/9/09

Woke up knowing that my massive journey from Cape Town to Mazini was all most over; 1700 km down and the final 750 km still to do today. Left Durban around about 8 or 8.30 in the morning, I was so tired that I wasn’t sure what the actual time was. Again it was going to be a massively long journey, sitting on the bus, driving though the countryside. The closer we got to Swaziland the weather heated up, it was absolutely baking in the bus, it was so hot that there were forest fires on either side of the roads, burning away.

We reached the Swazi boarder at 1600 and got stamped out of South Africa by a miserable looking South African women, who didn’t say anything just STAMP, as another South Africa stamp was applied to my passport. Walking though no man’s land, dodging the drink sellers and money changers into the immigration office on the Swazi side of the boarder and got stamped in.

There was some kind of issue with the bus and we were left to our own devices on the side of the road killing time, we just chatted about stuff, mainly rubbish but the whole issue of how come African ladies can carry so much stuff on there heads; we were truly bored!

The bus eventually trundled though immigration and everybody climbed back onboard, I couldn’t tell you how long the journey was until I got to Manzini and the Swazi backpackers. The first thing I did when I checked in was to speak to Lisa behind reception about the best way to go to Mozambique.

Lisa was absolutely lovely and in love with everything Dutch, she told me that I should take the local minibus taxi, which left everyday and only cost 80 rand. I decided that I would leave tomorrow to Mozambique. I decided that tonight would be spent round the bar, I sat down for dinner and started chatting to a guy from a New Zealand about our travels before we were joined by a crazy Dutch guy Frans who had been working in Lilongwe and a Michelle; a girl who was living in London.
The rest of the night was spent on the balcony; smoking weed and drinking, just relaxing before head off tomorrow morning!

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