South Africa is a location that we nearly scratched from our itinerary. This wasn’t due to a lack of interest, but because of the daunting travel and cost involved to get there. In these reflections I ultimately feel that had we skipped South Africa, there would have been something missing from our year of travel.

Location and Lodging

We spent our entire time in the Garden Route area of South Africa. Our condo was located in the town of Knysna, which is situated around the middle of the garden route. This was ideal for making day trips east and west in order to cover everything we wanted to see in the Garden Route.

Our condo was pretty nice astheatically, but had some issues that began to grind on us mentally. To start with, the pictures on Airbnb made the place look large. When we arrived the living room was half the size we expected. It was as if the wall had been moved half way across the room.

The other major issue, which I predicted would be an issue, is that there was no separation between the bathrooms and the bedrooms. They were one and the same, with the shower and toilet occupying the back part of the bedrooms. This was frustrating both when trying to use the bathroom in peace, and having to leave the bedroom when someone else needs the bathroom.

Add to that the roaches, scorpions, condensation, lack of walkability, cold, and that we had to take Navy showers due to the water shortage – it made for a less than comfortable stay.

Surrounding Neighborhood

Our condo was in a gated complex, and we didn’t walk extensively outside of it. The grocery store was just a one minute walk out of the complex and that was most of our walking outside of the gates.

The reason we didn’t walk often or far outside of the complex is because the very first time we did, we were asked for money. The second time we walked outside the gates, heading to the water front, we were asked for money. The level of inequality and poverty in all of South Africa is really extreme and in your face.

After reading about giving money out, we learned it isn’t a good idea to give too large of sums of money, or to give smaller amounts to too many people. It can create an unsafe situation by drawing too many people, or making you recognized as an easy target.

Driving

We rented a car at the George Airport which turned out to be a Suzuki Ciaz. It took some time to get my bearings sitting on the right hand side to drive, and driving on the left side of the road. At first it felt pretty chaotic and unsafe, but after a few hours of driving I had it down and it felt totally natural.

Traffic in the Garden Route was incredibly nice to deal with. It was light most of the time, although Knysna could get busy in the late afternoon. The drivers were the most courteous I have ever seen. Everyone was helpful (allowing merging, providing space, giving the benefit of the doubt, etc) and did their best to make things easy on each-other. On the highway anyone driving slow on a two-lane two-way highway would move far left onto the shoulder to allow others to pass.

This is a very stark contrast to driving in the US, where I feel like everyone is just concerned with themselves and often don’t treat other cars like there’s even a human inside.

When getting gas, the gas stations are full service. I didn’t like the thought of this because I have always pumped my own gas and I’ve never experienced full service. It turned out to be awesome, and I sort of wish I never had to pump my own gas. You just pull up, tell them you want a full take of unleaded, open the gas door. A few minutes later you have a full tank, clean windows, and they bring the credit card terminal to you to pay.

Language

Aside from Guam this was our easiest stop from a language standpoint. English however was not the default language we would hear. It seemed that every South African spoke Afrikaans by default in their day to day life. Some of them also struggled with english.

Tension Among The People

While we encountered a lot of friendly people, this was definitely the place we found the locals to be the least friendly in face to face encounters. Particularly in a service capacity where we were at a checkout stand or similar setting. While it wasn’t the majority of our encounters, it happened enough that we took notice. It felt like we were being looked at or talked to with a subsurface hostility.

Favorite Sites

The Garden Route of South Africa has stunning natural beauty to the point where it became commonplace. All of my favorite activities were related to experiencing that natural beauty rather than man-made attractions.

Coney Glen Beach

This was the closest beach to us, but also our favorite. Every time we went here, the combination of the violent ocean, large jagged rocks, and the Knysna heads towering above made me feel like we had just arrived from the ocean and were looking at the continent of Africa towering in front of us.

Robberg Nature Reserve

This was a hike around a peninsula, and the full outer loop that we did was about 9km. It was a pretty grueling hike in terms of distance combined with the rugged terrain. The scenery was stunning.

Addo Elephant National Park

We went to Addo excited to see Africa’s big five animals for the first time in person. After two trips to the park including two self-driven tours and one guided tour, we were able to see a lot of wildlife. We unfortunately didn’t see lions, leopards, or cape buffalo. It was cool to see many other animals notably including zebra, elephants, wart hogs, meerkats, and even a rhino off in the distance.

Buffalo Bay Beach

This beach was incredible because of its pristine water and sand, and how vast the beach was. There was a cool sand hill to climb and that you can sled down just like snow. This beach is in a really nice part of town as well. It was a reprieve from being solicited to buy crafts or being asked for money.

Food

As far as groceries, everything was very familiar to us and affordable. We enjoyed our at home meals because they were very similar to our at home in CO meals. There were some odd things though, such as not being able to find good taco shells, or basically all peanuts and mixed nuts tasting like crap.

Restaurant food was great. Almost everything we ate was very delicious from polished tourist restaurants to roadside cafes. I ate a lot of hake which I guess is similar to cod since that’s what they use for their fish and chips.

One thing we were told we had to try was biltong. It was hyped as being sort of like beef jerky but much better. We tried several different biltong from different places and we didn’t find any of it to be better than US beef jerky.

Final Thoughts

In many ways South Africa felt like a place I could live long term, and I’m glad we took the time and expense to experience it. The natural beauty was beyond my expectations. The day to day living may have felt mundane and ordinary at times, but in a way that’s positive. It means there aren’t points of friction that would become annoyances over time.

The poverty is hard to see and I’m not sure what if anything is being done about it. With the unemployment rate so high it might be the sign of a larger problem with the economy. If there were ever a social safety net needed somewhere, this would be the place. When a parking lot attendant is nearly brought to tears from a 50R tip, it says something about how badly they are lacking resources in their life.