Diary

February

Ai-Ais, Namibia 2004-02-28 11:17

Hey!

Now we are finished exploring another country, South Africa. It’s so incredible how fast the time is running by when you’re having a good time. We have now been travelling for five month and visited 17(!) different countries. It’s hard to imagine that we’ve actually made a Europe tour on this trip, it fells like if that was a couple of years ago. Important, however, is that we are still enjoy sitting on the bike and that we, even after five month, are really excited about travelling.
And for those of you who are wondering how a relationship affects when you spend 24 hours a day seven days a week (yes, that’s pretty close) we can reveal that things couldn’t be better. We thought that it was going to be pretty tough, that we were going to get on each others nerves and argue a lot. But no, everything is going really good. Actually it’s going so good that we got engaged 16th February!!!

To sum it up South Africa is one of our favourite travel destinations. You can almost find everything in this country; nice, helpful people and interesting cultures, white sandy beaches and coral reefs, incredible mountain and escarpment formations and winding gravel roads, fast tar roads and cheap petrol, amazingly green subtropical rainforests, waterfalls, charming small mud house villages, big impressive cities and loads and loads of wild animals. Just to mention some of it. We are impressed, for sure. After three primitive months in West Africa we also appreciated how easy and organised it is to travel in South Africa. It was really nice to stay in crowdie and nice hostels and eat good food, for a change.
However there is another very interesting and important side of South Africa that we don’t like as much, the social differences between black and white people. Even if the old apartheid regulations repealed in the beginning of the 1990 South Africa definitely has a long way to go. South Africa is the richest country in Africa but it’s pretty obvious where this money is, among the whites. For sure, there’s a pretty big and growing black middleclass but we have to remember that 85% of the population in South Africa is black and, we don’t have any numbers, but we there can’t be a big percentage that’s living with a monthly income of more than around 30-40 Euros (or no income at all).
And did you know that 20% of the population in South Africa are infected by HIV/Aids? Yes, at least one of eight people!!! This is a”black” diesis. A lot of children are born with it, there parents are dying when they are too young and relatives or neighbours have to take care of another child which they definitely can’t afford, and the HIV/Aids problem is getting bigger and bigger…
It’s really absurd to travel by road in South Africa. First you’re driving around among mud huts and begging children, a couple of minutes later you are suddenly in a “white” really cosy and nice little town, later in the day you pass dirty townships so big that your eyes can’t se where they end and next to the townships you will find a massive big city. Contrasts and contrast, South Africa is definitely the country of contrast. A country that definitely will make you react. Sometimes you’re so fascinated by its beauty and sometimes you are so angry that there’s smoke coming out of your ears.

This week we have been exploring “the most beautiful city of the world”, Cape Town. And now we understand where that reputation comes from. Cape Town is so beautiful and we liked it so much that we stayed for a whole week. During our time in the city we, among other things, did a trekking to the top of Table Mountain (the mountain in the middle of the city). This trekking was pretty hard (Helena almost gave up at one point) and it took around two hours. Further on we, of course, visited Robben Island where Nelson Mandela was held as a political prisoner for 27 years. Our guided tour to this island was really interesting and worth while, especially considering that our guide also was an ex-political prisoner that was doing ”his time” at the same time as Mandela. Believe us; this guy had some pretty chocking stories to tell.
The highlight of our Cape Town visit is when we took the bike to Cape of Good Hope. The costal road, such a perfect motorbike road, to the most south-western point of Africa is so beautiful. It almost felt that we were driving in a series of postcards, so nice.

Yesterday we passed the border to Namibia, a country that we really are looking forward to explore, and now we are almost back in the desert again. It is pretty ironic though. We didn’t know were to go after the border and since the time was running by pretty quickly we just decided to go to the closest city, Ai-Ais. When we got here we realised that Ai-Ais isn’t a city but kind of a resort with hot springs and mineral baths. We are camping among mountains, baboons, tennis courts, swimming pools etc. And it’s really nice here, almost a bit luxury. But the thing is; who is enjoying hot springs when the temperature is around 45 degrees? Even the swimming pool is as hot you can almost se smoke coming from it. We have just found out that the best way to cool of is if you first take a swim in the pool and then go up in the 45 degrees…

We apologize that this update is a bite late. The thing is that southern Namibia is really deserted and the distances between the cities are far. This update was actually written 21st February and the next update will come on Tuesday.

Vi ses,

Helena och Danne

Cape of Good Hope	Cape Town seen from Robben Island	Back to the desert

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Cape Town, South Africa 2004-02-17 17:29

Hello!

Now we are halfway!!! The other day we passed the most southern point of Africa, Cape Agulhas. So, after five month on the road and approximately 27000 kilometres on our back we are for the first time driving in the north direction, towards Sweden. We are with mixed feelings on our way back home.

Last Tuesday turned out to be our hottest day on the whole trip, 53 degrees in the sun and 48 in the shadow. That morning we woke up in a nice and cool Jeffrey’s Bay, right by the sea, but as soon as we started our journey to Oudtshoorn, approximately 300 kilometres inland, it just said “bam” and it got so hot we couldn’t believe it. Usually the wind is breezing even if you are driving on a warm and sunny day, but this day the wind was literally burning our faces, it actually hurt. Since we were driving in a really opened and pretty deserted landscape there were no shadow or lay-bys, our only choice was to drive in 120 km/h, let the sweat cool down the body and quench our thirsts with the boiling water from our camel packs (which might as well have been coffee). When we finally reached Oudtshoorn we were lucky enough to find a hostel with a swimming pool, and that’s were we spent the rest of the day, the evening and half of the night. Talk about heat!!!
The following day it was, thank God, a bit cooler (only around 40 degrees). Since Oudtshoorn is all about ostriches, there are ostrich farms just about everywhere, we took the chance to test ride those long legged birds. And wow, it was hard to stay on their back. Our Africa Twin is definitely still our favourite.
The biggest tourist attraction in Oudtshoorn is the world famous Cango Caves, five incredibly beautiful caves (around 30 kilometres in size) that was created by the natural wonder for million and million years ago. It’s truly amazing what water can do; the rock formations in these caves are breathtakingly beautiful.
There’s an adventure section in the Cango Caves, which we really enjoyed. It was rally funny and exiting to climb, crawl and slide trough tunnels that were as small as 25 centimetres high.

Now we are in the most beautiful city of the world, Cape Town. Usually we are not the biggest fans of big cities, not when we are travelling anyway, but Cape Town is definitely something else. First of all this city has the perfect location right by the sea and surrounded by mountains, so beautiful, and second of all this big city is so relaxed. Well, we tell you more about it next week, when we are finished exploring this city.
Further on we can reveal that we are having a kind of a” festival” this week, a lot to celebrate. As you all know we had “Valentines Day” the 14th, the 15th we had a five month anniversary of our trip, yesterday it was 4 years since we first met, and tomorrow Daniel is having his 25th birthday. But we have more to celebrate; something big is going to happen this week, those of you that read the diary next week will know…

Take care,

Daniel and Helena

Daniel is falling of an ostrich	Helena is crawling through the Cango Caves	Cape Agulhas, the most southern point in Africa

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Hogsback South Africa 2004-02-08 11:50

Hi!

This week has been like a holiday from our holiday. Daniel has been a little bit sick, sinusitis, so it has been necessary with some rest, we have mostly enjoyed the backpack atmosphere of South Africa and been fascinated by the incredibly Wild Coast scenery. This part of the coast is really wild, rocky, brutal and untouched and it’s not every day you have a kilometre of beach all to yourself.

Before Daniel got ill we however had what we can call wet night in Coffee Bay. We didn’t intend to get that round on or feet but the minute we entered the pub in Coffee Schack hostel everybody started to shout “BUFFALO”. Soon we found out that its “illegal” to drink with your right hand in this pub, if you do you have to finish your drink/beer in one breath. We, especially Daniel, had a pretty tough time to remember this rule and we can reveal that an Irish guy, after a unsuccessful attempt by Helena, had to carry Daniel to our tent. This was actually our first real night out since Bordeaux, France. If we hade fun? Well, we think so, but we really don’t remember...

After a couple of rainy, but nice, days in Coffee Bay the sky went blue and we headed further south to the small village Cinsta. In Cinsta we stayed at Buccaneers backpacker which is known for being the best hostel in South Africa. And Buccaneers is definitely the best hostel we have stayed in so far, what a paradise. First of all Buccaneers is situated right by the sea and next to a lagoon. Further on you really get a chance to activate yourself in this place. During our five days in Cinsta we not only swam and sunbathed we also went kayaking, windsurfing, climbing (on the climbing wall of the hostel) and played a lot of table tennis and pool.
Something that we have forgotten to mention is that our bike has been using an alarming amount of oil for the last month. We have taken for granted that the reasons have been bad petrol and high altitudes, but on our way to Cintsa there were also a strange sound coming from the engine. We got really worried, took the bike to a Honda dealer and handed it in for a service. (After more than 25000 kilometres on the road it was about time.) When we got to the garage the sound was however “gone like the wind” and the service guys couldn’t find anything wrong with the bike, neither could they give us a good answer to why the bike has been taking so much oil. For service the bike however got a new oil filter, new oil, new sparkplugs, fresh radiator liquid, checked valves and it’s now sounding and feeling good again. About the oil, we have to drive further to check it and about the sound, well that’s just a mystery.

Now we are in Hogsback, an incredibly relaxed, refreshing and charming little village situated in the middle of the mountains and the subtropical rainforest. It was actually here, in Hogsback, (and in Finland) J.R.R. Tolkien found the inspiration to the trilogy “Lord of the rings”. And it’s not surprising, the surroundings is amazing. In Hogsback you’ll find loads and loads of waterfalls (yeah, we have been seeing a lot of waterfalls lately), colourful flowers and an overgrown forest containing al lot of different and strange kinds of trees. Today we went on a four hours trekking and when were walking trough this impressive forest we truly experienced a kind of breathtaking mystic. It really felt like we were hiking trough a fairytale world and I think that we actually glimpsed some elves, hobbits and orks in between the trees.

So Long,

Helena and Daniel

Helena between the sea and the lagoon in Cinsta	Among elves and Hobbits in Hogsback	One of many waterfalls, Hogsback

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