I arrived in Cape Town in the afternoon.

After checking into my hostel, I just walked around the waterfront for a bit.

 

During the evening, I went to the planetarium in Cape town and watched a pretty cool movie about the universe forming and how the Milky Way is going to crash into the Andromeda galaxy (in about 4.5 billion years, so don’t worry).

The next day, I wanted to hike up Table Mountain. I decided that I would just walk to the mountain from my hostel and then proceed hiking up the mountain. It was about 11 am as I was walking along the road when a group of ruffians was walking down the road toward me. I remember that they were kind of pushing each other around, which wasn’t too concerning, but then I remember one of them dropped something like a shirt and none of them seemed to care. Altogether, they did seem like trouble. Surely enough, as I walked by them, one of them turned around and came up beside me and grabbed my arm. I looked down to see a knife pressed against my stomach.

I didn’t have much money on me anyway, but I also didn’t feel like getting robbed. I was kind of surprised since it was a fairly busy street with plenty of cars driving by, and it was the middle of the day. I just kind of repeated that I didn’t have any money until I felt it was a good time to push him back as hard as I could and then I bolted up the road. I purposely started running in the middle of the traffic hoping to bring some attention to my flight from them. They gave chase for maybe 20 meters or so before turning around and walking away. I still kept power walking away from them in the middle of traffic just in case. Later, I recalled that not one single car stopped to see if I needed help, which was a little disappointing.

After some more walking, I got to the trailhead without any further incidents. I took the Platteklip route, which was supposed to take about 2 or so hours. I managed to get to the top in just over an hour, but it was like climbing steep stairs the entire time, and I was admittedly pretty exhausted by the time I got to the top.

I then spent another couple of hours hiking around the top of the mountain before descending again.

While going down, I was talking with some other hikers, and I managed to get a ride from a group that was going downtown. I didn’t feel like pushing my luck any further, especially since it was starting to get dark by that time.

Another day, I went down to Simon’s Town to see the penguins at Boulders Beach.

When I think “animals in Africa,” penguins never came to mind. I usually think lions, elephants, and rhinos, and the like. It was a pleasant surprise to see penguins. It is understandable since South Africa isn’t that far from Antarctica.

It took me a couple of days to decide on what to actually do in South Africa. I wanted to go to Cape Agulhas, the most southern tip of Africa. I also had heard good things about the Garden Route as well as Cederberg. I decided to visit those attractions in that order.

There is no public transport that goes to the southern tip, so I took a bus to Caledon, a city about halfway between Cape Town and the tip. From there, I walked to the edge of the town and stuck out my thumb. It actually didn’t take too long before some farmer picked me up. He was only going a little farther down the road, but he decided that he would go just a little past his destination to a junction of another highway. He figured other travelers might get onto the highway at that point, and I might have better luck getting a ride for the rest of the journey from there. Oh how right he was!

We got to the junction, and I grabbed my backpack out of the back of the truck. As I was still putting my backpack on, a car did indeed pull onto the highway from the crossroad. I figured, what the hell, might as well try. I stuck my arm through the shoulder strap of my backpack and then stuck my thumb out. They pulled over. I was literally waiting for less than 10 seconds. I have never been picked up that quickly before.

The car was being driven by a German and an Austrian lady. They were also touring around and were also going to the cape before coming back up. They were gracious enough to give me a ride, and we went to the point where the Atlantic and Indian oceans meet. Supposedly, you are able to see a clear division where they meet, but that was not the case, at least for when we were there.

We also went up the lighthouse.

They drove back up to Caledon, and while it was kind of backtracking for me, I figured it was best to get back up there because the busses would at least travel along the highway up through the Garden Route. The Garden Route is just a series of towns and nice areas stretching east from Cape Town up to Storms River. There is a highway with lots of traffic from Cape Town, so it’s easier to travel along that route.

In Caledon, I tried hitchhiking for a couple of hours, but there were about 15 other people also trying to hitchhike, and barely anyone was pulling over. I figured that I had had enough good luck, so I would just resume buying bus tickets to continue. I went back to town and hung out at café for quite a few hours while I sorted out bus tickets and hostels along the Garden Route. Since it was Easter break, a lot of places were sold out, so my itinerary along the Garden Route was kind of determined by hostel availability. Some other patrons in the café recommended that I just stay at Caledon for the night. That would have been the best idea, but I looked up lodging availability, and I couldn’t find anything cheaper than about $70 USD, so I decided to press onward.

The next bus only came late at night. I think it was about 9. From there, I went to Mossel Bay. I arrived after midnight, but I was luckily still able to check in. I didn’t particularly want to visit that city, and I only stayed there due to the bus/hostel availability issue I was presented with. My next bus was at noon, which would take me to Knysna (pronounced “Nice-nuh”). I woke up at about 8 and walked around the town for the couple of hours I had. And honestly, I feel like a couple of hours was all I needed, haha. There were some shops and a mussel-covered beach. Other than a long hiking trail that went out of the city and some activities like skydiving, motorboating, etc., there didn’t seem like there was too much to do.

So less than 12 hours in Mossel Bay, about 8 of which was spent sleeping, was enough for me.

Around Knysna, there is a lot of nice hiking trails. But, as I found out once I got to my hostel and was talking with the receptionist, almost all of them require a car to initially get to. Luckily, some of the other guests had a car and let me join them on a trip to the Robberg Nature Reserve near Plettenberg Bay, where we hiked around during the day.

I had expected South Africa to be more accessible since everyone was telling me it was the most developed country in southern Africa. While it was certainly developed, seeing anything but the major cities seemed to still require personal transportation.

Otherwise, I just walked around the Knysna area for a bit.

After a few days in Knysna, I took the bus to Jeffreys Bay. I was kind of freaking out thinking that I was in the wrong place since the bus ended up being 3 hours late, but I eventually did make it.

Jeffreys Bay is renowned for being one of the best surfing spots in the world. So, I went surfing. I only had one full day surfing, so I figured I would make the most of it.

I took a 2-hour lesson in the morning, and by the end of that, I was already pretty exhausted.

I took a lunch break. Some of the other surfers in the hostel were giving me some flak because I did so well. Bragging time: after being told what to do, I nailed the first 4 or so waves I ever attempted. Of course, I couldn’t catch every wave, but I did manage to catch the large majority of the waves I tried during that lesson. Some of the other people who had taken lessons the day previous were kind of frustrated at how well I was doing, haha.

Since I only had the one full day, I went back out after renting some equipment for the rest of the day.

I was still so exhausted. I could barely get on the board. I think the waves weren’t as good in the afternoon, and I had a “normal” board and not a foam board like I had during the lesson (which does make it easier). But I honestly think the biggest problem was that I was just exhausted. I could barely even push myself up to get on the board, and after catching only a couple of waves over the course of a couple of hours, I decided to call it a day. I ended the day with a braai (BBQ) with the other guests. Really, a couple of hours are about all I think is realistic in one day.

The next day, still super sore from the surprisingly good workout that surfing is, I took a bus back to Cape Town. The next destination I had was Cederberg. I wanted to hike and do some camping, but before that, I wanted to visit the royal observatory. The observatory is open only once every 2 weeks, so I planned my trip around being back in Cape Town in time for that before leaving again.

Visiting the observatory was free, and we were presented with a neat lecture about the future of astronomy in South Africa. After that, we got to hear about the history of the observatory, followed by actually getting to use the McClean telescope to look at some stars.

While I was surfing, I got off the board wrong once and jammed my toes in the sand, and it was hurting. Since my foot was still hurting, I decided it would be wiser to just take it easy and hang out in Cape Town until I flew out instead of hiking in Cederberg.

To keep me busy, I just did some other small activities like going to a board game evening.

I went to the Kirstenbosch botanical gardens on my last full day in South Africa. I should have gone a day earlier while it was sunny, but oh well. It only drizzled on me a bit.

The next day, I went to the airport and flew to St. Petersburg via Istanbul. My foot was hurting a bit more, which was kind of concerning. As of writing this, about 3 weeks after the injury, it still hurts a bit. I can walk fine, but the constant reminder is there…

In any case, I had a good time in South Africa. Having someone pull a knife on me in Cape Town wasn’t fun, but at least they didn’t get anything. The Garden Route was nice, but I feel one needs a car to see it properly. I never did end up making up to Cederberg, so maybe one day if I come back, I would like to rent a car and see some more sights that weren’t so accessible to me before.