The Transkei

The Transkei is one of the provinces of South Africa. It means "the land beyond the river". We drove through it on our way to Durban.











Nelson Mandela's house, in the middle of nowhere.




The Baz Bus rules!

Hogsback

Welcome to the mountains. Hogsback sits up there, 1300 metres above sea-level and a beautiful part of the South African countryside. I was going to stay there for 3 days but actually left 5 days later...





The three hogs.





Ellen, doing some exercise.




Franza and Ellen, literally going downhill.










Madonna and Child Falls.

Chintsa

I still don't know whether it's called Cintsa or Chintsa and I haven't got a clue how it should be pronounced. However, I am sure of one thing: it's incredibly beautiful and very secluded. Buccaneers Backpackers, the only hostel around, probably is the best hostel in South Africa, as far the location is concerned...

Enjoy the view from the balcony.

Safari time!

No trip to Africa is complete without a safari... So I went to two different places, Addo Elephant Park and Schotia Game Reserve and was lucky enough to come across various wild animals.

Here's a tiny sample of what I saw. Bear in mind that the light was very low, the weather was bad and when we finally found the lions, it was getting dark. Hence the strange colours on most pictures. That said, I still find them ok.













This is a dung beetle... Yes, it lives in dung, basically.




A kudu, great to watch, delicious in the dinner plate too.













Elephant and ostrich.





































After a bit of editing, colours come out better.




The local Steve Irwin. Hopefully he will live a little longer than his Aussie counterpart. He put a whole venomous snake in his mouth. I mean, someone has to.







Sometimes you just don't think, you do it and then you realise it wasn't that bad after all. I ended up with 2 pythons, 1 boa and 1 anaconda playing around my neck, at the same time. Easy peasy.

Plettenberg Bay

Time has come to do a little flashback and show you how beautiful and diverse the South African landscape is. Let us start where we left off, i.e. Plettenberg Bay.

I couldn't believe the size of those waves... Probably 3 or 4 metres, at least.







This is a picture taken from Robberg Peninsula. Try and guess what animals are playing in the water... Yep, right, seals.




Une mer complètement déchaînée.




Plettenberg Bay... Simply beautiful.