ROAD TRIPS. MONTHLY CHALLENGE.

Living 24/7 for Two Weeks With a Total Stranger

Road tripping through the southernmost country in Africa

It’s not always about the destination. Especially when doing a road trip it’s more about the things you see in between. It’s about the road you take to get there. And with whom you’re traveling.

But this journey was a much longer one. For me at least. I had started my trip months back in West Africa. And I somehow had a destination. I had a flight back. I had the ticket booked in advance. So, I had to make it down to Cape Town. It’s from where I would be flying back home again.

South Africa was my final country to explore.

“I may not have gone where I intended to go, But I think I have ended up where I intended to be.” — Douglas Adams

Up until this point I had lived in Ghana for several months undertaking countless trips with other travelers but also going on solo adventures like hiking along the coastline all on my own.

I traveled through Tanzania, Zambia, Namibia, and Botswana.

Solo.

I knew what I was capable of. And was pretty self-confident at this point.

But I was on a budget too. I wanted to explore South Africa by road and the only way to be able to afford it was to travel with others.

I did something I hadn’t done before and organized the trip online via a travel platform. We found four travelers who had the same route in mind and wanted to share costs. Unfortunately, two of them didn’t make it because of different reasons.

So there were two of us. We’ve never met before or knew anything about each other. I ended up arriving a day earlier since I entered south Africa by land from the North and got the rental car before picking up the stranger from the airport in Johannesburg.

I tell you what. It was weird waiting at the airport for someone you’d never seen before. I just texted him I was wearing something yellow and so it was him who recognized me first.

We went straight to the car and hit the road. For the first few hours, we chatted a lot while I was driving. After all, there was a lot we had to learn about each other.

We had two weeks ahead of us. Two weeks of spending 24/7 together with a total stranger. If I think back at all the adventures I did, this was probably the craziest thing of all of them.

We were heading east towards the Drakensberg Mountains where we slept the first night close to the Blyde River Canyon. After having seen the second largest canyon in the world, the Fish River Canyon, I now saw the first green one.

The vegetation in the mountains, the lake in the middle, and all those tiny but mighty waterfalls. It was spectacular.

“What we see depends mainly on what we look for.” — John Lubbock

On the second day of our road trip, we headed for the famous Kruger National Park. While I had seen incredible wildlife including the big five already weeks before in the Serengeti in Tanzania, I was now doing my first self-drive safari.

I learned that having a red car isn’t recommended when entering a herd of buffalos but we made it out alive.

And yes, we got pretty close to the wildlife out there.

Further down the road, we headed for the ocean. Santa Lucia is known to be the town where hippos are roaming the streets at night and we both made sure we weren’t outside in the dark but happily watched these sleeping animals in the daytime.

Did you know that hippopotamus is the deadliest large land mammal? About 500 people get killed per year in Africa. From hippo attacks. Even though this animal only eats greens they can be very aggressive. And fast.

Stay away from them is the best advice I can give you.

We also did a quick stop on the beach. It was going into the winter season in the southern hemisphere and starting to get cold. There were no humans to be seen on this coastline.

Further inland we decided to drive through another national park. We didn’t see many animals but we did see 6 rhinos. Incredibly rare and unbelievable. Especially since they were all close to the road.

For the protection of the animals, I am not giving away the name of the park we saw them in.

#savetherhino

Yes, there they were.

Right there. Next to us. Happily grazing in the wild.

We had spent about a week together by now and got to know each other better. My travel partner and I had one thing in common. We both had a big passion for photography which made it pretty easy to connect in the beginning.

After some time the differences came to light and slowly but surely built a wall between us. While he was in his late 30s or maybe in the 40s already, I can’t remember, I was the girl who had just graduated from university.

He had a stable job and a fixed income while I had no income and was traveling with the funds I had saved up for this trip. I was more than on a budget by now. My funds were running low as I was nearing the end of the trip.

While I had no problems paying for fuel and food, I surely wasn’t happy paying incredible amounts of money for accommodation. Not to lie but my standards for a bed for the night were pretty low.

Let’s put it that way. He had his standards.

We both had to make compromises. After a night in cheap but rustic accommodation, I had to stir up some coins and stay in a fancy B&B for the following night.

And this was one of them. I still remember the amazing view we had from the terrace of our room. I guess, in the end, the money was worth it even though I would have rather spent it on different things.

“People don’t take trips, trips take people.” — John Steinbeck

We stayed two nights in this place to slow down and relax after all the driving we did.

A South African guy I met at Victoria Falls just a few weeks earlier met up with us and took us to Lake Eland for the day. We marveled at stunning cliffs and a beautiful canyon.

They offered ziplining down to the lake but since the other guys weren’t into it I decided to skip the adventure as well.

I still got to enjoy myself as soon as the South African packed out the cooler box and filled the grid with more than enough real meat. A real braai.

This is what I needed after traveling for months through countries where I might have eaten meat but didn’t know if it really was chicken or perhaps actually squirrel, guinea fowl, monkey, or even rat.

Back at our B&B on the coastline, I went down to the beach for a lovely sunset over the ocean. And like most other pictures on this trip, this photograph of me is taken by myself. With a tripod.

While both of us had a passion for photography, we didn’t take pictures of each other.

Back on the road again we stopped for a quick visit in Port Elizabeth. But since we both weren’t into city life, we were soon on the road again looking for some breathtaking landscapes.

Those landscapes we found further south in the Tsitsikamma National Park. The park is a famous stop along the popular Garden Route and we decided to do a hike along the coastline.

I haven’t been exposed to a coastline like this before and was completely speechless. In my teenage years I’ve been to many beaches but those where you don’t see anything but sand and sea for miles.

Having cliffs and lush green forests meeting with the ocean was bringing a whole new dimension of coastline beauty to my world.

The Garden Route has the right to be famous, because well, that coastline is just spectacular. Our next stop was in Knysna. A town built in a bay surrounded by breathtaking cliffs.

“Making memories one road trip at a time.” — Unknown

Another perfect spot to take a moment for myself.

Getting closer to our destination of Cape Town, we did one more detour driving up the beautiful Swartberg Pass. It wasn’t an easy drive but I loved it.

The view from above over the surrounding mountains was breathtaking.

It felt like time was speeding up now. This big adventure of spending more than 6 months in Africa was just days away from being over. I couldn’t believe it and didn’t grasp it. Just yet.

But there it was. Written in letters.

Cape Town was just around the corner. My final destination.

“My destination is no longer a place, rather a new way of seeing.” — Marcel Proust

And that feeling of having reached the end of my journey was coming to a high when we stopped at Cape Agulhas, Africa's southernmost point where the Indian and the Atlantic Ocean do meet.

I just hadn’t seen an ostrich on the beach yet, so here it was elegantly walking towards us on our way to Cape of Good Hope.

To finish off such an amazing adventure I couldn’t have hoped for more beautiful landscapes.

I wasn’t so much interested in the city of Cape Town itself but loved all the surrounding mountains and beaches including penguins walking their way.

Yes, I did it.

Or let’s say we did it. Two strangers survived two weeks of spending 24/7 together. And I found a picture of him, my travel partner.

Taking photographs of the city of Cape Town from Table Mountain. No, we didn’t hike up because he wasn’t into it. I had to return to Cape Town two years later to do that hike. On my own.

That day we took the cable car to the top and after a few minutes I ventured off to walk along a beautiful trail on the flat plateau of Table Mountain. I walked further and a little closer to the edge.

When I sat up there I saw more than just Cape Town.

I saw more than just a 2–week road trip coming to an end.

I saw more than just the end of my 6-month journey through Africa.

Back then already, I knew I was coming back.

Africa had stolen my heart.

“Sometimes it’s the journey that teaches you a lot about your destination.” — Drake

This is a writing prompt response to the writing challenge of August for Globetrotters. Thank you Gerald Sturgill for the inspiration.

More about my adventures in Africa:

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