Our first hike in Lesotho!

By the way, Lesotho is pronounced "Ley-soo-too". Just so you know.

Some of you had asked how we are managing to get on the internet here in the middle of the Lesotho mountains. There is a very weak cell signal coming from an old 2G EDGE connection. We are connected, but it's slower than dial-up! Still better than nothing at all.

The tiny Kingdom of Lesotho

Back at the beginning of October, we had been in the city of Ottawa tourist office on the 18th floor of an office building in downtown Ottawa, Canada. Across the hall was the Embassy of the Kingdom of Lesotho.

We went and knocked on the door!

Through the Gates of Paradise

Well, I don't quite know how to tell you about the last couple of days, but somehow we need to try and get caught up on our adventures. So this is a condensed version of things, but it's difficult...because we've seen and done so much! To top it all off, we're in the middle of nowhere and have limited electricity and very slow internet. Still, we're determined to tell you what a great few days we've had!

We left Durban on Feb 7, and stayed at a nice backpacker place called Amphitheater Lodge that night. Then on the 8th, we drove into another new country...the tiny Kingdom of Lesotho.

Not long enough in Durban!

We didn't plan very well. Actually, what happened is that we spent too much time on "the Garden Route" which is overrated as a tourist destination. Sure, it's nice enough, but we should have driven through a little quicker and allowed for more time in this area.

So, we only had one full day in the city of Durban, but it gave us enough of a feel for the city that we know we want to return one day!

Arrived in the city of Durban!

We'll squeeze two days into one post here, simply because most of it was taken up with driving! We left Wild Lubanzi backpackers lodge on the morning of the 4th, and arrived in the tropical port city of Durban on the afternoon of the 5th.

Here's how it all happened...

Drizzling, but still a great day...

Our regular readers might have noticed that we're trying to play catch up from our six days away without much internet. We did have enough connectivity to check emails, but definitely not enough for a blog post, especially with pictures. So check the prior posts to make sure that you didn't miss anything because we're trying to do some extra posts until we're caught up!

On Monday February 3rd, we went for a hike. Rain or shine.

Bulungula to Wild Lubanzi

We enjoyed our time at Bulungula, and we're glad we made the effort to go there. But the lodge itself could be a little more organized. It takes them forever to make up your bill, so if you want to get an early start you should settle up with them the night before. When we went to pay our bill in the morning, the girl was off having a shower and we had to wait around for a half an hour. Not that big of a deal, but there were other people waiting too.

Our bill for 4 nights was R1,685 ($177) and that included one dinner meal, parking, and a few bar drinks. Not bad. We had brought food for self catering so we made our own meals the rest of the time.

How many cows did you pay for your wife?

On Saturday February 1st, we did the Village Tour offered by Bulungula Lodge. The idea of the lodge is to have the visitors interact with the community as much as possible, and vice versa. This tour shows you a lot of local customs and it was certainly the most interesting part of our stay in the community.

Canoeing and pancakes at Bulungula

Our second full day, we decided to go canoeing. The activities at the lodge are run by locals, with part of the proceeds going to the community, and the rest going to the person running the activity. The excursion cost R80 ($8.40) each. This particular day, it was a young guy named Lindo who was running the trip. He was 24 years old, and this is his only job.

Bulungula - A walk on the beach

We had a goal on our first full day at Bulungula. To relax!

They have a lot of activities to take part in if you want to, and they're very reasonably priced. We eventually did the canoeing and the village tour, but they'll be detailed in upcoming posts. For today, we went for a walk on the beach. We've never seen so many different seashells!

Arrival at Bulungula

This post goes back to January 29th. We did a 257 km (160 mile) drive from the East London area to the Bulungula Lodge located on South Africa's "Wild Coast".

The drive took us into an area where there aren't many tourists, and really the only tourist accommodation is a few remote backpacker lodges along the very scenic coastline.

But first, you have to get there!

Our Tilley Hats!

We are experts on Tilley hats.

Well, maybe not experts, but we sure do have a lot of experience with the two hats that we own! We have accumulated a lot of hours wearing our Tilley hats, so now we think we are fully qualified to tell you about them.

Heading into the wild!

The Wild Coast, that is.

This section of South Africa isn't really "wild" although it is one of the least inhabited, as well as an area where many locals live traditional lives. It's also supposed to have some gorgeous scenery, and we're looking forward to taking some great photos for you!

Only downside is you might not see them for a while!

Driving Day

Yesterday was a driving day. Hard to believe that we've been in South Africa for almost four weeks. When we look at the map though, we really don't seem like we've made much progress! And so we needed to do some driving.

Because of Ruth's accident with her hand on Sunday, we never made it down to Port Elizabeth's beach area. We wanted to have a quick look though.

A visit to a South African hospital

This is not how we planned on spending our Sunday!

We were actually kind of taking our time yesterday morning, and Ruth had made some delicious gluten free pancakes for us all. I was in the process of writing yesterday's blog post, and our couchsurfing hosts Kurt and Leizel were getting their kids ready to go to a birthday party. Ruth was in the kitchen, tidying up.

Then we heard Ruth calling. "Kevin! I've cut myself. And it's bad!"