© Richard Randall

Caribbean

Sundries

BLOEMFONTEIN

Bloemfontein is known as the city of Roses, and is South Africa's judicial capital and the capital of the Free State province. It is not a typical tourist destination as it is situated at the crossroads of South Africa, with most of the tourists using it as a break in their journey across the country. We liked it though, although our main reason for going there was so visit Lesotho. There were some historically important buildings and nature reserves, craft centres, art galleries and shopping centres. The bus journey was conmfortable, we arrived at the drop off point pleased to be getting off of the bus and we took a taxi to our accommodation. We had decided to stay at the Stanville Inn, 85 Zastron Street, it was on a main road but we were not disturbed by the traffic, our room was nice, and it was excellent value. Apparently Bloemfontein had the honour at the time of our visit, of having Hobbit House which had been voted South Africa's best guest house. Hobbit House only had five rooms and the Stanville Inn had five storeys of rooms, although Hobbit House would not have been compatible with our budget anyway. Although I did like the sound of having a teddy bear tucked into the bed under the handmade quilts ~ oh well, I would have to make do with Richard tucked in at the Stanville Inn! After a good nights sleep we sorted out a rental car for the drive to Lesotho, where we stayed for a few nights, more of which can be read on the Lesotho Travelogue page. On our return from Lesotho to Bloemfontein we stayed at the Stanville Inn again, if it ain't broke don't fix it! After checking in we went for a walk round the local streets, and found a really cool little bar where we enjoyed a few beers before going to find something to eat for dinner. Not far along the road from our hotel we saw a Chinese restaurant, it looked quite busy so we went in. The service was good as was the food, it made a change from all of the heavy meat dishes we had been enjoying, lots of nice light fresh vegetables and tasty Chinese beer. There was more to do than eat and drink in Bloemfontein, such as visiting the National Afrikaans Literary Museum, the National Women's Monument and War Museum, and the Oliewenhuis Art Gallery and Freshford House Museum. One day we took a taxi to a small shopping centre and market, which was situated around a dock area but I can not remember where it was. I do remember that it was very busy and we stayed there until quite late in the evening sitting outside a pub drinking beer as we looked out across the water. As we had returned the hire car we took a coach to Durban for a few days.

DURBAN

Durban was up until the 70's white South Africa's seaside playground. Even whilst we were there it had a laid back hippie vibe to it with surfers and holidaying families everywhere. In the 80's with the collapse of apartheid, the area was besieged by Africans from KwaZulu Natal. We stayed at the Impala Holiday Flats, 40 Gillespie Street, which was a large tower block of family apartments situated near to the Wheel Shopping Centre. After we checked in and had a good look at the apartment we went shopping. Everything was included in the apartment, crockery, cutlery etc, all we needed was food. The area near the apartment felt run down and poor, although in the centre of town things felt more modern and sophisticated. We went for strolls on the beach, our apartment was only one street back from the sea, feeling the sand between our toes and generally just relaxed during our stay in Durban. There was lots to do like visiting the Local History Museum, and the National Science Museum, and Durban Art Gallery, and Sea World as well as shopping. Durban is one of South Africa's major cities and as such the shopping was quite good especially for crafts. As Durban is the home turf of the Zulus it was excellent for purchasing Zulu crafts like, grass brooms, baskets, woven beer strainers, bead work, along with more obvious Zulu pieces such as spears, shields, leather kilts, and drums. We also saw some sandals that were made using recycled rubber vehicle tyres, they seemed very popular as we saw lots of people wearing them. One day whilst staying in Durban we needed to sort out our ongoing travel arrangements, which meant lots of trips here and there all over the city. We worked out that instead of getting a taxi to take us everywhere it would probably work out much cheaper to hire a car for one day, which it did. We hired a basic car first thing one morning and got everything done so quickly that we took it back a couple of hours later. The manager at the company we hired the car from was surprised to see us back so soon, he thought that there was a problem with the car, until we told him why we were returning it so soon. When we mentioned to him that we were getting the bus to Mozambique he said 'why, don't you know what they do to tourists there'? Well we do now, more of which can be read on the Mozambique Travelogue page.

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After leaving Durban for Mozambique there followed a lot of different journeys in and out of South Africa. We travelled from ...

Durban by coach to Mozambique,

Mozambique to Malawi,

Malawi to Zimbabwe via Mozambique,

Zimbabwe to Pretoria for the night, taxi from Pretoria to Johannesburg Airport for flight to Madagascar,

Madagascar to Johannesburg, taxi to Pretoria for the night, train to border with Mozambique.

Mozambique bus to Swaziland,

Swaziland bus to Pretoria,

Pretoria taxi to Johannesburg Airport for flight home to London.

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We spent well over a year travelling round the beautiful, amazing, wonderful Continent of Africa, and we both fell in love with the people, the culture, the land, the atmosphere, and the food. We loved everything about our African experiences, and have very fond memories of our time there.

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 2.5 License.

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