Easter Break 2008

Many people had planned their spring break trips for weeks, and some of us were blissfully ignorant that flights, buses, and backpackers (hostels) were booking up. A couple weeks before Easter, I had only a few choices left: Mozambique via a flight with only one seat left; Cape Town, which I would like to give more than a week of travel time to; and the Ukhahlamba Drakensberg mountains, which was going to house the biggest music festival in the country. Splashy Fen music festival and the mountains won out, and were my destinations for Easter weekend.

We came to the realization that buying camping equipment for just one weekend is not the most economical or environmental decision. Instead, the festival had a ‘tent hotel’: they set up tents, beds with linens, hot showers and breakfasts, and all we had to do was show up. I was sold! I rented a car, filled it with four of my friends, and we were off.

I was excited to drive again. Being so dependant on my car at home, it has been strange to wait for cabs, mini-bus taxis, or friends to drive me around Durban. I was nervous about doing the whole driving on the ‘wrong side’ of the road thing though. My mantra during driving was “left, left, left”, which I think helped, since my passengers didn’t ever have to remind me to switch lanes.

We departed from Durban later than expected on Thursday. We picked up some groceries and visited the liquor store before we left town, only the essentials. The problem was that no glass bottles were allowed, so we filled plastic bottles and got a good selection of boxed wine.

Our first stop was the Hilton hotel for a pit stop. It didn’t quite meet our expectations though – apparently there is a town called Hilton, and it has a hotel there.

Our next stop was further into the mountains in Bulwer, where they served us tea (it’s cold in the mountains here, too!), tasty homemade soup, and sandwiches. The cool kind of sandwiches here are bacon and banana, which I hear are pretty tasty. I can’t complain about the food here at all, it’s just the desserts that need some work. Perhaps because ovens aren’t very common here, so people don’t know how easy it is to make wicked cakes and cookies, and are satisfied with mediocrity. (In an exciting side note, one of the guys in rez has a toaster oven that we have used with great success to bake cookies!)

By this time, it was very dark, and the clouds had moved in. Since it is so mountainous in this area, when it is cloudy, you are IN the cloud. Let me tell you, it’s not so fun to drive when you can see about a metre in front of you due to the rain and fog, and you must be careful to avoid livestock. By the time we made it onto the dirt road, my nerves were shot. The setting for the festival is on a farm, which is lovely in prime weather conditions, but gets really muddy really fast when it rains. In fact, the road out of the festival was closed the following day because cars were sliding down the hills.

None of us were really prepared for the rain. I was told that everyone comes back from Splashy burnt, so I was ready for the sun: shorts, tanks, and sunscreen. Unfortunately, no one sent us the memo about the torrential downpours and knee-deep mud that are the norm at the festival. Perhaps the name ‘Splashy’ should have tipped us off. Everyone was modelling the latest varieties of gum boots (rubber boots), skinny jeans, sweaters, scarves, and vests. The winter displays at the mall made more sense after I experienced this weather! I have never been so cold in my life – flip flops, capris, and thin shirts just didn’t cut it when I had to walk through massive red puddles of mud in the rain. The hot showers alone were worth the cost of the hotel at this point.

The music was fantastic – it was all South African artists, ranging from yodelling to emo to metal to folk to house; something for everyone. The food was worth the trip in itself though: mulled wine, hot mini-donuts covered in chocolate (this might be the only exception to the dessert limitations here), falafels, crepes, curries, homemade pasta… the list goes on! Next time, we won’t need to make a grocery store stop before coming here.

It dried up a bit by the time we were ready to leave, and we made our way to our next stop, the Sani Pass. Potholes were created from the rain on the weekend, so we often bottomed out. Our mantra this time was “Rental!” after every scrape; I’m glad we didn’t have to worry about ruining someone’s car under those horrific conditions!

We met up with some other friends at the backpackers, making our group 8-strong. It was nice to be in the country to chillax. The crime rate appears to be much lower where we were staying, since there wasn’t and barbed wire or security guards to protect the property. In this province, farmers are often killed in land disputes, so it apparently this was not one of those areas.

The following day we did a day-trip to Lesotho, the country that is entirely surrounded by South Africa. We accessed this ‘country in the sky’ through the Sani pass, which is the only border crossing to Lesotho from this province. The road is unlike any I have seen before. It seemed bad even by bike trail standards – hairpin turns, boulders, and waterfalls going over the road. I was glad to have the front seat, since it was such a bumpy ride.

It was so gorgeous making our way up the pass. Halfway up we arrived at the South African passport office, and then at the top of the pass, we made it to Lesotho. The passport control is a little different here than what I’m used to: you get both entry and exit stamps when you get there, so you don’t have to tell them when you leave the country.

Lesotho is quite different than South Africa. The people still wear traditional clothing, and maintain their roles from many years ago. The shepards are usually teenage boys, who enjoyed talking to us on our lunch break. One of them tried to impress us with his limited English “What’s up motherfuckers?” which we thought was pretty hilarious. The next entertainment during lunch was watching some drug smugglers trek up the pass – TIA.

The next day we had a lovely time going horseback riding in the lowlands of the Sani pass. Of course, I got the dud horse that wouldn’t go anywhere. They told me that I had to be forceful, but I can only kick so hard. Every once in awhile my horse would look at me like “Yes, I’m going to eat these flowers, and then stop in the middle of the river, and you better be grateful that I haven’t kicked you off already.” The beauty of the surroundings made up for it though!

The next day we drove back to the Durbs on the speedy N3. The highways here are amazing! They are toll roads, but it is totally worth it to travel on the ridiculously fast, nicely paved roads. People are cautious to stay to the left here (that is the slow lane here), which might have something to do with the inordinate number of road rage incidents here. It worked well for me though!

We arrived safe and sound back in Durban, ready for the next term of school to start.