How we got to Cape Town
My posts to the blog are bound to be out of order these days. Longer posts are easier to write later. Like this one.
The last time we came to Cape Town was relatively easy. After 4 hours sitting at the gas station we caught a lift from Keetmans to a horrible little town called Steinkopf. From the side of the road there we got a lift all the way to Cape Town. One day, no fuss.
This time was in a few more stages and took two days instead of one, which still isn't bad for hitch hiking almost 1000km.
Stage 1: Keetmans to Noordover. (304km)
Walking away from your home is a strange feeling. Walking, with a backpack, not driving, with a car full of stuff. We walked 40 minutes to the Engen gas station on the edge of town where it took about 2 hours to find a lift to Noordover. We got a lift with a guy who worked for one of the flour milling companies as a instructional baker. We had a lot to talk about.
Stage 2: Noordover (the border) to Springbok (130km)
Our first lift was only going as far as the border and was kind enough to drop us right at the border station. There we got the first stamps in our personal passports and retired our Peace Corps issued ones. We also got lots of funny looks at we proceeded to walk from the Namibia post to the South Africa post a kilometer away. After about 20 minutes in South africa a mother and son offered us a lift to Springbok, the first large (read: pop 10,000) town south of the border. We checked out the minibus station, but all the combis to Cape Town had left. We tried hitch hiking on the N7 for about an hour with no luck and ended up spending the night in Springbok.
Stage 3: Springbok to Klawer... no... Vanrhysdorf (200km)
We were out hiking by 6:30am and had a lift to Klawer by 7:30. We knew Klawer had a nice Engen station and was a popular stop, so we took the lift thinking it would be no problem to find a lift from Klawer to Cape Town. 50km from Klawer our ride gets a call and it turns out he isn't going to Klawer and is stopping in Vanrhysdorf. Where?
Stage 4: Vanrhysdorf to Cape Town (300km)
Vanrhysdorf did NOT look promising at first. We sat at the gas station and ate some bread and peanut butter for breakfast while we figured out what todo. Into the gas station pulled a truck I remember passing towing what looked to be a tiny helicopter on a trailer. Well he was going to Cape Town and it wasn't a helicopter. It was a microlight airplane and if we didn't mind giving him a hand assembling it he would be happy to drop us in Cape Town.
He dropped us at the train station where we picked up our tickets to Johannesburg. We leave Cape Town on Sunday, headed for Swaziland by way of Jo'burg.
posted by Rashid Khan @ 4:26 AM,
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