Garden Route Road Trip

After orientation and before classes started, we had a week to explore, travel, and basically do whatever we wanted. A group of 14 of us decided to take a road trip down the coast of South Africa along the Garden Route. I assumed it was like the PCH of South Africa, but instead of seeing just beach, we literally passed through every type of landscape. We rented three cars for the 14 of us, and luckily they were all automatic. Having to drive a standard shift car on the other side of the road would probably be a little too overwhelming. We all drove for a part of the trip, and at first it was weird but after a little we all got the hang out of it. I was in a car with my friend Nicole from Bucknell, Michael and Matt from Princeton, and Matt’s surfboard tied to the roof of the car.

Our Car, with the Surfboard

The first day, we drove to Jeffrey’s Bay, a small surf town about 800 km away from Cape Town. Our group (the A-team as we called ourselves) made it there in about 7 and a half hours, had dinner, and settled into our hostel. It was right on the beach and full of surfers. We spent the next day hanging out at the beach. The water wasn’t too cold, the beach was beautiful and practically empty and town had cute stores. That night, we went down the beach to “supertubes,” a surf spot for only the best surfers, to watch the sunset.

Michael, Nicole, me, and Matt watching the Sunset at Supertubes

On Wednesday, we left Jeffrey’s Bay on our way to Plettenberg Bay, another small beach town. On our way, we stopped at Tsitsikama National Park and went on a beautiful hike to a waterfall. The hike turned out to be more of climbing over rocks than walking on a designated path, but all the views were amazing and we all went swimming in the waterfall. After the hike, we stopped at Monkeyland, a manmade reserve for hundreds of monkeys. We also visited Birds of Eden, a huge sanctuary with literally every kind of bird. We were impressed by the forest with beautiful, colorful macaws, but then continued through the reserve to find flamingos and cranes.

Our Hiking Group at the Waterfall

About 200 yards (or meters) after the animal reserves, we got a flat tire. We were a little concerned, seeing as we were in the middle of Africa, where Triple A does not exist, and no one in the car knew exactly how to change a tire. Luckily the boys figured it out pretty quickly and we were able to make it into Plettenberg Bay on the spare.

Thursday was the last day of our trip (we had mock lectures on Friday), so we explored Plettenberg in the morning then began the trip back. In the morning, we decided to go sea kayaking. It sounded great, until it started raining. Plettenberg is apparently in the midst of a drought, and there were signs all over our hostel informing us of this and advising us not to use excessive amounts of water. Apparently their drought ended during our sea kayaking. One of my roommates and I were in a kayak together, but just couldn’t get our paddling in sync. As the rain began to come down even harder, we seriously considered swimming back to shore in the shark-infested waters, but luckily, we made it back in one piece, and still in the kayak.

The drive home was a reality check—classes were starting on Monday and we our 3 week vacation in South Africa was coming to an end. However, while these weeks were great, it’s nice to have a consistent schedule and a routine again.