Living the hostel life, riding an elephant, and eating ostrich

After a week of CIEE orientation and another week of UCT orientation, I finally had one week free of obligations. As everyone who previously studied at UCT has said, a trip on the Garden Route is a must while in Cape Town.

The Garden Route is a route between Cape Town and Port Elizabeth that showcases some of the most beautiful coastlines and mountains in South Africa. Along the route, there are countless outdoor activities such as hiking, kayaking and cycling and many thrilling activities such as bungie jumping. The route also features many animal reserves and parks with zebras, elephants, monkeys, lions and more.

My friend/housemate Masha and I planned a 5-day trip on the Garden Route and gathered a group of 10 great people.  We decided to purchase a hop-on-hop-off ticket for the Baz Bus, which took care of our transportation for the entire trip (or so we thought…details to come).

Day 1: The day we met Sydney

The moment the Baz Bus arrived, that’s when our crazy day began. Sydney, the driver, is definitely the most outrageous person I’ve met so far in South Africa. He’s a ball of energy full of jokes, sarcasm and fun. He made sure to start off the trip by laying down the rules, but we quickly learned that the only rule of the Baz Bus was to be decently behaved while having fun.

Since we only had five days to tour the Garden Route — many people choose to do the Garden Route in seven, 14 or even 21 days — we decided to drive to our farthest destination on the first day and then work our way back toward Cape Town for the remainder of the trip. First stop was Jeffrey’s Bay, a 12-hour drive from Cape Town. (Note: the Baz Bus stops almost every hour, if not more, so Jeffrey’s Bay is probably only eight hours away.)

Our group of 10 filled a little less than half of the bus, leaving room for other study abroad students traveling on the same route and anyone else exploring the Garden Route. A few hours into the trip, the bus was completely full of passengers and entertainment specially provided by Sydney.

Sydney would switch between loud, dancing music (usually with a techno beat) and strange violent movies, several involving vampires. Sydney also was a fan of Shaggie, known for his hit “It Wasn’t Me,” which we all sung along to and greatly enjoyed.

Twelve hours later, we arrived at our hostel, Island Vibe JBay, a beach-side, surfing-culture hostel where everyone hangs out, lays on the beach, and just chills.

Day 2: The day we were beach bums

The day was simply great. We woke up, ate breakfast, relaxed on the beach, ate delicious seafood at a restaurant overlooking the beach, read and took an afternoon nap on the beach, ate dinner at the hostel with many interesting people and had fun at the hostel bar.

Day 3: The day we hated the Baz Bus

To keep it short, the Baz Bus is a very deceptive company. We planned to hop-on and hop-off the bus “anytime” along the Garden Route as their slogan indicates; however, “anytime” to Baz Bus means once each day at the specific time that they stop in that city. There were several things we wanted to do that day on the way from JBay to Knysna, and the Baz Bus was just not going to work, so we rented a car for the day to go bungie jumping, to the Knysna Elephant Park and finally to our hostel in Knysna.  Although the woman at STA Travel scared us into thinking the Garden Route was a very windy, dangerous road of which she would never dare to drive on, it’s actually a very easy, not windy road that was easy to drive on, even driving on the opposite side of the road.

Our first stop was bungie jumping at the highest commercial jump in the world. I wish I could say that I jumped with ease, but I, along with Masha, actually watched our friends scarily jump. They all said it was an amazing experience, and I hope that I will gain the courage to do it before leaving South Africa.

Our second stop was the Knysna Elephant Park, where Masha and I, along with two other friends from CIEE who we ran into, rode elephants, fed them food and learned interesting facts about elephants. Fact #1: elephants spend 18 hours each day eating. Fact #2: elephants can eat up to ¼ of their body weight. Fact #3: When a human rides an elephant, it’s like an elephant wearing a purse — the person is lightweight and can hardly be felt by the elephant.

Day 4: The day we could have done more

We had about half a day in Knysna, but by the time we all woke up and got ready to leave our hostel, there wasn’t much time left before having to catch the Baz Bus. We found a cute breakfast spot near the waterfront and then walked around the Knysna lagoon until we had to leave. Once on the Baz Bus, we had a six-hour bus ride to our final destination: Hermanus.

Hermanus Backpackers was our favorite hostel, not only because it was the cleanest, but also because of the building design, the location and the chill people. The hostel hosted a braai, where we ate a delicious dinner. My main meal was chicken, but many of my friends ate ostrich sausage, a typical delicacy here. I tried a piece of ostrich, which was a bit strange, but tasty. (Random fact: an ostrich’s brain is smaller than one of its eyes.)

Day 5: The day we absolutely enjoyed

Hermanus is a beautiful little beach town. The blue-teal ocean breaks against a part-sand, part-mountain coastline, which follows the town, which is full of cute restaurants and small shops.

We went sea kayaking around noon with a guide for about two hours. It was amazing. The ocean was full of huge kelp plants, which we had to paddle through to get to open water. While out kayaking, I tasted the kelp, after our guide said it was edible, but I wouldn’t recommend it to anyone. It was chewy, salty and just not very tasty.

The first animal we saw were African penguins, also called Jackass penguins. Three of them swam alongside us as we kayaked and then they swiftly disappeared, only to pop up out of the ocean later. We also saw a pack of seals that hung around our kayaks for a while, before we paddled away.

After our kayaking adventure, we ate at a delicious restaurant along the ocean, where I ate a scrumptious ciabatta-bread sandwich with locks of salmon, cream cheese and capers.

I wish we had had more time to truly see all of the Garden Route, but I definitely enjoyed every moment of the trip and grew even closer with all of my friends.