After our two-week road trip through Namibia, we hit South African soil on November 8 in the stunning city of Cape Town. Our time in South Africa can be divided into three chapters, all beginning and ending in the "Mother City", as the town is also called due to her pivotal role in both colonialism and apartheid. We‘ve spent significant time there, and I can assure you the city is marvelous. As you can see in the photo, Cape Town is built around a bunch of mountains. Its center, called the "city bowl", is surrounded by Devil‘s Peak, Table Mountain, and Lion‘s Head. So although it‘s a pretty big city, you‘re always close to nature, be it the national park that connects those elevations or the seafront. 

It‘s a braai, not a barbecue.

I registered for a South Africa paragliding trip three years ago, but COVID-19 killed this undertaking. Once I learned that I would be in South Africa when Paraworld.ch would run that trip, I couldn‘t resist signing up for it. We were around 15 pilots and would explore the Western Cape's various flying areas and spots. Birdmen Paragliding, Paraworld.ch‘s partner company in South Africa, owns each a guest house in Cape Town and Sedgefield (a tiny little town at the garden route), which allowed us to flexibly stay wherever we would meet the best conditions.

The whole trip was definitely a change in terms of routines. Every day, we would get up between 5:30 am and 7:30 am, eat breakfast, buy snacks (including biltong, typical South African dry meat), chase thermals and upwind during the day, and fade out our evenings with a traditional braai or a restaurant visit. In the photo, you can see such a braai - don‘t call it a barbecue; this would be a severe offense to every South African. As Barry, our local paragliding guide and Braai-Chef, explained: A braai is a ritual of passion; it takes a while until the blaze is ready, and as opposed to a barbecue, you would only use coal/wood but never gas. The result was super delicious, and I would certainly have had enough meat for a while after our time in the country.

Who needs a Toyota Hilux?

You may remember that we had a beast of a car in Namibia called Toyota Hilux. As streets are mostly tarred in South Africa, we could go from Cape Town to Johannesburg with a compact Hyundai i20. OK, sometimes we would have been delighted to have a 4-wheel drive, but more to that later. It took us only a short time to understand that we would need a car to discover the country's highlights. Yes, there are mini-buses for the locals and a backpacker bus for tourists, but neither would allow flexibility, and travel would be much more cumbersome. So, hands up for another road trip.

Time to compile a bucket list

The next region on our program was the garden route area along the southern coast. We stayed first in the cozy coastal town of Wilderness. The garden route area deserves its name; it's a gorgeous coastline with lovely beaches and lush, green forests right behind. Before heading further east to Plettenberg Bay, we made a short detour northwards to the semi-desert town of Prince Albert. On the way there, we visited an ostrich farm, explored the Cango caves, and conquered the Swartberg pass (where we would have preferred a 4-wheel-drive). Prince Albert is one of the oldest towns in the country; its roots date back to 1762. The weather was a bit too windy and wet for the hikes we had in mind, but beautifully preserved architecture and excellent restaurants made it a fantastic place to stay for a few nights. Inspired by a podcast we‘ve listened to, we also started working on a bucket list. For the ones who don‘t know what a bucket list is, it contains everything you want to do and achieve before you kick the bucket. It may contain minor things such as "Seeing the northern lights“ or more serious undertakings like "Hike to all SAC huts," to give you two examples of my bucket list.

Enough about dreams; let’s continue with the road trip: The way "back" to the garden route and the city of Plettenberg Bay was another scenic drive; we rolled through the Meiringspoort pass, made a short stop to take photos of a stunning waterfall and fell in love with the canyon-like landscape. A few hours later, we moved into our Airbnb in Plett. During our 5 day stay, we went canyoning, enjoyed the beach, did a catamaran trip, visited an elephant conservancy, and hiked in the Robberg Nature Reserve.

Time to work down the bucket list

Before heading north to another semi-desert town called Graaff-Reinet, it was time to work on my bucket list. The Bloukrans Bridge that connects the Western Cape and the Eastern Cape is a magnificent viewing point over the Tsitsikamma National Park and hosts the world‘s fourth-highest bungy jump. As some of you know, I have a deal with my friend Sascha to do the 10 highest bungy jumps worldwide, so it’s definitely a bucket list item that I had to crack on, even without Sascha. Check out the video to witness this adrenaline-filled experience.

The fact that the South African holiday season had finally started became evident on our way to Graaff-Reinet. While heading north, most of the traffic drove southwards to the coast. That‘s a well-known phenomenon as most people living in the business city of Johannesburg prefer to spend their year-end holidays in the more picturesque area of the Western and Eastern Cape. We could only stay two nights in Graaff-Reinet as the city was fully booked. We made the most out of that one day; we did a little game drive with our Hyundai in the Camdeboo National Park and enjoyed a paranormal sunset over the Valley of Desolation while having a dinner picnic.

By coincidence, we stumbled on Google Maps over Moolmanshoek, a private game reserve well-known for its horses. The area is encircled by mountains and encompasses 3300 hectares of playing ground for horses and a vast range of wildlife, including oryx, mountain zebras, serval cats, etc. We spent 5 days there horseback riding, trail running, hiking, and enjoying the mouthwatering meals from local chef Theo. Describing with words how it is to run in the middle of a game reserve, only a few meters away from mountain zebras and all sorts of antelopes, is difficult and comes short of the experience. Yet, the owner's description gets close: Experiencing a mini-Serengeti in the heart of South Africa. Check out the video to get an impression. 

With a heavy heart, we left Moolmanshoek to reach our Christmas accommodation after a 3-hour drive: The Montusi Mountain Lodge. It’s another jewel of a private reserve; the resort is located in the Drakensberg, a mountain range along the eastern border of Lesotho and South Africa. The weather wasn‘t in our favor, but we did a captivating hike on the second day to the impressive amphitheater in the Royal Natal National Park. We got up relatively late, and when we discussed our plan to do the gorge hike (14 kilometers) with the park rangers, they warned us that we might be too late and it would be risky because of rain and thunderstorms. Being Swiss, I assured them that we know the hiking business…and as one could guess, once we stepped into the gorge’s water, it started to rain and hail. It was a wet hike back, but it was worth the sweat.

After another 5 nights and enough of the lodge experience, we drove to our final destination: Johannesburg, South Africa‘s largest city and business capital, Joburg or Jozy. As foredoomed by most locals and travelers, we wouldn‘t be impressed by Jozy. Competing with a city like Cape Town is tricky, but there‘s really little to do in Joburg. Both the apartheid museum and the Cradle of Humankind, the two best-known attractions, were closed due to the holiday season. Hence, we went to the movies, shopped, and visited the remaining primary site, Constitutional Hill Museum. It’s a jail of the apartheid time, which has been transformed into a museum and on whose grounds the Constitutional Court has been built. After returning the car, it was also time for me to say goodbye to Michelle. She would be doing yoga teacher training in Goa from mid-January to mid-February and visiting her family in Switzerland. Right before the 2023 ended, I flew back to Cape Town to open Chapter 3 of our time in South Africa.

Returning to the mother city

After Joburg, I had a desperate need to do some hiking. At the same time, the clock was ticking for New Year's Eve, and luckily, a few people from our hostel liked the idea of "hiking" up to Signal Hill to view the fireworks. Signal Hill is the fourth "home mountain“ of Cape Town, located at 350 meters above median sea level. It got its name because of the noon gun fired daily at 1:00 pm (so that ships could synchronize their marine chronometers). In the following days, I hiked up to Devil’s Peak and once more to Lion’s Head, made a scenic road trip with two newly made friends from Austria, made my debut on a hop-on/hop-off sightseeing bus, checked out Kirstenbosch botanical gardens, and visit both the apartheid relevant places of Robben Island and District Six Museum.