Drakensberg

Grocery shopping again.

 Rural life.

Scenes from our Cascades hike.

The new group: David, Megh, Linda, Manus and Sima.

Monday, December 4^th.

We packed up, had breakfast, loaded up the truck, said goodbye to John and Stephanie (who is shattered that she is going home and we are continuing). Then we set off for Drakensberg. It was about a three hour drive and we stopped once at a service station. At Drakensberg we did another Spar grocery store shop for the next two dinners and lunches for ourselves.

While standing in a line with Jay to pay for the groceries a white woman, who was about 50 lined up behind us with hers. When she saw the size of our two grocery carts she asked where we were going and where I was from. I got to talking to her and she told me that she is South African and has moved to Drakensberg because of work. She does not like the town and that it is not safe to go out after eight and that women have to be careful if they are alone. She told me that the white population is decreasing as people feel that the country is regressing and not progressing and that racism is getting worse. So people are emigrating. I mentioned that I have not seen any pictures of Nelson Mandela anywhere and she said it is amazing how fast people forget. She said the country is getting scary. I saw she was checking out with a cake and said it looks like you are going to a party. Turns out it was her birthday.

Then we drove to the backpackers place. It the best place so far. Great rooms and facilities. I have a new room mate for some reason, I now have Nathan.

We all went to the reception area to hear information about hikes for tomorrow. Then we all re-boarded the truck and Colin drove us to Royal Natal Maloti Drakensberg Park, which is a World Heritage Site. Here we went on a three hour hike called The Cascades which took us pretty steeply up to a large lookout rock that gave us a great view of the area they call the Amphitheatre as the mountains form a semi circle around the area. Really a beautiful place and a great walk.

On the way down we saw a couple of bush buck and three baboons. We drove back to the backpackers and Jay prepared us a braai (or barbeque dinner).