Sugar cane, wolf whistles and mist!

At the moment I'm traveling through my own country as a tourist. How many people ever do that? I'm always telling my friends where to head off to in south africa but never done these things myself, so now its my turn. Today I drove through part of the eastern cape and I'm camping in morgan's bay on what is know as the wild coast. So far I haven't had time to explore, or even go to the beach but I'll do that in the morning.

What a beautiful drive to get down here though. There's a bit of everything, ocean views, mountainous countryside, flat plains, farmland and towns and lovely people everywhere I go.

This morning started with me driving alongside fields of sugarcane and the sweet smell out heated sugar filled my nose as I drove. Sugar fields were replaced with vast open tracts of land, untouched and unspoilt, the occasional dwelling dotted here and there, the only signs of life being the numerous farm animals that lined the freeway edges. I don't understand why the grass next to the road tastes better than the grass in the fields! But then again I'm not a regular grass eater...

The roads were a chaotic mess of upgrades but you gotta love the entrepreneurial skills of south africans, all sorts of things were for sale in the big traffic jams that ensued! In one traffic jam I was watching some school kids that had obviously just been let out. Most were smiling and waving to me but one little boy snacks his lips and let out one of the funniest wolf whistles I've heard! He's gonna grow up to be a player!

Besides some horrendous mist the rest of the trip was uneventful and I'm now safely nestled into my tent ready to read my book!

Cos I'm on my way!

I'm on my way back to switzerland after a short visit to germany again. I do love the germans! Everything they do entertains me endlessly! I've had a pretty uneventful day of driving today.

This morning I stopped off to see the castle that inspired disney's castle but was immediately put off by the hundreds of tourists and immense amount of of tour buses! Then the thought of paying to walk around another castle sold me on betting a post card and moving on! Next on my list for the day was lindau. near the corder of switzerland it seemed a good option so here I am, not sure where I'm going to sleep tonight but not going to worry, a solution will be found. I am parked on a pretty quiet street so I might get away with sleeping there. I might have to after this beer! oh right so now I'm sitting near the harbour doing my favorite thing, watching germans walk past. Sometimes life is good :)

Back to germany

Today I had a fairly eventful trip to germany, mostly because for the first time I changed a car battery, and what an easy process that is! Well it all started out when I tried to start jerry this morning and no success. Figured that after having run the same battery flat 5 times its understandable that the battery may need replacing! Thankfully I have friends who have friends and I was able to get a new battery at a very good rate, friends and family benefits!

So we took said battery home with me, vehemently promising the man who sold me the battery that I knew exactly how to install it, while at the same time googling the dummies guide to auto repairs! Yes, they have a section on how to install a new battery. Mostly it consists of many complicated sentences to tell you black cable then red cable, remove battery, replace with new battery, red cable then black cable. Bam! Done! One more thing to check off in my quest to be awesome! Car batteries today, who knows what tomorrow holds, maybe I'll ve able to fix my stereo!

Croatian national parks

I've always been attracted to national parks, the people who go there are like minded, care about the environment and love seeing what the country has to offer more then filling up a photo album. We visited two national parks in one day, a bit rushed but it was the only way we could fit it all in in the short time we had!

We tried our hand at rock climbing but that didn't go so well, ana had never climbed before so I had to teach her from the beginning. I felt very nervous climbing so we didn't succeed in climbing too much. It just made me want to climb even more though.

Then we traveled to national park where you are surrounded by lakes and various waterfalls. Some of them are really high, and 30m and others a lot lower but wider. The cool thing about this story is that e had every intention of paying for the national park but just never found the ticket office and there was no one at the entrance so we just walked right in, saw the park, caught a boat across the lake when we'd finished and left. We also got to park for free cos we parked at the post office instead of the proper parking! Haha! Traveling is always an adventure!

The water in croatia is unbelievable! Its so crystal clear and even if you can't touch the bottom you can see the bottom.

Oh I almost forgot to mention our moonlight swim. We hadn't yet been into the water and we happened to drive passed a beautiful beach, it seemed to be calling to us so we had to go for a swim! It started out freezing but in the end it was lovely and we really enjoyed the water. Even at night you can see the bottom if the sea.

Croatian control catastrophe

Today we walked around sarajevo in the daylight (and pouring rain) and had a bit of a spending spree, its hard with things are so cheap not to buy everything! I managed to keep purchases down to a new keyring for jerry and a couple of pillow cases made from cotton and silk. So spoilt!

We then went to mostar to join the german tourists in admiring a bridge built around the 15th century but rebuilt in the last decade, so really how old it is I'm not sure! It started pouring with train so we packed up our bags and headed off to see the source of the buna river that runs through bosnia. It was very pretty but still raining so we started chasing the sun and found it back in croatia!

Yay, another border! This time we were asked to open the van so it could be inspected, they asked if we were carrying any weapons over the border then asked if we had any drugs! Well they barely searched the van but instead flirted with ana! Grr I'm beginning to hate officials in all capacities!

however the border experienced was completely recovered by the beauty that is croatia. Its a country built on tourism and that shows! Tonight we've found a big empty parking lot with a view of the sea and moon and we're camping out here. Tomorrow we hope for great weather again! weather man o be kind!

Bosnian border beasts

I'm now into the second day of my baltic tour and its had some ups and downs! We left slovenia yesterday for sarajevo in bosnia. Its a long, 7 hour drive through croatia and into bosnia.

Of all my traveling experiences I'm beginning to hate border patrol the most! It was no problem leaving slovenia our getting into croatia but as soon as we hit bosnia all the trouble started! We were held up at the border for not having the insurance green card with me and forced to pay a ridiculous amount of money for 3 days of insurance. You may not enter without buying this crazy insurance, be wanted people going to bosnia! Its also dreadful because it immediately makes you wonder what they expect to happen to your car while you're in their country! Then while I was waiting for my friend to arrive back from passport control a obviously bored border controller came over and demanded I open the van for him to search and proceeded to point to my bicycle and ask me what it was... Naturally I looked at him like he was an idiot and told him it was a bike. Thankfully ana came back at that point and chat to him probably saving a lot of drama and annoyance. When traveling in the balkans, take a slovenian with you, they're great! And they definitely compensate for your lack of speaking any other language but english!

We arrived under the cover of darkness safely to sarajevo and negotiated the roads (sometimes the same road many times over) until we found ana's friends house. After that things were smooth sailing. We had a lovely meal of burek which is a bosnian pie cooked in a black pan under coals. We followed that with a few beers and a really good night sleep!