South Africa

Hey everyone! So, I hope that you have all been following the World Cup. It has been very exciting to get into the action right here in South Africa.

Mike and I made it back into South Africa. The train no longer runs so we took a more interesting route. We took a chapa south to Ponto do Ouro and spent the afternoon in the beautiful Indian Ocean. Then we hitched south-east to the South African border. We were picked up by very nice people and were able to hitch from the border into the next town, Kosi Bay, where we stayed the night. It was my first time hitching and it was necessary since we were far out in rural areas without much regular public transit.

The next day we took a minibus to Durban and spent 2 nights there. We explored the city which is gorgeous and very warm, despite the fact that it is winter here.

Thursday we took an overnight bus into Port Elizabeth and found a backpacker's hostel right near the beach. We picked up our World cup tickets on Friday and explored the nice town of Port Elizabeth (AKA Nelson Mandela Bay). We went to our World Cup match yesterady and saw Uruguay beat South Korea 2-1. We had 10th row tickets and the energy inside the stadium was insane! We had a great time and the numerous vuvuzelas (long horn-like noise makers) were not nearly as annoying as I thought they would be. We also watched Ghana beat the US to advance. Though it is sad for my home team, I am glad that there is still one African team being represented. Go Black Stars!

Today we are gearing up for 2 weeks exploring the rest of South Africa. We did some planning and found some very interesting sites that we want to check out. Tomorrow we head east to an eco-resort on the "Wild Coast" and then next week we will head to Cape Town and the wine country. South Africa has been a bit of a surprise to be honest. The towns are all very safe and well-developed and the extra security for the World Cup is visible everywhere. The people have been friendly and we have met a lot of soccer fans from all over the world.

I hope everyone has a great week.
Peace.