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Before flying to Durban we went on a guided tour of the black and coloured townships of Cape Town. It was a very interesting to see the conditions which a large part of the population had to endure, but we also learned that the situation was not hopeless and improvements were certainly happening. After spending the night in Durban we travelled back to Swaziland to stay at an orphanage in Nhlangano which was run by Borgny, a relative of ours.
South African Adventure 1999, Part 8: From Cape Town back to Swaziland via Durban
Jan Arild Teland2006-05-08 20:24:05
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direction until we found a taxi. The taxi ride cost 25R and took us outside the center and to a suburban area. The taxi was in rather bad shape compared to what we're used to in Norway, but at least we got to where we wanted.
Nomad Backpackers seemed to be a normal house which had been converted into a hostel. We got the only double room they had. The two other rooms were dormitory style with quite a lot of beds. Unlike St. John's, this place seemed to be quite full.
We were told that the area was safe to walk around in, so the first thing we did was walk up to a shopping mall only a few hundred meters up the road. >From there we phoned Drifters to confirm our arrival time on of 2040 on July 26 at the bus terminal in Johannesburg. However, now there was an unpleasant surprise in store for us. Drifters had found out that it was not safe for them to pick us up downtown so late at night, so they wouldn't do it after all! What was this? Had Drifters been taken over by Lufthansa while we were on tour?
They explained that their vehicle would probably been broken into and we would all get mugged! Instead they recommended that we should just take a taxi instead! However, if this place was so dangerous that Drifters, who run tours all over Southern Africa with the slogan "Roughing it but loving it", are afraid to come there, we didn't really feel like walking around there looking for a taxi!!
After speaking with Drifters, we suddenly remembered that we had forgotten to take our malaria pills today, so we quickly went back to Nomads to get this done. While at Nomads, we explained our problem to the guy who seemed to be in charge there at that moment. He said that he knew a lot of travellers who had been mugged at that bus terminal, and he couldn't understand why they didn't put in some security guards there! This, of course, made us feel a lot more relaxed. Can't wait to walk around
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See photographs from:
South Africa Gallery
,
Swaziland Gallery
