The Wild Coast: Gorgeous landscapes & police corruption!

After the Addo Elephant National Park, I went up north, following the coast. From Port Elizabeth to the city of East London, it's called the Sunshine Coast, popular in summer for its beaches and the surf. Ironically, for the 2-3 days where I was there though, it was just raining all the time, so I don't really have a lot of nice pictures to show. Let's say it was a good opportunity for me to learn to drive in the rain and in the fog...
But past East London, I reached the next part, the Wild Coast, which goes all the way up to Durban. And there, the weather finally was nice!

Coffee Bay

Coffee bay is a nice little village at the east coast, between East London and Durban, famous for its gorgeous landscapes. I decided to spend two days there even though it is not that easy to reach: about 2 hours drive from the main road, on a small road with potholes and animals crossing everywhere! But the trip was worth it, with coastal landscapes resembling a bit Ireland or Wales.

I went on an amazing hike with a guide along the coast 

Safari

It's safari time!
On my first day travelling alone with the car, I went for a safari near Port Elizabeth, in the Addo Elephant National Park. It's a big natural reserve, where you can enter with your car, and drive on the numerous roads (mostly dirt roads, but a few gravel raods too) which cross the park, in the hope to see some cool animals and stop to watch them. And I did see a lot of them, as you'll see below!

Elephants

As the name of the park suggests it, it is full of elephants! You can't miss them, they walk around everywhere, I had to stop many times because some elephants were crossing the road. This allowed me to take some very cool pictures and videos!

The little elephants are just so cute!

Garden Route landscapes

Hey all!

I'm pretty late on my posting, but I'll try to catch up and show you a bunch of beautiful landscapes I got to see.

The Garden Route is famous for the various landscapes you get to see while driving, between see and mountains, it feels like every day you're in a different country!

Enjoy :)

Sand dunes like in the middle of the desert, but directly at the sea!

The Garden Route: ghosts, Monkeys and Penguins!

It's Road Trip time!
I rented a car with someone I met in Cape Town, and who was going in the same direction as me, on the Garden Route for one week. The Garden Route drives you roughly from Cape Town all the way East to Port Elizabeth, for about 800 km. It's very famous for its beautiful landscapes, and there are many pretty places to stop along the way!

In South Africa, the wheel is on the right side, and you drive on the left... quite confusing at first!

Robben Island

I'm making a separate post for the Robben Island which I visited in my last days in Cape Town.

The view from Robben Island on Cape Town and its mountains is impressive! One imagine the view the first Europeans arriving here for the first time by ship must have had...

From left to right: the devil's peak, the flat Table Mountains, and the Lion's Head. Below the Table Mountains you can see Signal Hill.

 

Beach & Mountains

In this post, not too much text for a change, more pictures of beautiful landscapes!
I will show you the nice things I saw for my last days in Cape Town.

First, I'll introduce you to Camp's bay, the prettiest beach in Cape Town!

With the Lion's head on one side...

History of Cape Town

I did a lot of things in the last few days, but didn't have the time to write about it! I will start with describing what I learnt in museums I visited.

I did 3 museums lately: the castle of good hope (first castle established by the dutch settlers in the 17th century), the museum of district 6, and the slave lodge. I will not go in details for every one of them, but give a brief summary of the history of Cape Town I learnt through them.Hope you will find it as fascinating as I did!

Early colonial history

Cape Town was first used as a refreshment station for ships travelling between Europe and India. Going to India on land was made difficult by the presence of the Ottoman Empire in between them, so that explorers such as Vasco da Gama tried to find an alternative way by the sea around Africa. The trip however was very long, and the position of Cape Town, at the tip of Africa, as a mid-way point towards India, was prefect to refuel on water and food on the way.
Little by little, and despite the resistance of the locals (the Khoikhoi), a colony was established there by the Dutch East India Company. The Dutch started settling there, and soon imported slaves from all over the world (including a lot from East Africa) to serve them and to build the colony.

Map of slaves importation towards Cape Town

Days 4-6 in Cape Town

Those 3 last days have been a bit more laid back. Here is a little summary of the interesting things I did!

 

Apartheid Tour

I went on a free walking tour focused on the Apartheid in the city centre of Cape Town. The tour and the information provided were super interesting. During the Apartheid (from 1948 to 1990), people were classified in 4 ethnic groups: White, Black, Asian and Coloured ("mixed races"). The point of having several groups of non-white was to divide the population even more, to avoid having everyone rebelling against the white privileged minority. When the ethnic group of a person wasn't obvious, there was a special tribunal meant to determine "scientifically" the race of the doubtful cases.

Benches in front of the court judging the "doubtful cases"

Days 2 & 3 in Cape Town

The exploration of Cape Town continues!

I got used to my dorm a bit, the hostel is very nice and constitutes a good base for my expeditions in the city. I even met 2 very nice people from my room (a swiss and a south african) whom I went for drinks with yesterday night, so I feel pretty good here.

Yesterday, after a little tour in a park (Company's garden), I went for a free walking tour with a guide to a very typical neighbourhood called Bo Kaap. This is historically the first muslim area of Cape Town (Islam started developping in South Africa among the slaves brought there by the dutch, also to oppose the religion of their Christian masters). It survived the apartheid, so it is still today a main muslim neighbourhood with loads of mosques (although gentrification is now around the corner). Its specificity is the beautiful coloured building found there: