Travelling through the Transkei

The part of our trip that was supposed to be the most challenging was the drive through an area known as the Transkei (sounds like ‘Trans Sky’). Ever since arriving in South Africa, we were given warnings about how dangerous this part of the country would be and told not to stop at all along the way. After all the warnings, we definitely didn’t find this part of the drive to be too bad. The stops we made for gas (oops – ‘petrol’) were fine and we only had too delays – one for the traffic in Umtata and the other when there was an accident on the road. So we happy to have made it through without any scars. The risks people had warned us about were that the people wouldn’t help us if we broke down or had an accident, that there were no fences so large animals could run onto the road and pose a hazard, and that we could be faced with violent crime if we strayed from a well-travelled area. Anyway, all went well for us but I must admit that I was relieved to be finished with the drive and arrive in Kokstad. It turns out that it snows in this area, but thankfully, not while we were there!

The next day was election day in South Africa and we got to see people heading off to the polls, which was interesting to witness after hearing about it in the news all week (there were some worries because of the power outages).