Adventure Time: Road Trip Days 5 & 6

Day 5 - Friday the 11th of February - Heading Back - Total Kms: 550

When I assumed I would be in pain on waking up this morning I was wrong. The pain didn’t wait till morning to hit, I was in pain the whole night. I could barely make the trip off of my bunk and down to the floor as I was so stiff and in so much pain. It hurt to walk, it hurt to turn, it hurt to do anything that required movement from my body and so unjustly and in horrible contrast Bayan was in very little pain whatsoever. So I suffered alone, aching as I went up and down the stairs in the backpackers to take bags to the car, struggling to bend down to the ground to pick the bags up in the first place. At least this morning I decided that nothing would get me out of bed before 9am so there wasn’t another horrible early morning wake up.

We left the backpackers and Cape Town somewhere around 11am and started our trip back to P.E which we would stretch over a day and a half.

There isn’t much to be told of this day, we were on the road pretty much non-stop from Cape Town to Plettenburg Bay. There were tonnes of road works stops which actually were a blessing for my cramped and aching body as we would sit at a stop for maybe 10minutes at a time so I would always get out of the car and stretch. After a solid 5 hours of driving we reached Plettenburg Bay where we decided whilst driving would be where we spent the night. We phoned a couple of backpackers we found in a road trip guide and picked the best sounding one. We got to the place and as we approached the front door we realised the shock horror of the accommodation we had chosen. There standing in front of us was a staircase which we would have to ascend and descend every time we came and went. The pain we were in, my oh my, the pathetically slow pace at which we climbed those stairs. Yes, finally, the pain caught up with Bayan and I couldn’t have been happier. I was even more delighted when our climbing companions called to say that their muscles were also stiff and they couldn’t move. It was wonderful news to me to know that I was not suffering alone. The girl working there was at first confused and then amused by our stair climbing ways. We took each step slowly, holding onto the railing and pulling ourselves up to ease the stress on our legs. Finally, after a noisy and slow climb we reached the top and signed the paper work. Then we had to go back down to get our bags. This was plain hilarious. We were crying from laughter at ourselves for howling in pain as we were going down. We could hear the people upstairs laughing too and then Bayan pushed me so I went down a couple of stairs really fast and that was so painful. We were both humiliated by our sorry state and also extremely entertained by it as well.

Leaving Cape Town..

Bayan and Me and the view of Cape Town behind us

The view from my rear view mirror

cool blue house

The sun was slowly making its way down so Bayan and I decided to go to the beach. A Brazilian girl was also staying in the same dorm as us so we took her with us to the beach. She laughed as Bayan and I attempted running on the sand to help our muscles and the pain we would cry out in with every step. We frolicked on the beach for some time and I drank some dirty pond water to prove to Bayan that it would not result in death before heading back to find food. We got a Steers veggie burger for Bayan and a wood fire pizza for me and sat next to a Marimbaz band on the main street. We enjoyed our food and the free music and watched some kids dance to the music.

Bayan and me on the beach in Plett

Beautiful sunset

Day 6 - Saturday the 12th of February - The Last Leg - Total Kms: 250

We woke up this morning and lazily prepared ourselves for the day. We were tired and still sore and a little grumpy and I think we were both glad that this was the last day.

We started the day at the beach claiming to each other that we would swim but getting there and deciding that it was too cold. We went in about half way. Then we hung out with the lifeguards one of whom was very attractive, can’t remember his name though. We talked a bit and they asked about Australia and our trip. Then we packed ourselves into the car and headed off for our last stop before P.E. We were going to Tsiki tsiki forest. It’s actually called Tsikama forest but I kept forgetting the name and called it tsiki tsiki instead, I think it sounds better.

The guy at the entry gate let us in for free, nice guy, and we drove down to this beautiful coastline. It was so nice, so so beautiful. There were these suspension bridges hung across the water that we could walk over and so Bayan and I did that and of course we put our hands in the air and run across one of the bridges while screaming because that’s how we do. Then we saw the sign that said no jumping on the bridge, in all fairness we had done all our jumping before seeing that sign.

We needed to be back in Port Elizabeth by 4pm and so we didn’t get to spend too much time here. After seeing pretty things and me and Bayan not talking for a good 15minutes because we were angry at each other about something silly, we left.

The next bit was the last stretch of drive before P.E and we drove straight from our road trip to Sonja’s house for Unit Convention which is a Baha’i gathering. We arrived exactly on time and we had a very nice convention.

Next stop was King’s Beach which is in P.E and then finally at around 10pm we drove home, ending our road trip.

Ups and downs are expected with an endeavour like this, 2 people in each other’s company non-stop for 6 days straight can cause a little strain on the sanity levels and being the only driver I was completely exhausted and had no time to rest. There were times while driving that Bayan would fall asleep and I would stare at her with such envy almost wanting to wake her up because I didn’t think it was fair that she should sleep while I couldn’t. Lack of sleep and lack of food make me very grumpy and so there were times that I’m sure I wasn’t the best company but all that aside we had a great road trip.

In the future Bayan and I have decided that we actually want to take a back pack with us should we travel in this fashion again because at every backpackers we went to we were the only ones without backpacks, instead filling the storage space with several different types of carry bags and hand bags and plastic bags.

Also although we couldn’t choose our own soundtrack for this trip our road trip song became Liquid Deep’s “You don’t have to be alone” which played on the radio at least 5 times a day.

And so ended this adventure as chaotically and unorganised as the way it began.