Day 5 - Mossel Bay

After a wonderful night in this dreamy hotel, we had an equally dreamy breakfast. In addition to everything your heart desires, there was also omelette with tomatoes, ham, and cheese. And the view of the sea... A dream. The only thing missing were the whales performing tricks right in front of our eyes. But you can't have everything in life. Instead, we had amazing weather again. No clouds, just sunshine, shorts and t-shirt weather. I really don't understand why it's currently low season. After checking out and taking many more photos of the hotel and the weaver birds right in front of the hotel, we first drove to De Kelders, where we should have had the chance to get closer to the whales again. Although we did see the animals a bit closer this time, they were still pretty far away. Too bad. Next time, I'll go to Hermanus for a week. We would have needed a lot of luck even for just one night!!!

Today, Vera took the wheel. She drives very cautiously and hesitantly. But better that way than fast and reckless. And so we went on the 'highway', more like a country road with lots of scenery and ups and downs towards Mossel Bay. At one point, we had a very funny experience. Due to the constant ups and downs, we eventually ended up behind a truck that could only climb the hill at 40 km/h. Vera should have overtaken, but she didn't want to. No chance. So, after struggling up three mountains, we simply stopped in the middle of the road because there was no one around, switched drivers, and followed behind the truck. The plan was for me to overtake, create some space between the truck and us, and then Vera would take over again. However, when the truck came into view, it had already pulled over to let us pass because the driver had realized that Vera didn't dare to overtake. So, the whole driver switch story was completely unnecessary, but we had a good laugh. A sight to behold. And so we continued up and down, with vineyards, farms with cattle, sheep, and ostriches, and rape fields on both sides. And here, eucalyptus is growing everywhere, and sometimes the soil is red or at least reddish. It's a bit like Australia. At some point, there might even be a sign saying 'Turn right here for the southernmost point'. It's not actually Cape of Good Hope, as many people think, but somewhere around where we drove by. Anyway, I see the sign and even say 'Turn right here for the southernmost point of Australia'. I only realized my slip of the tongue when the others pointed it out. Oh well, Australia. That's where my heart is. From here, you can also see the constellation 'Southern Cross', which I strongly associate with Australia and New Zealand. Anyway, we're in Africa now! That's probably why we saw ostriches instead of emus and later on, zebras too.

Shortly before Mossel Bay, there was another large township on the right side of the road. Tin shacks of the poorer population of Africa. It was a sea of tin shacks. Even more than we saw in Cape Town. But what we found a bit unsettling was that there were quite a few police officers around. Something's happening in Africa. In Hermanus, there was already commotion because two days before our arrival, there was an uprising in which a police officer was seriously injured and quite a bit was destroyed, but we didn't notice anything. However, in the hotel, they apologized for the lack of room service at the moment, and a waiter in the restaurant told us that they were understaffed because many black workers hadn't come to work for days. But as I said, if we hadn't heard it on the news, we wouldn't have noticed anything. Now, with the huge township in Mossel Bay and the many policemen, it was a different story. However, we didn't see any unruly crowd or anything like that. It's simmering somehow in South Africa. Fortunately, the hotel was quite a distance outside Mossel Bay too. The hotel was also quite something, but in a different way than yesterday. It was very old. Four stars, but time had stood still, just like in the Australian Outback once again. We had a big mama who checked us in, and our rooms were in an annex of the hotel. The beds were covered with several blankets, giving it a feeling of being in the movie 'Gone with the Wind'. Totally crazy. When we arrived for dinner, we were first invited to the bar to have an aperitif. The bar could have appeared in an old James Bond film... So, I also had a martini as an aperitif. Very classy. Besides the three of us, there were only four other guests. An older English couple and an older daughter with her even older mother, also English or something like that. After the aperitif, we were escorted to the dining room and chose our meal. Charley and I had African chicken curry. Very delicious. Meanwhile, heartwarming music was playing all the time, like Elton John and other ballads. And because everything was somehow like in an incredibly bad movie, we had such a laughing fit during dinner that the food almost came out of our noses. The scene was somehow incredibly grotesque.

Although we feel well taken care of, it's definitely not comparable to the hotel yesterday, and since there's nothing to do here either and we didn't want to go into Mossel Bay, we are looking forward to moving on tomorrow.