Puff! Paff! Bang!! And all of this at the beach #HappyNewYear

... New location, next accommodation, completely different landscape. Now we sit here in the middle of nowhere on a beautiful porch, surrounded by cornfields, sheep, and cows, and in the distance, we see the Drakensberg Mountains. We are 6km west of Winterton, still in the KwaZulu-Natal region. Currently, we are all alone on this huge property.. Let's see if other people venture into this abandoned region today. On the other hand, this is a chance to ground ourselves and reflect on the past days and weeks: Christmas, Durban, our first backpackers in S.A., New Year's Eve, ... but more on that later.

First, we have to turn back the clock and jump into the Christmas season, specifically to December 24th... Honestly, the 24th here in S.A. is not a very special day because the 25th is THE day. Nevertheless, we celebrated the day as we wanted to. We woke up in the morning and saw that the weather forecast was correct with blue sky, bright sunshine, and 25 degrees. So we packed our beach stuff, started the engine of the CitiGolf, and headed to the water. Unbelievable! Huge waves, typical strong S.A. sun.. This is how we wanted to spend Christmas when we decided to start our little tour, even though it meant not being able to celebrate Christmas with our family at home this year.

For the 25th, we made plans with Penny and Alain for Christmas dinner. Penny was very excited to prepare the food and enjoy the festive meal together with the four of us. Here's what we had: baked potatoes, rice, sweet carrots with cinnamon, broccoli mash, chicken drumsticks, and a mix of beans, zucchini, and mushrooms. Unusual, but "Lekker," as they say here! After a short nap because we were all very very full, we went out again to buy dessert. The day before, we went to the supermarket with Penny to get fresh ingredients. She briefly paused at a small table full of sweet treats and told us what her children used to enjoy eating. So we quickly went shopping again, and in the process, Christmas pudding with vanilla sauce, chocolate mousse, and little sweet pies ended up in our basket. According to Wikipedia, Christmas pudding is a steamed or boiled pudding that includes dried fruit (e.g., raisins), nuts, and usually suet, although sometimes vegetable fat is used instead. The mostly dark pudding is often soaked in brandy or another type of alcohol. In the UK, many families have their own recipes, which can also vary regionally.

Traditionally, Christmas pudding was cooked in a pudding cloth. However, since the beginning of the 20th century, it is predominantly prepared in a pudding mold. The pudding is made several weeks before Christmas and then cooked before serving. Once removed from the mold, the pudding is usually soaked in brandy and flambéed at the table. Christmas pudding is often eaten with brandy butter or custard.

With a bottle of delicious S.A. white wine and the sweets, we finished the day with nice conversations.

Usually, the day after Christmas is rather relaxed! Not in South Africa! Boxing Day is on 🤜🏾🤛🏾 with sports events like in the Premier League on the island. And what sport comes to mind when you think of S.A.? Certainly cricket, right? On this very day, an historic test match took place at St. George's Park Stadium. The 4-day test match between South Africa and Zimbabwe was played under floodlights for the first time in South African history, hence historic. Determined to get tickets, we started the CitiGolf and drove into the city. The ticket queue was hard to miss, so we lined up. We quickly noticed that we were very lightly equipped because the people around us were carrying umbrellas, folding chairs, and filled coolers. They must know why, and so we bought tickets in the stands, with sun protection! - a good decision in the blazing sun☝🏾. Without knowing the rules, we now had a live game in front of us to learn them. 4 hours in the stadium and convinced that we understood the general rules, there was still one question unanswered: When does a team win? As no end seemed in sight yet, we drove back to the house and watched the game on TV with the other two. To resolve the issue: the game continued until 10 pm that day, a total of 9 hours, and South Africa won the following day!

After a wonderful Christmas time with Penny and Alain, who welcomed us so warmly, we decided to move on to Durban. Since the prices of renting a car at that time were almost equivalent to monthly installments of buying a car, we decided to fly with Flysafair. Alain kindly drove us to the airport, and off we went to explore more of the coast.

For the next day, we decided to explore Durban and visit the city's attractions. We planned to use the city bus "People Mover." After waiting for a while at a downtown bus stop, we changed our plans and turned it into an extensive walk to Moses Mabhida Stadium, one of the newly built stadiums for the 2010 FIFA World Cup, where Germany lost to Spain. During our walk, we also saw the dark side of this city. People trying to make money in any way possible and doing even the simplest jobs.

On the 30th, we moved from our Airbnb accommodation to a backpackers, hostel, or as it used to be called, a youth hostel. We got our room in a separate house where other rooms were also located. As soon as we arrived, we were approached by a group of 8 people from Johannesburg. After a short small talk, we agreed to meet outside in the evening. And so, after exploring the city again for ourselves and publishing our first blog posts 💪🏾, we were invited to their braai. Awesome! Grilled food, a cold drink, and nice people!