Day 26: Backpackers Paradise
September 30th, 2012
So we have come to the conclusion that Oudtshoorn has the best weather in all of South Africa!
Not one rainy day here and nothing but gorgeous blue skies and sun! When the whole of SA calls for rain, Oudtshoorn is shining! We slept in, had an amazing ‘health breakfast’ with muesli, yoghurt and fruit from the Backpackers Paradise kitchen and set off for the day on a walk around town. Bought a couple more souvenirs and hit up Checkers for some lunch groceries. Before our 1:00pm shuttle back to George to catch the Baz Bus, we made fresh vegetable soup and an amazing Greek salad to eat while lounging by the Backpackers Paradise pool!
Okay….. Get ready for this, our blog is going from amazing to awful in 5 seconds. We’re stranded in George …. It’s amazing how a few simple mistakes cost some big bucks!
We accidentally booked the bus to pick us up in Swellendam and not in George. Since Oudtshoorn is an hour away from our pick up spot we’re now in a boring town where everything is closed on Sunday’s except for their local grocery store ShopRite – pretty well our life saver.
Before I begin to tell you about our bound to come disaster (nothing can ever be THAT perfect and my bad luck, it was bound to happen), I’m going to tell you about Kevin, our savoir from the Backpackers Paradise hostel. If he hadn’t of waited for the bus with us and called to figure out they weren’t coming for us, we’d be waiting in the McDonalds in George for hours! Kevin drove us to the bus terminal …. Tickets all sold out for the day…. He drove us to ShopRite and there were 2 seats left of an Intercape bus which picks us up at midnight tonight.
Don’t worry, this doesn’t happen to everyone… Just remember when booking your bus and accommodations, make sure you are smart enough to book the right dates! Though our blog has been uninterrupted happiness, we figured we needed to share our troubles with our followers as well as our fun times.
So, with our 100pounds of shit in our packs and some strained leg muscles from our 30km bike yesterday, we walked another 10kms with our packs on today to find the bus terminal again. Once we found the terminal, we realized there were no open restaurants and walked 10km back to the ShopRite to buy some junk food to tide us over through dinner tonight and breakfast tomorrow.
Alicia, the brains behind it all told me we WERE NOT bumming it on the streets tonight so lucky us spent R500 on a hotel for 5 hours of rest before we call a taxi to drive us back to the sketchy bus station at midnight tonight. LOVE MY LIFE!
Just as I think I’m too organized, it comes back to bite me in the bum! Stay tuned, we will blog again once we are safe and sound in Cape Town! Don’t worry, the pair of us are unstoppable, we can survive anything!
