South Africa (2020)
Inhalt/Content
Maseru
Our accommodation in Maseru was a room in an AirBnB. Our host was a lady called Malebabo who was incredibly nice. Kevin went straight to bed and tried to recover because he still wasn’t feeling better. Malebabo made me a coffee and we talked for quite a while in the kitchen. She told me that she had been to Germany before. She had studied mechanical engineering and was able to go to Tübingen thanks to a special program. After all the exertions it was really pleasant to sit in the kitchen with a cup of coffee and talk. We only stayed one night in Maseru. Because we were really tired of the public transport in Lesotho and because Maseru is the only city in Lesotho with car rental stations, Malebabo called a taxi for me to the airport the next morning so I could rent a car there. Kevin was still not fit and stayed at the lodging. After some back and forth, since our reservation the day before apparently didn’t work out, I finally got a small car. The employees were especially proud that they, as Germans, could give me a VW. The drive back from the airport to my accommodation made me realize that the road traffic in Maseru is much worse than the road traffic in South Africa. There were quite a lot of traffic jams, huge potholes, suddenly appearing enormous brake hills and everywhere the car horns were booming. Somehow I managed to get back in one piece. We loaded our luggage into the trunk, said goodbye to Malebabo and drove off. Maseru does not have much to offer. However, there is a souvenir shop, the Basotho Hat, which is also one of the biggest attractions, because it has the shape of a traditional hat. In front of the souvenir shop there was a bigger parking place where already some people stood and waved us in. Normally we should have been suspicious here, but we already knew these “parking aids” from South Africa, where you could find corresponding people on every parking lot. They wave you with exaggerated gestures into the parking space and usually settle for a small tip of about 5 Rand (about 30 cents). But after our short visit in the mentioned souvenir shop and a few photos we had to realize that these people were not just said “parking aids”. Two men were cleaning the car and were definitely not satisfied with 5 Rand and a third man tried to tell us some story about parking fees. In the end we all had to pay accordingly. After all our negative experiences in Lesotho, this was the last straw. Annoyed we sat back in the car, looked at each other and said at the same time: “Get out of Lesotho”.
Bloemfontein
Our way out of Lesotho led us to Bloemfontein, a rather average South African city. There we should return the rental car in the evening and take the night bus to Port Elizabeth. Since there wasn’t much to see in Bloemfontein itself, we passed the time in a large shopping center. Afterwards we had to hand over our rental car to the local university. The rental car station was not that easy to find. The taxi driver who came to pick us up afterwards also had problems finding it. Fortunately, I was able to hand my cell phone to an employee who was able to describe the route in more detail. The Bloemfontein bus station, like pretty much all bus stations, was not very appealing. We spent the last few hours on site in the waiting room of our bus company, Intercape. Around the corner there was a small shop with a nice Indian salesman, with whom I could have a little small talk and who told me how he had no motivation to continue working today and so he would just wait for the end of the day. Finally our night bus arrived and we made our way to our next stop, Port Elizabeth.
