Richard Stupart

This last weekend, John and I road tripped the almost two thousand odd kilometers to Cape Town, hitching a lift with Claire – who is unfortunately blogless.  I have been to Cape Town before, but for John, it was his first time there since he was knee-high to a garden gnome.  Exploring the city again over the four or so days we had there, I was reminded of a protracted argument on the roof of Fatima’s backpackers (the nice one) about which was the better city. I think there was some more subtlety to the actual  dialogue than simply betterness, but many of the themes in that discussion seemed to surface and circulate this past trip, occasionally rather uncomfortably.

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Part of any good trip is planning. And part of any good planning is asking those who know. Thusly motivated, I have been trying to contact and ask (occasionally naive) questions of anyone who has done a fair amount of traveling through the African outback. By far and away, the most experienced African explorer that I have spoken to was Ockie Muller, who – together with his wife May – spent nearly a year traversing Africa in a converted Unimog. It was an inspirational undertaking, covering almost every country on the East African coast and many more besides.

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I had previously been to Swaziland, on a road trip which came close to costing my traveling partner and I our lives. That was not so much fun. It also meant that the only remaining, easily accessible country to a South African with a car was the Kingdom of Lesotho. Made famous for a brief coup in the late 1990′s, but otherwise largely invisible to the international community, it was to this secluded little nation that I and Katherine pointed my little car these past few days. Setting off in search of… well – whatever there was to be found, really.

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The great thing about a blog, besides the opportunity to endlessly tweak layout options and being continually surprised at which posts are the most regularly revisited (hint – I should open a help desk for backpackers going to Mozambique) is the freedom of the whole enterprise. I get to put my thoughts out on the interwebs and Darwin takes them in his gentle hands and decides to pulverise or popularise them. It’s a fair trade. I learn to write better or watch things become very quiet all of a sudden (cue tumbleweed). But having an audience is not really a sufficient reason to want to blog – no more than it would be a reason to stand naked in the center of town juggling small animals. Which would likely generate far more attention.

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I have been a litle quiet on the posting front lately, ’tis true. This was due in a large part (read entirely) to probably the largest side-interest in my life besides wanting to travel to new places whenever possible. Which is to say, debating.

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So planning has begun in earnest now. Ranging from wishful window shopping and looking at backpacking toys I really don’t need (another backpack? Slap) to more sensible things like travel insurance, visas and vaccinations. The latter being today’s topic du jour.
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