Last night we met the most wonderful woman with the perfectly fitting name of Joy. Originally from Germany with a sort of French/American accent to her fluent English, she has spent the last 18 months travelling the world (a career break after 14 years in the job). She reminisces freely about her time working on a cow farm in New Zealand, practising Spanish in Bolivia and bartering for unwanted crystals in Bali. And she relaxes freely on the beach and hostels in...

Third Stop - Oudtshoorn (pronounced Oats-horn, or Oats-warren in Afrikaans with plenty of rolled Rs) Hometown of another of Hannah's old colleagues, Princess Stasie (to her family), Annastasia. Also hometown of ostriches, ostrich eggs and the Cango Caves. This time the temperature peaked at a ridiculous 40 degrees C! Even the wind was stiflingly hot and we were thankful for the pool at our hostel; less so for the barking dogs 'guarding' the property and barking...

As we type our latest update to you all, we've realised that we have now moved into our third week away. Before = holiday; Now = travelling. Days in: 16 Beds slept in: 7 (8 if you count tonight's) Average time waiting for our Baz Bus (supposed "hop-on-hop-off convenient travel"): 3 hours Average Baz Bus journey time: 1 hour South African chocolate bars sampled: Many! Yum State of tans: Tentative, to say the least Missing most: Tetley's tea bags (and you, ...

The city of Cape Town has brought us many Cs these past few days; first stop, the city's Minstrel Carnival; second stop, Test Cricket at Newlands; third stop, Camps Bay's social hotspot (and celeb-hangout) Caprice. It's a country full of complexity and paradox, where history, tradition and past hurts colour the hopeful and dynamic (if slightly hectic) present. In just 7 days we feel privileged to have seen some fascinating extremes. On the 2nd Jan, we headed to ...

Dear family & friends, hello from Cape Town! We finally made it. And what a way to start 2012. So, the question is, what to tell you? It seems that so much has already happened... and it's only been THREE days. So we'll do our best to share some highlights, but please bear with us as we get to grips with the backpacker-blogger-way. The flight down was a relative breeze. The long-haul, in-flight entertainment included 5 films, 4 sitcoms and 4 meals between ...