East London/Port of St Johns, Day 42-We stayed at The Hampton, right on the ocean in East London. Beautiful stretch of the coast with a good restaurant across the road.

Another long driving day for Pete. We stopped in Nelson Mandela’s home town of Qunu to see the his museum, about the time it started raining.  Nelson and his mother moved to Qunu after his father was stripped of his land, cattle and title as advisor to the magistrate for refusing to respond to a summons. Nelson’s father was a royal chief of the Thembu tribe. Most Africans have an African name and a English name. Nelson received his English name when he started school. Being Xhosa, it is difficult for most Europeans to pronounce the names. Plus it was considered demeaning by whites for Africans to retain their African birth names. Xhosa language has a lot of clicks, the word Xhosa is pronounced, soft clicked C-osa. School was letting out at the time we finished up our tour of the museum, and I was shyly asked if it was OK if they took photos with us. We asked them to return the favor (see featured photo). We all had a lot of fun!

Onward towards the Port of Saint Johns. We passed through mountains with the clouds so low that we were driving through thick white fog. People were turning on their hazard lights while driving, because of the road side pedestrians and so the other drivers could see them. The most surreal part of all were the free ranging goats, cows and sheep that eat along the highways.  At 100 km/hour speed limit, you really don’t want one of them wandering out onto the road. We had to slow down for cows and goats randomly crossing and once for 2 silly sheep that were just standing in the left lane. There was also an incredible amount of road construction, with detours and mud everywhere. We finally got the car washed earlier today and with all the construction it now looks about the same as before the wash.

Finally made it to N’taba River Lodge, just north of Port of St Johns. Stunning scenery and facilities. There is a restaurant and the food was delicious.