We run 30 miles a day to get you toothpicks and beer.

On the bus to Umtata we drove past Nelson Mandela’s home village and his highly fenced brick house. The driver pulled over and people started to shoot pictures, except for one people, my mother, who took a piss instead.

A little further along the road we saw the South African way of carwash. It's easy, no problem, you just need a car, a river and a bucket. You drive the car down in the river, you fill the bucket with water and that you pour over the car. Result= shining car, no problem. The concept of African time has been following us. African time means that thing will happen sooner or later, usually later. The moments of waiting that the African time offers, can be wisely used: by reading a book, cutting your nails or talking to another backpacker. There is more or less a scheme of how a conversation between two backpackers goes.

1. Where are you from? = "hopefully not from Sweden"
2. When did you arrive? = "I think I have been here longer"
4. Where have you been? ="did you go to the cool places"
5. What is your next destination? = "maybe we can share a cab/ I will definitely not go there"
6. Do you wanna go and take a swim=”I wanna be your friend"

Yesterday we were very glad about the African time because it had as consequence that we did catch our bus even though we were running late. Of cause running late is a perfect thing to blame on surrounding factors but never yourself, this time we blamed a plastic operated Emmanuelle from the Union Islands who wanted to eat breakfast and powder her nose even though she knew we were in a urgent hurry. But Emmanuelle could not be blamed for the fact that the bus company had a ticket booking system that was crap, a lousy ticket office and was the beholder of the gold medal "worst bus company in South Africa" competition. Another amusing plus with travelling Sa Road link was that the bus driver spoke for several times in the mike of the bus saying "this is your captain speaking, we are now travelling at a speed of 89km/ hour and we are at the moment passing Umtata". The bus ride with Sa Roadlink took us to East London, a spooky coastal town with gangsters in every corner, where we for one night killed time.