south africa: bloemfontein

It was relatively easy to get to Bloemfontein, South Africa from Maseru, Lesotho. I walked down the hill from my guesthouse in Maseru, then along the main street for a bit until I got to the exit from Lesotho.

I got the exit stamp in my passport, and was about to exit the building when someone asked if I could come with them. I was a bit worried, but didn't feel as if I had much of a choice. It turned out they simply wanted me to fill out a questionnaire about tourism in Lesotho.

It didn't take me long to answer all the questions, and at the end there was a section for comments on how tourism in general could be imporoved in Lesotho. My main suggestion was to add buses, and have them on a schedule.

They don't need a lot of buses, but my travels would've been a lot easier with a real bus schedule. As it is, there aren't many tourists in the east of the country who don't come with their own car simply because transport is so difficult.

After exiting the building, I crossed a bridge (I think the official country border was in the middle of the river.) then walked a bit further to another buiding. This one was my entry to South Africa. It was easy to get my stamp on my passport, and I was good to go again.

Out on the other side I asked someone where I could find a taxi to go to Bloemfontein. They pointed me in the right direction, and I climbed in. It was only an hour wait, then a couple hours to get to Bloem.

Though the full name is Bloemfontein, nearly everyone calls it Bloem. It is the capital of the Orange Free State, and is an administrative city.

The taxi let me out at the taxi rank. It was a new taxi rank, with good signage for anyone wanting to go anywhere else. I figured out where I was, and started walking. I walked across a good section of the city, and made my way to the place I'd booked for that night.

The place I'd booked was a detached room in a private home. The host let me in straightaway, then proceeded to give me a talking to for walking across town to get there instead of calling him for a ride. It has never occurred to me to ask for pick up service in that it's something that usually costs extra, and I'm not a fan of extra costs. I like walking, I always have. On the other hand, I know he was just thinking of my safety.

I rested up for a while, probably too long. This is a habit I need to break. I could see so much more if I would stop wasting daylight hours by 'resting.' Or at least cut down on the time I do so.

Anywho, it was actually a lot later than I wanted it to be by the time I got myself out the door and walking again. I walked for a while without really seeing much of anything. At one major intersection I saw a big mall on the opposite side of the intersection, but I didn't go in the mall at that point. I turned more toward the city center, hoping to make it somewhere interesting before dark.

That didn't really happen, oops. I saw a supermarket and decided to check it out, though it wasn't anything different than what I'd seen previously. I bought an ice cream bar, though I probably should've bought real food.

When I got to the administrative area in the middle of the city, it was dark. Fortunately there was plenty of lighting, but it still didn't feel particularly welcoming.

I was in an area where I could see the entrance to a museum, and a court building. All the buildings in this area looked sortof stately, if that makes sense.

I found a reflecting pond of sorts in one small park, and took a couple photos. Then I walked home, going back almost exactly the same way I'd come.

Since this was winter, the sunset didn't really mean the end of the day. I got home a few minutes before an arranged meeting time with friends.

When I first realized I would be in Bloemfontein for at least one night, I sent a message to one of my rugby friends from Korea whom I knew now lived here. We arranged to meet up and have a catch up and I was thrilled.

Rochelle and Liezl picked me up and we drove to the mall I'd seen earlier in the day. We spent almost two hours at a cafe, talking about anything and everything. It was really nice to see someone I know from a different part of my life, and get caugh up on everything. Plus I got to eat/drink a float made with ice cream and rooibos tea. Yum. And a piece of cake. More yum.

The next morning I took a while to get going, even though this was my only full day in the city. Argh.

That morning my host had his driver take me to the city center, the same place I'd walked to the evening before. It wasn't where I wanted to go, and I wish I'd been able to walk, but my host was insistent, soooooo.

From the dropoff point I walked more until I got to a place called Olivenhuis. It's an art gallery. The building itself was quite pretty, and I liked the garden/lawn area in front.

The lawn area had a few sculptures covered with mosaics, I liked them. The interior didn't impress me nearly as much.

From Olivenhuis I walked toward an area called Naval Hill. Yes, it's a hill. Along the way I stopped into the Orchid Botanical House. There was a sign out front warning against taking wedding photos. Since I was by myself, I didn't worry that it applied to me. Howeva, not too long before I left, a lady told me taking photos was forbidden, and said there was a sign outside. I left the house, looked at the sign, and asked her what it said. She said no photos, and I pointed to the word wedding. I pointed out that I was not taking wedding photos. She wasn't happy, to say the least.
The path to get to the top was quite steep, and wasn't easy to use. I think it was an old set of steps made with stones, but they weren't in good shape anymore. As I was going up I remember worrying about how I was going to get down.

At the top of Naval Hill is a giant statue of Nelson Mandela. Just like the one in Pretoria, this one was mostly backlit, so I had a hard time getting a photo I liked. The statue overlooks the entire city. It's a nice view, though not terribly unique or eye catching.

After getting back down the hill, I stopped in a random dairy/takeaway shop for lunch. I looked at the menu, and ordered a bacon and banana sandwich just because it sounded different from anything I'd eaten before.

It wasn't bad, but I don't think I'll be having another sandwich like that one. Since the bananas were kinda slippery, I ended up eating them, then eating the rest of the sandwich.

My next stop was the national museum. Though the entry to the museum isn't very exciting, I loved it. The museum starts with the geological history of the area, and ends with the modern history of the city. I saw a couple fossils, I saw items from sports events in Bloem, I saw South African history. Definitely a place I could've spent more time. While I bought postcards in the gift shop I chatted with the ladies working there, good fun.

As I walked through the city center in Bloem, I took more photos of the stately buildings, since they looked a lot better during daylight. I think Bloem was one of the host cities when South Africa hosted the world cup (or at least got into the mood,) so there were concrete balls lining one of the streets painted in the colours of the flags of participating countries.

As I walked to my next stop I passed Rochelle and Liezl while they drove the opposite way. I love these kinds of random meetings :)

I walked through a gated area to get to my next stop. I didn't realize there were gates until I was too far along to turn around. When I got to the second gate I had to wait about 10 minutes for the gate to open. I still don't know what the area was, or why a gate was closed. I wasn't the only one waiting, which made me feel better.

My last stop was the Anglo Boer War Museum. I ended up arriving in time to take photos of the monuments and such out front, but too late to enter the museum. Argh. (I should've moving earlier in the day.)

One of the monuments was a women's monument, saying thanks to the women and children involved in the great treks of the country. There were many walls with engraved names of those who had died during the Anglo Boer war as well. The last monument I saw had a concrete (or marble?) ball covered in moving water, as soon as I left the gardner turned off the water.

I made my way back to my accomodation, picking up more random food in a supermarket for dinner. Even though I wasn't sleeping there that night, my hosts let me use the shower and organize myself for the evening.

After warming up the food in their house, they sat with me and chatted while I ate. A couple hours later they drove me to the bus station to catch my bus to Port Elizabeth. The bus left late, which didn't surprise me, argh.

I'd like to go back to Bloem, as I still want to see the university, the war museum, and spend more time with Rochelle and Liezl!