Port Elizabeth (aka P.E.)

Tovah and the cat that liked to snuggle with her.
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Well, there is not much to report on Port Elizabeth (P.E.) as we arrived at 11:00 pm and left at 6:45 am.  Aside from the lovely hostel owner (well, the owner's mother) who waited up for us, woke us in the morning and made us breakfast, we did not see much else.  Oh yeah, and the woman's cats like to snuggle.  Being on the top bunk, I (Wendy) didn't get any love.  However, I woke up to Tovah screaming, "Ähh, Wendy, the cat's on my head!!" and so on.

I did want to use this entry on the blog to talk about the 'traveller subculture' and what we have come to call the great migration.  First off, we have noticed that while different in many ways, travellers/backpackers are all similar.  Whether you work 3 months to make money to travel for the rest of the year, get divorced and begin a life of travel, have a month off work and leave the country, or have reached a milestone and can take a break/quit your job (me and Tovah), we all seek similar rewards of travel- seeing new things, meeting different people from different places/backgrounds, and experiencing different cultures firsthand that take us out of our comfort zones.  Whether it is due to those things or not, you frequently experience 'accelerated friendships'.  This can also be due to the nature of backpacking where you are constantly meeting people one day and then saying goodbye the next.  Anyway, it seems that when you meet people, in the first 10 minutes of chatting you already know as much about them as you would after 2 weeks or more of a friendship at home.  So, while short lived, these 'accelerated friendships' are quite deep.

The Great Migration

Lastly, 'The Great Migration' in our case refers to crossing paths with the same people as we work our way down to Cape Town (and I am sure it is the same for those going North).  It seems that people we share a Baz Bus (the backpacker's door-to-door hostel drop off) ride with or stay at the same hostel with appear somewhere farther down the road whether at a hostel somewhere else, on the street, or happen to be on the same Baz Bus again.  There are some people we have seen on and off since Johannesburg!