i recently spent a couple of months in south africa, but that was the first time i have really backpacked, it was fun and a really great experience, i think for hostels south africa is one of the best places in the world, i haven't ever been in hostels in other places, but some hostels i stayed in there are better than hotels i have stayed in in other countries!
anyway, it was an awesome place, beautiful scenery, lots of adventure, beautiful weather, nice friendly people, there are lots of poor people, but i didn't see anything extreme, and there's high crime but i never encountered that either.
anyway i stayed in the eastern cape for 3 weeks, then toured down the garden route to cape town and up the western coast and back down to cape town, staying in hostels and b & b's most of the way, driving a banged up volkswagon beetle, it was fun, hiked up table mountain, that was free, and all the game parks i went to cost peanuts, peanuts being like five pounds to get in. food is cheap there also. and in cape town the girls outnumber the guys 4 to 1, and it's a lot of fun when the weekend hits, in cape town almost every other girl out at the weekend is a model, it's mad. but there's tonnes more to it than that, the whole country is beautiful, people, places, rivers mountains, hills, wilderness, it has everything for everyone, and it's affordable... i will totally go back there.
statistics about cost of hostel pricing there... you can get a dorm room in a hostel usually for no more than five pounds per night... in cape town you might pay seven pounds, that's like 10 dollars, so it's not expensive, you can fly from cape town to jo burg for about 800 rand, and to durban for around the same, in cape town there are guys who hire vw beetles out on a monthly basis, for like 2000 rand a month (about 180 punds)... there's good public transport, which is good because something always goes wrong! like one beetle blew up halfway to cape town and had to get a greyhound the rest of the day, only half a days wait! and there's internet access everywhere, and phone network and cellular network as good as anywhere i've been, and the people speak english, which was great! for me i get sick of nobody speaking english, so that was a feature for me!
i can go on and on! if you wanna see some photos of scenery there pm me, i think it's a cool place, beautiful place, affordable, and if you can only afford one flight to one place, there and back, i think south africa has more to offer than most countries, more unforgettable things...
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