Travel changed my perspective of life and the world itself.

by Mmathapelo Gwangwa (South Africa)

A leap into the unknown South Africa

I realize whenever I travel, I become a different person altogether. I recently took a trip to celebrate a friend’s birthday in a small town called plettenberg bay, it was a 8-9 hours bus trip from where I currently am. For the first time that day I had a personal encounter with myself in regards to preparing for the future financially, also about how as a student I can actually afford to pay for my own travelings, if I really saved every month (I had paid for my travel costs to go to plett). It emotionally changed me even before I reached my destination. The beauty of the garden route was motivational enough to make me see the need to start saving to travel. I finally got to Plettenberg Bay a very small but beautiful town. Goodness! I could wake up in the views our apartment had every morning I had a time with the future me, we had conversations and agreed that the current me cannot settle for anything below standard. I loved every minute of it. The girls and I explored the small town, we looked for the night life on Friday night, found it at a club in town and came to the conclusion that the residence of the town we were in, is mostly retired couples as they were the majority at the club. The next morning we woke up made breakfast and embarked on yet another journey of finding out about the small town we were in, unfortunately there were only a number of things to do and which were quite expensive. We ended up opting for the beach as our go to. We later came back and began to prepare for our evening, which was a braai night. By the end of the day we concluded that this town is actually a getaway destination, great to come and soak in the quietness while you stare into the beauty of nature at your balcony, reading a great book. We stayed up till late while the ladies enjoyed good music, braai vleis and cold beverages. It felt right to be indoors at this place by the 2nd night this beautiful town gives us no pressure to actually go out, but girls will always be girls. We wanted to explore some more, we got into the car and went on a search for night life. Google maps landed us at a very dodge location “ekasi” we were all terrified by the quietness of the place as everyone stared at the car from their shacks. Obviously because of how small the place is everyone knew we were new in this place. Haha, and for us that screamed “danger” we drode off and found ourselves in town I have never in my life seen such a quite, laidback town. We instantly agreed “home time” got home and the rest is history. The next morning, which marked the last morning for me was bitter Sweet got attached with this beautiful town in 2days, haha. I woke up and went upstairs to the balcony to catch sunrise found my friend cleaning the balcony as we used it to prepare braai vleis, had gospel music playing softly and I joined, helped her wash the dishes and 30 mins into it all I wanted was my bed so I went back to sleep. I woke up probably 3hours later as the heat was unbearable we found an activity to do, wine tasting it is. We drove 30-40 minutes out of town to go wine tasting. The most beautiful, vintage wine farm I saw. It took us less than 30 minutes because they had no stock on the day. So we drove back and agreed the heat calls for a swim at the beach. (Not so sure how great the idea was). Just when we got to the beach it started pouring this was my last few hours at this beautiful town, we went home and I got myself some sleep for about two hours, woke up got my stuff together and said my goodbyes. I loved every minute in this place, the weekend allowed me to explore other parts of myself I had not, it was a safe space so it felt good to.