The backpacker's philisophy of travel

There's nothing like a bus of merry pranksters, star-bright nights spent pounding djembe drums and beautiful, boundless wilderness at your doorstep to turn you from being a tourist into a genuine traveller - a backpacker. Tamlin Wightman found herself transformed.

You thinking you're a traveller and then you go backpacking. Things change. Quickly. A week travelling on the Baz Bus from night stop to night stop was enough to change me from the alwayson- time, all-plans-made, over-packer sort to a go-with-the-flow barefoot type with nothing but my camera and some clothes in tow.

The Baz Bus is the jump-on, jumpoff backpackers' bus service that's been running since 1995 and is well known to young foreigners wanting to explore South Africa. It's the brainchild of a retired backpacker, Barry Zeidel, who spent time gypsying around Europe by similar means because he fancied the idea of meeting other like-minded travellers and not having to drive in unfamiliar places or follow a strict itinerary. Today the Baz Bus runs between Cape Town and Johannesburg/ Pretoria via Durban and Swaziland. I was headed to Port St Johns. Be warned: if you have no pressing engagement back home, you might be gone for some time.

On the road

It was after sun up and I was waiting promptly at the Ashanti Lodge in Gardens, Cape Town, for the Baz Bus. Which was late. Only by a few minutes, sure, but I'd been there for half an hour and was now tired, annoyed and bogged down by a whole dynasty of luggage. When it arrived, the bus had not one South African on it. Previously, we were shunned by many backpacker lodges, having gained a reputation for being notorious partiers who drank the bar dry and then hit on the 'foreign chicks', as one backpacker manager told me, or ducked without paying. We're mostly welcome nowadays, even encouraged, especially as the credit crunch forces people to spend more time exploring their own countries. A 19-seater Volkswagen bus with a trailer to hold everything from backpacks to surfboards and bicycles, the Baz Bus carted us along the Garden Route - me, two Australians and some Scotsmen who seemed happy to park off behind dark sunglasses in the back. We stopped to collect and unload people at backpacker lodges en route, allowing us to relieve bursting.

The Baz Bus has four ticket categories. I'd booked the hop-on, hop-off option: a ticket to a final destination that entitled me to stop over as often as I liked along the way. It's a doorto-door service and there's no time limit, letting you travel as the wind takes you. I'd planned my every night's accommodation in advance, but the others onboard were winging it, choosing from the more than 180 backpacker lodges available in over 40 areas en route.

Becoming a backpacker

The Wild Spirit Lodge and Backpackers, tucked away on a farm in Nature's Valley overlooking the Tsitsikamma Mountains, was my home for the first night. As the Baz Bus dropped me off, a big red Land Cruiser with tattered mattresses on the back held down by two German girls - wrists stacked with bracelets collected all over South Africa - was off to catch the sunset over Bobbejaanskloof, a short drive away.

Londoner Craig Miller at the wheel invited me along for the ride through overgrown bush. It wasn't a bad introduction to life on the road: stars winking a hello above the chiselled gorge and our impromptu band of outlanders passing around beers. After a dinner served from the kitchen where dreamcatchers dangled and tree branches crept in through the window, we sat in the driftwood boma, amid the orange swirl of Craig's nimble poi fire dancing and the group's ecstatic djembe drumming. I found myself wondering, 'Where exactly am I?'

While other guests left at dawn to throw themselves off the world's highest bungi jump, I headed into the Magical Forest, a hike that begins and ends at Wild Spirit. You're likely to think you're on the edge of the planet, as trees soaring high above close off life outside. I followed a canine resident to the trickling waterfall. It was chilly but I jumped in - it beat showering (yes, the backpacker bug was starting to bite; symptom one: aversion to washing). Craig exhibits symptom two: aversion to returning home. What with the wilderness at his door, new tourists coming and going and days spent building tree houses and spinning poi, he's been here over six months and is now manager.

Away with the fairies

Shaggy-haired, I hopped back on the bus among new travellers. Destination: Port Elizabeth, a compulsory Baz Bus stopover. But it was a night of little sleep at PE's Lungile Lodge, as the snorer I shared a room with and a drunken stranger wailing, 'I'm the freaky guy!' kept me up. I snuck a doze on the bus next morning. When I woke, road signs flashed: 'God is your saviour' and 'This is chicory and cow country.' We stopped for breakfast in Port Alfred and a new driver, in a white shirt with the Baz Bus logo printed on his pocket, collected bags of bread rolls and doughnuts from a corner café. Later on the road, he handed these to rural Xhosa people waiting for him, as they did most days when he drove through. The drivers imparted some history about the places we passed ? from the old apartheid homelands of Ciskei and Transkei to Mandela's birthplace in Qunu. For me, the lessons stopped at Sugar Shack, a backpackers? lodge in East London where a shuttle waited to ferry me to Hogsback. Elf country.

Few Baz Bus-ers mission inland to this town, some distance from the coast. But I was getting in touch with my inner vagabond and thought Hogsback, with its pull for drifters and arty types, was a must, so I booked into Away with the Fairies. Red mushrooms with white spots winked up at host Daniel Colnick and I as we hiked from the hostel to the Swallowtail and Madonna and Child waterfalls through thick forest (think The Hobbit), following the birdsongs of Knysna turacos and the rare Cape parrot.

The good life

Back at Sugar Shack, a laid-back Back at Sugar Shack, a laid-back hangout that's a Frisbee throw from the beach, guests and staff were challenging each other at snooker, downing silly green shots and passing out to magnetic djembe drumming around a braai. I joined in (when in Rome?) and chatted with Welshman Morgan Leslie James, another backpacker who'd stayed on to work for his food and lodging. 'I'll hang around until I get bored,' he said. 'Then, I guess, I'll move on. When? I don?t know.'

We hit the Nahoon dunes next morning. While I fell on my bum with my arms spread like the wings of a chicken, the beefy, tattooed blonde surfed coolly off a ramp and down the sand almost into the sea. Well, he does this every day, I thought.

The Baz Bus had been on time after day one, but kept me waiting a few minutes now. No problem, since I was quite intent on staying and was regretting having been such a diligent organiser.

Note to self: be more spontaneous.

A trip to the wild side

It was a scary sight: a gang of sweaty Englishmen, beers in hand, screeching a Jack Johnson song. Luckily, insanity had hit me too, maybe because of the endless hours spent on the same seat or because I was out of my home routines. Or perhaps I was part of the backpacker tribe now, that gang of strangers who celebrate being lost in the moment, a mad, brave world compared to the planeto-taxi-to-hotel club.

Besides us merry pranksters, there was an elderly man from Durban, travelling by himself ? although on the Baz Bus, you're never really alone.

He'd travelled most of the world but had hardly seen his own country and wanted to before he couldn?t anymore. There was also a mother-anddaughter team from Britain. 'I haven't spent much time with my kid, being a single mom,' Nicola McClements said. ?So we decided to couch-surf the world for a year. I'll home-school my little one on the way.' Nine-year-old Bethan was staring out the window, pointing things out excitedly to all aboard.

I got off at the Shell Ultra petrol station in Mthatha to catch a shuttle to Coffee Bay on a beautiful stretch of the Wild Coast.

Blue and pink huts and idle billy goats took over my window frame. When we arrived at Bomvu Paradise Backpackers, among indigenous trees on the Bomvu River, some surfers from Cape Town (finally, South Africans!) were smoking joints in a heady daze around a fire, after a day of 'cooking surf, man.' The sun was abating as another drumming circle began in the deck bar. If I ran out of money, I figured I had enough talent now to busk my way to Durban and back.

Exit Bomvu's gates and no doubt someone will try to sell you crayfish, marijuana or magic mushrooms. My potential dealer wore a hat that read, 'Say no to drugs.' Minutes before the shuttle arrived to take me to Port St Johns, I took a dip in the rough-as-bulls sea. Sandy, barefoot and in damp clothes, I stared wistfully out the shuttle window later, just another backpacker.

The philosophy of travel

A strange creature in chequered pants with a leather strap tied around bushy hair stared at me. In the mirror, I looked like a female Ben Dekker, a legendary Port St Johns recluse who supposedly lives off wine and women in a cave. The shuttle had dropped me (and my much lighter luggage) at Amapondo Backpackers in Port St Johns? tropical forest. My last stop. That night, I sat beside the fire as people picked up guitars and drums and began a jam session. Their music had no plan; they took it where it wandered. Others joined in, swapped instruments and were open to new rhythms. It was like life on the road, or how I?d learned it should be. I picked up a drum and joined them.

'Be warned: if you have no pressing engagement back home, you might be gone for some time.' Tamlin Wightman

A 19-seater bus with a trailer to hold everything from backpacks to surfboards carted us.

There was nothing to tell us to stop having fun. We explored on

Footnotes

Baz Bus ticket options Hop-on, hop-off - book your destination and stay at backpacker lodges en route, for as long and often as you like. Johannesburg or Pretoria to Cape Town or vice versa via Swaziland is R3 200 one-way, R4 400 return. Via the Drakensberg Mountains, it's R2 640 one-way, R4 400 return. Durban to Cape Town or vice versa is R2 200 one-way, R3 300 return. Port Elizabeth to Cape Town is R1 110 one-way, R1 610 return. Joburg or Pretoria to Durban via Swaziland is R1 350. The travel pass lets you ride the Baz Bus in any direction, as often as you like, within a set time period. Choose from the seven-day pass (R1 200), 14-day pass (R2 200) or 21-day pass (R3 000). The flexi-tour includes a Baz Bus ticket, selection of cultural day tours and a safari. You can choose where you travel and stay and for how long. Via the Drakensberg, the tour is R7 450. Via Swaziland it's R8 200. The basic flexi-tour I is R6 200, the basic flexi-tour II is R6 700. The guided Cape Peninsula day tour includes cycling, hiking, a visit to Hout Bay harbour and the penguins at Boulders Beach in Simon's Town, a picnic and more, for R425 a person. An extra R50 fuel levy is added to ticket prices over R500 for all tours.

Contact

Baz Bus tel 021-439-2323, e-mail info@bazbus.com, web www.bazbus.com

Important Information

There are some backpacker hostels and areas the Baz Bus does not stop at, but a shuttle service is available from a drop-off point to the destination. Be sure to phone the lodge to book the shuttle in advance. A fee may be applicable.

Travel tips

• It's often people who make your experience on the Baz Bus or at backpackers' lodges. Keep a good attitude and open mind at all times and you?ll have fun.

• The Baz Bus drivers have a set speed limit of 100kilometres an hour. If you think they're driving too fast, ask them to slow down.

• Take your own food or make use of supermarkets enroute. Otherwise you'll be stuck with fast food joints and a rather empty wallet.

• If you're not into chatting to strangers, take books or an MP3 player for the bus trip.

• Give yourself at least a day at each place to properly experience it.

• Print a copy of the Baz Bus Bus timetable, available on their website, to take along.