South Africa: The Panorama Route

We had decided in advance to take a small break from the Kruger Park and since we'd all heard about the Panorama Route, that's where we headed. The first leg of the trip was the drive up from Hazyview to Graskop. Hazyview takes its name precisely from the fact that the area is often hazy, especially in the morning. Once you get up in the very scenic hillsides above and around town the views are, if not spectacular, at least very nice.

Much of the woodlands you find around Hazyview is planted. There are HUGE plantations with nuffin' but trees as far as the eye can see.


The "haze" in Hazyview soon became apparent as we climbed up the hillsides.


Video from the road between Hazyview and Graskop.


In Graskop, we had a solid breakfast at a brilliant little restaurant called The Silver Spoon. As you can see, it was a variation on the English breakfast, with a big ole hamburger and some fries in lieu of tomato beans and mushrooms. I talked a bit to our waitress, who turned out to be from the Zulu nation and she gave us some hints on where to go and what to see.


We then drove on to one of the most famed sights along the route: God's Window. We paid to drive in to a parking lot, then we climbed straight up the mountain for hours and hours (ok, I exaggerate, but it FELT that way, walking up the steep hillside. It was hard and my feet hurt and it was hot and I was sweaty and whaaaaaaaaaa, I wanna go home). This was the very "proper jungle"-like area at the top of the climb. We later found out that this wasn't strictly speaking "God's Window", that particular site was way, way below, so basically we'd climbed much farther than we had to. Curses!


Jungle!


The views up there were impeccable. Sadly, the experience was almost ruined by a group of American godbotherers, who were singing religious hymns at the top of their lungs. Blissfully, they stopped after some time.


More haze.


Naturally, I was skeptical; mostly of the singing religious fucks.


I got video.


More video


I also got some video of Albie bossing some of the locals around for a photography session.


There were some nice views along the way, but little to justify the hype around the Panorama Route.




We all felt this juxtaposition was chuckleworthy.


The last scenic bit was the best; the area known as The Three Rondavels is nothing short of stunning.


The three in all their splendor.


Video of the Three Rondavels.


I was still skeptical of the Panorama Route.


Later, we passed several goat herds and the odd bovine on the road. As in literally ON the road, with no human supervision that we could see.


This little kid was cute, though.