Durban - It’s not only beaches in South Africa that close from time to time because of the Covid-19 pandemic. Ski lifts in the French Alps are also not operating.
That’s what a couple, who set out from Durban on their world travels in the year of Covid-19, have discovered as they trek up mountains to ski down.
“It’s lots of work,” said Durbanite Sarah Korck, 23, who, with East London-born fiancé, Marek Urban, 26, is travelling the world on a tight budget.
“We’ll carry on travelling until the money we saved for a good few years runs out,” she said.
Their way of budget travelling is through working at interesting places as volunteers in exchange for board and lodging. They share their experiences on YouTube videos, filmed with the help of a drone, which they put out every week. Each episode ends with a rand breakdown of what they spent. Other currencies mentioned depend on where they are and what currency they are using in the episode.
“Our main goal was to end up at a ski resort. After applying to multiple places, the only people who replied were Workaway,” said Urban. The organisation sets travellers up as volunteers in exchange for a roof over their heads and meals on their plates.
And so they landed up at a ski resort in the French Alps.
The couple is helping to clean and prepare the accommodation for when the resort is allowed to open again. But for now, they are enjoying the pleasures of staying at the ski resort, just minus the luxury of the lifts running.
Korck said travelling this way, they were so much more exposed to people in different parts of the world than tourists who simply went sightseeing.
“We are experiencing people’s lives and cultures and enjoying that wherever we go.”
One of their work stays was at the village of Coveney in Cambridgeshire, England, which is so small and relatively off the beaten track that the house they stayed in did not even have a number.
“It was just ‘The Old School House’ in School Lane,” said Korck.
They worked as stable hands and also had to walk dogs.
Urban, in their video, told of how Coveney was far more populated and busier, pre-industrialisation. Now, agricultural machines do the work of many people. However, new homes are going up as Londoners head for a life in the country and working remotely.
Korck and Urban were all set to start their odyssey in April, but lockdown got in the way. Once inter-provincial restrictions were lifted, they took a road trip around South Africa, giving their video series a local start, backed with material they already had.
Through these, they have introduced viewers to Drew from Rosetta who lives completely off the grid, having swopped city comforts for rural discomforts and filmmakers in the Kalahari whose 10-year-old twins are also shooting wildlife films while home schooling. There was also the family of anti-rhino poaching operative Barend in a game reserve for whom a snake landing on a pillow, lions in the garden or an elephant peering at its reflection in the window are not unknown.
“We enjoy telling stories about people, about alternative lifestyles,” said Korck.
It’s had an impact on Urban’s ideas of what he wants in the future.
“I wouldn’t like to spend my Sundays dreading the working week ahead. I’ve taken a hard look at what I would like to do.
“Before last year, I had no intention of being my own boss. Now I have quite a passion to work for myself.”
Both are B Comm graduates from the University of the Free State, where they met. Korck has studied further in law and Urban in quantity surveying.
The seeds of her wanderlust were planted on family holidays; his when he saw a brochure on yachting in his high school library.
Back to travelling in the times of Covid-19: apart from wearing masks, sanitising and spending time in quarantine, the topic of an episode in their YouTube series, they have done more research than normal to keep up with the latest information on their next destination.
But generally it's been a breeze, according to the couple. They were not asked for anything in Europe. The only place they were asked for Covid-19 test results was at King Shaka International Airport, before leaving South Africa.
Visit their YouTube channel at https://www.youtube.com/c/SarahMarek
The Independent on Saturday