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| Traditional Xhosa Huts |
A few weeks ago, Alice and I took one awesome trip up the
Wild Coast and I’m terrible to just now be blogging about it. I'll apologize now for the length, but this trip was just too good. Hopefully you find it as amusing as we did! We started the
holiday by driving 8 hours from PE up the east coast to our first stop- Port
St. Johns (from which we would work our way back down). This part of the country is known as the Old Transkei. During the apartheid era, the Transkei was one of two designated 'homelands' for Xhosa people that at the time was considered its own development separate from South Africa. As a result, the area remains a very rural area of traditional Xhosa people that has been kept rather untouched from much of Western culture. We had heard lots about this part of the country and were especially eager to see it ourselves.
Our first
full day in PSJ begins with a trip to a blow hole that sprays just a couple
kilometers up the coast from where we were staying. The owner of our lodge gave
us some very simple directions- to drive towards Second Beach and follow the
gravel road to the blow hole. Easy enough, we figure. There will definitely be
signs…15 minutes later, as were driving our little Nissan up a
steep, rocky road that was certainly only meant for 4x4s were faced with a fork
in the road. We stop and as a local guy walking where we can find the blowhole.
He points us in the direction and says his house is that was as well, if we
give him a lift he will show us. Why not. So we give this guy a hitch up the
road until we reach his hut on the top of the cliff. He points straight ahead
and directs us to a small clearing where he says we will find the blow hole.
Perfect. We drive the last rocky bit and park at the clearing and look around.
A beautiful coastal view, but not very easy to see the bottom from there. And
still no signs of a blowhole. As we are searching, we come across another young
man and ask for directions. He says he is going to the blowhole as well to
collect mussels and that we can follow him, but that we must leave our shoes
and be very careful. We begin following him down a small dirt trail towards the
water. As we reach the edge of what appears to a straight drop off, he points
to a thick cable that has been bolted into the hill that we are supposed to use
to get us down some very steep rocks. Next to the cable lay a few memorial
plaques of people who have died here. Awesome. But we were nearly there we
figured, so we very carefully lowered ourselves down the rock face where we
could nearly touch the water.
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| Our friend catching mussels @the blowhole |
But we weren't quite there yet, we look ahead to
see a ladder made up of logs tied together that we had to climb back up on the
other side. Onward we go. We get to the top of the next hill, and only from
there can we see our “guide” in his Kaiser Chiefs jersey, already down at the
blow hole, chasing the waves to catch mussels. We walked down about halfway and
decided to watch from there. We didn't want to be the next memorial stone of people who got swept into the hole. How we would have found this place without
the help of these locals, I’m not quite sure- and we quickly learned that
directions in this part of the country were to be taken more as guidelines and
to prepare for adventure.
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| View from the blowhole of Second Beach |
After the blow hole, we drove down to Second Beach- the
world’s most dangerous beach for its currents and shark attacks. Just last
year, a man who had waded into the water only up to his waist was eaten by a
shark. We put our toes in to say we touched it, but that’s about as adventurous
as we were feeling. We spent the remainder of the day driving around to
different beaches, having lunch near the water, enjoying the sun by the river
and driving thru town. Now this part of the Eastern Cape is notorious for its
terrible roads. Terrible in every sense of the word- no lights, pot holes,
dogs, goats, sheep, cows, people in your way- you suddenly very much feel like
you are in another less developed African country. This feeling only continued
as we went into town to find you could barely drive because of all of the
people walking or pushing carts in the streets, the huge funny advertisements
on the sides of buildings, the difference in available food (produce in
particular) at the shops, etc. Yet amidst all the hustle and bustle and chaos
of this small, African town- we felt safer walking and driving around here than
we do in PE. There was something reassuring about how tradition and untouched
this part of the country was, and we found the people to be very kind (and keen
to speak Xhosa with us!)
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| Most dangerous beach in the world! |
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| PSJ from the Airstrip |
Our second day in PSJ, we drove up to a tiny airstrip that
is almost never used but known for having a great view to take a few photos
before heading out. We drive back down the hill, and stop quickly and the
petrol station to fill up on gas before a 2 ½ hour drive to our next stop,
Coffee Bay… or so we thought. When we stop at the garage, the attendant tells
us that they are out of petrol and have been for a few days time. There had
been a huge transport strike in Joburg for the last week and a half, and petrol
was not getting delivered to many of these smaller towns. The attendant said
our best bet is to drive to Mthatha, about an hour away, and we should be able
to find petrol there. We had about a half a tank of gas, but Coffee Bay is
known to be even smaller than PSJ, and we didn’t want to risk getting there to
empty petrol stations as well. So to Mthatha we go. As we pull into the city
(considered the 'capital' of the Transkei and the best place for travelers to fill
up on gas and groceries that you can’t find in the smaller villages) we can see
cars stopped in traffic all the way up the main road. We stop and go our way
into town until we reach our first gas station and try to pull in for gas. The
station is absolute madness and cars, trucks, and people are all trying to come
in at different angles only to find that they have no gas either. We thought we
could at least leave our car for a minute to grab a coke and use the restrooms,
but the attendant told us we’d be smarted to keep driving as it was too
hectic/dangerous there, so we moved on.
We pull back on the main road- about
1-2ks long, all uphill, and all stop and go traffic. Alice really mastered her
clutch control that afternoon. It was hot as anything, and we didn’t want to
use to AC to conserve gas, so we had the windows down, sweating trying to get
up this hill. We passed another station, and another, and another. All without
petrol. So the madness continued up the hill, with every person in sight trying
to find a way to get gas. We were hot, thirsty and irritated with the
situation, and realized we needed to do something to turn it around. We had a
few CDs in the car that we were already sick of and mostly scratched, but one
of the CDs (that Mary Kate brought when she visited) had “Call Me Maybe” (a
super pop hit) on Track 3, and it didn’t skip. So put in the CD, turn the
stereo up as loud as we can, and just start dancing like crazy. Mind you, the
cars are barely moving- we are the only white people in sight, and there are
all kinds of people walking thru the roads. So our mission became: get as many
people to dance with us as possible. We went absolutely nuts for the next 20
minutes, and finally made our way out of the main road of Mthatha. Our spirits
were much higher, but we still had no petrol. As we were exiting the city, we
come across a station that has a petrol truck unloading. There were a few cars
already in a queue, so we joined them and decided rather safe than sorry. In
typical African fashion, the attendants kept yelling “Just 10 more minutes!” for
about an hour. We had already been in the car for over 3 hours and were not
even halfway to our destination. So what was another detour? We stretched our
legs, got cheap soft serve ice cream and cokes, and baked in the sun while we
waited for the petrol to start pumping. When it finally started flowing, you
can only guess which song we blasted… We got the petrol attendants (who pump
your gas) the taxis in line next to us, even some of the people standing at the
convenience shop, to dance with us to our new jam. A couple from the
Netherlands in front of us found us pretty entertaining, but we figured we’ll
never see any of these people again.
We got our fuel and made it to Coffee Bay just in time for
dinner. What was supposed to be a 2 ½ hour drive, took the whole day and we
were beat. We crashed early and this super hippy, earthy backpackers we ended
up at, and figured we’d see what we could of the place the next day.
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| The killer dog |
We had one full day to see as much as we could of Coffee
Bay, so it started with an early morning run. It was one of the hillier runs I’ve
ever done, but once I got up on the cliffs on the edge of the sea, it was
stunning! The contrast between these dramatic cliffs and sea landscapes, with
the humble, round, teal Xhosa huts was beautiful. I ran through the villages
for an hour or so before heading back to the backpackers to start the day.
Highest on our agenda was getting to “Hole in the Wall”- a huge rock formation
just off the coast that has a hole in it. We wanted to hike there which we were
told would take about 3 hours and required a guide for safety reasons. We told
the backpackers we wanted to get an early start so that we could have time to
go on a village tour afterwards. So they literally walked out onto the street
and found us our guide, a 20 year old Xhosa man, Mikah. Mikah walked us to Hole
in the Wall, all the while being followed by a dog known around Coffee Bay
(which only has 800 residents) for hunting the sheep and goats. Mind you, this
dog was a little terrier dog, but he didn’t seem to know that! Here and there
we’d be walking only to see a small herd of sheep or goats charging towards us,
being chased by this little dog. We arrived at Hole in the Wall and took our
pictures, swam a bit, and had lunch.
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| Hole in the Wall |
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| Mikah on our hitch back |
The backpackers had told us that because
there were only 2 of us hiking that day, they could not fetch us in a shuttle,
but Mikah would organize transport back. So it was time to go and we asked
Mikah about this transport he was supposed to organize. He said oh yes, it’s no
problem, we’ll just walk out to the main road. What they really meant by “organize
transport” is you’re going to hitch a ride home. So we begin walking down the
big dirt road (the same hilly road I ran on that morning, only closer to Coffee
Bay) waiting for some truck to pass by. A few cars passed by that were either
too full or turning off the wrong way, so we walked on. Finally Mikah spots a truck he calls “nature” driving towards us. By “Nature” what he really meant was the Eastern Cape Department of Agriculture. When they first passed us, they said they couldn’t give us a lift because they were busy at work. So we walked on while they pulled over to survey the area for illegal fishermen. They must have had a change of heart when they continued on driving and passed us a second time a few kilometers later because they let us jump in the back and said they’d take us as far as they could (which was all the way!) So we bounced in the back the 12ish ks back to Coffee Bay and arrived covered in a nice layer of dust.
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"Organizing our transport" (Also the same road I had
my awesome run on!) |
Dirty and sunburned as we were, we didn’t have time to
waste- so we continued with Mikah on to his village for a village tour. We can
use the word “tour” loosely. Basically, we went with Mikah to visit all his
family and friends, try traditional beer, and eat food. In each hut, we sat and
chat with the various people, almost entirely in Xhosa, and were offered lots
of food to eat. Traditionally, the women sit on the right side of the hut and
the men on the left, so we were expected to follow that tradition as well. At
our first stop, we were given a huge plate of Umqosho- a corn and bean dish
that we quite enjoy! The second stop, we were given an even larger plate of a
pap (cornmeal) and kale kind of dish that we didn’t care for at all. We ate a
few bites and luckily could just explain that we were full from the umqosho. We
spent nearly 4 hours in Mikah’s village, Jonga, and we were beat! I think Mikah
would have loved us to just move into their village, and he even had our husbands
organized for us to do so. Alice was to marry Mikah for a lobola of 2 pigs, 2
goats and 3 tee shirts (a rip off), and I was to marry Mikah’s brother who was “very
hard working”. We finally convinced Mikah that it was time to go and we were
exhausted, so back home we walked. Alice and I were chatting on the way home
about some of the more traditional parts of the culture we noticed. The
greetings were very important, and it was important to not only greet them when
you arrived, but return to their hut to say goodbye before you departed, even
if you had only spoken to them for 5 minutes. The whole process was very time
consuming. We also noticed the lack of privacy in the culture. Nobody closed
the door of their hut, and people came and went often between huts. The pace of
life was very different. Most people grow their own vegetables and spend much
of the day cooking their food. Walking between villages or huts is time
consuming (and hilly!) It was very neat to get to experience for the afternoon,
but would be a huge adjustment to live in a setting like that!
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| The tavern in Jonga |
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| Traditional beer |
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| Our second huge plate of food |
When the day was over, we crashed. A chicken burger, a glass
of wine, and bed. The next day we were back in the car (we drove more than we
ever had this week) to our last stop, Chintsa. We had one night in the small
coastal town of Chintsa in the country’s most famous backpackers. It was a good
thing the backpackers was neat, because we had pretty crummy weather which eliminated
most beach/outside activities. We went to the bar at the backpackers for a
drink before dinner and who walks into the bar, but the Netherlands couple from
the gas station in Mthatha… so much for
never seeing these people again. They said it was the most fun they had ever
had at a gas station, but they didn’t recognize us without our ‘giraffe hair’
(huge buns on top of our heads)… It was hot that day, okay!
Alice and I both enjoyed cool morning runs in Chintsa before
working our way back to PE. It had been a long 4 days of travel with a lot more
time in the car than we had anticipated. But was also one of the most beautiful,
adventurous holidays we had been on yet! One long blog post, but some of these
details were just too good to skim over! Hope you could laugh along with us for
a few of them J
Our first
full day in PSJ begins with a trip to a blow hole that sprays just a couple
kilometers up the coast from where we were staying. The owner of our lodge gave
us some very simple directions- to drive towards Second Beach and follow the
gravel road to the blow hole. Easy enough, we figure. There will definitely be
signs…15 minutes later, as were driving our little Nissan up a
steep, rocky road that was certainly only meant for 4x4s were faced with a fork
in the road. We stop and as a local guy walking where we can find the blowhole.
He points us in the direction and says his house is that was as well, if we
give him a lift he will show us. Why not. So we give this guy a hitch up the
road until we reach his hut on the top of the cliff. He points straight ahead
and directs us to a small clearing where he says we will find the blow hole.
Perfect. We drive the last rocky bit and park at the clearing and look around.
A beautiful coastal view, but not very easy to see the bottom from there. And
still no signs of a blowhole. As we are searching, we come across another young
man and ask for directions. He says he is going to the blowhole as well to
collect mussels and that we can follow him, but that we must leave our shoes
and be very careful. We begin following him down a small dirt trail towards the
water. As we reach the edge of what appears to a straight drop off, he points
to a thick cable that has been bolted into the hill that we are supposed to use
to get us down some very steep rocks. Next to the cable lay a few memorial
plaques of people who have died here. Awesome. But we were nearly there we
figured, so we very carefully lowered ourselves down the rock face where we
could nearly touch the water.
After the blow hole, we drove down to Second Beach- the
world’s most dangerous beach for its currents and shark attacks. Just last
year, a man who had waded into the water only up to his waist was eaten by a
shark. We put our toes in to say we touched it, but that’s about as adventurous
as we were feeling. We spent the remainder of the day driving around to
different beaches, having lunch near the water, enjoying the sun by the river
and driving thru town. Now this part of the Eastern Cape is notorious for its
terrible roads. Terrible in every sense of the word- no lights, pot holes,
dogs, goats, sheep, cows, people in your way- you suddenly very much feel like
you are in another less developed African country. This feeling only continued
as we went into town to find you could barely drive because of all of the
people walking or pushing carts in the streets, the huge funny advertisements
on the sides of buildings, the difference in available food (produce in
particular) at the shops, etc. Yet amidst all the hustle and bustle and chaos
of this small, African town- we felt safer walking and driving around here than
we do in PE. There was something reassuring about how tradition and untouched
this part of the country was, and we found the people to be very kind (and keen
to speak Xhosa with us!) 
