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After the Drakensberg, I moved on to Coffee Bay where I met up with Jess, Tracie, and Kerry. Coffee Bay is in an area of South Africa known as the Transkei Wild Coast. The rural region lives up to its name, and I loved how different it was than anywhere else I’ve been. The landscape was dotted with round mud huts, most a blue/green color. And we had little kids lining the road as we passed to wave at us. Most tourists in South Africa look out for the Big 5 - lion, leopard, elephant, rhino, and cape buffalo. Here they have the Transkei Big 5 - cow, goat, pig, sheep, and donkey. On our drive from the bus stop to the Coffee Shack (our hostel), we had to slow down for every one of these animals crossing the road.
We did a coastal hike one day to a place called Hole in the Wall. It’s basically a giant rock/island with a hole in it. I obviously don’t know how to describe it well, but you can see it in the pictures. Like every other South African coastline, it was gorgeous. Unlike every other coastal hike I’ve done, this one
was teeming with livestock. Lots of cattle, sheep, and goats. We also had a dog (named Puppy) that did the entire 3 hour hike with us. And we spotted a bunch of dolphins out in the water! We stopped at the beach by Hole in the Wall to eat lunch. Entertainment was provided by someone with too much confidence in their truck, who drove it down a very steep hill and couldn’t get back up. A team of men were trying to pull it up with a rope for over an hour. We left before seeing success.
At night, we were able to go to dinner in the village and spend time with some of the local people. We ate some traditional Xhosa meals including umphokoqo (corn porridge) and umngqusho (beans and corn). They were really nice and very filling. We also tried some Xhosa beer, or umqombothi. It was gross haha. There were probably 20 other people in the hut with us, and four of the women sang and danced for us. Eventually everyone else joined in on the dancing, and the singing too if they knew the words. We also had a little question and answer session,
with translations done by our guide Lindani. The main things the Xhosa women wondered about were why we marry so late and why we have so few babies haha.
Another hike that we did was to a place called “Easi” Falls. Whenever we asked anyone about how difficult the hike was, they avoided the question: “Oh, you’ll have fun.” The fact that Easi was in quotation marks should have tipped us off. The first part of the hike wasn’t too bad. It was pretty hilly, but nothing ridiculous. We were warned that the trail was covered with spiders, and we did pass one of the biggest ones I’ve ever seen. We got to our base camp, where we would be having lunch, and left our bags and clothes there to make the rest of the way in bathing suits. Our final destination at the waterfall was a ways up the river, and we had to scramble over rocks and swim to get there. Climbing rocks along a river is difficult in shoes, and it is painful barefoot. It finally got to a point where we couldn’t walk on the rocks anymore, and we had to get into the water.
The river was really cloudy, and we couldn’t see the bottom. Wading out into it until it was deep enough to swim was one of the hardest things I’ve ever had to do. The bottom was so rocky and everyone kept stubbing toes, slipping, and falling over. I’m surprised no one twisted an ankle. I resorted to crawling haha. It wasn’t anymore awkward, and then I had nowhere to fall. To make the whole experience even better, the water was absolutely freezing. I know I tend to exaggerate when it comes to the cold, but one girl actually had trouble breathing and had to back out. And this was the last time this season the Coffee Shack was running this trip because winter is coming. Never in my life have I wanted a wetsuit more. I did consider staying behind with the other girl, but I didn’t want to have hiked all that way and not seen the waterfall. We swam probably a couple pool lengths, got out and walked on rocks a bit, then swam some more. We had to climb up a couple rock walls, and finally were at the waterfall. Took some pictures (we brought cameras
in a waterproof barrel), then hurried back to the base camp to have lunch and sit around the fire.
The hike back involved a stretch called “The Big Hill.” I was hoping that this name was also sarcastic, but that wasn’t the case. It was huge. But I preferred being hot and sweaty to the freezing cold river. We also managed to get mixed in with a herd of cattle on our way back, so we walked alongside them for awhile. It was unavoidable, but I stepped in more animal dung in these two days of hiking than in the rest of my life.
Coffee Bay Pictures
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