Blogs from Coffee Bay, Eastern Cape, South Africa, Africa - page 4

One night, shortly after I arrived in South Africa, I grabbed my iPod and sat out on the lawn in Annie's Cove and looked up at the stars while listening to Paul Simon's Graceland. I know it sounds silly, but that album is part of the soundtrack of my childhood, and I had the urge to listen to it while trying to experience the stars in the southern hemisphere. Unfortunately, Port Elizabeth is just like any other large city around the world, with millions of lights (except during the daily power outages) and lots of smog. Needless to say, I couldn't see many more stars than one could see in Davis on a clear night. After a while I went back inside and didn't give it another thought, until this last Friday. Last weekend was a ... read more

Hi there. Ready for the next chapter? Are you sitting comfortably? Then I'll begin. On the 18th October I said my farewells to Jeffrey's Bay and boarded the bus at 5.30am with Caroline. Ahead of us was a 12 hour bus ride up the East coast. Just what I needed - we were soon into the Transkei region of the Eastern Cape and revelling in the solitude and rawness of it all. This part of South Africa is largely undeveloped and inhabited by the Xhosa people (one of the 2 major ethnic groups in South Africa, the other being the Zulu people). This is where Nelson Mandela was born and grew up, and what a beautiful place it is. Very similar to the South West of England actually! The Transkei's major attraction is it's coastline, called ... read more

¿Como dicen los beach boys?---everybody suuurfing, surf in ..."Coffee Bay". Coffee Bay es sin duda uno de los mejores lugares para surfear, agua calientita, olas de buen tamaño, pero nada mas cuidado con los tiburones blancos y no es broma, en las playas ponen redes para que estas bestias acuaticas blancas no se cuelen. ... read more

After a typical late start we headed east along the coast to a campsite in Hermanus which was packed full with redneck Afrikaners getting their Easter fill of barbecued Boerwors (a traditional South African sausage) whilst scouring the 'outsiders' with distaste...well, that's the way it seemed at the time anyway! Maybe it had something to do with turning up late the night before leaving the motorbike running to cool-down whilst setting up the tent? So we entered the Garden Route area of S.A as we rode east towards Mossel Baai, a legendary surf-spot which turned out to be one of the old "you should have been here yesterday" spots. Like a lot of places in the world, the South Africans have cottoned onto the tourist dollar charging exorbitant prices to do anything. To camp at ... read more

So . . . . we left Swaziland and drove south through kwazulu Natal (that's Zululand) straight through to Durban. Now we didn't see much of Durban so we can't say exactly what it was like but we didn't like the atmosphere. A big 'gt dirty city , we stayed in a nice hostel called the Hippo Hide in the nice subburbs. Having driven through the centre on route we didn't like the look of it and stayed away. Good storm came one night but that's about it. Seen enough big cities for the time being. So, having continued south we reached a part of the country known as the wild coast. This was really scenic with the countryside littered with hundreds of Roundhouses, these are tiny huts, often windowless, that house the African Rural ... read more