Buffalo Rules

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Day 50 - Coffee Bay - 17/9/09

The Baz Bus journey was the same as yesterday; long and boring. It arrived for me at the backpackers at 0630, the morning was grey and cloudy and that pretty much was exactly the way I felt about everything!! The same people got on at the various places they had been deposited around Port Elizabeth the previous night. We stopped off at various points to pick up extra people who hadn’t been on the bus the previous night; in fact when we left Port Elizabeth it was quite uncomfortable as the bus was completely full.

We continued though the Eastern Cape, dropping people off and picking other people up until we reached the town of Mthatha where we passed by the house where Nelson Mandela grew up, the driver decided to stop for a couple of minutes so that anybody who wanted to take a couple of pictures could, which was awful nice of him. All of a sudden he sped off with no warning, maybe to make up the couple of minutes that he had spent waiting for people to get their pictures. Eventually we came to a petrol station that the driver pulled into announcing that this was the stop for Coffee Bay. We were greeted here by a shuttle bus that would take us to the hostels at Coffee Bay around about 100km away. The journey was almost like being back in East Africa as all there was on the journey where little shack dotted on the landscape that were particularly run down.

After an hour and a half the shuttle bus reached my hostel; the Coffee Shack, along my journey on the Baz Bus I had nothing but great reviews for this hostel. I was staying here for 3 nights and was informed that there was no need for money as everything could be put onto your tab, not good!! After getting a guided tour and a free welcome drink, we were taken to a local Shabeen or Drinking House. A local woman tried to sell me some beads and I received some advice from a South African guy told me that a way to get rid of them was to confuse them by trying to sell something to them.

At the drinking house there was a distinct lack of cold beers, which, meant that we all ended up being taken to this house and there was a huge crowd of us standing in their bedroom buying beers out of a cooler box on the floor. Weird! Back at the Shabeen, I was dragged up onto the dance floor by this bead selling local who was adamant that I was going to dance with her, this was all filmed by an Irish girl called Sinead who I had been talking to earlier.

The rest of the evening was spent eating dinner, drinking cider and mingling with all the other backpackers challenging them to a friendly game of pool. At random points in the evening all you would here was the chant of “BUFFALO, BUFFALO, BUFFALO!” shouted at the top of everybody’s voices. This was because the bar area was governed by 2 rules - 1) No right hand drinking and 2) No drinks on the pool table, if any of these rules were broken you would have to neck in one the rest of your drink. The first rule was a bugger because you would just forget so easily not to right hand it and the more you got buffaloed the more you held your drink in your right hand, it wasn’t too long till I got my first buffaloing....

Day 51 - Coffee Bay - 18/9/09

Woke up and had a bowl of cereal. Found out that today's activity was surf lessons on the beach. Sinead and some girls from Liverpool were trying to convince me to give it a go over breakfast, I was most defiantly not doing it, my response was “I'm not good at surfing””Oh, you tried it before” the girls asked “No, I’m just not going to be good at it!” was my frank reply.

The girls all went down to the beach at around 1030, whilst I chilled out in the sand doing nothing but relaxing. It was a very hard day which soon past by. A South African guy who was in the same dorm as me was going down to the beach and I decided to follow him down, we were soon climbing over rocks and into caves, I can't remember this guy’s name but he was some kind of photography as he had his camera in his hand where ever he went, he was soon taking pictures of some amazing views looking out at the sea.

We walked back up to the main road and down to the entrance of the beach, to be honest it's not the nicest beach but it was deserted; we walked along, him taking pictures and me, letting my thoughts run away with me, listening to the waves as they crash against the rocks and watching them sweep up onto the beach leaving behind seaweed. Being the natural explorer that I am decided to recklessly climb up onto some rocks only to discover some hidden caves and coves. The caves didn’t really go too far in but it was still interesting and fun jumping around; rock to rock then all of a sudden I slipped as I landed onto the rock and went backwards into the water. The sun was starting to set so we headed back to the hostel; me dripping wet. I hung my wet clothes up outside, waiting for the sun to rise tomorrow to dry and sat down for dinner. During the meal a signup sheet for the killer pool competition was passed round; I sign up looking forward to a bit of pool action later on that night. Before the competition started the CBBB started to play, the CBBB is short for the Coffee Bay Bongo Band; it was awesome but to be honest I just wanted to crack on with the pool competition. Even though the pool competition was still going on the bar staff would still Buffalo people, in fact that is how I got knocked out of the competition, my shot was lined up perfectly, my cue drawn back ready to strike, my shout almost played then “BUFFALO!!!!” was shouted at the top of his voice putting me off. I got distracted missing the ball I was going for, 3rd; close but no cigar!

Day 52 - Coffee Bay - 19/9/09

Seeing that I didn’t win the pool competition last night I actually had to pay for the day's activity which was a day down at the beach. It was 40 rand to use some of the hostels various sporting equipment; we took down volleyballs plus nets, footballs plus goals and some surf boards for the surf lessons. The girls had finally won and I was trying to tame the surf. It also included lunch.

I packed up some stuff in a bag and quickly checked my wallet, making sure it was still buried at the bottom of my rucksack; it was put after counting the money inside it, I discovered that about 600 rand, roughly £50 had been taken. I was not happy to say the least!

1030 rolled around and we all met up by the campsite to pick up some surfboards and wetsuits as well as the other equipment, we carried 2 per person, 1 person carried 2 at the front end and the other held the back end. Eventually we all made it to the beach and sat down on a grassy knoll that overhung the sea, it was a truly beautiful spot. There was 15 of us in total and we all had a basic theory lesson on surfing; mainly how to get up on the board - simple I thought; hands flat by your ribs, push up, right foot forward at 90 degrees to the board, hands on it and push up. Pretty simple I thought. We waited; whilst we did some of the local ladies came along and tried to sell us some beads. Everybody brought something and the ladies left with their sales.

When we got our go on the surf, it was starting to get a bit rougher, I did want to wear a wetsuit so I ended up wearing a pink rash vest; yes, I did say pink. I wasn’t allowed to wear the green one! I jumped onto the board and gave it a go! It was awesome! After about an hour, my arms and my shoulders were aching and I hadn’t actually managed to get up, every time I thought I was almost up I would end up going ass over tit and make a big splash in the water! After an hour we returned back to the grassy knoll, where the staff from the hostel were busy cooking cheese and tomato toasties on a campfire.

After an hour of eating, laying and busking in the sun, we went and had a game of no rules volleyball, it was good fun and eventually got a couple of locals and some other tourist to take part; our game kept on getting stopped by the rising tides washing away the lines, that and me having to run in the sea every now and again after diving on the wet sand and getting a facefull stuck to my face.

We walked back to the hostels with the surfboards, when we got back we sat down for dinner which was Chicken Soup and Spaghetti Bolognese, I ended up just chilling out have a quite night with Sinead and the other girls from Liverpool, we were all really tired and crashed out fairly early on

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Photos

Laura
and The Stray Dog

CBBB
or The Coffee Bay Bongo Band