Wild, wild East


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Africa » South Africa » Eastern Cape » Port St Johns
January 6th 2008
Published: January 10th 2008
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We met a lot of happy and friendly people hereWe met a lot of happy and friendly people hereWe met a lot of happy and friendly people here

not only the kids have this everlasting smile on their face...here the grown ups do too
I wouldn't have expected Black Africa in this country, but here I am.... It seems as if Aparheid had never touched this part of the country - and in a way it didn't - Within the "old" South Africa, 10 homelands were created, four of which were granted "independence" by South Africa; the first of them was the so called Transkei, the area in easternmost Cape Province, today's Eastern Cape. And that's were I ended up that Sunday....
Once again I had come to give my hiking boots another work out and once again - this time even more forceful - the locals were putting quite a bit of effort into discouraging me from going by myself. Which turned out to be true - once again!
So I adhered to their advice and since I couldn't find any other person to come along (weird place), I found myself another guide. As a special treat I decided to leave tent, stove and sleeping back behind this time (what a luxury!!!); The guide arranged accomodation with local families. The trail went up and down the roling hills along the coast along cliffs and beaches, accross rivers and through local Xhosa Villages (Xhosa are the local tribe in this area, whose language sounds more like music and contains a lot of clicks and pops). The night we spent in a village called Mpande. When we got there, the big "chief" African Mama - head of the family - Christina - (yes, true, and she celebrated the fact that we had the same names for like half an hour) came running to me, hugging me enthusiastically. Then she grabbed my arm gently but tightly and didn't let me go for minutes. She dragged me into their tiny "main" shack. The mud hut was only furnished with two benches. The one-room place was filled with people, women on the floor to the left and men on the benches to the right. It must have been around 30 people in that hut that measured maybe 3 by 4 m. Of course when I entered all their attention was on me for a good while. Pretty much all of them were staring at me with dead straight faces but I was too excited to be insecure or something similar so I had the broadest grin on my face that I can come up with. I guess that really helped in terms of connection with these people. After a brief exchange of facts about me - Christina translated for us - I was part of the group. Christina then explained that she was very sorry about not being able to serve tea now and that they were just getting ready to celebrate her son's recovery from a potentially fatal disease (she didn't know the english term for it). So one female got up, had a bit of an emotional, heated, sometimes even angry speech in Xhosa (guess it was meant to chase the bad spirits away - unfortunately no-one explained it to me) and then started singing. As intensely and loudly as she could and after the first line or two all others joined in. Once the whole choir was up and running, the solo singer in the middle started some sort of wild dance holding a long wooden cane in her right hand, wrapping a scarf around her waiste with the other. The dance looked like some kind of angry fight with bad spirits. I guess another attempt to chase negative energies away. The whole dancing and singing ritual was accompanied by heavy drinking of homebrewed beer (yuck!!!), Brandy and Coke and a few crates of bottled beer (as opposed to their homebrand).
So that was my first trekking experience that combined hiking and culunary indulgances. Not bad actually! Not bad at all! Just the taste of that home brewed beer needs a little bit of fine tuning...



So, on a private note, hope you can wait a little for the next entry about SA. It takes a while to catch up with all the stories and pic's. There will be more but you might need to be patient for now. Am off to Florida and Hawaii tomorrow....be well my friends! Aloha!!


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"2nd beach" in Port St Johns"2nd beach" in Port St Johns
"2nd beach" in Port St Johns

my first stop along the Wild Coast in the so called Transkei
Transkei north of Mthata (Inland)Transkei north of Mthata (Inland)
Transkei north of Mthata (Inland)

the land is being exploited to the max.
And the country side looks heavily erodedAnd the country side looks heavily eroded
And the country side looks heavily eroded

Inland it's worse than on the coast
Coffey Bay from the hill on which we were having sun downersCoffey Bay from the hill on which we were having sun downers
Coffey Bay from the hill on which we were having sun downers

not one day without, even when the sun wasn't shining.
so went for a walk, amongst other things had a look at the local townshipso went for a walk, amongst other things had a look at the local township
so went for a walk, amongst other things had a look at the local township

(which I would never do outside of the Transkei by the way)


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