Cows on the Beach

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I spent the better part of the last week on the Wild Coast in the Transkei. This is a very rural area that was/is very poor and often forgotten in the Apartheid era. Simple local Xhosa farming villages dominates it. The landscape is rolling green hills that come right down to the beach.

I stayed at Bulungula. This is a small backpackers that is 40% owned by the local community. I only intended to stay about 3 days but ended up there for more like 6.

I guess some of it was the effort to get there. They have a shuttle that will pick you up from Mthatha. But they also offer to let you stay one night free if you get there via public transport. So in Mthatha, I caught a mini-bus taxi to Xhora. This wasn’t so bad. In Xhora I got another bus - well pick up truck, to Nganya ferry. This was an adventure with 13 of us packed in the back of this truck bouncing down the 4x4 dirt road. The ferry is only a passenger ferry. It is a guy with a rowboat that he rows with what look like the equivalent of a 2x4. Once across the Xhora River my instructions were that I had a 35-minute walk to the lodge. I expected a road or easy to follow path of some kind. This isn’t the case, and did I mention that the sun is setting. So I question the people around the ferry to get directions. They speak Xhosa not English so the questioning involves me saying Bulungula and them pointing up over the hill. So I take off, asking every one I see, “Bulungula.” To which I am greeted with more pointing over the hill. When I make it to the backpackers, Leezal, lady in charge says, “Where did you come from?” “I’ve never seen anyone come in that way as long as I’ve worked here.”

Most of the rest of the time was actually pretty chill. I took a tour around the village. Which isn’t what one thinks of as a village, it is more a very big area, encompassing lots of huts. But the huts are very spread out; there is no center of town, only a message board at the Headman’s rondavel. I also managed to get lost looking for the restaurant. Though I claim this wasn’t our fault… the turnoff was poorly marked, we all agreed.

Spent one day doing almost nothing but playing cards. That was because it just poured rain and stormed all day. My little tent held up dandy though. And I say most of the day. We did have one small adventure when one of the canoes went missing. Simon and I grabbed another canoe and went up the river after it. Sounds easy except it was high tide in a storm and there was a pretty good surge. We did manage to save the errant canoe. In the morning the only the canoe we had saved was where we left it. The others had broken away in the night and floated up the beach. It was still pretty stormy and we didn’t go after them.

The tides on Sunday and Monday were the biggest anyone could remember seeing. Tuesday when we got back out on the beach it was a completely new animal. Most of the beach was gone. At Monday’s high tide we just watched the sea eat away at the beach dunes. I guess the storms were so bad that the Durban and East London ports and beaches were closed for several days. We just sat around and watched in complete bliss.

That is been my easy, pleasy week. I think everyone that travels this area should make a stop in Bulungula if you have time. But it isn’t an overnight stop. It takes 2-3 hours from the lodge to the main road no matter how you do it. But it is special once you get there.

Some pictures

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Photos

Bulungula Lodge
Lodge is buildings in distance

Comments

[mark dickmann]

san quentin
Hi Mike, Sounds like you are having fun. I don't expect you will be back to the workworld any time soon. We had a meeting ( here at ITT, I left Quellan) where we had to introduce ourselves. I used your line that I was on work-release from san quentin prison. All were amused. Mark Dickmann