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My new friends
Seriously. By the end of the first day in Port St. John's, I had acquired a following of like 18 dogs. CreepySo Port St. John's, the gateway to the Wild Coast, and home to apparently 99% of South Africa's coolest people. Situated around the mouth of a major river which I obviously don't know the name of, the whole caost is comprised of 40m clifss falling directly into the ocean, beautiful sand beaches, and mangy stray dogs that I attracted with a vengence. The town was full of open markets, and our backpackers hd gorgeous views of the beach. Apparently a black hole for Americans, everyone who worked there was an American who had come and never left, further validating my assertion that South Africa is being repopulated by Midwesterners. Although we had so unfortunately missed the Easter Sunday party, we met some really wonderfuol people, including the current organizers of the backpackers, both 25 and originally from iowa city. They had come, loved the place, offered to help out, and the rest is history. One really cool thing I noticed about the backpackers all along the coast was they all seemed to run community projects on the side, like collecting school supplies, tutoring, or scholarship funds. I was way impressed.
Apparently misguided into thinking 3 months in a large urban
Wild Coast
Well duh, the coast. center meant we knew how to navigate one of the most uninhabited coasts in the country, Brad and I assume we'd hike from Port St. John's to Coffee Bay on our own, ( about 70kms) and were pretty annoyed to find out we'd have to take a guide. Flash forward 12 hours as Sisenda, our fearless navigator, leads us into the middle of nowhere, taking what seemed like totally random turns, fording through rivers, and into the land of never ending cow dung. Suffice to say, we do not regret her presence. I think we wo uld have made it like 5 feet down the beach without her before drowning or ending up lost in the middle of neverending jungle. The low point ( or points) of the trip would to be the necessity of SA hikes in including river crossings at the deepest part of the river, within 5 minutes of your clothes having just dried from the last river, but we sucked it up. In reality, the hike was phenomenal, hands down the best I have ever done. The scenery was stunning and we split our time walking along the beach and through Xhosa villages. We walked through
jungle, down roads, and past rondavel huts where little kids peeked out to stare atour whiteness and smile shyly before running back to their homes to hide. The people we passed were almost entirely self-sufficient and really made you question whether "development" would ever really be a goal of their lives. When land and community are all you need, and you've got no use for cars or stores, why would road building or "gov't initiatives" possibly matter? However, the incredible limitation of their access to education was obvious. Schools were bare buildings with no supplies, desks, and sometimes no teachers. Secondary schools were often over 30kms away, making them totally inaccessible. During the course of our 70k hike, we passed only one hospital. A small building which we found out was the only health center for all of the villages we passed. One hospital, for some almost 60kms away, in a place where no one had vehicles. That was disturbing.
Although we camped the first two nights, the last night we stayed in a village, paying the equivalent of 12 dollars each to sleep in a rondavel hut and be cooked amazing Xhosa brad. It was AWESOME. Definitely the
Collecting wood
A young boy and his grandmother collecting wood to take back to their homes. Priceless. highlight of the hike.
After the hike we spent 2 days i coffee bay, bumming around on the beach, and then headed back up to Port St. John's to pick up the car and head home. We were actually home only 2 days before setting out on o ur next adventure" Swaziland and Mozambique. But thats another entry.
Enjoy the pics! Miss you all!
Lauren
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Linguinie
Emily
WOW
I want to go to South Africa!!! Lauren, if you decide to become part of that ex-pat midwestern colony, stick an extra cot in your house cause I will def be stopping by!!