Week 13 - Travelling East - Personal

Our weekend trip took off to a slow start when we had to tie the exhaust of our 1980’s citi golf to the frame of the car to avoid it rattling and falling off – something which at home would normally cause me to reconsider the 12 hour journey ahead of us, but then again I am well adjusted to life here now and simply tell myself T.I.A. – This Is Africa! With a torn piece of cloth our car, Bruce, was ready to hit the road and it brought us safe and sound to our first stop, Hogsback.

Hogsback gets its name from the 3 mountains overlooking the area which apparently look like hogs’ backs, although I still don’t see it! It is one of the only places in South Africa where it can snow during winter – a strange concept to be building a snowman in Africa! From the roadside shroom (magic-mushroom) dealers to the constantly travelling hippies, there is no doubt that the people here are certainly strange. Although I can’t help but think that if they were to look at the people in a small town like where I am from they would probably come to the same conclusion – everyone is different I guess!

Hiking through Hogsback it’s easy to understand how this mystic place is the inspiration behind the Lord of the Rings. Miles of mad trails through the dense forest led to magnificent gushing waterfalls, some of them bigger than I have ever seen before – It’s no wonder that our 11km hike took us over 5 hours with the continuous stops! As we were leaving the forest onto the main road we met a young lady and her grandmother walking to see the huge Madonna and Childs Falls. Sadly the lady’s grandmother had to stop before getting there as the path was too rough and slippery and she was afraid of falling. It made me realise that I must make the most of my youth!

On Saturday we travelled a few hours further along the East coast to our friend Yanga’s home in East London for his 24^th birthday party. There we were re-united with many of our international friends again, taking advantage of the free food and drink supplied by Yanga. Unfortunately our friend Matti had to leave us on Sunday morning for PE as her ear reacted badly to a piercing she got last week, leaving Lynsey, Ryan, Shannon and I to continue our journey. Although we have driven through East London before we had never had a chance to explore it and so Sunday was a great opportunity to see the town. The art work for sale at almost every market here is stunning. I often have to stop myself from buying more ornaments, reminding myself of the baggage weight limit. Nevertheless I couldn’t resist one painting!

With Ryan as pilot we headed on that afternoon towards Coffee Bay. Lynsey and I have both been very impressed with how his manual (stick) driving has come along, although we were all a slightly worried when a policeman stopped us for being a little over the speed limit. As Ryan spoken to the officer at the other side of the road we soon realised that we were fine when the policeman started laughing and asking about America – and they say luck of the Irish! We have heard a lot about Coffee Bay from other international students and travellers and are excited to find out what adventures lie in store!

 

 

Glenn