Weds(A superb day trip into the Transkei)

It was a fantastic day- lots of great scenery, activities and most of all fun. The day started with us all climbing into a large nine person Landrover and headed off for a day trip into the Transkei region, wind blasting into the back of the car, causing us all to blink quite a lot, but we soon started slowing down as the roads became dirt roads and the small bumps were accentuated into large jolts if we were going a little bit too fast for the road, we then took a tiny ferry across the Kei river, and I asked if I could swim across, but was told there are Buffalo(Zambezi) sharks which often swim upstream, The Zambezi apparently causes more shark attacks of the coast of Africa than the Great White. The next bit of the journey was off-road and at one stage I had to sit on the front of the bonnet to add extra weight to stop is slipping as much, it was on this terrain I started to understand the capabilities of off-road vehicles also later the path so steep two of us had to hang on to the side of the Landrover and lean out, to help make sure it didn’t topple over. It was really nice because we had opened up the roof, and 3 of us at a time could stand up taken in our surrounds, whilst keep care not to bruise our ribs against the sides of the roof opening.


We passed a place where a young girl**** made a fateful prediction causing the her people, the Xhosa, to slaughter their herd of cows resulting in 15,000 deaths, her ending is unrecorded but one was she was saved by some white settlers.




We also passed where she may have lived. We then went to see the Inkenkwai project, which I felt was a little bit of a disappointment, it may once have been better in the past but now had no money so lots of people had left. It had a pool which they hadn’t wanted but hadn’t wanted to offend their sponsors, and now the pump was broken anyway, and there were no plans to fix it. Why it was disappointing was as it felt a bit of a tourist trap, having a meagre shop with nothing that good, and them also asking for additional donations.




It was interesting seeing the traditional healers, differing from witch doctors in the fact they use no bones, and had a go at crushing maize with a stone slap, then saw some traditional dancing, and then had a go at joining in, dancing with sticks, which seemed to me possibly to do with fertility rites, especially as the guide said she couldn’t explain what they were singing.
This is probably wrong, but couldn’t really understand the guide: To become a healer had to die at the river and the relatives couldn’t weep otherwise they’d never come back, and then if they did they couldn’t wear shoes or take cars as had to keep their feet always on the ground, this reminded me of a Raleigh team building game about understanding different cultures, this involved the women looking like they were the rulers- wearing shoes, being fed first, but the premise was the ground was sacred and they were fed first in case the food was bad.
The witch doctor then crushed some unknown herb and mixed it into water, then we drank the froth, which was apparently good for the stomach, then the second healer sucked the rest off and looked a bit silly with foam all over her face.
After this we went to tribal land and paid 5R per person for a toll road, which was a dirt road, after some rock and roll we reached the great ‘cut’ through the rocks where the river flowed, having made itself a short cut in the distant past. We had been hoping to go through the cut by boat, but the boat had been stolen, so we drove around. There was a very pleasant waterfall which really pounded our heads, as it was a really heavy flow. Then we went and jumped from a 5 metre high water fall, which seemed quite a scary jump, and did a couple of times until the adrenaline rush decreased. Next we were told to come on, as we had to do the proper jump, this was 10 metres high and was quite scary to look at, but it was a necessary evil if you wanted to swim back, so 3-2-1 weeee. It was such good fun that I did it again, the two of us who did it swam back through the cut, and the river was lovely, although it did have lots of cold patches under the hot top level. Later we had a really steep uneven surface to climb in the landrover, so had two of us sitting on the bonnet, which was fine, apart from the numerous horseflies, a.k.a evil biting flies, which weren’t too hard to swat if you spotted them.




The penultimate part of the journey took us to see the Jacaranda wreck( which was possibly an insurance claim as it happened in the dark near one of only beaches on a very rocky coast). It was quite amazing the amount the sea came in by, and how suddenly deep it became. I built a 50 cm high sand castle which vanished under a wave. Loads of local kids came to play on the beach while we were there, all stark naked. After lunch they came and asked for the left over bread and accompaniments, this time wearing some clothes.


The photograph mad Québecan woman(5 rolls that day!) tried to evenly distribute the food by getting them to line up, but it soon descended into a free for all.


Last stop was Hunters Bay were we had a sundowner, basically an evening drink while the sun goes down, watching the crashing waves. In the eve we had roast chicken and was joined by Elizabeth and Helen from Vienna. Later chatted to Ralf, Cool and Marlane and laughed about the mad foaming lady and had to defend British food and drink.