Our original plan was to fly back to Johannesburg and then bus it to Nelspruit and head into Kruger National Park. From there we would head into Mozambique. However, after talking with a few other travelers, it became apparent that travel in Mozambique is slow going and difficult and we would not have sufficient time to really explore the areas we wanted to see. Instead, we decided to keep our car rental for the month and travel the coast.
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The first stop was Hermanus. Hermanus is known as a top spot for seeing whales during season. Luckily we were there during the season. We grabbed a table at a café on the water and while enjoying lunch, watched the Southern Right Whales in the bay.
We didn’t stay long in Hermanus, but it did occur to me that the teens of the area must be more mature than U.S. teens as I did not spot a single missing “m” on any of the town’s signs.
From Hermanus, we joined up with the “Garden Route.” It was definitely low season and things were quiet. It was quite a nice scenic drive, but I think we are just not scenic drive people. We spent a night in Knysna, which was a quaint little town, but again things were almost too quiet.
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Eventually we drove inland a bit to the Addo Elephant National Park. This was our first game viewing opportunity and we were excited for it! We stayed outside the park at a cool place called Avoca. The folks there were incredibly nice and they gave us a full chalet for the price of their cheapest hut.
The area was beautiful and the park didn’t disappoint. The park is known for – you guessed it! – elephants, and we saw many. We also saw hyena, buffalo, tons of antelope and vervet monkeys.
After Addo, we headed onto the “Wild Coast.” We thought it was given this name due to the rough coastal landscape. While that is partly true we learned it is also due to the fact that the area was never really brought under control during Apartheid. As such the villages and culture of the region seem more intact than other places we had been in South Africa.
One of the coolest spots we visited was Coffee Bay. A little over a decade ago, some surfers approached the Xhosa village at Coffee Bay about opening a hostel (the "X" in Xhosa represents a type of click made by the tongue on the side of the mouth). The hostel is a joint venture of sorts between the surfers and the Xhosa people. Many of the local villagers work at the hostel and they take pride in the hostel, their role in it and their village overall.
We were welcomed, as they do once per week, to the “head man’s” home in the village for dinner and dancing. The “mamas” served us a great traditional meal of samp and beans along with their traditional home brewed beer. We sat around (with women on the floor and men seated in the Xhosa style) and chatted for a while with one of the Xhosa from the hostel serving as interpreter as many of the villagers don’t speak English. However, it wasn’t long before the music started and we all began to dance.
The village was definitely an interesting experience as old ways meet modern life. The women still put on traditional costumes for these events, though the customary red shirt is often now a T-shirt. The village has no electricity in the mud and thatched huts, but they do have a cell phone tower (they say keeping the phones charged is the biggest problem).
Unfortunately, I was not doing so well by this point as I had acquired some food poisoning. We’re pretty sure I got it from a fast food restaurant on the N2 Highway of the Garden Route as that is the only recent time Leslie and I ate separate meals. I ended up spending much of the next day in bed and missed my chance to go surfing.
Leslie did head out and spent time in the village. The locals all hang out by the water selling beadwear and Leslie bought some beads from Martha and Mbumba after chatting for a long while.
It was the weekend so the kids were out playing on the beach and Leslie fit right in! The place is so serene and beautiful, but the real treat was seeing how the village, the local surfing community and the travelers all seem to work so well together -- not always the case in South Africa.
We had planned to make the long drive to Durban next, but the folks at Coffee Bay suggested we stop about 100 KM south at a place called the Mantis & Moon Hostel. We took their advice and were glad we did. We met a bunch of nice folks and two – an Englishman named Charlie and an American named Trevor – hitched a ride with us the next day further up the coast. We dropped Charlie in Durban and Trevor, who is living in South Africa and works at the Mantis & Moon, came with us all the way to St. Lucia.
St. Lucia is known for its wetlands and it was a beautiful spot. The hippos and crocs are abundant in the area and we saw many on a day hike the afternoon we arrived. We spent the next day hiking around and exploring while Trevor went to the Hluhluwe Umfolozi Game Reserve on a guided safari.
The next day we dropped Trevor at the bus station so he could head back to work while we headed north for the kingdom of Swaziland.
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