Cintsa

  Cintsa, South Africa
Sunday, January 22, 2006

Hello Everyone,

We drove to another town along the wildcoast called Cintsa. It is at the end of what is known as the wildcoast. We stayed at a backpackers called Buccanneers. We didn't feel totally comfortable with our room. It was in a shared cabin with other people, each of us has their own room and then share a common kithchen, sitting area and bathroom. The strange thing is the bedrooms do not lock. This is the first time we have experienced not being able to lock our room. As we have travelled further we have come to realize this is the norm in a lot of places. Good thing we have the car so we can keep valuables in the trunk when we go out for the day. The upper floor of the main building for the backpackers has a deck with a great view of the surrounding area and the beach and lagoon down below.



There are two parts to the area, Cintsa East where the backpackers is and if you walk across the beach you can quickly get to the village of Cintsa West. The west is built up with holiday homes, permanent residences, and some shops and restaurants.

Cintsa is a lot more developed than the other places we went to on the wild coast. It is probably because of its close proximity to the start of the garden route and the large town of East London is just over a half hour away.

The backpackers offers free canoe use, you can take them around the lagoon area. I'm not sure if you would take them into the ocean, it looked pretty rough. Swimming can be dangerous here there are strong under currents.

We walked over to Cintsa West and got a recommendation for a restuarant for lunch.It was called Michaelas. To get to the restuarant you take a glass lift up to where it is situated on a hilltop. The view is very nice. We sat and enjoyed our lunch out on the deck. You could see over the beach and all the way back towards where we were staying.

This backpackers had a lively atmosphere. They offer great dinner at a very good price. We had a big plate of pasta with sauce and cheese, as well as a hearty salad and bread. We sat around in the evenings and chatted with other travelers. We met a girl from Germany. She had just got married. She had been traveling with her new husband for a few months. He had to return to work. She was going to continue to travel on her own for another 6 months. She missed him terribly but didn't want to give up her opportunity to travel.

The rest of our time here was just spent being lazy and walking the beach.

See you at the next stop.