The Wild Coast

  Port St. John's, South Africa
Thursday, January 19, 2006

Hello Everyone,

We had a very long drive from the Drakensberg mountains down to what is called the Wild Coast. This is an area along the bottom eastern coast of South Africa. It is one of the last unspoilt areas of the country. A place where you can really see the local indiginous people still living as they did hundreds of years ago. The tribe in this area are the Xhosa people. Pronounced Kosa with a big click at the beginning. We are still trying to master this. They have been one of our favourite African tribes that we have spent time with. They are very friendly people and of course we love to hear them talk and listen for the clicking noises. They put white clay on their faces and bodies at times. Quite often you will see the woman wearing it on their faces as a sunscreen.

The long journey here had us arriving in the dark. It was to a town called Port St. John's. The reason the wild coast is still so undeveloped is because the access to the small towns is mostly by dirt roads. You can not drive along from village to village by the coast. It is extremely mountainous. You have to go back out of one place to a main road and then drive back in to the next town.

The drive there was quite interesting. We were warned about the road conditions and its many potholes. You also have to watch out the entire way for goats. You will come along a bend and a whole bunch of them will be lying down right in the middle of the road.

This town is very secluded as it is surrounded by high mountains that drop straight down to the sea. The landscape here is very lush and green. It has 3 beaches, the middle one being the nicest setting. There are lots of nice hikes to do that lead you to waterfalls in the area. The town itself did not seem to be of much interest to us. We also felt very closed in because of the high mountains all around.



We were starving when we arrived. We checked into our backpackers and then set out to find some food. A restuarant was recommened so we decided to give it a try. It had a small covered porch to eat on and the kitchen was a tiny travel trailer to the side of it. Okay we are really in a remote area now! About half the menu was not available, lol! What we did manage to order was very tasty though. We sat and ate our food as monkeys scattered around on the roof above us.



In the morning we decided to leave this place. We wanted to carry on to another town along the coast that sounded interesting.