The Kraal + PSJ

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  Mpande, Transkei, South Africa
Friday, February 23, 2007

On up the coast with the Baz Bus, where we were picked up by a south african called Dillon who runs 'The Kraal' backpackers in the Xhosa Transkei. It is an AMAZING place! the ultimate place to just chill-out set on the ocean with lush hills and jungle, pristine beaches, no electricity or running water, only what's collected from rain. Its run eco-friendly so its candle-lit at night, all food is locally grown/caught, with amazing fresh seafood. We cooked our own stuff for the first 2 nights and then had food cooked for us for the other 2 nights- a delicious fish with thai sauce, and a marvellous seafood pizza, cooked in their authentic acacia wood-burning pizza oven. Class to have no-one else about just time to wander the beaches, swim in the water, and pick shells of the beach. Its so encouraging to see what Dillon's accomplished in the local community after living there for10 years, has helped set up a pre-primary school, advises about diversifying their farming methods and supports locals as they sell stuff to the tourist and provide a variety of tours

Josh and Alex our guide on the wild coast hike

. We had a beach ride on their horses, and then with the same guide we left the Kraal and headed along the coast up to port st johns on foot. Its 22 kms of hilly, sandy and jungly paths, and even though the distance isn't particularly daunting when you consider the hiking is in 35 degree plus temps with humidity to boot, its a draining experience, literally! It took us 7.5 hours (a very good time) but was so tough. the guide pointed out a large beach in the distance about 2 hours into the hike, remarking that after that we were 'nearly there'. What he meant to say was that after that beach it was actually 3 hours of gruelling hill climbing in even hotter temperatures, bitten by mosquities and hordes of ants, where your water will almost certainly run out after 1.5 hours!
Still, we made it and what a beautiful fruit juice it was in Port st johns!
Stayed in Port st johns for 2 nights, a lovely garden room within 100m of a beach with class waves for swimming. The place is totally full of hippies, but despite that we had a marvellous fish seafood dinner at a place called the Wood 'n' Spoon, where the hostess treated us to a class display of fire poi. Really really didn't want to leave the wild coast but now its on to smelly durban.

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Jungle lady!	mpande beach	Port st Johns	the beach outside our garden room
the horses	The Kraal	the loo	The mighty sea...

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