Monday, January 10, 2005

Transkei New Year 2004/2005

Hey all, adventures have been abounding. I’m now back in Pretoria at my parent’s place, so prepare for stories…


Having left Brixton at 1PM, spending three very bored hours in Athens airport, meeting my parents for a coffee at Johannesburg International, then jumping into friend-Henry’s car for another 11 hours (at one point driving between two electrical storms, one on either side of us), I finally arrived at Khululeka in the Transkei at midnight the next day after a 36 hour trip. It was a real head-spin, but there we were in lovely warm weather, having driven through some seriously rural Africa, under glorious stars and a rising mostly-full moon, the last 9 kilometres turning into about 30 (we lost our way in the dark on the dirt roads, Henry’s car gallantly taking on what may have been a doddle in a 4x4, the instructions to ‘keep left at the fork’ being misinterpreted - they did NOT mean turn off the nicely graded dirt road as soon as you see a crummy, potholed, not-nicely graded road-that-ends-in-a-river turning off to the left, they actually really did mean wait till the nice road forks into two nicely graded dirt roads and THEN keep left…) but there we suddenly were in a place with no mains electricity, candle light only, a complimentary pot of very pleasant local pot happily making the rounds, friends Gilda and Joao to meet us and a local Amapondo band (including 7 dancers) playing. What a fantastic arrival! It was pitch dark by then so we didn’t really have an opportunity to inspect the general surroundings, but just before I eventually went to bed I walked round the back of our thatched round traditional hut (to partake of the complimentary pot in a solitary contemplative fashion), and there was this spectacular, lush, green, tropical valley bathed in the light of an almost-full moon and I found myself being very, very pleased to be there.



Woke in the morning to an even better surprise. The stoep (veranda) of the main house has a view directly over the mouth of the Ntafufu River, with the rolling hills obligingly dipping down to reveal the wild, utterly undeveloped river-meets-sea bit and my breath was duly taken away. The ‘resort’ (it resembles no other resort you’ve ever been in but I don’t know what else to call it) sleeps about 24 in total and is run by a family who also have a house there. Most accommodation is in the main building, which also has a nice big kitchen and pantry, a huge dining/lounge/party room and the aforementioned stoep. There are then another three traditional huts and a bed or two in other areas. They also have a large boma (covered area that has only one real wall, the rest is open with a low wall) a bit away from the rest and this is where you braai (barbeque) and just hang about drinking beer and talking late into the night… In front of the main house is a terraced lawn area and then it turns to tropical jungle all the way to the sea. Rainwater is collected in a dam, which is used for showers as well as a covered collection container, which is used for drinking. It’s the only water I drank while there and it was delicious, and washing one’s hair in rainwater is simply amazing – so SOFT after London’s hard limescale-filled nonsense! Two other friends of Gilda, Johan and Mignon, were also there and Gerolf (one of the owners) suggested we all go down to the sea. Naturally we jumped at the plan, but you cannot drive all the way, you only go as far as a rickety jetty some way up the river where the ‘ferry’ meets you. But he can only take 4 (we’re told) and since we were six, two will have to walk and we will find someone down there to ‘guide’ us. It’s a lovely walk! proclaims Gerolf. Sounds great! we reply.



So we get to the jetty and see the ‘ferry’. It is a rather small row boat and there is absolutely no way four can fit in, so the lads all volunteer to walk and the girls take the boat. But the ferryman only has home-fashioned oars, which are extremely heavy (you could build a house with this timber if you had enough) and the width of the wide oar bit was, well, very narrow and thusly totally impractical for any kind of speedy rowing. We’d also been told that it would be nice if we walked a bit further down the river bank to the last place it’s possible to then get on the boat, as it is quite far down the river to the sea and it’ll make it a bit easier on the ferry guy. So we did, and this is where we found two little local kids (can’t have been more than 5 or 6) who we all thought were the ‘guides’ and said cheers to the boys.



Squishing through mangrove roots and thousands of little tiny crabs we girls finally manage to get onto the boat and the ferry guy starts rowing. Very slowly. Well, he was actually rowing quite fast, but our progress was extremely slow. Which wasn’t a problem, really, as it was stunning to be in the middle of this huge river with both banks completely unspoiled and no sign at all of human intervention besides a few fishermen on other boats. We were admiring the millions and bazillions of different coloured crabs on the banks when we went close enough and generally having an adventure. But it was really slow going and we began to feel sorry for the ferryman so Gilda and I took a turn at the oars. It was really hard work but fun and we got some distance behind us before we handed the oars back to the bloke. Of course we did not have a mutual language either, so sign language was the order of the day. After we’d been on the boat for over an hour we were laughing and saying how the boys must have been there for ages already and wondering where we were (we had the water and supplies).

Eventually we get to the river mouth, which is quite silted up, so jumped out at a sandbank telling the ferryman we would walk back, not to worry about coming to fetch us. Later we were to be very glad he did not understand us…

After leaving the boat we realised we had to cross bits of river in any direction we chose to go and had no idea where to look for the guys. So we chose one bit that looked VERY deep until the local we thought was standing up to his neck in water turned out to be kneeling. There were about 6 other people around in this vast area of sandbank/river mouth and it was so calm and peaceful I cannot describe it. Having successfully negotiated the river we climbed over the dune to meet a herd of long-horn cows just chilling on the beach. A whole herd, lying there in the sand, chewing their cud as though the world belonged to them. Which, round there, it pretty much does. There were a couple of kids keeping half an eye over them (they weren’t going anywhere, trust me) but no sign of our lads. So we decided to go to the end of the promontory and cross the river again to get to the beach proper as we’d seen some life there in the distance, maybe it was them. So we strolled around the edge and as we came over the hill, there they suddenly were, trying to cross over to our bank at the place we planned to cross to theirs.

It took about a second to realise they were NOT smiling and had, in actual fact, only just arrived. The 10-15 minute ‘lovely walk’ ended up being a two-hour bundu-bashing session with no path whatsoever, mangrove swamps, thick jungle, chest deep pools, thorns, mosquitoes, snakes and every other thing you’d like to imagine in a tropical jungle! Turns out the kids had absolutely no idea where they were going and, being five, could easily go where three adult men could not. The only reason the guys knew they had spotted a snake at one point was when they suddenly disappeared in the direction they’d just come from. They all had nasty scratches, torn and bleeding feet (they were all wearing flip flops) and swore they were taking the boat back, no matter what.

Luckily we’d brought enough water and plenty mangoes (from the several wild trees growing in the grounds of Khululeka) so we had a munch and a laugh at our various adventures and then headed out to the beach proper. I cannot remember being anywhere more beautiful. It was hazy and overcast (but very hot) and the beach is completely and utterly unspoilt. Not one piece of litter, not even anything washed up by the sea, and by this time not a single other human being to be seen. It was incredible. Huge dune behind us covered in thick vegetation, fantastic wild waves crashing all around, and just us alone in the world. We had an excellent swim for the longest time then headed back to our promontory in the hope our ferryman would re-appear. Fortunately he had not understood our instruction to leave us there (or else knew we would regret the decision totally and stayed anyway) and he valiantly rowed around to come fetch the first three. This time the river had risen with the tide so he rowed us round the sand bank (we wished we’d walked as it took half an hour in the boat and we could have walked it in under 5 minutes, but again communication was a problem) while the three who were waiting for the second trip watched our painfully slow progress with no-doubt sinking hearts, knowing it would be at least two hours till they saw him again…

Again we couldn’t let the poor guy do all the work (he was really very thin and didn’t have a spare bit of body fat to burn) so Henry and I took a turn and then Henry decided it would be easier on his own so I sat back and enjoyed the trip. We passed very close to a fisherman and his girlfriend with a speedboat collecting bait for the next day, and Mignon smiled nicely and asked them could they PLEASE fetch our ‘stranded’ friends out at the river mouth. They said they would but we didn’t see them leave (we rounded the next corner very shortly thereafter) so we weren’t sure. After the ferryman FINALLY got us to where we could walk again, we tried to communicate to him to not go back, but since we were walking and there was a mangrove swamp between us and the river we didn’t know if he’d understood. We walked back to the jetty and kicked back there to await their arrival. After a very long time (in speedboat terms) we started to worry about where they were. I then went out onto the jetty and hailed a different passing speedboat (complete with little terrier standing on the tip of the bow, ears flat on his skull from the wind) and explained the situation and speedboat man agreed to go have a look for them, but about 2 minutes later they arrived – they’d been fetched immediately but then waited for the dude to finish collecting bait before he brought them back. Apparently they passed our rowing boat guy who had started on the way back to fetch them and he was just all smiles when he realised he didn’t have to go back…

So, adventures all round.

And that was just the first half of day one.