Bomvu Paradise was the name of the backpackers we stayed at in Coffee Bay, one of only two - the other being The Coffee Shack, just across the road. It's another funky, rustic place with the same chilled out vibe as many of the other backpacker places in South Africa. It's also a bit of a stroll to the beach, having to leap-frog over stones to cross a small river - but as usual the awaiting sweeping beach was just reward.
Again we stayed longer than I would normally have anticipated, with days spent just lazing around or strolling to and along the beach, or watching pied kingfishers from atop the large sand dunes. There was a lovely expensive resort at the very far end of the beach, so of course that made a nice luxurious lunchtime stop one of the days.
The staff at Bomvu would organise little free 'events' each evening, and we partook of quite a few. Drumming lessions, sundowners on the adjacent hillside, free traditional Potjie (lovely slow-cooked game stew), local girls singing and dancing.
We also did a day trip to the next village along the coast, called The Hole in the Wall - named after a natural rock formation. Yet again this hike was magnificent, with the usual stunning coastal views on another beautiful day. After a relaxed lunch of BBQ'ed sandwiches gazing at the 'Hole' we got a lift back to Coffee Bay, sharing the van with the hostel's racist guard dog (he'd lean his head out of the window and bark furiously at any black people walking along the road - he never barked at white people, not very nice really).
Eventually it was time to leave, and it was here that we left young Luke. He had been stalling, wondering whether or not to ask for a short-term job at the backpackers. He also fancied one of the girls working there, but we had to leave him with neither issued resolved (I literally bumped into Luke a couple of months later in Cape Town, and both issues had found satisfactory outcomes in the end!).
Thursday, December 27, 2007
Saturday, December 22, 2007
The Wild Coast
After quite a long drive we arrived at the Jungle Monkey backpackers in Port St. Johns. The town is really just two streets, so there's not a lot to do there exactly, but that's more than made up for by the madness at the backpacker place itself. Even our guidebook reckoned that the best bar in the town was the backpacker bar - and I reckon that certainly proved to be true for the few days we were there.
Jungle Monkey, like most backpacker places we've encountered throughout South Africa and since, was actually very self-contained - it had a nice restaurant (although there was also cooking facilities), it had a nice clean swimming pool, it had the best bar in town that had live music regularly (including a mad tall, Masai Mara-looking dude with huge platform shoes and a mad outfit, who was actually really good), and of course all the staff were brilliant craic. The whole place was quite big, and had a couple of nice verandas, one of which was nicely removed from everywhere else and had a great view of the sea (and luckily our room was quite removed from the bar, and so was nice and quite - although we did manage to smash a window. It wasn't our fault though, it was just very windy and the wind blew the window back on itself - the nice owner guy just shrugged it off and told us it was always happening, and he had it fixed that evening).
As for things to do, one day myself and Sarah went horse riding. The poor horses arrived to meet us lathered in sweat, as there had been a mixup in the booking, and the guide had to race the poor horses to meet us as we got off the free river ferry. But after a short rest and a slow start they seemed fine.
It was really windy, but still a beautifully sunny day, and the trek we took followed along the beach and then up along the high cliffs, which offered stunning views overlooking the turbulent sea. We stopped for a delicious traditional lunch in a tiny local village outside the town (cooked by the guides aunt, apparently), before heading back down the hills and finally wading out to the ferry to take us back across the river and home.
Another day we hiked along the coast for 5km to a beach simply called Second Beach. This is the only safe swimming beach near Port St. Johns, and it was a lovely spot (it was actually quite busy, which has been unusual for a beach throughout this entire trip - although I didn't swim, just paddling about for a bit). This hike was unguided, and we only had the barest outline of a description of the route. But it was easy enough going in the end, taking us up and around a lovely lighthouse and over lovely rocky outcrops past some friendly locals and their shacks (and past the Millennium Bar, a strange little bar in the 'locals' part to the town that we'd visited with Jungle Monkey residents for a sundowner a few days previously).
Passing through the tiny village of Second Beach we stopped for lunch at a lovely, funky little restaurant called The Delicious Monster (really just a local couple's house, with the restaurant seating in their well maintained front garden). Although someone had recommended it, there really wasn't much choice in the area, and if we hadn't been given directions we would never have found it. We were the only customers too. It wasn't particularly cheap, but the fresh crayfresh sounded lovely. It turned out to be one of the very best meals we've had on the whole trip - amazingly fresh, and served with homemade mayonnaise, pitta bread and salad - all very simple really. But we were both bowled over by just how good it was - it just goes to show you can never judge a restaurant by it's appearance. In fact, all the outstanding meals on the trip so far have been at simple, relatively cheap little homely places - and each of these places has blown away all the five-star hotels and fancy-dancy restaurants (and we've tried very many of those at this stage!).
The night life at the Jungle Monkey is pretty notorious and it lived up to that reputation while we were there. We met lots of interesting people, including an extended family group of Afrikaners (who ended up buying a large B&B operation in the town). These guys seemed to take a wee shine to us for some reason (they kept asking us to join them for days out, they always seemed to be drawn to us in the evenings, and when they left early on their last morning they left us a lovely note and a wee present). It was really interesting to meet them though, as the Afrikaners are a very different breed than the English-white South Africans (Luke the Duke for instance didn't like them at all, and generally avoided them completely) - but from my point of view it was interesting to get their take on South Africa and it's future. In fact, it was eye-opening and educational in much the same way as meeting the two self-confessed 'Racialist Rhodesians' back in Zimbabwe. In many ways that captures what proper travelling is all about really - meeting and engaging with all the various types of 'locals', not just the obvious indigenous people.
The nature of Jungle Monkey (and the extremely friendly, engaging and entertaining staff, who we got to know quite well), seemed to engender a general atmosphere of camaraderie and everyone just seemed to mix and gel naturally and easily. So I think we ended up staying five nights at Jungle Money, and it was kinda weird to leave it, but by that stage I was fairly exhausted really!
Port St. Johns actually marks the beginning of what the tourist industry here calls the Wild Coast, which is basically just a long stretch of the coast dotted with small, but idyllically beautiful, little towns that cater mainly for the backpacker trade. I kinda knew at this stage that I wasn't going to let our original timetable dictate how long we'd spend travelling through South Africa (we could just extend our flights and the car rental easily over the phone), so we pretty much decided to try and check out all of the Wild Coast towns - and next up was Coffee Bay.
Jungle Monkey, like most backpacker places we've encountered throughout South Africa and since, was actually very self-contained - it had a nice restaurant (although there was also cooking facilities), it had a nice clean swimming pool, it had the best bar in town that had live music regularly (including a mad tall, Masai Mara-looking dude with huge platform shoes and a mad outfit, who was actually really good), and of course all the staff were brilliant craic. The whole place was quite big, and had a couple of nice verandas, one of which was nicely removed from everywhere else and had a great view of the sea (and luckily our room was quite removed from the bar, and so was nice and quite - although we did manage to smash a window. It wasn't our fault though, it was just very windy and the wind blew the window back on itself - the nice owner guy just shrugged it off and told us it was always happening, and he had it fixed that evening).
As for things to do, one day myself and Sarah went horse riding. The poor horses arrived to meet us lathered in sweat, as there had been a mixup in the booking, and the guide had to race the poor horses to meet us as we got off the free river ferry. But after a short rest and a slow start they seemed fine.
It was really windy, but still a beautifully sunny day, and the trek we took followed along the beach and then up along the high cliffs, which offered stunning views overlooking the turbulent sea. We stopped for a delicious traditional lunch in a tiny local village outside the town (cooked by the guides aunt, apparently), before heading back down the hills and finally wading out to the ferry to take us back across the river and home.
Another day we hiked along the coast for 5km to a beach simply called Second Beach. This is the only safe swimming beach near Port St. Johns, and it was a lovely spot (it was actually quite busy, which has been unusual for a beach throughout this entire trip - although I didn't swim, just paddling about for a bit). This hike was unguided, and we only had the barest outline of a description of the route. But it was easy enough going in the end, taking us up and around a lovely lighthouse and over lovely rocky outcrops past some friendly locals and their shacks (and past the Millennium Bar, a strange little bar in the 'locals' part to the town that we'd visited with Jungle Monkey residents for a sundowner a few days previously).
Passing through the tiny village of Second Beach we stopped for lunch at a lovely, funky little restaurant called The Delicious Monster (really just a local couple's house, with the restaurant seating in their well maintained front garden). Although someone had recommended it, there really wasn't much choice in the area, and if we hadn't been given directions we would never have found it. We were the only customers too. It wasn't particularly cheap, but the fresh crayfresh sounded lovely. It turned out to be one of the very best meals we've had on the whole trip - amazingly fresh, and served with homemade mayonnaise, pitta bread and salad - all very simple really. But we were both bowled over by just how good it was - it just goes to show you can never judge a restaurant by it's appearance. In fact, all the outstanding meals on the trip so far have been at simple, relatively cheap little homely places - and each of these places has blown away all the five-star hotels and fancy-dancy restaurants (and we've tried very many of those at this stage!).
The night life at the Jungle Monkey is pretty notorious and it lived up to that reputation while we were there. We met lots of interesting people, including an extended family group of Afrikaners (who ended up buying a large B&B operation in the town). These guys seemed to take a wee shine to us for some reason (they kept asking us to join them for days out, they always seemed to be drawn to us in the evenings, and when they left early on their last morning they left us a lovely note and a wee present). It was really interesting to meet them though, as the Afrikaners are a very different breed than the English-white South Africans (Luke the Duke for instance didn't like them at all, and generally avoided them completely) - but from my point of view it was interesting to get their take on South Africa and it's future. In fact, it was eye-opening and educational in much the same way as meeting the two self-confessed 'Racialist Rhodesians' back in Zimbabwe. In many ways that captures what proper travelling is all about really - meeting and engaging with all the various types of 'locals', not just the obvious indigenous people.
The nature of Jungle Monkey (and the extremely friendly, engaging and entertaining staff, who we got to know quite well), seemed to engender a general atmosphere of camaraderie and everyone just seemed to mix and gel naturally and easily. So I think we ended up staying five nights at Jungle Money, and it was kinda weird to leave it, but by that stage I was fairly exhausted really!
Port St. Johns actually marks the beginning of what the tourist industry here calls the Wild Coast, which is basically just a long stretch of the coast dotted with small, but idyllically beautiful, little towns that cater mainly for the backpacker trade. I kinda knew at this stage that I wasn't going to let our original timetable dictate how long we'd spend travelling through South Africa (we could just extend our flights and the car rental easily over the phone), so we pretty much decided to try and check out all of the Wild Coast towns - and next up was Coffee Bay.
Friday, December 21, 2007
The Mantis and Moon
Next stop was Umzumbe and the Mantis and Moon backpackers. This was another lovely backpackers place set in lush forest surroundings that bleed down to the beach (although the weather wasn't great for us, so I didn't get to explore the beach at all).
Here we just relaxed again, not doing much. One of the nights we had a really interesting chat with the German owner of the place, and the previous owner who was visiting for the weekend. Both guys were passionate 'lovers-of-life' who knew from a young age exactly what they wanted to do with their lives, and so, to a large extent, had pretty much achieved all their life goals.
I loved the German guy's story about a really spectacular surfing poster that he had had framed and placed in the bar. He said he had seen the poster when he was a young kid in Germany, living hundreds of miles from the sea, but he had just looked at it and immediately said to himself that he was going to ride huge waves just like the surfer in the picture. Of course, he didn't just say that to himself, he 'believed' it, he 'knew' he would ride huge waves. So he'd kept that poster and naturally, years later, that was exactly what he did, and he became a professional surfer. Now his dream was simply to own a cool backpackers lodge near some great surfing and spend his time relaxing and enjoying life - and of course, since he always believed he would, that was exactly what he was doing. I really love when I come across people like that, it always gives me a faint glimmer of hope for the future of humanity. Sadly of course, it doesn't really happen very often, but it's still good to know that there are one or two left out there!
We did have a day trip to the Oribi Gorge where we watched a number of people do the Gorge Swing (YouTube video here). If I'd had a Mr. Mullins or a Mr. Hanno with me I'm sure I would have done it, as I'd loved the one in Victoria Falls, but without Ezeria to give me a kick in the ass I didn't bother doing it here.
We did a couple of short hikes in the area though, one of which lead down to the bottom of the gorge itself. After waiting for a while we got to see a couple of people jump while watching them from below, but the view wasn't as impressive as I thought it would be (they didn't really get close enough to hitting the ground!).
The gorge has a couple of cool overhanging rocks that allow some tricks-of-the-eye photo opportunities - i.e. where it looks like your sitting casually right on the edge of a thousand foot drop, when actually there is a ledge just a few feet below you. There were plenty of spectacular views and genuinely mad shear drop-off's all the same though.
On the morning we were leaving the backpackers we met a young South African lad over breakfast. He told us he was trying to make his way south, and when we offered to give him a lift some of the way he jumped at the chance. Half an hour later we were all packed up and on the road south again, this time with our young adopted local boy - Luke (aka The Duke!).
Here we just relaxed again, not doing much. One of the nights we had a really interesting chat with the German owner of the place, and the previous owner who was visiting for the weekend. Both guys were passionate 'lovers-of-life' who knew from a young age exactly what they wanted to do with their lives, and so, to a large extent, had pretty much achieved all their life goals.
I loved the German guy's story about a really spectacular surfing poster that he had had framed and placed in the bar. He said he had seen the poster when he was a young kid in Germany, living hundreds of miles from the sea, but he had just looked at it and immediately said to himself that he was going to ride huge waves just like the surfer in the picture. Of course, he didn't just say that to himself, he 'believed' it, he 'knew' he would ride huge waves. So he'd kept that poster and naturally, years later, that was exactly what he did, and he became a professional surfer. Now his dream was simply to own a cool backpackers lodge near some great surfing and spend his time relaxing and enjoying life - and of course, since he always believed he would, that was exactly what he was doing. I really love when I come across people like that, it always gives me a faint glimmer of hope for the future of humanity. Sadly of course, it doesn't really happen very often, but it's still good to know that there are one or two left out there!
We did have a day trip to the Oribi Gorge where we watched a number of people do the Gorge Swing (YouTube video here). If I'd had a Mr. Mullins or a Mr. Hanno with me I'm sure I would have done it, as I'd loved the one in Victoria Falls, but without Ezeria to give me a kick in the ass I didn't bother doing it here.
We did a couple of short hikes in the area though, one of which lead down to the bottom of the gorge itself. After waiting for a while we got to see a couple of people jump while watching them from below, but the view wasn't as impressive as I thought it would be (they didn't really get close enough to hitting the ground!).
The gorge has a couple of cool overhanging rocks that allow some tricks-of-the-eye photo opportunities - i.e. where it looks like your sitting casually right on the edge of a thousand foot drop, when actually there is a ledge just a few feet below you. There were plenty of spectacular views and genuinely mad shear drop-off's all the same though.
On the morning we were leaving the backpackers we met a young South African lad over breakfast. He told us he was trying to make his way south, and when we offered to give him a lift some of the way he jumped at the chance. Half an hour later we were all packed up and on the road south again, this time with our young adopted local boy - Luke (aka The Duke!).
Diving with the sharks
After a brief stopover at Blue Sky Mining Backpackers in Warner Beach it was on to the small town of Umkomaas and the Aliwal Dive Centre and Lodge. We stayed here for just a couple of nights while I got to do three dives (even the dorms were mighty expensive, as they were just completing extensive renovations).
This dive site is famous for having lots and lots of ragged-tooth sharks during their mating season, which luckily enough just happened to coincide nicely with my arrival. Over my three dives I got see two turtles and a pod of dolphins right beside the boat as we were kitting up, but of course the real highlight was seeing three mature ragged-tooth sharks over two different dives.
These lads are mighty impressive looking sharks, about 2-3 meters long and swim with their mouths slightly open, thereby displaying their impressive teeth. They are the most common sharks displayed in the larger aquariums around the world, due to there docile nature but impressive appearance and size. They are actually very common this time of year and so are a major attraction - they are generally completely harmless to humans, unless your a complete idiot and harass them somehow.
It really was one of my scuba diving highlights to just relax and observe these magnificent animals in their natural environment. Again the visibility wasn't the best though, which was a pity, but I still got to get up really close.
I also got to do a nice intricate cave dive, just me and my divemaster-qualified dive buddy (Dave), which was brilliant. In fact, I was lucky enough to have highly experienced divers as dive-buddies on each of my dives (with 72 dives I think I was probably the least experienced diver of the lot). It meant I could really relax in the presence of the sharks (since everyone else had dived many times with sharks), and it also meant I got to have the full 50-minute dive time limit on each dive - usually inexperienced divers use up their air much more quickly than that.
So all-in-all some great diving, and I'd love to return when the visibility is better. The town itself was very small, so not many dining options, although there was a lovely bar/restaurant right on the beach which had fantastic views on the moon-lit night we were there.
This dive site is famous for having lots and lots of ragged-tooth sharks during their mating season, which luckily enough just happened to coincide nicely with my arrival. Over my three dives I got see two turtles and a pod of dolphins right beside the boat as we were kitting up, but of course the real highlight was seeing three mature ragged-tooth sharks over two different dives.
These lads are mighty impressive looking sharks, about 2-3 meters long and swim with their mouths slightly open, thereby displaying their impressive teeth. They are the most common sharks displayed in the larger aquariums around the world, due to there docile nature but impressive appearance and size. They are actually very common this time of year and so are a major attraction - they are generally completely harmless to humans, unless your a complete idiot and harass them somehow.
It really was one of my scuba diving highlights to just relax and observe these magnificent animals in their natural environment. Again the visibility wasn't the best though, which was a pity, but I still got to get up really close.
I also got to do a nice intricate cave dive, just me and my divemaster-qualified dive buddy (Dave), which was brilliant. In fact, I was lucky enough to have highly experienced divers as dive-buddies on each of my dives (with 72 dives I think I was probably the least experienced diver of the lot). It meant I could really relax in the presence of the sharks (since everyone else had dived many times with sharks), and it also meant I got to have the full 50-minute dive time limit on each dive - usually inexperienced divers use up their air much more quickly than that.
So all-in-all some great diving, and I'd love to return when the visibility is better. The town itself was very small, so not many dining options, although there was a lovely bar/restaurant right on the beach which had fantastic views on the moon-lit night we were there.
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