Friday, August 11, 2006
The Transkei
After coming to the end of the more touristy Garden Route we carried on up the coast and into..... nothing. All of the maps we have seem to suggest that, with the exception of the town of East London, there's virtually nothing at all between Port Elizabeth and the tourist towns south of Durban. Luckily Malan and Erin back in Cape Agulhas had filled us in on the parts that other maps can't reach. This was the real bit of Africa that we had wanted to see and grew to love, tiny little round houses with thatched roofs perched precariously on the hillsides miles away from anywhere. Clearly anyone with a car in these parts is a tourist and everyone waved to us as they were going about their daily business. This generally includes two 20 kilo bags of maize being carried around on ones head (women only) and a sack of oranges and onions in each hand. Training for this amazing skill starts young, we met a group of 9 or 10 year old girls on a weekend morning who were carting firewood around on their heads. So from an early age your neck muscles resemble a racing drivers and your legs need to be pretty strong too as you probably have to carry this lot for about 5 miles along dirt rods, grass tracks .... did we mention the hills? We were not sure that we would manage to keep a book on our heads over the same distance and terrain let alone over half an average womans bodyweight. Consequently we have rather alot of pictures of this as I was just amazed at the grace with which they managed to walk under all the weight.This was also the countryside where Nelson Mandela was born and grew up so we popped into Qunu this village in the middle of nowhere that had some kind of Mandela information centre. As we peered through the window into a room that looked like no one had been in there for several weeks, someone came trotting down the street to let us in. Into what was not really that clear, it was a lot of information boards lent randomly against the wall, reading them meant tipping some forward to reveal the one behind, much like you do when you look at posters in Athena. We didn't really establish why it was in this higgledy-piggeldy state but we got the information we wanted and had a look around the village. Mr Mandela still lives here although his house is rather noticeable from the main road as it is about 20 times bigger than anything else around. That is if the 6 foot fence doesn't give it away! In this part of the country there are no fences so we didn't win any prizes for spotting the house.
In the nearby town of Mthatha the main part of the Nelson Mandela Museum is located so we stopped there and found out more about his life before, during and after incarceration. By far the largest part of the museum is the section now titled 'Gifts to the Nation'. These are all the presents that have been given to Mr Mandela over the years since his release and which he has accepted on behalf of the nation and requested to be displayed for all people to see. Some of the gifts are really quite astonishing, what would anyone want with a 2 foot glass boat complete with a couple of hundred oarsmen an oars? No wonder he wanted somewhere to put all these things, I wouldn't want half of them on my mantlepiece either!!! Jokes aside, it was a really interesting museum and completed our portfolio of Mandela related activities on this trip.
One of the few 'towns' around that catered for tourists was Coffee Bay, a tiny little hamlet of 2 backpackers and a handful of houses situated on a little bay with the river running down to the sea. This also turned out to be another of those places where we really wished that we had been able to stay longer. The choice of where to stay was made even easier by the fact that only one of the two places had any beds left for the night, and after checking in we established that our room was on the other side of the river from the main hostel! There was also no 'safe' parking on the other side of the water, so unpacking our luggage involved driving back up the road and across the bridge to reach the room, before driving all the way back again to park the car. We were assured that the water level would drop enough for us to be able to cross back by foot at sunset. Of course this didn't happen, but at least by the next morning we were able to get back to the car without waiting for a lift! This might all sound a bit complicated but if you look at the photos of Coffee Bay you'll understand that these were minor inconveniences, and a small price to pay (and it really was a small price) for such a great location.
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