Transkei 6/3/05

I am currently in Coffee Bay, a place named after a Portuguese shipwreck deposited coffee beans resulting in the plant growing here for a number of years. Coffee Bay is on the Wild Coast in the Transkei Region of South Africa. Transkei was once a so-called homestate for black people under the aparthaid government. I spent most of my day today in a short wetsuit surfing, I finally managed to stand up and very basic manuvering skills. That being said I am exhausted. I came here yesterday evening after most of the day being in transit. I passed by Nelson Mandela's home on the way to Umtata where I caught the shuttle to coffee bay. This is by far the poorest region I have seen thus far on my trip. Most of the people live in mud houses with thatch roofs. 90% of the students don't make it to the equivilant of high school for us in the states. for one year of school it costs about a thousand bucks for one student. Right as I arrived in town some people coerced me into setting out for a sundowner. This sundowner involved driving out to an abandoned golf course, past the former clubhouse and onto what I was told was the 8th green. Heading in we passed a boy who couldn't have weighed more than 80 pounds chasing fully grown cattle. All these cows had to do was breathe on him and he would've gone tumbling off, but they ran as if it was a leopard at their backs.

I spent the past few days in hogsback, a picturesque town in the mountains. 2 days in a row I was up in time to catch the sunrise coming over the mountains. my first afternoon and evening there I did i short hike to the "big tree," rather anti-climactic cause i was expecting a huge tree, but I guess it would've been thus named if that were the case. The day after that two ladies and i climbed the number 2 Hog, I beleive it's about 1,300 meters tall, somewhere thereabouts. We set of to climb Hog 1 but a really bad map and us going way out of the way entised us to shoot for number two. All in all I think it was about 29 kilometers. I managed to bruise something in my left heel, and that has been giving me grief for the past few days. Hogsback is known for it's scenery and waterfalls. Words can't give it due justice, and my pictures probably won't either. The back yard of the hostel ended in a 100 ft cliff leading into dense rainforest. Just in case you can't pick on the fact that I really liked it there. It is my favorite place thus far.

I really like all the comments people have been posting. Mrs. Koch, your comment took a while to decypher, I said that my German had improved but that was from a truely deplorable state. I'll be in Coffee Bay until sunday cause my transportation won't run on saturdays, and I wanted to surf today. I think I'll hike out to the hole in the wall tomorrow and maybe do some cliff jumping. Keep it real, I'm thinking of you all.