After East London the N2 starts to curve inland as the coast becomes increasingly more rugged, making a straight road impossible. This area is considerably less developed than the rest of the south coast, with undulating hills scattered with traditional rural settlements. It is considerably poorer than the other areas of South Africa that we have visited so far, having previously been the Transkei homeland that was disenfranchised during apartheid. The majority of the people living in the area are Xhosa and live traditional rural life styles. The area is also known as being the birth place and home of Nelson Mandela (he was the son of a Xhosa chief).
After a couple of hours we turned off the N2, onto one of the only tarred roads that head back towards the coast. The hilly landscape is scattered with rondavels, which are the traditional brightly coloured, mud-brick, round houses. The journey is made more fun by having to swerve around the every increasing number of potholes whilst dodging the goats, cows, dogs and mules that appear from nowhere then insist on standing in the middle of the road.
After a bit of scramble up a gravel road covered in boulders, which probably did no good to our hire car, we finally arrived at the Coffee Shack, our accommodation in Coffee Bay. This has a picturesque setting on the beach, at the river mouth, and our room had the added bonus of being a rondavel. We whiled away the evening in the bar entertained by an African drumming session whilst trying to ignore the hostel's attempt to get the party going by having drinking rules in the bar, and the constant offers to sell drugs from the guys hanging around outside (this is a big dope growing area).
Next day we had signed up for a day's hiking and cliff jumping along the originally name “The Cliffs”, just north of Coffee Bay. We set off along the cliff path equipped with all our usual hiking gear as our local guides bounded off in front of us in bare feet. The walk has spectacular views of the incredibly hilly coast line and after a bit of scrambling it drops down into a cave which is rumoured to have been used as storage for weapons by the ANC. After some slightly hairy rock climbing and wave dodging, we got to the cliff jumping spot. Rich was game, so after watching the guide's expert jump, duly flung himself off a couple of times from dizzying heights into the churning sea.
After being dropped back at the Coffee Shack we rapidly set off again as we needed to make it to the rendezvous point for our next accommodation by the pick up time (as the last part of the drive can only be done in a 4x4) and before it got dark. We had to follow our hand written map very closely as there isn't the remotest hint of a sign post, few land marks and the locals mostly don't speak English. We did stop briefly to give a lift to a couple of local ladies in traditional long skirts. They didn't speak any English but seemed very entertained by us and that we had actually stopped for them. By some miracle we arrived at the pick up point, where we were bundled into a Land Cruiser with a couple of other guest. Another hour of incredibly bumpy driving in the dark we were relieved to arrive at the very remote Bulungula Lodge.
The travellers' haven of Bulungula is as much a community project as it is a lodge. It is a joint venture between the local community and the traveller who set it up. The rooms are again in rondavels with a chilled out bar and lounge area looking out over the river mouth and ocean. Much of the proceeds from the lodge go back into the community, with most of the vegetables being bought from the community farm, and the activities and tours being run by locals. You could easily spend weeks or months chilling out here. We, unfortunately, only stayed two nights, but still enjoyed traditional Xhosa dinners, the novelty of the paraffin lit rocket showers, learning a few words of Xhosa (although not sure we really mastered the clicks) and an african drumming lesson by the fire.
One of the highlights of our stay was a guided tour of the village. Despite only having 800 inhabitants, this takes a good few hours, as the houses are spread out over a number of hills. It does make you feel a little pathetic when you are puffing and panting up a hill, and an elderly lady passes you balancing a huge water container on her head. We also got to see the five boys staying in a “circumcision lodge” were they live prior to the ceremony, dressed only in a blanket with white covering their face and body.
We left Bulungula sadly, and set off on the bumpy road back to the N2. This was followed by a long drive through several very poor looking towns villages , including the village were Mandela lives near Mthatha, and finally leaving the Eastern Cape into Kwazulu-Natal.
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