5 Mar 2009 – Tsitsikamma and Plettenberg Bay, Pt. 1

This weekend was more than just a three day trip out to the Eastern Cape Province; it was an adventure into the wild, adrenaline-pumping world of kloofing, bungee jumping, and “backpacking” through hostels along the rural and scenic South African Garden Route. After our Thursday morning class, we returned to the house to pack the rented van and trailer for the expected six hour ride to the Eastern Cape. We’d planned to leave by 3:00, but due to several delays, did not end up on the road until close to 5PM, and the weather was hardly conducive to sitting inside a poorly ventilated automobile.

Driving southeast through the rolling hills outside Cape Town, our 15-seater van was flanked by the coastal cape mountains and the occasional brightly colored township village. It was 35 degrees Celsius – around 95 Fahrenheit – and despite the stagnant, late-afternoon heat, the seventeen of us (including our driver, Parks) squished together in the slightly-too-small van, too hot to doze. The lack of air conditioning and dearth of retractable windows made the back two rows especially stuffy, which drove us to create a seat rotation schedule before we hit the first rest stop. Books and white ear iPod earbuds lay strewn across the rows of arms and legs and tote bags, while sections of the van engaged in energetic conversation. In the first hours of the trip, we devoured the chips, crackers, dried fruit, and chocolate that people had packed for snacks, but that didn’t deter us from stopping for dinner at a rest stop around 7PM, just as the sun began to sink below the wide African horizon. According to those who ordered burgers and fries, the Steers take-out was subpar, but the Magnum ice cream bars were delicious as always.

On the road, again, the hot, dry air had cooled to a more pleasant breeze. It whipped in through the few windows and brought with it the smell of pine and summer florals. We’d already climbed up and over the mountains South of Cape Town, and the winding mountain road had been lined by thick evergreen forest that was oddly reminiscent of northern Maine. Now, however, we drove across the expansive rolling hills of coastal South Africa, where the yellow grasses of the farmlands stretched in all directions. The mountain range at our left fringed the fields in blue ridges that gave way to a broad, pale sky, and our two-lane highway wound like a black thread between the golden hills. At different times and from different angles, the landscape could have been Oklahoma, California, or Alaska. After dark, we hugged the rocky coastline as the road curved around cliffs that plunged straight into the frothing Indian Ocean (by then we’d passed Cape Agullus, where the oceans “meet”), and on the way home Sunday afternoon, we would comment on how much it looked like Big Sur.

A few weeks ago, most of our group watched the recently released movie Blood Diamond about the African diamond trade. The main character delivers the line “T.I.A.” (This is Africa) several times during the film to acknowledge the utterly outlandish or unbelievable things he encounters in rural Africa. The abbreviation has become a favorite in our house, as well, and it has never seemed more fitting than it did in reference to the panorama out our van windows.

En route to Tsitsikamma National Forest, we were repeatedly delayed by traffic police stops and road construction (always funny in the middle of an empty rural road), and we stopped several more times for bathrooms and stretch breaks. A lightening storm lit up the inland sky from time to time as we rolled east through the night, silhouetting the mountains that loomed distant in the darkness. The Tube ‘n Axe Backpackers Lodge in Storms River Village expected us to arrive before eleven o’clock, but I had them on the phone three or four times between 10PM and 1AM, negotiating how we’d manage our very late arrival. Nerves were at their last end when we finally rolled up along the bumpy dirt road beside the hostel, and they were aggravated by the confusion over finding the front entrance in the pitch dark rural village. The shock of seeing a million stars over head, however, lulled us all into a familiar awe, and we stumbled across the dark hostel grounds into our 15-person dorm with the milky-way twinkling overhead.