6 Mar 2009 – Tsitsikamma and Plettenberg Bay, Pt. 2

Note: Tubing pictures to be uploaded, soon.

On Friday morning we awoke before 7AM, and groggily prepared for a morning of black-water tubing while sharing two small bathrooms. We checked in at the desk/bar in the main room, which resembled the stick house from The Thee Little Pigs and was open to the cool morning air outside. We all ate some combination of granola, fruit, yogurt, cereal, and toast for breakfast, and then we met outside around the campfire ring to listen to the black-water tubing guide (Marius) run through an introduction to the morning’s activities. Our bleary-eyed group immediately perked up when we walked to the side of the hostel to don our super-stylish wetsuits, helmets, and life vests. We resembled something between Teletubbies and Action Heroes once we were all suited up, and the random shreds and tears in some of the suits (“shark bites,” according to the guides) only added to the peculiar image.In classic rural African style, we loaded into the back of a pickup truck and tube trailer and bounced our way along a rutted dirt path through indigenous forest. The guides had explained that the forest in Tsitsikamma contained more floral diversity than anywhere in the world, and many of those unique trees proceeded to pummel us as we drove past their low-hanging branches. The excitement amongst our group of sixteen grew steadily during the fifteen minute ride to the edge of the Storms River gorge, where we hopped off the truck into the forest clearing and grabbed our tubes. Brief safety lectures bookended our steep climb down into the gorge, during which we clung awkwardly to our tubes with one arm and a series of ropes and trees with the other.

The black-water guides and two of us with waterproof cameras took pictures during the three hour float-paddle-swim-kloof-rock jump trip. Our first few minutes on the water had most of the group in fits of laughter and grinning broadly beneath soggy water helmets. We floated through black-water pools that were fresh enough to drink (but blackish because of the tannin, the same ingredient that gives tea its dark color), and awkwardly hopped along the rocks and marsh grasses in the places where rapids would be located in high water. Our guides playfully flipped our tubes or challenged us to tube-standing contests. Four or five times during the trip, they pulled off to the side of the narrow river to climb the walls of the gorge, and jump from 4-8 meters into the dark pools below. The steep, forested walls of the gorge rose high on both sides of the river, but in certain places, it was possible to climb the rocks using small ledges or small tree trunks as hand and foot holds. At the designated spots, the guides would jump first, and then one by one we’d decide whether we had the mettle to follow. The first jump was only about 15ft, so all sixteen of us braved the climb and the fall, and the second was a shorter tube-jump, that required landing on your little yellow tube about 10ft below. For some reason, that latter jump required several attempts for most people, as landing in the rectangle tubes was more difficult than it looked.

The jumps grew steadily higher, however, and soon, it took more coaxing to convince people to jump. One jump had a precarious landing between several rocks, and a few minor bumps and scrapes drove most of the group to sit out the tallest of the jumps. The nearly 30ft jump attracted only the bravest (or perhaps foolhardiest) members of our group, and produced many fretful double-takes from the top, peering down through the tree branches into the water below. By the end of the trip, we had had at least two disastrously awkward jumps, several bruised limbs, and a 26-second tube-standing champ. Several of us did a final medium-height jump before trudging out of the water and over to the waiting truck and trailer. Despite the group’s fatigue, the smiles had yet to vanish, and people were already crafting the best recitations of their tubing anecdotes as we drove back along the bumpy forest path to the hostel.After shedding our gear and rinsing off in the thatched-roof shower hut, we met at the long row of picnic tables inside the lodge for lunch. The consensus seemed to be that everyone like the family-style atmosphere, which was repeated later at dinner. In the afternoon, many people caught up on sleep or lounged in the hammocks that were scattered around the property. We moved our bags into the rooms for our second night, which put four of us out in elevated canvas tents (very cool). We walked into “town” along a wide, old dirt road that oddly reminded me colonial Williamsburg. Tall trees arched over from each side of the road, and for a brief stretch, half a dozen one-story buildings lined the road, housing trinket shops, a general store, and a post office. The long, covered wooden porch along the front of the shops looked like it belonged in an old Western.As the heat wore off and the sun began to set, several of us took a lazy walk down the quiet dirt road at the back of the hostel. We’d aimed to take pictures of the sunset behind the tall mountains that flanked the little village, but in the foggy twilight, we stumbled upon a rural township and got lost in the sound of children playing yard games and dogs barking through the muted mist. After dinner, we met in a common area outside Ben’s room at 9 o’clock to play a rousing game of Mafia as the crickets and stars came out for the night. We had another early morning on Saturday, so we didn’t linger around the fire for very long. The hostel was bustling in the dim light of the bar and campfire, and a few of us played pool or Pictionary before turning in for the night. I set my alarm for 3AM so that I could wake up and take in the stars, once again, but as could be expected, my attempts to capture the mesmerizing night sky in a photograph were futile.