Paradise Found at Bulungula

So we hit a highlight in South Africa. It is called Bulungula and it is literally out in the middle of nowhere (aka the Transkei, aka the Wild Coast). After leaving Cintsa and looking for more Africa, not California Africa, we found our way to a small remote Xhosa village on the edge of the world. It took us a couple different shuttles on terrible dirt roads, with cows and goats and kids randomly chillin' in the middle of the road, but as we were pulling in with the most amazing sunset and the beach waves rolling in, we knew the trip was worth it. We got our own round hut on the first night and the door opened to the most beautiful beach with the sounds filtering in all night. We did wake in the morning however to find a few cows grazing just outside of our door.
These Xhosa villages are spread out along the rolling green hills with a few round huts clustered here and there as far as the eye can see. It is amazing the slow simplicity of the people's lives here. The community where we stayed is very poor and very remote.

The Bulungula hostel that we came to is an amazing free trade hostel that was built and half run by a guy named Dave and the other half is owned by the village. He traveled the world to find the perfect spot for his backpacker and ended up finding it in his own country. The hostel has a great feeling and you can't always tell who is a guest, who is working and who the village people are. The villagers are always there, talking and laughing with the guests. There are also quite a few that have found jobs working at the hostel. All of the tours that the hostel provides are actually community run businessess that were started to provide tours to travelers that come to the lodge. If they have a skill, they can set up a tour for the travelers to try out. The hostel is always trying to improve the life of the villagers and increase their skills and education. It has created jobs for over 33 families and right now they are trying to build a new mud school to replace the one that collapsed for the 200+ kids that would come from around the village to learn. What a great thing.

One of the tours we decided to do was canoeing up the Xhora river. The day was beautifully sunny (weird!) complete with flying fish (at times flying into the canoes), a cold shower under a waterfall and sore, sore arms that didn't function so well toward the end of the river tour (when the wind started blowing hard, in the wrong direction). The local guide didn't speak a whole lot of english, but was a supreme paddeler for the lazy girl in the front. It is amazing how many jobs this hostel has created for this small village and how it makes the visitor and the villager interact. It is wonderful here and will definately be one of our fondest memories of South Africa.