South Africa: 12/12/07

After one last walk on the beach at Bulungula we got into the old Landcruiser for the rough two and a half hour journey to the paved road junction. Along the way we picked up and dropped off various people who emerged from the shadows of small round huts, or rondovals, that spotted the country side. We would exchange simple formalities as new passengers climbed in the back with us, but most of the them only spoke the local Xhosa dialect, and we would smile as the clicked their tongues while the spoke. 

The junction consisted of one makeshift shop which sold warm drinks and a small selection of fruit, but there were probably 50 people standing around. None of them seemed to be doing much; women and children sat in the dirt, groups of men huddled together in conversation, their eyes twitching about as though they were being watched by unseen observers. When we stepped out of the Land Cruiser it felt as though the record skipped, and all eyes turned to the two caucasian westerners being dropped off. We cautiously situated ourselves away from the largest group of 20-something men and we watched our driver, Rufus, pull away. 

No more than two minutes had passed before our 'Taxi' arrived. One of the notoriously famous mini-bus transports that would take us to Coffee Bay. The mini-bus itself was more like an old, narrow mini-van that smelled of body odor and upholstery that had never been cleaned. We squeezed into the back seat with our bags, the volume of the stereo went WAY up with Africaans Hip-Hop, and we were off , again, dropping off and picking up passengers who dotted the side of the road. 

In such a transport, safety is a non-factor. The driver raced down the windy, two-lane road, swinging the wheel wildly to avoid the potholes. Actually, they were more like small craters than potholes, a few of which could have swallowed the entire front end of the vehicle. The driver couldn't have been more than 18 years old, and he split his time equally in his respective lane, and the lane of oncoming traffic. But he never slowed down. The music was deafening and the smell of fuel and exhaust gave both Shanon and I headaches and made us want to vomit. All the while we clung to each other in fear. 

At one point there were eight people on board (including the driver), along with an infant who sat quietly on her mother's lap in the front seat. We must have been moving at about 120-140 kph, or 70-75 mph, and coming around a long, sharp turn, when the driver slammed the brakes hard, narrowly avoiding a renegade cow that had wandered into the road. Minutes later it was a dog. People came and went, one had two large crates full of empty beer bottles which he kept stacked in his lap, another with a club foot who carried an old wooden crutch under with one hand, and an old splintered cane in the other. The exhaust became stifling the further we went, and I strained to keep a small window propped open to try and get fresh air. I could feel brain cells retiring from duty and my head reeled.

We passed large groups of people lining the road. All of them seemed to be waiting for something, but no one seemed to be in a hurry. No one except our driver. We would find out later that it was Pension Day, or pay-day, and that everyone was waiting to collect money. What they did for a living, or who paid them remains a mystery, but people gathered en-masse for their stipend.

What a ride. The green hills carry on in every direction as far as the eye can see, and whizzing by the the Xhosa communities we got a chance to see the heart of a Wild Coast community, home of Nelson Mandela, from the backseat of a hell-spawned mini-bus.