On Wednesday at cell group, Karl and Sally talked me into taking Thursday afternoon and Friday off of work and go to Bulungula for a break. Sam, Anita and Thandeka [the preschool teacher] were going for an Education workshop there and so we arranged for me to go with them and just chill out while they were working :)
At 1pm on Thursday I left ARV clinic and hopped into our good old friend the Jabulani Golf which had miraculously recovered from both a flat tyre and a flat battery. We drove along the Mpame road which is rather scenic, if a little potholed. After an hour's drive we arrived at Bulungula store where we disembarked and prepared for the long walk down to Bulungula Lodge.
We set off cross country towards the sea – although it turns out that what I assumed was cross country was actually the road! It's a 4x4 only track but it would still be insane to drive on given that it's strewn with huge boulders, extreme ruts and crazy inclines. As we walked down through the villages we saw lots of local kids and even a baby goat that started to follow us and which we did consider kidnapping and taking home :)
After an hour and a half [the overly optimistic guide time was forty five minutes] we arrived at the lodge. It's in an absolutely stunning location overlooking the river mouth and a beautiful white beach and it's completely isolated from the civilised world - the perfect place to get away from it all and not have any of the stresses of work. The main lodge comprises a lounge area, kitchen, bar and outside fire circle, then there are separate shower and toilet blocks. There are also six or seven guest rondavels each sleeping four or so people and painted in bright colours and patterns.
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| The psychadelic toilets! |
Bulungula's 'thing' is being 100% eco-friendly and they do a pretty good job of it. There is no electricity or running water so they employ a few intelligent ways of getting around it. They have massive [also brightly painted] rainwater tanks which they fill up over the rainy season; apparently if they run ever out of water, they will just close. This water is used for the showers and for washing dishes and local spring water is provided for drinking.
The dorms are lit by candlelight only and the main lodge has gas lighting, refrigerators and cooking equipment meaning that their fuel bill only comes to around R800 per month as opposed to R10000 of the average local backpackers! Lack of water means that the toilets are long drops, but Bulungula manage to avoid the stereotypical horrible hole in the ground with a cleverly designed compost toilet – I won't go into the details, but there is a strict code of conduct on the back of all the doors tastefully labelled 'Talking Kak'...nice!
The showers are also a bit of an adventure. They are known as rocket showers and consist of a long pipe that you light a fire in the bottom to heat up the hot water. Everyone takes a mini teapot full of paraffin into the shower and pours it into the 'rocket'. You then take a length of toilet roll, stick it into the paraffin and use the conveniently attached lighter to start the fire. After a short while, hot water will start coming through and you just add cold water until it reaches your preferred temperature.
Well, that's the idea. Having a major mental block when it comes to using a lighter, I struggled with that for a while, only succeeding in getting a friction burn on my thumb. After an embarrassingly long time I eventually struck gold, found a box of matches, lit the flames and opened the hot tap, looking forward to the cascade of hot water that would come forth and the subsequent enjoyment of the showering process. I was instead rewarded with a sad little drip of water reminiscent of Chinese water torture, although this was torture in the form of being naked and cold with ever decreasing shower prospects. I was considering giving up and just warming myself on the miniscule flame at the bottom of the rocket when the drip evolved into a trickle that had at least some cleansing potential. I then decided I would risk opening the cold tap with the dual purpose of a) cooling the water and b) stimulating some decent water flow.
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| Shower fail |
Due to some deformity with the shower head, this resulted in a stream of cold water flying out at right angles to the hot water and soaking my pile of clothes. So there I stood [still completely naked] looking from my vertical stream of burning water to my horizontal stream of ice water to my heap of sodden garments. Defeated, unwashed and with a just a little less dignity than I'd arrived with, I threw on my towel, picked up my clothes and got out of there as fast as I could.
Anyway, back to the night before. They have a self service bar [I cannot imagine that concept working in many British bars!] so the four of us had a cider and sat outside chatting until it got dark. Dinner was one of the best yet [yes, I know I always say that] – chicken curry made by the mamas who work in the kitchen. I'm always so impressed with the way they cook because all they only use one giant pot for the curry and one for the rice yet it still tastes a thousand times better than any of the mass cooking they attempted at school. After dinner we sat around the fire for a while but by nine o'clock (Transkei midnight) we were all knackered and went to bed. As we walked back to our room, I looked at the sky and I have never seen so many stars...
Next morning I got up and had my previously described shower fail but decided I should persevere in my pursuit of cleanliness, went back and tried again with moderate success. I placed my breakfast order at the bar then went for a walk along the beach. Sam, Anita and Thandeka had already left for their education workshop so I had the whole day to myself. I wandered barefoot along the whole length of the beach, enjoying the early morning sun and the feel of the warm sand between my toes. The beach was totally deserted and it felt like I was the only person in the world. Luckily I wasn't though because otherwise my lovely cooked breakfast wouldn't have been waiting when I got back ;)
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| Bulungula beach |
Myself and four American students had signed up for a hiking and canoeing trip so around 10am our guide came to pick us up. He gave us all kayak paddles to carry which confused me somewhat and he didn't speak great English so we just had to follow blindly and assume he had some kind of plan for the day! The hike took us through acres of the beautiful Bulungula landscape until we finally came down to the river, at which point our guide ran off with vague assurances that he would be back.
Mildly worried but not disheartened, the five of us sat and chatted for a while, then for a bit longer, then, just as it seemed we had been abandoned, we saw the guy paddling along the river in a canoe having gone to get an extra one to fit us all in. He then started with possibly the best canoeing teaching method ever tried which should be known as 'Push-Them-Into-The-River-And-Hope-For-The-Best'. Luckily, most of us had canoed before so there was only a little bit of going in circles but I worry for anyone who unwittingly signs up without prior experience!
We paddled along the river for about an hour and after getting used to paddling kayak style in an open canoe it was actually really good fun. The four students and I got on really well and it was especially refreshing to chat with someone new :D The river and the valley were just spectacular in the blazing sunlight – I know I always go on about how beautiful it is here, but I'm not kidding! The students, who have been living in Durban and haven't been exposed to the Transkei, were completely in awe of it and one of them kept saying 'This is OUT OF CONTROL' which I think sums it up nicely.
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| The view from the door of our dorm :) |
After an hour, we reached a little grassy bank and our guide hopped out of his boat and promptly fell asleep, leaving us to our own devices. When he finally woke up half an hour later, he announced that we were going to paddle back upstream against both the flow of the river and the wind, oh great. The paddle back was not so enjoyable since we all got completely soaked but it was decent exercise so it wasn't all bad. We reached the bank where we had set off and then had a twenty minute conversation about what to do next, summarised below:
Guide: Now we are going to the beach.
Student #1: By canoe or by walking?
Guide: By canoe.
Student #1: How long will it take?
Guide: 5 minutes.
Student #1: Oh great, let's go.
Guide: *paddles towards the shore as if getting out*
Student #2: But aren't we canoeing there?
Guide: We must walk there now. It is a 35 minute walk.
Student #2: Are we going back to Bulungula beach?
Guide: Yes
Student #3: Can we canoe to that beach?
Guide: Yes, it takes 35 minutes.
Student #1: But you said it takes 5 minutes! Where are we going and how?
Guide: We are walking to the beach.
Student #3: Bulungula beach?
Guide: No.
Student #4: Is it near Bulungula beach?
Guide: Yes, it's 5 minutes away.
Student #2: So we are walking 35 minutes to a beach, then it's five minutes to Bulungula?
Guide: No, we are canoeing now for 5 minutes.
[Continue ad. Infinitum]
Eventually we turned out to be walking back to Bulungula and it took about an hour, but you can't blame the guy for trying :D
I intended to spend the afternoon reading and making a start on my community report for Project Trust, but ended up sitting outside on a giant cushion and falling asleep in the sun...good times. Dinner was butternut and mutton bredie which was a sort of stew thing, almost as tasty as the previous night. All the different groups from the education workshop then had some kind of performance competition where they sang songs which were rather amusing. It was a showdown between Bulungula, Mdumbi, Coffee Bay and Zithulele so of course everyone was roped in and I found myself singing random preschool songs in isiXhosa. In the end I think Bulungula won with a song about a baboon climbing a tree to eat a mango, how could Friday night entertainment get any better?! But there was still more hilarity to come when the music was put on and everyone had to dance, with Thandeka showing off some pretty impressive moves ;)
When the dancing died down, we went outside to the fire where Sam and I encountered two of the weirdest people in the world. One was the stereotypical new age white guy with dreadlocks smoking some kind of mind-altering drug and the other was this bizarre beardy man who just talked complete rubbish and whose every second word was 'ma bru'. They both had drums and you could tell they took drumming pretty seriously by the hushed tones they were using but when we actually listened to their conversation we had to try extremely hard not to burst out laughing at how ridiculous it was.
Dreadlocks: I've got these amazing beats to show you.
Bru: Wow, ma bru, I've been drumming for seven months now, ma bru, but you're really gonna take me to the next level.
Dreadlocks: Listen to this one – beat, tone, tone, beat, tone, tone [aka, a 3 beat rhythm]
Ma Bru: Wow, ma bru, wow. *attempts it and fails*
Dreadlocks: I've got so many beats, like, a 4 beat, a 6 beat, an 8 beat, a 16 beat, like, I just drum, dude.
Ma Bru: I feel you dude, like, drumming, ma bru. *continues beating drum without any semblance of a rhythm*
Dreadlocks: Wow, you're really getting that beat, tone, tone rhythm.
Ma Bru: Yeah, bru, I'm going to sing a song now.
And then he proceeded to sing/mumble the worst song ever, clearly just saying anything that came into his head and accompanying himself with any random drum rhythm. And of course, every second word was still 'Ma bru'. It was beautiful.
And that was the end of my getaway to Bulungula.
Xxx
PS. Thank you Karl and Sally :)
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