[June 4/5/6]
So after Mum left, I was left alone in Umtata [scary thought huh?] and watched TV in the B&B for approximately 7 hours, [the low point of which was an episode of Hannah Montana, how can Miley Cyrus actually take herself seriously if she watches that back?] until I was picked up by two members of my other 'family' also known as Sam and Lisa. We were going on an epic road trip to East London so that Lisa could go to a speech therapy course on the Saturday, and as you are well are, Sam and I will go anywhere if good times are involved!
It was a rather wonderful road trip :) In the Transkei tradition, Lisa's car is without a CD player so we had to play car games the whole way there – never has there been so much hilarity over I-Spy, but I think you had to be there to appreciate how funny it was. We also played the game where you have to name ten things in certain categories which provided amusement for about 150kms including these classic lines:
*trying to guess types of currencies* 'Africa money! Canada money! Indian money!
*trying to guess the German currency* 'Hitler! Deutschenschplau! Adolfenschplau?
*trying to name Katy Perry songs* 'That one, you know, it's about opposites.'
*trying to guess something...* 'Was it a man? 'No.' #pause# 'Oh, a woman.'
[As I said, you had to be there.]
Eventually we arrived at Sugarshack [after experiencing the grimness of Buffalo backpackers and the less than welcoming cat lady that ran Niki-Nana's backpackers we decided we'd try something else!] which was actually pretty cool, except for the fact that my bed was about 3mm away from the roof so I had multiple brain traumas by the time the night was up.
We decided to go out to the cinema for some civilised evening entertainment, ending up in Hemingways [no surprises there] which packed with about 1 zillion people who obviously had the same idea. At the entrance to the cinema part of the shopping centre there was a sign [I sadly didn't think to take a picture] that said: 'No trolleys or firearms past this point.' which I found rather interesting...
We watched Killers with Aston Kutcher and Katherine Heigl which was er, not brilliant, but having witnessed the travesty that was Bounty Hunter on our previous Hemingways trip, it was decent enough to watch. [But don't bother buying the DVD.] After that it was back to the Sugarshack where I spent the night listening to the roar of the sea and giving myself brain damage.
The next day Lisa was up early for her course so Sam and I checked out a bit later and waited for our faithful taxi driver friend Charlie to come and pick us up. You may remember that in my previous post about East London in April that I described him as 'a bit crazy'. I'd like to update and correct that analysis of him to 'slightly dangerous and inappropriate'. That's not to say that we didn't enjoy our ride in his taxi, or that it was inefficient or expensive – he was very helpful and charged us an excellent price – it's the added extras that he throws in that were less than desirable. First of all, he phoned me 5 minutes before he was meant to turn up and told me he had forgotten where to pick us up because when we had made the booking he had had a few shots and was drunk. Then he decided he would take us on a tour of all the places in East London where you could find a brothel which was most wonderful [or, NOT] and then proceeded to tell us all of the stories that he had told us on our previous drive with him. But I'll give him his due, he drove us around for about forty minutes and found all the places that we gave him a vague description of and only charged us R100.
Sam and I had decided we would really go wild and do something different in East London and therefore went to, er, Hemingways AGAIN. This time we went to Mugg and Bean for breakfast, earning a grin from the waitress who remembered us from the previous time. We desperately tried to do some actual shopping but had no desire for it and went to the cinema yet again [the fifth film we've seen in that place]. We were actually pretty excited to see Sex and the City 2 because for once it was a film we'd heard of but it was also rather atrocious. As Sam put it, it's about some sad aging women who put on ridiculous clothes and have scandalous conversations...I think we've been in the Transkei too long because all I could think about was how unneccessary it was for them to wear six billion different outfits each day and to wear a full length dress to go riding on a camel etc etc etc....
After the film we met up with Lisa and went food shopping then headed to Cinsta and Buccaneer's backpackers for another night of good times. Cintsa is just outside of East London and the backpackers was pretty empty so we had a whole giant dorm to ourselves. We had a 'traditional Xhosa meal' which turned out to be a mixture of Cape Malay and Afrikaans cuisine then collapsed into bed because we were so tired from our hard day of exertion – because doing nothing is SO hard.
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| The stunning view over the beach at Buccaneer's, Cinsta |
The next day it was completely stunning weather so we wandered down to the beach and made use of the free canoes. We went along the river for a while as the sun rose which was so peaceful and relaxing that I didn't actually want to get back on the road to Zithulele but I guess we had to in the end :)
Thanks Lisa for taking us on an awesome weekend away!
xxxx
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