The Wild Coast
Illegitimate Republics
While we designated today a driving day, we will pass through a unique part of the country—the Wild Coast. What makes this area unique among the parts of South Africa we’ve visited is that it was formerly the Republic of Transkei, one of the homelands, or Bantustans, set up by the apartheid government for the Xhosa people.
These bantustans were areas designated as separate countries with separate governments, but were never recognized internationally. Transkei was one of the largest but had a troubled existence before being abolished (along with the other ten homelands) in 1994 when the apartheid government crumbled.
Today, this part of the country remains underserved and the scars from the homelands era are readily apparent. But, there is a new venture afoot, one that will bring development and preservation to the land. Hopefully, in a decade or two, this land will rise to that of the rest of South Africa.
The driving will be easy: take the N2 as far as we can today. Coming out of Grahamstown this morning, the towns fall off dramatically. Peddie is the next town about 50 km away, and between lies miles of grassy hills with sparsely populated towns.
The small town of Peddie along the N2 between Grahamstown and East London.
Along the Wild Coast, there are many hilltop towns like this one. Well-spaced homes with a small plot of land for sustenance.
Steve Biko’s Grave
Another 52 km and we’ll be in King William’s Town, where I was determined to visit the grave of Steve Biko. Biko was a hero for me in my late teens and twenties and his writings and philosophy, if you will, had a great influence on me. He was just one outspoken cog in the anti-apartheid machine, but he rose above contemporary leaders and was able to inspire people to fight the policy with dignity and respect.
In September 1977, he was murdered in police custody at the age of 30. In 1997, five former members of the police admitted killing Biko and applied for amnesty from the Truth and Reconciliation Commission. They were not prosecuted.
We drove around King William’s Town trying to find the cemetery, and once we did we pulled into the empty field and parked the car. It was hot out, a stark difference from the Garden Route. We were met by a man who offered to show us Biko’s grave. I talked with him about some of the history and about his experiences, but I think there was a bit of a language barrier too.
The gravesite of Stephen Biko, an anti-apartheid leader who was murdered by police when he was thirty-one.
The memorial for Steve Biko in King William's Town. Inside the walls of the Garden of Remembrance is the cemetery where he is buried.
Our guide in the Steve Biko Garden of Remembrance.
An exhibit at the cemetery where Steve Biko is buried.
Rural Transkei
Beyond King William’s Town we continued east, took the R63 which bypassed East London, and picked up the N2 again. We’re now in what was once the Transkei State, and it shows. The road is not in great shape. There are no shoulders, livestock—mostly goats and cattle—are roaming all over the grassy hills along, and occasionally in, the road. Once I had to stop suddenly to avoid hitting someone’s goat, and the shepherd was not far away. Mainly, it’s small, rural towns atop grassy, treeless hills and mountains.
A relatively modern township in the Eastern Cape. South Africa is still very segregeted, economically and geographically, and the townships endure as a reminder of Apartheid.
A large cumulonimbus cloud hovers over a hilltop town.
A small gathering of houses makes a town in the Eastern Cape. These rural towns differ from those we're used to. Each has a small plot of land, and often there are no roads among the houses.
Butterworth
Butterworth, or as it’s known in Xhosa, Gcuwa, is a large town with about 50,000 people and is unlike any town we’ve seen thus far. The entire town is like an open market with people selling their wares all over the streets. In many areas there are no sidewalks, just dirt. And, people are everywhere—the sidewalks are jammed and people cross the street any place they please. We have entered another cultural realm of South Africa. We didn’t know this yet, but our experiences in this town will be replayed over and over today as we drive from town to town.
The town of Butterworth has about a quarter million people and is an important regional town. It was a white settlement in the Transkei bantustan in the apartheid era.
Shanty towns do still pervade the country. This one is atypically green.
Shanty towns remain throughout the country. Government programs are in place to eradicate them in favor of new housing for all, but South Africa attracts immigrants from all over the continent, which makes it hard to reduce the population of these towns.
Dutywa
By about 1 p.m. we began to get hungry, but this area is so underserved that we needed to figure out a new solution for food this afternoon. There are no appealing restaurants, cafes, stores, or markets to speak of, but we needed some food for lunch. We decided to stop in a small town called Dutywa.
This town was as hectic as they come: loud music and people everywhere. It’s hard to fathom where all these people come from—the streets and sidewalks are chaos. It has the feel of a large city, but it is only a small town with fields of green stretching toward the horizon all around us.
The N2 as it weaves around the rolling, grass-covered hills of the rural Wild Coast. We drove through landscapes like this for hours, with an occasional cluster of houses like this one in the distance.
Dutywa is a small town in the Eastern Cape and formerly part of the Transkei bantustan. We stopped here to get some food from a grocery store and it was unlike any other part of South Africa we'd visited. Here is the real South Africa.
We parked the car along the road and ventured out. The feeling here is not dissimilar from Broadway in Washington Heights, where I live in New York City, only it is amplified here fifty times. We went into a grocery store across the street and the store was hectic too. We picked up some fruit and bread and a few other staples. Part of the store was absolutely rank and I saw roaches in another part, but it was food and most of it was packaged in plastic or peel.
Mthatha
This town, and all the towns along this Wild Coast, are the real Africa. When I think of Africa, this is more along the lines of what I imagine—not the Euroesque towns we’ve seen thus far. In about an hour and a half, we will arrive in the largest town: Mthatha, the dusty, chaotic, former capital of Transkei with almost 100,000 people.
A sign for the Mthatha River.
Women walking on the streets of Mthatha, the former capital of the Transkei.
Mthatha is the de facto capital of the Wild Coast.
A typical street scene in any city or town on the Wild Coast.
Shopping in Mthatha.
These two sit outside the Somila Mini Cafe in Mthatha.
Like previous towns we passed through today, the streets and sidewalks are teeming with people. But, in this city the streets are also jammed with cars, and many of the traffic lights were out, which leaves intersections feeling like a free-for-all. We took things slowly here.
On the edge of town some school children were getting out for the day and the parade of kids from this school seemed to go on forever. I had about 400 in my graduating class, so I can relate to large schools, but I had trouble imagining how many kids were in this school. We drove for over five minutes and still did not see the school from which these kids emerged.
An endless parade of school kids along the main street in Mthatha.
The kids are out of school for the day. Jackie and I were both baffled that they make these kids wear sweaters and jackets in this hot weather.
Qumbu
On a day when we’d hoped to cover some distance, we weren’t getting very far. These towns are few and far between, but they are slow going. We did emerge from Mthatha and the next town was Qumbu.
School girls walk beside the supermarket in Qumbu.
The small town of Qumbu in Pondoland. The towns are few and far between in this part of the country.
A makeshift market in Qumbu. Chickens await a future owner while kids sell fruit and vegetables.
Houses and rondavels, the traditional Xhosa village.
Mount Frere
As we progressed east, the sky was turning gray. With all the unknowns in today’s drive, we did not need rain to come in and muck things up. One of the last large towns in the Eastern Cape is Mount Frere, perched on the edge of the mountains along the border with KwaZulu-Natal.
The town of Mount Frere, one of the last towns in the Eastern Cape before heading west into KwaZulu-Natal. Wikipedia claims this is one of the most underdeveloped areas of South Africa.
A woman walking in the street in Mount Frere.
A schoolboy walks home in Mount Frere.
A boy eating a banana holds his mother's hand while crossing the street.
A man strutting in the street in Mount Frere.
As we drove toward the KwaZulu-Natal border, the sky became dark, but the colors were unusual. Rain was around us, but the atmosphere glowed orange-yellow, and we later saw a rainbow as we drove into Kokstad.
The main road from Cape Town along the southern coast. Here, we're in the Eastern Cape and nearing the KwaZulu-Natal border.
A rainbow formed late in the afternoon as we drove through the Wild Coast.
Sunlight scattered off the storm clouds to produce this yellow glow.
We did pass through some rain, but nothing too bad.
Oribi Gorge Hotel
We decided, with some hesitation, to stay at the Oribi Gorge Resort. This is, by our standards, a modest hotel on the edge of the gorge, but by South African standards, this is top-notch. We were not happy about the cost, but there is literally nothing else around and this seems like the best option. But, first we need to find it.
It’s dark now, and we’ve turned off the N2 onto the Oribi Gorge Road, a narrow, overgrown road that is still wet and steaming in the late summer heat. It is very dark along this road—no lights and no houses around. The road, it turns out, goes through the gorge and eventually emerges on the opposite side where we soon found our hotel. It wasn’t that late, but it felt like it was midnight.
We checked in, and caught the tail end of dinner. I had a rump roast while Jackie had a whole fish. A glass of wine was in order while we looked over the map and pondered our options for tomorrow.
We ate at our hotel, but before the food comes out we need to study the map and figure out where we're going tomorrow.
Jackie's dinner after a long drive through the rural towns of the Wild Coast.
Soon, we grabbed our tripods and looked to the dark night sky. First, we shot from the terrace outside our room, but there was a lot of light there.
The southern cross and the Milky Way from the terrace outside our room.
Trees illuminated by nearby lights with the northern horizon sky.
The terrace outside our hotel, with me taking a photo beside the table.
The southern sky over the Oribi Gorge resort.
Jackie and I looking at the dark night sky from our hotel's terrace.
This view from the terrace outside our hotel room. The head of Scorpius is above the tree to the left.
Later we ventured onto the grounds of the hotel. We are in the middle of nowhere—there is no town nearby nor are there any other buildings in sight—the hotel lies at the end of a mile-long dirt road and is surrounded by fields.
The southern Milky Way in all its glory.
Scorpius (center frame) setting to the west. The faint glow of the Milky Way is visible and the center of the galaxy is approaching the horizon. The light on the horizon is light pollution, not daylight--I took this shot at 11:30 pm.
The stars of the southern hemisphere. The constellation Crux, better known as the southern cross, takes center stage with Centaurus to its right. The Milky Way passes through too.
We felt comfortable with our surroundings and walked down the dirt road a bit, just to escape the flood lights from the hotel. We tried to take some photos of us among the stars, but found it difficult to stand still long enough to remain sharp.
Jackie and I tried to remain still for these two-minute shots, but it was hard. Here's our third try.
We’d been out on this road for about an hour stargazing and taking photos. It was after midnight now and we were getting a little tired. With our cameras on the ground in the middle of a few-minute exposure, suddenly we heard a low-pitched grumble, something definitely animal in nature.
The ghost of Jackie appears in this accidental shot, captured after we picked up and ran during a long exposure after hearing some gutteral animal noise beside us.
As soon as we heard it, I grabbed my camera and ran, and Jackie followed suit. We stopped about 30 feet away and looked back. Jackie fired her flash to see if anything was in the road, but we saw nothing. Meanwhile, my camera was still exposing, and I got the distant lights as we ran and the ghostlike profile of Jackie when her flash fired. We wondered if we will find out tomorrow what the guttural sound might have been.
The Oribi Gorge
This morning we had a quick breakfast at the hotel, then struck out to see the gorge. There are overlooks just south of the hotel. It was a blue-sky day, and bloody hot outside. We are slowly creeping toward the more tropical side of South Africa.
We asked the woman at reception two questions this morning. First, what is growing around the hotel in all these fields? The answer: sugar cane. Second, what might that grunting noise we heard on the road last night have come from? She laughed and told us there was a field with horses beside where we were stargazing last night. We were slightly embarrassed, but also relieved.
Jackie is afraid of heights, so getting this close to the edge of the gorge was trying for her.
Jackie on the precipice overlooking the Oribi Gorge.
The Mzimkulwana River runs through the Oribi Gorge in the southern part of the state of KwaZulu-Natal. Sugar plantations cover the bluffs overlooking the gorge.
The road through the Oribi Gorge is narrow and overgrown. We drove this road in the rainy, pitch black night yesterday and it was an adventure.
The cliffs of the Oribi Gorge are 365-million-year-old sandstone, under which is 1-billion-year-old rock at the bottom of the gorge.
We did not stay out in the sun too long—we had a lot of ground to cover today. We drove back out through the gorge, just to see what we missed last night.
We will try to get up to St. Lucia today, a small town on the coast near the Mozambique border. Luckily, the N2 road improves today, even becoming four lanes for awhile. The road dives toward the coast at Port Shepstone, then heads to Durban. We bypassed this large city—we didn’t hear too many good things about it—and continued up the coasts. Yesterday it was the Sunshine Coast, the Shipwreck Coast, and the Wild Coast. Today, it is the Hibiscus Coast, the Dolphin Coast, and our destination, the Elephant Coast.