The Story of Bulungala...

If an ass goes traveling, he'll not come home a horse...

My Bulungala experience started in Coffee Bay where I was to catch my first local Taxi. These are usually packed full of locals like a tin of sardines and with whatever deafening sounds are coiming from the radio, swerve round potholes at lunitic speeds tooting there horns as and when they feel like it...
Luckly for me the one I climbed into was pretty quiet, I was given a note for the driver which read...'Lutubeni or no college' I had no Idea where this was and the driver was unable to give me any more help...after about half an hour we stopped on a corner where there were market stalls mainly selling vegitables with locals of all ages dotted about...the driver shouted something towards the back and I hopped off...I arrived i good time before 4pm just to be safe, which was when the shuttle was due to pick me up...they didn't come till 6.30pm.
After a couple of phone calls..."oh the drivers not there...?! ok he'll be there in half an a hour"...which meant he could be there anytime from half an hour to an hour an half...I later realised this was to become known as 'African time.'

This did give a chance to become more aquainted with the locals, the first were two old ladies their faces like leather boots...they spoke no English and I had a lot of fun communicating with them through smiles and gestures, although they managed to eat all my rusks (biscuits).
Then there was the boy of around 10 who thought it best to teach me some Xhosa the intersting 'clicky' language where in every sentence the Locals would 'click' like a horse trotting...it was bloody hard to get perfect and the locals who I tested it out on always just looked at me in confusion...
As time went by I did become slightly concerned with the prospect of sleeping on a corner with the local strays...however the driver did show up...he was 65 and named Rufus...as he stumbled over to me it was impossible for me to feel anything but joy that he'd made it in one peace....
He showed me the back of the truck where there was two other locals practically sittting on vegitables, I was preparing myself for the worst but ended up siting in the passengers seat next to Rufus...
We drove for about 3 hours through rolling green hills where the sun was setting into the darkness and where the road stopped being a road and became something undescribable...
While bumping up and down like the crazed loonie I was feeling for having decided to stay all the way out here, Rufus brought up the conversation of being thirsty...he must of repeated the word thirsty about hundred times in the conversation...and then came out with...'yeah so when the liver gets thirsty it needs to phone your brain to tell it so'...imagine this if you will please...pitch black, 65 year old who probably shouldn't be driving on tremendsley bumpy road's talking about you liver making a call when it's thirsty..."?!
At one point we drove into a field and the 'road' stopped...rufus then somehow managed to rejoin the 'road' and we continued for another 10 minutes before yup... we came stuck in the 'road.'
Rufus was on his hands and knees doing everything he could, I tried to help and so did the locals who we'd been carrying...after Jacking the jeep up and placing stones around the wheels Rufus decided he'd need to fetch the other vehicle from the Bulungala lodge this was a 20 minute walk in pitch blackness but for a little torch which Rufus was way up in the front hogging...as you can imagine I slipped a just few times...and so did the local women who I hadn't realised had a baby strapped round her back fast asleep...how this could be through that journey I ll never know...

Filled with mixed expectations...we finally arrived at the lodge not before we met a wondering american who was apparently 'going home'...?! I was too tired to really take anything in and pretty much went straight to bed...

The next moring and rest of my 5 days staying there at the bulungala lodge were very memerable...After my first day on the village tour which included talking to chief of the village, which has a 60%-40% ownership of Bulungala, tasting the beer, which is really milky cider (If you can imagine such a thing) made from maize...and experiencing the general culture and traditions of the Xhosa people...I become ill from a chill when it stated to rain on the tour...this resulted in a crazed fever which took hold of me for 3 days...Africa's not the best place to have a fever let me tell you....

On my last day I caught a fish from the sea and said my fairwells to that heavenly place with a beautiful sunset to top it off...

The next day, I sat in the back of the shuttle with a different driver who was much faster...being flung about like a pair of Y-fronts in a washing machine...I managed to avoid concusion...and it was amoungst all this that I had my first 'Zen' moment, the scenery was just breathtaking with little villages and huts scattered all around me and I swear that time stopped even if for a second...as I gazed down to a river snaking it's was round a steep slope and there almost as if it was especially for my eyes only this 'postcard' image with an eagle soaring so elegantly above our heads...I think it was down to my fever mainly but my eyes started filling up and it will always be a moment I hope I remember for as long as I'm alive...

Anyway back to backpacking and yes your right I'll be on a moped buzzing around Goa, India tomorow...!

Love to all

ROb x

written by  willrob on December 13, 2009 from Ngqageni, South Africa
from the travel blog: Rob Williams 'a year in the making'
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