Tales From the Chicken Bus

Day 231

One of the things Jordana and I, and countless other travellers search the world for is a traditional, local and authentic cultural experience. Its not an easy thing to come across. We tried and somewhat succeeded in very remote amazonia Ecuador, but in the end I wasn’t sure if our presence helped or hindered the community. Here at Bulungula Lodge in the Xhosa village of Nqileni we may have found just about the perfect mix of tourism and local community. Its not just my observation either, the lodge is actually Fair Trade certified. The community actually owns 45% of the lodge and currently has an important roll managing the place. The goal is to one day soon have the lodge 100% run by the local community.

We sat down for our breakfast, 2 poached eggs, baked beans, 2 veggie sausage links and a huge piece of homemade bread. Veggie sausages! This place got better all the time. We had signed up for a day of walking with the village herbalist. He was to take us through the woods and show us plants used for medicine. Just after 10am we were led about half an hour away to the edge of some woods where we met the herbalist and his translator. He only speaks the local language, Xhosa. Have you ever Xhosa spoken? Its a language that is a fun to listen to and even more interesting to try and speak. Filled with clicking and unfamiliar sounds. For a example the letter “c” is pronounced by placing your tongue against the front of your teeth ans sucking. Try it. Or try saying Xhosa, the “x” is a click. Click-hosa. Fun eh? Right, so we start to walk into the woods with the herbalist and the translator. The translator is a soft spoken young lady with her face painted clay red, protection from the sun. We walked from tree to tree and he chopped some bark off or a few leaves then proceeded to explain the use of each. Some plants were for headaches others were love potions while others were for good business or plain old good luck. No matter the plant it seemed everything was to be boiled, mixed, and drunk 3 times daily. Quite a few people still get their medicine from the herbalist, although there is a medical clinic near by. Well near by for Canadian standards, here nearby means a 2 hour walk.

We finished the tour and were walking to the herbalists house when a woman emerged from her rondavel to greet us. She invited us in to her home, we weren’t sure if this was part of the tour or she was just curious about us. She sat us down and asked questions about what country we were from, if we were married, had kids and if we could grind maize well. She was just a friendly, curious lady who wanted to talk to the strange white folk passing through. No demands for money and no attempts at trying to sell us anything. We said goodbye, she wished us luck and we continued to the herbalists house.

We saw the collection of different medicines and then paid the herbalist 40 Rand each for the tour. Another great thing about the lodge, the tours are run by people from the village and the money goes directly to them. Unlike the majority of overpriced so called cultural tours we’ve seen in South Africa where the majority of money is staying with the well off white owner. We began to walk back to the lodge but first we stopped of at the village restaurant. This was an initiative of the lodge. A rondavel that was fitted with a couple of solar ovens where some women cook up some tasty food. We were given some rattan mats and took a seat on the grass outside. Who needs tables when you have a great view of the Indian Ocean, kids playing football on the far hillside and chickens walking about. I thought to myself how far this place feels from Cape Town in ever sense. We had squash filled crepes and then nutella filled crepes. It was good, so good the nutella crepe gave the nutella crepes in Paris some competition. We finally moved on and walked back along the wide sandy beach back to the lodge.

To save some money Jordana and I passed on the tasty dinner and made our own tasty veggie curry. After dinner we sat around with other travellers in the chilled out common room of Bulungula. Today was a great day, we saw first hand how the lodge was benefitting the community. People in the community who were working and benefitting due to our presence, all in a positive way. We never had any ask us for money, even when we snapped photos of old ladies and young children. Just hellos and great big smiles. That’s not to say all is perfect here, a large part of the community still lives in poverty. It is however fantastic to see how tourism can actually be a positive and not always a negative influence.

Day 230

Rain pelted against the window for most of the night, I wondered when this rain would finally end. We heard of flooding back down the coast towards Cape Town and road closures. So if there was a positive for us we were heading the opposite direction. As we waited for our 6:45am bus the rain had stopped and a nice breeze blew off the water. Today we were headed up the coast to Mthatha and eventually to the coast to reach Bulungula, a backpacker lodge located in a remote village.

A couple hours into the trip the sun came out for the first time in 4 days. We caught glimpse of the coast and the further away from Port Elizabeth the less developed and more “African” the region became. We entered the former Transkei, another twisted feature of apartheid. The South African government created this “country” in 1976 under their grand apartheid scheme. A puppet government was put in place, blacks who were either too young, too old or just deemed useless to South African industry were shipped here. The Transkei was meant to be a “black” country. In 1994 when Mandela was finally in power the Transkei was abolished and South Africa was one again. The result is that today Transkei is the poorest region, yet most African region in the country.

Things were definitely different here. We passed through bustling towns with market stalls set up on the roadsides. In the towns we’ve seen here to date the centre’s were always very sterile and European feeling. The countryside was dotted with rondavels, traditional round thatched roofs homes of the Xhosa people who inhabit the region. Just after 3pm we pulled into the Shell Ultra City service centre in Muthatha, a sort of makeshift bus terminal. We had organized a shuttle with Bulungula Lodge from here.

We were directed to the shuttle that was parked just on front of Steers, the South African version of McDonalds. A short man who looked much older than he probably was introduced himself to us. “Oookay, I’m Rufus. We will put bags on top”. He spoke slowly, calmly and was instantly likeable. I just wasn’t so sure he would be able to drive this Land Cruiser. From our bus was two Brits from London, John and Hannah they were also heading to Bulungula. A local man and 3 other travellers joined us in the tight fit of the truck. Our bags were secure on the roof and we were off.

“Oookay, I think….it’ll rain”, (points to sky) so I will cover the bags”. Rufus had pulled over and popped the back door open to inform us of his plan. We all just laughed, he was such a laid back guy. We also picked up two ladies. It was a very tight fit. Everything was going fine until about 2 hours into the drive. The road pretty much ended and we were now seriously off-roading, pretty much through muddy fields. The truck rocked and bounced and inside we were thrown in all directions. This was just about the roughest ride I’ve ever been on. Not counting the time Rob Rees decided to off road with his Jeep in the Simcoe County Forest. The funniest, and a bit worrisome part of the trip was Rufus’ driving skills. He just gave’r. Huge boulder in the way, Rufus floored it and bottomed out the truck more than once. We scraped over countless boulders and blew through streams. As the sun began to set we finally caught a glimpse of the lodge. Set on the bank of the Bulungula River at the mouth with the crashing waves of the Indian Ocean behind. It’s a beautiful place.

Finally we arrived and were warmly welcomed by the staff, the majority who live in the community right here. The entire lodge is eco friendly. Composting toilets, “rocket” showers using rain water and solar power. All the veggies they cook with are bought from the community. We had a fabulous dinner of daal and met some of the interesting folks at Bulungula. Jordana and I turned in early after a long travel day. Our room was a traditional rondavel, just like the ones the members of the community here lived in. Complete with thatch roof and dung floor, yep a poo floor. We had talked about coming to this place for awhile and now that we have arrived it all seems better than I thought. Finally we’ve arrived somewhere in South Africa where our experience won’t be a completely white one. A place where a traditional way of life is still practised. Its quite a contrast from white, gentrified, security obsessed South Africa. A contrast that’s summed up quite well by the change of the floor in our room. Carpet this morning, cow dung tonight, it certainly is a difficult country to understand.

Day 229 The main reason I wanted to spend 2 nights in Port Elizabeth or PE as its referred to locally, was to do a tour into the townships. There are tours into the townships in several other cities but ... [Continue reading this entry]

Day 228 Well I didn't have much to write about yesterday because it rained all day. We woke up today hoping for better weather but before I even crawled out of bed I knew it wasn't meant to be. ... [Continue reading this entry]

Day 227 Peering out our window we had a fabulous view of the valley and the mountains in the distance. It was a beautiful place. Too bad the weather wasn't. Just as we were walking out of our ... [Continue reading this entry]

Day 226 We waited for our bus out of Swellendam and down the coast to Nature's Valley. Nature's Valley, sounds like a tourist brochure named the town. Either that or those bars from back home grow on the trees. ... [Continue reading this entry]

Day 225 Jordana and I sat on the front veranda of the backpackers where we just finished our breakfast. Nobody was to be seen at 8am around here. We are waiting for our horseback trip with Stephanie, the owner ... [Continue reading this entry]

Day 224 According to our South Africa Roughguide, "the thing to do in Swellendam is to go horseback riding". Horseback riding did sound great but was full today with a large group so we decided on kayaking. We ... [Continue reading this entry]

Day 223 So here we are in Hermanus and we have no way out. Remember when I spoke of the difficulty of getting around by public buses here? Well Hermanus doesn't have one public bus that serves the town. ... [Continue reading this entry]

Day 222 Jordana and I crawled out of bed thinking we were going to catch a 7am bus. The only problem was we had no idea where the bus actually left from. We were about to learn that South ... [Continue reading this entry]