Coffee shack
Trip Start
Unknown
1
31
41
Trip End
Ongoing
Coffee Bay, Eastern Cape, South Africa
Thursday, March 31, 2011
The Coffee Shack offered many activities. The first one we took part in was a trek to 'Hole in The Wall' which was a remarkable piece of rock thats had ahuge hole eroded through it after a millennia of punding waves. The trek was about 10k along the stunning coastline and over green hills.... it was hard work at times but we thought if we'd done the Inca Trial this was nothing.... when we got to the hole in the wall we had a campfire where the guides cooked cheese and onion toasties on the fire... You are able to swim to the hole in the rock and jump of the rocks at the side into the hole... It was not that scary jumping off but you had to time the tide and literally jump into the hole... the swim back was the hardest part!!
The coffee shack did a lot for the locals and sponsered three children a year to go to school. They tried to pick the children from the poorest families and helped them get on the right track and going to school. They also encouraged the villagers to help out at the shack and one of the guys who worked there 'Joseph' did most of the treks. Every Friday Joseph took the guests from the hostel to his village which was about a 10 minute walk from the shack..... it only cost about R45 per person... in the village you were met by lots of children who held your hand and skipped around you singing... Joseph told us about his village and how the women (mammas) stay at home looking after the children and cooking the food etc and the men go out to work... we ate pap which is a bean mixture which was really tasty and drank homemade beer made from sweetcorn!! The men have to squat down whilst drinking it.... after a while we went into one of the huts and the mammas did I traditional dance and sang for us... it was amazing to hear and see and Joseph said this is done all the time and has been done for many many years!! In the end everybody was up dancing.... at the end of the night ehe head mamma thanked us for coming to the village and asked every single person their name and where we come from which was translated by Joseph.. Their language is so difficult to speak as they use tongue clicks and unusual sounds that our own tongue cannot make but it is nice to listen to and they sing so nice...
