Transkei Explo Adventure no 1

So myself and Karen went on the "Transkei 5 day hike" along the wild coast of South Africa, hosted by Tuks Explo.  The 5-day hike started at the Wild-coast Sun on Tuesday 4 October 2011.  The first day was amazing.  Soon after we started I admitted to myself that my pack was a bit on the heavy side, but I carried it with pride.  After 3 (1 wet…) river crossings and only about 4 hours of hiking we reached our first nights sleeping place with fresh water, compliments of a nearby village!  We pitched our tents, had some coffee and prepared some food.  I was not long before a proper rainstorm hit us, without warning.  Everybody were in their tents in a flash and we spent the rest of the night in the safety of our tents.  We survived the night without getting wet!

The next morning we went through the drill of packing up camp and re-packing our backpacks. We started hiking @ about 09:00.  Little did we know how far we would have to go.  We soon figured out that we needed to cover 18km to the next campsite.  18km of walking on a soft beach with a heavy pack.  I was already wearing my knee guard because I know my knee does have a weak spot  and my friend Reinard recommended that I wear one.  I son realized I had a problem… My knee started acting up… We were looking forward to lunch…

After lunch I was in such pain, a familiar pain, the same type of pain I felt when I did the fish river canyon a year ago, a pain that resulted in my knee being so tightly strapped that I could not bend it for the last 3 days of the hike.  I knew what was coming so I discussed the option with Karen.  We soon came to the conclusion that we had one of two options:  Turn around and hike back for 2 days or bail out asap.  we discussed this with our tour guide and he suggested that we catch a taxi out at the next village, about 4 km away.  We agreed and got cracking at the last 4 km's.  The crew ended up carrying ALL my gear even though I fought hard to keep my full kit on my back…  Even without weight on my back I was struggling.

Since the taxi from the village only went to town early in the morning, our guide, Bongani, organized us a room to stay in in a village called Mtentu.  And that's where our ways parted.  The rest of the group continued on their way, our hike was over.  We retired to a small shack where we could relax and sleep. We soon decided to stay another day and relax, we were, after all, on holiday…

The next day was spent sleeping late, reading, eating… sleeping, some more reading and eating.  We had our own village-dog and a mouse that visited at night. At first we thought it was a rat the size of a small horse, but later saw the little guy looking for food for his kids…

Anyhow, this morning we had to catch the taxi from Mtentu back to the wild coast sun.  We met the local Taxi-business-owner, Thuleka Sonjica, who was our private guide on the way back the wild coast sun.  What a guy.  he owned 3 taxi's and drives one of them to town every day, transporting the people in his village to town!

He dropped us at the N2 where we got a taxi for the remaining 20 odd km's back to the wild coast sun.

What an adventure with an very adventurous Karen!

Pictures to follow, the internet speed here is really really bad....