I've seen the rains in Africa

We are back in the land of technology just north of Durban in Umhlanga. We have had quite the adventure over the last two days! We left Port Elizabeth yesterday morning at 6am and did not end up having any problems on the road. We took a smaller highway that paralleled the major one so we avoided the giant sinkhole altogether. The place we were heading to is on the wild coast and very remote to say the least. The highway took us to Kei Mouth which is a tiny town on an inlet from the sea. From there we took a ferry across to the other side and followed a series of dirt roads for about a half hour until we arrived at Trennerys resort.

The Eastern Cape is much more rural than the Western Cape was, at least what we have seen. There is livestock everywhere - both on and off the roads. Check out the pictures below. You will see that most of the animals are looking at the camera. That is because I made sure to make the appropriate animal noises to them out of the car window, much to Willie's chagrin. I felt confident I could step on it in time to avoid any confrontations. The dirt roads were insane. Thank god we had our GPS and Fawkes leading the way. (Fawkes is what we named the bird icon that represents our car on the GPS. HP rulz! Hahaha)

Let's talk about this ferry for a second. You'll see in the picture below that it wasn't quite coast guard approved. Apparently batteries work here regardless of if they are submerged in river water. The engine was on a 270 degree mount so the captain spun the outboard around and reversed us out to the middle of the river, spun it back around and drove us in forward up the bank of the other side. We were the only car on it when we went but there were 4 on it for the trip back. Totally safe? Possibly not. Really awesome? Definitely!

I haven't mentioned yet that it started raining around 10am yesterday morning and still hasn't stopped. So now take the ferry, dirt roads and animals everywhere and combine it with the rain and you have an idea of what we have been doing. Anyways, we got to the resort around 1230pm yesterday and it was a cluster of little chalets set among dense foliage just next to the ocean. When we checked in we asked about any trails or paths on the beach. The women told us there was a shipwreck about 4km down that was very cool. Then she mentioned offhand to watch out for the tide, handed us our room key and sent us on our merry way. Even though it was raining, I really wanted to walk to the beach because it is mostly deserted for miles. We started walking to the shipwreck only to find that you cross several inlets. Ones that clearly fill up during high tide and would definitely strand you for HOURS if you weren't careful. Luckily we had checked and high tide was only 2 hours away so we knew to turn around. It seems like the lady might have given a sterner warning but they seem to let natural selection work its process down here more than they do elsewhere. Nevertheless, the beach was stunning!

The rain just didn't let up though so we headed back to our room and took a nap since there was no tv or Internet. We had a nice dinner there, I beat Willie at darts and we enjoyed another sleep with the ocean in the background.

Today was the longest drive of all of them. We left around 830 from Trennerys, back down 30 minutes of dirt roads to the highway and then spent about 8 hours making our way to Durban. The whole way is rural with no cities or '1st world' settlements. Tons of shacks and livestock and farms. The highway runs right through a bunch of little towns all of which have people selling goods on the side of the road and general chaos. A few nervous moments here and there but mostly just very interesting to see. Willie wanted to buy a chicken but we decided against it.

Tonight is our last night of traveling. We have an easy 3 hour drive to our final hotel - Zulu Nyala - where we will stay for the next 6 nights. We are a little road weary and are looking forward to staying in one place for a while. At this point we have driven about 1300 miles around the coast. It has been incredible! We are greatly looking forward to seeing the safari animals now though! The landscape has gotten less foresty and considerably warmer as we head north. Hopefully the rain will stop tomorrow.

I have a list of hilarious observations that I am going to include in an entry tomorrow. For now I am going to enjoy a hot water shower, some dinner and sleeping in tomorrow morning!

Animal count for the last two days:
Cows
Bulls
Sheep
Donkeys
Monkeys
Pigs
Horses
Dogs (one was standing on a roof)
2 cats
Chickens and roosters
Goats
Ostriches