AWAY WITH THE FAIRIES TO MANTIS AND MOON!

No - I have not completely lost my mind, the title is in fact the names of two of the hostels I have stayed at over the past week. I am currently at Mantis and Moon, which is on the Wild Coast section of South Africa about 100km outside of Durban.

I started this little jaunt with an overnight bus trip from Cape Town to East London. It qualifies as one of the more interesting bus trips I have ever taken. My first goal upon boarding the bus was to look for the skiniest person on board to sit next to (everyone seemed to be HUGE, OK, the women were huge). After I narrowed down the skinny part, my next qualifier was a person who was not carrying a bag, box, bucket or container of any sort that had fried fish, chicken and chips. Let me tell you, this was not an easy feet. The bus could have been a mobile Kentucky Fried Chicken. I think I was the only person (and the woman next to me) that was not carrying a grease oozing bag. Guess I didn't realize that this was the required meal for the trip and little old me only brought bread, cheese and olive tapenade.

The lady next to me and I were the only two white people on the bus, which I wasn't really suprised about. I had hoped to chat with one of the more African women and get a little more insight to the culture and history here but they either A. were HUGE and already smashing in their bloke against the window (why is it that the men are always small and the women boardering on hippodum?) or B. carrying a greasy bag of fried chicken or fried fish. She was quite pleasant and making the journey up to her mother's house for the holidays. We settled in for what we thought would be a fairly quiet journey. I pulled out the neck pillow, eye mask and ear plugs and settled in for a restless night of sleep hopeful that I would at at least get a little rest. So looking like a right drooler (british term for idiot) I scrunched myself down in the seat and assumed a position that would not completely cut off all the circulation in my lower extremities.

However, In all the excitement for the holidays, a couple of blokes decided to celebrate their way through the night. Basically that meant that they drank and drank and ate and well, talked and talked and talked and talked and talked - you get the idea. It even made it through my trusty ear plugs. They also decided at about 11:00 that a movie might be in order. The sound didn't quite work and every time we hit a bump, the sound system cut out and changed and I couldn't figure out if it was people talking on the bus or actually was the movie, or just the loud guys three seats up. Half sleep haze is quite an odd thing and really my mind wandered all sorts of directions. So, finally at 6:30 am when we arrived at a gas station for the morning break, I gave up on the sleep thing. The guy was still talking and the woman next to me was LIVID and could not believe it was so bad. She had tried during the night to quiet them down but that just made it worse and he got louder. I belive he did take a nap around 10:00am for an hour or so but that was about it. So needless to say, it was not a restful night but also apparently not the norm for the journey.

Upon arrival, I hopped onto another shuttle and headed up to Away With the Fairies, a hostel up in Hogsback. The place was a childhood vacation spot for JRR Tolkein and I can see where he got all the ideas for the forest lands of his book. It was set up on a cliff overlooking the valley and the three mountains called, funnily enough, Hogsback 1, Hogsback 2 and Hogsback 3. The view were incredible when the mist was not blowing around the bungalows. Thought I might even bump into a fairy or two. I cannot describe how magical the place was and how mystic. We had a group meal in the cozy bar, played cards and prepared for our hikes the next day. The big draw here, besides the mountains, is the number of water falls around the area. It is covered in them. It had rained a bit the night before so the paths were muddy but that didn't stop us from tromping through and climbing up amongst the roots and rocks to reach the beautiful cascades of water coming down the cliffs and ledges. Had planned to go for a swim in one of the many rock pools but when Will came out with little worms on him, I decided that might not be such a good idea. It had been clear most of the day but by the time we climbed back out of the valley and to the top, the mist had blown back in and the entire town - wow, I made it sound substantial and I should have said, little hobbit-like village - was covered in mist. It was so thick that we couldn't make out the cows in the road until we were about 10 feet from them. Really gave you a feeling of isolation - but in a good way. Had another fun night of cards, beers and good conversation and prepared to head back down the hill to the coast again.

Back at the beach, I settled in for the Xmas celebrations at Buccaneers Hostel in Cintsa. I had already met a few of the people there along the road so had a good base of friends to celebrate with and then I met Anne, a sweet German girl, who also joined in. The hostel had a huge celebration planned with hors d'eouvres and cocktails (blue and green ones with a vodka base and that tasted a bit like toothpaste) overlooking the ocean follwed by roast chicken, lamb and ham with all of the trimmings. Every table had several bottles of champagne, party crowns and christmas crackers. There were over 90 people at the celebration with about 10 per table. My table consisted of a fellow american, germans, dutch, a south african, swissies and a belgian guy. We drank mightily of the champagne, stole it from other tables, and pulled more christmas crackers than even kids would know what to do with. It really was a grand time. After, everyone retired to the bar for more festivities and dancing late into the night. Christmas day was a bit of a recovery day for all but started off nicely with a champagne and orange juice (tang like stuff in this case) breakfast down by the pool. Many people picked right back up from the night before and continued to drink throughout the day but us more modest folk, enjoyed the mimosa's and hung out by the pool reading books for most of the day. In the afternoon, we did muster enough energy to go take a walk on the beach, which was fantastic. Got caught in a bit of a rain shower while we were out but the weather was warm and we didn't mind too much.

By the time we made it back to the pool for the evening braai (BBQ) , a bunch of drunk guys had taken over the pool and were playing naked beer and volley ball. We decided that they were the afternoon's free activity (the hostel had a free activity each night - the night before was wine and volleyball) and settled in to laugh a bit at them, and well, with them. They carried this on through the night, which was not suprising, and finished in the bar doing shots called Springboks, with their pants around their ankles.

The idea behind the Springbok shot (Amarula and peppermint schnapps) that sprinboks have white asses so, if doing the shot, one must bare their ass crack. Clearly the enthusiasm from these gentlemen was quite high as the pants seem to have made it a little lower than the ass crack. It did make for quite a laugh watching them with their hands held to their heads imitating antlers, looking left and right for lions, then jumping forward to the bar and leaning over to pick up the shots with their mouths (springboks have no hands). All in all, a very amusing Christmas!

On boxing day, Will (a Canadian I had met) made it back down from Away with the Fairies and met up with Payson (the american - also met at Away with the Fairies) and me. From there we hopped into Payson's car and headed down the coast to Mantis and Moon for a couple nights. Payson was heading my way to go diving and I told him about the place I was planning on staying and he decided it was a better bet than his original choice. Will also heard about it and was going to go with Payson as well so we all ended up at Mantis and Moon for a couple of night for relaxing and also diving. The place is fantatistic. It is nestled back in a rain forest with little wooden paths throughout and banana leaves the size of beach towels. There is a rock pool, a jacuzzi and a very cool bar/sitting area. Half of the bungalows are up in treehouses. Tomorrow we will go diving and hopefully run into a few sharks!

Well, I think I am exhausted after all that! Time to go and find the evening meal at the local Spar (we are going to give cooking a try!)