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Well we arrived in a place called Umtata thinking our hostel was just a short excursion away, no really true! It ended up we had to travel 100km as thats how far this place is from the main road. Took just over an hour in a bus where if I was sitting facing forward my knees would have been through the seat in front! It was ok and got talking to plenty of people in the bus anyway. We finally arrived after encounter a few of the Transval big five (the five things most likely to hit your car) Chicken, Goats, Cows, Donkeys and Geese (No animals were harmed at least physically). We were shown to our room by the recpetionist after we had a free drink at the bar, on our way we crossed a river that has no bridge and then proceeded to stumble up a very steep hill where we arrived at the dorm. All the accomodation across the river was in straw huts like the native Xhosa peoples home in the surrounding area. We settled in and then crossed the river again to put our names down for dinner and to go on the excursion the next day which was a cliff walk. After dinner we settled into have a few drinks at the bar (everything you spend in the place goes on your tab and you pay when you leave a v dangerous concpet). Very quickly we found out this was a bar with a few rules the most important being if you drink with your right hand and someone calls Buffalo you have to down your drink got caught twice on the first night (it's because im Irish couldn't be happy for a wee paddy just to sit and sip his drink oh no you hating South Africans just couldn't wait to get me (bbc; dry your eyes) lol). Well the next morning came and we all prepared ourselves for the cliff walk, we were all bundled onto a truck and driven off about 20min away. On the way the guides told us what we would be doing, including having a shower, jacuzzi, doing a cliff jump into the sea and doing a rock jump into the river. So off we started walking around the cliffs some big drops to look down at and walking on round we found that some of these big drops were easier to fall down than you like to imagine. At one point you had to walk of a wet mud ledge about a foot in depth across a 2 metres gap, needless to say I was holding onto the grass very tightly. After this our guide reassured us no one had ever died on this tour when he was doing it, just seriously injured themselves slipping on rocks! lol As we walked round the rock each new cliff brought a new bay you can see in some of the photos I took. We finally arrived at our lunch stop point however we weren't having it just yet. One of the guides stayed to make it while the other took us round more of the cliffs to have a shower, jacuzzi and the cliff jump. First we had to wade across the river blocking the way which went up to waist height and then walk on round the rocks until we arrived at some rocks that lead to the sea and he asked who was going for a shower me being me I went first, the shower was a rockey outcrop that when a wave hit it the spray shot up in the air and it was like a cold shower, however the waves were powerful enough to sweep you away either into the sea or against the cliff wall beind so when a big wave came in you had to hold onto anything you could find but it was a lot of fun, then we were supposed to do the cliff jump however the waves were to big to get access to the jumping point without risking our lives. So he took us to the jacuzzi which I mistakenly thought would be a hot spring or something, instead it was a small cold circular pool so didn't last long there! Then we went back for lunch and rested for the big river jump, I was all up for it until I was standing beside it! 9m is a long way down, so the guide did it first to show it was ok then the crazy German Max did it so I really did have to go then, Rachel has the pictures of me doing it the second time cause it was a lot of fun and then just swam about the river for a bit. That night the guide came back to the hostel with us and some of the other staff and our guide invited us out to the local bar Catherine decided to go to sleep so Rachel and I decided to go out. It was an experience, the bar consisted of 6 long school like benches and a wall of beverages behind a metal cage but at 65p for 750ml of beer nobody complained. Later on we were invited to try some of the local produce, being milk beer, chicken feet and chicken heads! I tried 1 of three which was the milk beer (not a pleasant experience) while Rachel tried 2 out of 3 she had the milk beer and wait for it chicken feet (I took a photo of it it was very amusing) but we all had a good laugh before heading back for dinner. Then everyone gathered for the pool competition which I managed to come second but only just I might add. Then had some drinks with the guys on the tour and of course our crazy German friend Max. The next day we had to ship out as we had a limited amount of time left although we really did hate leaving this place and would have loved to stay much longer at the Coffee Shack.
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