Of course every pseudo-tragic story must begin with a sunlit walk in the park or stroll in the bush, as the case here may be. The original plan was to spend Friday and Saturday camping in Mboyje (spelling there is questionable) and to spend the next two days hanging out with host families in Gwexlintaba (spelling there is also questionable) attempting to merge our limited Zulu skills with their language that combines Zulu, Xhosa, and Afrikaans.
The first day and a half worked out swimmingly. Saint Valentine (or perhaps just Zed, our program director) blessed us with a lovely six hour hike. Although it wasn’t too taxing, it was still quite impressive that our guide was able to navigate the entire thing in a pair of Birkenstocks.
After about an hour and a half we made our way to this beautiful outcrop where we snacked on some cheese sandwiches before heading over to Waterfall Bluff. This was a beautiful sight to behold despite the slightly grey day. It is one of only 5 or 6 (depending on your source) waterfalls that feeds directly into the ocean and the only one (sources all agree here) of this kind in Africa.
We took our lunch (one of the best PB&J sandwiches I’ve had in recent memory) at a beautiful pool created as this waterfall wanders down to the ocean. We even took a dip while we were there that cooled us off for the rest of the hike.
We found out on our way back that most of the people passing us on the trail were going to look for a girl that had been collecting mussels and had been swept away by the strong tides in the cove.
That night and into the morning, our lovely hiking weather turned into not-possible-to-access-village-with-its-dirt-roads-and-bolders-on-said-dirt-roads weather. Needless to say, we checked into the nearest Backpackers and tucked in for a quiet night. We thought. (Can you hear the suspenseful music now?) Round about 11 at night when we were all tucked into bed (did I mention we’re used to going to bed at 9…this was a crazy night) the first man went down. From there, about every half an hour another person mad a mad dash to the bathroom to relieve themselves from one or both ends. (I'm in a health program so you get to read this stuff.) I got off with just one round of vomiting, but was still in our make-shift infirmary (aka the couches) all night.
The next day, we discovered that about half of us were sick, so we stayed behind for another night in the hostel while the others went to the village. While we were bummed to stay behind, we were at least glad that we weren't like the unlucky ones that got sick when they went to the village. The hostel nursed us back to health (although the bartender couldn't seem to get it through his head that we weren't hung over and that no hangover could possibly incapacitate us like that) and we were good to head back to home sweet Cato yesterday! I think Mama was so happy to see me she forgot to be disappointed that I could only eat 1/2 a spoon.
Lessons learned: don't drink the water when it's raining.
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