Hay ho everyone so its been a while since i last wrote on here, i hope your all ok and enjoying england :) im trying to carry on from where i left off. so we left starling backpackers in Plett bay and helen drove to Port elizabeth (PE) on the way we saw monkeys in the road which was un-believable, it took us about 3hrs to drive there and when we arrived in PE it was a dive and our gut reacction was we hated it. we were due to have 3nts here but we opted for 1. the manageress was really rude and not helpful plus the area was dodgy. the only good things was our room was lovely and they had a boxer dog called tyson!
so we decided to move straight on to coffee bay which we were told 'Its lovely' so we had to go. on the way on the baz bus we drove through some very very poor places we drove past Nelson Mandelas old shanti town and his new house which is massive. the funny thing is that his house is right opposite his old shanti town which i thought was a bit of a piss take! for those poor people. we arrived at a place called Mtatha which is also very poor. we then had to get a shuttle ( alittle mini bus ) to coffee bay. this place is so out of the way and the road consisted of millions of pot holes, cows in the middle of the road and dead horses, i suppose this is real Africa. the shuttle took two hours and we were so glad to arrive. our hostel was ok but not great and it was full of druggies, piss heads and all the locals outsode trying to flogg you drugs or beaded necklaces. the beach there is lovely though and that also has donkeys, cows on it, un-believable!! coffee bay was so hot, about 35 degress and pretty much the same at night. our hostel was full of animals and even had a resident wolf not a husky, and a cat with a hole in his head :) one morning helen went for a run on the beach while i sat there taking in the view, then 3 kids came up to me danced and sang for me then asked me for 10 rand! then they asked to use my camera to take a picture, the cheek of it. also at coffee bay we had a village tour with a guide called Ghana. the village is set on the hills overlooking the sea but their houses are little round mud huts with thatched roofs. it does make you realise how lucky you are. whilst walking i asked Ghana, what would happen if you got bitten by a snake he replied. ' you would die' because your so far away from any hospitals, so helen was chuft! one of the nights a local lad asked us to help him with his homework, it was a map of southern africa, which he thiught was a world map.
so we had three days here then we moved onto warner beach durban, coffee bay was not great but it was an eye opener.
warner beach is by far the best place so far our hostel is superb and so close to the beach. we went to the beach and we body boarded but helen was scared of sharks! i suppose thats my fault talking about them all the time. but she did come in after some persuasion, it was really good fun and the weather was great. we also met a lady from belgium who was nice and helen went diving with her and i went along for snorkelling, the boat ride was crazt we were in 3 mtr swells travelling fast on a dingy and all we had to hold onto was a rope, we were all so close to falling off!! helen said she enjoyed her dive which was good but i didnt get a chance to snorkel as visibility wasnt great and it was too choppy, so i was gutted and i felt like a right muppet being the only person on the boat whilst everyone was diving :( but i am now de-termined to do my PADI.
we decided to rent a car out again as we are a bit out of the way here, this time we got a great little car with air-con only for 56 quid for 2 days. i drove us to a place called U SHAKA which is a massive aquarium with its own water park and with its own private beach with a shopping mall, it was great and we were like little kids racing each other on the slides.
today we/i drove to UMHLANGA to go to the biggest shopping mall in the southern hemisphere. it was massive so big its got its own 25m climbing wall, a wave machine park for those who surf a skate park and a race track. it puts all of ours to shame and you could easily spend a full day there. we tried to find Mike kitchen sue but we couldnt so i was gutted but we did get photos of the beverly hills hotel and breakers hotel. this really was a lovely place. on the way back it baged it down really bad and we saw 6 serious car accidents with people hanging out of cars and lying on the side of the road it was like a movie! but they dont slow down when it rains and the roads cant handle it.
tommorrow we go to durban for 1 nt then we move onto swaziland, but to be honest we both want to get to OZ to start earning some money now. we have tried to upload photos every was possible but it takes too long so when we get to Oz we will send discs home so you can all see them. we will try and contact you all soon but we expect Swaziland to be really behind on the times,
love to you all Ben & Helen xxxxxx