Bulungula, South Africa

I fall asleep smiling. It’s too cliché so I’m pained to say, we are in a round hut made with mud and cow dung after a terrifying, white-knuckle, three-hour drive on a dirt road. But let me back up.

We departed Plett and had our first encounter with an impassible dirt road (more of these to come we would discover). The river crossing the road was two feet deep and there was no way our poor Nissan sedan could cross. It was a long day of driving and we felt defeated as we backtracked.

Our luck shifted as we arrived at Addo Elephant National Park, a self-drive safari. Elephants came so close to our car, if we were brave enough, we could have reached out an arm to touch them. Instead, we held our breath, making no sudden moves as the family passed around our rental car. I’ll let the pictures do the talking on this one. We completed the night at a private game reserve drinking wine and beer around the evening fireside boma (cue: Chris Smutny look of surprise that Ken would be drinking beer). For Ken it was a trip highlight – “now we’re really traveling.”

We drove up a 10km dirt road to a Xhosa village in the hills above Hogsback. We were surprised to realize that for no apparent reason we became obsessed with this place. It’s the cheap South African wine, the mountain view (which we barely made it up), the lack of WIFI, the fresh bread, the firewood carried on our heads, and the chaos of local boys speaking Xhosa of which we understood nothing. Even speaking different languages Everett and the boys bonded over dancing, soccer, and taking funny videos on his phone. Leaving the village, Ken drove us off the road into the ditch. We had to push the car among the profanities. His aggressive Los Angeles driving techniques make him well suited for the cities, but Hillary will be doing the off-roading in the future (The cliff!! The cliff!!). Everett bouncing around in the backseat like a rag doll named the rental car “Simba.”

Beware of Ditch. Depth is deeper than it appears...

Back into the city of Mthatha we headed straight for the hot showers at our hotel. Ken found us a fancy restaurant (Carryn-approved) and a huge mall with our favorite store “Game,” which is basically a Wal-Mart but with nostalgic significance.

For three hours and 80km we followed a hand-written map to our next Xhosa village. Directions: drive through a small stream, at the blue school turn right at the fork in the road, then left, left, right, left. At the peach houses and yellow fence post take a right on the new-ish road (sidenote: it is NOT new-ish). Drive down the steepest road you have ever seen and pray. Arrive at the parking lot as thunder rolls and lightning begins to strike. Walk 500m uphill through the woods and you will find the ocean-front village just as the rain begins to fall.Read more