I ♥ Cintsa Because ...

I ♥ Cintsa

Hi, I’m Charlene Brown from Crawford's Beach Lodge and Cabins in Cintsa on the Wild Coast.
Cintsa IS BEST KNOWN FORits lovely clean beaches and untouched nature.

GET YOUR PICTURE TAKEN AT any one of the many small and some­times big tide pools along the long beach.

THE BEST relax­a­tion PICTURES CAN BE TAKEN ON our lawn in front of the deluxe suites hanging around in a hammock.

OTHER HAPPY SNAPS can be taken at Inkwenkwezi Private Game Reserve not even 10 minutes away with hand raised chee­tahs, and well behaved ele­phants. Continued

Kei Fever

Coffee Bay

The anti­cip­a­tion of a new des­tin­a­tion punc­tu­ated the air with laughter. None of us had been to the Wild Coast before and our minds con­jured images stolen from budget travel guides and well-thumbed back­packer manu­als. Still in Hogsback, in the midst of a bit­terly cold winter, we shared stor­ies gleaned from oth­ers, of the abund­ance of oysters and warm waters for night swim­ming, sun-kissed bod­ies, per­fect surf and end­less sum­mers. We exhausted the cock­tail menu that night, already pre­par­ing for the next chapter of our already poetic getaway.

Morning finally broke and we bundled ourselves into our cars and headed towards Cintsa, in the Transkei. Leaving everything we knew behind, the land­scape began to change rap­idly, giv­ing way to rolling green and golden hills and cows roam­ing freely in the roads. Completely un-littered with ugly build­ings and struc­tures, the open plains were only peppered with clay huts and rural scenes. My eyes drank in the wild land­scapes, like I’d dis­covered a new land ... Continued

So much to do in Mbotyi on the Wild Coast

Mbotyi, Wild Coast

Whether you’re look­ing for an adven­tur­ous hol­i­day or just a peace­ful break from every­day life, Mbotyi River Lodge can do both. In the Eastern Cape on the Wild Coast, the lodge is 26 km from Lusikisiki, on the Mbotyi river mouth. Snuggled between the undu­lat­ing hills of Pondoland, sur­roun­ded by flour­ish­ing indi­gen­ous forestry, this pic­tur­esque val­ley is the ideal loc­a­tion for any­one look­ing to exper­i­ence South Africa’s true beauty.

This pop­u­lar fam­ily resort, in the midst of Pondoland, is renowned for its friendly Pondo people, whose intriguing cul­ture has cap­tured the hearts of many and ensures their return time and time again. Be sure to exper­i­ence the true cul­ture of the Pondo people and take a walk in the vil­lage with a local guide. If you’re feel­ing adven­tur­ous visit a san­goma or have a drink at a she­been ... Continued

Wash day in the Transkei (photographs)

In the lush hills of the Transkei, these women sway to an African rhythm in a burst of col­our as they return from a day at the stream where they share stor­ies and song mak­ing the chore of laun­dry more pleas­ur­able as well as pleas­ing to the eye of the onlooker. The brightly dressed women leave the river, bal­an­cing wash bas­kets on their heads in the tra­di­tional man­ner. Big smiles belie the dif­fi­culty of accom­plish­ing this fre­quent errand and con­trib­ute to the wel­com­ing nature of the Xhosa home­lands ... Continued

It's a 'darling' of a town, is Darling

Darling ...

There is much to attract one to Darling. It's a small town for one, it's close to Cape Town (not even an hour's drive), has its own wine route, and is the closest of the West Coast wine dis­tricts to Cape Town; dur­ing the flower sea­son it hosts the Darling Wildflower Show whilst the Tienie Versfeld Reserve on its peri­met­ers is a car­pet of blooms, and Evita Bezuidenhout (Tannie Evita to you, darling) has ensconced her­self here at the station.

It helped that we chose to visit Darling when the rest of Cape Town had its eyes glued to the Argus, long before the flower sea­son. There was barely any­one in town. Despite this, we had the time of our lives, dis­covered a local gem for Sunday lunch, and got to chat to the loc­als ... Continued

Give a Soccer Ball ...

Give a Soccer Ball ...

Now before you skim right past this, we’re not ask­ing for a lot … just a soc­cer ball or two for the young­sters in the Transkei. That’s a R45 dona­tion to put a smile onto the face of a young soccer-wannabe ...

We’ve been fol­low­ing Ruan’s epic jour­ney across South Africa and this week he’s in the Transkei on the Wild Coast of the Eastern Cape. Yesterday he came across a group of boys play­ing soc­cer in the vil­lage of Lusikisiki and star­ted talk­ing with one of the boys who told him about his dreams of being a soc­cer player. These kids don't have real balls to play with, so ... they make their own soc­cer balls from melted plastic. These "balls" are obvi­ously not really round, you can’t fill them with air or even really kick them because they are filled with plastic. Nonetheless, they play enthu­si­ast­ic­ally with these balls and con­tinue to dream ... dreams of grow­ing up to play the beau­ti­ful game for their beau­ti­ful Country! Continued

Wild Coast Sunset (photograph)

This fab­ulous pho­to­graph of  a Wild Coast Sunset taken last night in Coffee Bay was sent to us by a friend who is cur­rently on a short break, "surf­ing the wild coast". The vil­lage of Coffee Bay, just 8 km down the road from the Hole-in-the-wall, is real beach­comber coun­try with rus­tic lodges and bars, gor­geous swim­ming beaches, excel­lent fish­ing and breath­tak­ing hikes. Coffee Bay is the only coastal resort, other than Port St Johns, to sport a tarred road to its door from the N2. The sur­round­ing coun­tryside is rugged with high cliffs and peppered with dis­tinct­ive round, thatched, tra­di­tional huts made largely from car tyres and col­oured bottles ... Continued

The Wonderful Wild Coast

The Wild Coast

What most people don’t real­ise about the Wild Coast is that it only spreads across 300 kilo­met­ers of coast­line between Port Edward and Port Elizabeth. You don’t have to be a cham­pion rock climber to have a great time here; take time to see things at a laid-back pace, you won’t be bored for a moment. That being said, the Wild Coast is not the place to go if you want to be indoors because out­doors is where everything is happening.

The best way to exper­i­ence as much as you can pack into your time on the Wild Coast is to pick your base and work your way out­wards from there. From my point of the view, the place to dig your­self in is at Coffee Bay or slightly fur­ther north at Port St John. From Coffee Bay or Port St John you fan out and decide which of the seven nature reserves you want to visit, depend­ing on how much driv­ing you want to do. Continued

The Transkei

Wild Coast

When driv­ing towards the Transkei, par­tic­u­larly between East London and the Kei River cross­ing, it almost seems as if you are enter­ing another coun­try. This, you can tell, is wild, untamed coun­try. Whereas en route to Transkei you will travel through towns and cit­ies much like any other in South Africa, when you get there these bas­tions of civil­iz­a­tion are few and far between, with miles and miles of lush, unspoilt green fields and count­less aloes lin­ing the hills and val­leys of this beau­ti­ful area instead.

Having been an inde­pend­ent home­land, the tra­di­tional Xhosa strong­hold for many years the Transkei retains a sense of dif­fer­ence and oth­er­ness, des­pite its rein­teg­ra­tion into South Africa. Still dot­ted here and there with tra­di­tional Xhosa ron­davel kraals perched pre­cari­ously on the slopes of the per­petu­ally misty moun­tains and herds­man still to be seen watch­ing the herds of cattle that sym­bol­ize wealth here, the Transkei can seem like a land lost in time. Continued