Wild Coast Trip!

This blog is super behind so forgive me, but the past couple months have been crazy busy getting everything ready for the new year! Busy is good, definitely makes the time fly! I’ll start with talking about my very first Peace Corps vacation!

At the end of September me, Kristen, Kathleen, Allie, Melinda, and two of Melinda’s friends, Mel and Kayleen, traveled to the wild coast, a gorgeous coastal region in the eastern cape of South Africa. I started by taking an overnight bus from Pretoria to Durban which took about 9 hours, and then arrived at about 5 AM in Durban! I was couch surfing that night with a guy named Will. For those of you who do not know what Couch Surfing is, it is a social network where people from all over the world can stay with others for free. It is a highly reputable system where people communicate online and plan visits to each other. I did it in South America and in Southeast Asia when I was there, so I figured why not try South Africa too? The experience was great. Will lives with about 6 other roommates and we all had a big barbeque and watched scary movies in their living room once the other girls arrived. Will was so accommodating to us and we had an amazing time getting to know them!

The next morning we set off to catch a taxi to Port St. Johns, where we would begin our hike through the wild coast! We stayed the night at a local hostel which was absolutely gorgeous! It overlooked the ocean and had an amazing outdoor bar and restaurant, so we enjoyed some beers and delicious food and got some sleep and showers in before the next morning when our guide would come pick us up to start the trek! We took the hike with another South African family and a German tourist named Sebastian who was traveling the world after graduating University. The total hike was about 60 kilometers. Each day, we would end up with a different host family along the way who would serve us homemade bread, tea, and coffee, and we would have some chill time to take a bath or rest until they cooked us a traditional South African meal for dinner like pumpkin, chicken, beans and corn meal, etc. Needless to say our stomachs were always full!

The views on the trip were gorgeous, and it was so nice to have quality time with this group of girls. We live very far apart and catching up with them and joking around was so good for my soul. I loved being with them. Beautiful scenery, delicious food, and amazing friends, what more could I ask for in my first vacation? It was amazing!

We ended the hike in Coffee Bay, and we stayed there for about 5 days just relaxing, walking on the beach, eating junk food, and drinking. I cannot stress enough how important it is to take vacations in Peace Corps. Sometimes you need to turn your brain off and focus on nothing but resting and spending time with people that make you happy. I fully support vacation time in the states, and this was just the same. So needed and so nice to not think about work and the difficulties of service, and just laugh and be for 10 days! The vacation ended early October, and it felt like it went by in two seconds. I absolutely loved it and cannot wait until the next time I get to travel with these lovely girls!

Below are photos of our trip, the group we couch surfed with, and gorgeous sites we saw. Enjoy!