Day 229: Durban to East London

Road-trip 2013! Andrew and I picked up our car early in the morning and headed down through the Transkei to East London where we planned to stay one night with yet another couchsurfer host to help break up our drive down to Cape Town.

We knew it would be a bit more expensive, but we were in desperate need of some freedom. Driving again (I haven’t had a car since… college?) was a little challenging. Not only has it been at least 5 years since I’ve driven a car, but shifting gears with my left hand and driving on the left side of the road, in pouring rain were not factors we considered.

Furthermore, one of the tires was low. Andrew pointed this out to the rental company right away. They assured us it was just because it had been sitting in the parking lot for awhile, and had it pumped up for us “to make us feel better.”

Driving through the Transkei was everything our South African friends warned us about. There were cows and goats wandering across the road whenever they wanted. I’m still a bit skeptical why there were absolutely no fences for these herds. If I had a herd of cattle, I would think fencing them in would eliminate accidental deaths of cows crossing the road on a highway where the majority of the people driving through are INSANE.

At one point, a woman wandered in the middle of the road- without looking and I had to swerve around her. It was raining. There was fog. Animals. People. Construction. It was a FEAT getting into East London that night. Andrew is not as experienced driving a standard (shift) car. I was nervous enough adapting to driving on the other side of the road, shifting with my left hand, in the rain, we both figured it was probably a safer bet for him to continue navigating and me continue driving.

Meanwhile, our tire kept losing air. Every time we stopped for gas, we had our tire pumped up.

We were late getting into East London. It was still pouring when we pulled up to our couchsurfer host’s house. Not house, more like mansion. We discovered we were actually staying in their bed and breakfast that was attached to their house. A beautiful room with a loft all to ourselves. We were drenched. I was exhausted. Our host, an older woman in her early sixties I’m guessing- but a youthful sixties- offered us some soup. I immediately accepted and we sat around her kitchen talking about our travels, warming up over homemade soup with fresh bread and butter.

Her and her husband had traveled up through Africa and ended up couchsurfing. They had a really positive experience doing so, and had since decided to attempt to give back to the community. I was so grateful. I am still so grateful. I can’t even imagine getting the same kind of reception if we had showed up to a generic hostel or hotel in town. Can you?

Day 228: another rainy day in Durban

I make mistakes all. the. time. But I try (emphasis on try) to own up to my mistakes, and/or at least apologize for them. Our host did not apologize for waking us up in the middle of the night. He acted like nothing happened the next day, while avoiding eye-contact. This did not bode well with me. But again, I reminded myself that I was sleeping on his couch. for free. without having known him prior.

It was another rainy day. We did much of the same as we did the day before. We also made plans to leave earlier than planned and were motivated to have more control over the rest of our time in South Africa by renting a car. We stopped by our host’s restaurant, and had a few drinks. I really enjoyed our host’s friends, but again, we excused ourselves early as we had to pick up our rental car and start driving down to Cape Town early the next morning. 

Alas, again, we were woken up in the middle of the night. Our host wanted to tell Andrew he would be outside. I think he wanted to have another heart to heart. Andrew didn’t humor him this time. We woke up to a hand written note about how cool we were. Unfortunately, we didn’t leave him a similar note.

Day 227: a rainy Durban

That’s all it did. It rained. We went to a cafe and did some work and slipped “home” early for a dry, cozy night in. We went to sleep not long after, and then in the middle of the night, the lights were flipped on, and our host was standing before us as we were blinking sleep out of our eyes, while swayed, asking if we could move,  so him and his roommate could eat dinner and watch tv.

It was 3:30 in the morning.

I sat up, briefly, wondering if this was going to be the couchsurfing experience that my cousin, Amy was afraid of. Then I realized, he was drunk. Wasted. Yet harmless, and so was his roommate. I laid back down on my couch and shut my eyes, hoping they would lose interest, turn off the lights, and go to bed instead of hanging out in the living room, where we were trying to sleep.

Andrew, on the other hand, shook himself awake, sat up, and humored our host. He is a champion. Andrew, not our host. I listened as Andrew told them both what we did during the day.

“DO YA WANT SOME CHIPS AND CHICKEN?” Our host’s roommate yelled. I heard Andrew respond that he was ok. If my eyes were open, they would have rolled. We were asleep, no, we don’t want to eat chips and chicken. It was nearly four. in. the. morning. And we’re only three feet away from you. Why are you yelling?

It’s since become a huge inside joke between me and Andrew, yelling to each other in our ridiculous attempts to do a South African accent “DO YA WANT SOME CHIPS AND CHICKEN?”

Andrew explained how we went to a cafe, how I wanted to try to catch up my blog about our trip… and that the weather really kept us indoors…

“YOU DIDN’T GO TO THE BEACH? WHY DIDN’T YOU GO TO THE BEACH? DON’T YA LIKE THE BEACH? IT’S WONDERFUL. YOU CAN WALK ALONG THE BOARDWALK, THERE’S ALL SORTS OF CAFES AND SHOPS… IT’S THE BEACH! GO TO THE BEACH!” The roommate continued yelling.

Andrew, again, tried to explain that it was raining all day. We like the beach. We’d love to go to the beach. When it’s not raining… Eventually the roommate lost interest, or was full of his CHIPS AND CHICKEN! and went to bed. Our host took that as his cue to sit down with Andrew and have a heart to heart about how much he wants to travel and a lot of other possibly too personal things to share online. (This has happened before, where people we meet along the way seem to be intimidated by the fact that we’ve been, and will be traveling for awhile longer. This seems so silly to both me, and Andrew. As wonderful as this adventure is, there have been hiccoughs (like tonight?) and sometimes we miss the “normal.” It’s an adventure. A wonderful one. But it is a challenging one. Dude owned his own restaurant. Bottom line: grass is always greener.)

Anyway, his heart to heart somehow included showing Andrew his camera and taking pictures of me (trying to sleep) with the flash on. I reminded myself we were sleeping on his couch for free and continued to pretend I was asleep. He talked for awhile. Andrew listened and agreed with everything that he said, playing along.

“He was just drunk…” Andrew came to his defense the next day as I shook my head in complete awe that the night happened. Until now, we have had a flawlessly wonderful experience with couchsurfing, and while this experience wasn’t the worst experience ever, it is now the story we tell when we’re asked if we’ve had a bad experience.

“I don’t know if I should admire you or think you’re an idiot for how patient you were!” I told Andrew. He explained how he’s done this before. Humored good (but very inebriated) friends when they have no control over themselves after several drinks.

“But, they’ve (his friends from home) earned it. He (our host) hasn’t.” Andrew concluded.

Day 226: Joburg to Durban

South Africa, you have some beautiful landscapes. That is the triple truth, Ruth. 
At the last minute, a couchsurfer host responded to our request, and we were elated we had a place to stay when we arrived in Durban. We were intrigued he was a restauranteur and looking forward to meeting him and trying out his restaurant. We stopped by the restaurant at night, when he was working and were happy to sit down with him and his friends and talk about our travels and the restaurant business in South Africa and what Durban was like. A few free shots later, we slipped out before it would be guaranteed that I would wake up with a headache.