Kobb Inn

The best breakfast in the Transkei is there, we learned today. They did this thing with baked beans, onion and slivers of beef that I can’t believe I didn’t think of before. And they didn’t stop there. Egg, bacon, really nice brown bread and a wee sausage. It was marvellous.

So we left there satisfied after that breakfast and a weekend of relaxing hard.

On the way home we passed a good few people with their hands out for lifts. Hitch-hiking is a huge part of life out here and I often wonder how people ever get to where they are going with the trickle of traffic that often prevails. Now, before you get too excited, we are not idiots. In fact we are, as I have stated before, extremely risk-averse in our approach to South Africa. So when I say that we picked up some hitch-hikers, you can be confident that they were old ladies or old men. We are not in the market for the mid-twenty year old male, even if he looks really nice. In fact these guys must have a nightmare getting lifts from anyone white. But that is how we roll.

Today we gave a lift to a big fat dude who was all smiles. Shortly after that we passed a pastor (if you will) and let him in. Later we passed a very, very large woman indeed who also held a hand out. I could see some nervousness in the faces of the two men, but I knew we could do it. All of a sudden, no one in the back was very comfortable anymore, but they were absolutely gutting themselves laughing, so we set off. Fortunately, Reverend Greenbag got out 5 minutes later, leaving ample space for the other two to continue roaring with laughter at Kim and my attempts to converse.

When we were down to the one lady, dressed in her Sunday best, we were driving along nicely when she offered my two rand. “No, thanks”, I said, in isi-Xhosa and kept on, smiling. It was Kim who quickly pointed out that that had been her way of indicating that we were at her stop. Woops. We declined the money and let her out a hundred meters further than she had hoped. Pretty cool that she offered to pay, if you ask me.

Water is still off. Electric went off for a bit and then back on. Now on, so fingers crossed. Water is rumoured to be getting fixed tomorrow. People here are starting to smell pretty bad. Kobb Inn had good showers.