bulungula

Bulungula: up close

Bulungula: from afar

bulungula, normally the stomping ground of the southern hospitals, zitulele and madwaleni, the canzibe peeps descended on it in a deluge of chillaxing over the weekend. it is rather an interesting backpackers. you start off by arriving at the top of a 3km stretch of "track" which is only navigable by 4x4. there is a vehicle which will pick you up from certain designated parking areas but being adventurous we decided to take it on in Rob's 4x2 bakkie. totally worth it. once you arrive the first thing that strikes you is the lack of cars; the next is the length of the 'let me show you around' speech. there is no externally supplied electricity as well as a limited supply of water and the backpackers makes you acutely aware of this. they have rocket showers, compost toilets, a bicycle driven blender, and candles everywhere. take a torch. the rocket showers are quite exciting, as long as you use one of the side ones, dont use the middle one, it just stays cold. there is something very novel about having a shower while a small inferno blazes not too far from your feet. the compost toilets are perhaps less exciting, especially if you are male, however some muttering was heard from the fairer sex with regards to aiming... mysterious

the food is brilliant and i highly recommend it, the only draw back being that the thrifty traveller bringing his or her own food will find limited self catering facilities. the emphasis is to buy local. you keep track of your purchases with a complex system of honesty tabs, there is one for the kitchen and one for the bar, so if you are looking for a backpackers with a bar but without a drunk bartender then this is the place. i am assured that there are many exciting activities to do at bulungula but being my normal, boring self i read some books, played some crazy simple canadian card games and went for a walk along the beach where i bitched constantly about how crap the surf was. reports of drunkenness on friday night may or may not be based in fact. on a separate note, what happened to my gin?

the frozen chosen

cape town may still be inundated with winter rain and chilly weather but here in the transkei spring is rapidly approaching. what better time than this to organise a braai and whip up some frozen margaritas?

it took me a few weeks of research and several attempts to get this recipe right. most of the recipes i found online were american and included concentrated lemon and lime products for which there are no equivalents in the good old republic of SA. none the less i decided to experiment and here is the result:

will's frozen lemon margaritas:

first off you need to make lemon syrup. this replaces the concentrates from other recipes

lemon syrup:

1 litre lemon juice

1 kg of sugar (normal table sugar, not castor sugar as this has a anti caking agent)

mix lemon juice and sugar over low heat until all the sugar has dissolved. this is about double what you need for one batch of margaritas so freeze 500ml of it and keep the rest to mix with water to make lemonade. remember, fresh ingredients are always best, if you have an electric juicer use real lemons!

the actual thing:

500ml frozen lemon syrup

200ml lime juice (again fresh limes are best!)

1 cup (250ml) of tequila

1/2 cup (125ml) of triple sec

1/3 (110ml) of a peroni beer

as much ice will fit in the blender + a blender of only ice

add all of the above into a sturdy blender and let rip. pour it into a bowl and do another load of ice to add. the beer adds just a hint of fizz and also takes the edge off all the acidic lemon and lime juice. as for choice of alcohols it is entirely up to you to find your preferred taste. currently i am using Agava Sunrise Silver and Bols triple sec. you dont have to use peroni, but it is a good option as it is bland and wont give the cocktail an aftertaste.

hints:

*if you want the best consistency of ice then you need to get a slush puppy machine to keep the ice frozen in nice tiny little bits. i realise this may not be possible for most, in this case just drink up quickly :)

*you can make your margaritas blue by using blue curacao instead of triple sec, they are both curacao liqueurs

*feel free to adjust the recipe and let me know how it goes

*enjoy!

getting behind the lense

when the north east wind blows at mdumbi there is a small bay where the hills channel it into an offshore. its very fickle and reportedly very sharky but with nothing else on offer i followed some visitors from jbay and had a good time taking my first surf photos. having splurged on a 6x optical zoom camera i found myself wanting even more zoom, but the results were pretty good... maybe i'll try surfing it this weekend

the falls backpackers

so there has been a short delay between me visiting the falls backpackers and me blogging about it... say two months or so. one reason is that i have taken a few weeks of much needed leave, but the main reason is that in the beginning of the year i visited so many new backpackers in a very short space of time, and i blogged about them, and i said awesome and fantastic, and i said awesome and fantastic way to much. such is life. but those places are fantastic, dont worry. anywho, the falls backpackers is a short two hour drive up the mountains away from umtata. as i may have mentioned, umtata is a fantastic place to head away from. of all the backpackers this is the most remote, in terms of other people being nearby. it is twenty minutes from the small town of maclear. im not sure if it was originally in the boundaries of the transkei, i may have been born during apartheid but i played a rather limited role in its implementation. the area doesnt feel like it was in the transkei, there is a distinct lack of mud huts and a proliferation of organised farming (relative to canzibe that is) and at the backpackers there is nobody trying to sell you beads, seafood or marijuana. on reflection the lack of seafood doesnt surprise me at all.

the backpackers is owned by a friend of rob's, a kayaking friend. in the summer the kayaking is most agreeable. so agreeable in fact that rob dislocated his shoulder there earlier this year (good luck recovering from the surgery dude) the pictures of the rivers in flood are very impressive and are scattered liberally around the premises. in the winter the area is more well known for its fly fishing. i dont fly fish currently but fortunately i am partial to mountain streams due to my lifelong obsession with kloofing. i went along and took some photos. the area is very scenic and the trout are tasty, we braaied them that evening.

the waterfall that the backpackers is named for is tina falls, pictured above. it is a five minute walk from the backpackers and there is a zip line across the pool if you need some adventure in your life. you can also see some bushman paintings on the ravine walls.

when you return from these activities watch out for billy the goat. he will very likely want to play... he plays rough. he also eats anything, i almost lost my shoe laces. dont let him get inside either. once inside there is pool, foosball and a fire warmed lounge for you to read your current bill bryson book by paraffin lamp (there's no electricity) all in all i highly recommend the falls and hope to head there some time in summer for the floods.

pixies and gremlins

the lecturer at one of the dry needling (similar to acupuncture) courses i attended earlier this year told the class that depression was highly over diagnosed and over medicated in our society today. he said that without depression we wouldnt have had some famous poetry and we certainly wouldnt have had the fantastic indy music that is The Smiths. i am the first person to say that i quite appreciate that these guys were depressed, great, love the music. but his theory is a bit suspect. by the same reasoning you could say that without drugs the pixies wouldnt have made surfer rosa. surfer rosa has to be one of the best albums of all time. you have to listen to the entire thing as a whole, not just to individual songs (for those of you who dont know, surfer rosa is the album from which the single "where is my mind?" is taken). so long story short, drugs are fantastic and i encourage their use by the artistic community... but depression comes first, no drugs if you're depressed. that indy isnt going to compose itself bitches.

more serious posts about living in the transkei are on the way. or they would be, if only i could get over my depression...