bulungula in racing green

in the transkei when it's summer it's wet and when it's wet it's green. really really green! i love it.

after having nothing against and many things to like about bulungula the canzibe crew paid it a summertime visit. we were joined in our endeavour by jenny gow, the whitest white girl in lusikisiki, who spent the weekend getting less white via various shades of red and brown. the first night there i indulged in my new found love of tanqueray gin. unfortunately my bottle seemed to develop a leak... it was almost finished the next morning....

if you are willing to go for a short trek through forests and hills you will find yourself at a local pancake establishment. find some shade, sit down, make yourself comfortable and order a three nut pancake. this glorious savoury pancake is stuffed with a butternut, cashew nut and coconut curry filling. it is quite simply divine. after this you can have a dessert pancake if you wish, its not really necessary but if you sensitive about your calorie intake you can tell yourself that you will burn it off when you walk back to the backpackers. i dont worry about that. i always have dessert. learn to live with it

morgan's bay & kei mouth

the last journey of what you could consider "the originals", the canzibe comm serves 2009, was to the small seaside resort of morgans bay. situated just below the kei river it is outside the borders of the transkei and has none of the usual mud huts or psychotic sheep which add so much character to my current place of residence. none the less morgans bay was very enjoyable. we stayed at mitford lodge having booked dorm rooms. we were pleasantly surprised on arrival to find that, due to construction, our dorm was unavailable and we had been upgraded to a suite. after some minor bickering over who would get the double bed we dined at the lodge restaurant in the evening and though i found the main course to be only passable the chocolate brownies we had for dessert were simply scrumptious (i was going to write orgasmic there but i believe we all managed to keep ourselves under control) but ja... get the brownies.

in the morning i arose early (this always takes everyone by surprise. keep them guessing i say) and went for a walk to the lagoon. i met a wagtail along the way who was feeling very photogenic. after dropping my camera off at the house rob and i returned for a swim

a short drive north and you arrive at kei river mouth. rob and i left the girls tanning (some would say burning) and walked to the river. you really get a sense that you are standing at a great divide. on our side of the river were expensive holiday homes while on the opposite shore mud huts dotted the hillsides. a ferry is available for the border crossing. the river flows out to sea surrounded by large, flat sand banks; perfect for frisbee once the wildlife has scattered. back in the town i spotted the tree full of weavers i have mentioned in a previous post. the weaver in the picture is the one i spoke to... poor bastard, his wife looked like she would rip his nest up at any second.

weekends always end far too soon. before you know it you're in the car, heading back to the sticks. be sure to buy some pineapples on the way and enjoy the view

the holly and the ivy

in other news: jesus has set up diplomatic offices in Mthatha. and it seems he is getting into the yuletide spirit by having a holly ghost hour. isnt that fantastic?

windows 7: extended beta testing

it annoys me that microsoft consistently manages to release a product which doesn't work until six months later...

my new laptop has arrived and it is pretty cool spec wise. in an attempt to avoid that OS from the abyss, windows vista, i jumped on the windows 7 train and have to admit I'm pretty disappointed. this is the first time i have upgraded almost immediately after the release. and you can tell. gone are the days of 98 and XP when all the glitches had been figured out by the masses, serviced packed, and installed without any problems. welcome to compatibility issues, random freezes and blue screens of death. oh well. put those upgrades on hold for a few months guys coz its microsoft extended beta testing time.

for those of you still mildly interested in my laptop check it out here: http://www.asus.com/Search.aspx?SearchKey=g71gx

location location location

its been a while since i have updated this veritable tome of information on living in the transkei. the main reason for this is the death of my much loved computer due to total motherboard failure. the mourning period was short since in the world of technology, as in the world of relationships, one is often on the look out for the next best thing. my new laptop is on its way to me now and wields more power than most european principalities.

until then i present to you the above photo. if you decide to click on it you will find that it is not my usual low quality, easy upload photo but a full sized jpeg begging you to zoom in and have a closer look. taken in the town of Kei river mouth it shows high density suburban weaver housing. i think it is very impressive. the fronds of the palm tree have been stripped fibre by fibre and turned into very fashionable nests. almost every single frond is occupied except those at the very top which appear to be too vertical to build on. why this tree and not another? who knows? i asked the one weaver and he told me i should ask his wife. his wife told me that she had once lived on the other side of the river but there were soooo many darkies and she just cant stand darkies. the mind boggles.

tallyho!