The long flight (11 hours) was overnight but the upside was that we are in the same time zone. I'm so glad I don't have to deal with jet lag on top of being tired from not sleeping much!
My host is a local midwife who runs a free birth center in this little rural village, far away from any touristy areas. It's about a mile from the coast. The last 30-45 minutes were on rough dirt and gravel roads. You have to creep along in parts due to all of the divots and potholes.
The drive from East London out to this village was beautiful and different from any landscapes I've been to. It has a feeling of vast, immense spaces with what I would call rolling hills, only they're much bigger than that. The little villages we passed are smatterings of houses, but not with any discernable layout or city center. Just houses placed here and there. Some are made from concrete, stucco, and tiles; others are made of tin with corrugated metal roofs.
We stopped at a little food/convenience store that she started up at the beginning of the dirt road, run by locals from the nearby village. We bought egg & bacon roosterkoek (a kind of sandwich).
I didn't venture out today since I got in at 3 pm and wanted to take it easy.
I'm staying in an adorable cottage with a boat/beach vibe. It feels inviting and well-loved and all the eclectic elements work so beautifully together. The back deck has a lovely view of the river valley leading out to the ocean.
It's fall here, but it's still a little warmer than Nice. But it gets dark early, which I had forgotten about until I was a few hours into the daily loadshedding (rolling power blackouts). The one here lasted from 3-7 pm. We lit candles and oil lamps during the last hour once it was truly dark.
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