After a 15 hour drive from Cape Town my family and I arrived in Cinsta in South Africa’s Ciskei. The sun had already set by the time we arrived and we checked into our resort. The resort itself was nothing to write home about; in fact it was crummy, quite old and stank of smoke. I was too tired to be bothered but in the morning when I walked out onto the balcony, I was greeted with the aroma of coffee and a canopy of trees and green bushes which formed a blanket all around our cottage. I could spot a corner of the ocean in the distance and one rooftop sticking out through the green sea.
It was the perfect to sit, sip your coffee and wait to see monkeys with blue balls jumping through the trees and stop to watch us. As soon as we were out the resort, you could turn and walk right down onto the beach which unfolded for miles to the left banked by tall sand dunes and all the way to the right before sand dunes and a river came into view. My husband and I found a deserted kayak beside the river and decided it must’ve been Buccaneers’’ backpackers. We assumed they wouldn’t mind and set off paddling slowly inland. The river took us past a proud eagle perched atop a tree waiting for his moment to dive for a fish. Waders made their way along the edge dipping their long legs into the mud and looking for food. We floated over shallow sandbanks and past closed up holiday homes. All about us the hills of Eastern Cape vegetation unfolded before us. The deeper into the ravine we paddled, the less we could hear the ocean. All we heard were birds who seemed totally oblivious to us.