Coffee Bay Things to Do

4 more images

Our Xhosa Village tour lasted a whole day. Dawn who owns the Coffee Shack arranges these tours with young locals from the village.
The day was an amazing experience, we walked from Coffee Bay across green hills and farmland to this particular guys home in the Xhosa Village, we met his family and were invited into his home, we later came back and his sister had cooked us a traditional lunch of rice and beans.

We were shown the circumcision hut, then walked again across farmland to a sacred pond, and he explained all of the traditional events that go on here, we then caked our faces in healing mud and walked on. In another part of the village we met the local Sangoma, a sangoma is what the Zulu people call a witchdoctor. He did not speak English so our guide translated Xhosa to English. We were allowed to take photographs and go inside his hut.

From there we took a long walk over the hills to the villages "Shebeen". A shebeen is an illeigal bar, almost every township and village in South Africa has one, it was a small hut made as all Xhosa homes are from cow dung bricks - inside we sat on crates and tryed the local brew "Juba".
Juba tasted a lot like cider rather than beer and had the consistency of milk - very strange and definitely an acquired taste.

The Children up in the village were just beautiful and all waved shouting hello!

I will put a travelogue on here with just pictures to share of my visit to the village.

3 more images

Once you are up and on the hill, you will be treated to a brilliant view over Coffee Bay. This is the better beach, sandier, calmer shallow waters and wider.
This hill is popular at sunset with a bottle of wine!

Local kids may come up to you up here and sing for some change - these children have been encouraged to earn their money and not beg - so please give them some change.

3 more images

From the Coffee Shack there is a small beach almost right in front of the hostel.
This is a nice beach to watch the roaring ocean and sip a beer.
I never swam in this beach though, just go up over the hill and there is a nicer beach for swimming.

I contacted Steve at Wavescape Travel and he referred me to Dave Malherbe, a former World surfing pro and owner of The Coffee Shack. For an extremely reasonable price, we got all-day lessons for five people including equipment and lunch! By the end of the day, we were actually surfing!