The kind of trip that makes the best stories (afterwards) isn’t always one that worked out exactly to plan. At least that is what I’ve found in all the years I’ve been travelling.
One classic example was a bucket list trip that my boyfriend paid and planned for behind my back to surprise me with for one of our anniversaries. It had always been a dream of mine to see gigantic turtles laying their eggs in the many beaches that they call home in South Africa.
He managed to find a place that did it just outside of Kosi Bay, but first we had to drive to St Lucia and leave our car there (as most of the the way was on beach sand and we most certainly didn’t have a 4×4 to get us there). St Lucia is one incredibly humid place (much like Thailand I can imagine) and we were so incredibly grateful for the air conditioned 4×4.
I feel like it took about 3 or 4 hours to get to our accommodation for the night, but I reckon that was just because we couldn’t go that fast over all the sand. By the time we got there however; it was almost evening and we couldn’t have been more excited to go on our tour (which would be guided by a local). What was fantastic about it was the fact that they like to keep vehicles off the beach, so you park and then walk all the way with just a tiny cellphone torch to guide you. It was fantastic and at the same time incredibly scary as if you lifted your hand in front of your face, you couldn’t see it as it was too dark.
Within the first half an hour of walking we managed to find a turtle, although she was already on her way back into the sea. It was amazing to see the amount of tracks that the turtles actually leave while dragging themselves out the water and up the many sand dunes to lay their eggs in a quiet area.
We kept searching and eventually found a turtle who had just started laying. It was so incredible to see, not only because she was the biggest turtle I’ve ever seen, but also how she wasn’t at all phased by all of us standing around watching what she was doing. Apparently they go into a bit of a trance when laying eggs.
We took a few photos (without flash of course so as not to upset her) and really just enjoyed being there. When the other groups of people left (not with us), we decided to stay on a bit longer. It can last a few hours and I was keen to stay until the very end. The only problem was, the storm clouds were starting to roll in. Ever been on a beach in the middle of the night with lighting and thunder above you? Well, it is slightly terrifying. Our guide recommended we start the 5km walk back to the car before the rain began. It was a great idea in theory, but within minutes the rain was pouring down and our clothes were completely soaked.
I’ve never been so wet or cold in my life. I didn’t even care that I brought a bucket full of sand into the car with me when we eventually got back. We drove up the hill to our accommodation and decided we needed a seriously hot shower to get warm and get all the sand off of us of course. We went to grab towels out of our rondawel only to realise that the rain had come through a hole in the thatch and one of the beds was soaking wet (thank goodness there were two beds).
We went to shower and realised that the doors only covered about half of our bodies. We were the only people in the camp, so I was relatively relieved about the fact that I wouldn’t be flashing complete strangers. We decided to shower together (mainly to save water, but also we only have one toiletries bag). This ended up being the funniest shower of our lives, as there were only three drops of water coming out of the shower head. We tried to readjust it numerous times, but still only got three small dribbles of water. All we kept saying was “at least it’s hot”. It was exactly at this point that we realised how flexible we could be if we really needed to. I had one leg up on the shower wall and Luch was still trying to wash his hair in the corner away from the three drops of water. After about 10 minutes, we realised is was a fools errand and gave up.
While being in the shower, we had completely forgotten about the fact that the walk back to our rondawel would be in sand and we had wet feet. This was quite an experience, but finally we got back to the warmth of our beds and lay in bed laughing. I asked Luch how much it had cost and he absolutely shocked me with the cost. It ended up costing more than some luxury resorts we’ve stayed in. He laughed and told me, ‘it’s all about the experience’ and truer words could never had been said. In fact, this story still comes up often when I’m meeting new people and want to break the ice.
Would we do it again? Probably, but next time, we’re staying in a hotel 🙂
