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THE WILD COAST
The Wild
Coast, situated in the far corner of South Africa's Eastern
Province, is an undiscovered jewel where natural beauty and cultural
heritage come together for a unique travel experience. This part of South
Africa is also referred to as frontier country on account of the
many wars fought by Europeans against the proud amaXhosa that
inhabit the region. Historically the amaXhosa were cattle
herders and subsistence farmers. Indeed little has changed along the
wild coast as mud-hut homesteads and Nguni cattle still dot the rolling
green hillsides between the mighty Drakensberg Mountains and
the warm Indian Ocean. In recent times the region in and around
the Wild Coast has produced a handful of great South African
leaders like Oliver Tambo, the current president Thabo Mbeki
and South Africa's greatest hero, Nelson Mandela.
Previously known during
the apartheid times as the Transkei, the name has been replaced
by the more descriptive "Wild Coast", a testament to the many
ships wrecked off it's treacherous shore. During the fifteenth and
sixteenth centuries the early Portuguese explorers lost dozens of ships
on the rocky cliffs of the Wild Coast as they sailed the strong
trade winds back from the east. The survivors, often without any hope
of ever making it back home, were assimilated into the Xhosa tribes
leaving behind legendary tales and myths among that people that still
linger today in the story-lines of the elderly. One such wreck, the St.
Jao (or St. John), a Portuguese galleon laden with jewels and gold, was
wrecked in the area. The main wreck was never found and the handful of
survivors trekked 2000kms north enduring much hardship until they
reached the small Portuguese outpost somewhere in present-day
Mozambique where the last stragglers were picked up and sent home. The
wreck however has since given its name to the small town of Port St
Johns at the mouth of the Umzimvubu River.
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