The Road to Bulungula Lodge, Wild Coast, South Africa. (24 total images, 1 video)
“Rufus is a very strong man,” says Maya, a local Xhosa woman we just picked up from a village on the Wild Coast of South Africa. “Even in his old age of 80 years he is still able to procreate and have many children,” she says.
We’re all headed to the Bulungula Lodge where Maya works and we’ll be visiting. Rufus is our driver.
The Setting: An Unnamed Hostel, Johannesburg, South Africa.
Cigarette in hand and wine out of a tea cup — it’s the British way.
Snapshots of El Calafate and a few of the people we met at the wonderful America del Sur hostel.
The Arrival
In my foray into backpacking, I’ve stayed at hostels in France, Italy, Spain, Sweden, Denmark, the Netherlands, Guatemala, and India, and none of them matched the atmosphere of the America del Sur hostel in El Calafate. I made reservations after browsing reviews on Hostelworld, where the only unanimous complaint was that “the rooms were too hot.” I couldn’t imagine that would be a deterrent during our winter visit, so we took our chances. A week later, the cab was turning onto the unpaved street on top of a hill where the hostel stood.
We entered through a wood-framed glass door and saw a scruffy, long-haired, Che Guevara-looking guy standing next to a short, exceptionally cute girl behind the counter. The girl was typing. The guy looked at me and pointed.
“TÄM-BUR, right?” His voiced boomed.
I nodded, not correcting his bastardization of my name because after living in Madrid for six months, I realized that’s how all Spanish-speaking people say my name.
