Jaunted

For those on a budget (like us), there are free traditional dinners on Tuesday nights, free morning game walks in a nearby nature preserve (where we spotted gemsbok, water buffalo and a whole lot of hippo dung) and daily drop offs near the Indian ocean, where travelers are guaranteed to get up close and personal with dozens of hippo (and even a handful of crocodile). Friendly staff even offer night game drives at no cost to those who linger long enough at the bar.

But we knew there was more to experience in St. Lucia than strictly what the immediate town had to offer. Bib's suggested one of their half-day safaris (around R500), a township tour (about R200), horseback riding on the beach (R300), or snorkeling in the Indian Ocean (R350).

We'd heard the safari was a guarantee for seeing rhinos, but it was a bit out of our price range. And while the township tour was affordable, it didn't promise to differ much from our current home in Namibia.

After weeks of indulging in wildlife and wineries, we decided to connect with our cultural side and signed up for the affordable Zulu Cultural tour. At R165 ($19) per person, it was well within our budget.

The tour began at a Krech school in a traditional Zulu Village about 10 minutes outside of St. Lucia. The experience of watching little kids dance and sing and say their ABCs may have been eye opening to others in our group, but we'd seen (and worked in) plenty of schools as volunteers in Namibia, so in the end, it didn't feel like something new.

From there it was on to the traditional healer. Or rather, an understudy to the traditional healer, because apparently R165 is enough to get you something, but still not enough to get you the real thing. We gathered around the inside a mud hut with dung floors and watched as she silently poured unnamed dusts, powders and twigs from old Johnson & Johnson baby lotion containers into small piles on the floor.

We weren't allowed to ask questions, and she wasn't' allowed to tell us what any of the materials were (or, what they were used for, for that matter). If that weren't bad enough, our guide reminded us that it was tradition to make an offering to the ancestors and since we didn't have chickens--the usual cultural currency--we could each deposit R20 note in the dish on our way out. So much for the budget.

We thought that would be the worst of it, but we should've known better. The final destination on our cultural tour was a traditional Zulu village. One, we realized almost immediately, that was nothing more than a renovated backpacker lodge. We filed into yet another traditional-looking hut where we learned about traditional Zulu dress--and were then forced to actually don it. This was followed by a warrior dance performance by out of school Zulu youth--and ultimately, in the end, by all of us. (I wish I were kidding.)

Related Stories:
· Bib's International Backpackers [Official Site]
· South Africa Field Trip [Jaunted]
· South Africa Travel coverage [Jaunted]

Where: St. Lucia, South Africa

Tags: South Africa Field Trip / Africa Travel / World Heritage Sites / Culture Travel

by Jaunted