A peek into where the wild things are.

To be sure, when you drive through the Tsitsikamma region of South Africa you probably get a sense of calm, or wonder. After all, it is beautiful and pretty majestic. There are trees in these forests that look like Brachiosauruses (Brachiosauri, perhaps?) may have munched on them a couple million years back. That kind of thing tends to make you sit back and breathe out slowly with the realization that you're a tiny, little thing in a big, old place.

But that's not all you feel. Because as you sit there thinking "Damn, I watch too much TV", there's also a weird sense of familiarity because there is no place completely untouched by human hands. There's a mysterious world here that you could see but for the trees (pun entirely intended). But that's the whole point.

I remember driving on the highway through the forest and being 20 minutes from my friend's house in Eersterivier and thinking, "finally!". Simultaneously, I was thinking some very descriptive expletives about how beautiful everything was. Suddenly, you're there: there is one road lined with houses and nothing else. You're wedged right between a forested mountain and a volatile coast-line and you're overwhelmed.

But you're also hungry, and there are no shops in the forest. There is, however, the Kaas Plaas (The Cheese Place). No one knows about it unless they've been there before and it has more animal inhabitants than human. In the middle of this dense forest is this house that smells better than anything Hansel and Gretel could think up. Around it goats and sheep roam about while inside the house you eat the insanely tasty cheeses they've provided.

I ate there with a bunch of my very hungry friends as we contemplated what we'd do after (we drank a lot of beer and climbed the cliffs). I felt a sense of complete comfort despite having never been to this part of the Tsitsikamma. The lack of people feels weird but then the sudden appearance of other people becomes weird.

It's pretty much you, the sea, the sand, the trees, the baboons (never forget about them, they're always there) and your closest friends. Then, you wander off to explore and you're there without your friends.

It was my first time there and I don't think I've ever felt so calm and so uneasy simultaneously. That's like a kind of magic.

I wouldn't be surprised if faeries lived there.