It was a long time ago that I read Swahili for the Broken-hearted by Peter Moore.
The book is a travel memoir about the author’s overland adventure from Cape Town to Cairo after his break-up with the GND (girl next door).
What do you do after a break-up? You go travel Africa. The book is filled with humour, wisdom, culture, chaos, crisis, restoration and epic tales.
So I bumped into 33-year-old Nico Boh at Buccaneers Chintsa on his crazy surf trip with UK tour operation “Ticket to Ride” just this last week. He suffered a recent break-up and here he is, perhaps not the Swahili version but maybe isiXhosa.
Twenty or so years ago, two UK lads put together a business proposal for a varsity commerce assignment for surf travel for youngsters based on their own travel and surfing experiences.
The idea looked so good that they put it into action and here they are today with chapters of the business in South Africa, Indonesia and Sri Lanka.
They have multiple package offers from 10 days, three weeks to seven months. It’s kind of a happy holiday to gap year and many things in between.
A constant part of the adventure is surfing. You can go from beginner to average to advanced depending on where you start and what your aspirations are.
Tour head of operations/manager/operator/co-ordinator on this leg of the expedition is David Solomon, 33, and he is a hot surfer so there is a start right there.
Here as they pass through Buffalo City and head to Coffee Bay, they intersect with Greg Emslie (Olympic coach) and David Malherbe (Greg’s coach when he was a grom).
The level of quality surfing and coaching input on the Ticket to Ride tour is not in question.
Boh is a software engineer and having some good years of work and savings behind his back, he has gone for the seven-month tour option. When this author caught up with him he had completed the Sri Lanka leg and having started the SA leg he touched down in Cape Town and was making his way up our South African coastline.
Thus far the Mzantsi leg has included the best breaks in Cape Town, Plettenberg Bay, Cape St Francis, J-Bay, now Chintsa, next Coffee Bay, Umzumbe, Durban and Ballito.
Boh stays on the bus to “suffer” his way through Mozambique too.
The said bus on this tour is actually two buses and a closed trailer full of surfboards with about 20 youngsters aged from about 18 just out of school to 36, the eldest person on this trip.
The split is even at about 10 guys and 10 girls from Germany, New Zealand, Australia, the UK, US, Slovakia, Switzerland, Ireland and Netherlands. That is nine nations of golden-brown suntans, peeling noses, lean physiques, sore shoulders and happy surf stories.
Boh says: “The best thing about surfing twice a day is you can eat as much as you want with no regrets.”
Speaking about the food, I joined the crew at Buccaneers to interview and write this story.
Oh my gosh, two variations of seafood paella and one vegetarian offering of paella with green salad and bread rolls. The lady in the Buccaneers kitchen deserves a raise.
And I know about the food offered in Coffee Bay at The Coffee Shack with David and Belinda Malherbe, ubuntu and cuisine to knock your socks off. The Ticket to Ride tourists had better surf twice a day or they are going to roll home.
Boh tells me that his best surf so far has been in J-Bay.
South African people are friendly, beautiful, welcoming and the culture and travelling up the coast has been mind-blowing.
Everybody on the trip improved their surfing in leaps and bounds through J-Bay.
As they come up the coast the water is moving from cold in Cape Town, warmer and warmer every day until they head into KwaZulu-Natal and Mozambique.
A happier man you will struggle to find right now.
Serendipity has fallen right into his lap.
As they say in Swahili “Nyota Haziwezi ng’aa bila giza - stars can’t shine without darkness.”
Welcome to the African sky young man. Auf wiedersehen.
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