Riding the Wild Coast of South Africa
How can anyone get enough of galloping a good horse on the hard sand of an empty beach, wind in your face and nothing but the sound of crashing waves and pounding hooves? It seems like the Wild Coast is one white crescent beach after another, separated by black rock promontories, on and on and on to the north.
We seldom shared the beaches with anything but a few wandering Xhosa cattle. To our right the blue expanse of the Indian Ocean broke and curled in long lines of surf, and to our left gentle hills with grass and dense sub-tropical vegetation rolled down to meet the beach. Occasionally we crossed rivers the color and temperature of warm tea. Tides determined whether we could splash across the rivers at their mouth, whether we rode inland to a point where the river was shallow, or whether we pulled off the saddles and swam the horses across with the saddles and our boots following in a little boat.