Wild Coast | Previous Challenge Entry

how it works

TITLE: Wild Coast | Previous Challenge Entry
By Corinne Smelker
05/26/22
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Wild Coast

“Are you sure this is the way?” I asked as my head hit the roof of the car, again.
Mitch wrenched the steering wheel to the left, narrowly missing a giant water-and-mud-filled pothole. “Well, that’s what Siri and Google both say, so I’m hopeful.”
I peered through the bug-splattered, mud-encased windscreen before giving up and opening up my window and poking my head out. “Ok, well the road, if you can call it that, does seem to be headed due south, so we are headed in the right direction at least. AAARGH!”
“What?” Mitch startled and swung the car into the right at my exclamation.”
I pulled my head back inside, shut the window and started pawing at my face. “A huge insect flew into my mouth! Where’s the water?”

This would have been funny if it had not been the nth time on this trip that this had happened. When would I learn not to open my mouth with my head outside the car?

“In two miles, make a slight right and your destination will be on the left,” Siri’s female voice intoned.

“Finally,” Mitch sighed with relief, and I had to give it to him – he had been a sterling driver, bravely driving on the ‘wrong side of the road’, allowing me to navigate when he knew I could get lost in the grocery store and most of all, for even agreeing to take this trip in the first place. My homebody husband finally capitulated to my gypsy spirit and even seemed to be enjoying his first international trip. He did comment that most peoples’ first forays into travelling was by means of a cruise, or the cultural sights of Europe, not the hinterlands of the dark continent.

As he wrestled the car on the ‘slight right’ Siri insisted we take, I looked through my side window. “There it is!” I exclaimed, barely containing my excitement. Suddenly the Indian Ocean was before us, white-capped waves twinkling and sparkling in the sun, a counterpoint to the deep turquoise of the calmer waters farther from the shore. Rugged rocks rose from the ocean as though reaching for the sky. The green-clad mountains spread behind us, as though dropped there and forgotten so out of place did they look along the coastline.

We exited the Land Rover (the only vehicle that could cover the terrain) and hand-in-hand wended our way down the white sandy beach to the ocean. The waves fighting the rocks, the trill of gulls flying overhead and the soft crunch of the sand beneath our feet were the only sounds. The azure sky met the sea in the far horizon, making it seem as though we were looking into infinity.

We instinctively sat on the warm sand, and I rested my head on Mitch’s shoulder. “Thank you for leaving all your creature comforts and taking this trip,” I said. “I know when I suggested a road trip you thought you’d be taking Route 66, not some dirt roads in the middle of nowhere-Africa, just so your wife could show you where she grew up!”
Mitch chuckled and kissed the top of my head. “For you, I’d travel to the ends of the earth. Although it feels like we did that today…”

We sat in comfortable silence and watched the ocean fight with the land for dominance, with its never-ending ebb and flow. Later we’d pitch our tent and get ourselves set up for a week of remote camping, but for now it was enough to enjoy the rugged coastline of this, the Wild Coast, the place that had made inroads into my heart so many years before.

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