Peter Dickson ‘Pot holes for the next 186km” is the wicked promise of eco-tourism’s new Wild Coast warrior, one that offers an alternative trip to the young European backpackers who are beginning to discover the Transkei in droves. Openly marketed as The Marijuana Trail – the so- called Transkei Gold variety is regarded by imbibers of the illegal herb as among the finest in the world – it opens on November 1 and will see tourists hopping on to ex-South African Defence Force Unimogs in a sequence of scenic stops from Cintsa, outside East London in the south, through Coffee Bay to Port Edward’s Wild Coast Sun in the north. Wild Coast maps adorned with the trail’s cheeky logo, T-shirts and pamphlets, and its own website for overseas marketing, have already set Eastern Cape tourism circles abuzz. The logo cleverly capitalises on the warning signs that adorn most of the region’s notorious potholed roads as Bisho, which needs at least R1-billion for the job, desperately searches for the cash to repair them. Tour operators, in the wake of the brutal Fairhead murders and other attacks on foreign visitors in the region this year, have suffered a host of cancellations by European tourists viewing the Eastern Cape as a no-go area. But the sudden surge of backpackers has brought new optimism, and retired East Londoner Dave Emslie’s Marijuana Trail is one of several new operations set to transform the struggling Wild Coast tourism industry. Emslie, who has already carried out what he calls dummy runs for the new venture and is training locals as tour operators in each of seven stopping zones along the largely off- road trail, says the marijuana teaser is just a novel way, given the Transkei’s alternative international reputation, “to see the incredible scenery and experience the beauty of the Wild Coast”. Well-known dagga districts Coffee Bay – which in July this year hosted the first three-day Bomvu festival, headlined by trance drummers THC and acclaimed DJ Munro as well as local community acts – and Port St Johns are among the tent stops. Boats will be used to take the campers across rivers. The campers will have what Emslie calls complete freedom of itinerary in being able to choose their stop-over points. They will also be able to choose between tents or budget camps set up along the way. And what of the high road? “The marijuana is there,” Emslie said this week before departing for a Durban tourism exhibition. “In fact, it’s there more than anywhere else, but we don’t deal in it and we don’t allow it on the vehicles,” he says firmly. “But if that’s your thing, and you buy it from the locals, we can’t stop you.”