Just south of Coffee Bay, a tiny resort town along South Africa’s Wild Coast, a massive rocky sentinel sits astride the surf, as if guarding the mouth of the Mpako River. The well over 200 foot (80 meters) high, 1 000 foot (300 meters) long shore-side cliff is composed of 260 million-year-old sandstone and shale, and capped with volcanic dolerite. At its base, the Indian Ocean thunders and roars through a gaping, almost-round hole through the rock. It is known to the amaXhosa as esiKhaleni, the “Place of Sound,” but…
