The end of a long journey
RSA July 1984
It was nearly five in the morning and I longed for a cell to sleep in. I managed to convince the chief that I was dead tired and was finally taken to a room upstairs. I had slept for an hour when a fresh-looking cop shook me awake. There had been a shift-change. When did I have to get up?
“After sunrise!” I grumbled.
Half an hour later, the guy was back.
Cops take everything literally. As I stumbled into the cold misty air outside the station, the first rays of the morning sun had just appeared above the clouds. I marvelled at the sight of the mountains, their summits covered with a icing-sugar dusting of snow.
I did not seem to get a lift that morning. But after a while I saw the brake-lights of a brown car which had zoomed right past me. At least a kilometre ahead it had turned around. The elderly couple in it had a change of heart and picked me up.
Once out of town we were in the mountains proper. Cone-shaped rocky peaks rose up right by the side of the road which had narrowed and wound its way along the steep slopes. There were no railings or safety barriers between the thin band of asphalt and the yawning drop to the side. I was relieved that my erstwhile chauffeur had decided against pressing on during the night but feared for my life as we skidded within inches of the abyss during the many daring overtaking maneuvres. The elderly man behind the wheel seemed to have been a rally-driver in his working days. I closed my eyes at every bend.
The landscape was beautiful. I drank in the view with senses sharpened by danger. Below us at the bottom of a deep green valley, a clear stream snaked through the trees. Spectacular waterfalls hurtled from the slopes.
Then we were out of the mountains. The two dropped me at a turn and I walked down the street. Another police car picked me up and deposited me at the entrance to the highway. There was a sign:
‘CAPETOWN 50 KM’.
I waited only a few minutes before a young guy in a souped-up Volkswagen beetle stopped. We drove to the top of Table Mountain. From there we could see the skyscrapers and grey sea of buildings that was Capetown and, in the distance, the point where the Atlantic and Indian Oceans meet. The Cape of Good Hope. I had reached the end of my long journey.
But Africa had gotten the better of me. My health did not recover for the rest of the trip. My flight left from Lusaka and I had enough money left to get there in reasonable comfort, so I did. But any thoughts of exploring further were thwarted. I remember little of the rest of the journey.
I arrived home with enough money left to buy my mother a brooch which she had admired. It was still in the shop, just as I remembered it. It looked as if, back home, nothing had changed. And yet — everything had changed.
Tags: Cairo to Capetown, Tag Index
Denni