Teepee For My Bunghole

Okay, I’m not going to wait till the end of this post to wys yous the beweging because I want to surprise yous but I might just end up writing a longish post and forget about it. I mean, I get that way after all this travel when not doing any of this constructive stuff and what what….wait a minute, I’m almost forgetting to tell you! The thing is: [drums please] I’m at home in good ol’ Cape Town.

Yep, it’s the end of the road. What has occurred to me is that I am grateful for life’s capacity to surpise. Right till when I got on the Greyhound bus three days ago, I was being entertained, amazed and astounded. Titillating my tits off, so to speak. Durban has been jacking itself up since I was last there 4 years ago and Coffee Bay in the Eastern Cape was just gorgeous. (I just had to stop there because consistently the Wild Coast was being mentioned, by travellers who done the whole coast, as the most beautiful area in South Africa). Right up to the end I wanted to stay and travel and experience more.

Even on the fucken bus down – what does South Africa go and do? It snows! For three hours along the road there is snow covered hills and mountains. Of course, its only enough snow to wet the bottom of your shoes, but us South Africans whip out our cameras and want to stop the bus and traffic is chaos and the front page and email inboxes is filled with pictures. Yep, right till the end, this trip was special. Ag, let’s face it, life is special.

But I can’t deny reality too long and here I am in Cape Town wondering what the hell I’m going to do with this special life. Anyway, those of you who are here, please give me a call or email or something. 0824698568. I would be glad to meet up and catch up and talk kak. Those of you who are overseas, send me an email and you’ll go on the list for recipients of some individually selected words and photos.

My next post will probably be a longwinded summation on my travels and will probably be my last post. Kinda brings a tear to your eye, doesn’t it? I suppose all dreamers have to wake up at some point, that’s the tragedy of life.

So, I’m slowly making my way home now from Mozambique to Cape Town. The ones who are less geographically challenged will realise that Swaziland and an awfully large part of South Africa lies in between. So, of course, I had to stop in Swaziland.

Swaziland has the feel of one tribe of South Africa living in a country of its own (our currency is equivalent too so you can use rands interchangeably). The places are great and I really liked it. Of course, I only stayed at one spot for two days so I’m kinda not an expert on the whole place but I smaak to go back some day and check out more. The spot I stayed at was a backpackers called Sondzela inside one of the game reserves. Picture a front yard looking out over green hills and valleys with deer, zebras and others in the distance. Described as one of the most scenically set backpackers in Southern Africa, they won’t get any arguments from me.

Since I had foregone Kruger to take the southern route out of Moz, I decided to stop at Hluhluwe Game Reserve after Swaziland. The trip there was a tiny little bit involved and hectic.

Firstly I started 8am the morning from Sondzela to get the shuttle to the fruit market in the nearest town. Then I took a R5 taxi to Manzini, the transport hub of Swaziland. From Manzini, I could have taken a Durban bus for R150 but since I was only going halfway to Hluhluwe, I thought it was stupid to pay the full price, I missioned another way.

I took the taxi I thought was going to the border (R15) but it turned out that it was going to Matapa/Big Bend so I had to catch another taxi (R11) from there to the border. After the border, things got a little bit vague (what a welcome back to South Africa!). When I asked whether there were taxis to Hluhluwe, I was told that I could get one from Mkuse but that there were none to Mkuse anyway and that I would have to hike. I tried that for a about two minutes but then caught a taxi (R5) to Pongola, which is in the wrong direction but I heard I could get a taxi to Mkuse from there. On the way, I spotted people waiting for taxis going the other way so I asked the driver to drop me off at one, saving myself the 20km in the wrong direction.

So I waited at a bus stop and, of course when the bus came, it was NOT going to Mkuse. Are you tired of this route yet? Me too but I got on the bus (R10) anyway because apparently it took me most of the way to Mkuse. I got dropped at the fork where the bus went off to Josina and I considered walking the rest of the 5km for all of 10 seconds. Instead I stood alongside the road thumb in the air, thinking a bus would probably come along. Unknowingly I was participating in one of the those you-have-to-know ways to get around South Africa and soon I was sitting in someone’s car on my way after having negotiated a price. In fact, the guy turned out to be going past Hluhluwe anyway so he dropped me at the turn off (R25).

There was nothing at the turn off so walked to the closest place I could see which turned out to be a farm stall. The lady at the farm stall was brilliant and I buzzed with her for a while before I phoned the backpackers for a pick up. I managed to book a dorm but when I was arranging the pick up my cellphone battery died. The lovely lady at the farm stall phoned for me, because there was no payphone nearby, and left a message on the guys cell voicemail to come pick me up.

Then she closed up shop because it was 4 o’clock. She could have given me a lift into the town, but since she had left a message for him to pick me up there, I was advised to wait in front of the shop for him.

So I waited and waited and waited some more. And it got dark and I had no way to phone, I didn’t know how far or where the town or the place I needed to get was and I there wasn’t much civilisation around. I tried hiking for a bit but no one seemed likely to stop and it didn’t seem like the people who were likely to stop were the type that I would want to stop and pick me up.

I tried settling down and getting ready to sleep outside the farm stall and eat a supper of cashew nuts and half a small bottle of water but I was too restless.

Eventually a guy wandered past and he had a cellphone and I managed get him to lend it to me while I phoned around with my sim card inside it. By 9h30 I got hold of people willing to pick me up was whisked away to a lodge for a quick snack and deep sleep.

It wasn’t as stressful as it sounds though (okay, it was) but the most devastating part of the whole process was that I lost my bloody sunglasses somewhere along the way. I really liked them too. It’s enough to make me cry or get another pair.

The next day (yesterday) I did a game drive (I deserved it) and then made my way to Durban today. And that, folks, brings me up to date. Laters…

Okay so let’s wrap up this whole Mozambique thing before I go onto current affairs. The last time I wrote I’d just been to Vilankulos and was on my way to Tofo. I’ve been meaning to keep all you germs informed but I wanted the post after that to be a ‘Here’s some pictures’ post but couldn’t find a place that allowed me to upload some. Anyways…

Tofo was brilliant. It’s a bit of a Babylon tourist town but snorkelling with the whale sharks just puts such a glamorous sheen on the whole experience. Top notch entertainment those whale sharks, let me tell you. I also managed to rent a beginner foam surfboard and play around in miniscule waves. It was good but without a rash vest the resulting friction caused my nipples to be excruciatingly painful for days… Yes, ja, uhuh, you can stop laughing now.

After Tofo I went to Funky Monkeys backpackers in Linga Linga so that I could linger longer before making my way south. It was bit out of the way (a 3 hour dhow trip down a river-like bay to a stunning peninsula) but it was really rustic and close to the the earth and all those other expressions we use when we get these basic natural living experiences.

Then it was back to Maputo where I did some major laundry after my luggage got soaked in some sour smelling shite on the second bus coming down (the first bus having broken down). I also finally managed to get to the fish market where you choose your fish and seafood from the market and get one of the places in the back to cook it for you. Fantastic, fantastic food. Even made me forget my sore nipples of the previous days.