CAPIES VERSUS VALIES

Ok lets just get one thing clear. Here in Gauteng the people don’t know how to braai. They either use charcoal or fancy gas griller jobbies. When the Capies practice their favorite pastime, we build a fire big enough to grill the whole neighbourhood’s wors and half a sheep. We are all potential pyromaniacs.

Being able to step outside without being blown across the yard as often happens in the Cape or riding your bike upright as apposed to a 45 degree angle through the Cape winelands in gusting wind is pretty cool. The wind never blows here. Never ever. A slight breeze has everyone up in arms.

I miss the way the Capies talk about eiwe virrie lywe en tamaties virrie parties. Here it’s all “neea ak gaan narens” or “ak gaan nou wark”, or “ak bly by my maw en my paw”.

In Cape Town you’ve basically got the N1, the N2 and that other watchemecalit road to the southern peninsula, not too hard to get lost, well for most people anyway. Here it’s a network of roads all leading in different directions to different places. Very confusing. There’s hardly any crock cars to be seen. Even the lighties drive fancy bling bling cars whereas in Cape Town you see loads of vrot rust heaps since they drive their cars till they stop and then they’ve still got resale value. Some cars have a bucket so your feet aren’t in a puddle and rust cavities are great for mounting speakers. The Capies complain about peak hour traffic. Ha, wait until they check out these traffic jams, all the friggin toll gates and crappy road surfaces. Valies all work a full day, clearly they don’t get the concept of working half day on a Friday like we do in Cape Town, so thousands more Valies all jostle for first place, flashing their bling bling, whereas the Capies are more like, what a cool day dude (that’s when the wind isn’t blowing), lets ditch work today and head off to the beach dude. Hey dude, where’s my car dude.

The beach. Yes, the one place the Capies rush to whenever they feel like it. Whether its to eat Kentucky in your rusty car while watching the sunset, to walk the dogs after work, to jog down the pavilion in you tight spandex, to catch a wave, or to spend the day grilling in the sun watching hot bods in G-strings strutting their stuff while the kids build sandcastles, whatever floats your boat there’s something for you. Holiday trips to the west coast usually include eating bokkoms with the friendly locals while you watch your tent blow away, or east coast where you pay a fortune for everything cos that’s where the valies go for Xmas to spend their hard earned moola to boost the tourist trade.

Here in valieland they all go to “die dam”. Sunday morning and we were off to Hartebeespoort Dam. Excitedly I stripped off my bullet proof vest, grabbed a towel and cossie, expecting to spend the day at the waterside. We stopped at the bottlestore, a big plus point for valieland since in Cape Town the only booze you will find on a Sunday is from a shabeen. Turns out Hartebeespoort Dam is a town of restaurants and flee markets, nowhere near the waterside, which hundreds of bikers go to for their breakfast run and there’s no swimming to speak of. In Cape Town the only time you see that many bikers together is for a day jol or rally.

Some Capies wake up to feed the pigeons but here the valies wake up to the call of the Grey Lourie (Kwe-voël) who squeezes out a nasal, drawn out “kwe” to persistently coach the people how to pronounce “e” as in “ek” and not “aak”. In Cape Town the only wild animals you’ll come across is the men standing around the braai, drinking klippies and coke and having a heated discussion about the rugby match. In Valieland the chances of seeing a lion or elephant on your way to work are high since most towns are surrounded with game parks, bush lodges or wedding/conference centres all packed with animals.

In Cape Town if you leave crisps out overnight, guaranteed they will be pap by next morning. Here the air is thin and dry and you can leave crisps out the whole week but the problem is the air is also so electrically charged that I’m too frightened to touch anything, never mind have sex since a combination of friction and moisture could result in self combustion.

Besides all the above, its basically same shit, different place.

GAUTENGELENG

We drove from Bloemfontein up to Krugersdorp without stopping at laybyes since there just weren’t any but we stopped at a awesome dam outside Welkom, which hundreds of flamingoes and other birds called home. We spent 2 days with binocs glued to our faces and the bird book got well utilized. We were the only people there to enjoy the stunning red sunset skies dotted with red flamingo wings.

We arrived at Krugersdorp in the North West where the pace picked up. We’re staying with Theo’s cousin, Berdien & Jan, who have gone all out to entertain us and make us feel at home. We spent a long weekend with their friends who own property in the Kruger National Park, my first exposure to big game and nogal in their back yard. There are a 100 or so privately owned plots within the park, most without border fences so effectively it means watch your arse when you’re braaing cos you could become supper for a hungry lion. You don’t stray far from the firelight at night and you definitely don’t want to share the river with the crocs in the river running past the front garden. A family of warthogs grazed on the lawn a few meters from us while a family of baboons watched us from a discreet distance. We watched a variety of buck come down for a drink at the river and giraffe moved silently through the tree tops. I’ve seen antelope before but never as part of the food chain. What a great experience. Later that day I plucked up the courage to swing from a moerse high tree in the front garden. All it took was a few beers to pretend the crocs sunning themselves on the riverbank a few meters ahead were plastic ornaments. I yelled for dear life as I did my tarzan thing. I think I’m turning into a pucker game ranger.

We stopped at a few stunning view sites on the 6 hour return trip from Mpumalanga. I’m especially name dropping the provinces cos I’m getting the hang of knowing what lies where, much to my mothers surprise I’m sure. Drie Rondawels and Gods Window offer breathtaking views from the end of the highveld plateau , overlooking the lowveld. I didn’t realize we were talking altitude differences here, I thought highveld and lowveld referred to the length of the actual grass.

Back at Berdien’s house it’s like a miniature friggin petting zoo. They share their house with 11 cats, 2 dogs, 2 birds, 2 tortoises, 2 chickens and a pot belly pig who calls like a baby when he wants to come indoors. She’s nuts about animals – go figure.

I spent yesterday scrubbing the bus; the back inside corner was black from the exhaust fumes and in hindsight I think all those times we stopped to rave about the view we were probably high as a kite for most of the trip. Oh well, Theo has stuck some gum gum on the hole in the exhaust and some silicon to cover the hole where it’s coming inside. We’ll see what happens when we leave here.

I’m seriously worried about our sex life. I can’t even stroke the cats without building up static friction from the electricity in the air but sooner or later we’ll have to give it a go, possibly with a rubber condom and rubber shoes to earth myself. I have anxious memories of collecting Theo a few times after work back in Cape Town, when a greeting kiss would turn into a hair raising spark as we changed seats. And I’m not even talking tongue, imagine what will happen if you put body fluids into the picture. I asked a few people for advice and they told me to always dangle one leg over the side of the bed to earth myself on the floor. They said a little shock now and then kept things spicy anyway and sex in the passage saved many a marriage. In the interim I’ve been a bit tense but it could be due to over exposure of people’s paranoia in the city life again.

I’ve also just discovered that for some reason I thought we were going to do the course at Pilansberg Nature Reserve. Well I got my facts wrong, we’re doing it at Combretum Nature reserve which is 2 or 3 hours drive from here. Don’t know how I got that mixed up, I thought I was getting good at directions. Oh well we got here, tomorrows worries are for tomorrow.

HOWDY DOODY

I’ve been blogging about places we’ve seen, but you might be wondering about the nitty gritty’s of the trip. I’ve come to the realization that when you’re on the move you just can’t plan ahead cos things never work out accordingly and you only end up screwing yourself if you put expectations on where you’ll be next. I’m also holding thumbs that the bus doesn’t give any more problems cos Theo is learning about maintenance but I suspect he’s learning the hard way but so far we are still on the move and getting there.

I definitely prefer small one horse towns to the bigger cities since they have so much more character and you feel as though you’ve stepped back in time, also less chance of getting lost. We stopped at Bloemfontein, capital of the Frystaat, to visit Theo’s brother and wife, and the city is big and ugly and uninviting. It’s also raining which probably adds to the dreariness of this large brown city.

We spend most days driving (top speed is 80 km/hr), stopping to make food or tea and sometimes we do museums, some are interesting some are old and dusty, or a quick bit of shopping, but mostly its just us, loads of laybyes, and a changing view from the bus window. When we stop in the middle of nowhere you can feel the quietness all around – it’s cool.

My hands have cuts and the dusty cracks tell me my skin is dry but I make a bee line for soaking in the bath and a good pampering when we stay over with people. Whether or not you wear underwear is also determined by your dwindling cupboard and how far before the next washing machine stop.

We’re eating really well; braaing most nights, Theo’s lekker bread, divine buttermilk flapjacks for brekkies, vetkoek and carrot salad are but a few. And then of course the huge parmeham and pancetta which he made 4 months ago is getting smaller and smaller and works as a good standby.

We’re unfit and fatter and the birds and vegetation have changed so I can’t identify anything. I hope I do ok on the Field Guide course starting 21^st August but I’d better start learning to identify stuff around here. Yesterday we drove past either a jackal or a fox. It was roadkill which made it difficult to match up to the picture in my mammal book. I’ve noticed that the hundreds of termite hills around here have been broken open by animals but I haven’t seen them yet.

Other people collect teaspoons or porcelain frogs but we collect toilet paper from petrol garages for when you have to pee in the bushes (not that I’ve seen many bushes lately).

We mostly only have each others company although we don’t talk to each other too much when driving since the engine is noisy. The exhaust fumes generally billow around the back end of the bus, so when we wanna get goofed we pull over for matinee sex.

I sit with the map to see where we are and to get a sense of direction. Ha – my favorite pastime. Well I’m not lost yet although sometimes the Garmin doesn’t work so lekker. I’m learning where the provinces are, anything north of the karoo is unfamiliar to me. All those new names of towns and provinces are foreign but I see the Free State is still called the Free State according to my map.

It rains in winter in the Western Cape and then it gets cold. Makes sense. Now we’re traveling north, climbing altitude all the time, its still winter, it’s warm, we’ve passed snow on the mountains, the grass is dry yellowy browny and it rains in the summer. I’m confused as to when the people suntan.

Anyway so far I love every minute of the journey. Things will change I imagine when we run out of money but hopefully by then we’ll be qualified field guides and can look for work in that line.

Who knows what tomorrow will bring. I think I’m living life as it was meant to be, I'm enjoying it and I’m happy.

VULTURES AND HISTORY

We arrived in Willowmore with more bus problems ho hum. Same thing – sucking air. Dam. Luckily we didn’t have too hectic a deadline but this wasn’t part of the plan. Theo tried but couldn’t fix the problem so we headed for the garage where they suggested we get an electrical fuel pump which they fitted but after a test drive, the problem persisted. It was 1 o clock and the town closed so it looked like we were there for the weekend. Piet, the very friendly garage owner, insisted we could park in his workshop yard with electricity access and keys to toilets until Monday morning but we were happy to park at a laybye where we could braai and enjoy nature. Later Piet drove the 2km out of town to make sure we were ok and for a chat. He told us he enjoyed flying his microlight and later that afternoon we looked up to see him flying over and wave, satisfied that all’s well. Next morning Theo decided to have another look under the bus and seemed to sort out the problem. We drove around a little to make sure the problem didn’t come back, phoned Piet to tell him we were on our way again and later that day we stopped outside Aberdeen, 200 km past Willowmore, looked up and so wraggies waar we saw Piet flying overhead to wave us on our way. No that’s what you call country service. If it was Cape Town you could confuse Piet’s enthusiasm with the eager roadside tow truck vultures out scanning the tarmac for possible business.

We left the green Rhenosterbos behind us and headed for Graaf Reinette, where we strolled through the military museum and educated ourselves about the Anglo Boer War. The vegetation had turned a dull yellowy brown. I imagined a lion would blend in easily with the grass and I got a kind of a African feeling staring out the window. Well the first few hours anyway, by day 2 it was just more and more boring yellowy browny grass. I was used to green stuff in winter in the Western Cape not this dry open space unfolding for km after km ahead. The book said we’d left the arid region and were in savannah grassland. We overnighted just outside Colesburg and tried our shower out for the first time. It worked perfectly and I felt good. We’d been sleeping at pullovers all the time, (except of course the times we stayed with friends) and we’d always felt safe. I don’t know what all the fuss is about being safe out on the road in SA. The crime is way less out in the gamadoelas, probably cos there’s like a whole 6 people living in the whole Freestate but we are op en wakker and Theo keeps the tazer (stun shock thingie) handy. He wears it on his belt these days since the other day he shocked his leg from the inside of his pocket, not that I’m complaining since a day or 2 recuperating from sex was a relief.

We arrived in Bethulie, a town steeped in Anglo Boer War history, and stayed at Lupo, a biker friend who had sold up his stuff to travel SA and Namibia with Anette on their GS’s but they stopped in Bethulie, bought a house, converted it into a bike packer, and stayed. Lupo was our inspiration to get out of the ratrace so we were keen to see him. He showed us grave sites, the huge concentration camp site where just under 2 000 people died in tents. He took us to the museum, we read letters written by the Khakies to their families, read about first shots being fired at Novalspoort, and by the time we left Bethulie, the Anglo Boer war wasn’t just an event written about in history books, it became real, involving real people suffering horrific conditions.

Lupo showed us the massive, I mean maase massive Gariep dam. Not a person, not a boat, canoe, picnic table or tourist in site. What a pity the dusty, vertragte, town seemed to show little interest in putting itself on the map. If you do find yourself in the historical Bethulie, stop over at Lupo's Bike packers phone 083 251 3555 or check out his website www.BikerPackers.Bethulie.za.net. He will give you a guided tour of the place and is good company.

Back on the bus, a vehicle with a view, and on to Bloemfontein.