Setting off early, I drive all day and my leg is cramping on the accelerator. Feeling now quite jaded, I wind down my window in the hope that the fresh air will revive me but a swarm of bees pelts my windscreen, forcing me to close the window again. It is too late as one is trapped inside the cab and I pull over to the side of the road, opening the windows and doors and stand back to let it find its way out. I’m paranoid about bees and wasps, when as a boy, I was stung by a bee on the palm of my hand as I grabbed the branch of a tree. My hand swelled to double its size and to make matters worse, I accidentally sat on it and the middle finger burst at the end like a split sausage. With bees, I am able to remain reasonably calm and try to avoid them. Most will forget about you and go about their business but wasps are entirely a different beast. Their whole makeup expresses anger along with racing stripes, stealth wings and a scowl. A bee has more rounded wings and is a bit chubbier and slower with some furrier than others, making them appear more cuddly. They’re a little more careful about who they sting whereas a wasp could care less and needs no reason – just because it can. Standing at a BBQ one evening, clearly the smoke was irritating a nest, a wasp let loose on my back and stung me several times and although it felt like hot coals, it was short-lived and strangely, no swelling.

My eyes soon grow tired and I decide to stop at the next petrol garage, south west of Colesberg in the Karoo. Sunset on the surrounding hills is a beautiful display of orange hues and I steer my vehicle into an already deserted car park, bringing it to a halt under the green sunshade. Climbing out to stretch, the dull pain in my left leg is now more apparent and I lean against the awning post for a moment to get the circulation going. Unfortunately, a fault with the Beetle’s gear box means the fourth gear pops out, and having fitted a bungee cord to hold the gear lever in place, it is not entirely secure and use the crook of my leg to hold it in place.

The strip lights on the forecourt hum in the silence and create a bright halo against the background of the night. Giant moths dance all around making a ping-ping sound as they bounce off the flourescent tubes. Petrol pumps stand like lone sentries and a closed sign hangs precariously on the now yellowed cheap lick-n-stick rubber suckers on the general store’s glass door entrance. The only other sound is an old ice cream advertising board squeaking on its rusty springs, swaying in the breeze. There is a chill in the air and with no heating in the vehicle, it will make for a cold and uncomfortable night. I shuffle into my sleeping bag on the passenger side and adjust the seat into a recline position. Plastic and polyester don’t go well together as I continuously slip and slide off the seat. God, I’m going to freeze out here. Switching off the overhead light, I stare out into the distance, my eyes adjusting to the darkness. The windscreen misting, my mind drifts to the stories my Ouma shared with me as a youngster, about when she worked as a district nurse in this region. She was always on the road, kilometre after kilometre, visiting schools and ensuring pupils were in good health – a legacy of the apartheid government no longer. At the time, her husband – my grandfather, was an alcoholic and never around or incapable of functioning in any meaningful capacity. So mum and her stepbrother had to stay with relatives or friends and sometimes even strangers whilst she was away. This unfortunately had a huge impact on their relationship with their mother with Mum seeking the emotional support that my grandmother could just not provide and her stepbrother from a second marriage where his father died quite soon of a heart attack never really knowing his father. He is now devoid of all emotion and prefers to live as a recluse.

The Karoo is a semi-arid desert, dotted with small scrub, sheep, the odd farmstead and if not already crippled by a farmer, jakkels. Some time ago, mountain leopard and lion frequented the region but now being extinct, sightings are extremely rare to the point of it being considered a myth. There really isn’t much for kilometres around and a harsh climate brings bitterly cold nights in winter with snow on the mountains. Summers are scorching with very little rainfall, making it one of the toughest environments in which to live, let alone raise livestock. I often wonder what brings people to these places but once you appreciate the surroundings, you can’t help but feel the energy – it’s like no other. As someone who doesn’t like crowds too much, I appreciate the surroundings even more. A world untouched apart from nature reminding us of our place. And Laingsburg experienced just such a natural event in 1981 with flash flooding having decimated the town.

Being a particularly dry year, and because the soil in the region is a hardy layer, it doesn’t absorb water very well with much of it draining straight into the Buffelsrivier. Water in the region, is mostly drawn from aquifers by water pump, evident by the windmills dotted across the landscape but without rainfall that year, even the toughest breed of sheep struggled for survival. The rains did finally arrive and ended in disaster when the Buffelsrivier broke its banks because the runoff. The Buffels, Wilgehout and Baviaans all converged, resulting in a huge wave crashing through town washing away everything in its path, including the main motorway. Smaller roads running parallel to the town acted as water channels funnelling the flow and residents were trapped only able to seek refuge on the rooftops of shops and houses. Even still, some of these swept away and more than a hundred people died with almost two hundred houses being devastated. Few houses still stood and over fifty people were never found, presumed buried under the silt of the Floriskraal Dam.

Rising with the sun but not feeling quite as radiant, I am soon on the road again to find breakfast. I notice a grinding noise coming from the front of the vehicle that wasn’t there yesterday, but the good news is that it’s not coming from the rear where the engine is and decide to turn around and head back to the garage. By this time they are open but as it’s unfortunately only a petrol garage, there are no mechanics to be found. I’m informed by the garage manager that there is a mechanic just a few kilometres down the road and can’t miss it – a huge corrugated iron barn on the left. The mechanic there is very helpful and in my pigeon Afrikaans, I understand that it is nothing serious but only the front wheel about to fall off. With a stern warning about bald tyres and bolts tightened, I am on my way, no charge. My journey brings me to a small town across the Orange River near the Gariep Dam. The name escapes me but I will never forget the beauty of it – not the town itself so much but the surrounds. There is a school, a few scattered houses and a store or two and I stop to admire the view as the sun’s rays break through the clouds sweeping across the landscape like a huge spotlight from above, shining on nature’s choreography. To top it all, a thin veil of drizzle creates a faint rainbow, framing it just perfectly.

A short distance ahead I find a diner next to a local store where farmhands come and go whilst others loiter. Farmhands in this region are mostly descendants of the San and the Khoikhoi, the hunter gatherers and migratory herders that once roamed these lands so freely. The mix-race of the colonialists and Khoikhoi are known as Griquas, having formed their owned identity and live further inland in what was known or still is to some, Griqualand. The many tales these farmhands care to share and express with inebriate delight are as deeply ingrained in their culture as the lines on their faces. Anyone prepared to listen, could easily spend a day absorbing anecdotes passed down from generation to generation mixed with the daily antics of life on a farm always with humour and exuberance. In this day, an ill-afforded modernity edges their way of life toward extinction. Communities already divided by the impact of African tribalism and colonialism, are further divided by borders and farmlands, with small pockets dotted here and there over a vast area of the northern and southern Cape.  One will invariably come across a small settlement where alcohol and drugs has had a huge impact on their community and in some cases, so bad that it is evident in the persons features. A syndrome called foetal alcohol syndrome with small eyes, flattened cheeks, a short nose and a smooth indent between the nose and the top lip above a thin upper lip.

Sitting at the window of the diner, I order a fast food breakfast. Ironically, the service is slow and as I look around me, I am surrounded by plastic laminate menus, white formica faux marble dining tables, deep-seated booths and American diner styled bar stools in chrome and red faux leather – the kind you stick to when wearing shorts – like my car seats! The chrome condiments are plugged with dried sauce at their openings and the spring-loaded serviette dispensers are crammed so full, they are ready to explode. Idle thoughts occupy my mind as my eyes catch a discarded plastic bag swirling in the breeze in the parking lot. A stray dog drifts across my view, its ribs poking out and squints against the dust and sunlight. Occasionally it lets out a bark that sounded like, as the locals would put it, sucking in air through it’s arsehole. A drunk man pulls out a familiar orange packet of Boxer tobacco, dips in and takes out a small wad, stashing the packet back in his coat pocket. Stumbling backward, yet magically managing to stay upright, he shapes the tobacco into a perfectly tapered cigarette with the torn corner of a sheet of newspaper and slips it between his lips in a well-rehearsed motion. Reaching for the quart of beer that he had placed on the ground earlier, he almost falls face down but again manages to stay upright only to stumble over to his friends seated in a line against the wall of a building bathing in the sun. Patting himself down for a light, his cap falls off and with beer bottle in one hand and cigarette in the other, he begins to argue with himself. Cursing, he moves the bottle over to his cigarette hand, waddles over to a spot against the wall and leans against it, sliding down and easing himself gently into a squat. The cap is forgotten. The brand of beer is LION lager, or dubbed by regular consumers as ‘number seventeen’, the letters being read upside down when pouring it down your throat. Which reminds me of a story written by a well known advertising personality when researching why marketing was not reaching a demographic in South Africa. A very popular and cheap wine product from a vineyard in the Western Cape had a label on the neck of the bottle featuring bunches of grapes. The farm labourers being avid consumers of the product, noted by the purchase of five litre bottles, took to calling it by the number of the grape bunches. A new campaign featured a design that was upgraded from a classic look to something more contemporary, reflecting the popularity of the product. Sales dropped dramatically and it took quite some time for the distributor to learn why this had happened as they were unaware that farm labourers as a demographic even existed. So much for market research but out of that story was born a new world of consumer; third world advertising, that appealed to the illiterate with strong visuals and identity. Needless to say, the old label was reinstated and a series of product road shows were introduced, a travelling theatre as it were on the back of a long bed truck with actors acting out roles of domestic bliss from washing powder to alcohol. Some of these brands have barely evolved since then as the identity to the consumer is so strong and the risk is too high.

Farm labourers come from kilometres around spending most of their time and hard-earned cash on alcohol and tobacco to catch up with others and to forget about life for a while. Downtime hasn’t changed much over the years but for those who don’t make it into town, they might resort to a home brew of sorts to keep them in spirit. The worst I have had of these brews is pineapple beer, where in a moment of desperation, I went on a search for alcohol in a remote location after friends had run out. I ended up at an ‘informal settlement’ or shanty town where there is normally a local shebeen. But being quite late, no beer was to be found and finally settled on the local brew. We were not well thereafter but we put it down to experience.

On the outskirts of town, are ‘legal’ shebeens which means they are known to authorities and tolerated by the townsfolk, limiting disturbances to a particular area. That didn’t prevent the odd drunk straying into the town centre begging for money, being promptly swept up by the police and dropped on the outskirts when they filled the van.

A few houses in the region have stood the test of time having been immaculately maintained by their owners. It’s difficult to appreciate why anyone would have wanted to settle here as there is very little in the way of water and vegetation. It’s dry and dusty. But in earlier years, the ever increasing volume of shipping around the Cape Horn and the demand for livestock as a consequence, provided the incentive for the spread of colonial sheep farmers east and northeast through the plateau region of the Karoo – an area neatly nestled between the coastal and Griqualand diamond regions. The few historical houses that do still stand are lined with corrugated iron for their walls painted in pastel yellow or blue with elaborate wrought iron latticework adorning their patios. They look much like the pictures I had seen in my Ouma’s old photograph collection of when she was a child. The town of Pilgrims’ Rest is a good example of the style of housing but these evolved into sturdy bricks and mortar constructions ultimately. She often pointed out that people looked so grand in their outfits and didn’t need a reason to dress smart – they just did. Generations lived in the same village, seemingly not possessing the urge to move anywhere else. Children walked barefoot along the dust roads on their way to school, even in winter for some who were unable to afford shoes and it was the way since anyone could remember. Their ‘best shoes’ or ‘mooi skoene’, sometimes the only pair, were worn only on Sundays to complement their best attire for church. Upon leaving the house of the Lord, shoes are off and the children are sprinting down the road screaming at the top of their lungs, mothers calling after them not to go too far and to be careful. One  whispers in another’s ear, eager to learn a secret and opens their cupped hands to an expression of delight – an insect, a frog or some other intriguing specimen. Groups of men gather around mud covered bakkies, hands in their pockets and puffing on pipes slotted into the corners of their  infinite smiles. The odd one staring at the ground shuffling stones around with his immaculately polished shoes, laughing overtly at the jokes. My Ouma said that there are stories of people being abducted by aliens on the main tar road because it’s so quiet and remote, she said. As a youngster and a passenger in her car, I remember staring at the sky as we drove into the night, looking out to the stars and wishing the aliens would abduct me. That would give her something to talk about.

My final destination is a small town near the southwestern border of the Kruger National Park. It took all of five minutes for me to make up my mind to leave Cape Town, and in the three days that followed, I sell all my belongings. I was not planning on returning for some time and was in a particularly dark place at the time. My mother and her new husband, whom I had met a few years ago and had come to enjoy his company, manage a farm in the region and they offered, well she did, for me to stay for a while to sort myself out. It was a much welcomed opportunity and all the beautifully written descriptions and thumbnail imagery on picture postcards that mum had sent, paid no homage to the vision that opened up before me as I turned a bend in the road. Natural beauty that one only dreams of when paging through dog-eared travel magazines lying in doctor’s waiting rooms. Beauty that one never gets to experience in our modern lives as almost anywhere in the world, man has walked it, dumped on it or graffitied it. It saddens me that we dump garbage in the oceans, on mountains, in space and on even on the moon and makes me question why earth needs us. I see the name of the farm at the entrance and a long winding dirt track guides me downhill through a forest of gum trees, a lush valley of thick vegetation and across a narrow dam wall. The dam spreads into a thicket of bullrushes on my right, and the edge of the twelve foot waterfall on my left. Tree branches and ferns with huge sweeping leaves, whip the lake surface with each breeze and dragonflies skip along dipping their tails. In a shady corner, a hippo raises his head from the cool, keeping an ever watchful eye over its surroundings. It is said, that more people are killed by hippos than any other wild animal in Africa. The speed and agility of the animal in and out of water is severely underestimated.

How the Hippo was created

The hippo was the last creature to be created and made up of all the parts leftover from those creatures before him. He was embarrassed because he was so fat and ugly and begged the Creator’s permission to live in the water. ‘With such a huge mouth and teeth he would devour all the fish’, thought the Creator and promptly rejected the idea. The hippo begged again, “I promise to eat nothing from the water and will emerge at night to graze on grass and plants”, he said. Again he was rejected. After some consideration, the hippo was granted permission to live in the water with one condition. He had to emerge daily to scatter his dung so that all of the creatures could examine it to ensure there were no fish bones. This is why the hippo lives in the water and feeds on the land. – African Folklore

Engine revving, back wheels spinning and kicking up clumps of mud, I make my way up the hill swerving from side to side trying to find purchase on the damp clay and avoid the large underlying sandstone boulders that could rip the bottom out of my vehicle. This is 4×4 territory and whilst the roads are graded once a year before the rains, the downpour is not dissimilar to that of a brief monsoon washing away the road almost entirely. By midday the humidity is overpowering with perspiration soaking my shirt and every breath fills my lungs with thick air. Butterflies hover around a small puddle from the previous night’s rains and take to the air in a flurry of black and blue as the tyre rolls through. Tiny ‘white-eyes’ perch on telephone wires like notes on a sheet of music, flitting here and there ambushing insects passing by and promptly return to compose a new symphony. A symphony of nature’s sights, sounds and smells. In the distance, the faint voices of farmhands carries on the breeze as they weave their way amongst the maze of avocado and litchi trees that dot the hills.

I roll the vehicle into the drive and mum and her husband are there to greet me. Their excitement is contagious and I’m swept up in the joy of grinning faces and cheer with the two little Dachshunds or ‘dashing hounds’ as her husband likes to call them, jumping up and down at my feet. The bigger dog wets herself in the frenzy, followed by a human chorus of ‘oh no’. The gin and tonics are already poured as they had spotted me from across the valley entering the dirt track from the tar road. It is good to see them both, full of colour, tans topped up and the energy of the bush and the spirit of midday drinks flush their faces. I have not seen them since they married almost five years ago. My bags are left in the car and I am ushered through the house for the ‘grand tour’ with the ‘dashing hounds’ following closely on our heels. Acres upon acres of pine forest surround us with the region being famous for having some of the largest man-made pine forests in the world. This is paper country.

The Upside Down Tree

The Bushmen tell us that the Great Spirit allocated a tree to all species of animal except the hyena. “Be good and stop stealing and I will give you a tree”, he said. But the hyena was angry and refused to change his ways. The Spirit gave him a baobab plant, which was the last one. The hyena in his anger planted the seedling upside down with its roots reaching for the sky. Hence today, the baobab tree is stilled called ‘The Upside Down Tree’. – African Folklore

It’s early in the morning and I’m wide awake. It’s still dark out and I look at my watch, the luminous dial dancing in front of my eyes. 2am and the house is quiet apart from the occasional creak of the large wood beams settling after the warm day. It suddenly occurs to me that the flat I was living in just a few days ago, was located on a busy main road that joined the city bowl to the suburbs of Camps Bay and Clifton. Not having that noise has disrupted my sleep but I could also hear my blood pumping through my ears. Suddenly I hear a strange sound outside my bedroom window followed by voices with the static of two-way radios growing louder. My heart leaps into my throat and knowing mum and her husband are on the other side of the house, all I have is a panic button to be used only in extreme emergencies, that is, life or death. Otherwise under no circumstances do I press that button. Not knowing what to do, I duck and roll and hide behind the bed until the sounds fade into the night. It’s gone quiet again and I peep from the side of the curtain taking care not to move it too much. The bright moon casts shadows in the garden making it impossible to identify anything and my eyes play tricks with bush and tree silhouettes moving in front of them. There could be a hundred men out there armed with rifles and I would not be able to see them. It seems an eternity but I dare not switch on the reading light and lie and stare at the black emptiness of the ceiling until it slowly morphs into the warm comforting orange undertones of sunrise bringing security. I imagine this is how man must have felt before discovering fire.

The house stirs with noises in the kitchen and the pitter patter of little dashing hound feet on the linoleum floors. The smell of coffee wafts down the hallway, shortly followed the two dashing hounds suddenly appearing at my bedside. This would become the morning ritual with mum appearing with coffee and Ouma rusks. Her husband is up and makes his way down to the compound to get the ‘boys’ prepped for the day. The Land Rover speeds past my window and down into the valley with the tractor following soon thereafter disappearing into the early morning mist.