All things considered, I'm in pretty good shape. Cape Town moves languidly and maybe if it was a bit faster I'd be having a rougher time. The city was overcast in a kind of fog when we approached, but the spines of the mountains were visible and they're almost an unreal beauty. A friendly woman from the Backpackers Bus took me to the Ashanti Lodge and I've got a great room to myself in the second guesthouse. On the drive from the airport we passed some of the townships. First, they're huge. I can't find the exact population, but it would be something like the city of Montreal moving into low huts of corrogated metal sheets and old boards, with a few feet between the rows and kids and dogs playing everywhere. I got to the Lodge well before check-in time so I stored my stuff and wandered around, finding Long Street and Old Government Lane. Everything seemed so quiet. It's just hard to feel like I'm in a huge city and that there's so little of that background noise that comes with huge cities. And of course the divide between black and white. It's unbelievable. I spent some time reading the history of South Africa in my Let's Go book while I was waiting in London. South Africa is a nation of seething diversity. There's no us-vs-them history like in most countries; it's an us-vs-them-and-them-and-them history. Like the book points out, South Africa may have only had one official civil war, but until the early 1930s there was never a period when populations weren't choosing sides and terrorizing each other. Then the era of apartheid (which means "separateness" or apart.) It may have died over ten years ago, but it will probably take more than a generation for the line that separates black and white to even start to get fuzzy at the edges. The reality of its impact is very clear: if you're white, you're rich; if you're black, you're poor and worthy of menial labour (if you're lucky.)
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| This is what my feet looked like after 35 hours of flying. The left foot was in a brace and the right wasn't. Compression socks from now on every time I board a plane. | Table Mountain from the Ashanti Backpackers. | My awesome room at the Ashanti. The communal kitchen was to the right. |
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| Walking down Old Government Lane and this lamp post with the AIDS sign caught my eye. | Also on Old Government Lane. The cloud over Table Mountain is called the Tablecloth. | The view of the wrap-around porch. |
I wanted to visit Robben Island tomorrow, but tours are booked until Monday when I leave for Mossel Bay. Hopefully I can squeeze a tour in when I get back. Missing out on seeing where Nelson Mandela spent 27 years of his life would really be awful. Tomorrow's plan is to check out the District 6 museum, look into a township tour, and check out Table Mountain.
That said, people are so nice. I wouldn't call them friendly since that usually connotes an Atlantic Canadian image of familiarity and being outgoing. People don't smile or make the first move, but once you start interacting with them they really change.
I got up for a run this morning. This is the only run I can think of that I've done that didn't have an inch of flat ground. I couldn't really see any good running routes from the hostel and the roads are way too narrow to run in. I went up Hof Street to Kloof, then started an insane climb to the larger Kloof Nek Road. The last half of that climb was so steep that I had to walk up - and walk down when I later returned. I felt pretty strong, but my attention was mostly on my heels. Both were nagging a bit in the hills, although not at all on the downhills. At the top of Kloof Nek Road I got an amazing view of the sprawl of Cape Town behind me in the morning sun and the Atlantic Ocean with the moon setting over it in front of me, all surrounded by the massive mountains of the area. I enjoyed it for a few minutes, then went back to running and obsessing over my decision to run the ultra or downgrade to the half. 45min.
I started the touristy part of the day with the essentials: coffee and a paper. If, by the time you've gone through the local paper, you haven't figured out that South Africa has an AIDS problem, then you probably didn't read the top half of the front page, the bottom half, the last page, or any page in between. AIDS, corruption, and how to rebuild the economy are the big stories, with a bit of Zimbabwe thrown in. Zimbabwe's refugees, drugs, and its inflation (predicted to reach 2500%) are what South Africa has to worry about. It kinda makes having the US as a neighbour a bit like living beside the sweetest old lady on the block. I did rip out the Pisces horoscope for today, since I figured I'd need it later on when I was pickup up my race kit: The cosmos is encouraging you to believe in yourself. Act with confidence and don't under-rate your value. You don't serve anyone by playing small or minimising your talents. Be pro-active and ask for what you desire. Even if you don't get it, at least you'll have tried.
I wandered down Kloof Street and eventually reached the tourist office where a really nice person booked a township tour for me that I'll be on tomorrow morning. I was still so nervous about my decision (I was getting closer and closer to the convention centre where I had to pick up my race kit) that I forgot my VISA card with him. Then it was on to the convention centre where I finally had to decide what race I was doing. During this morning's run, I had started to convince myself that I really wanted to do the half. It was the same effect as running the entire run in hills, and then thinking "Oh, it would be so easy to run on the flat. I should find a bit of flat just to enjoy it." I wanted the familiar feeling of running fast and hard in a race. But J sent the most amazing email a few days ago that's been on my mind since I got it. Without being too directive, he does a great job at reminding me that we run for a purpose, and that purpose is far more than crossing a finish line as fast as we can. People say that we run to discover ourselves, but I think that's only partly true. We only discover ourselves when we run under challenging conditions, and how many of us ever go that far? Maybe, as J says, I've got more to learn by trying the ultra and failing than by easily finishing the half. And what have I ever gained by sticking to familiar territory? The ultra will take me into unknown territory where failure is very likely. That's what terrifies me.
By the time I got to the registration counter my legs were shaking. I got my kit, then started stumbling to where my timing chip had to be scanned. Do I go back and stand in front of the downgrade counter, or do I get my chip scanned and face the ultra? If I skip the ultra, I'll always think that I copped out. Yes, it will be painful, but I knew it would be when I started skipping workouts this winter. I've got to face the consequences of my decisions, don't I? And I've got J's email burning a hole in my backpack. So I got my chip scanned and will be lining up at the 56km start very early Saturday morning.
There wasn't a whole lot of touring after that. I figured I should probably slowly make my way back to the Ashanti (a solid 45 minute walk) if I wanted to save my legs for Saturday. The Table Mountain cable car was closed (it's extremely windy here today, and winds are rated at gale force at the top of Table Mountain.)
I'm the last person to be picked up on the tour. Zippo, a 20 year old cheerful black guy from the Eastern Cape, comes running out to greet me. The van is packed full of other backpackers, including one Canadian from Vancouver. I tell her she must have had a long flight.
On our way over to the townships (which are on the east side of Table Mountain), Zippo gives us a lot of background and a couple of rules for what to do when we're there. Don't give kids money, since it encourages them to stay out of school. No photos of men unless you ask for their permission. Ask lots of questions, people really want whites to understand the history. There are actually several townships stuck together, the difference between them is whether the population is indigenous, from the homelands (way out), or Malay (and therefore probably Muslim.) The first one we visit is Langa, one of the larger ones whose population was originally only working males who were cheap labour. They came from the countryside (homelands) and had left their family behind. When the rules of apartheid changed, they went back to get their families and moved them to Langa. The grateful families got to live with two others in a tiny room. Overcrowding is still the biggest problem in Langa. We go to a shebeen (pub, sort of), wander over to a new housing project, and finally learn how to pronounce Xhosa ("Khosa.")
We go on to Guguletu. We pass a memorial dedicated to seven young blacks from the area who were killed by white police for "terrorism", who allegedly shot them and then put grenades in their hands to make it look like the seven were attacking. A few hundred feet later on the very same road, we stop at Amy Biehl's tiny little concrete cross in front of a petrol station. She was the American student studying at the University of Cape Town who got stoned and stabbed to death in 1993 when she was dropping friends off in Guguletu. As the minibus is idling in front of the cross I try to imagine what it was like to be here on that night, getting dragged out of a car, beaten and stoned and stabbed, and finally crawling to a guardrail and dying in front of an Esso. Four men were convicted of killing her; they were granted amnesty in the Truth and Reconciliation hearings held much later. Unbelievably, two of those men now work for programmes run by her foundation. My, what a world we live in.
There are a few other highlights. In Khayalitsha, the largest township (over 1 million people!), we stop at Vicki's B&B, check out a kindergarten, and walk around a bit. What surprises me overall isn't the overcrowding or the state of the shacks (China is so much worse), it's the sense of wasted human potential. There's absolutely nothing to do on these townships. Unless you've got a job in the city, you're spending your days on the street hanging out with your friends and begging. Imagine that on a scale of millions of lives. I think of that every time I see the ubiquitous parking attendants in their bright neon green bibs. There are no parking meters in Cape Town, and parking space is about as valuable as your house. So parking attendants everywhere wait around for a car to park, give the driver a thumbs-up, then follow them to get paid when the driver returns. There's always the comment that if parking meters were in place then so many people would be unemployed and what a terrible thing that would be, but you've got to wonder about it from the other direction: does the lack of technology anchor people into petty sub-employment? I think of the construction workers on the railways in China, digging holes and embankments with a tiny hammer and chisel, or the totally useless but tourist police in Egypt. Is a job at any price worth it?
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| This room in an apartment block in the Langa township was built for three men. By the time apartheid was over, 12 people were living in it. I took the photo standing in the far corner. | A shebeen in Langa. Those two old guys finished off the bucket of sour brew that the shebeen served. |
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| And that bucket came out of that green tub. | The surprisingly clean township of Khyalitsha. |
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| This is the preschool behind Vicki's B&B. It was a sweet place to stop and think that maybe there's still hope for the world. | Well, maybe not. This is from a bar in front of Vicki's B&B. "Gonner those days sex used to be fun now is a death sentence"" |
I get dropped off last in the group. I don't really mind since I get a good tour of Cape Town out of it, and I also get to see the start and finish area for the Two Oceans events when we go by the University. The shorter races are being held today and there are runners on the road. Otherwise it's a short day for me. I don't want to walk too much and it's so windy that it's not a lot of fun to be out.
My stuff is packed for tomorrow, I've got my bib numbers pinned to my race top (purple shirt with a purple flower on it! Gotta have my purple energy.) I've met a delightful couple staying at the Ashanti with whom I'll be sharing a cab tomorrow morning at 4:30am. This is the third time they've done the half-marathon and they had all the answers to my questions. They were originally from Holland and emigrated to South Africa a few years ago after deciding against Canada ("We didn't think we'd like the weather.") I've got my race song, my race plan, my food, and everything lined up. As Billy Mills said, now I just have to believe.
"Fear is a question: what are you afraid of, and why? Just as the seed of health is in illness, because illness contains information, your fears are a treasure-house of self-knowledge if you explore them." Marilyn Ferguson
The day started with a crowded cab ride at 4:30am with six other runners. Only two of us were doing the ultra. I stuck with the other ultra runner until almost the start. We met John and Eilleen, who organise a marathon somewhere in South Africa and have done Comrades. They give me the advice that they say they've heard since 1976 when Two Oceans started and has been the best so far: start ahead of the 7 hour pacer. Run your own race at a good clip for the first half of the course. When the going gets tough and the hills start, you'll start to slow down and eventually the pacer will catch up to you. You can finish with the group. That sounds like a good plan to me (I'm reading the quintessential South African novel, The Power of One, and Hoppie's advice to Peekay is pretty much the same: have a plan. And of course, first with the head, then with the heart.) The sun isn't up when we get in our start corrals. It's a typical marathon start. Everyone's nervous and joking and wishing friends well. I wait with John and Eilleen and I'm surprised at how I feel. Nervous, but somehow I accept the coming challenge and I'm giving it a good hard look. I've got three pouches with ClifShots, Vaseline, a pace chart, lip balm, and J's latest email. Time to pull it out and read it. "Fear is just an emotion."
The world's longest wail starts the race. It takes a few minutes to cross the start line, and then I really seem to get focused, much more so than I usually do. Paul Brady's The Island is in my head. My mind is working on only one thing: getting to the ChiRunning ideas so that I can get that perfectly efficient stride. The seven hour pacer is just behind me and he's going at quite a fast pace. But he's doing a walk-run combination that I don't like. I'd rather save the walk-run for later. Right now I've got to run fairly fast early in the course, and that's not something I like. It's dark for the first hour or so. The kilometres are called out by little kids holding up huge signs. There are a lot of spectators out, but the area is just one giant suburban set of shops for almost ten kilometres. So far I'm getting all the pace marks right on target, but I wonder how I'll keep up this pace. Then dawn arrives, and there is nothing quite like an African dawn. There's a massive mountain ahead of us that catches the early sun and starts to glow.
Around 17km I get a sniff of sea breeze and suddenly - wham! - there's the Indian Ocean crashing in front of me! The waves are absolutely huge because of the strong winds. There are funny Old Mutual signs posted along the side of the road, "No, you don't have time for a quick dip." This is about the point that my heels start nagging me. Well, I think to myself, at least I made it as far as the Indian Ocean before I had to stop. But I start shifting my stride a bit, turning a heel in or out and finding just the right angle that can keep me going. It's much worse on uphills than downhills, and a few minutes of walking seems to get rid of it for a while. My legs are stiff already. What will they be like later? At Fish Hoek we turn up a short, brutal hill (I walk up) and get a huge tailwind all the way to the other side of the Cape Peninsula. The Atlantic Ocean!! So different from the Indian. Now I've run and seen the two oceans!
The Atlantic is far below us since we've been climbing a ways since we left Fish Hoek. But its blue is different and you get a sense of vastness and consistency that wasn't there in the wild and crazy Indian Ocean. An Old Mutual sign reads "So beautiful it hurts." There are even more spectators now. We turn onto Chapman's Drive. The entire drive is blocked off for the runners. It's a narrow road carved right into the sheer cliffs of the mountains that drop straight into the ocean. The road goes on for miles. It's in the shade for now and there's no traffic, so in spite of the long climb it's a bit of a breather. I've started taking Coke at aid stations, which are phenomenal. They're every two or three kilometres, have lots of Coke, and the best volunteers. I should really check into a sponsorship from Coke. By the time I was done this race I had had so much Coke I felt like a vending machine. God help me if someone gives me a loonie.
People have slowed dramatically; most are walking. I'm now well ahead of my pace marks. But the camber on the road in the curves is so bad that my left IT band is starting to complain softly, then whinge, and finally scream. Time for some stretching and a bit of walking. When we start up the long hill to Chapman's Peak, the view is insane: you look down the coast to about four kilometres ahead of you and see the road ahead, all uphill, and tiny, tiny little bodies on it. I speed-walk all of Chapman's hill but I'm still out of breath just walking. It's one damn steep climb and the worst climb of all, Constantia Nek, is yet to come. At the top the road doubles back a bit and we're hit with a terrible headwind and the sun. The game now is to try to find shade. We go down for ages and finally get back to sea level in a sort of resort town.
The flat part to the start of Constantia is where fatigue starts becoming an issue. When I cross the 42.2km timing mat, I realise that this is where the race really starts for me. This is unknown territory. Everyone else is in really rough shape and I seem to be the only one running. Must be the Coke. It gets even more quiet when we start climbing Constantia Nek. Someone beating a drum yells out to us, "You're going up, mon, way up!" I now can feel some heatstroke; a bit dizzy, low blood pressure. But I'm still focused and when my thoughts do wander, The Island really brings them right back. Where did this new endurance come from? Since when have I been able to stay so disciplined and so focused for so long? My pace chart is now useless because I'm way past the markers. I just ran a 42.2km marathon in 4:38 without training, and about as fast as I did my first marathon. Damn!
The top part of Constantia Nek feels eerily like the climb to Yellow Lake at Ironman Canada. Huge crowds, lots of screaming, chalk encouragement on the pavement. This time around I've learned my lesson. I don't smile or respond to people cheering me on. Stay focused. Until I pass the Green Team (teams of volunteers in green t-shirts), about 30 black kids dancing and singing to YMCA. I've done a lot of events and seen a lot of cheering teams, but never one so joyful and thoroughly happy as this one. The downhills after Constantia Nek take a lot of negotiating because of the steep camber and my left knee. I stop just before the 50km timing mat to pull off my left shoe and add Vaseline to a nasty blister on my left little toe. Now we're in forest, the kind that belongs in books about other worlds. It's just as beautiful as the ocean views were, although unless you've seen them both you may find that hard to believe.
When I pass the 51km mark I finally start smiling a little. I'm actually going to make it. I still grab as much Coke as I can at every aid station, and that may explain why I feel so great. It's like I've got a new pair of legs and I'm starting fresh. Even other runners are cheering me on. How is this happening? I always run the last five kilometres thinking of those people who have inspired me. Grandmummy, Uncle Bob, Aunt Therese...It's a special way to finish a run because it reminds me that I'm not running alone, and that whatever I can accomplish is in fact the product of the accomplishments of other people who came before me. And that's how I - we - finish the whole thing.
After I had picked up my backpack, walked around (and of course, had my can of Coke!), I sat in the grass for while having a fabulous strawberry ice cream, looking around at the massive mountain behind the UCT campus and the people milling about. In Canada it would be what we would call a perfect summer day. No clouds, a bit of wind, a perfect moment. A good one to do some reflecting, too. I don't know how I finished today's race, or why things fell into place when I hadn't trained or put the mental work into getting ready. But when I look at all the emails I got before the race and when I pulled out J's last email as I was sitting blissfully in the soccer field at UCT, I think I finally clued in that believing in yourself is great, but nothing replaces the power of others believing in you. I run the last five kilometres for other people. Friends write emails of encouragement that get to the start and the finish lines. It's really quite amazing just how much we reap when we start to rely on each other and reciprocate the goodwill and friendship given to us. I just had to run 56km to figure that out.
I started today day with a nice sleep-in and lazy breakfast outside in the sun. Actually, my legs weren't giving me any option other than moving as slowly as possible. It took me so long that it was noon by the time that I caught the City Sightseeing Bus with a very opinionated tour guide. The bus does a regular loop around the city and out to the beaches. It's incredibly convenient for the price and all the information you get. I hopped off at the Table Mountain cable car station and took a ride up . The vertigo as the cable car approaches the top station is quite something. The top of Table Mountain is often covered in a cloud that the locals call a tablecloth. There might not be a cloud in the sky except for the tablecloth. That cloud dumps moisture on the mountain that keeps the plant life going. Today, however, there was no tablecloth and the views stretched at least 50 miles. I had lunch and enjoyed the serenity of the place and the views of Chapman's Peak, then back down to take the bus to Camps Bay. Every middle class and upper class family in Cape Town was at the beach today. What a great way to spend Easter! I stuck my feet in the Atlantic for a minute or two and then left when I couldn't feel them anymore. I wish I could have done the same thing for my legs.
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| The view of the Cape Town city bowl. | And the townships to the east of it on the other side of Table Mountain. |
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| The beautiful Table Bay. After the ultra, we drove to the other side for drinks and gazed at Table Mountain. | The cable car that takes you to the top of Table Mountain. It rotates 360 degrees as it travels. |
Back on the bus to Cape Town. The drive along Beach Road was gorgeous. The tour guide kept talking about all the expensive condos and housing going up in the area, but the real scene stealer was the Atlantic. Back in Cape Town I got dropped off last since I wanted to go to McDonald's for my post-marathon supper. I asked the tour guide about the parking attendants. He said it was a project started by the city a few years ago to find employment for poor blacks. The city reasoned it was better to give them a job than to have them idle and tempted to steal. On the other hand, it was hard to explain to citizens why formerly free parking now cost something, and why there were no fixed prices for parking. The attendants don't give anything back to the city and don't keep records. It's like a formalized begging system and I have no doubt that the only thing it'll end up creating is a deeply entrenched sense of entitlement.
Off to Mossel Bay tomorrow on the BazBus.
Traffic on the N2 rolls quite smoothly, too. The road is only a double carriage-way with a wide shoulder on either side. There's a LOT of traffic and when you want to pass someone you flash your lights and the car ahead of you moves over onto the shoulder (while maintaining its speed.) You pass somewhere in the middle of the road. It would be stress-free if it weren't for the people and the bikes on the shoulder. I'm crossing my fingers that the N1 from Johannesburg to Cape Town that I'll be driving in two weeks is four lanes.
Several of us get off in Mossel Bay. I'm at the Santos Train Lodge, with a priceless ocean view as long as you don't mind not having any running water except for a communal (cold) shower and a toilet. For the number of times in my life that I'll be able to sleep 100 feet away from the Indian Ocean pounding at the beach, I don't mind. It's Easter Monday so everything is closed. I wander around the streets, which is a very bad idea because my legs are still stiff and the town is in the side of a hill. Going downhill with quadriceps that are still in shock from Saturday's run is a slow and painful process. I top it off with 30 seconds in the Indian Ocean, the amount of time it takes to freeze my feet off, and then a great seafood supper at the Lodge's restaurant.
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| The Santos Train Lodge. Not much in the way of amenities except for the novelty of saying you stayed in a train and. | ...this was the view of the Indian Ocean from your, er, room. |
A lovely reminder in the Mossel Bay shell museum of the Camino de Santiago.
I spent the morning at the Dias Musuem checking out shellfish and the museum for Bartholomu Dias, the first European to round the Cape of Good Hope. The first part of the complex is a little botanical garden that I'd normally skip, but I've just finished reading the chapter about the Professor in The Power of One so it actually is a very poignant part of the day. (Read the book.) Inside the Dias Museum there's a life-size replica of the caravel that Diaz sailed when he did his big route. This particular model was built in Portugal and sailed down to Mossel Bay. It's hard to believe that 33 sailors lived on this tiny thing for over a year. The information panels around the boat talking about the 15th century Portuguese explorations were obviously written by the Portuguese government. All encounters with locals are described as "friendly", and I and the Chinese government are surprised to learn that the Portuguese had a strong influence in developing a free and fair society in China when they first landed there. (The Portuguese also discovered Newfoundland, by the way.)
After lunch I set off to find the Khoi Village Museum to see what the now-extinct Khoi people thought of all this. I take a wrong turn and that's the best thing that happens all day. I end up at the foot of Cape St. Blaize lighthouse and the end of Point Road. The view is amazing and I decide to do the first part of the famous hike along the coast. It's like hiking Gros Morne National Park, only in the middle of the cliff rather than on top, and with the sea pounding away just below you.
Now that my legs are completely shot again from clambering over rocks, I'm calling it a day. The afternoon bus to Storms River tomorrow so no update until Thursday when I try bungy jumping off the highest bridge in the world.
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| Waves crashing on Cape St. Blaise. | Sitting from the little parking lot in front of the giant cave, this is the view of the start of the trail along Cape St. Blaize. |
There's only one thing on the to-do list for Thursday, and that's bungy jumping off Bloukrans Bridge, the higest bungy jumping in the world. Heck, it was the only reason for stopping in Stormsiver! Michelle, one of the employees at The Didge, gave me a lift to the bridge. On our way over I asked her what it was like during apartheid. She said that things were very different, there were places you could and couldn't go, but in some respects things had not necessarily improved for the better. Integration at schools is difficult because it's where the resentment from the blacks and coloureds against whites surfaces. The victor re-writes history, but the underclass never forgets it.
Michelle stuck around for a while before I joined the group that's going over for the jump and we got into another long discussion about fear. She had done the jump once before and after doing it and watching others' reaction figured that people react to fear not according to who they are, but according to what their friends expect of them. Glad I'm doing this alone. Our group of 13 jumpers got briefed by Verne who put a lot of humour into it. We'll be reaching 90km/hr before the bungy cord starts to pull, although we won't feel a thing because we'll be swinging like a pendulum so as not to get a bad jerk. Then we start the long, long walk on the narrow little catwalk out to the middle of the span. The bottom of the walk is like metal fence and you can see the bottom of the gorge beneath your feet. The crew at the bridge itself is really awesome: they've got music blasting and seem to have a lot of fun doing what they do, which is a pretty cool job when you think about it. I'm the eighth jumper. Verne wraps my ankles in huge red pads and then wraps the cord over those. He and another guy help me hop to the edge of the bridge and remind me to put my toes just over the edge, spread my arms, and look up. Seeing my toes on the edge of the bridge and the 600 feet of emptiness below was, uh, a bit tough. But that was it. Verne and the other guy shout a count to four and yell "Bungy!", which is when you're supposed to push off the bridge, but I don't wait. I push off at four.
There's no fear at all except for a little moment when I think "I'm freefalling!" The blasting music suddenly disappears, the sound of the wind rushing by is all I hear. I watch the river come rushing up to me and just relax. It's an incredibly peaceful thing to do. I tried to explain that to Verne when I was back on the bridge but I think he figured I was a little weird. Each bounce back up was just another chance to enjoy all the sensations I'd probably never go through again.
Michelle came by after lunch to pick me up and the drive back was stunning. It turned out to be a spectacularly beautiful day and looking at the mountains of Tsitsikamma National Park made it hard to talk. I envied Michelle as she drove the pick-up, flashed headlights to pass cars, switched emergency lights to thank cars she had just passed, navigated between the traffic, and managed not whack any people walking on the side of the road while making it all look easy. Could I do this in ten days from now?
I walked around Stormsriver for the rest of the afternoon and found a gorgeous little forest hike. It's a lot like an old, lush Canadian forest except for the cacaphony of clicking, singing, zipping, knocking, and buzzing going on in the foliage. Then back to The Didge where Michelle, Brad (another employee) and I had a tequila shooter as part of bungy-jumping perk that The Didge gives first-time jumpers, and onto Port Elizabeth on the BazBus.
The view of Tsitsikamma National Park from the balcony at The Didge.
Well, I'm seeing all right. Lots and lots and lots of black people. I've been walking around all morning and I don't think I've seen more than ten white faces. This is not the PE described in my guidebook because my guidebook is quite outdated. So I looked into what was going on. Over the past four years, most whites have left the city because of the crime and the rising black resentment. The centre of PE has turned into a business-like ghetto. It looks like a city centre, and there's a lot of honking as minibuses zoom up and down streets looking for passengers to take out to the townships, but it's otherwise an economically dead area. I took a wrong turn this morning and knew right away I had to surreptitiously head back to the hostel or another area. Every single person on the streets I had wandered into had stopped and was staring back. Bungy-jumping calls for a kind of courage that comes quite easily, but this is a little different and in some ways a lot harder.
I've got a few more hours of checking this out and then I'm flying to Durban.
Gibela is pretty awesome. It's like staying in a hotel, and Elmar, the owner, says that it took him six years to find this place. He not only runs one awesome backpackers, he's got an interior designing touch to die for. This morning I walked down Argyle Street to the beaches that Durban is famous for. There are lots and lots of runners and cyclists, which reminds me that Durban is home to the famous Comrades Marathon , and from there I start wondering if I can run 100km. I walk all the way down to uShaka Marine World. I'm there with the most honourable of intentions - to see the aquarium - but when I buy my ticket I go for the whole enchilada: the aquarium and the waterpark. Today, I'm a lazy tourist!! I get to see a great dolphin show, which I don't think I would have appreciated as much had I not been a swimmer. I have a soft spot for dolphins and watching them leap and flash through the water reminds me that swimming is ultimately about the joy of movement. Then the seal show, then the absolutely amazing aquarium. I've never been so fascinated by fish in my life and that's really due to the imaginative way that the aquarium is laid out.
I have to admit, though, the best part of this really hot, windy, sunny day was the waterpark. I'm sure I've been to a waterpark before; I just can't remember. My mission is try every single ride there, and some of the rides are so fun I do them three times. By the time I'm done, I've got enough chlorinated water up my nose from landing in the pools that I could clean the UNB pool with one good hard sneeze. The only thing I didn't do was try surfing. I sat on a hill in the park that looks out onto one of the beaches and watched surfers catching waves. I really, really want to try surfing one day and it's too late by the time I realise you can go down to the beach and take lessons. That's one of the most frustrating parts about touring South Africa: your day is so short! By 4pm I have to start walking back to make sure I'm at Gibela's before it gets dark. Oh, and fit in a strawberry daiquiri on the beach...Surfing can wait.
Durban is mostly black but it's a completely different city from PE. The tourism and beach culture have made it a lot more cosmopolitan. It's also got a population of just under 4 million, and crime is more of a problem here than elsewhere. Reading the city's newspaper at supper is an eyeopener. Violent crimes are the only article topics for the first four pages, and these aren't your garden variety violent crimes. Heinous rapes (the most popular topic) and shocking murders reported in gruesome detail. By the fifth page things slow down a little and focus on HIV/AIDS and traffic issues.
Back on the BazBus tomorrow to Amphitheatre in the Drakensberg Mountains.
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| The group of young African drummers before the dolphin show. Wow. | I told you this was the best aquarium ever. And it gets better. |
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| For once the photo looks better than the real thing. | Yes, that fish is actually that big. |
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| The highest waterslides in Africa! I went down so fast my bathing suit ended up somewhere around my ears. | This is the walk along the beach, and you can see why Durban is one of the windsurfing capitals of the world. |
The Drakensberg mountains get closer and closer. It's said that they were JRR Tolkien's inspiration for Mordor in the Lord of the Rings, and they are indeed an imposing wall of darkness on a sunny day. They remind me of the first time I saw the Pyramids in Cairo, looming massively and serenely over the chaotic and little land below. Most of us in the BazBus get off at the Amphitheatre Backpackers . I'm staying in a dorm with Matt, a young British student who's very forlorn since he got mugged on the beach yesterday in Durban at 7am. The Backpackers is in the middle of nowhere. There's nothing for miles except an African village (no electricity) far off below us. So I spend all afternoon reading in a hammock and gazing at the Amphitheatre formation in the Drakensberg. I did manage to find some oomph to get up and go for my first run since Two Oceans. It was hot and dry and really just one very long hill down and back up. My toes are in very bad shape: several toenails are black and both big toes are completely numb. The run is quite a struggle, but at least I'm still climbing hills quite easily (1 hr.)
Photos from that brutal run:
Supper is with Deborah, also from the UK. The conversation is really great, and includes some discussion on the latest national controversy in South Africa. The government has asked the members of the national rugby team (all of them white) to give up their spots on the team so that black people can join it. The government says it wants a team whose racial quotas reflect the population ratio in South Africa (80% black, 20% white.) Could you imagine the American government asking professional basketball teams to do the same thing in the US? On the other hand, what if women had never been given a similar opportunity in the workplace? On the lighter side of things, I meet Chris, a very successful ultra runner who placed second last year in the Kalahari Desert Ultramarathon. We're both interested in the Himalayan stage race in India in November and discuss ways of training at high altitude without the altitude.
After supper I'm treated to a sky full of stars and galaxies. I haven't seen a sky like this since living in northern Quebec. Some of the stars are so bright they're green diamonds. Cooking fires are burning in the African village below. I send a wish and a prayer for all the Boston Marathon runners tomorrow.
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| The view of the Northern Drakensburg when we stop at the first backpackers to drop someone off. | I spent the afternoon reading and dozing in that cot. Tough day. |
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| King Cat, who strolled in and took over my bunk in the dormitory. | An evening thunderstorm over the Amphitheatre. |
We have lunch at the top of Amphitheatre, then walk to Tugelo Falls. They're supposed to be the second highest waterfall in the world and the highest in Africa. Unfortunately, it's been a dry season so we see a stream, not a river. The hike down is as hard as the climb up. We cross Amphitheatre and descend two cliffs by climbing down two very intimidating chain ladders. One is 20m high, the other is 40m. I'm pretty proud of myself for having gone down without hesitating. Our guide says most people find it scarier to go up because the chains look scarier from the bottom. It's all a matter of perspective, I suppose. The hike back down to the minibus is fast and very hard since we're leaping and half running down a very rocky path in a cliff in order to keep up with the guide. By the time we get into the minibus and start the long drive back to the Lodge we're hot, sunburned, and tired. Most people sleep on the way back (it's a two hour drive.) I look at the scenery, which is very impressive in the setting sun. We stop in a large township called Qwa Qwa at an ATM since the Lodge doesn't take credit cards and most of us had no warning about this. It takes a lot of nerve to be a white person climbing out of a minibus amidst hundreds of blacks milling around with nothing to do and living in serious poverty.
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| The start of the hike. Sentinel Peak is about 1.5km wide, and 3km away from where I'm standing. | We stopped here and the guide said we were climbing up this. I thought it he was kidding. It was a great experience clambering up. |
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| The view at the top of Amphitheatre, where we stopped for lunch. | Tugelo Falls, the second highest waterfall in Africa. It's a dry season. |
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| The infamous chain ladders. | They look worse from the bottom. |
We approach Johannesburg from Benoni since my backpackers is near the airport. I hate Johannesburg even before arriving. Barbed wire. That's what Johannesburg is. Barbed wire everywhere. Every single house has at least two walls and a foot of barbed wire on top of the first one. We turn into the Africa Centre. The gate looks like something from a prison. Leaving this place is out of the question because of the security problems. So I'm stuck here paying an exorbitant amount of money for terrible food and bad Internet service (can't send emails - sorry.) A siren goes off if you leave the door ajar in your room. Supper was under a surveillance camera in the dining room. How I miss the Drakensbergs. In the evening I meeting Mads from Denmark who's doing a round-the-world trip. The poor guy is over seven feet tall and the bunk beds in the dorm room are the shortest I've ever seen. We sit around and bemoan the fact that we're stuck inside after dark (6pm) with nothing to do but watch a cricket match that has the country riveted.
No web updates for the next few days since I'll be in Kruger National Park on a (very short) safari! I hope to see the Big Five, but right now I'll just be happy to be out of Johannesburg.
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| The view from the Amphitheatre Backpackers while we were waiting for the bus. |
It's a very short 40min flight to Kruger (although we're delayed because of rain!!) but when I get off the plane I'm a world away from ugly, horrid Johannesburg. It's hot, hazy, and very African. A guide from Siyabona Tours picks me up and we drive two hours to the Kruger Gate of Kruger National Park. Things move a lot more slowly in this part of South Africa, and South Africa already moves pretty slow. Yevki drops me off in Skukuza Camp. Kruger Park is huge; it takes up the northeastern corner of South Africa and borders Zimbabwe and Mocambique. There are lots of camps in the park, and those range from villages like Skukuza to more remote campsites. Skukuza resembles a Canadian federal park like Banff or Jasper, but with the neatest bungalows and all the amenities you need on site. I tell ya, we Canadians could learn a thing or two from this set-up.
The only other two people on the tour are Luigi and Francesca. They're from Switzerland but don't speak very much English, so I translate from English to French for them. We hop in a huge safari truck with Elton and Siya for our first drive out. It's 4pm and we have to be back in Skukuza by 6pm when they close the gates. All the camps are surrounded by huge fences to keep animals out and to keep snakes like the black mamba out as well.
During the drive to Kruger Yevki asked me what animals I was hoping to see when I was there. I told him I was pretty thrilled just to be in Kruger; if I saw anything at all, it would be a bonus. There's something to be said for low expectations, because in less than 24 hours I got to see the animals that everyone dreams of seeing but never do. First, impalas (deer with an edge), zebras, then a little while later African elephants, hippopotamus (although it took me a long time to see them since they were in the river and the only thing poking out were their eyes), and warthogs. On the way back to camp, we see a lionness sitting down on the road. This is a big deal: Elton says people can come for days at a time and never see one. The lionness is regal and impressive, but when she starts roaring it's something else. The metal bars in the safari truck rattle.
I get to spend the night in one of the really great bungalows in Skukuza after supper with the guides and Luigi and Francesca. Cute little bushbabies (look like terrified raccoons) scrambled in the trees around us while we eat.
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| Kruger Airpot as I walked from the plane to the terminal. This was the most unique airport I had ever been in. | An impala on the drive in Kruger to Skukuza. They're everywhere, kinda like deer. |
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| Baboons running around just outside Skukuza as we head out for our first safari drive. | I excelled at taking butt shots of elephants. |
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| It took me ages to see the hippopotamus in the river. | The neat huts we stayed in while at Skukuza. |
A lioness resting on the road. When she roared, the metal in the trucks rattled.
A safari breakfast, a pretty great way to start a day.
Kruger Park is in a tough period right now. Impala and elephant populations are very high, and the elephants are destroying the trees in the park. Normally the park would cull the population, but culling has become a volatile issue so it's been stopped temporarily. The South African government removed the fences at Zimbabwe and Mocambique hoping that the animals would move out of the park, but the only thing that's happened is a swarm of human refugees coming in. And Elton remarks that culling elephants is a hard thing to do anyway; "They have a good memory and they never forget when one is killed."
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Two hours back to the airport for a flight that I almost miss. My ticket said 2pm, but for some reason we took off at 1:30. I had wandered outside to get a photo of the pink bougainville trees and never heard the boarding call.
My plan is to drive to Bloemfontein and spend the night there. The traffic is great, the signs are clear, and this whole driving thing is a lot easier than I thought it would be. I drive by Soweto and eventually out into the huge rangeland that is the heart of Afrikaaner country. Around 6pm the sun sets and I get spectacular twilight with a crescent moon, an orange to purple sky, and one bright star.
I love the expansiveness of the rangeland and the golden colours, but hopefully tomorrow the scenery will change a little. It's like driving across the Prairies, only without music. The yellow-lining keeps me on my toes, but otherwise traffic flows incredibly smoothly. I've never averaged 140km/hr before and been in the slow lane!
1000km to Cape Town tomorrow.
Screaming down Highway 1 out of Johannesburg at 140km/hr.
The Hex River Valley and the Huguenot Tunnel mark the end of the Great Karoo and then you're into the Cape region. I got into some Friday afternoon rush hour traffic which is very fast and darting, like all South African traffic. Seeing Table Mountain and the city bowl loomed up ahead of me on a very hot, sunny Friday afternoon was such a relief. Right through central Cape Town at 4pm with loads of traffic, found my way to Ashanti without a hitch, and topped it all off with a perfect parallel park right in front of the gate. Celebrations are in order!
The whole reason for getting back to Cape Town today was so that I could visit Robben Island tomorrow morning before I return home. I couldn't come all the way to South Africa and not see where Nelson Mandela spent 27 years of his life. Hopefully I'll get a chance to squeeze in one more update before leaving tomorrow since the flight doesn't take off until 8:45pm (I double-checked this time.)
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| Stopped in a construction line-up at the eastern end of the Hex River Valley. It was so breathtaking even the locals were taking photos. | Triumph! That little white car is my perfect parallel park in front of the Ashanti after driving 1000km. |
A gorgeous view from my room of Table Mountain in the setting sun.
The tour itself is two parts: a bus tour around the Island (it was quite a bit more than a prison), and the prison where Nelson Mandela and several other famous South African blacks were held as political prisoners. We've got a young tour guide in the bus who's the best I've ever seen at dead-panning. We stop in front of a church, the oldest building on Robben Island and only open one day a year, February 14. That day about 20 weddings are performed in the church. People come from Cape Town to get married there, and the guide used to wonder why until one day a person who had gotten married in the church and was on his tour explained it to him. As you got older, you began to realise that marriage was like a prison sentence, he said, and getting married on Robben Island made it official and at least honest.
We also stop in the limestone quarry where political prisoners (Robben Island also held other types of prisoners) were sentenced to hard labour. Initially the labour was supposed to last six months, but it was so devastating on the health and morale of the prisoners that the prison kept it going for 13 years. Most who worked there now have seriously damaged vision. Craig, the guide, also goes into the events leading up to apartheid era, and his descriptions of national identity cards and the right to detain people without reason sound an awful lot like the debates since Sept 11th.
Once the bus tour is over we get dropped off at the prison and Eugene, a former prisoner on Robben Island, takes over. He wears sunglasses the whole time. He was sentenced to Robben Island for terrorism. According to him, he was part of a young group of blacks protesting against the education system in the early eighties and that had counted as terrorism. It's pretty obvious that bad vision isn't the only side effect of his time on the Island. He suffers from a strange sort of reverse racism; he doesn't hate whites, but he definitely judges a lot based on skin colour.
In the main courtyard behind the B Cell Block Eugene stands behind a picture of two rows of prisoners in that yard. They're all sitting and working on something. Eugene says the photo was staged in the sixties for a British magazine. Normally, the prisoners would spend some time each day crushing four pounds of rock into gravel using a little chip hammer. When all the rock was crushed, the guards would come and cart away the gravel; it was useless. As a federal government employee, I can relate. We finish with a walk to Nelson Mandela's cell, Cell 5 in B Block. It's tiny. Maybe ten feet by twelve? Could you imagine going back to that every night for 19 years, after spending a day crushing rock? And then become one of the most peaceful and inspiring men on the planet? How did he do this?
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| The long boat ride to Robben Island and the view of Cape Town receding. | The dormitory for prisoners held for reasons other than political |
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| Imagine walking into this every day. | Eugene talking about the story behind the photos. |
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| One of those cells is Nelson Mandela's. | And that's the inside of his cell. Again, imagine spending 19 yeras of your life in there, and then forgiving your captors. |
We finish off with a long lecture by Eugene about the difference between blacks and coloureds. There are a lot of lectures on this tour. Craig gave us another long one at the end of the bus tour about the importance of history and the tragedy of good men letting evil happen. Most of the people on the tour are Americans. This amazes me. I haven't seen one single American or Canadian in my entire trip in South Africa, but here they are in the hordes. And the V&A Waterfront is all tourists, mostly American. I figure it's the shopping that keeps them from wandering. Three girls who are about to start a month of volunteering in the townships invite me for lunch at the Waterfront. It's a great way to wrap up the trip. Lunch in the sun on a hot and sunny day with lots of people on holiday. Walking through the Waterfront and back to the car is a trip full of African dancing, drumming, and other buskering. And of course my drive back to the airport! The car rental attendant takes my picture with me and the car, and I look pretty relaxed and happy for someone who went around Cape Town International Airport four times before I found the car rental drop-off.
A fabulous group dancing and drumming on the V&A Waterfront as I strolled back to the car. It's my last memory of South Africa and such a great one.
That funny-looking Canadian girl who drove across South Africa in that little white Toyota Corolla, smiling as she dropped it off at Cape Town International Airport. Mission accomplished.
