Guinness on my Compass: August 2000 - "The Garden Route, South Africa - Pardon me boy, is that the Outeniqua Choo-Tjoe?"

With a considerable degree of difficulty, Catherine and I dragged ourselves away from the restful pleasures of Moby's in Hermanus.  Next stop was the Garden Route, a much hyped about stretch of South African coastline that runs eastwards from Mossel Bay to Tsitsikamma National Park.  Using the excellent "Coast to Coast" guidebook as a travel aid, we selected a quaint farmyard hostel called Fairy Knowe Backpackers in the small town of Wilderness.  Fairy Knowe is like something straight out of Hans Christian Andersen's "Hansel and Gretyl".  Carefully manicured lawns lead up to a stone cottage covered in sweetly scented honeysuckle.  Two sows, one pink and one grey, guard the entrance to the charming old homestead.  The latter animal is the largest pig I have ever set eyes on.  Greeted by a friendly woman called Linda, we were shown around the old house.  The evening meal was a sumptuous affair comprised of an assortment of potatoes, egg mayonnaise, vegetables, pasta and grilled snook, a tasty white fish caught off the Atlantic coast.  Alas the pool table and dartboard on offer blended in a little too well with the antique surroundings, neither of them being of much practical use.  The next day we decided to forgo the canoeing and hiking on offer to walk instead to the splendid beach where we planned to photograph the Outeniqua Choo-Tjoe (pronounced "choo choo").  This magnificent old steam engine runs between the tourist towns of George and Knysna, stopping en route at both Wilderness and Fairy Knowe itself.  I have to say though that it is a touch weird hearing adults use the words "choo choo" when talking about this little train.  Ambling sedately along the train tracks in a scene reminiscent of the film "Stand By Me", we were afforded a wonderful view of the coastline.  Catherine and I positioned ourselves at one end of a large bridge over the edge of the ocean and waited for the train to appear.  At two minutes past ten we heard the approaching sound of the engine as the piston sounded its customary salute and the train tracks began to rattle furiously.  Bunches of friendly faces waving frantically leaned out of the windows of the locomotive and saluted us.  Even the driver doffed his cap as we snapped away and they sped by.  It was as if we had been transported back to the more innocent days of the 19th century when the steam train was king.

After another afternoon nap in the sun, the Baz Bus arrived to take us to Plettenberg Bay, our next port of call.  This pleasant town is set atop a hill overlooking the ocean, a tidal lagoon and the Robberg Headland, one of the oldest rock formations in the world.  Behind it lie the densely wooded Outeniqua and Tsitsikamma Mountains.  We opted to stay at the Abalone Beach House.  Sandwiched between an unspoiled coastal forest and the soft white sands of Keurbooms strand, Abalone lies right on the beach.  From our spacious dorm (45 Rand a night) we were offered breathtaking views over the ocean and could even spy whales as they swam along the shoreline in search of a mate or a quiet place in which to calf.  Run by a friendly local couple, Grant and Elbi, Abalone was peace itself.  Often when travelling one only gets the chance to meet and chat with other tourists.  So the opportunity to spend a few days in the home of a local couple and chat with them about the new and old South Africa proved irresistible.  One windy afternoon we went with an Italian couple, Stefano and Romena, on a boat ride to view the plentiful offshore marine life. The two and a half hour trip with Ocean Safaris cost 155 Rand (24 Euro). Packed into what resembled a D Day landing craft we sped along down the sand to the waters edge and crashed into the surf.  Needless to say I got soaked as the waves smashed over the bow of the boat.  Initially the sway of the ocean was slightly nauseating, but once the throttle was pressed down and we sped over the foam, then I gained my sea legs. Though dolphins proved elusive, during our trip we spotted groups of huge Southern Right whales jumping out of the water and several Bryde's whales swimming alongside our boat.  A colony of Cape Cross seals provided much entertainment as they rode the waves to help them climb up high onto the rocks of the Robberg Headland.  We also sailed over the shipwreck of a Greek vessel that broke itself over the rocky waters off the peninsula a few decades ago. Then it was back onto terra firma after performing what is known as a kamikaze landing.  We were jostled and bumped around as we approached the waters edge, and when we finally ground to a halt in the sand, I half expected hidden German machine guns to start unloading their bullets down on top of us as in Spielberg's Saving Private Ryan.  Otherwise, my stay in Plettenberg Bay was significantly less adrenaline orientated.  Days were passed going for morning jogs and afternoon strolls along the strand, catching a few rays in the hammocks on the sun deck outside or having a few enlightening conversations with Grant that have changed the way I think about what the future might hold for me.  But such thoughts do not lie in the present.  For now, it's back on the trail again. Yet somehow, I don't think anything will quite ever be the same again.

Gav (5 August 2000)

Guinness on my Compass: August 2000 - " The Eastern Cape, South Africa – Township tours and Transkei treks"

Catherine and I left the carefully manicured lawns of the over hyped Garden Route in search of something different from surf junkies and their splif politics. Leaving the Western Cape we headed eastbound to the Eastern Cape, erstwhile home of President Thabo Mbeki, ex-President Nelson Mandela and other anti-apartheid freedom fighters such as Oliver Tambo, Robert Sobukwe and Steve Biko. Our first stop in the Eastern Cape was the town of Port Elizabeth, known as “P.E.” to the locals. South Africans seem to share the Australian penchant for shortening any word that has more than three syllables. There we stayed at the Jikeleza Lodge on 44 Cuyler Street, from where its helpful owner, André, was able to arrange for us a night time tour of the nearby township of Walmer for 140 Rand each. The Walmer Township Tour is run by an enterprising local called Mzolizi Quza, who after doing a short course in tourism, immersed himself in local history and culture and set up this now thriving business called Gqebera Tours. The word “gqebera” ironically is Khoisan for “white”! We met up again on the tour with the Venetians, Stefano and Romena, and another couple from Bergen in Norway. Our first stop was at an initiation camp where Stefano, Karl (the Norwegian lad) and myself were taken to meet one of the recently circumcised young men. The girls had to stay behind as no women are allowed into initiation camps. Circumcision, as it is with so many African cultures, plays an important role in Xhosa society. Initiates are normally aged 17-18, therefore they are several years older their counterparts in East or West Africa. We met one initiate who, before he could exit his tent-style accommodation in the woods, had to cake his face in white paint. He was also only permitted to greet via a long stick, as shaking hands with the recently circumcised is taboo. Mzolizi told us about the circumcision ritual and we had our photos taken. I was taken a bit aback when the young initiate spoke to me in perfect English. To me that summed up the conflicting influences which young black South Africans are faced with today. On the one hand in order to get a decent job they must be thoroughly educated and somewhat westernised. However, lest they loose their sense of self, they must also remain in touch with their traditional way of life. Today’s black community in South Africa has many problems due to the deliberate destruction of the family unit and local culture under the old white regime. The rise of AIDS, rape, general criminality and breakdown of parental authority can more often than not be traced to fact that in the apartheid years many adult African men were forced to migrate from their “homelands” to the gold and diamond mines around Johannesburg to earn a living. They consequently only returned to their homes and families a few times a year. Prostitution around the miners’ hostels was rampant. Meanwhile, back in the villages of the Eastern Cape or Kwazulu-Natal, their womenfolk had often to also serve as nannies in white homes far from where their children were in order to make ends meet. With no father figure around, and seeing only their mothers for a few hours a week, the young kids ran wild. Traditional values and customs were not passed down and all that is evil about western consumerist society held great allure. Age-old values went out the window. So you have to respect people who still try to buck the trend and instil local traditions in the young, however unfashionable they might be. For once such values and mores are lost they are gone forever.

Mzolizi then drove us around Walmer, which seemed significantly better developed than the urban sprawl that was Khayelitsha. He informed us about local history and what life was like during the dark years. We visited his home where we met his family Nomkongo, Noma and Lindiwe. We feasted on a sumptuous meal of chicken, vegetables and umgqusho (samp), washed down by several bottles of Castle Lager. Mzolizi tried with some difficulty to teach us to say “Camagu” (pronounced Tzmagu with a distinctive southern African click at the start), which means “Cheers” in Xhosa. Then it was off to the shebeens. In the first one I shot the best game of pool I have ever played, managing to clear all the balls on the table with only two visits to the table. This much impressed the locals who thought I was some kind of hussler and queued up to challenge me. However, enough bottles of Castle Milk Stout were imbibed by the time we hit the second shebeen to render my game back to its usual mediocre state. The craic in the second bar was (as we would say in Ireland) mighty. We got to discuss politics and life in general with the locals who were open, friendly and very curious to know about from where we hailed and about how was life in our home countries. I had an especially interesting chat with a young lad called “Frankie”, though his real name was Phumlani, about what living in the township was like. Unfortunately Mzolizi called a halt to proceedings around 23h00 and dropped us back to our hostel in quiet P.E. Never had the vibrancy of the black ghetto contrasted so starkly with the mundane quietude of white suburbia.

We had initially hoped to hop on the Baz bus to Coffee Bay. However, we discovered that the people who run this hop on hop off service are somewhat lacking in organisational skills. Unlike their service from Cape Town to Port Elizabeth, which is daily, their busses only run five times a week between P.E. and Durban. Consequently, their vehicles are often full and just because one has made a booking, it does not mean per se that one will be on the driver’s list come collection time. Thus it was that Catherine and I discovered that we could get no further than Cinsta, just past East London. Fortunately, the little seaside town of Cinsta is home to one of the most popular hostels in all of South Africa: Buccaneers’ Backpackers. Up till now, most of the places in which we had stayed had been devoid of fellow travellers. However, once we hoped on the crowded Baz Bus to Cinsta, we knew that this would no longer be the case. We bumped into Simon, an English guy we had met the week before on the road to Mossel Bay. Indeed, one of the advantages of travelling on a hop on hop off service is that one keeps running into familiar faces. I was in high spirits as I saw that the bus was awash with fine young fillies. However (and this is probably proof that Cath and I have been travelling too long together), both Catherine and I noticed the same girl at exactly the same time. Catherine knew immediately that I was smitten big time. What can I say? I’m not very good at hiding these things. Poker faces just aren’t my speciality. And so it was with blushing cheeks and dilating pupils that I met Erin, a 22-year-old Irish-American girl from Delaware. Now I’ve given a lot of thought about what I should write about what followed. I’d sooner not embarrass myself and Christ only knows that if she ever reads this, I’ll (as the song says) die a thousand times. But although this web page is supposed to be informative and useful, part of the reason I’m keeping it, is I suppose, to have a diary which I can re-read in five, ten or even fifty years time. And I hope upon reading this at some future date that I will remember that no matter how sophisticated, well travelled, or mature a guy I think I am, it is still possible to bump into women who make you feel like a bumbling tongue-tied 16 year old all over again. That’s pretty much what Erin did. And the bitch of a thing is that when you meet someone like that, you just can’t blurt out your feelings to them, because it will only sound like an awkward chat-up line and will have the exact opposite effect of what you want. So leading a travelling existence, where your time to get to know people is severely limited, also has its little complications. So for the rest of the ensuing evening I tried to get to know Erin as best as I could over e few bottles of Bacardi Breezer. Catherine, for her part, was also busy chatting to Gareth, one of the three huge English teachers (the others being Phil and Tim), whom we had met at the"Doctor and Nurses Party" in Cape Town. And thus it continued into the wee hours till nobody else was left in the bar. Through a stroke of fortuitous luck Erin and I managed not to run into anyone else as we went for a romantic midnight stroll along the beach, though I was to discover the next day that Catherine and Gareth were also simultaneously ambling along the very same strand looking wistfully at the stars and listening to the Indian Ocean lapping the shoreline. I’m just thankful that there wasn’t a full moon as bumping into them in the dark would have proved a tad embarrassing.

The next day Catherine, Erin and I opted to go on an off-roading tour of the Transkei. Led by our drivers, Grant and Michael, we climber aboard two jeeps at 07h00 where we met our fellow passengers. With us were three German girls, Verena, Patricia and Tanja, three Israeli guys, Tal, Nir and Gily, and a charming couple from Quebec, Des and France, who are touring the world for six months with their two daughters, Aspen and little Sydney, who was great fun. All the family were also completely bilingual. As we ventured over bumpy terrain from well developed South Africa, past Morgan’s Bay across the Kei river to the former homeland of Transkei, it was easy to witness the total lack of money that was invested in this part of the country. We felt like we had returned to real Africa – a place that we had not been in since Botswana. Once again we were met by smiling waving kids, running out from circular huts painted apricot, peach, peppermint green, pale yellow and off-white, asking us for sweets and money. The countryside was awash with exotic vegetation: acacia trees, mangroves, coral tress resplendent with bright orange flowers, mimosa, yellow wood tress, mahogany and cyclades (one foot high plants that have been around since the time of the dinosaurs). We would pass in a moment from open grazing pastures filled with goats and horned cattle through areas reminiscent of tropical jungles, with heavy tree canopies, flowing streams, creepers and colourful bird life to dry plains interspersed with giant termite hills and clumps of palm trees. Grant and Michael told us about the history of the Transkei and the nine border wars between the British and the Xhosa. We learnt about the story of Nonqwasi, daughter of a prominent Xhosa chieftain, who had two dreams about the whites. Her dreams told her that if the Xhosa killed all their cows and burnt their crops then one morning the sun would rise in the east, hang in the midday sky and finally set in the east again. That day, if the Xhosa did as her dream instructed, would be a great day when the white invaders would be pushed back into the sea from where they had come. Given the importance dreams played in their tribal culture and the prominence of her father, her instructions were acted upon. Of course the glorious day never did arrive. What happened instead in 1856 was that up to 30,000 Xhosa died of starvation and their tribal lands were burnt to a crisp. This facilitated the conquest of the Xhosa and their destruction as an independent nation. Some have suggested that the British had supplied Nonqwasi with hallucinogenic drugs or indeed that she was in the pay of the Crown. In any case, she was executed for her treason, too late, however, to stop the inexorable march of Her Majesty’s forces. Before lunch everybody (except Catherine – the big chicken!) went kloofing. Kloofing is what South Africans call cliff jumping. Stripping down to our shorts beside a waterfall, we followed Grant and Michael to the edge of a rectangular precipice looking over the mountain river. Four metres below was a deep icy pool. While I was still pondering about whether to take the plunge or not, Erin jumped off the rock. So I was left with no choice and followed suit. It was actually great fun and a bit of an adrenaline rush. However, the coldness of the fresh water and the fact that the next springboard stood seven metres above the pool, left me in two minds as to whether to stage a repeat performance. Remembering how I had already survived the bungi jumps and the sky dive I finally leapt off the rock and fell aerodynamically feet first into the dark waters seven metres below. Catherine apparently caught the moment of aquati centry on camera so I’ll look forward to developing the film, if not to paying a king’s ransom to the chemist. After a sumptuous lunch, we all speeded headlong over sandy terrain to the coast where we saw the impressive shipwreck of the Jacaranda, a Greek vessel that ran ashore in 1974. More snap happy moments ensued. If I had any adrenaline left to spare after the kloofing, it was used up pronto as Grant and Michael raced each other over the dunes and hills while myself, Catherine, Erin and the Israelis hung on for dear life in the back of the jeeps. We then began to make the long journey back to South Africa proper. The 12-hour long trek through the beautiful Transkei was exhilarating, if exhausting, and even if it lacked somewhat culturally in the fact that we didn’t get to meet many of the locals, it was still very worthwhile as a reminder that we were still, after all, in Africa.

Gav (8 August 2000)

Guinness on my Compass: August 2000 - "Kwazulu-Natal, South Africa – From Durban to the Drakensberg"

It was already dark by the time we arrived in Durban. The Baz Bus deposited us and Tracy, Emma, Liz, Anna and Sarah (five lovely English trainee doctors from Leicester, who we had met en route previously) off at Tekweni Backpackers on 9th Avenue. Tekweni was the first hostel which both Cath and I took a dislike too. Unlike all the other places in which we had stayed, it was significantly less than spotlessly clean, and waking up in the morning to the smell of hash is not something I look for in a hostel. However as there was no Bas Buz due the next day, we decided to hang around for two night and explore subtropical Durban anyway. Durban, with its 3.2 million inhabitants, is the third largest city in South Africa after Jo’burg and Cape Town. It also has the largest concentration of South African Indians in the country. There are roughly 600,000 Hindus and 200,000 Muslims within the confines of the city, which used to also be the home of Mohandas (Mahatma) Gandhi at the turn of the 19th century. So after a pleasant lunchtime walk along the palm-lined boulevard on the seafront, which is slightly similar to Nice in the south of France, Catherine and I made for the Indian area of Durban around Grey and Victoria Streets. However, due to another stunningly stupid decision from the old apartheid government, much of the hustle and bustle of the Indian quarter has been lost forever. Not happy with so many Indians living in the city centre, their residential area was bulldozed and the Indian community was banished to distant non-white areas in the suburbs. Consequently, any bustling vibrancy in the area now ceases at dusk when the shops close and their Indian owners make the long journey home. The Indian quarter of town proved somewhat of a disappointment. While there is an impressive mosque and many of the smells of spices that one associates with Asia, there were just as many black faces as brown and the Victoria Street Market itself is indoor. It more resembled a shopping mall than a vibrant collection of open stalls of the Covent Garden variety. So after pounding the street of Durban for over five hours we headed back to Tekweni somewhat dejected. The evening was salvaged, however, by an organised pub crawl that we did with the English girls later that evening. We journeyed in an open-topped double-decker bus to four different watering holes, taking in some splendid nocturnal views of the bright lights of the city along the way. One of the pubs, Joe Kool’s on the waterfront showed some potential. However, South Africa does seem to be caught in somewhat of a dire ‘80s musical time warp. While here, we have constantly heard radio stations playing ancient tunes that I haven’t heard since I was in short trousers. The new romantic scene is alive and well south of the Limpopo River! Unfortunately, South African live DJs seem to fare little better than their radio counterparts, and even if they do play some dance music, it seems to be the variety that was big in Ibiza several summers ago. Chances of hearing anything African, unless its white South African American-influenced rock or grunge, are pretty slim. Still, the fact that we had downed loads of free shots of apple and peach schnapps helped matters along nicely. So much so that in a moment of financial extravagance, I thought it opportune to purchase six red roses, one each for Catherine, Liz, Anna, Sarah, Emma and Tracy. It’s interesting to note that even in these hi-tech days of equal opportunities and sexual liberation that you can still say it all (as the track from Armand Van Helden says) with flowers. Okay, he actually spells it “Flowerz”, but it’s close enough. So by the time I boarded the back of the bus again with the girls and their roses, my fellow male passengers, most of whom hailed from Johannesburg, were a bit mystified as to how I got to lie back on the girls’ laps with 12 arms draped over me. Not even “the tie of love” was this effective. This was definitely one of those moments to savour. I felt like Hugh Hefner and I wanted to shake the hands of that rose seller very firmly indeed. Sometimes the original methods of flattering the ladies are simply the best! It’s nice to make a decent impression now and again, and even the unbelieving look of Catherine which said “Really girls, he’s not normally this charming – Trust me, I know what I’m talking about – In fact he’s quite horrible most of the time” was to no avail. This was just one of those nights when I hit the form guide big time.

The next morning cynical Scantlebury I said our farewells to the good doctors and headed up to the Amphitheatre Backpackers in the picturesque Northern Drakensberg Mountains. Amphitheatre Backpackers is run by Ilsa and Linda, a couple who, with their friend Laura, also operate “Tribe to Tribe”, a link between the Northern Berg, Lesotho, the Battlefields and Swaziland (a route surprisingly not covered by the Baz Bus). This suited our plans down to the ground. In an effort save a few shillings, we myself and Cath decided to camp out (in the boy scout, not the “Pricilla Queen of the Desert”, sense), but fortunately we didn’t have to assemble the tent. This was done by a young lad, who works at the hostel, called Poum, while we spent the afternoon touring the locality with Ilsa. We began our excursion, which cost 60 Rand each (10 Euro) by visiting some San rock paintings. These must now be visited by appointment with a guide only, due to the opprobrious efforts of some mindless Neanderthals with a penchant for moronic graffiti. We then stopped at a house shaped like an aeroplane, designed by a local who is passionate about aircraft. Some would say he’s actually a loony, but even if he is a bit loop the loop, one still has to admire his home come flying machine constructed entirely from scrap metal. To finish proceedings, we dropped by a Zulu village, where some of the ladies with whom we were travelling had their fortunes told and ailments explained by a witch doctor, while the rest of us tasted some local victuals and drank some traditional beer. While Catherine retired early to be ready for the next day’s trip to Lesotho, I spent the evening was spent curled up by the fire beside Ilsa and Linda’s three dog’s reading the excellent “Slovo – the Unfinished Autobiography”, a gripping book about the extraordinary life of Joe Slovo. Slovo, a white Jew from Lithuania, became a prominent lawyer and rose through the ranks of the South African Communist Party. Vilified the white press, he was forced into exile during the dark years of apartheid. His wife, investigative journalist Ruth First, was assassinated by the bomb of a white racist in Mozambique in 1982. However, undaunted, Joe Slovo became an ANC activist  and after the release of Nelson Mandela returned to South Africa, where eventually in 1994 he became Minister of Housing. Alas bone marrow cancer took its toll and he died in January 1995, but he had lived to see his dream of a non-racial South Africa and in December 1994, the ANC awarded its highest honour, Isithwalandwe Seaparankoe, to its white stalwart. At the ceremony then President Nelson Mandela stated that, “There are some people who, by pursuing their own convictions and without being self-conscious about it, touch the lives of millions of others. Such has been your life, comrade Joe Slovo.” Reading his autobiography I discovered that Joe Slovo was as sharp a wit as he was an intelligent an activist. One quote sticks in my head. When returning to South Africa after 27 years in exile, he stood in front of the same racist white press that had demonised him for decades and broke the ice immediately by beginning his speech, “As I was saying before I was so rudely interrupted…” Though I didn’t know it then when I picked up the book in the Amphitheatre, I was to consider myself a lucky man when I got the chance to visit his grave in Soweto ten days later.

Gav (11 August 2000)

Guinness on my Compass: August 2000 - "Lesotho – Here me now, ride the pony, ride the pony"

“Abhorrent, ancillary, anthropomorphic, antipodal, astute, beatify, bellicose, belligerent, besmirch, bubonic, cacophony, cantankerous, carcinogenic, carouse, castigate, cauterise, centrifuge, circuitous, chinoiserie, coagulate, concupiscence, crapulent, dearth, defecate, dexterity, demonstrative, denigrate, denizen, diatribe, eclectic, elucidate, endemic, ephemeral, esoteric, existential, extraneous, extrapolate, facetious, fastidious, fester, fiendish, flagellate, frivolity, frugal, gargantuan, gastric, germane, gesticulate, gregarious, hallucinogenic, harangue, Hellenistic, hexagonal, homogenous, ignominy, imbibe, indemnify, insipid, juxtapose, lackadaisical, licentious, loquacious, mercurial, mirth, mollify, moribund, misogynist, myriad, narcissistic, nefarious, necrophilia, obtuse, octogenarian, onomatopoeia, opprobrious, orifice, oryx, pestilence, phalanx, philanthropist, platitudes, plethora, pontificate, potentate, pseudonym, pupus, putrid, quintessentially, quorum, rancid, raucous, recumbent, salubrious, sarcophagus, septuagenarian, schadenfreude, scurrilous, sloth, smorgasbord, Spartan, spoonerism, stipendium, sully, supercilious, surreptitious, symbiosis, talisman, titillate, trite, ubiquitous, undulating, unscrupulous, vanquish, vicissitudes, virulent, voracious, whimsical, wolverine, xenophobic, yokel.”

Now, for those verbal intellectuals among you, feast your dictionaries on these beauties: “Bing, boing, bong, buckle, crash, chortle, cough, crackle, crisp, doddle, doodle, groan, gurgle, jangle, jelly, jingle, mollycoddle, nibble, Ping-Pong, ring, scallywag, shuffle, sigh, sneaky, sneeze, snuffle, splash, squeak, wiggle, wangle, wobble, wriggle, yawn, yodle, yucky, zip.” I had thought of writing a poem using each such wonderful onomatopoeic verbiage, but fortunately I thought better of it. If I ever got that bored I’d be seriously worried.

We finally arrived at Malealea Lodge in what seemed to be the middle of Lesotho in the afternoon. After a quick game of barefoot tennis, the others headed back to South Africa. Catherine and I stocked up on provisions that we would need for the two day pony trek that we had planned, and after a large dinner, we hit the hay. The following morning was glorious and we were in high spirits when we met our guide, a local called Ezekiel (a name, which always reminds me of Samuel L. Jackson’s character in Quentin Tarantino’s film “Pulp Fiction”). He introduced us to our trust steeds. Mine was a grey-white gelding called “Blue Sky”, Catherine’s was a feisty mare called “Brown Sugar”, while Ezekiel’s mount was worryingly named “Red Cross”. We also had a fourth charger in toe, a pack horse called Selima. Now, when it was first suggested that we undertake a pony trek, I had imagined getting on a beast somewhat akin to an ageing donkey. By pony, I did not foresee a brawny mount that stood 15 hands high. True, I had ridden a camel and an elephant, but going solo on a horse was a new departure for me. However, once I got saddled up and we were underway, I soon began to have a great time. As we left the compound and made for the open countryside I felt like a cowboy. As we passed by burnt fields, which made a crunching noise like crushing Rice Crispies when they came in contact with the horses’ hooves, I couldn’t stop myself singing the theme from “Rawhide”. I truly felt at home on the range. I began to misquote Ali G. by yelling out “Here me now, ride the pony, ride the pony”. My over-confidence sharply subsided, however, when we approached a precipice, the path around which descended like a mine shaft. Catherine, who had ridden horse when she was a child, decided to follow Ezekiel down the path. I though it prudent to  dismount, however, and lead “Blue Sky” down the cliff by hand. This was not quite what I had imagined the terrain would be like for an equine virgin like myself. In any case, the steep slopes were successfully, if awkwardly at times, negotiated, and soon we were criss-crossing the Makhaleng river and ascending more dizzy heights at pace. We broke into the occasional trot (“Brown Sugar” probably did this a little bit too much for Catherine’s liking), though “Blue Sky” refused to canter, that is until the next day when he knew he was nearly home to his nosebag! We passed through little tribal villages, past farmers clad in traditional wide-brimmed Basotho hats tending their crops and ploughing their fields with oxen. Occasionally, we were held up by young shepherd boys guiding their flocks of sheep and goats to grazing pastures. As it was a Sunday, many of the local women were dressed in their fineries on their way to or from church (Lesotho is a predominantly Roman Catholic country thanks to the zealous activities of French missionaries in the 1830s). Kids shouted out “Dumela” (meaning “hello” in SeSotho) to which we responded in kind to much sniggering and mirth. Others would wave frantically and show off their English by yelling “Bye bye”. The children of Lesotho are under the quaint impression that “Hello” and “Bye bye” are completely interchangeable. Some would ask for sweets and we would plead abject poverty, while warning them of the dangers of tooth decay. Apparently, European missionaries all over Africa are the culprits for the rampantly expectant sweet teeth of African youngsters, as churchmen used to entice children into their houses of worship a century ago with the promise of sweets. And if Eve succumbed to accepting an apple from the Tree of Wisdom, what chance has a poor African kid got of refusing the sugary confectionery of the white man. The countryside was simultaneously both poor and magnificent. A brilliant blue sky contrasted with the black grass and brown earth of the hills. Cacti of every size and shape were to be seen. By the time we stopped for lunch, however, my derriere was beginning to smart. When we finally reached the village where we were to overnight at 15h00, I could barely sit down.

No rest for the wicked (or the wickid, innit?) though, as we then set off on a two hour hike to Botsoela Waterfall. Catherine somehow managed not to fall into the river or off any rocky ledges, which, trust me, is no mean feat for she normally is so accident prone that the Dragoman crew christened her “Little Miss Bump”. I briefly toyed with the idea of going for a swim beneath the lucid waterfall, but when I dipped my toe in the pool into which the waterfall cascaded, I discovered that the mountain water was colder than the North Atlantic. So I desisted from any acts of hypothermic madness. Upon returning to the village we were befriended by a little puppy who could tell a canine sucker when he saw one. So we took the little doggie under our wing so to speak and he partook in our sumptuous dinner of mushroom soup with rice. Once the sun dropped behind the mountains the temperature dropped significantly and the noise of the poultry and livestock that were kept in a kraal adjacent to our hut, subsided. We were so completely exhausted and sunburnt that, for the first and only time, we failed to finish the two bottles of Nederburg, which we had brought with us. I fell asleep beside the puppy with several mouthfuls of red wine still remaining in my cup by 19h30. Pathetic hour had been advanced a full 90 minutes. A frugal healthy breakfast of mueseli and bread, in which once again the puppy was happy to partake, was followed by a painful bout of remounting our horses. We remained saddle-bound with Ezekiel for a further six hours, trying not to dismount, but for the most urgent of emergencies of a toiletry nature. All in all, the two day trek cost 330 Rand each (55 Euro) and as it gave us the chance to see African nature at its finest and to sleep in a genuine African tribal village, it was worth every cent. Back at Malalea Lodge, Linda was waiting with Ilsa to whisk us off to Maseru, the capital of Lesotho. There after the briefest of dinners in Steers, we were crossing borders again and filling up our passports with more stamps. A chilly final night dreaming of horses, icy rivers and mountains was spent in a tent back at Amphitheatre Backpackers, before we left the next day for the battlefields and a journey back in time.

Gav (14 August 2000)

Guinness on my Compass: August 2000 - "The Battlefields, Kwazulu-Natal, South Africa – Disembowelling the Myth of Rorke’s Drift"

I recall that last Christmas, when the various television networks were reviewing the 20th century before the dawn of the new Millennium arrived, many programmes focussed on what people were doing and what was happening in the world 100 years before at the end of the 19th century. The Boer War and the siege of Ladysmith featured prominently. Therefore, I found it fitting that we began our tour in the town of Ladysmith. On 2 November 1899, this key strategical point in the British province of Natal was surrounded by ZAR forces. The over-confident British had been caught napping and after a series of setbacks at Kambule, Talana and Elandslaagte, the municipality of Ladysmith and its 15,000 soldiers and 6,000 civilians, were cut off. They were to remain trapped inside the besieged town for the next 118 days. Elizabeth informed me that the arch at the top of Grafton Street at the entrance to Saint Stephen’s Green in Dublin is in fact in memory of those soldiers from the Royal Dublin Volunteers and other Irish Battalions in the British Army, who died in these early battles. Like the Spanish Civil War, the Anglo-Boer conflict is especially interesting from an Irish point of view, as Irishmen served on both the side of the British Crown and in the famous Irish Brigade, who fought with the Boers. The conflict served to highlight the division of the island of Ireland, with loyalists enrolling in Queen Victoria’s army and republicans siding with the enemies of Britain. There is, apparently, an excellent book about the Irish Brigade by a certain Donald Mc Kraken, which Elizabeth told me is worth reading. We were taken around the excellent siege museum in Ladysmith, which was used to house provisions during the siege. Many photos, uniforms, letters, equipment and other paraphernalia of the day are on display there and the causes and course of the conflict are explained in some detail. The siege made headlines around the world and I saw fit to buy two giant replica front pages of the newspapers of the day on which the siege began and on which it ended.

After a brief stop to eat some traditional Boerewors with monkey gland sauce (essentially a big sausage in barbecue sauce, fortunately free of primates of any description!), we made our way to the battlefield of Colenso, where the first unsuccessful attempt to relieve Ladysmith took place. What became evident during the course of the day was that throughout the five attempts to reach Ladysmith – Colenso (15 December 1899), Thabamnyama (20-23 January 1900), Spioenkop (23-25 January 1900), Vaalkrantz (5 February 1900) and finally Tugela Heights (14-27 February 1900), the British commanders, initially at least, insisted on employing Napoleonic battle strategies. Thousands of British lives and many field guns and other equipment were unnecessarily lost through the unbending use of outdated tactics against the highly mobile and camouflaged Boers. Gandhi’s Indian stretcher bearers were kept extremely busy because of such blinkered pigheadedness, an intractable trait that the Imperial High Command would repeat with even greater loss of life 14 years later in the muddy trenches of Flanders and France. The most interesting part of the day was our trip to the battlefield of Spioenkop (Hill of Spies). I had heard before of Spioenkop, as the terrace in Anfield where ardent Liverpool football fans congregate is called “The Kop”, in memory of the many men of the Lancashire Fusiliers who died at this spot. However, to walk around the hill itself, to cover the vast distances over which tired, thirsty and shell shocked troops had to march, and to stand by the graves of the fallen, gave me a sense of realism and understanding that no history book can induce. The peacefulness of the area, the awesome beauty of the plains below covered in acacia trees, the clear blue sky ahead – all reflected Africa in her true beauty and highlighted the madness of the white men as they slaughtered each other in an attempt to possess a piece of earth that would long survive all the combatants. It was hard to try to picture the living hell this hill must have been one hundred years ago, in the heat of summer, with shells exploding, and bodies being ripped to shreds by shrapnel and bullets. At the end of the bloody stalemate, 1,340 British had been killed and a further 1,000 of General Redvers Buller’s troops were taken prisoner. The Boers, for their part, had lost 230 burghers, an unusually high number for their small army. Such was the ferocity of the fight that both sides were forced to retreat from the Spioenkop so that on the night of the 24th, an empty hill was held by the dead. It was only on the morning of the 25th that the Boer commander, Louis Botha rallied his men and took the kop unopposed. The disastrous outcome of the Battle of Spioenkop for the British ensured that another five weeks would elapse before their numerically superior forces finally broke through Boer defences during the Battle of Pieter’s Hill on 27 February 1900, to relieve what remained of the starving inhabitants of Ladysmith.

To end the day, Elizabeth took the five of us to Wagon Hill, scene of the only major Boer attempt to take Ladysmith. Therewith is situated an abstract monument, designed by the English sculptor Henry Moore, representing open hands, which is dedicated to all the Boer burghers who had died during the various battles to relieve Ladysmith. From this hilly outcrop we witnessed a glorious red sunset over the battlefields. Elizabeth then left us in Ladysmith, and Ilsa drove in the dark of early evening to the Battlefields Country Lodge, outside Dundee, where Catherine and I were to spend the night before delving into more military history – this time, however, it would be the Zulus who would take on the might of the British Empire.

Nanette Roos had laid on a splendid hearty breakfast for us at the Battlefields Country Lodge. She then introduced us to Pat Rundgren of Gunners Rest, who was to chaperone us through the Zulu battlefields of Natal. I have in my time toured many different battle sites, whether in Scotland, Poland or South Africa. I have, however, never been in the company of a more entertaining, interesting and thought provoking guide than Pat. Pat didn’t just ask you questions and give you answers. He provoked Cath and myself into asking questions and then encouraged us to find possible answers. In such a manner I learned that certain facts (and popular fiction) take on an aura of self discovery, and as such are much easier to understand and remember. Obviously being a big movie buff I had seen the film “Zulu” starring Stanley Baxter as Chief Engineer Chard and a young Michael Caine as Lieutenant Bromhead many times. The subject matter of the movie, the Battle of Rorke’s Drift, is still today synonymous with acts of bravado and daring do. The vast majority of people are under the impression that the film is historically accurate. It is indeed true to the legends and myths that the Victorian military leadership created at the time. We were to learn, however, that it bears little truth to wat actually happened on the evening of 22 January 1879.

The reason that the British military machine needed to glorify the defence of Rorke’s Drift came about as a result of the catastrophic defeat of Imperial forces at Isandlwana (subject of the film “Zulu Dawn”). It says something of the durability of certain propaganda that most British people today will have heard of the relatively minor skirmish at Rorke’s Drift, but not of the massive military engagement at Isandlwana. Pat made us wonder why the British authorities thought it necessary to lavish 11 Victoria Crosses (a higher number than was ever before or has ever since been awarded for one battle) upon the defenders of Rorke’s Drift. The answer is Isandlwana. This was the first major battle of the Anglo-Zulu war, which was precipitated by a British ultimatum to King Cetshwayo, which the British knew he would not and could not meet. They had demanded that the Zulu King completely reorganise the Zulu political structure and abolish the Zulu army. Once Cetshwayo refused to voluntarily surrender the independence of his country, five British armies invaded Zululand from Natal at a river crossing point known as Rorke’s Drift. For days they searched for a major encounter so that they could teach the “natives” a military lesson. The Zulu’s however, had retreated to their capital, Ulundi, where their warriors or impis were being prepared for the forthcoming conflict. Impatient for a fight, the British made the ultimately disastrous decision to split their forces. 2,500 of Her Majesty’s troops went hunting for the Zulu army, while 1,500 were left to guard the badly fortified camp at the foot of the sphinx-shaped hill at Isandlwana. On the morning of 22 January 1879, a British recognisance patrol were amazed to discover thousands of Zulu impis silently positioned behind a ridge near Isandlwana Hill, waiting for the following day when they were due to attack. However, having been happened upon by this British detachment, they immediately adopted their traditional battle formation of two enclosing bull horns and a central main force. Using the surrounding hills as cover, they successfully hid the full extent of their number from the British, who hastily deployed in the plains below their camp for the long awaited scrap. The initial confidence of the British forces soon gave way to concern. Within 20 minutes, this had turned to panic and despair. Displaying a knowledge of military tactics that would leave the likes of Rommel or Zhukov impressed, the Zulus routed the much better armed Imperial troops. A handful of Natal combatants and natives managed to flee the battle to Fugitive’s Drift, but virtually every British soldier was speared to death, stripped and then disembowelled. Disembowelling was done in accordance with the traditional Zulu belief that thus was a warrior’s spirit released from the body inside which it was trapped. However, to a young British soldier, it must have provided a horrific and terrifying spectacle. For us to stand there in the actual battle site, trying to imagine the movement of the troops and the unfolding disaster gave me a chilling feeling. Pat encouraged us to think like officers and asked us how we would have handled the situation. He then asked us to think like conceited 19th century British officers and we gained a clearer insight into how inevitable this debacle was. True, the British learned their lessons and made sure that the next time the engaged the Zulus in a major confrontation that they had all the latest military equipment such as Gatling guns, mobile field canons and heliographs for relaying messages. They remembered never to divide their forces or to break battle formation. And as a result they smashed the Zulu war machine and nation within six months. However, never again would their armies again ride through southern Africa with such swagger. It is notable that the next time the British seriously engaged a foe in the field, 20 years later during the Anglo-Boer war, their bright red uniforms (attire that British armies had worn for centuries) with their bright golden buttons, polished boots and cumbersome helmets had been replaced with khaki-coloured fatigues, which made them much less visible to an enemy’s aim.

When the main body of British troops (still assuming that their comrades had been victorious) returned at dusk to Isandlwana, they were met with a scene of complete carnage. 1,500 mutilated British bodies and roughly the same number of Zulus strew the blood soaked fields. The general in charge forbade any soldiers to enter the camp lest panic spread among the remaining troops. In the morning they hastened back to Natal, where they were surprised to find a group of survivors at Rorke’s Drift. Given the effect that news that “black savages“ armed with only spears had defeated Her Majesty’s Forces would have had throughout the empire, possibly inspiring other African tribes, Indians, Maoris and diverse oppressed peoples to revolt, attention had to be taken away from this calamitous rout. Thus began the embellishment of the story of Rorke’s Drift. What is not in doubt is the fact that several hundred young Zulu hotheads disobeyed orders and attacked the ill fortified provisions station at Rorke’s Drift, which was defended by roughly one hundred fit soldiers and some wounded from the field hospital by the camp  If there had really been 4,000 impis attacking the small British contingent, then Rorke’s drift would have been taken within the hour. Putting the pieces together and questioning the official version of events, Pat helped us to come to the following conclusions. The camp was attacked by a breakaway contingent of one of the Zulu army’s horns that had been at Isandlwana, but had not seen action and hence had not gained any kills or spoils of war. There were only enough mealy bags to defend the store depot, and not the hospital as well, as is depicted in the film. The Zulus did not spend the whole night attacking the compound. Zulus never attack in the dark of night as it is impossible to co-ordinate their efforts. Instead they harassed the defenders long enough for them to make away with all the cattle, which were kept in a kraal at Rorke’s Drift. We know this as the head of the Zulu raiding p rty was not executed for failure by the king (as was the tribal custom) when he returned to Ulundi, but was rewarded for having returned all the cattle that the British had stolen during their invasion of Zululand. Cattle means wealth and along with weapons and trinkets captured from British soldiers, wa  the most sought after booty by the impis. The defenders at Rorke’s Drift fought valiantly. Of that there is no question. They were, understandably enough, not going to sacrifice their lives for herds of cows that didn’t belong to themselves in the first place. And given what had befallen their comrades at Isandlwana, they must have indeed been jubilant and thankful to God to see another sunrise. However, when the remnants of the invading British armies returned from Isandlwana on the 23rd of January and their leadership, desperate to distract attention from their inexcusable blunders the day before, started heaping praise and awards upon them for their efforts, well, who were they to argue or contradict the new official version of events. The army needed heroes – the defenders of Rorke’s Drift just happened to be in the right place at the right time. Other events that occur in the film “Zulu” are more likely than not figments of the director’s imagination. The regiment at Rorke’s Drift were not mostly Welsh, but English. The regiment concerned was only incorporated into the Welsh guards in 1881, two years later. Therefore, the scene where the defenders sing “Men of Harloch” with Celtic gusto, did not occur. Nor did the Zulu’s chanting the praise of the British sold ers. The attackers were half way back to Ulundi by the next morning with their cattle in tow. Singing to inspire and encourage young Zulu warriors often occurred before battle. Never aft r. Such a scene does make great cinema, and is a dramatic way in which to end a motion picture. It simply did not happen though. As we toured the site at Rorke’s Drift and started to peel away the layers of fiction around the story, I suddenly felt as if I had been cheated. I had been hoodwinked into believing the “heroic” tale of Rorke’s Drift like countless others. I started to think that if governments more than a century ago, with far less effective means to subvert the media than available today, could produce such potent propaganda, then what perversions of truth must the powers at be today be capable of manufacturing. The Falklands, the Gulf War, the civil war in the Congo – the possibilities are frightening. I look forward very much to the book which Pat will be publishing in the forthcoming months outlining in detail, with conclusive proof, just what actually happened at Rorke’s Drift. What will stay in my mind is one image from the time that I saw in the museum there. Unlike the various spectacular paintings full of wounded, but stout, British defenders battling off hordes of giant Zulus (your average Zulu at the time would have actually stood barely more than five feet) in hand to hand combat, the picture in question is the sole visual depiction to be drawn as the main army returned to Rorke’s Drift. There are no piles of dead Zulus. The defensive wall of mealy bags does not stretch around the hospital that the army claimed to have defended till it was burnt down. And most  amningly, there is not one head of cattle in the drawing. The accuracy of the sketch is not in doubt as the rest of the scene is detailed in the extreme. It is the accuracy of the story that was leaked to the press at the time which is less than watertight.

To end our tour of the Natal battlefields and our education in the realms of official propaganda, we headed to the site of the Battle of Blood River, a conflict immortalised in Afrikaner mythology. This battle occurred on 16 December 1838 when a small party of Voortrekers under Andries Pretorius avenged the earlier massacre of Piet Retief’s party by King Dingaan of the Zulus in February of that year. This had been a tough time for the Boers. Having fled from the British in the Cape, they were constantly being harassed by the Zulus and had already been defeated in the field three times that year. This time, having learned several lessons on how to maximise their battle efficiency, they pulled their ox wagons into a circle (like one see the pioneers heading west do when defending against warring Indians in old Westerns), and beat off the attacking Zulus with minimal casualties. And that was pretty much that until the First Anglo-Boer War in the late 1870s, when the Boer’s needed heroes to inspire their young soldiers. The numbers of Zulu “hordes” were inflated, heroic deeds were embellished and the day became commemorated as the Day of the Vow, when God supposedly made good on his pact with the Afrikaner nation. White Afrikaans-speaking South Africans still commemorated this event right up till 1994, when thankfully the new democratically elected government renamed the anniversary the Day of Reconciliation.

Before touring the actual battlefield, we watched with amazement the most politically incorrect video I have ever scene (obviously dating from the apartheid era), which told the fabled version of events at Blood River. It is worth visiting Blood River just to see this preposterous video alone. Then we headed on foot to the full-scale bronze replica of the 64-strong ox wagon laager in which the Boers saved the day and God kept good his promise to his “chosen people”. I took some excellent photos of the monument, as not only was the sun setting at the time, but several billowing clouds of smoke were rising from the surrounding fields that had been deliberately set on fire to burn off the dead dried grass. It gave me an inkling as to what being in the heat of battle with fire raging all around must have been like. As the light dimmed we headed back to the Lodge. En route I acquired an authentic new black and white Zulu shield, complete with assegai (stabbing spear) and knoberie (long mace-like weapon) attached. This new outlay of 450 Rand (75 Euro) will, with any luck, complete my African collection of souvenirs and curios, though exactly where I am going to store all my spoils of war still remains a mystery. After such a busy two days, sleep came easily that night, though many new questions arose in my head to replace the one’s which Pat had earlier helped me to answer.

If it is true that to understand a country and its people, then you must first learn its history, then these two days have left me with a far better understanding of the forces at work in today’s South Africa. I can see how both British and Boer actions and myths led to the glorification of the white man’s deeds, and the vilification of the black menace. Such blind belief in the myths of officialdom paved the way for the introduction of apartheid. Hopefully in the new South Africa, a more accurate evaluation of the country’s history will take place, so that both black and white South Africans will gain a better understanding of each others view. If not, then the battlegrounds will once again be fertile for new conflicts to ensue.

Gav (17 August 2000)

Guinness on my Compass: August 2000 - "Manzini, Swaziland – Redemption Song"

Myxo’s Place is a hostel which deservedly receives excellent reviews in both the Lonely Planet and in Coast to Coast. Myxo is a charming young dreadlocked Swazi, who runs his hostel like a traditional home. All guests must remove their shoes when entering the hostel. Both he and his colleague Daniel made us feel very welcome in a natural laid back manner, which contrasted significantly with Bob’s pseudo ultra-cool approach at Sondzela’s. After a tasty dinner prepared by Daniel, washed down with a couple of bottles of Zonnebloem, Myxo took myself, Catherine, George and Natasha (an African-American) out in his pick-up truck to hit downtown Manzini. Our first stop was in “the Aquarium”, near the post office in the centre of town. Well renowned as a den of iniquity, we were told to watch ourselves and our belongings upon entering. True enough, there were very few women and absolutely no other white people in the bar. A constant stream of people came up to George, warning him about the dangers of the place. However, well oiled from all the red wine I had earlier consumed, and firmly clutching my half litre bottle of Castle beer, I got talking to the DJ, something I have a nasty habit of doing in clubs. Within five minutes we were all guests of honour of the DJ, seated beside his booth. Then the band came on the stage. They were a handy little outfit, who reminded me a bit of the Commitments, only blacker. Given the significant amount of Dutch courage coursing through my veins by this stage, I somehow thought it would be a good idea to display my vocal talents on stage. A quick word in the DJs ear later, and suddenly the band leader was introducing me over the microphone in Swazi as a special guest from overseas who was going to sing a solo….unaccompanied. Now if I had been sober I would have frozen. But I hoped on stage and launched into the lyrics “Old pirates yes they rob I, sold I to the merchant ships…” I don’t know why I picked Bob Marley’s “Redemption Song”. Maybe it was because of Myxo’s dreadlocks. But the crowd loved it and when it came around to the second verse the band joined in and the hard lads that had eyed us up suspiciously when we entered the Aquarium, were pressing forward with arms outstretched trying to shake my hand. I wasn’t even aware that Catherine was snapping away with the camera. She had been pretending to be my girlfriend in the bar so she wouldn’t get chatted up. By the time my song had finished she was getting pats on the back and comments of how lucky a girl she was. Fortunately she was as pissed as I was to take it completely in her stride. The band insisted I stay on stage for a few more Marley numbers, and I relished singing backing vocals on “No Woman No Cry” and “Three Little Birds”. It just doesn’t get any better than this. Belting out reggae in a dodgy African bar in Swaziland. I doubt if the Dubliners played rougher venues! I finally rejoined the gang after much pressed flesh and more back slapping. When it comes to developing all my photos next year, I will pay special attention to the snaps taken in the Aquarium. We said our farewells and headed to the next venue, “Tinker’s”, which is situated on the  main road from Manzini to Mbabane. Myxo and Natasha were in the front, while George, Cath and I were huddled in the back of the pick-up shouting out salutations of “Big Up” to the pedestrians we passed, and taking turns to give waves of a royal, papal and a revolutionary nature respectively. Tinkers had a mixed crowd, including some local whites which Myxo referred to as the “Whenwe’s”. As in “When we had an empire, when we ran the country etc.” I got talking to a coloured guy from Durban who taught me the secret handshake of his gang and how coloureds were different from blacks. I feel a bit sorry for coloured South Africans. Neither the white nor the black community acknowledge them as their own, and consequently the coloureds lack a vibrant sense of self. Instead young coloureds rely on imitating the gang culture of the United States complete with its street language and hip-hop music. I vaguely remember Myxo driving us home (and in fairness he didn’t have one drink all night) and harping on to Catherine about our “special relationship”. I have found it strange that South Africans seem perplexed to see a guy and a girl travelling together who aren’t bonking each other’s brains out. Sometimes it feels like couple-central in this part of the world.

Anyway, when Myxo came into our dorm the next day bright and bushy tailed to take us on a tour, both Catherine and I were feeling rather shaky and I briefly wondered if I hadn’t imagined the whole “Redemption Song” episode. My hoarse voice confirmed otherwise. With George and a German couple, Anke and Robert, Myxo took us into town, where we ate some local food and chit-chatted with the townsfolk. I learnt to say “Hello” (Sawubona – which literally means “I see you”) and “How are you?” (Kunjani?) in Swati, the national language, which is interchangeable with Zulu. While I battled with the buffalo horns of my hangover, we toured around the Ezulwini Valley, visiting the National Museum and the Swazi parliament in Lobamba and an excellent candle factory, where I am proud to say that I succeeded in not buying any souvenirs. In the afternoon we visited a traditional Swazi village near the Umbuluzi River, where we learned about the way of life of rural Swazis, tasted some traditional beer, bedded down in one of the huts and saw some tribal dancing. We learned how the Swazi men rule the roost in tribal villages, except when it comes to the grandmother. She seems to kick ass. It must be a great life being a Swazi grandmother having everybody running around after you. Our guide kept repeating the phrase “In our Swazi cultya” – so much so that George quipped that they must say “In our Swazi cultya” a lot in Swazi culture! A leisurely hike to Mantenga Falls finally concluded our excursion. On the way back to Manzini we picked up some local youths who where quite drunk on traditional beer, but were very happy, ecstatic even, to see that we were having a good time in their country. They started singing songs about Jesus and claiming that they could see God when they looked at our faces. It was a very amusing and somewhat appropriately surreal ending to our less than orthodox stay in Swaziland. The next morning Myxo dropped us to Swaziland Backpackers (where he used to work before opening up his own place), where we said our goodbyes to him and to George and Natasha. If you are ever visiting Swaziland, I strongly recommend a sojourn in Myxo’s Place, as he will show you a unique side of his culture to which most tourists are not privy. Aboard the Baz Bus bound for Jo’burg, on which we were travelling for the last time, we met the Canadian family again, along with Tracy, Emma and Sarah (the student doctors from Leicester) and load of familiar faces. And as the hours rolled past we reached the border and re-entered South Africa. The Kingdom of Swaziland, my 15th African country, was now behind me.

Gav (20 August 2000)

Guinness on my Compass: August 2000 - "Johannesburg & Soweto, South Africa – Not meeting Nelson Mandela"

The next morning I joined the girls on an organised tour of Soweto (short for South Western Townships) with Jimmy Ntintili’s Face to Face Tours, for 165 Rand (21 Euro). Our driver’s name was Lazarus, who has lived in Soweto all his life. He informed us that Soweto covers an area of 130 square kilometres and roughly 3,000,000 people live in its environs. It has 33 different suburbs ranging from the elegant Orlando West (Soweto’s “Beverley Hills”) to a plethora of run down single-sex hostels and five squalid squatter camps on its outskirts. There are over 300 churches in the township, and on Sundays, one can see the faithful, from congregations as diverse as the Zionist, Anglican and Roman Catholic churches, all heading to their places of worship, dressed in immaculate bright uniforms, based apparently on those worn by mediaeval European orders. Nine different ethnic groups live in the Soweto. Sotho and Zulu are the main languages spoken. On the streets of Soweto one can see the grinding poverty of homeless street kids or the gaudy affluence of the criminal nouveau riche, who cruise around in BMW’s, which Lazarus says stood for “Be My Wife” or “Bob Marley & the Wailers”. There are lots of BMWs on the streets as seemingly they are an easy car to steal. Lazarus explained to us that there were over 25 multimillionaires living in Soweto. One of them, a “dodgy geezer” called Toby, seemed to own everything from car rental companies to hardware stores. Most Sowetans, are significantly less well off than Toby, however, and rely on minibuses to get around and to be ferried to white Jo’burg and back. And it was at one of these large minibus stations, where we made our first stop. From the overpass that rose above the minibus station, we could see the nearby Chris Hani Baragwanath Hospital, which with over 4,500 beds and up to 10,000 staff (including 500 doctors and 1,500 nurses), is the largest hospital in the world. Most white South African would be too scared or embarrassed to enter Soweto, but for tourists from overseas, there are generally no problems whatsoever, as long as you are accompanied by someone who knows the lie of the land. We got talking to a wide range of people, from the very poor to the not so poor, and found only friendly people trying to survive and with everyday fears about and hopes for the future. The contrast between the big suburban houses of Orlando West and the dilapidated corrugated iron shacks was quite startling, but apparently, all the classes, upper, middle and lower (or “the Good, the Bad and the Ugly” as Lazarus referred to them) get along fine and crime is not very prevalent. Any prospective house burglar is much more likely to make the journey to affluent white residential areas, where the pickings are richer and where the wrath of vigilante community action is less keenly felt. In one of the suburbs, Diepkloof, I stopped to chat with members of the Diepkloof Golf Club. If there was one thing I did not expect to see in Soweto, it was the sight of young men practising their drives and short game! We chatted about the game and the exploits of a certain Tiger Woods, who the night before had incredibly claimed his third major (the US PGA) of the year. Maybe in years to come Diepkloof will be able to produce a Tiger Woods, or at least a blacker version of Ernie Els. As our group (of two Aussies, five Britons and myself) followed Lazarus through the winding streets  f one of the shanties, groups of beaming kids posed for our camera lenses. Everybody waved back when w  saluted them. Kids (and even adults for that matter) back home would more likely pretend they didn’t see you or even give you the finger. We travelled down Vilakazi Street, erstwhile home of Nelson Mandela and Walter Sisulu and saw their old houses. We also drove past the current abodes of Winnie Mandela (who Sowetans now have little respect for following her involvement in the murder of a young black teenager called Stompy) and of the ailing, but joyful, Archbishop Desmond Tutu. Lazarus showed us the area where the shooting of 14-year-old Hector Pieterson by white police took place in 1976, an incident which sparked the Soweto uprising. We visited the Hector Pieterson memorial, in Avalon Cemetery, which features a poem by Mzwakhe Mbuli, dedicated to the young people who fought against the apartheid regime. I was also able to stop by the nearby grave of Joe Slovo, who along with another famous white anti-apartheid activist, Helen Joseph, is buried in Avalon. Other memories that stay with me from Soweto included seeing countless uniformed school children on their way to class passing beneath giant billboards advertising cigarettes and the dangers of HIV. Alas South Africa seems to lag behind other African countries, such as Senegal and Uganda, when it comes to AIDS awareness and prevention, and the ambiguous stance of its President, Thabo Mbeki, is hardly helping matters. The contrast between the clear informative posters I saw in West Africa, which declared “Fidelité, Abstinence, Preservatif” (Fidelity, Abstinence, Condoms) contrasted sharply with the vague message of the South African placards, which simply read “HIV – The future will never be the same.” The South African government needs to suspend its ostrich posturing and immediately admit the problem that has gripped the country, or else future generations of South Africans will be needlessly lost. Our interesting tour of Soweto drew to a close by lunchtime, when Lazarus dropped us back to the anodyne suburbs of northern Jo’burg.

After a quick bite in Steers, which is far better than McDonalds when it comes to tasty fast food, myself and the girls headed to the massive Sandton City shopping mall, easily the largest shopping centre I have ever been in. But there are only so many shoe shops and girls’ clothes stores any guy can handle, so by early afternoon I opted to head off to the various record shops in order to listen to some of the latest releases. This proved my undoing. Oh I was pleased enough with my purchases – the soundtrack CDs to “Human Traffic” and “Stigmata” and had spent an enjoyable time leafing through the odd bookstore. However, when I rejoined Emma, Sarah and Tracy, their excited look of “You’ll never guess who we just met” seemed a touch disquieting to me. “Oh I don’t know, Nelson Mandela?” I quipped. Their reply in the affirmative left me cold. They continued to explain to me how they had seen a large crowd of people congregating outside a shoe shop on the second floor of the shopping mall. Their curiosity got the better of them and they went to investigate. You can imagine their amazement when out walked Nelson Mandela and a couple of bodyguards. Seeing three white faces amongst the black onlookers, with cameras at the ready, the ex-President rightly assumed that Emma, Tracy and Sarah were tourists. So he actually went up and chatted to them, asking them where they came from! Emma even got her photo taken with the great man. Conversations I had with several staff on duty and subsequently our taxi driver confirmed their story. I was (to coin oft used football parlance) sick as a parrot. Here was the man whose cell I had visited in Robben Island, whose houses I had scene in the Transkei and in Johannesburg, whose former residence I had passed by in Soweto, whose 700-page biography I had read - probably the man I most admire on the whole planet - and he was exchanging pleasantries with the girls while I was off listening to Chumbawamba! Aaaarrrgggghhhh! Needless to say, I was a more than a little peeved, and not even Emma's promise to send me a copy of her photo of the great man could console me. The girls tried their best to cheer me up, but I studiously managed to sulk for the rest of the afternoon.

In the evening, I paid a visit to the home of John and Lilian Forsythe, old friends of my uncle Des. After taking advantage of their generous hospitality by drinking more than my fill and eating as much of the Christmas-like dinner that they had prepared, I subjected them and their daughter, Amanda, to my sister's wedding video, which I had only previously seen at three in the morning at the Chameleon Backpackers hostel in Windhoek, when my mind was less than clear due to a heavy night on the tiles. It made quite a change to be in such a luxurious setting as their home after such along time spent camping and in hostels, but I took to it all, the thick carpets, the comfortable sofas, the shiny enamel bathroom fittings, the silverware trinkets, and of course the salubrious lounge bar, like a duck to water. This was the life. I passed a pleasant evening discussing religion, politics, crime, AIDS, apartheid-era South Africa, Celtic tiger Ireland, and listening to the Forsythes recounting funny stories about my parents and relatives. It was somewhat strange, but nonetheless very intriguing, to hear stories about family members that occurred before I was even born. But as the clock swung inevitably towards the midnight hour, I said my farewells and Amanda kindly dropped me back to my hostel, where I spent my last night in Africa.

Gav (21 August 2000)

Guinness on my Compass: August 2000 - "Africa - Nkosi sikelele iAfrika!"

As I write I’m looking at my final brilliant African sunset. If my six months in the Dark Continent have made me aware of just one thing, it is that we all inhabit a small lump of rock orbiting around an anonymous star in space. Seeing countless glorious dawns and practically every setting of the sun, gazing at strange new constellations, observing a luminous moon staring down at the Earth both day and night from cloudless skies. Four days of rain in 190. That’s a statistic alien to the Irish imagination, where grey clouds are as ubiquitous as green grass. But in Africa the daily lunar and solar cycles in Africa are highly visible, constantly reminding one of the ebb and flow of life, that we are only here for a limited time. Borrowed time. Time that one day, sooner or later, we will have to relinquish.

So what’s it all been about these last six months in 15 African countries? In some states, like the Gambia or Swaziland, I only spent a few days. Others, such as Senegal or South Africa, saw me staying more than a month on their soil. Highlights – there’s been a myriad of them. The Atlas Mountains, Marrakech market, downtown Dakar, Dogon Country, the beaches of Zanzibar, Lake Kariba, Victoria Falls, the Sossusvlei sand dunes, the Transkei and the highlands of Lesotho. I have learned how to kill a sheep, skydive, bungi jump and ride horses, camels and elephants. The occasional, if somewhat infrequent, amorous liaison; the building of several great friendships. Learning about a plethora of cultures – Berber, Arab, Tuareg, Wolof, Mandinka, Dogon, Masai, Ndebele, Shona, Tswana, Afrikaner, Malay, Xhosa, Basotho, Zulu and Swazi. Seeing with my own eyes what I had only previously read about. Getting first hand evidence of the effect French, German, British and Boer influence have had on Mother Africa. And having a total blast along the way. I didn’t, alas, get a chance to visit any Portuguese ex-colonies or the Congolese jungles of Central Africa. That will have to wait till my next sojourn to these parts.

Now it’s off to Australia and the Pacific. To new adventures and hopefully gainful employment that will enable me to continue my global wanderings. I look out the red horizon. The sun has set. Another chapter is closed. Tomorrow heralds a new day, a new continent, where, inch’ Allah, the story will continue. Till then, keep out of trouble.

Gav (22 August 2000)