Easy your life.

Update History

29 June 2009

Two Violins And A Cello With Red Hair

The view from God’s Window


After about 13 hours in a tiny space on a large plane, we landed in Johannesburg and “hired” a car at the airport. The funny thing is I have no driver’s license. My American license expired last year even though the card itself says it expired several years ago. There is a long story behind that but it has nothing to do with South Africa. You can drive legally in South Africa as long as you have a valid license in one of its eleven languages.

In other words, English.

Pi Chi’s license is in Chinese, and if you do not read Chinese you would never know it is a driver’s license. It looks more like a library card. I could not get an international license since they have this rule about not letting you get one when your license that expired last year says it expired several years ago. We decided that driving illegally on another continent might not be the best of ideas so Pi Chi got an international license in Chinese and English. We assumed this would be good enough in South Africa.

I still did most of the driving.

The people at the car rental place seemed a little suspicious when I did all the talking and assured them that the silent Chinese woman next to me would be the only driver. I assume it had nothing to do with their innate ability to stare into my soul and see that I had no valid license yet was planning on driving the entire time. It was probably more about the fact that they charge a fee for extra drivers. Since the “carpark” was just outside the rental office, we thought it prudent that Pi Chi drive the car away and then I take over once we were away from prying eyes. But this car had a manual transmission and Pi Chi only knows how to drive automatics.

And someone put the steering wheel on the right hand side of the car.

And everybody in South Africa drives on the wrong side of the road.

Driving in South Africa was an interesting experience. Not because I had already been awake for 24 hours when we began our ten-hour drive. What struck me as strange was how much open space there was once we got out of Johannesburg and onto the “nationals”. Driving at home is all about dodging trucks, buses, cars, blue trucks, farm vehicles, motorcycles, scooters, ox carts, bicycles, pedestrians and dogs from every possible direction, and a few impossible directions, while trying to occasionally move forward. The streets at home are a mix of uneven and narrow two-lane highways, uneven and narrow one-lane city roads and uneven and narrow dirt lanes. Every road is made narrower by the cars parked in the middle of the street, scooters and bicycles veering too far left and traffic from the opposite side swerving violently into oncoming traffic. The streets at home are torn apart whenever there is an election. Apparently this is to show the little people that their betters are doing something useful. The streets are put back together once the election is over, but they always look and feel like they were chopped up for no reason and pieced together haphazardly.

In a more civilized land, the national highway system was evenly paved, clean and mostly uncongested, if you ignore some minor roadwork in Cape Town for the World Cup. I immediately noticed that the inside lane was used as a passing lane and vehicles in that lane actually moved over for faster cars. Cars and buses generally stayed in the outer lanes. On our way back to Johannesburg from Kruger, a rather large truck pulled aside even though we were on a narrow winding hill road. I did not think there was enough room for him to move over, but he made it happen and all the cars behind him calmly and safely went about their business.

This is unheard of where I live. Here, there is no such thing as a passing lane, regardless of how many lanes there are, and trucks and buses go out of their way to block as much traffic as possible. If one truck is moving one kilometer slower than the truck behind it, the second truck will invariably swerve violently into the next lane and very slowly pass the first truck, blocking all traffic for miles. I cannot say if this is done intentionally or simply because the Chinese are completely oblivious to all the people around them. I used trucks as an example because I find them the most dangerous when violently swerving into other lanes, but all vehicles do the same thing.

In South Africa, the courtesy that I witnessed time and again became contagious, and whenever I let another car pass I saw their hazard lights flash briefly. I asked a local what that was all about and he said that they were thanking me for letting them pass. This is unheard of where I live. You will never see a Chinese driver thanking anyone for anything. Mostly because you will never see a Chinese driver let anyone pass them. The Chinese are personally offended when anyone tries to pass them, even if they are driving five miles per hour. Especially if they are driving five miles per hour.

Chinese driving, much like anything else done in public, is all about being first. If someone is in front of you at the post office, simply jump in front of them. When driving, you must be first or you will lose face. This does not mean driving faster than everyone else, but if you see that someone is about to pass you, apparently the rule of thumb is to jump in front of them and hit the brakes. At least this is my experience every single day. As much as I think they go out of their way to be the worst drivers in the world, it is more likely because the Chinese are completely oblivious to all the people around them. Whenever I honk at a scooter that I almost hit because it blatantly ran its red light without any regard for the dozen cars all trying to be first to run their green light, the scooter drivers are all either appalled that someone dared honk at them or are completely surprised to see other people on their planet.

At the beginning of our 10-hour drive I mostly stayed in the outer lane because I was unfamiliar with the roads and mostly obeying the posted speed limits. When I saw a police car following closely behind me, I moved over into the passing lane so that he could pass. When he changed lanes behind me, I moved again. As did he. This was when I realized that he was not trying to pass.

Police cars at home never pull anyone over. If you are drunk as an Englishman, driving in the middle of the center divider and throwing garbage bags out of your car, the police car behind you will do nothing. I was unsure if South African police were equally lazy and corrupt, and I knew better than anyone that I had no legal authorization to drive this car in this country. I thought about pretending not to be able to speak English, but South Africa has eleven official languages, so the police might know more than one. I wondered if I could pass for Chinese since it is highly unlikely that they would understand any of it. But no language in the world would make up for the fact that I had no driver’s license in any language.

Fortunately, the police car soon pulled over and sped away. I assume they were simply checking the license plate. I appreciate the fact that they did not pull me over to do so.


Pinnacle Rock


The six hour drive from Johannesburg to Kruger took ten hours because we took the scenic route. It is also the route without tollbooths. Probably because it is not the six hour route. This meant that we got into our hotel near but not in Kruger well after sunset.

The hotel was actually a rondavel near a large house that was converted into several guestrooms near the house of the couple who own and operate the property. It is close to one of the entry gates to Kruger and tucked away between the park and the tiny town of Hazyview. Consequently, it was a bitch to find in the middle of the night after I had been awake for over 30 hours and driving for 10. I had contacted the owner before arriving on the continent and after google maps told me that it did not exist, and he gave me very detailed directions, which I followed even after we found ourselves on a dark road that meandered through a rural residential neighborhood and melted into a very dark dirt road that seemed to lead nowhere.

We came to a gate with the proper address, but it looked nothing like any of the pictures on their website. I have stayed at very few hotels that look like the pictures on the website, so I pushed the little intercom button on the gate and waited. Then I pushed it again and waited some more. It was late, very dark and we were very far from any civilization. The nearest possibility of finding alternate lodging was several hours away. After being awake for over 30 hours and driving for 10, I very much wanted this to be the right place and I wanted that little button to work.

Before we left home we had the good sense to tell the phone company to turn on the international switch on Pi Chi’s cell phone. We used hers because she was going to bring it whether it worked out of the country or not. That phone goes everywhere she goes. I generally leave mine at home and turned off. When we “rang up” the owners of the broken intercom button, the phone rang and rang.

And then it rang some more.

The good news was that we could hear their phone ringing. This was indeed the right location and phone number. The bad news was that no one answered the phone.

Eventually, the gate opened and an old man wandered toward us. He apologized abundantly for the broken intercom and seemed not to notice that we had arrived far later than the arranged check-in time. He guided us over a surprisingly high dirt mound that was fun to drive over in complete darkness and to a dark parking space where I hit some type of potted plant. He then offered to take our luggage out of the “boot” even though he was older than Pi Chi and I combined. The reception desk was the old couple’s kitchen and the Mr offered us tea while the Mrs dealt with the paperwork. It was obviously past their bedtime, but they could not have been nicer. We asked them some questions about Kruger and they offered to loan us an expensive looking book on birds, but we were there for the cheetahs.

While guiding us to the rondavel, Mr Owner told us about the other guests that were currently there and a young couple who had recently left. I have no idea how many hotels I have stayed at in my life, but most of them offer the same reception experience. You go to the desk, show them your passport, hope they can find your reservation (if you have one), give them a credit card or a wad of cash to ensure that the television stays in the room, get the key card to the room (unless they have those quaint, old fashioned key-type devices), drag your crap to the room, return to the reception desk when the key card does not work, get a new key card and drag your crap back up to the room. There is very little personal conversation besides the obligatory “how was your flight”.

As Mr Owner was telling us about his other guests, I wondered why we were having this conversation. Then I realized that this is what they call being friendly. This is just the kind of thing that would come up again and again on this trip. It was a little disconcerting in the beginning since most of the people during my first African trip were friendly in languages I do not understand. South Africans are friendly mostly in English.

As we locked all the doors of the rondavel and closed the curtains, it occurred to me that Mr Owner would probably ad us to the discussion for the next guests.

Safari life requires one to wake up and go to sleep dreadfully early. Since Hazyview is little more than a pit stop to the park, everything was very closed by the time we arrived. So our hosts gave us some snacks and drinks to tide us over and offered us free breakfast the next day. They were even willing to pack a picnic breakfast since we said we wanted to get to the park as soon as it opened. This was really above and beyond the call of duty since our room was self-catering and no meals were included.

Our plan was to wake up and head out before the sun rose so we could get to the park before it opened and have as much time inside as possible.

That never happened.

After ten hours on the road after 13 hours on a plane after a full day, Pi Chi and I slept in a little later than expected. We woke up after the sun and after the park opened but still early by most accounts. In the daylight we noticed that the rondavel and surrounding grounds looked exactly like the pictures on the website. But we had no time to admire what turned out to be a very nice place. It was almost like a tiny resort where one could lounge at the pool or on the “stoep” and enjoy the natural surroundings. Inside the rondavel was a full kitchen, separate living room and a bathtub large enough for a questionable number of people. Sadly, we had limited time and we wanted to spend it inside the park.

Kruger National Park is an enormous chunk of land between Zimbabwe, Swaziland, Mozambique and South Africa’s Lowveld. Seeing all of it in the time allotted was physically impossible. Since they have this pesky rule about not letting anyone in before the gates open or out after they close, we had to keep track of where we were lest we stray too far from any of the gates without enough time to get back. This is why I wanted to stay in a lodge within the park itself. This is what I did in Kenya and it could not have gone better.

Kruger could have.

In Kenya, I had a driver who really knew what he was doing. I saw things I never would have seen otherwise. At Kruger, we drove our rental car. We went to a few of the places that the park rangers suggested. I do not think they are called park rangers but I know what I mean. We went to a famous bridge and a famous dam and stopped for lunch at a famous rest camp. By the end of the day we saw a wide variety of flora and fauna, not to mention a lot of plants and animals.

But Pi Chi still had not seen a cheetah.

We took some time out from our large mammal quest to give Pi Chi a driving lesson. She has been driving since she was 18, but she learned to drive amongst the Chinese. This means she has no concept of right of way, courtesy, common sense or spatial relationships. Her driving skills do not translate well in a nation where people actually know how to drive. She has also always driven automatic transmissions. Our rental car had a manual transmission and that whole clutch and shift maneuver perplexed her at first.

But Kruger is an excellent place to teach someone how to drive. There is almost no traffic, there are no pedestrians save the occasional animal crossing, the paved roads are well paved and you can stop in the middle of the road whenever you want. She panicked a little when another car approached us, but overall she was a quick study, as long as she never had to drive in reverse, which she always confused for fourth gear.

When I convinced her to drive outside of the park later in the trip she asked me if she should stop at red lights and then asked if it was ok to go when they turned green. She eventually stopped asking about the green lights but continued to show doubt about the red. Her problem was not learning how to master the clutch but following basic rules of the road and common sense. Just making a simple left hand turn, which is like a right hand turn in normal countries, was an ordeal. She would come to a complete stop regardless of traffic conditions and look around her in every possible direction. This is a good idea around Chinese drivers because they really will come at you from any conceivable angle, but completely unnecessary in Africa.

We left the park as the sun set and made it back to town just as it started to get dark and all the businesses started to close. We thought it might be a good idea to put some food in that big kitchen, so we headed to a grocery store that was on the main route from the park into town. Mr and Mrs Owner had given us directions to a better grocery store but this one was closer and on the way. It was also what one might consider a lower income property.

We never went inside because Pi Chi did not like the look of some of the Big Black Men loitering in the “carpark”. They were fairly far away and did not appear to give two shits about us, but I had previously told Pi Chi that following one’s instincts is the first step to personal safety. Her instincts said to get back in the car and hope that the other grocery store was still open.

It was, but I was disappointed that the clientele was as white as the other store’s was black.

“If lions and gazelles can live together in harmony” Quoth I to she, “Why can all the colours of humanity’s rainbow not”? I said, complete with improper punctuation because we were in one of those Commonwealth nations.

“Lions eat gazelles,” she replied. I should probably marry her some day.

But Mr Owner was right; the white store had everything we needed.


Park hippos


Our second day at Kruger started earlier, and we decided to follow our own path. This was both a brilliant idea and probably pretty stupid.

We stumbled on a large watering hole or small pond where we got an excellent view of all kinds of large mammals, large reptiles and whatever birds are. Avian, aviola, aryan. That reminds me of a joke about two violins and a cello with red hair. “A viola is a large bird” is somewhere in the punchline.

While driving along one of the dirt paths and generally minding our own business, either Pi Chi or I spotted something deep in the brush. We shall say it was I. It looked like a lion. Pi Chi thought it was a lion. We had seen few lions up to this point so we stopped to have a look. It was difficult to see and mostly moving away from us, but it turned out to be a cheetah. Again, I am sure that I am the one who first noticed.

Deep in the brush, far away and mostly hidden was Pi Chi’s only cheetah sighting. I felt bad for her. I have been close enough to touch a family of wild cheetahs; something I tell everyone until their eyes glaze over as if their grandfather is telling the story about how he had to carry buckets of water uphill in the snow when he was five just so the family could wash the one dinner spoon they shared between 18 people during that big cholera epidemic back when you could get a brand new teal Studebaker with a straight-six for a nickel and still have enough change to buy one of those prefabricated houses.

On our first day we went in and out of the park at the Phabeni gate near Hazyview. That forced us to stay in the foot of the park.

We chose to go further afield on the second day. Obviously, that made getting to the Phabeni gate by closing time impossible. We went out the Crocodile Bridge gate near Komatiepoort at the Mozambique border. It is a very interesting area but not nearly as close to Hazyview as it seems on the maps. The N4 to Nelspruit is a scenic and quick drive. Even at night. But things started to fall apart when we turned north.

From White River you can either take the R40 north or the R538 north, of course. They both go where we wanted to be. The R40 is more scenic and the R538 is faster. At this point it was too dark for scenic to matter. Faster was better. But from Nelspruit it is the R40 that goes to White River. Everyone knows that. To take the R538 to White River we would have had to turn north from the N4 before Nelspruit. We did not do that.

The first time.

When driving through downtown White River, you are already on the R40. If you keep going straight, it becomes the R538. That seemed simple enough to me so that is what we did. Unfortunately, there are absolutely no signs that tell you that this R538 will eventually turn south. None of the signs anywhere bothered to mention directions. The only options when it turns south are R538 and some smaller road that leads who knows where. Taking the R538 seemed the thing to do.

It felt like we were going in the wrong direction, but it was dark and late and I assumed that the signs would know better than I. When we found ourselves back on the N4 our suspicions were confirmed. The R538 that we had just taken was the R538 that goes to White River before Nelspruit. If we turned around and took it back to White River we would just end up on the R40 heading back to Nelspruit. We were going in circles, but the only turns we made were onto the R40 from Nelspruit, which was correct, and that questionable turn at the choice of R538 and that unknown road, which was not. So we went back and tried to take the unknown road but ended up in downtown White River from a completely different direction.

White River was the key to this mystery and we knew that as long as we could find it we could find our way to that big, comfortable bed in Hazyview. From downtown White River we went back to the R538 and followed it until it told us to turn. Every map says that the R40 goes directly north from Nelspruit to White River and the R538 directly north to Hazyview. It is practically a straight line. So instead of turning to follow the R538 which we knew would head south we kept going straight. That took us onto a smaller road that went up a hill and led to a dirt road. We knew this was wrong but we were driving in a straight line and that was the right direction according to all the maps. Eventually, the dirt road turned 90 degrees left and went up a very steep hill. We chose not to do that.

It was well past Mr and Mrs Owner’s bedtime, but we “rang” them anyway. We were running low on options and “petrol”, and Pi Chi had not been to a restroom in hours. I think this little “trek” was the longest her bladder has ever waited in her life. But she never complained, which more than surprised me. Though later she pointed out how awesome she was for not complaining.

Trek, an Afrikaans word, does not mean what we think it means in English.

Chinese cellphone reception is not at its best up in the hills of Somevillage, Darkest Africa. I could barely understand Mrs Owner, and this time it had nothing to do with that accent that sounds like the bastard offspring of a mixed Australian/British couple that, unlike all Australians, knows how to pronounce vowels. What I did hear was her gasp when I asked if the route from White River to Hazyview ever turns into a dirt road. She knew that we were well off the mark. She suggested going back to White River, to which I explained that that was where all our troubles seemed so far away. As an afterthought, I asked her just before hanging up if the correct road from White River is a straight line from the R40.

“Oh, no, no, no, no, no, no.” Picture Terry Jones as a Pepperpot saying that. She said that there is a definite turn onto the R538 in White River. This was the exact opposite of our experience, but our experience was not turning out how we would have liked. We assumed that she would know, and went back to White River yet again.

Back on the R40 in “central” White River, we stopped at a “petrol” station because at this point, gas in the car was a good idea. The stereotype is that men will never ask for directions while driving, but this was the first place we actually stopped since leaving Kruger. I was ready to ask anyone and everyone long before this, but we only passed the occasional pedestrian in middle of nowhere spots.

The gas station attendant told us exactly where to turn. He was patient, very detailed and never looked at us like we were complete idiots wasting his time. This is the kind of customer service I always find in Africa and would like to see at least once at home. Tipping is not customary at South African gas stations beyond the spare penny here and there, but this guy got a full “buck” or two, generous as I am. I was skeptical of his directions since we had driven past that spot several times, but again I deferred to the knowledge of locals. They live there. Who knows where the map makers live.

At the intersection where the R40 becomes the R538 is a tiny sign surrounded by hotel and spaces “to let” signs that says “R40 Hazyview”. Blink and you miss it. As we did more than once. Every other major road sign on our long journey was large and green and filled with reflectors to catch the headlights. The sign to Hazyview was dark and at least a fifth the size of the other signs. But once we found it it was a very fast and easy drive back to familiar surroundings. No dirt roads necessary.

The drive back to Johannesburg after we bade farewell to Hazyview was quick and simple. We took the faster route which took us back through White River and Nelspruit. The roads were much easier to navigate in daylight.

We booked a room in Johannesburg since our flight to Durban left early in the morning. In hindsight, we could have driven to Durban since it would have added fewer miles onto the car than we had already driven, but it looks too far away on the maps. Had we driven, we could have spent an extra night in Hazyview and avoided Johannesburg altogether. That would have been better for several reasons.

When I booked all the flights, rooms and cars a few months ago, I looked at a lot of hotels and lodges. There are very few traditional hotels near a place like Kruger. You are more likely to stay in a lodge or in some privately owned guest house. Durban and Cape Town have far more hotels, but they also have plenty of rooms above garages and more than a few houses for rent. South Africa’s Tourism Council has lists of registered houses for rent all over the country. I spent a good deal of time trying to make sure that the places we stayed would be nice.

Except in Johannesburg.

Since we were only in Johannesburg overnight and it was merely a place to rest before going to the airport, I spent less time looking at hotels there. I picked a guest house that advertised fresh rusks for breakfast and seemed to show respect for its indigenous domestic servants. I do not ordinarily eat hotel breakfasts unless it is a bed and breakfast situation, or I am only there to catch a flight in the morning. This place was both. What I did not know was that the rooms were very small, which was irrelevant, and the bathrooms were teeming with ants, which was a bit of a nuisance. And the rusks were stale.

When the owner showed us our tiny room, I wondered if maybe there might be some kind of key involved. He insisted that we would not need it. I insisted otherwise. While it was true that we had no plans to leave before we left completely, I still like to have the key to any rooms in which I happen to be staying. That is how I roll.

After we greeted the room ants, Pi Chi turned on the television. That is how she rolls. She likes the background noise. It told us that Michael Jackson had died a few days earlier.

“Well, there you go,” I said to Pi Chi. I assumed he killed himself.

During our “free shuttle bus” ride to the airport the next day which cost us five Rand and was more like the owner’s broken down piece of shit car, the radio (point C-O point Zed-A) rambled on about Mr Jacko. They also played the Jackson 5 version of “Santa Claus Is Coming To Town”. I thought it odd. This 50-year-old man-child who is as famous for his fondness of 12-year-old boys as he is for his music is dead. Now here is a Christmas song in the middle of July that he recorded when he was 12.

Shamon.


Sabie River hippos




Most Frequently Used Labels

Most important for honor to making drive with eye close (7) How can it be an accident when they drive like assholes on purpose? (3) Let your family get their own dreams to the reality (3) Police don’t ask me how I feel – I feel fined (3) When you travel to a city with a rich culture and history try to visit its theme parks (3) And I ask myself why were there no strippers at my wedding (2) Get out the way old Dan Tucker (2) Holy Mother tramples the heads of the Earth fire dragon (2) I hate the fact that I need an electronic device in my life (2) I was tired of walking anyway (2) It is indeed like rain on your wedding cake (2) No colors were harmed in the taking of these photographs (2) What the Zagat guide doesn’t tell you (2) Why is not now if it fight? (2) And they don't even hold a grudge (1) Aucune couleur dans la fabrication de ces photgraphs n'a été blessée (1) Brother can you spare a thousand dimes (1) Castle Of The King Of The Birds (1) De Cultuur van Amsterdam is de belangrijkste van Nederland (1) Does one person really need 500 shoes? (1) Dorénavant je ne parlerai pas même Français (1) Everything I know about right and wrong I learned from M*A*S*H (1) From Genesis to Revelation in one run-on sentence (1) Hast du etwas Zeit für mich - Dann singe Ich ein Lied für dich von Wien und Österreich und das sowas von sowas kommt (1) He doesn't care too much for money since money can't buy him love (1) I am tired of typing tiny dirt farm village (1) I knew there was a reason I never go to Dallas (1) I participate in all your hostility to dogs and would readily join in any plan of exterminating the whole race. – Thomas Jefferson to Peter Minor 1811 (1) I think I saw Walt Disney’s frozen head in the popcorn line (1) If I were a half decent photographer anything I shot in Africa would make you say Great Mbleka - this place is awfuckingtastic (1) If Jesus exists then how come he never lived here (1) If Nelson Mandela exists then how come he never lived here? (1) If Rodney King lived here he’d still be alive today (1) If you wish to be starting some thing you have got to be starting some thing - I say if you wish to be starting some thing you have got to be starting some thing (1) If you’ve seen one crowded polluted stinking town… (1) It is make unluck to give a shit (1) It is super and strong to kill the wound dint (1) It’s actually a pretty enormous world after all (1) Keine Farben wurden im nehmen dieser Fotos geschädigt (1) Me no like (1) Most greatest blog post is ever was (1) NOT ALLOW (1) Never trust a man who can only spell a word one way (1) No humans were harmed in the taking of these photographs (1) Not counting the last one (1) Old people got no reason (1) Peace and easy feelings (1) Peter Brown never called me (1) Planes and trains and boats and buses characteristically evoke a common attitude of blue (1) Probably the best time I have ever had at one of my favorite places in the world (1) Red is the color that my baby wore and what's more it's true - yes it is (1) Slap tjips - jy maak my nou sommer lekker skraal mos (1) Strike up the band and make the fireflies dance (1) Suicide is Painless but booking trips at the last minute around here is a pain in the ass (1) The day the music died (1) The lingering acrid scent of $5 whores never impresses the little lady back home (1) The one about my first trip to Amsterdam which doesn’t really say anything about my first trip to Amsterdam (1) The woman who will be the mother of my illegitimate children just as soon as I get that time machine fixed (1) They might as well be dead when the rain comes (1) Think about how stupid the average person is and then realize that half of them are stupider than that (1) Those godless French bastards never once offered me any vodka (1) Tiny metal rods (1) To boldly be our guest a long long time ago where no man has gone before under the sea (1) Unfortunately to get to nature you have to go through civilization (1) We’ll kill the fatted calf tonight so stick around (1) What good is a used up world and how could it be worth having? (1) Who is this Red Rose that just walked in the she hot stuff (1) Why Julia Child never lived here (1) You make kill we make kill so all same ok (1) Your lateral cuneiform is full of eels (1) scenic Bali (1) spellcheck this (1)

All content © 2004-2013

myfreecopyright.com registered & protected






















I have no qualms about disseminating creative works for the public benefit when the author is duly credited, but if you use any of the writing or photography contained herein and try to pass it off as yours, that just shows you are a big pussy who is too lazy to come up with your own word usements or shoot your own digital paintings. You should be ashamed of your dipshittery.