Drakensbergen

On our way to Drakensbergen we stopped at an ‘aftrekplek’ to buy souvenirs. Willem and I bought a few gifts for 315 Rand. Although I do not like to bargain, I felt the need to do so, to avoid being the stupid tourist that pays full price, so for this reason and for practical purposes I figured we would try to get it for 300 (since we mostly had bills of 100 Rand), this would mean taking about 1.50 in Euro’s off the price. So I started the bargaining process (admittedly I was not doing that brilliantly), while Willem gets out a big roll of bills from his pocket. For those of you that have never tried bargaining, this is not the best strategy. So our bargaining opponent just started gesturing ‘NO’ and pointing at the stack of money in Willem’s hand, after which Willem said “I don’t feel like doing this anyway” and gave this lady 400 Rand. For a second I thought we even had to fight her for getting the right amount of change back, but luckily it did not come to this.

On our way to Drakensbergen we encountered a number of road constructions so we arrived at our lunch location a bit behind schedule (and of course we did not gain any time over the process of ordering and waiting for our lunch). Despite this, we did have a quick look at Howick waterfall afterwards. Arriving there we saw some trucks and police tape surrounding the area, but there just wasn’t enough commotion to suggest that something bad had happened. We walked around the taped off area to find out that people were preparing for abseiling. After some inquiry we learned that a bad smell was reported coming from below and since there was some kind of mental health clinic close by, they had to establish what species produced the rotting body smell.

Driving towards Drakensbergen the landscape became more cultivated and I was quite surprised to see that there were even cows grazing on the shoulder of the highway, with cars passing by at a speed of 120 km/h and just a young man with a rod making sure the cows stayed off the road. Also, the arrival of autumn to this part of the world became noticeable and I even saw some birds migrating, to what I presumed would be the north. I had already realized before during this trip that without realizing it I rely more on the sun for a sense of direction that I would have ever imagined. With the sun crossing the skies differently in this hemisphere, my sense of direction had been a bit messed up. During the firsts few days I had at times started to doubt myself, but then I realized that a more conscious effort would fix the problem and make me feel less stupid or lost. Regardless of direction or path taken, the sunset behind the mountains in front of us was breathtaking with all its colors.

Since Drakensbergen does not harbor too many dangerous animals, we could enjoy the surrounding by foot, instead of looking at it from a truck. I think most of us were happy to have the opportunity to go for a hike after spending almost 2 weeks with limited exercise, so off we went for ‘een stukkie stap’. We were warned that some parts of the hike would be a ‘bikkie stijf’ and steep it was indeed. I know that my fitness and endurance could be better, but given that I’m not that old yet, that I go to the gym twice a week, and that I ride my bike to work and everywhere else I need to go, I figured it cannot be too bad compared to the overall human population. Imagine my disappointment when I was beaten to the top (or at least the top of our climb) by 70-year-old Annie and by probably at least 10 minutes (over a climb of about 4 to 5 km). Now I would like to point out that this 70-year-old woman would go to the gym 5 times a week and take a 1 hour walk every day after dinner and I would also like to state for the record that I was a bit worn-out from finishing a PhD thesis (4 chapters in 6 weeks) and that my stupid cough had kept me from sleeping and out of a gym for a few weeks as well (and physical activity was still causing a bit of coughing on that mountain), but I’m not sure how convincing my argumentation would be to you, my loyal readers. However, despite thinking about quitting a couple of times, I was ‘baie’ proud when I did make it to our endpoint and the great view made it worth it! And also, the walk down was just peanuts after that.

That afternoon the crew went grocery shopping, since we had not had time for that the day before, while we went to the swimming pool. I enjoyed the waterslide with Heather (yes, I made it look like doing the kid a favor again). I was quite surprised to see most of the people in the indoor pool, while the weather was sunny and warm (warm enough that it must have been at least acceptable for South Africans). Later that afternoon an African family did make it outside and they took turns on the waterslide. The incredible noise that was produced by both the people on the slide and the others watching as well as the even more incredibly low speed at which some of the teenage boys came down, made me wonder whether they had ever seen a waterslide before.

That evening we were celebrating the birthday of Marleen and Yvonne. On request, dinner that evening was bobotie (yes it was very nice again and again we provided beer, mental support and unnecessary help and yes again I looked pretty while watching dinner being prepared (I know this is getting old, but you may not realize that looking pretty takes a lot of practice, so I take advantage of every opportunity I can get)). Of course there were also cakes (chocolate – yay) and presents and decorations for the truck that Annie had taken for her daughter.