Back in Hillbrow

When I was a teenager, Joburg's inner city suburb of Hillbrow was where it was all at: the bookshops, cult cinema, record shops and clubs, bohemian flat life, the tatoo parlors and that bit of grunge that came under the Apartheid state's radar. In the 1990's that bit of grunge rapidly grew into a no-go area as the cool shops closed and the drug dealers moved in to get their piece of the street action. I hadn't been there for a decade.

Today I returned with my friend Anna who, on her way back to Germany, went to say goodbye to friends at the German Lutheran Centre in Edith Cavell Street. Hillbrow was less scary looking than I'd imagined ... just very run down, although I still would not like to have had a break-down there. And the visit to the Lutheran centre was colourful and fun. They have a sewing project (the skirt shows the Hillbrow skyline) and a lot of other self-help projets. Saying goodbye was hard for Anna, especially because she had to do it over and over again.

Punctures: Good in Bad

I had a puncture deep in the Kgalagadi Park, after lots of jolting on corrugated and rutted roads. I replaced it early in the morning with the spare, and then jolted back across the same corrugated and rutted roads hoping I wouldn't get a second, and be forced to change it surrounded by a ring of interested wild animals. The tyres held through the park ... and down 250km of straight desert to Uppington ... and across the brown and green plains of the Northern Cape and North West province. I had about 1300km to drive altogether to get me home.

When I arrived in Vryburg, with still about 400km to go, my first reaction was that I was back in the high crime zone - the land of high fences and gated communities that I had been out of for a while. My second thought was that the town wasn't such a great place to hang out in ... the streets were dirty and buzy, even late on a Sunday afternoon. My third thought, at the petrol station, was - "Oh damn. Here's the second puncture".

All the workshops were closed for the Sunday, and suddenly I was faced with the thought of an unwelcome overnight in an unlovely town when all I wanted was to get back to Joburg and sleep in my own bed.

Then the guy at the petrol station saw the flat, and said "Call Bande!". He gave me a number, I phoned and 5 minutes later a giant tow truck with a young black guy with dreadlocks came roaring down the road. I could still drive, so I followed it around the cornder into Vryburg's dusty suburbs ... and there was Bande, who was prepared to sacrifice 20 minutes of his Sunday afternoon to repair my two punctures, and get me back on the road for about 80 Rand ($8).


This is Bande with his brother and son. It turned out to be a fun experience, in fact the best thing which happened to me in that long day of driving.

Kgalagadi National Park

This park lies in South Africa's hook, the point in the NW of the country at which there is a common border with Botswana and Nambia. I had never been there before, and it was a long ride. Worse, the web site warned "the roads in the Kgalagadi Transfrontier Park are not sedan friendly" and since the car I was in, a sometimes-faithful sometimes-not Ford Escort was the ultimate sedan, I was not confident that I would be able to see anything there without being stuck in a bed of soft sand. But I took the chance anyway and drove the 200 km through the Kalahari desert to the park from the Northern Cape town of Uppington.

It was really worth it. The roads were corrugated but otherwise very navigable in the Ford. And the scenery was dreamlike: softly undulating hills of bright green 'sour grass' shimmering with thousands of butterflies, and large herds of Gemsbok, Springbok and Gnu roamed alongside the road.

Dawn in the Karoo

I'm on my way to the north-western extreme of South Africa (to the border with Botswana) to visit the Kgalagadi National Park ... this was dawn just north of the town of Uppington, about three hours ago.

Kokerboom

This is a kokerboom, or a quiver tree - they grow in the Northern Cape, where they're something of an emblem. I came across some at sunset as I was barreling up towards Keimoes on the Orange River.

Flamming through the Cederberg

The Cederberg is a mountainous area where dry mountains raise fantastic rock formations above thin ribbons of intense green cultivation of fruit and vineyards. Made for great hiking, but the real adventure started after the afternoon hike as I was in the car heading back to the campsite: suddenly a red light I'd never seen before blinked balefully on the car dashboard, and soon afterwards acrid white smoke was pouring out of the bonnet. Yikes! I stopped the car, openned the bonnet and woosh: flames came out of the battery case. Meltdown.

I huffed and puffed and used my last half litre of water to put them out. And then, in a cell-phone dead zone, I had no option but to leave the car on the side of the road and walk in the dusk to a nearby vineyard to use their phone. The people at the backpackers I was staying at (The Oasis) were really good to me: they came 20km down a dirt road to pick me up, and gave me the run of their place and, most importantly, a phone to use. Gerhardt and Chantel: thanks!

The next morning a mechanic came out 100km from the next town of Clanwilliam, and the best of all possible outcomes happened: a new battery and some tape got the car started again. Still, it meant that instead of getting away at 4am, I left at around 2pm and headed up through the deserts of the northern cape towards the Orange River.

I wish I had photographs of the car in flames ... and of the mechanics, they were really funny. But I had my hands full at the time.

SA Groceries Part III: Ceres

I felt like Charlie the first time he entered Willy Wonka's Chocolate Factory: after years of drinking the fruit juice and reading on the carton how Tucked away in a crescent of mountains lies a beautiful, fertile valley ... I finally made it to Ceres, which lies North East of Cape Town. The reality wasn't far off the advertising.

Ceres is now sold all over the world ... I used to buy it in the Williams Morton supermarket opposite Columbia.