World Wittering

Re-disembarkation occurred and the soldiers insisted that all bags were opened up for inspection. Ours came last, the soldiers realised just how long it would take to go through each and every compartment of our backpacks, decided not to bother and we were swiftly given the nod to carry on. Marvellous.

The evocative emerald hills gave way to sparse plains of farmland dotted with occasional ranch houses and weathervanes. The smooth tarmac of the roads, every South African’s pride and joy, lulled us to sleep, we passed into Gauteng province as the sun began to creep towards the horizon, the dying rays forcing our eyes to open again, and suddenly we were in Johannesburg.

We gazed avidly out of the windows at one of the most dangerous cities on earth, expecting to be hijacked at every robot, fearing some post-apocalyptic Mad Max hell hole, and found it to be just a bit ugly and dull and with too much traffic. Much backstreet back doubling circumvented some of the grid locked mass of combis and buses trying to squeeze into a manic city centre bus and train station, bringing us suddenly jettisoned into the mother of all taxi tout/porter/general feeling a bit vulnerable looking like a mzunga situations.

With spirit resolute and, employing the strict make no eye contact and don’t stop briskly walking technique, we were soon inside the cavernous modern station and on the lookout for the pre-designated rendezvous, outside the Wimpy Bar naturally. We briefly flirted with having an argument about the stupidity of the meeting point – Lee convinced it was a ridiculous place to arrange, me trying to make her understand it was their idea – and then the driver of our lift turned up. Peter, for t’was his name, drove us out of the city, away from the Friday night rush hour intensity, and took us to Soweto.

To Lebo’s, the only backpackers in Orlando West, the heart of the township, a gorgeous, friendly, comfortable garden of peacefulness. I quite liked it. On the way, Peter had filled us with anticipation with his excitement about the World Cup in 2010 and the opportunity for so many people to see the great strides that have been made in the birthplace of the uprising. Lebo himself was a young local entrepreneur, whose family had been heavily involved in the struggle, who had spotted a demand for a more involved way to see Soweto, created a backpackers and funded a community based project which had cleaned up wasteland to provide a football pitch and park for the locals, as well as employing several of them as guides for the bicycle tours he ran. All jolly jolly right on then. Lebo’s partner, Maria gave us a warm welcome, a nicer room than we’d booked and pointed us in the direction of a nice little restaurant up the road, adding a helpful “Don’t worry, it’s totally safe to walk there”.

Our waiter, Joseph, was another local who seemed genuinely excited that tourists are now starting to frequent his establishment, if only because it provided a sympathetic ear to his complaints about pay and conditions. Dinner was delicious, the beer was cold, we strolled fuzzily back down the hill for an early night.

The morning’s excursion, after a leisurely breakfast, was with Sol, a young local studying to be a lawyer. He took us out on mountain bikes around the surrounding streets and to a few local landmarks. We joined the old geezers in a shipping container now used as a shebeen, or unlicensed bar, where a bucket of the local brew, very similar to the barley beer we’d drunk in the mountains of Tibet, was passed around for sips and everyone was a little glazed of eye and unsteady of feet. The old gents lapped up the attention, insisting Lee take photographs of them posing, and relieving us of as many cigarettes as they could, while introducing themselves with hearty and complicated handshakes.

Later in the day there was to be a gala event in Durban, six hundred kilometres south, where all the FIFA dignitaries and hangers on would be announcing the World Cup 2010 qualifying groups to the assembled media masses. The centrepiece of the day’s events was to be the Soweto derby, Kaiser Chiefs versus Orlando Pirates, South Africa‘s two biggest teams, which had been transplanted all that way to give the big wigs something of interest to watch.

Rather than be upset that their big match had been hijacked and taken so far away, the Sowetans were proud to be the focus of the world’s attention and thousands of them had made the long and difficult journey to the south coast. Those that were left created a buzz on the streets, a tangible nervous excitement you could physically feel. In the shebeen we discussed loyalties and swapped team hand signals – Kaiser Chiefs, a V-sign held up to the forehead in salute, the Pirates, arms crossed in front of the chest with fists clenched.

I’d decided to back Chiefs for their superior gesture and because they were our host Lebo’s team. Lee, naturally, took the contrary position.

We discussed predictions for the result and team loyalties, the shebeen, whilst of mixed support, was predominately Piratical for we were Orlando’s back yard, but the banter was entirely friendly with much slurring and vague gesticulating.

Eventually, Sol indicated it was time to leave, the men grumbled and then took advantage of the opportunity to give Lee a friendly farewell hug, more multi-stage handshakes culminating in finger clicks followed, and we were then back on the bikes and heading back onto the streets. We passed areas of varying conditions, some still composed of huts without running water or drainage with communal toilet blocks, but with kids who were, without exception, excited to see white faces and wouldn’t let us pass without posing for photos, the older ones noticeably stifling their grins to pull their sternest hip hop bad boy poses before dissolving into laughter when shown the results.

Other streets were much much smarter, the residents had obviously spent a good deal of money either improving their homes or rebuilding them from scratch. Expensive cars were being washed on driveways, kids playing in the streets, all of our stereotypical preconceptions thrown out of the window to show, guess what, a perfectly normal community getting on with its life in perfectly normal fashion. One wonderful aspect was the way that even the most successful of Soweto’s residents had stayed within the community and not moved out to some swanky suburb, they knew where their heart lay and were not about to abandon it. This produced a palpable feeling of pride on every street, they know this was where apartheid cruelty was at its worst, they know these are the streets on which the revolution started and now they know that this is where the success of the democratic regime can be measured.

Sol gave us an enlightening insight into some of the more detailed aspects of the bad old days, any naïve conceptions that apartheid was simply about segregation dismissed with examples of how the state was deliberately and systematically oppressing the country’s majority, controlling every aspect of their lives and punishing even slight transgressions out of all proportion. We heard how the townships were merely settlements to house a source of cheap labour, men separated from their families and brought in from the rural areas, given a travel pass that stipulated exactly where a person could be and at what particular times. Failure merely to carry the pass or to be in the right place at the right time resulted in months in prison, meaning even a missed or late bus or train could have serious repercussions. Travel passes even had to be renewed several times a year at small, overcrowded and under-resourced offices.

This, together with the curfew and laws that restricted the keeping of alcohol within the house, led the workers returning home at night to frequent the government run beer halls, but needing to drink as much as they could in a short time before heading home inebriated. Harsh restrictions on gatherings meant friends and neighbours couldn’t even walk home together. The results, inevitably, domestic violence and misery. Hence the rise of the sheens, undercover drinking dens in back yards and basements, a way to have a little fun, retain a little dignity.

Divide and rule, a strict hierarchy with massive differences in rights fomented hatred and mistrust of the guy up the street that had just that little bit more than you. Lack of property rights meant you could be kicked out of the home you’d occupied for generations at the drop of a hat. Systematic divisiveness, the more we learned, the more apparent the evil that was done to these people, the more amazed that it occurred in our lifetime, the more ashamed that our governments had actively supported it.

While Sol talked and the rain fell, we took shelter at another converted container, this one a café, and tucked into a delicious local speciality, a kota or Soweto burger, a huge doorstep of crusty bread, hollowed out, filled with a spicy meat stew and the top replaced, a wondrous concoction.

Next on the tour was the Hector Pieterson memorial, commemorating the moment when the oppression finally got too much and something had to give. In 1976 the government decided that all education should be carried out entirely in Afrikaans, a language that few of the black teachers could speak, let alone communicate ideas to students in. The older generations may have been beaten down somewhat by the decades of apartheid, but the students decided to take action, demonstrating their objections by marching through Soweto. Government forces opened fire and Hector Pieterson, a young, black, unarmed student was shot dead. The uprising began and led to the final overthrow of the regime some fifteen years later.

We stood at the memorial and watched as coach load after coach load of tourists drove past, stopped to take a picture from the window and drove on, just feeling lucky to have been recommended Lebo’s by the Finnish couple we’d met at the Mushroom Farm in Malawi, this was one experience we were particularly glad not to have missed out on.

Our final stop was Vilakazi Street, which Mandela and Tutu both lived on. Mandela’s house is open to the public and had a sound system blaring and traditional Zulu dancers vying with breakdancing contortionists for the tourist rand outside. We were ushered into the cramped bungalow with a large group of Venezuelans and given a brief tour of the great man’s once quarters, including master bedroom with subsequently constructed en-suite extension incorporating avocado ceramic suite, before being hustled into the Mandela gift shop where Lee, naturally, felt obliged to buy a fridge magnet.

After a brief swing by to look at the outside of Archbishop Tutu’s strangely Miami Vice style, heavily guarded house, it was back to Lebo’s to drop off the bikes, thank Sol and then off up to the restaurant to catch the big game. On arrival, we had to wait a few minutes while a children’s tea party dispersed, but then we ensconced ourselves, got the Carling Black Labels in (no, in South Africa it’s actually nice) and settled down for the match.

Outside, people wandered by in team colours, blowing horns and shouting, inside the atmosphere was a little more subdued. Kaiser Chiefs scored first, I leapt up in celebration and, at this point, discovered that everyone else there was a Pirates fan. Pirates equalised, everyone smiled and the rest of the game was played out to a scrappy conclusion with no further score. Joseph took the opportunity to elaborate some more on his meagre wages and long hours.

On the way back we met a group of local kids and spent half an hour taking pictures as they gave us their very best poses, fighting each other to be centre of attention in front of the lens.

A little inebriated, we returned to Lebo’s, availed ourselves of his essential supplies and then set about sorting our onward travel for the following day. Maria, at our behest, had booked us a 2 week ticket on the Baz Bus, the backpacker hop on, hop off service. We suddenly realised this was a stupid idea as we’d probably be spending most of the two weeks at only two or three places and wouldn’t get good use out of it. I rang and changed the ticket to an even more expensive one all the way to Cape Town. Even as I put the phone down I had a feeling in the pit of my stomach we were somehow betraying our ethic, abandoning our public transport roots for a cushy tourist option. Too late to change, the die was cast. I booked our hostel for the following three nights in the Drakensberg Mountains and then we headed out into the garden where a birthday party for Lebo’s younger brother was just kicking off.

We made the acquaintance of an English girl called Georgie, tucked into the beverages and spent the next few hours making friends with the local yoot. Young guys elaborated on their plans to come to England, meet a white woman, get married and come home to buy land, we dutifully tried to explain the realities. In the corner, gorgeous girls sat looking studiously bored and ignoring the boys’ attempts at conversation, at least until a few more Bacardi breezers had been sunk.

The brai was served and we were treated to wonderfully cooked steaks with all the trimmings as DJ Tsebo and his friends blasted out hip hop and house using a battered PC instead of traditional decks. I got talking about music with Tsebo and the other DJ’s, particularly their love of house music. I told them about my own, long gone, clubbing hayday and asked if they had any house classics. They assured me they had many unforgettable older tracks and so I enquired after a personal favourite, SL2’s monster “On A Ragga Tip”. They stared at me blankly and so I elaborated, “you know, came out in 1992”.

It was at this point Tsebo informed me he was two years old in 1992 and I made my excuses and left.

An expected party of a dozen French tourists showed up and sat ignoring everyone but each other, we didn’t care. By now Georgie was surrounded by adoring men in a way she was unlikely ever to have been back in England and was lapping up the attention. We carried on having the same conversation over and over with enthusiastic locals keen to hear our impressions of Soweto and to invite us to return for the World Cup.

Lebo’s essential supplies were generously distributed, the music cranked up a notch further and the gardener, worse for wear, started pestering ladies for attention, but in a harmless, hilarious manner. We retired to the fire and sat, wasted, with Lebo and Maria, thanking them for their amazing hospitality, for showing us the true face of Soweto and promising to send as many people their way as we could.

An early breakfast was taken with sore heads and then Peter once more drove us to the Baz Bus pickup point the other side of town. Our worst fears were confirmed as our fellow passengers boarded, comprising some geeky looking gap year types, a couple of OAPs and a gaggle of children ranging from about fifteen to eight or nine. Fortunately, sleep was not hard to come by.

By early afternoon the plains had given way to the dramatic landscape of the Drakensberg, imposing green and grey escarpments, monumental flat topped mountains stretching far into the distance.

Around three we pulled into Amphitheatre backpackers and checked in with Adrian. I had booked us into a superior room with en-suite and kitchen and so naturally Lee enquired about camping and we got off on completely the wrong foot. Adrian’s insistence that a booking is a booking is a booking, quite reasonable I thought, got Lee’s back up and I was forced to intervene and confirm we’d take the room. Next, Adrian ran us through the details about facilities and excursions, but in a completely annoying and patronising manner that had us both, tired as we were, wanting to perpetrate some kind of violence on him. Finally, he gave us our key, but not before imploring us to look after it or he’d be forced to hold on to the key deposit he was charging us. It seemed he’d mistaken us for two small children.

We repaired to the room, which, to be fair, did have pretty stunning views of the distant mountain range, including the Amphitheatre itself, a long curved wall of rock, a thousand metre sheer drop, and decided on a snooze was in order. Lee nipped out to unilaterally book us on excursions for the next two days, despite the fact we’d agreed to discuss it first, and we only left the room again to take dinner, with noticeably bad service, in the restaurant before an early night.

At breakfast we made bets on whether we’d get the type of eggs we’d ordered and then had to give ourselves a sharp rap on the knuckles for our presumptiveness when the correct, scrambled, ones duly appeared. Soon after, we were herded aboard combis and started on our day trip to the kingdom in the sky, Lesotho. A brief stop in Kwa Kwa enabled us to quickly shop for groceries, and then, after a couple of hours, we reached Free State and wound slowly up into the mountains until we reached a border crossing, all the time suffering Adrian‘s more and more desperate and useless attempts to appear down with the kids. Boasting about your drug addiction isn’t cool.

There was an interminable wait as the thirty odd passports were verified and stamped and then we wound our way slowly down into Lesotho where the customs point was conspicuous by its absence – cue moans from several of us about missing out on a stamp in the passport, yes, guilty. A few minutes later we reached a village and made for the local school where the headmistress explained how the Amphitheatre helped fund building work and the provision of text books by running the excursion. We were given a tour and the history of the school and it all seemed very worthwhile, but then there was no time to meet and play with any of the kids as Adrian rushed us on to walk up to some ancient rock paintings.

We dropped in on a local to be shown his rondavel house, learning how one side is painted white, to reflect the heat of the day, and one side dark, to absorb the late afternoon heat for night time. Then it was a steep walk up to some rocky outcrops where we ate our packed lunches and just gazed out over the spectacular landscape. The rock paintings themselves were barely visible and less than exciting, even when jazzed up by the anthropological explanations of their meaning and the estimates of their age. So we trooped back down to the combis and drove onward. Adrian pointed out the flags being flown outside many of the huts indicating a shebeen, white flags meant the regular brew, a yellow flag, one flavoured with pineapple, a red flag meant there was blood in the beer and green that it was mixed with marijuana. Everyone on the bus started looking out for a green flag, one was spotted and we drove right past, another and another, to no avail.

We stopped at the bottom of a small hill and walked up past some houses with washing lines, upon which were pegged the small skinned bodies of mice to dry in the sun, a tasty local snack. Further up the hill was a circular dry stone wall. We sat and were then introduced to local sangoma, a wizened lady traditional healer wheeled out to answer our questions. Alas, no one plucked up the courage to test her powers on them, they can apparently predict the future and the moment of our deaths, so everyone looked shy and one or two people asked bland uninteresting question about not much in particular.

Suddenly, as if the sangoma had grown tired of us, the grey skies, which had closed in, began to pour torrential rain down and a mad dash was made to get back to the transport. Once more we passed a number of green flags without stopping despite the numerous cries and then, when we did stop, it was to squeeze into a rondavel and be shown a traditional dinner of maize meal and greens. We were encouraged to have a taste and then bundled back in the vans wondering why on earth they’d bothered.

We knew the only thing left on the itinerary was the shebeen visit and keen vigilance was employed to determine the intended flag colour. Naturally, our disappointment was vocal when it turned out to be yellow, mmm, pineapple flavoured beer, lovely, thanks. Fortunately, at this point, the heavens opened once more and the exotic brew was abandoned for the dry sanctuary of the combis.

On the way back to the border Adrian was unable to get our van back up the steep hill beyond a ford, needing the driver of the other van to get it to the top while he and some of the passengers walked. The other driver stuck the handbrake on and jumped back into his own vehicle leaving the rest of us sat pondering the strength of the handbrake and the sheer drop immediately behind us for what seemed an eternity.

There was another interminable wait at the border for more passport stampage, during which time we finally struck up conversation with some of our fellow travellers, an Australian couple, James and Suzy, and a Dutch couple, Jelmer and Meike. The ice was broken when I had to pick Suzy up on a point she was making about the British Empire being the most vicious in history, a fallacy I was, naturally, unable to allow to perpetuate. An intellectual discussion of the merits of the various empires ensued, during which even the Dutch were exposed as cruel and nefarious, before the Romans were awarded the all time achievement award in the field of imperial brutality and we could move onto the breaking news of the day that Sophie Anderton had been caught doing cocaine and offering to have sex with someone for a lot of money, who would ever have thought it?

The dull and tedious journey back thereby enlivened, we mutineed at the petrol stop and made for an off-licence, putting Adrian’s job in jeopardy – as he’d mistakenly informed us when trying to stop us. The beer on sale was actually more expensive than that sold at the hostel bar but, sometimes, the principle of the thing has to be upheld. We purchased large quantities.

Back at the room, we rustled up a tasty dinner in our little kitchenette and then joined the other four in the communal kitchen to tuck into the beers. A pleasant pair of Afrikaaners, Werner and Didi, joined us, simple types, but what they lacked in sparkling wit and conversation they made up for in generosity as they allowed us to get properly stuck into their essential supplies.

We were then invaded by Marius, a classic be-mulleted Afrikaans builder, currently employed “building houses for kafirs” he proudly announced. He wouldn’t take the hint to just f*** off and insisted on showing us mobile phone videos of him wringing the necks of chickens and being generally offensive. The offensiveness culminated when Werner took a group photo with our camera and Marius got his old chap out.

Fortunately, we were finally spared as all three retired to bed – work in the morning – and left us to carry on getting more and more hammered until the early hours. Sadly, Jelmer and Meike were heading off early next day, but we all swapped details and Lee and I promised to hook up with James and Suzi after the following day’s trip.

We awoke with a start and realised immediately it was past the departure time for our trip to hike in the mountains. I threw on some clothes and did that hopping run trying to put shorts on thing out into the car park. The vans were still there and dear Adrian confirmed we had ten minutes to get ourselves together.

Another tedious hungover three hour journey ensued as we retraced our steps almost to Lesotho and then made for the rear of the Amphitheatre in the Royal Natal National Park. Once again the mountain scenery was breathtaking, it was just a shame we really would have preferred to be in bed.

Upon reaching the start of the hiking trail, and with the weather closing in, we began to regret sending all our serious hiking and cold weather gear home months before – we were both in sandals. We started up the trail and to steadily climb up the steep, but not difficult, terrain.

Twenty minutes in we were passed by a film crew and then Monty Don off the telly. Lee decided to be humorous and surprised him by sticking her camera in his face and claiming to be from the News of the World. (Fortunately Mr Don was recently interviewed on BBC radio and I was able to email my apologies in to be read out on air. Mr Don, however, was less than entirely gracious and not a little pompous about the incident wondering “just what is it that makes people do such stupid things” – pompous old tosser)

The climb steepened, cloud descended and, with it, the temperature. We reached a rock strewn gulley leading up sharply, the final push to the plateau above. I pushed on, mindful of how Lee likes to be left to carry on at her own pace under such circumstances, powered past an elderly couple who were clearly struggling and tucked in just behind an attractive Japanese girl in extremely tight leggings, whose pace I managed to match to the summit, which was very pleasing.

Once up top, we settled down for another complimentary unexciting packed lunch and then set off purposefully into the mist, unable to see more than a couple of metres ahead at any time – cue much stepping in icy puddles and generally wishing we’d just stayed under the duvet. Soon we’d reached our goal, the top of the Amphitheatre’s sheer one kilometre drop and the site of the world’s second highest waterfall.

Somewhere, somewhere in the murky cloud that enveloped us was a one thousand metre drop and the sound of rushing water, we couldn’t see a thing.

The fifteen strong group mooched about, stepping carefully closer and closer to the edge and hoping that the mist would clear, cameras poised for a glimpse of the falls. After twenty minutes or so the guide announced we should get going, everyone packed their cameras away and the clouds dutifully parted to show, at least, the top of the falls, a raging torrent falling away into the nothingness of the mists below.

Everyone unpacked their cameras and swarmed about jostling each other at the edge of the precipice trying to get a decent shot. I sat and smoked a cigarette with the guide with what I imagined was an expression of arch amusement.

After the camera lust had been satiated, we trooped off to the top of a slightly less extreme drop and took it in turns to climb down sets of chain ladders, only moderately scary, before plodding our way down the mountain at high speed as the clouds got more dense and it started to rain.

The combi dropped us three hours later, exhausted, desperate for rest and warmth. We made for our room and Lee knocked up some dinner. Just as we were finishing James appeared and informed me Werner and Didi were back with their magic tin and so the four of us stood about conspicuously together for a few minutes taking in the evening air. Fortunately, there was no sign of Marius.

Lee wasn’t budging from the room and collapsed into bed. James and I made plans to invade the TV room and watch a DVD just as a power cut struck. Instead, we got beer and retired to the kitchen to converse by candle light. The lights came back on after half an hour and so I dispatched James to the bar while I took possession of the TV remote and glared at anyone who looked like they might want to come into the room.

James and Suzy duly arrived with refreshments and we decided to watch All The Kings Men, the book of which had been one of my favourites of the trip. Alas it was stodgy, slow moving and lacking in any real redeeming feature. Suzy made her excuses while James just slumped over and passed out.

Just then an angel appeared in the form of a French girl who’d been on the two excursions with us and with whom we’d made passing chit chat. She handed over generous helpings of essential supplies, explained she had more than enough and bid us goodnight. I shook James awake, we partook and he wobbled off to bed, leaving me monged out in front of the TV watching a random Arsenal game. At some point, I too staggered home and lay next to Lee having a whitey.

We lay in late next day, having nothing to do before the arrival of the Spaz Bus, as we’d inevitably christened it. James and Suzy stopped by to bid us farewell and then we killed time loitering in the TV room in front of CNN before checking out. At this point Lee decided to address Adrian’s customer service skills (lack of) with the owner, emphasising his “attitude” upon check in. Bizarrely, she then went on to complain that he hadn’t allowed us to go shopping for supplies on the excursions. I started incredulous as this was: a) completely untrue, and, b) exactly what the owner had instructed him to do. Still, it did waste another half an hour until our lift turned up.

The only thing we’d not managed to do in the area, due to lack of a car, was to visit Spionkop, the battle field from which the name of Liverpool’s famous stand is taken. A local drunk had promised to pick me up that morning to take me there and then, not at all unpredictably, failed to turn up. I settled for second best though when the Spaz Bus stopped to drop someone off just past a signpost to the place. I asked the driver if we could take a quick photo and then dragged Lee, protesting of course, with me to get the snap.

We’d misjudged the distance quite badly and ended up jogging about half a kilometre back up the road, took the picture, started to jog back, Lee insisted on taking some additional photos of local road maintenance workers and then made our way back to the bus where the driver was incandescent with rage but no one else seemed to have minded.

The rest of the drive was dull and uneventful as we passed southwards, leaving the mountains behind, to the coast of Kwazulu-Natal and the city of Durban. We checked into a little suburban backpackers and then ran down to catch the shops before they shut and stock up on cash, knocked up a quick dinner, had an argument about whether or not I could go out to find somewhere to watch a critical Liverpool Champions League game and went to bed.