Our last night in South Africa for a few weeks is a dot on the west coast, right beside the diamond mining property. Martin and I (along with 2 Australians) scored a separate little cabin, which had not heat but everything else. We thought we'd be camping tonight so a little cold is a small cross to bear. Apparently the camping facility used by the company (Drifters) wasn't up to snuff so instead we all sit down for a dinner of babottie and beer, surrounded by cute little dogs, an open fire and the occasional squawking of a blue parrot (beautiful plumage) until our guide got so fed up with having his briefing session interrupted somuch he throw a towel over the cage and that was that.
Our journey up through the south west of South Africa showed us long green fields of grain and orchards of cape gooseberries and oranges, which gradually petered out until it was just the rock and us, 17 strangers (18 including the guide) rumbling up the road at 120 kmh in a big green truck nicknamed Sophie (we were told all the trucks are named Sophie). We've spend two days touring the same parts of Cape Town that Martin and I toured at the end of the previous safari, but there were differences. But we are still a bit tenuous with each other. Smiles but not a lot more.
But this dot on the coast that houses about 100 or so is the real jumping off point of our tour, thanks to spitfire rock. Think of it. You are a wave on the Atlantic ocean. You have been travelling for thousands of kilometres and have both height and force to your advantage. Imagine then, hurtling in to land and coming up against a huge, round shoulder of a rock. What could you do but burst up and out and over?
Watching the sunset over this place, and the waves over this aptly named rock, and taking pictures of it and each other - that is the first connection we have made together as travellers, sharing a moment in time and space that no one else shares exactly the same way.
No comments:
Post a Comment