Flippin' fish, gorgeous gorge and other things...

41 days to go till the world cup… a countdown mentioned everywhere on a daily basis: in shops, on the radio, in the office, on television,… and while Cape Town and the rest of South Africa is counting down, I am counting up and… reach 6 months. Yes, highly estimated reader, I’ve been scurrying around on this speck of the globe for half a year now. 25% of the assumed time I’ll spend here. Does that mean that I have had enough? Not at all! It only makes me realize how I have to hurry up to do all the things I want to do here before I relocate.
In line with this thought, I have done a couple of wonderful things in the past three weeks, too much to mention in detail one post. So I’ll have to stick to a brief description and make sure I have a lot of pictures to acquiesce in your longings.

First of all, I’ve had quite a few friends from work visiting me from overseas (a nice expression essentially meaning “everything outside Africa”). I had my share of touring Cape Town and surroundings and eating out. Because with so many lovely places to dine, and at such prices, that is what you do.
I have become quite adept at giving tours in and around Cape Town. Soon the wine lands and Cape Peninsula will have no more surprises for me.
Although all these visitors had very different backgrounds and interests, they were all stunned by the beauty of the landscapes. And none of them were raped, mugged, cheated on, threatened or anything. So if you still had doubts of coming here, start planning and let me know when you’ll be coming.

Next to all of those visits, I went camping again. This time I was invited by a frolleague (friend + colleague) to join him on a trip. It must have been the first time I went away for the weekend without Shafeeka. She wasn’t angry with me, so I take it she didn’t mind. We went to the Cederbergen area, to a remote little place called “Suikerbossie”. We had a braai (not a barbecue because that runs on charcoal or brickets in stead of wood) and beer, and tried some fishing. I even bought a fishing rod and hooks and bait and all that, to do the proper fishing thing. I had tried fishing before in my life, but without the proper gear and no success (not sure if it’s correlated), so I went all out this time. The prey was yellow fish, and I am still not sure whether that refers to its behaviour or its colour. In a fishing manual it said that this type of fish usually bites between midnight and 6 am. And sure enough, almost at the exact stroke of midnight, we finally had movement on our lines. Two fish at the same time bit the bait on our two rods. Unfortunately our coordination was left to be desired at that time, on the account of us having to wait so long and having had a drink or two. I’ll rephrase: we were too drunk to reel in the fish. We broke one line, and on the other a fish the size of my under arm slipped out of our hands. But off hand, the best fishing experience I ever had.
Next to that, we went to a gorgeous little gorge not so far from where we camped. I’ll let the pictures speak for themselves.

An other big event worth spending some ink on is my visit to Maputo. One of the projects I have been working on evolves around contract negotiations with the terminal in the capital of Mozambique. It wasn’t a long trip, and not far either, but it was an interesting experience. We only spend one night there, and were of course focused on the meeting at hand so it was not like I was able to explore the city. Still it was very clear that Maputo is in a whole different category than Cape Town. Buildings and roads seem to be crumbling down. Quite a few roads were tarred before, but are turning into sand roads again. Here and there are potholes, some so big you could lose a 4x4 vehicle in it. Service in bars and restaurants is even slower than in South Africa.
As most countries in Africa, Mozambique is struggling with widespread corruption, lack of education, failing government apparatus and virtually no public infrastructure (roads, trains, waterways,…). I saw the clichés of lack of planning and low sense of urgency confirmed. All of this is very present in the terminal as well. I’ll illustrate with some anecdotes next to the pictures.

The terminal does not have good paving, in general. Causing basic problems as you can see in the picture.

These gentlemen work for Damco (a sister company) and were at the terminal to sort out an issue with a bulk delivery of coal. The bags were broken. To illustrate the lack of planning: there was no dedicated area for bulk goods, they just dropped the bags where there was space and it was convenient.

Below you can see how the wheels of a tractor are slipping. The tractor had to push a couple of train wagons forward, because they did not seem to have a proper engine train. The big buldozer did not have problems pushing the lot forward.

A bulk delivery of sulfur ( a toxic if I'm not mistaken) was piled up somewhere in the terminal. The wind blew it around freely.

The two cranes are quite old and need some work. The terminal has very big plans to change the infrastructure and the way they work. Soon the improvements will be visible.

If you want to see more pictures on both events, please go to this album and the other

Take care!

W.

In search of the bunny.

I'm quite convinced now that the easter bunny is a European rotant. Not an African one at least, because I haven't seen it hopping around here, let alone found some chocolate eggs. And I even went looking more than 200 km out of Cape Town but nothing. I did see some very nice sights, let the pictures speak for themselves (below).
I took the opportunity of the prolongued Easter weekend to go camping in the Cederbergen ("bergen" means mountains). I refrained from wild camping for a number of reasons: it was just me by myself - alone, it is very dry and didn't want to start a bushfire, and they have creatures here that can actually kill you. So I chose the certain safety and mild comfort of a camping site. And next to avoiding the aforementioned risks, I also found hot water and some genuine South Africans as company. Very talkative guys that don't shy away from a drink. Actually it would not be a lie to say they really liked a drink, although they were still very well behaved. As so many drunken people do, they started talking about politics in South Africa. The inspiration did not only come from the alcohol in their circulation, but obviously also from the recent brutal murder on a prominent extreme right Afrikaner politician named Eugene Terreblanche. Mr Terreblanche had some terrible beliefs and was also killed in a terrible way. Food enough for conversation around a camp fire.

The trip itself was awesome, although not flawless. I made some rookie mistakes that are simply ridiculous, really. I had decided to go camping on the very last minute, so in my haste to throw my stuff in Shafeeka's trunk I had forgotten a few essentials. I didn't have fire, flash light, mousquito repellant and to top it off: no tent pegs. So I had to improvise a bit to sort things out. Luckily I found some easy solutions quickly. I broke the legs of a broken camping chair I'd found in pieces and used them as pegs. A local shop provided matches, candle and mousquito repellant. So I undid the shameful mistakes. Hikingwise it was not the best trip either. But this time I was not to blaim. The road I had chosen on my brand new map was - just like the desired easter eggs- simply not there. I was looking around for it, walking through the area, following the river along which the road was supposed to run, but could not find the pathway. After more than an hour of crashing through the bushes, whilst tapping a long thin stick in front of me to scare away snakes, I found myself walking through a dried out part of the river bed. I would have powered through if I hadn't been alone, but my sensible side won it over my reckless side and I made my way back. It took me an other hour and a half to lumber through the thicket and through the river but I got back without problems. It was a bit frustrating but satisfying at the same time. Can you have those two feelings at the same time? I think so; I was happy being out there in nature, trying to find my way by myself, but frustrated that I couldn't get to the top of the mountain I had planned to climb.

The Cederbergen area is very beautiful and is yet again very different from the winelands, the Table Mountain area or the Atlantic Seaboard. It is famous for its citrus plantations. In springtime it is supposed to be full of flowers so I will definitely go check that out. And I would like to see some San (Bushmen) rock art there too as they have quite a few sites with those old depictions. You can also visit the rooibos tea plantations there which is an other reason for me to go back.