Arts

So it turns out the Arts festival was not all i was hoping for. There were many shows mostly dramas every day all for around $20 per show. There were also many little stalls selling crafts and and the ZA hotdog, boerwors. I decided not to stay for several days and caught a bus back to cape town last night. I had an interesting time getting from the arts festival to the bus station some 120km away in a different city.

I started by hitching a ride with some guy, who said he was going near the bus station (Lie number one). T minus one hour to bus departure, We got within 20km of the bus station city, then turned off the highway. I asked what was going on and he said something like we are going to X, you can get a ride from there which would be faster than getting one on the highway(lie two). 30min later we stop somewhat closer to the city and he helps me get a shared taxi to the city. The taxi driver says i must go across town to get a taxi to the bus station(lie three) he then drives across town and drops me under some highway overpass and says i can get a taxi from there to the bus station(lie four). Darkness(night) falls. Taxis at night are no fun, neither are the streets of SA. T minus ten minutes to bus departure, I ask people at the underoverpass stop for directions and they direct me to another underoverpass stop and tell me i must get a taxi first to a big taxi stand and then to the bus station(they turn out to be right). T plus five minutes to bus departure, I get a taxi to the taxi stand which turns out to be back on the other side of the city, where i already was. I then get a taxi to the bus station, 10 minutes after my bus departure time. I frantically search the buses at the station and cannot find my bus. it left, or so i thought, until i started talking to the people standing around. Apparently the bus i booked is always over an hour late. and it was yesterday. waited for about an hour and then got on for my 12hour overnight journey to cape town.

I thought about getting stressed about the whole situation many times while in the taxis. i decided to patiently wait, because being frustrated wasnt going to make the taxis go faster. if i did miss the bus, i could probably get another one the day after with only a long night spent at the bus station(a dirty parking lot). being patient payed off.

So 12 hours later..or so. I arrived at cape town station at about 515am. Found myself a train to to my part of the city and managed to arrive at my front gate at about 6am about two hours before sunrise, it is winter here even though it still feels like a pleasant spring. I should clarify about my living situation. It technically isnt my front gate i was standing in front of. my lease ended june 30th. I fly out July 16th. I arrived July5th. I am squatting. I had to turn in my keys, pack everything up, and store my luggage with friend before I left.

My friend, Wes, was not answering his phone which forced me to climb over the razor wire wall. Most houses here, all houses here are fortified against crime and the bad street people. Our house actually only had a concrete wall until two months ago. We had had a few breakins over the semester, all by the same guy. He managed to break in with people in the house everytime. He made off with a camera the first time, and the other 4+ times just some broken glass. We actually saw him come in and out of the gate a few times. We had reported the breakins to the landlord in full detail. the landlord's response was to put razor wire on the wall. Post razor wire we still had breakins, as our thief came in the gate under the wire.

After conquering the wall and lifting my backpack over, i set about waking wes up. His room is on the back side of the house, and as the front door is far away, I began climbing over our back wall into the bed breakfast place behind. A little sneaking around in the B&B placed me at our backyard wall. More fence climbing and i was looking in wes's window. The combination of Wes mentioning that he may move rooms and the girl shoes at the front door when wes should be alone, forced me to attempt to make out who was sleeping in the room before knocking on the window. I wanted to avoid awkward situations with new residents. While peaking in the window(still dark) I was greeted from an upstairs window by an older brit man. I promptly returned the greeting and explained what i was doing snooping around the house in the dark and managed to convince him i wasnt a thief and in the process woke up wes and doubly confirmed myself. More climbing and i was back at the front door.

I now have a daily task of avoiding runins with the landlord and cleaning ladies. We will see how it goes.

Trekking in Lesotho

Goats and Sheep! My most common trail companion.

Lesotho!

After a late start I began solo on my three day journey to the Lesotho highlands. The lodge suggested I have a guide and tried to sell me on riding a pony rather than walking, both I declined. What is the use of a horse? It makes you sore in the ass and you still get tired. I would rather be tired and have a happy ass. Who needs a guide when you never leave civilization? Villages and shepards are always great sources of info for questions like which way to the village that is only 2 km away and you have probably been to every week. After asking directions many times and having several young boys voluntarily show me the way, I arrived at night fall or shortly there after at my first overnight location. I was promptly shown to a my hut for the evening and began my dinner of muesli, beef jerky and cookies.

A Basotho local in common winter garb, he is also wearing rubber irrigation boots called gum boots or gumbies. The blankets have unique to each group(tribe?) in Lesotho.

After a nice breakfast of cold oatmeal, muesli and cookies I began my short hike to see the famed water fall. An hour and many corn/ sorghum fields later I came to the cliff with the falling water. I could see that it fell more proliferatous in the wet season, as now it was a trickle.
After returning to my hut village, I began asking for directions to my next destination. I should clarify what asking for directions means. Most of the time it was me saying the name of the village and then there was some pointing. Sometimes the pointing was accompanied with a lengthy explanation in Sesotho, some of which I understood only because of the associated hand gestures. My directions to my next destination appeared to come in two options. Option one. Backtrack some, go down to the river, follow the river, climb to some village, climb to another village then climb much higher over a pass to my destination, this sounds like no fun. Option two. Follow a curvy goat path, around the mountain and climb a little bit to my destination, sounds so much better, but the villagers discourage me because I think they fear me being lost.
I vote for the goat path, and it made my trip. It was truly a goat path and no one had taken it since the big snow a week before, there were no footprints man or beast. A goat path is a small foot path not unlike a deer trail in that it is very narrow and often is over grown with bushes above 1m. I happen to be more than 1m tall and my shoes happen to sink in the snow a few inches too much. Goat paths are awesome. So my feet got wet and cold, not like my shoes are waterproof anyways, and I was constantly ducking, crawling, and fighting branches. Goat paths are still awesome. I had some amazing views, and didn’t pass through any villages or even encounter a single human being all day. There were some stray goats. I crossed some small streams, iced over, and climbed a significant distance.. I would estimate 2000ft. I did eventually reach my destination and was thoroughly convinced the goat path was the superior route and would recommend it to the lodge people on my return.

It is kinda pretty, and very windy on top of the roof of africa.

My destination for the night was great and balls cold. There was traditional basotho beer, fermented over night from a corn sorghum mixture and even less intoxicating than the hated 3.2 of utah. I spent a few hours watching the slaughter of a pig, which I then shared in eating. And sometime in a hut drinking the sour watery beer. I also spent a few hours after dark in the pig cooking hut, not that it was a special hut, just that it happened to own the pig. Smoke like you wouldn’t believe. Imagine a hut, 15ft in diameter, round, with a thatched roof. Now open the door, the only orifice, and light a fire inside. I sat eyes, nostrils, sinii, and lungs a blaze and watched a bubbling cauldron of pig. Eventually I gnawed on what I think was a spare rib, as most of the actual meat was left to be butchered the following day. I then retired for more muesli, jerky and cookies. Lunch was always weet-bix and cheese. Weet-bix are wheat flakes semi compressed into bars and utterly tasteless.
Fueled by my luck and ego from the goat path choice, I elected to ditch the directions given by the lodge yet again for my return route. They had me going through several villages and around several mountains. After decending the pass I headed straight for the river. I had crossed a different river on my first day and knew that the current river eventually met the first. I followed the river all day until is confluence with the first river and it was well worth it. The upper reaches of the river were sensuously carved from the bedrock and spotted with excellent summer swimming holes and enthralling rapids. The lower reaches were bordered with maize and sorghum fields and flanked with sandstone cliffs strongly reminiscent of utah.
The whole way people were very surprised at my being alone and going so far without a horse. I got to talk to some school girls at one point and they were confused as to why I was walking and not using the vehicle or horse that I should have.

I am alive and smiling a bit this time. Note the snow/trail/ ice thing i am standing on. This was actually a heavily used pony path.

Now off to ZA for some art.