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How
it was in June, 2001
[written June 28]
Hi
I promise to take less time to answer
your e than you did to mine.
But hell, I'm busybusybusy. So
much so, my backpack is still lying smelly and unpacked next to this
machine after two days, and my golfclubs are still in the 4x4,
allowing me a few hours of golf-stopping rain to catch up on
important things like this.
First: Give that toothless kitty a bite
from me.
Second: Nebishes are what nebishes
get. And they are what they sound like - nebish. (I looked
up the precise meaning in the dictionary for you, as you haven't
time. . . but it wasn't there. So that proves what a nebish is).
My news is fraught with frot. The
frot is: I am in the middle of inventing, writing, editing, and
killing a series of reports for the petroleum industry (the last
time, I promise myself). I am flailing through dozens of messages on
this goddam machine, most of which are merely cluttering up my time.
I am supposed to be furiously editing "Laugh the Beloved
Country". I have been foxed into making speeches in this
village, and spend time now dodging repeats. I am supposed to be
doing three sets of income tax. I am in constant war with this very
stoopid machine that wastes at least an hour a day. I am supposed to
be writing one of my books. (there are three/four in my head at the
moment, all with constipation or suffering from neglect and
timelessness). I've been doing some reviewing for GQ magazine.
And I've been trying to remember all the jobs I was supposed to do
and must do before midnight.
Gave my liver a sound testing and
thrashing last week when Rex Gibbo and partners drove over to
Franschhoek to test Denis Gordon's wines and patience. They're bad
company, those two. And just when I decide to give in and drink too
much. . . they go to bed.
Did I tell you about a trip to the
fishing grounds to see the albatrosses et al?
Smashing it was. Or rather crashing. .
. hitting a four-metre Atlantic swell every minute, and catching the
spray. But well worth it. The only Wandering Albatross seen in
these waters this year, settled next to our boat! (Or have I told you
all that?) We rode down into the southern ocean to see rare
pelagic birds. . . some birdwatchers fed them by puking overboard, or
they simply shivered down below. It was great fun.
Got back late Tuesday eve from a hike
through Oorlogskloof in the Bokkeveld Mountains, about 500kms up
country.
It is a nature reserve; a beautifully
conserved little gem ("Oorlog" named after a fight 250
years ago between the San and the burghers in which about 46
Bushmen and a few burghers were killed). Though the area is
small, without big game, it is filled with baboons, otters and birds.
There is the 'feel' of first-people there, and traces of faint
Bushman drdawings. The trails change in atmosphere almost every few
paces. One minute you are striding over the empty Koue
Bokkeveld; the next you are in a minature forest or cave, or
looking over a 1200 foot cliff at the West Coast on the horizon.
Mostly, you seem to be climbing with a really heavy pack (three
sets of three layers of clothes for the cold, the rain and the sun).
You have to buck under rocks, climb ladders and even pull yourself up
on a rope in places. You sleep in tents by clean,
marvellously peaceful and primitive camps by the stream,
listening to bou-bou shrikes.
It will cost you only R70 a head and
the price of petrol to get there.
It reminded me of several things.
-
that there is nothing better
than living simply in the open (if some-one else is doing the
cooking and washing-up.. which I left to the young, Beautiful People
who made up the rest of the party).
-
2) that no man or woman over 50
should ever carry a full pack. (I insisted, even tho' they wanted to
carry contents for me) But because my pack was far from compact
or properly slung, it shifted, and twisted my back while I was
scaling one long, ugly rock-face. The third reminder was
that I shall need to get much more fit if I think I am going to
climb 20,000 feet to see "seven of the eight highest peaks in
the world" between Sinkiang and Tibet next year. It's a
dream. But it is imperative that it becomes true.
So, a great deal of ego-stream
consciousness there for you to choke on. Sorry about that.
Envy you a visit to Mount Kenya.
Yes, they will carry your bags. . . and don't go near any
organisation that won't. Have a good time on your marital
commuting. |
