It has now been just over one-hundred and twenty-nine hours since our imprisonment began. I felt I might be starting to pick out bits of the maids' strange tongue clicking language; given a few more days, I thought I might learn to respond in kind. Just a short time ago, our escape seemed a certainty, but then came the first band of storms, heralding the start of Cape Town's violent, wet winter. We would be held here at least until the morning when, with any luck at all, the storms would subside and another attempt at freedom could be made. We had scavenged an extra rain fly from the tent graveyard which filled one corner of the cramped sandy lot that had been our home for the past week, and with this, bolstered the defenses of a tent that was clearly not designed for any sort of weather, let alone the driving sideways rains that had likely finished off many of the past structures in the lot. Back in Gainesville, the club would shortly be holding their Thursday curry potluck, with all manner of delicious flavors from across the Orient; we would be subsisting on plums and apples and whatever we might scrounge from the hostel communal shelf.
We had arrived on Saturday, confident that we could procure bikes and tools and registration, and be on our way to Namibia by Monday at the latest. But this was Africa, and, having done zero research on anything up to this point, we really hadn't the slightest inkling as to what we were getting ourselves into.
Some weeks back I had purchased a one-way ticket to Punta Arenas in Patagonia for the bargain price of $792; I had ordered my Lonely Planet South America and conferred with Mike and Steph and Logel on how we would shortly be buying a jeep and driving from Tierra del Fuego up to Colombia. My departure was just a few short weeks away, leaving Miami on February 23rd. The local code inspector had just informed us that the Screaming Marlin could collapse at any moment and we had consulted a lawyer to see how we might escape our lease, and thus avoid an untimely death. Frank would soon be defending his dissertation and had planned out several weeks of parties as an appropriate sendoff for himself, the graduating roommates, and our beloved, though potentially murderous, house. I had quit my bat acoustic monitoring job to focus on a couple of personal websites that would collectively solve all the world's problems. Between 16-hour stints of programming, I would occasionally glance at the stream of emails coming out of my fellow travelers. Despite earlier assurances that this would not be a serious mountaineering trip, it now seemed we would be carrying ice axes, crampons, ropes and harnesses; I would need to acquire a few hundred dollars worth of gear and carry a couple packs holding about a hundred pounds of stuff with me to the end of the world. I still needed to find a place to live for the fall, get a storage unit and clear out my room before I left. I was running a bit short on time.
Something finally snapped and, just as Vlad had done a few weeks earlier, I paid STA's $100 cancellation fee and sent the appropriate emails to bail out of the trip. It didn't take much effort to convince Matt to buy some motorbikes in Lima and do a circuit from there instead, perhaps meeting up with the others along the way. But after reviewing the averages for temperature and precipitation throughout the region, we set our sights on South Africa instead. $571 bought us one-way tickets to Johannesburg; return tickets would be more than triple this price, but we opted not to get overly worried about that just yet. Actually, we opted not to get too worried about much of anything until we were winging our way over the arctic en route to Frankfurt.
At the going-away party the night before our flight, the last of five consecutive nights of parties, I noticed that Matt's room still looked much the same as it always had; nothing had yet been moved. In the process of checking in for our flights, we found that his passport was missing; a few hours later, his girlfriend would discover it at the bottom of his trash bin where he had thrown it some days earlier. The following morning, Tabitha got him moved out completely, then proceeded to drive us to the airport in Orlando for our 9 o'clock flight. How he could justify abandoning this wonderful girl to hang out in Africa for 3 months to this day eludes me.
After adding a tent, water filter, sleeping bag, stove, far too many cold weather clothes, and a pot to the packing list, I had finally been forced to begrudgingly abandon my conventional packing strategy and bring a hiking backpack in addition to my usual daypack. Matt packed similarly. We would regret this decision shortly.
The Lufthansa flight attendant greeted me with a string of incomprehensible German, and I naturally responded "Merci", as I wrestled my two bulging packs past her, whacking a number of passengers as I squeezed down the aisle. The passenger in the aisle seat of my row was quite old and quite unable to leave her seat or raise her tray table, so I scrambled up onto two armrests and hurdled over her into my center seat. I was completely exhausted from 110 hours of partying and moving, and could have easily gone straight to sleep, but decided it far more crucial to sample the meals and try out the in-flight entertainment system.
Nine sleepless hours later, we landed in Germany. Unlike the typical American airport, Frankfurt Immigration is a single official, but since he just waves everyone through, the line is considerably faster. The "Nothing to declare" and "Something to Declare" customs lines both feed directly into the baggage claim area. We checked our larger bags for the next leg 12 hours later and headed for the subway station.
The best deal on transport was a "collective" all-day train ticket which was good for up to 5 people and cost 15 euros; we considered recruiting three others to split the cost and spend the day with us, but sleep deprivation had left us inadequately outgoing. A few hundred meters out from the central station was the thriving Occupy Frankfurt movement. A tent city with over a hundred residents had filled one of the parks and was equipped with running water, electricity, internet, and a tourist information booth. Matt wanted to join one of the ongoing meetings and help to plot the overthrow of the pervading financial system, but his German was sadly lacking.
Though the city center spanned a massive area and provided ample exercise for our legs, our calves still felt pretty alright and so we found a church that offered a 328-stair ascent to the roof for a bargain student price of 1.50 euros. Most of the other sights in town were fairly lackluster; the vast majority of churches were minimalist Protestant establishments that had rejected the ornate extravagances adorning the cathedrals of France and Italy. We dropped into an establishment with high wooden ceilings and got some beer, applewein, and schnitzel (since this is what you must do when in Germany). With our strength waning and our list of cheap sights exhausted, we got some 90 cent gelato ("only one taste allowed") and returned to the airport to await our 10pm flight.
Our plane landed around 10am and customs waved us through with no attention paid to our lack of return ticket (though one is, on paper, required). A flight was leaving shortly for Madagascar and we tried to negotiate last minute standby tickets, but they would only offer us the standard fare of 8000 rand ($1050). We considered various rental car companies, but found that without a return ticket, none of them would give us more than 200km per day - we would probably need around 3000km for our projected route to Cape Town. Kyle had given us the number of a Sea Camp friend, so we called him on a payphone and awkwardly convinced him to let us stay at his house for the night. One of the airport shops offered unlocked mobile phones for 79 rand (2.5R per minute for outgoing calls and free for incoming), so we got two for when we inevitably got separated whilst lost in a sandstorm in the dunes of Namibia. Everyone in the airport insisted that the only ways into town were 350R taxis and 125R trains, but we crossed the street and took a minibus to the train station where we found a train to the central station for 6.50. The ticket seller instructed us to only board trains whose numbers began with a 0; a leading 1 was the first to show half an hour later, so we jumped on that; soon thereafter, our desired train passed us and split away in a different direction, so we got off and waited 10 minutes more to board another.
We reached Park Station a little after 4 and were told to head for a town with an incomprehensible Afrikaans name, then take a taxi from there to Vanderbijlpark where Sean lived. At the specified platform, we tried our best to reproduce the sounds forming our destination and soon found a helpful teen who would be taking the same train. Our platform was veritably packed with people and as each train arrived, a few hundred of them would race and squeeze through the doors to secure their rights to a limited number of seats. When ours pulled up, we followed suit and were able to eke out just enough space for ourselves and our massive bags. As soon as things settled down, a woman began clapping her hands and singing a gospel song, and was soon joined by everyone else in the car. Given that the song was in a random African language, we had a bit of a learning curve, but had joined in by the third verse. The songs would continue for another hour and be followed by ten minutes of explosive prayer, and subsequently a passionate sermon in two different languages.
South Africans refer to both taxis and minibuses on set routes as "taxis", so we were a tad concerned that we would be paying out the nose for the last leg to Sean's neighborhood. Upon reaching Residencia, however, the kid found us a minibus that took us 20 minutes down the road to the very western Vaal Mall. We had not seen a single white person since leaving the airport, but this place was chock full of them. Sean met us there and drove us to his suburbian mansion, which sat behind two automated gates and held, among other things, an electric-fence-encircled Japanese garden. Though he had already eaten, he fired up the grill and cooked us some delicious sausage for dinner, and we talked at length about shark diving, contracting malaria (not really so bad - unless it kills you), drinking water (mostly safe in the cities), and segregation.
Metro from airport to Johannesburg central station
We hadn't protested when Sean suggested that we stick around and have a drink with him after work, but his house was in the middle of a massive suburb with nothing the slightest bit African and no public transport for miles around. After a long, hot trek to a shopping center, we found neither ugali nor safari animals, so returning to the house, we pantomimed to the maid our wish to escape and she let us out through the security airlock. We hiked with our hefty packs out to the highway, and there caught a ride with a lady in a pickup; she complained to Matt about how everything had gone downhill since the blacks took over, while I sat on the twin mattress in the bed. She dropped us at the onramp for the N-1 interstate.
Unlike in the States, it's perfectly legal to hitchhike on the highways, and is, in addition, very common, and very fast. Unfortunately, most drivers expect you to pay the normal bus fare, so unless you bargain hard, you're unlikely to save much money. We caught a ride with a small cargo truck to Kroonstad for 30R each, then hopped on a semi that was going all the way to Cape Town. Had we been able to survive the 17-hour ride across the country, the fare of 250R would've been a steal, but given that we were crammed into the back of the cab with three others and no headrests, we grew sick of it after about 200km and jumped out at Bloemfontein; the driver made us pay 125R, which was quite pricey.
This university town had its charms, but I was ready to get to the Cape and start getting things organized for our three-month-long ride. We could have taken a 2-hour minibus ride to Kimberley and hopped on a sleeper train for 18 hours with a bed and food, and this would've only set us back about 380R; we opted for the faster, easier option, which was to take a 12-hour bus for an absurdly high 490R. We realized only after buying our tickets that there was a rugby game happening in the World Cup stadium just across from the station; this was just one in a series of things that occurred to us just a little bit after the nick of time.
Playground equipment
Discouraging sign when hitchhiking
The Asanti Lodge has dorm beds for 150R; the better value is the tenting area, which consists of a tiny sand-covered rectangle where every square foot has been filled by ramshackle tents. We cleared an old loofa and used condom out of the remaining square meter and put up ours, effectively blocking access to the doors of the two adjoining tents.
The reason we had come to Cape Town in the first place was to acquire a certain kind of Chinese motorbike which could cruise at 65kph, got around 40km to the liter, and was reputedly fairly reliable. Additionally, though it was not without its criminal element, the city was widely believed to be a safer and more pleasant place to stay while sorting out a vehicle purchase. We went directly to the Motomia shop and bought the 150cc Enzos we sought for 7700R, which included title and registration; they didn't have them in stock, but were told they would be shipped from the warehouse and everything would be ready on Tuesday or Wednesday.
We found a legit African restaurant with huge plates of veggies, rice, beans and chicken for 30R and a nearby internet cafe for 5R/hour. On the net I discovered that Cape Town had a slow foods movement and found a Saturday farmers market. This turned out to be pretty much exactly like any high-end hippie market back in the States with local honeys, aromatic soaps, and veggie burgers. That night the city was hosting its third annual Carnival (only 7 weeks after Mardi Gras), which had the typical array of body paint, drunken revelers, and giant light-up crocodiles and flamingos.
As the crowds dispersed, massive, unruly parties erupted along the main tourist drag of Long St. I saw a bouncer punch a guy in the face at one bar. A little further down the road, a man repeatedly tried to check Matt's shoe size by lifting his legs, surreptitiously pushing his camera upwards out of his pocket; Matt caught on just in time; the guy explained this to be "African magic" and walked away.
Deluxe camping
Semi-organized child band
Post-it notes
No explanation
I discovered our hostel offered free tea and coffee and my caffeine consumption immediately jumped by about 500%. I went to an 8am service at an Anglican church, but the entire congregation, save for myself and a few others, sat up on the altar, and the priest didn't seem too concerned with speaking loud enough for the outliers to hear, or using an accent that would be intelligible to the untrained American ear.
When I returned to the hostel, we set off hiking toward the start of the Lion Head's trail, but soon became weary of walking along the road and bushwhacked up a steep incline to where we thought we could pick up the main path. After a long, brutal slog, we arrived at a mosque shrine to a saint who had been held captive at the nearby island prison, and had, at some point, mysteriously disappeared; his body was discovered a hundred years later, perfectly preserved on top of the mountain.
From this point, we continued up to the peak, using chains and rungs to surmount particularly featureless rock faces. While we gasped for breath and pined for water under the sweltering sun, hordes of locals breezed past us, several jogging, and many accompanied by tiny children who seemed to think nothing of the climb.
Public bathrooms with toilet paper are not an easy thing to come by in Cape Town. I made it most of the way back to my hostel before I opted to just pay 20R for admission to the art museum and the well-stocked toilet that must surely lie within. It did not disappoint in this regard, and had some pretty decent art as well. One particularly intriguing gallery was one of Soviet propaganda posters from World War II; one depicted a naked, goblinesque Hitler eating Jews from a trough.
I caught the 5PM Mass, which was significantly more intelligible than the earlier service and included several songs by a professional choral group; sadly, I was very much fatigued and slept through most of it. Back at the hostel, I prepared a delectable meal using only communal shelf ingredients (wild rice with olives and raisins, topped with a creamy herb salad dressing). Since the hostel happens to be one of the most consistently windy places on earth, and routinely sees 40kph gusts, even when the downtown is dead calm, I thought it safe to run a wash, knowing that my clothes would be instantly dried. Naturally, the wind stopped the moment I had hung up my sopping jeans, not to return until the following afternoon.
We went to the mall to get passport pictures taken for our registration and stopped by the Motomia dealer to drop them off. There we found our new bikes sitting, seemingly ready to go, taunting us. Nearby, the Bo Kapp museum explained the history of the Cape Malays, including an incident in the US Civil War where the USS Alabama ended up just off the town's waterfront. There was no Cape Malay cuisine to be found in the Cape Malay district, but twenty blocks over in the Grand Parade market, we identified a stall selling mutton bunny chow, which consisted of chunks of curried meat in a half loaf of white bread. The District Six museum a few blocks away was heavy on text and scant on structure, and didn't have nearly enough places to sit and rest our aching legs.
I had posted an ad on Couchsurfing a few days before announcing that we were in the area and looking for a place to stay. The only response I received was from a guy named Matt who lived 45 minutes out of town; he had no contacts or references, and couldn't actually offer us a place to sleep. All the same, we had nothing better to do, so we went to the central station and hopped on a train to Muisenberg. Several high school kids on the train blasted house music on their phones; I was really hoping for a full-scale dance party, but sadly only a teen and an aging superglue vendor showed off any moves. The train station was in a rather impressive setting, about directly on a perfect surfing beach and half a kilometer from an epic mountain. The couchsurfer, Matt #2 (not to be confused with his roommate, Matt #3, or Matt, Original Style), turned out to be a cool guy and took us bushwhacking up the mountain to climb on some boulders. He led us racing up towards a saddle, which supposedly had views of both oceans, but a little ways short of the top, he sat down for a smoke, lamenting how there was no time to reach the lookout and return by nightfall. We returned to the station, said our goodbyes and caught the second-to-last train at 7:30.
We had been told our bikes would be ready at some point on Tuesday and we were essentially just killing time until we got the call. We went to half a dozen different bookstores in search of a good road map of Southern Africa, and eventually settled on one that included a decent number of smaller roads and such points of interest as "The Wild Horses of Namib" for 115R. At the internet cafe, I happened to check prices for return flights and found them to be around $2000 for the one-way flight; I began to brainstorm on alternatives such as hopping on a mail boat to Ascension Island or making our way to the Djiboutian port on the Red Sea and sailing to Port Suez in Egypt. A serious barrier was the need for a "carnet" for our motorcycle for countries north of Tanzania; this was a document which would require us to pay a bond equal to the value of the bike and ship it back to South Africa when we finished. We went to the market to fix a hole in Matt's new shoe; not surprisingly, the vendor didn't understand the importance of preserving the waterproof membrane and sewed right through it. We were chased around the entire market by a very persistent beggar, and were only saved by ducking into Chicken Licken, where I ordered a double-thick bubble gum milkshake.
Returning to the dealership at 4, we found that our bikes were still not ready. We went to a nearby coffee shop and watched an eighties jet fighter movie and ate rotis and coffee while we waited. When we finally got the go-ahead from the salesman, it was a mere twenty minutes before the gear store closed. We borrowed helmets and headed for the motorway. In my book, there's no better refresher for riding a bike or driving on the left, than to jump onto a major highway in rush-hour traffic and 50kph wind. Matt's bike stalled out in the middle of N1 and I didn't find him again until after the shop had closed. On the return trip to the hostel, my helmet blew off my head on the onramp.
The staff at the hostel informed us that there were no more tent spots, but we managed to recover our old space easily enough. We tried to take advantage of a dinner and movie deal (two dinners at a fancy restaurant and two movie tickets for 90 rand), but the restaurant informed us that the deals were "sold out" (or we didn't look the type who would order appetizers and wine to go with our meal). As a fallback, we went by the supermarket and bought reduced price (aka moldy) vegetables, tomatoes and spaghetti, and made a delicious pasta dish (with garlic and spices from the communal shelf).
There are obviously plenty of points in Africa west of anywhere in the Western Cape, and Cape Algunas is significantly more southern, but if you applied the appropriate vector calculus, presumably you would find that the Cape of Good Hope is in fact the most southwestern point in the whole of the continent, and this would be the destination for our bikes' trial run. We went to a bike shop to pick up helmets, but soon found that none among the expansive selection, not even the XXLs, fit me, and in fact, if the store manager were to be believed, there did not exist a helmet size in all of South Africa to accommodate my freakishly long head. I eventually settled on one for 499R where the pain wasn't completely unbearable, and we were on our way.
The highway leading into Table Mountain National Park is likely high on the list of best motorcycling roads anywhere. Plenty of curves and continuous scenery made us wish we had included a GoPro in the arsenal of electronic gadgets in our packs. Along the way, we passed a stand selling avocados for 2R a piece and another hawking full giraffe skins, as well as a few hundred signs warning us about baboons and one which read "Robots Ahead".
Most of what South Africans say is wholly incomprehensible, so we thought nothing of it the first few times we heard the term "robots" included in sets of directions. I just presumed this to be a bizarre, rather rushed take on the word roundabout. But when Matt eventually inquired about it, we found that they did in fact call traffic lights "robots"; upon our return to the States, we fully intend to do everything in our power to get this term into the common vernacular.
After a 20R road toll and an 85R park entry fee, we finally made it to the Cape Lighthouse, at right around the same time as six buses filled with four thousand aging Japanese tourists. We wrestled through the masses to get to the top of the lookout and get the requisite pictures of the cliffs and breaking waves. On a much quieter offshoot trail (which involved hopping over a short fence and scampering out on narrow ledges with a 300m dropoff), we discovered a colony of hyraxes. They were skittish at first, but once I had sat in one spot for a time, one cautiously advanced and, after a few failed attempts, poked its nose into my hand. It vanished immediately after, but in this, I felt we had made a critical first step in bridging the gap between its species and mine.
As we explored many of the other roads in the park, we spotted a number of ostriches and several of a certain species of antelope. Despite the myriad signs, we had yet to see a single baboon, but since the park would be closing soon, and there was a 500R fine for anyone caught staying after 6:47PM, we prepared to leave without. We stopped on the side of the road to pee in some bushes, when, with a standard pensive mid-pee gaze, off in the distance I spied a lone baboon. We clambered over a couple dunes and soon found there to be a whole troupe of the creatures, complete with a handful of playful babies. We wanted very much to approach them, but the six-thousand and seventy-three signs we had seen up until that point regarding the danger presented by baboons had managed to instill in us the slightest flicker of hesitation, and we returned to the bikes without any further provocation. As we readied our gear, a young baboon swaggered past about half a meter from Matt, while he remained blissfully unaware that he was almost certainly about to have his face ripped off.
Having previously determined that he most likely wasn't a bloodthirsty killer, we had made arrangements to stay with Matt #2 for the night. On the way to Muisenberg, we stopped off in Simons Town just after the close of penguin viewing hours. This didn't stop us from taking the trail to see a few dozen rather tame, often mating penguins. We managed to find Matt #2's place and had an awkward conversation with him regarding dinner; he suggested that it might be a good idea for us to pick up some meats from the store, while we contended that we were perfectly content to contribute nothing and eat whatever he happened to have around. We ran up the road to Pick N Pay and grabbed some Beef/Ostrich mince, as well as some ice cream (we would later discover that Matt #2 was lactose intolerant), and a kilo of the standard South African hot corn breakfast (very similar to corn starch). Our host prepared a feast and we spent the next several hours drinking wine, eating burgers and ice cream, and lamenting the state of health care, education and government corruption in our respective countries.
Though Matt was still recovering from the previous night's libations, we set off early toward Cape Town, taking a series of fun, twisty roads along the edge of Table Mountain. At one point, we followed signs for Art in the Forest, which led us a kilometer back along a dirt forest road to a non-profit pottery studio with a spectacular view. We attempted to continue along the road, hoping that it would weave through the mountains to Cape Town, but were soon informed by a construction crew that we required a permit (and perhaps it wouldn't hurt if we had an actual offroad vehicle and not a glorified scooter).
Back in the city, we took our bikes in for the burn-in service (399R) and were informed that they were booked solid and it might just be all day before they got to them. Dejected, we spent a few more hours in the internet cafe and then breezed by the market for a couple of "Gatsby" sandwiches (25R), which consisted of a ton of spicy beef, french fries, and salad, and are clearly not designed to be eaten by any one normal-sized person. We eventually got the text from the shop, but didn't get back there until 3, and by then a rainstorm was imminent. We debated trying to outrun it but thought better of it and once again returned to our home away from home, the Asanti Lodge. Our packs were far too unwieldy to allow for anything approximating safe riding, so some serious reconfiguration was in order.
When I started this log, it was my heartfelt conviction that the previous chapter would be the last, and the whole thing would therefore constitute a flashback from the scene at the start where we prepared our tent for a torrential downpour. Things did not pan out this way, and so I am now transitioning out of flashback mode and into the present. It did rain quite a bit but our makeshift shield did its job perfectly and, aside from a few minor puddles, our tent stayed dry. First thing in the morning, we bid our farewells to the other hostel guests for the third or fourth time (we were beginning to lose credibility), successfully rigged our packs in such a way that they wouldn't fall off at 80kph, and made for the West Coast Highway. We took a wonderfully scenic backroad and everything was going swimmingly - until Matt's bike randomly stalled out at 60kph. We found this curious, but continued on; it happened every few kilometers until we finally decided to do something about it.
The nearest town on the GPS was Marme; we found the lone restaurant there, which doubled as an auto repair shop. The mechanic didn't know anything about motorbikes but ran down the road to find a guy who did. This guy hopped on and sped around the corner; we wondered if we would every see him or Matt's stuff again. A few minutes later, he returned and reported that there was nothing wrong with the bike. This came as a great relief to us. To resolve the next pending issue, we asked where we might find a petrol shop. There were none in Marme, but Atlantis, 7km down the road, had a few. There were a number of road signs to the Lost City of Atlantis, making it surprisingly trivial to find. We got gas and asked for directions to a mechanic; he too knew next to nothing about bikes and recommended that we return to Cape Town.
The last thing that either of us wanted to do was to return the 60km along the highway to the town we had worked so hard to leave, but we didn't see many other good options. Fighting a terrifyingly strong and frigid headwind, we powered back in an hour; naturally, Matt's bike had no further issues. At the Motomia dealer, the mechanic blew in the gas tank and found that there was an issue with the gas cap; he fiddled with it a bit and soon declared it fixed.
We went by the city rock gym (which is quite extensive), but found that it would be closing within the hour. We sought out other hostels so as to save face with our friends at Ashanti, but they were all full due to the International Jazz Festival which was in town for the weekend. And so we returned and claimed our usual spot. Our friend, who had traveled by bike from Germany via the west coast of Africa to there, had a good laugh at our expense, then informed us that two other Germans were selling their KTMs for cheap as an alternative to shipping them back; we contemplated proposing to these two that we ship the bikes back ourselves - via the east coast of Africa. The Jazz Festival had sold out a long time back, so we settled in for another uneventful night at the hostel. "Tomorrow would be the day"... even I had trouble believing my words.
