Optimistic Tendencies

The problem with these posts, once again and obviously, is that language doesn't allow reader to live writer's life. It never does. That's the point, in the end.

The other problem with these posts, again and obviously, is that an entire volume could be written about August in South Africa 2006 (the "New South Africa" - a term invented in 1994, and with an altogether ironic cacophony of connotations depending on the specific breed of south African uttering the phrase). A volume could be written about the latter half of August, 2006. Or just August 23, 2006. Or the period from 4 to 4:15 PM on august 23, 2006. There is, that is, enough detail in every moment to stretch, analyze, describe, capture, create to make chapters into books.

But there isn't enough time in the world for such capture or creation. Hours spent to describe every second necessitate either a shorter life coupled with abundant reflection, or an alternate definition of "to live." In my last month of travel, I've written less and journeyed more with undocumenting eyes.

As reflection finally came, it came under the haze of moderate hangover sleepy groggy grogginess in an internet cafe on long street, while my mind ached to recall the myriad moments since, well, Tanganyika. To recall the changes, the morphs, the left turns, the right. To recall being robbed of $100 US on our first morning in Zimbabwe whilst the knowledge of the black market there was still a little rough in our minds (when we arrived, the bank rate was 250,000 ZDollars to 1 US dollar, while the black market rate was around 550,000. When we left, it was 250,000 in the banks, and somewhere near 800,000 on the streets. This, in the course of a four day stay - due to the world's highest 1200 percent inflation. Iraq rolls in second with 64 percent.), and also to recall blissfully crisp air walking alongside Elands and two Besotho women in high heels and galoshes balancing suitcases on their heads and an infant on one off their backs heading up into the area of the drakensburg marked "dangerous, may require ropes" on our map at 3:30 PM. It tried to recall, and to portray, exhilaration at whizzing down beautiful mountain canyons on a 125 cc scooter at 60 miles per hour, and at watching southern right whales breach from the shores of Hermanus.

Things that I could have said in that last blog were, say, stories of scuba diving in False Bay - sheltered from the Atlantic Ocean by the Cape of Good Hope (or the Cape of Storms depending on what century you live in). As I swam marveling at the pristine white sea urchins clinging to walls of underwater rock, with kelp forests swaying nearby around shy sharks and starfish, my mind was suddenly whisped away by eyes calling out the sight of a pajama shark. It whirled by, and over a cliffside. As we followed in anticipation, we couldn't believe we saw its dinner. A now 6-legged octopus dangled from its mouth, as the shark thrashed it side to side a few times more. But we were a threat, and the pajama wanted nothing to do with us. It makes a slow motion dart towards Jenny's flippers before realizing four on one is too heavy a threat. It bolts, leaving room for a cuttle fish (squid) to mosey up and survey the aftermath of the once eight legged shellless mollusk. We decompress, we surface, and exits of regulators from mouths leads to immediate fights for words. "Can you believe? Did you see? That's incre...." People just aren't meant to see such spectacular sights as this.

Two days later we returned to the shark infestation of False Bay, where in three weeks three people had been attacked by the Great White. 6:45 am brought us to the docks, where 5 wet-suit clad passengers, 1 dry-suit clad passenger, and 2 plain-clothes passengers in fleece and down coats jumped onto the rubber ducky boat for the long haul through wind gusts and two meter swells launching splashes of 14 degree celcius water over the length of the boat. "Don't you wish you'd worn a wet suit?" Looky here, miss "my camera case cost more than your whole trip..."

Questioning our sanity with feet strapped into the boat floor and hands being torn from the rope handles each time we slammed into a new swell, we nevertheless manage to shiver enough to stay away from hypothermia. And we arrived at Seal Island just in time to spot the few package tourists in big steel boats drinking coffee. We drifted, watching and waiting. And every once in a while, a splash splish splash would break the surface - a technical "breach" - as a seal pup found the end of his days much earlier than he may have expected in the jaws of a great white shark. We watched a flipper or two pop out in the distance, and with down feathers matted completely against my skin wondered if such a miserable experience would really be rewarded only by a few splashes in the distance that might as well have been two-year old pete thrashing around in a baby pool somewhere.

We were all wondering if our early morning escapade would fizzle in such a manner, I think. And as motivation waned, so did movement. We settled the engines, and flopped down to relax. No sooner had I sat on the edge of the ducky, inches from the water, than a great white shark breached directly behind me. Jenny's view looking back at me, was a 3.5 meter shark above my head. I jumped in horror, as did we all, thinking that at such proximity it must have been after my hand - me. As I lurched with the speed of a thousand cheetahs the center rail, though, I spun quickly enough to see a white and grey tail sloshing back into the water and a seal pup bouncing, terrified, at the bow of our raft. The duo disappears breifly, and reemerges some twenty feet off. A dorsal fin rises. A tail slaps water left and right. A seal fights for the rest of its life. They disappear again, until the momentary lapse of silence is broken with a huge breach, featuring pink white gums and rows of terrifying triangles of predatory teeth in a gaping mouth aching for its daily feast. With that, adrenaline floods our beings, our minds fight the unreal reality with sobering arguments of disbelief, and the package tour operators openly display their annoyance that $150-a-pop clients are seeing the reality that anyone with a boat can cruise out to the island and witness the spectacle from man even better vantage than their money can afford. Quite deliberately, they cut off our view. We smile obnoxious smiles of victory. Those few seconds will leave indellible memories on each of our futures. Another harrowing visit into the unbelievable natural world.

We threw our clothes in a laundromat and rode in underwear on our scooter back to the dive shop for coffee and conversation. Hours later, still in our underwear, we cruised back on the scooter, picked up the clothing, and set out for what would become a week-long 800 km oddysey on our 125cc friend. We saw those whales. We drank our share of wine in vineyards. We rolled through mountain passes to luxury hot springs and back through harrowing highway traffic on which cars refuse to acknowledge a scooter as legitimate traffic - or its passengers as living beings, apparently.

All these tales could have been in that last blog - but instead I chose the analytical. The change as I saw Africa morph slowly from hundreds of Burundians around our tent to millions of South African Boers and Brits living, in their own words "the colonial life." So it's not, you see, that I'm apathetic right now or always or even increasingly. It's not that I'm antagonistic in all that I do, or that I've hit a spiral toward the deep end beckoning either "go home" (I will, soon enough), or "you need an ostrich pie and a castle lager." It's just that on that particular day, that's what I saw. And each of the hidden moments in that blog (to you perhaps an insignificant prepositional clause, to me a concealed reference to a conversation in Kigali) bears its own joy and satisfaction at travel, learning, growth, and all the other words that my own blog may have turned to cliche by now.

So for now, l apologiize for inadvertent negativities. They are not the whole truth - but only the truth that occasionally spills forth from my naturally pessimistic mind, in this unedited forum. For now, also, editing is put on hold indefinitely. For now I have to go pet the puppy Justin just brought back to the house where we're staying. For now I have to keep my leg elevated with this damned ice back that seems necessary despite my not having even stupid injured it. And for now I have to soak up my last moments of Africa - for even though South Africa is most decidedly NOT Africa, it IS Africa all the same. The next time you hear from me, I should be easing in to culture number 847 on a continent far away.