saffa kid life

ashtrays on aeroplanes

2011-09-11T18:32:00.001+02:00

one of the many things that make absolutely no sense.

not even just to me.

we discussed it in our central aisle collection of tightly-packed-together chairs, the kind that only have a bent knee's worth of actual leg room.

the kind that you have to put upright so the person behind you can eat properly off their tray sized foldout table.

it makes no sense because you aren't supposed to smoke on planes, or anywhere really.

there is a sign that says so, emphatically, on both the inside of the door, and on the paper towel bin under the unflatteringly fluorescent-lit bathroom mirror.

above the automatic tap and the miniature sink whose plug hole i can't operate.

but for some reason, there is still a little matchbox-sized ashtray in the foldout toilet door, with a clearly printed image of a burning cigarette, in neat thick bold black lines.

this makes no sense to me.

what could this conveniently shoulder-height-while-sitting-on-toilet ashtray possibly be used for, other than to stub out prohibited cigarettes?

gum disposal?

it makes me think how little sense the entire aeroplane setup makes- another conundrum being the sometimes missing thirteenth aisle.

because even though the aisle after the twelfth aisle is called the fourteenth aisle it's still actually the thirteenth aisle.

basic consecutive numbering logic.

no sense.

at all.

that and the repeated screenings of airline safety videos featuring an annoyingly catchy marketing jingle and misplaced manchester united football player characters.

maybe it's just like that, maybe long distance air travel will never really make sense to anyone who doesn't understand the intricacies of aeronautical engineering and physics.

(me)

i'm inclined to think that the entire concept of travelling to a completely different continent on the other side of the world in the space of one day is actually so ridiculous, that little things like paradoxical ashtrays are understandably overlooked.

unless you're stuck in a badly lit bathroom with swollen feet, on sticky floors, on a few hours sleep, and you'll find anything else to look at.

besides the oddly-placed almost full-length toilet-facing mirror in front of you.

burnt rice

2011-07-31T20:18:00.001+02:00

i planned it in my head, but didn't really think about it.

the rice would cook on a low heat for twenty minutes. and then i would take it off the heat for five minutes so it could steam.

but there was a problem.

the problem was that i forgot something. the fact that i am completely incapable of doing more than one thing at a time.

"simultaneously" is not an adjective i have often been associated with.

so instead of standing by the stove-edge, being somewhat involved in the rice-cooking process, I was about two metres away, on my laptop.

absorbed.

absolutely distracted.

i thought giving the rice the assigned twenty minutes was all i needed to do. i didn't think twice about what would be glaringly obvious to any normal person.

the simple and common-sense fact of life that leaving things alone on a hot stove is never a good idea.

never.

ever.

so once again, i learnt the hard way.

i burnt the rice. well, technically, half the rice.

and not only a little bit. the bottom of the pot is so thick-tar-black that i'm going to have to soak it overnight with water and vim before i can even try to get rid of the rice-shaped singes.

half the rice i could have eaten as lunch tomorrow is inside a plastic bag, in another plastic bag, in the bin.

and i can't help but laugh at myself, because the truth is, this realization has been coming for a while.

i've been saying things that bypass my neocortex and go straight from the beer-soaked part of my brain into the space outside my mouth.

often.

i've said things, out loud, that i've had no control over, it's like the entire processing unit responsible for common sense and rationality has been infected with stupid.

and it's funny.

it's funny because i tell people that i have a degree, and a postgraduate diploma. i'm even studying for another postgraduate qualification, that will probably lead to pursuing another.

i've mistakenly thought of these qualifications as safeguards against stupidity, that they disqualify me from being a dumbass.

i've been convinced that reading about existentialism and postcolonial psychopathology actually has some semblance of relevance to basic daily functioning.

but it doesn't. i'm either saying inane, ill-considered things, or i'm saying things that no one responds to because they have no idea what i'm talking about.

it's also funny because i'm writing about it. the very process that completely distracted me from focusing on what was important in the present in the first place, and caused me to stink out the kitchen with burnt.

it's hilarious, actually, because i've come to a sobering realization, after denying it for a long time, pretending that it wasn't true.

but the truth is i really am just a fucking idiot.

title tracks

2011-05-29T18:56:00.001+02:00

i've started to pay itunes a lot more attention lately.

and find myself inexplicably drawn to certain songs.

it makes me wonder if there is a formula for creating infinitely re-playable ones.

is it a combination of complexity, familiarity or just nostalgic association?

or is it just a matter of chance, a matter of luck/fate after leaving it up to the mysterious algorithm that silently governs the "shuffle songs" selector?

either way, i've enjoyed making these aural re-discoveries.

listening to the songs that got me through pre-dawn morning highway drives to a job i despised.

(untitled by interpol)

songs that remind me of lying on a beach with nothing better to do than daydream and develop vague evenings plans around eating. and drinking asian whiskey with mixers. in buckets. again.

(she drove me to daytime television by funeral for a friend)

songs that will always make me feel exactly the same sense of deep pit-of-stomach-excitement mixed with fear, sleepiness and disorientation that i did while waking up to sunrises on overnight buses somewhere in bolivia/peru.

(the entire boc maxima album by boards of canada)

it's music that i'll always associate with certain people, memories and less than well-considered decisions.

mostly because i think i've always felt this way about music. it's just not enough for me to be able to hear it a few times and feel a vague sense of enjoyment.

to me, the real value of music lies in the details, the complex arrangements of sounds, lyrics, and melodies that combine to create an incomprehensible and intriguing tightness.

it's the kind of music i don't find often, and a preference i don't share with many people i know.

but it's comforting to know it will be impossible to ever listen to it all. and thanks to the internet there is a lifetime of it waiting to be discovered, via both legitimate and underhand means.

and besides, i still have three have a nice life albums to get through.

albums which are definitely going to take several repeat listens to even vaguely comprehend.

fall leaves fall

2011-04-28T14:31:00.000+02:00

i've started studying again.

and this time, it's not a short online writing course, but a three-year-long correspondence degree.

BA honours in english, through UNISA.

it's something that i've been wanting to do for a long time, and right now, its forcing me to read a lot of information that i consciously avoided in my undergraduate degree.

historical and literary overviews about medieval english, and analyses of thousand year old literature that i never thought i'd be interested in are suddenly relevant.

surprisingly, i now even have the motivation and purpose to actually read all the poetry anthologies that i bought in first year.

heavy ones, and ones that looked small, but were deceptively dense and small typed.

with the help of footnotes, some old english poems even make sense.

still inextricably bound to unchanging human experience.

while browsing through the other thousand pages of the new penguin book of english verse, i also came across some other poems, by emily bronte, written in the 1800s.

an especially apt one called "remembrance".

it reminded me that my delayed and intense reading habits haven't only been the result of renewed interest, but also a convenient way to distract me from recent traumatic events.

unlike the narrator in the poem, the loss has not been immediate to me in particular, but the deaths of two people i spent time with at various stages of my life has been enough to make me very sad.

not so much sad for myself, but for the people who have been broken by their departure, both the result of tragic motor accidents.

both their lives were cut short so prematurely, one just before a very significant part of her life, and it's made me reconsider things, especially the concept of age.

in another poem, untitled, bronte also speaks about the change of seasons, the shift from autumn to winter, most visible by the death of flowers and the falling of leaves.

there are only a few trees in my neighbourhood that make the slow change from "fall" to winter in various shades of yellow and red, like the ones outside the bank building opposite brooklyn mall in fehrsen street.

but they are enough to make me think that this cycle of semi-death and rebirth, so visible around us in plants and weather at the change of seasons, doesn't really apply to humans.

we shed epithelial cells, we lose hair and regrow our fingernails, but i don't think we get to have the same tactile, mass-scale shedding, loss, and regrowth, like deciduous trees do.

when we fall, we fall forever.

which makes me think that growing old, despite its associations with potential incapacitation, illness and frustration, is really a privilege.

when i grow up

2011-04-06T12:01:00.001+02:00

in my second last year of high school, i counted down the days until school would be over.

in detail.

i remember actually making the effort to count the exact number of days left, besides holidays.

in history class, where paying no attention wasn't really noticed, since we only copied down transparencies anyway.

i imagine i numbered the days using my A5 diary, a book that received infinitely more of my attention than any teacher did, judging by the drawings on every page, and the meticulously recorded details of my daily activities.

which were often coloured in with milky pen, or fitted in next to haphazardly glued-in pictures from magazines.

i think the number of days came to about just less than three hundred, about two hundred and eighty.

just less than a year of my life.

looking back it seems sad, not that i was bored in high school, because i definitely wasn't the only one, but because i actually thought that leaving school would be the ultimate high point of my life.

i didn't even give a second thought to the fact that going away to university, moving to another city, having to actually make an effort to get a degree, would be a challenge of its own.

and never mind the time after that, when life wouldn't have discernible end-points, no break-up days or last day of exams.

to some extent, i think it's because i watched so many movies and series about high school experiences, the kind portrayed in so many "coming-of-age" movies that i watched, obliviously.

and because i listened intently to pop punk anthems about getting out of town, moving on to better things, and escaping four years of entrenched social hierarchy.

i remember even reading an interview with the bassist of blink 182 at the time, and feeling relieved when he said something like "life gets better after high school".

and it did, in many ways, but it scares me that i internalized this idea of escape, and related it to my own life, even though i grew up very far away from football games, cheerleaders and small town america.

so now, when i watch series like freaks and geeks, which unknowingly aired on NBC during my first year of high school, i wish that i'd been able to watch it instead.

even though i find it almost painful to see, the more honest and genuine depiction of "high school life", with all the excessive boredom, angst and trying to fit in, somewhere.

i think it would have given me a different perspective, and not the constructed and hyperreal view of life that i'm trying to disregard now that i think i know better.

which i don't think i actually do, especially because, three years after being capped in front of a hall full of people on a stage by a black-caped man i'll never recognise, i still don't have it all figured out.

at least my music taste has expanded to include more complex rhythms than three-chord guitar though, and i'm listening to solo projects like fever ray.

and her take on growing up.

the one life end-point i don't know if i'll ever get to.

the elements in-between

2011-03-15T11:36:00.000+02:00

i've been watching a lot of lie to me.

and i'm surprised.

usually i'm not into crime scene investigation series, or any series involving the FBI, red-haired-man-with-sunglasses one-liners or any kind of jurisdiction.

but seeing the lead role played by tim roth- a.k.a pumpkin from the diner shoot-out scene in pulp fiction- gives this series just that little bit more acting credibility, for me.

and i enjoy the frequent inclusion of famous lying faces.

i've actually never been more interested in micro-expressions and lying before, something that i'm now more aware of, and hoping to make second nature in my subconscious experience of expressions.

scratching your ear?

you're lying.

mouth shrug?

yes, lying.

and quite unexpectedly, this facial movement exposure has now also contributed to my own analytical appreciation of photographs.

like the ones i went to see at the pretoria art museum last week, current host of the "south african photography: 1950-2010" exhibition.

a collection of pre and post struggle pictures from the south african political past, everything from ANC rallies, sophiatown shutdown and even sartorialist- style, black-and-white street snaps of township ladies in skirts and 1950s cat-eye shades.

and some others that i recognized, from years of post-apartheid high school history lessons, and a year as a history researcher.

including the world renowned sam nzima shot of mbuyiswa makhubu carrying a bullet-hit and bleeding hector pieterson to some kind of help after the june 1976 soweto uprising police shootout, with his sister antoinette sithole holding her hands hands up next to him, in a gesture that i saw as "pushing away" or defiance.

and even though i'd seen this photo many times, in textbooks, online, and in blown-up poster size, i'd never seen the other two nzima photographs before, from the same day, the same time.

the photos next to the iconic one, juxtaposed on gallery poster board.

the one where antoinette is throwing her head back and screaming, with other people running behind them, looking desperate, shocked and fearful.

or the one where makhubu is trying to get pieterson into the back of a car, the place where the photo caption says he took his last breath.

i'd never had this kind of wider-angle perspective on this incident before, being previously and unfortunately numbed by over-exposure and desensitization to a past i didn't exist in, and only saw from a mediated perspective.

but this time i bit down on my finger as i looked at the three photographs in succession, denying the warm emotional swell behind my eyelids.

and when i looked at the iconic nzime shot again, i realized something.

i'd always interpreted makhubu's facial expression, taught, with mouth stretched sideways to a grimace, as blind determination.

but when i looked closer at his eyes, i realized that it isn't only determination that shows on his face at all.

it's despair.

some visitor

2011-03-03T15:47:00.003+02:00

last night there was a bird in my room.

at first i didn't think it was one, not being able to make sense of the frrt-frrt flutter of noise against thick, curtain material.

half awake, and slowly becoming more aware of the noise, i hoped it was just leaves rustling, or something outside of the window.

but there are no more leaves outside my bedroom anymore, as i mentioned in the blog post before.

and with further frrt-frrt's coming from the corner of my room, where the line of light from the nearby street light meets the curtain edge, i suddenly realized it was moving.

there was something alive, and trying to escape, from my room.

not usually being scared of small animals, i thought i would turn off the lights, catch it, and release it out the window.

but when i managed to stumble, groggily, to the light switch by my door on the opposite side of the room, i became too scared to even try.

i could hardly even tell what kind of animal it was when the lights were on. i could only make out something brown, alive, with a feather-tail bobbing behind my electric guitar stand.

yes, a bird.

for a moment it almost felt like an edgar allen poe kind of experience, except not as weird, dark and creepy as the raven.

but instead of sitting down and facing the bird in my bedroom like he did, i got someone else to open the windows and curtains, to ensure an obvious escape route.

behind a closed chamber door.

i slept in the other room.

the only evidence of the mystery bird's escape in the morning was a few misplaced decorations/toys from my headboard ledge and printer's tray.

it seems ridiculous that i could have been so scared of such a small and obviously terrified bird while indoors, when outdoors i'm fascinated by them.

maybe it's just the timing, not being able to handle a trapped living creature in my room half-awake at night, the same way my brother must have felt when a bat was circling his room while he lay in bed.

or when my grandmother woke up with another bat on the pillow next to her head.

i laughed when i heard these stories before, but now i understand.

being exposed to even the smallest wild creature can be terrifying enough, nevermind when they're panicked and unpredictable and you're alone with them in a confined space.

tree fell

2011-02-17T12:51:00.001+02:00

just over six months ago, we decorated the pine tree in our garden with three painted, woven hearts.

for a wedding.

now, the pine tree that shaded the speeches, tears and tables is only a pile of neatly packed, dismembered segments.

lying horizontal in a circle around the stump, the stump they used to be vertically arranged on.

they're waiting to be used for furniture, but for now, they're stationary, dead.

on the other side of the garden, below my second-storey window, is another tree-felling casualty- the dated date palm.

the tree that has unknowingly been shielding me from outside night light.

its absence felt to the extent that i have to tuck the side-edge of my curtains into the burglar bar frames to prevent a yellow line of window light on the perpendicular wall.

which annoys me.

being highly sensitive to night-time noise at night, and light, something i think is genetic after i noticed the covered glow-in-the-dark alarm pad in my parent's bedroom.

where the decision was probably made to take down the trees.

trees that were posing potential problems due to their height, age and lightning conductive capabilities.

but even though i understand why they are gone, and that the dated date palm was a fad from years ago, and had to go, the garden seems bare and exposed without them.

their absence has even confused the hadedas, judging from one that i watched flying towards where the pine tree used to be, squawking, and then turning back to land in an adjacent jacaranda on the other side of the electric fence, still squawking.

now that the trees are gone they'll be no more loeries at the top of their pine-top crows-nest either, no more lizards silently making their way up the solid, slightly rough texture of the palm trunk.

but maybe like everything else, they'll have to adapt to not having them around.

just like i'm going to have to too.

back trip

2011-02-09T12:19:00.001+02:00

i think i might agree with aaron rose.

in his video interview: portrait of the artist as a beautiful loser, he speaks about how the twenty first century not having a distinct cultural identity yet, that the past ten years have mostly been a decade-long retrospective.

a rehash of everything past.

something i feel like i'm very good at doing, in my own head.

especially when i get to be bed bound, by choice, and by influenza pain, and retreat into my own constructed headspace, not believing at the moment that the feeling of sickness will ever end.

mostly these take place while staring.

at my laptop.

at a screen, underneath a quillow, on a couch.

and for some reason i've never taking to watching anything current.

no news really, no mtv.

it's like i am obsessed with the past. and judging by the intense revival of anything vintage, i'm not the only one.

but for me, the epitome of this past-junkie obsession is movies.

even the most recent film i saw was made in dagenham. made to look like it was made in the late sixties.

and even when i did have the choice to watch anything, having mostly valid excuses to be horizontal, i decided to focus on the pubescent haze that was the mid to late nineties, for me, watching my girl 2, trainspotting and natural born killers.

i've also kept clicking "previous" on blogs like alternative nation, another back-trip fetish curated by someone who didn't reach their peak wearing plaid, neon or ying yangs.

like the writers at flavorpill.

and yes, maybe this happens to most people who have too much time on their hands.

but mostly, it's just amazingly satisfying to watch these movies on newer technology, see the images, and finally understand the cultural significance, without the burden of unanswered teenage questions, only answerable by yet-to-have experiences.

it's a relief, to finally see all these cult movies, people and fashion choices from an educated perspective, and not only as a series of bright, confusing visuals and voices.

and out-of-context flashbacks.

travel is dangerous

2011-02-03T16:42:00.000+02:00

and i don't mean in the obvious way, necessarily.

in the way that leaving my comfort zone, and making the active decision to be in a completely different place, had consequences that i didn't think about before.

before i got on the plane.

and before i came back, and didn't feel like myself.

whoever myself was/is.

i think extended travel is dangerous because i think that unlike holidays, there is not the same sense of guaranteed familiarity- the initial promise of relaxation, the euphoria at not having to work, and the dull, dreary ride home when you do.

but in september 2009 to left i job i didn't hate, to spend months, alone, in south america, where nothing was even vaguely familiar.

which i think changed me, forever.

not even because of the experience itself, but because of the fact that i actually even made that decision. a decision against career building logic, against any ideal of financial stability.

since then, it has never been the same.

not only because i still haven't managed to get back there, to that same degree of almost-career-stability, but because now, after another cross-continent trip, the first in over a year, i feel even less like myself than usual.

maybe two weeks isn't enough to fully recover, physically, and emotionally after climbing kilimanjaro.

or maybe, after that kind of physical exhaustion, my adrenal glands have been leached to the extent that i now only have energy to complain, and be tired.

in some ways, i wish someone could have warned me though, that doing these kinds of things could cause irreparable damage to my worldview and self-perception.

that knowing more about what was out there could actually be a disadvantage.

because coming back i always feel different, without the verbal tools to really explain to anyone the details and intricacies of a collection of bizarre and interrelated paradigm-altering experiences.

no sufficient adjectives to explain what it feels like to be at 5895 amsl, or to wake up to the sound of incomprehensible swahili every morning, in a tent, in various climatic conditions.

no time-heals-all-wounds cure to cultural exposure, different ways of living, and varying opinions on stress, drinking and normal-getting-up-for-work time.

but maybe if i tried harder, or had the patience to wait until post-burnout, i'd somehow fully understand and appreciate everything that i have experienced.

all i know is i can't blame the altitude forever.

pole pole

2011-01-24T12:38:00.000+02:00

the line of headlights ahead of me kept twisting up further into the darkness.

i kept hoping, in my oxygen deprivation, that they were some kind of beacons, because sometimes, they stood still for a while.

but then they were gone again, and all i could focus on was the round, slightly bobbing space of light at my feet.

feet that could only manage less than a half metre pace.

with alternating climbing stick pointy-end stabs into the scree in opposite angles to my leading foot.

breathe in through your nose, and out through your mouth.

and after several hours of looking up at snaking fairy lights above me, i realized- while others were seeing corpses in the rock piles next to them and wooden frames that they had to climb through- that the blue chain of lights were just the people ahead of us.

not beacons.

and not signals that we reaching some kind of high point, some resting place.

so the ascending climb just kept happening, the red-gaiter clad douglas' legs ahead of me in an equally slow rhythm, the "pole pole no rush" pace, taking us further and further up into the endless, dark and mostly invisible path up to stella point.

the lip of the kilimanjaro crater, from where we'd still have to walk another forty five minutes to the summit.

but i didn't know that then.

at the time, all i could focus on was making it to stella on five sparkles and half a frozen snickers bar, having been so nervous before our 11pm leaving-for-summit briefing that i'd neglected to pack any solid food that wouldn't have made my teeth too sensitive to eat.

anything.

so on a empty stomach fuelled only by scarce, thermal protected water and round sweets that at minus ten could not dissolve quickly enough into my mouth, i managed somehow to get one foot in front of the other, zoning in and out of immediate awareness.

as the assigned pace leader.

no doubt frustrating most of the team, who had to keep pace behind me, all motivating themselves in their own way, some listening to ipods, or like me, only the shuffle crrr-sssh-kkaaa of boot on scree, and the occasional outbursts of harmonious singing from the enviously well-acclimatised mountain guides.

one of them carrying a step ladder, to take the place of the ladder-above-altitude-intent jacques, who along with ishan, had unfortunately decided to end his climb at barafu camp, the highest assembly of tents on the umbwe route, the camp we had left after eating eggs and bread by headlamp-light at 11pm.

our discarded late night meal crumbs future morning food for the craaaaaaaak-screaming white-necked circling scavenger ravens.

birds who could live at 4600 amsl, but couldn't be seen anywhere along the path, where we were forcing ourselves to go.

but eventually, after pushing myself beyond any kind of physical pain/cold/exhaustion barrier that i'd never thought i'd experience, i managed to flat-boot/stick-stab my way up to the summit, after collapsing once at the crater rim, and weeing behind a rock that faced the returning climbers head-on along the summit path.

afterwards having to take stops in between counted steps for excessive stationary breathing, reminding myself that if i didn't summit now i'd regret it.

and then i saw it.

a cluster of shouting people in puffy, snow gear around a sign made of nailed wooden planks, planks obscured by so many stickers that i could hardly read what it said.

something about congratulations, uhuru peak, and 5985 amsl.

a yellow-block lettered sign of sentences i'd seen in pictures before, next to smiling, beanie-framed faces.

and like all the google images my photograph would also be a replicated scene taken so far out of context from the previous four days of pain, discomfort, slow shuffling through mud, rainforest, moorland, heathland, rocks, barranco wall scaling, and barren volcanic debris-filled landscapes.

four days of trying to breathe, eat and drink consistently, of waking up in freezing, frozen tent fabric and having to walk slowly to long drop toilets, with holes not big enough for some, all to reach this barren crater view, with flat-topped glaciers seemingly alien in their frozen blue and white in contrast to the ash pit.

a scene definitely not as well appreciated with fifty percent less available oxygen.

i had thought that the sign would spark some kind of elation, a movie-like moment where i'd be smiling, and/or crying, with a camera doing circular panning around me.

but all i felt was an unfamiliar, heavy and gasping exhaustion, and a vague awareness that i hadn't pulled up my other two underlying layers of thermal and trekking pants up properly post-visible-wee.

and as the outer shell of my pants layer shifted uncomfortably as i sat down on a rock, oxygen deprived, listless and hungry, a frustrating, but tiredly accepted realization became clear.

the realization that after the next five minutes of smiling for cameras, again, after zigzagging up an almost-will-destroying loose gravel path for almost eight hours in darkness, i still had to get back down.

the return

2011-01-05T10:59:00.000+02:00

until last week, i'd never been up the cape west coast before.

at least not further than silverstroom, which i only visited once for an unmemorable UCT rag party.

in first year.

so until last week, i'd never really thought much about going there.

but on christmas eve, we left cape town, fetched granny in gordon's bay and drove up the R27 to paternoster, for our six-month-in-advance-planned family christmas getaway.

after my brother russell and sister-in-law ilze spent their first anniversary there.

and couldn't wait to get back.

but even with their eager anticipation, and after hearing about all of their positive experiences, i couldn't picture what it would be like, having nothing else but their photographs as a frame of reference.

and a few stories from friends about the loved-up weekends they'd spent there.

so when we arrived, after driving for about 90km on the tar, surrounded by nothing else except for dense and low lying dune shrub, with some take-away steers burger stains on our shirts, we drove into the mainly-white painted fisherman's hamlet.

our first stop was the paternoster express for stock update, a basic general goods store complete with a near-till melissa's condiment stand, to cater for the influx of differently suffixed number plates.

including ours.

our accommodation was the gabled two story cottage just behind the noisy oyster restaurant, which, judging from the towering pine-like tree in the centre of our slight-hillside porch, was one of the oldest houses in the village.

that, and the fact that this towering tree was actually the only one in the village.

something that made our house easy to spot from further up the coast, when we took a 15km walk to the point and back, while hordes of southern black-backed seagulls flew in horseshoe shapes around us, keee-aaak squawking, to avoid our approach.

and, when we weren't walking, we were were eating.

everything from afternoon fried seafood at voorstrand to a fish braai christmas lunch for thirteen around our dining room table.

from bites of secret stash cookies and melissa's vanilla fudge to snacks on the concrete furniture on the brick-paved patio, dodging downfalls of detached spiky fruit from above, and watching the surprisingly fast bow-legged gait of hand-sized angulate tortoises across the lawn.

and, on the odd occasion that the wind wasn't blowing, we'd go down to the beach to swim, or try to stand up on my brother russell's rented yellow stand up paddling (SUP) board.

which i did manage to stand up on, and fall off, several times.

but often the wind was too gusty, so walked, more, taking in the variety of differently painted shuttered homes on either side of the town, and watched other families lazing and lounging on the porches of their own white cottages, with names like hoekie and koestertyd.

while their dogs, if they had them, huddled at the hip-height gates, not sure whether to bark or growl, obviously not immune to the general feel of small town friendliness.

which unfortunately did not extend to many of the ladies behind the counter at die winkel op paternoster, or 'oep ve koep', whose interesting pickles, soaps and locally made store items almost made up for their vague, distant greetings.

something that might have bothered us more if we weren't based right behind aptly named but inviting and colourful noisy oyster, which blared everything from bob marley to late 80's synth pop until about midnight every night.

with the audible garbled shouts of intermittent drunken-appreciation in between playlists.

and when we weren't listening to that, we listened to the strange and incomprehensible lyrics of a bizarre chinese toy contraption with shifting and sliding plastic dolphins, or megan's ipod, which thankfully played less annoying music for ambience in the lounge, or for distraction in the kitchen as we took turns to prepare food, or clean.

living with ten other people is something i haven't done in a while.

my two eldest brothers are both married, so the number is growing, and is set to increase further with the addition of nieces and nephews, in-laws and other family.

so actually, this is probably one of the last times my family was together as i know it.

and all the mild discomfort of attic rooms and steep, hazardous stairs was definitely worth it.

over a week of sharing everything from bathrooms and living space with them made me realize how rarely we do all get to share space with each other.

space we shared so much of in the past as a once seven-strong family, something i've forgotten as more and more birthdays have past, and we've all moved on and moved out.

but it's a way of living i like to remember, and appreciate every time we do manage to recreate it.

with all the current and highly anticipated new additions to the family photographs.

brewery and union

2010-12-16T10:01:00.003+02:00

saturday was my last wedding of the year.

a year with four weddings, in different places, all over the country.

from the foothills of the outeniqua mountains to the northern kwazulu natal coast, and from my own garden to the lawns of a small town brewery.

in view of an overberg mountain range.

this wedding, which wed my special cousin deborah to special man kyle, was held in the white-painted interior of the birkenhead brewery in stanford, a town just twenty minutes outside of the western cape whale-watching hot spot of hermanus.

where in front of an doorway looking onto windy lawns and green, folded cape mountains, deborah and kyle said their vows, in front of a room full of standing friends and family.

including the bridesmaids in duck egg blue, cousin boon and peewhe too.

and aunty fronk the wedding organiser, the mastermind behind the event, smiling and beaming in pastel grey.

with more guests overlooking from the various levels of the tiered silver brewery tank balcony railings.

the walls were lined with bent metal hearts, interspersed with down-hanging plant and herb posies, tied together with string.

the tables were lined with bouquets in our grandfathers collection of metal mugs, prizes from his extended golfing career, with stuffed black and white gingham hearts hanging from the chandeliers above.

and, on the red carpet that brought in my dearest deborah cousin and entourage, the happy couple walked out on too post-vows, and were traditionally thrown, scattered and covered with hand-grabbed clumps of pink, tiny fynbos buds.

some of which got lost in her beautifully embroidered boob-tube champagne-coloured dress, with a trim of the exact same floral pattern as on the invitations and save the date magnet.

something that stuck to the front of my fridge for a while. reminding me of their upcoming union, a day i knew would happen at the end of the year, but didn't think would come so soon.

a day when all the family would be together, including peewhe and gr-hant from perthfontein, and all of deborah and kyle's friends, from all over the country, and the world.

a day when people would dance to everything from the talking heads to flo-rider, when siblings would cut their hands on loosely held rogue glasses while busting out moves, and spend an hour on a couch being healed/revived by a re-energizing machine, that kind of looked like a calculator/air-con remote.

a day when our immediate family would chase down the waitresses holding the tray of brie and pistachio wontons with sweet chilli dip.

to the extent that she actually came around from the other side of the building to feed us.

at our request.

a day of kyle and debz tying the knot, after being lost and found.

ten years after a post-school romance.

and even though i drank glass after glass of the resident honey blonde birkenhead brew, and ate an entire plate full of juicy tender, medium rare steak and asparagus, i still had the energy to dance until 1.30am.

after hours of breaking it down in my brother russell's suit jacket, dodging offers of shots, putting on transfer tattoos of butterflies and wearing plastic silver stick-on bindis and glow-in-the-dark put-together glasses.

after watching while a blown up weather balloon took out a few glasses on one of the tables at sunset, and rolled down the hill towards the mountain range in the consistent wind.

which died down later as the sun set, feet became sore in wedge sandals and it was eventually time to leave behind the dance floor die-hards, and drive across the highway to our rented house.

me being the only sober-ish sibling.

and as i left, and took my gift succulent pot home with me, i made sure i held it upright, and kept the stones from falling out.

with full intention of loving it, and making it grow.

like kyle suggested in his groom's speech.

and while walking out with wedge-height heel-up damaged feet, i was honoured to have shared the day with them.

to have tried to fight back the tears during the speeches, laughed at the microphone-loud speech jokes, and to have felt an even deeper appreciation for my gregarious cousin.

and her assemblage of hilariously flowermill place-card named guests, from jen-ket to pearlarator, to uncle cigarette.

but mostly i was just happy that at the last of my weddings to attend for the year, that another one of my family members could be so loved.

and in love.

rollin' back

2010-12-09T13:56:00.000+02:00

i used to think there was nothing much to do in dullstroom.

besides fly-fishing.

or eating.

harries pancakes and homemade mom-food, inside, away from the temperamental sub-alpine climate.

but on sunday, when i went there for a two day getaway, without mom but with cooler box mom-food, i realized there was so much that i'd missed out on doing in the town before.

like the groot suikerboskop hike, with ground growing white, pink-tinged spiky pincushion-looking flowers hiding between rocks and the burnt, soon to regenerate wild woody-stemmed proteas around the summit.

or the mistiness that overflowed in windy cascading-ness, surrounding our stone house to the extent that we could hardly see past the garden shrubs.

and could only barely make out the silhouettes of the distant, tall and exotic pine trees.

before, i'd only visited our dullstroom share house in winter, and maybe once in the summer. but then i just remember it being too hot, and not doing much else except vegging, eating, sleeping and reading, in both summer warm and winter dry, scratchy grass conditions.

but not on this just-past two day getaway.

by the end of the first full day we'd already gone for our first mission, and walked in the mist along the railway line to the town, passing furry stems of orange poppies, pink tumbleweed wild flowers and the craaaak of well-hidden marsh frogs.

and when the misty fog turned to stormy rain we took shelter in the old transvaal inn bookshop, sharing a metre long strip of twisted liquorice from the wooden floored cove of the interior bert's sweets.

while pulling, ripping and chewing the inside-brown shiny black soft-sweet tubes we also occupied ourselves with other black things, like the assorted arrangement of sitting and stretching toy cats, and rearing, ready-to-kick toy horses.

only within the store, as they were 15 rand.

each.

after that we went cheese tasting at bergen's, after reading about it in the bland but informative folded-up dullstroom information booklet.

we tried soft curd cheese and bought some, and stabbed toothpicks into blocks of cheddar, gouda, marinated feta and wensleydale.

all made in a craft cheese factory in the unfortunately-named nearby town of tonteldoos.

after cheese tasting we then ate more variations of cheese, and stabbed more of it with toothpicks, along with three kinds of german wurst and a pint of india pale ale at the anvil ale house micro brewery just a few strides across from the enclosed critchley hackle estate.

and, after walking out with more india pale ale to go with our soft curd cheese, we eventually retired to a christmas bed mattress by the fireside.

which was regularly loaded up with neatly chopped sections of POP-crash-crackle wood, fuel-burnt super quickly by countless additions of newspaper and kindling.

(sadly, we only found the firelighters in the kitchen drawer before we left)

the next day, after 11 hours of sleep, we climbed the groot suikerboskop and explored overgrown car routes in the dullstroom nature reserve, and were almost crushed by a falling chainsaw-felled gum tree, which crackled, eeeeeee-aaah'd and crashed on the ground, just after i'd run away clutching my head.

making some kind of aaaah-ooo-aaah noise myself.

after that we took a walk along the old wooden sleepers of the highest train station in the country, at an altitude of 2070m above sea level, and placed two coins on the track before a serendipitous bllaaaaaaaaah-honk blaring train came past.

chuka-chuka-chuka-chuuuuuaaaaah.

and flattened the 20c and 5c into perfectly flat oblongs.

and just as we were about to leave, as we washed the last mug, and found the firelighters hiding underneath a mass of crunched black-plastic bags in the above-dustbin drawer, i felt a bit sad that we were leaving.

but as we closed all the curtains and upstairs windows, made sure the doors were locked and pulled the roll top door down and locked it, i felt that at least we'd managed to do so much, in only two days.

things i'd never done before, even though i've been visiting dullstroom almost annually since 1994.

for most of those fifteen years, in the back of my mind, i always wondered if there was more to the town than a yearly increase of differently designed restaurants and gift shops on the main road.

more to the town than its collection of clocks (the largest in the southern hemisphere).

or its prized pannekoek-huis.

but finally, with only two days worth of time, i had done so much more there than i ever thought i would.

even though we missed the anglo-boer war blockhouse on the eastern side of the kop.

and didn't eat at fibs.

but all that we did do just confirmed for me, that no matter how overdone, kitsch or useless i've perceived this weekend town to be in the past, it's actually only been as interesting as i've wanted it to be.

thumb click

2010-12-01T18:21:00.002+02:00

moustaches are eccentric, and nowadays fairly uncommon facial hair additions.

lonely, sub-nose tatters of unbrushed hair, often dry, unkempt, dirty and scratchy.

or accompanied with beards, in varying degrees of untamedness.

usually the moustache is relegated to off-work no-shave periods, most men preferring to keep clean-shaven to confirm to corporate cleanliness.

unless you're my dad of course, who has fastidiously maintained his signature snor since his misleadlingy non-piloting days of the air force.

many years before he met my mother.

and long before i learnt to not know him without it.

i think seeing him with no moustachio would violate over 24 years of accumulated physical identification, and even though it has evolved from black magnum to grey walrus, his key facial feature does more than "underline importance" as he says, but is now an essential component of his personality.

but other men, without fear of being called "leather-lip", only grow their facial hair on select occasions, like during the month of november, otherwise known to charitable males as "movember".

like my brother jamie did these last four weeks, with continuous updates on the south african movember facebook page.

after four weeks of itchiness and no shaving, and assuring women that it would soon be gone, his 'tache reached cowboy-style and almost handle bar proportions, with a strange collection of bristling blonde hairs.

but apart from being a rolling joke and a reason to post bizarre photos of twirling waxed beards and ron burgundy on his group page, movember was actually more of a personal outreach initiative than i expected.

something i realized today when i went with him to hand over his make-shift plastic cheque.

to a lady named ilana friedman from magical moments, a charity that contributes to the welfare and happiness of underprivileged, neglected and abused children in the greater johannesburg area.

including nomzamo day care, which we visited this afternoon in alexandra, on the other side of the highway from the high-rises and 5-star hotels of sandton.

in this historically segregated area, only a few kilometres away from R60 restaurant sandwiches, toddlers don't even have access to public parks to play in.

or green areas in which to learn, laugh and develop their gross motor skills.

and as we drove through a sandy, mostly- mud bricked neighbourhood of "alex", directed by the resident care-giver rosalina, i was humbled by the discrepancy between life on this side of the M1, and the fact that i'd never given it a second thought when making my way through traffic.

but when we walked into the corrugated-iron day care house, to a room of over forty smiling children decorated in colourful cardboard, i felt happy that i'd been given the opportunity to experience life in a completely different space.

and to see the appreciation of my brother's donation so gratefully received, even though he was a tall stranger wearing a carefully cultivated top-lip frank zappa, who even gave one of the kids in the crowd his sunglasses to wear.

and to hear the sing-song "thank you... (*clap* *clap*) very much (*clap* *clap*)" chant from a group of kids we'd never even seen before, and to attempt afterwards to click their eager little fingers with a mutual thumb clicking handshake-thing while saying "shap!"

it was difficult to perfect the click noise with such tiny digits, but their enthusiasm was so moving, and while surrounded by their energetic and insistent bustling to get in line for finger snaps, i had to fight back the tears.

it's amazing to think that jamie only had to look ridiculous for a month to create such a positive outcome.

and that by just allowing his facial hair to grow naturally, with very little effort, that he could encourage such generosity.

but mostly, it was so inspiring to connect with such selfless people, and such beaming toddlers, even if it was only for a short handover and photo-shoot.

and only enough time for a quick succession of bent-over thumb-clicks.

barred

2010-11-24T14:36:00.000+02:00

dive bars are underrated places.

at least to me.

especially when they're almost underground, down a covered slope, past a foyer bar stool with free apple sours shots on entry, and through a wooden door.

and surrounded by high walls and overhanging faux-rock wall plastering, which i'm sure is supposed to create a cave-like feel, but in contrast to the fluorescent bar lights and flick-flash-flicker christmas lights looks more like sloppy, slathered, dried up crap.

which is maybe the operative word when it comes to dives bars, for most people i know.

a perceived haven for miscreants, druggies and outsiders.

like the more than obviously titled "dive bar" in raleigh, north carolina, where i remember watching a bass-heavy band called viva la venus in 2006, and enjoying it so much that they gave me a free cd.

even though none of my other exchange student friends enjoyed it, expressing surprise and blunt hilarity when i proudly showed-off my square plastic trophy, the titled inked in lipstick red.

the most common reply, post oblivious solo head banging: "jenna, that lesbian band was shit".

and maybe they were, especially for those of us whose aesthetic preferences were a dramatic dissimilarity to the swinging, heavily-weighted metal-ball pierced lobes of the bald, muscled and heavy-set bar tender.

a bar tender whose excessive spacers had stretched his lobes to the extent that his flabby ear-skin was fling-flanging like silent side-head cow bells as he took my beer order.

illegally.

another advantage of said "dive bar".

a noticeable lack of miserable, hawk-eyed bouncers watching for sneaky underage black-koki-crossed hands on beer glasses.

as well as a general couldn't-give-a-shit attitude to my patronage, considering my three-months-shy of 21 age limitation.

something that has endeared me to dive bars forever.

because it reminded that it was possible not to be treated like a teenager at the age of 20, places besides the student butt-grinding rap/pop clubs on the raleigh student strip that let us in with our attempts at legitimate ID.

without question.

unlike my local south african version, shiva's rock in lynnwood, which insisted on ID.

a conveniently nearby venue where i went to see some bands play last friday in an over-lit and oversized pool-room, while dodging probing cues and ongoing click-clack ball sinking.

bands like make-overs, an offshoot of the appreciated but now defunct sticky antlers.

(barefoot drumming, distortion and messy noise)

plus the instrumental, drum beats of tale of the son.

(solid drum beats, rhythmical guitar riffs and post-gig drummer sweatiness)

and three other bands that i missed because of late arrival, car-barring and i-don't-like-this brain mash respectively.

but, in contrast to my ID-free dive bar experiences in north carolina, here i could drink as much beer as i wanted, ironically.

paranoia-about-deportation-free, i felt content though as i watched other girls jam, jack-knife and head-bang in the small stage-front space.

some in electric blue lycra and lace.

it reminded me that sometimes i like to be places where people don't care about having looks-like-poo decor or obsessive cleanliness, where the pink, sponge painted bathrooms have wall-mounted ashtrays, the occasional twitching cockroach and toilet signs that say "gals (bitches)" and "guys (dicks)".

there might have been technical difficulties, a creepy-looking bearded man, and a police bust after we left, but unlike some of the other big-deal live gigs i've attended before, i actually felt like i wanted to be there.

for once.

a first

2010-11-16T20:52:00.001+02:00

last week i wrote my first travel related guest post for cheapoair, an american-based travel site that allows you to search for inexpensive airline tickets.

the post is called "5 places to visit in peru, besides machu picchu", and you can read it here.

pachydermaphilic

2010-11-16T11:20:00.001+02:00

on the top shelf of the cupboards next to my bed, in a box somewhere, is an elephant.

a green, once-fluffy one, given to me by a lady named mary.

when i was 6 months old.

it has been years since he lay on my bed, but i know that the end of his trunk is still scratchy with plastic strings sticking out, and that he has a blue and white shaky-ball inside him, which can you see through his now transparent, worn-through skin.

i once broke his black, plastic eye off when i threw him down on the floor in a no-reason kid rage, and was inconsolable.

like i was, apparently, when i left him in a show house that was locked overnight, and my mother had to call the estate agent so that we could get him out.

or when we, again apparently, searched the house upside down, in every drawer, cupboard and bedroom, only to find him safely sealed inside a orange tupperware lettuce-spinner in the kitchen.

hours later.

but eventually, i became less dependent on his company, and slowly his faded green body became permanently protected by his blue and white trimmed mainstay cane-bottle t-shirt.

his broken eye glued black, and the dried sticky, gluey ooze still visible, a guilty reminder of uncalled-for abuse.

and now, he's somewhere in the top of the cupboard, but i'm not sure exactly where.

in fact, i'm actually too scared to look for him now, because there's a chance he might not be there, even though my mother insists he is "somewhere in my room".

which is similar to the way i think many people feel about elephants, or wild animals in general.

that they're somewhere out there, outside the confines of cities, in closed-up fenced-off reserves, presumably happy in their concealed safety.

but after reading the elephant whisperer, i started to think they might not be.

misleadingly titled, the book is not a metaphysical account of psychic inter-species communication, but more a book about something that all humans used to know, but don't anymore.

for thousands of years, humans and these handful-of-tonne-weight, grey, trunked pachyderms lived together in the same space.

presumably in respect for each other's existence, but i think in more of a one-sided way.

people that lived around them knew that they would get charged, and beaten down, if they threatened the safety of an elephant, and learnt how not to do that.

now, you have to do a series of government approved nature guide qualifications to even be able to get near to one on foot, without the relative safety assurance of a passenger land rover.

and maybe this is a natural process, the path of human and planetary evolution.

the next logical process in a world with a continuous supply of regularly tweaked, upgraded and militarily improved ammunition.

but sometimes, even though i try to be realistic, it makes me sad.

sad that so many south africans, without the means or resources to have access to game parks, have never even seen an elephant, never mind able to understand its behaviour, or ecological contribution.

and maybe i don't know everything about them either.

but i do know that scientists have studied their ability to communicate through their feet, that their destructive behaviour actually aids the distribution of seeds, and that confined within a demarcated space, they are just huge animals wanting to break out.

to travel the migration paths that they instinctively want to, but can't, unless they're hardcore enough to sustain 8,000 volts when forcing their way through electric fencing like the rogue elephants in the elephant whisperer, or somehow develop the ability to withstand gun fire.

so maybe, although content enough within the space between strategically placed electric wires, elephants in south africa, and in many other countries, will always be confined.

which makes me think of my green, fluffy-no-longer, toy elephant, ellie.

in his box.

and the fact that i really should go find him.

onigiri serendipity

2010-11-09T12:39:00.000+02:00

on saturday night i went to see kamome diner.

for free.

the result of a random brochure find at the cinema nouveau in brooklyn mall a few days before.

serendipitous for sure, because instead of walking home that day like i had planned, i wandered around the mall looking at the various fluorescent-lit, bright, and glass window boxes, waiting for a car to be cleaned so i could go home.

and like a fated plan, i picked up a flyer below the stuck up-papered movie reviews between perspex in the cinema lobby.

a flyer advertising the movie listings for the 17th annual japanese movie festival, in celebration of 100 years of japanese-south african foreign relations.

and the blurb for kamome diner, in the centre of the brochure fold, caught my eye, differently laid out with a green background and more than one tiny movie still.

a movie about a japanese lady who sets up a diner in helsinki, finland, and although she initially struggles to attract customers, she soon grows her business with the help of two japanese tourists, an anime-loving regular, and an unfailingly positive attitude.

a story of cultural juxtaposition that appealed to me.

especially considering the appealingly poised, well presented and almost calm element i've always perceived about the finnish and japanese.

even though there was comparative south african mass confusion as we entered the cinema on saturday night, with patrons unsure of how to behave and which seats to take at this free screening.

but after waiting, politely, we eventually made our way past bent legs to two open seats.

which contrary to the general pre-movie seat-choice panic, were not taken at all.

which made me think that maybe we're just not used to things being free.

like the regular morning cup of coffee that the main character, sachie, gives to her first ever geeky finnish customer at her newly opened seagull diner, beautifully minimalist in half- blue and white slatted and painted interior walls, with perfectly polished, light wood tables and chairs.

which remain empty for a month while she meticulously dries glasses and smiles hopefully at passers-by, but which are soon steadily filled up by local clientele.

first with her consistent japanese-speaking teenage regular, and then the three inquisitive ladies who eventually take a pew after staring at the storefront several times, and are finally lured in with the smell of freshly baked cinnamon rolls.

and, as the plot progresses, and popularity of the diner increased, and more characters entered and left through the glass door, i felt myself becoming more and more engrossed in the story.

the interaction between japanese and finnish characters.

the meticulously clean helsinki city, with its fresh produce markets and bicycles.

and the serenely decorated interior of the seagull diner.

something i wish i owned.

and which i guess i could if i learnt how to make onigiri or rice balls, the principle dish, spooned and hand- shaped balls of rice stuffed with a filling like salmon and eaten with a rectangular strip of seaweed for grip.

which were surprisingly and enthusiastically dished out freely on trays by the japanese organisers of the event, after we exited the movie.

after i had also just mentioned out loud my desire to eat one of them, after watching them being eaten by most of the characters in the film.

and seeing its profound effect as an underestimated social glue.

so maybe having legitimate and engaging exposure to a cultural experience can be just a matter of dedicating time to watching a film in a dark, enclosed cinema.

and that to sample genuine cuisine, you often don't have to go very far.

roadside

2010-11-03T12:24:00.001+02:00

yesterday morning i drove back home from midrand.

early.

after an overnight stay in someone's newly rented contemporary-style rondavel in randjesfontein.

i'd never done this reverse homeward drive before, and had usually only associated early morning N1 highway time with anger, frustration and sleep deprivation.

but this drive, although slightly affected by an almost daybreak start, was unexpectedly relaxing, with traffic free-flowing all the way past the purple banner of the jacaranda 94.2 radio station headquarters to the eeufees turnoff.

in view of the monolithic voortrekker monument, which you can see from a distance on the drive in, like a stationary chess piece on the tshwane-surrounding hills.

i'd expected to be stuck in pretoria-bound bumper traffic, upset that i'd had to leave the confines of a warm blanket in the not-so-well-insulated rondavel.

but instead, i was able to take in the surrounding to-work bustle, including the honking, stopping and sometimes less than roadworthy minibus taxis and the single files of people along the gravel roadsides waiting to board them.

on the main road out from the boomed-off rondavel plot, on the old johannesburg/pretoria road, i also noticed two traffic controllers in mint-green getup, their white-gloved hands signalling, circling and waving. an indication that i was actually following the correct route to the N1/N14.

which i found easily enough, after i'd hairpin bended around to find the highway entry on the opposite side, the swirling mass of cars on opposite bends, and the thick stream of johannesburg bound traffic another reminder that i was going in the right direction.

home.

past green, weedy stretches of open land between mega corporate structures, where clusters of people in neat walking lines, some wearing noticeably flapping bandana head-scarves, made their way to the roadside, probably to signal in taxi code where they were headed.

or to find a highway over pass to cross to the other side.

which i saw few of.

and only one that was being used to connect to a different road, maybe a different form of transport, by a lady with an afro, black heels and black long-skirted suit, who looked like a determined penguin with turned-out feet while trying to make her way sure-footed up the muddy-ish mound from the highway to the bridge.

which made me think about the dedication it takes to get to work.

the lengths some people have to walk.

the variety of bus/taxi routes they have to take.

or the traffic they have to endure and navigate.

and while making my way at about 100km/hour, listening to the always catchy, almost calming beats of glen lewis' mid-tempo millenium mix down, i was thankful that for once that i wasn't in rush to get anywhere.

except home.

to eat, check my email, write and maybe catch up on sleep.

for a change, i was not part of the morning rush, but could appreciate my roadside view of those who were.

and are.

even those who aren't working the typical desk-job day.

like the suburban joggers, dog-walkers and highway-side construction workers, or the nannies that take late afternoon chat breaks on grassy suburban pavement lawns, next to makeshift sweet stalls.

even if all of them aren't part of the energetic, stressed, morning/afternoon rush, they at least have some kind of purpose.

which regardless of employment status, i like to think i do too.

durban dokotela

2010-10-28T18:49:00.000+02:00

it's going to take me a while to get back into this.

familiarity.

i didn't think a week away, only an hour by plane away, could feel like so much longer.

in a good way, almost like a different lifetime.

of seaside walking and promenade bike rides on california-style cruisers.

of colourful deco-style buildings and holiday apartment blocks.

of money spending and exceptional colombo coffee drinking.

but mostly it was a week of reconnecting, with casey, a very close friend and durban doctor, or dokotela in zulu, who i haven't spent time with. in a long time.

and her special skipper-man richard.

her partner in both marriage and enthusiastic durban involvement.

it was only a week, but i could tell from the beginning how well they had settled into their paddington flat.

opposite the imposing rectangular hospital blocks of addington hospital.

in only a week i think i learnt a lot about their life together, and was able to appreciate their happiness.

as well as their relentless enthusiasm.

for early morning exercise, networking, coffee, making friends, good food and creating- everything from a tour company to the interior decor of their apartment.

intentionally detailed in quirky aeroplane lamps, red-and white stripes and a red vintage bingo cage.

it was a special time because it was important for me to see their space, and what they've been doing for the past year.

while i've been somewhere else.

the enthusiasm and energy that they've sustained until now is impressive. with the help of a friendly, engaging support network.

which was no more apparent than on saturday.

when i went on a township tour with richard and stembiso's gig street scene for the first time.

to kwaMashu, or marshall's place, a township outside of durban. an area with an expansive history and engaging contemporary diversity.

from the first ANC president john dube's house to the “mahatma” gandhi's home and printing press.

from mandela's first democratic voting memorial at ohlange high school to a local shisa nyama (literally "burn the meat" a.k.a barbeque or braai).

from cave-overhang dwelling rastafari near a waterfall, to the locals that gather to drink quartz of beer outside sifiso's store on plastic beer crates on saturdays.

all these places were less than 30km away from the city, but it felt like a different world to me, speaking words like sawubona (hello) and unjani (how are you) and receiving a positive, enthusiastic response for my attempts at basic zulu.

it almost felt like i was travelling again.

maybe because i was doing and seeing things that i wasn’t used to, again, after a year of fitting into frequently practiced patterns of existence.

like trying to speak another language, and being reminded that life exists outside of my comfort zone, without the need for my existence.

or maybe it just felt like travel because i was making a concerted effort to actively engage with my surroundings, and the people in it.

which is something that i have tried to do lately, especially now that i’ve seen my friends do it too.

like richard, who has consciously chosen to earn his livelihood by exposing people to various elements of his hometown city, and helping them to appreciate it too.

or casey, my favourite durban dokotela, who spends her days dealing with patients in varying degrees of pain and incapacitation, and is required to connect with people every single day.

and still finds time to create.

it’s the kind of daily commitment to people that i don’t think i’ve managed to master yet, but hope to.

so i feel proud and privileged to have seen durban from their perspective.

from the seat of a bike or on my feet, on various missions and during windy, salt-sprayed sea swims.

and through the mobility and sliding windows of nkomo (cow), their recently purchased silver quantum van, on numerous drives to various parts of the city.

like the central downtown area with it's colonial-style fountains and buildings, and the sprawling inner city spice, clothing and food markets, interspersed with lush, sub-tropical vegetation and an almost consistent view of the steel-blue indian ocean.

or the sidewalk barbers, curry houses, clothing stores, and a memorable supermarket housed in an old church.

not forgetting the trips to massive malls, oyster box lighthouse bars and point road restaurants like wodka and ciao bella cafe.

and the many city streets with two names. one in yellow one in white.

and with two names itself, durban/ethekwini is a city i am glad to have spent time in, and hope to visit again soon.

to see more of it on further missions, and through other stationary and moving windows.

especially while the dokotela is still there.

retrospection

2010-10-19T10:58:00.000+02:00

i watched the time traveller's wife this weekend.

and had to try hard not to blubber and sob as the credits came up in a blurry haze.

i remember thinking the story was quite sad when i read the book, but the despair of the protaganists' unusual and painful situation just became more real and profound on the screen.

or something.

maybe it's because i liked the actors, or could actually appreciate in real time the disjunction between their meetings, which take place in various and unpredictable periods of time.

it's probably also because i enjoyed the setting.

the lake michigan side windy chicago city.

a city i only visited once, for a weekend, almost four years ago.

before i'd even finished reading the book by the same title, a book i'd bought with an exclusive books voucher casey gave me just before i left on the plane to JFK.

for four months away.

in the USA.

it doesn't seem like such a long time ago, but like the movie suggests, even the shortest durations of time travel can be significant.

i didn't fade unintentionally into the background, and end up in places i'd visited before, more than once.

but, like everyone else who has left their comfort zone, and experienced a different place, a different time zone, i think i've time travelled to an extent too.

and do, a little bit, every day.

almost every place i drive past or notice in my hometown city holds some kind of sentimental significance or associated memory.

and sometimes my memory is better than most people's, as i am regularly reminded when other people don't remember the same meetings, conversations, events, and details.

even though i remember them.

clearly.

or maybe it's just because i choose to remember.

because remembering is something i do, so like the characters of henry and alba in the movie, sometimes i travel back and forth in time too.

in my own head.

like when i walked through the weeping willow-lined magnolia dell park on charles street on saturday afternoon, and noticed the scattering almost-frogs in the algae-infested water of the pond.

a pond where as kids we used to float makeshift boats and catch the squirmy tailed tadpoles at various stages of their life-cycles.

a park where embarrassing footage of me pretending to be a CNN reporter at the age of 5 was taken.

a park we used to visit to swing on the metal swings, which got super hot-to-the-touch in the midday heat of the latter part of the year.

the kind of heat that would have heated them up on saturday afternoon too, except now they are more practically and comfortably upholstered in leather seat-swinging strips.

still in the same place, next to the same model-plane jungle gym and the same see-saw and wobbly train-thing.

at the other end of the same once-a-month art in the park section, which displays the same canvas styles, strokes and compositions.

on the other side of the stream from the same open air-market that sells the same mirror-mosaic crosses, wrought-iron furnishings and thick, chunky silver/pewter jewellery.

displayed on velvety pin-boards.

like the same car-park craft markets that i used to frequent in primary school, to find tie-die, leather thong jewellery and fake plastic sunflowers in pots.

except this time we were looking for food, and found a namibian biltong-spiced hamburger, a ginger bread lady cookie and some not-too-crispy-and-greasy chinese spring rolls instead.

which we bought from friendly ladies behind table-clothed trestles.

and ate on the itchy green grass, under the willows, while watching a maltese poodle being pushed along on the grassy lawns.

in a pram.

it made me happy that the park is still the same, even though it doesn't have the bronze statues of peter pan and wendy like it used to.

the stone statue-bases are still there though, on opposite ends of the pond, like silent tributes to almost- forgotten memory.

similar to the characters in the time travellers wife, henry and claire, peter pan and wendy were also separated by time and age.

and in the case of magnolia dell, a murky, tadpole breeding ground.

but, in contrast to the time traveller's wife story, it was wendy that was repeatedly stolen from magnolia dell, to the extent that eventually both statues were removed permanently.

as a child i remember thinking the placement of these children's-story statues was odd, both staring at each other longingly over the pond. but now, after watching the time traveller's wife, and feeling the urge to cry uncontrollably, their placement now seems poignant.

for me, it's like an intentional tribute to the often unintentional and unbridgeable separation between people.

and today, like empty seats, the statue bases remain vacant, dismembered and stationary in magnolia dell.

quiet, rocky and bare.

maybe those statue-bases are still there to remind everyone of the story, or the naked, sad reality of theft.

or maybe it's just for others who choose to remember too.

dog days

2010-10-11T12:44:00.000+02:00

i didn't think cola would live forever.

but i didn't realize that he'd gotten so old, so soon.

or maybe i was just in denial.

i'd often watch him squirm, struggle and scratch the parquet floor as he strained to get up from lying down, thinking it was just his genetically prone labrador-great dane weak-knee genes.

we'd joked about the peppering of grey around his muzzle, and the fact that 10 years on, our beloved black barking lab and SPCA find, formerly known as Padrash, was slowly getting old.

but i don't think we really took cognizance of it. i think i was deluded, believing that because he could still run, awkwardly, and keep up with our other golden labrador, thula, meant that he was still okay.

and still fit enough to bark viciously at anyone at the gate, including the security guard who has worked there every night for the past several months.

still fit enough to maliciously steal thula's ball away from her, mid-throw, and not give it back.

still fit enough to squabble, bark and rough-house through the gap in the fence at the scrawny, yapping dog next door.

but not fit enough to fight the inevitable ageing process, or suffocation as a result of a twisted stomach.

a condition that just happened yesterday, out of nowhere. something we only noticed in the late afternoon after my dad had thrown cola into the pool, after began to moan, grunt and seize with cramping pain, his gums bloodless and white.

it was only then, after he lay down, that we noticed his bulging body, bloated and taught, tightly stretched like a drum, with the associated percussive effects.

i watched him strain, his eyes widening in white-eyed despair as his muscles convulsed, and a regular wave of cramps contorted his expression. i felt helpless as we waited with him for the vet outside the practice, the saliva bubbling, slobbering and dripping all over his legs and transported dog cushion, in the boot of my mother's mercedes.

like the persistently misbehaved lab in marley and me, cola was suffering from a twisted stomach, more accurately known as gastric dilation and volvus.

something the vet said was extremely painful. something not many dogs survive without immediate attention, and something that older dogs like cola often struggle to recover from after they are treated.

it's such a serious affliction that even euthanasia was one of the options.

but not willing to let cola go just yet, my dad opted for the operation option. a procedure that discovered a large amount of water in his stomach, which may have contributed to his painful torsion.

and so far the operation option has been successful and cola has survived the night post-gastropexy.

but at this stage it seems 50/50, as although he is recovering, the next three days are critical. and, like the vet said to my mother over the phone, he is an "old man", and maybe too old to recover from such an invasive emergency procedure.

but my cousin went to visit him this morning, and she says he looks strong.

and as i sit here in the study with lonely thula, very close by to where he would always lie, stretched out in the sun on the parquet dining room floor, i'm thinking of him.

being strong with all that pain, all those pipes, drips and stitches.

i'm thinking that maybe i should have given him more attention than i gave thula all these years, his quiet, almost emo presence often overlooked due to her insistent energy, panting, jumping and ball dropping.

i'm thinking, that like marley, he was a good dog, even though he bit a few people and drew blood, and kept a number of scared friends and family members on the other side of the gate with his aggressive territorial noises and defensive snarling.

he was a good hound, because he was always consistent in his defense, and walked diligently on his leash, most of the time.

in fact, he is still a good dog, because he is still in the hospital, alive and fighting, so his dog days aren't over yet.

i like to think he still has a year or two more at least of seeming ferocious, even though behind the gate he is actually a soft-hearted, gentle, and lazy soul.

i also think he still has some more drive in him to annoy the dog next door, and to run around the muckleneuk trim park in search of other dog friends at dusk.

but mostly, i'm hoping he is okay, because the truth is, he has become a taken-for-granted almost sibling-like pet these last 10 years, a feature of our household like everyone else.

and i'll miss him.

contracted

2010-10-05T14:59:00.000+02:00

this week is my last week of being formally employed. for now.

these last three months of contract work have been a time of concerted effort, and computer-chair sitting, in a 2010 spent mostly looking for jobs, frustratedly.

so i am grateful for that.

i've learnt more about me, and had some humbling lessons.

i've learnt more about south african history than i ever thought i would know, or understand.

i've learnt that sometimes it's okay to go back to what you know.

and now i know that it is time to focus on different things, to grow and learn while doing something else.

it's been a year in total of editing/researching at south african history online, and although there will be things that i will miss, i feel ready to move on.

to other challenges, including the potential agony of prolonged unemployment. but also the possibility of self-employment.

and self-fulfillment.

all i really want to do is write, learn and earn. with a long term "be-location-independent" plan.

it's a plan that will require intense hard work, and more computer-sitting time, but i think i just might be ready for it.

after spending most of 2010 relying on support and understanding, i have realized that being employed, whether or not by a company, or someone else, is not only a financial necessity, but a mental one as well.

when i was unemployed i felt drained, like i couldn't focus on anything with the constant threat of possible poverty, and the idea that i was losing out on time, productive time that i needed in order to get somewhere.

this sometimes lead to tears, but more often, deep breaths and consistent mental talkings-to.

for the past three months, absorbed in writing and researching south african history, i've had less of those moments, supported by routine, skype meetings and a regular workday structure.

with noisy morning alarms.

and dazed morning packing of packed lunches.

i have enjoyed aspects of the familiarity, the morning suburban scenery while driving, accompanied sometimes by music, but often only the clicky-clack of a portable mug of tea in my drinks holder.

over the past few months i've noticed the jaracarandas go from leafy to bare, and now to a light purple, almost fluorescent bloom.

i've noticed the gradual transition from tree-lined suburbs to gritty city, from the quiet streets of brooklyn, to face-brick sunnyside apartment buildings to CBD high rises, interspersed with colonial architectural remnants.

like the white walls of the melrose house stables, and the green gates that allow for just a quick two-second glimpse into the well manicured victorian-style lawns.

or the sir herbert baker designed station building, which has recently been refurbished, post-fire.

i always notice the victoria hotel too, with its unmistakeable burgundy spire, formerly the hollandia, pre-british annexation.

i've seen the faces of the various vendors on the street sides, heard the boombox taxi blasts and the tried to remember the names of all the prolific street side cafes.

i've seen withered looking pot plants in the windows of slighlty delapidated apartment buildings while stationary at street lights, noticing their name lettering fonts.

in contrast to concrete, functional wall slab buildings.

as i approach the final stretch, a block before my office in the morning, i often take a quick look up church street to church square on my right, the bronze figure of paul kruger just out of sight as i pass the metallic, grid-like office block on the corner, and the renaissance-style public works building opposite.

finally, i turn into the parking lot of the old groote kerk on bosman street, after dodging the flashing hazard lights of parked softdrink-loading trucks and wanton taxi drivers. as i lock my car, and walk along the concrete parking lot floor, i see the scruffy, street-living sparrows swarm, chirp and hide in the church eaves.

over the past few months i've also noticed a shift in the big jacaranda on the other side of the green wrought iron gate. it's gone from green and shady, to shedding, and is now leafless and blossoming. i'm still waiting for the frangipani tree though, which is just starting to go green, and will soon flower into white, yellow-tinged, neatly arranged twirled blossoms.

i've driven this route, and seen these things every day, in various degrees of inspiration, and fatigue.

i've walked the same route to work from the parking lot, past the church, the clinic and christian outreach centre. past the parking guard who never says hello to anyone.

past the lady deep frying vetkoek, or amagwinya in her makeshift stall, made from large cardboard boxes, plastic and practice.

i always watch as she carefully places paper over the oily dough balls, which lie in a bowl while their fattiness is soaked up by newspaper lining, as she sits, patiently.

after passing amagwinya lady i enter the tiled, almost bare foyer of charter house office building, the rotund oom always at his front desk, reading the newspaper or chatting in afrikaans to the newly appointed security guard.

then, it's 8 flights of stairs. something i have done compulsively since my first term of employment.

unfortunately i don't have keys, so breathless, with mug in hand, i then have to knock and wait for either jonas or kedibone to open for me.

after this, the standard greetings take place and it's desk time once again, with a hazy morning window view of the wonderboom hills, in the direction of the zoo.

i'll miss the routine, the meditative early morning process, and the regular hours of focused activity. i'll also miss the accumulation of historical information, sometimes biased, but always interesting.

i'll miss it, but i know that some other routine, with different people, faces and desks will soon present itself, and become an intrinsic part of my life.

i'm sure that whatever the job may be, it will also be educational, frustrating, humbling, and inspiring.

but to find out i have to try, and surrender myself to the ifs, whats and whys.

and to do that, i have to leave.

sibling reminiscence

2010-09-28T16:12:00.001+02:00

i forget to appreciate airplane travel sometimes, and then i listen to comedians like this.

and then i fly to cape town, for family birthdays and catch ups.

over 1200km away.

it's a place of contrasting significance for me, made up of memories and present-day attachments.

like the house i used to live in as a student, which is now a motherly-decorated second family home.

or the streets i used to drive along to visit friends i don't see that often anymore.

and the imposing central mountain i've only climbed once.

i look at, and remember all these things, because for me, cape town is still that city i love to visit, but struggle to live in.

not because of anything aesthetically related, but more because of the person i remember being there.

a lost, confused, identity-seeking student/unemployed but-occupied, sleep-loving slob.

not that all students are lost.

take my sister for example, whose 21st birthday was last week, and whose throw-down midnight in the garden of good and evil shindig took place on saturday night.

at obz-sessions on lower main road, observatory. in a refurbished and reformed church building.

in comparison, my sister is the student i was not. but often wanted to be.

successful despite her occasional doubts, she is dedicated and highly sociable.

so sociable that over a hundred people gathered in various degrees of clothing to celebrate her day of key-receiving. with snacks, wraps and slush puppy + cane cocktails.

that twirled, sludged and shifted in red, white and blue, in the never-ending corkscrew twisting of the humming slushy machine.

they all made the effort to dress up, and quietly held their bladders while listening to over an hour of entertaining speeches.

by friends from high school who held back from sharing the gory details, to the varsity besties who laid bare all megan's party habits.

(tc's, boys and a certain pair of invaluable assets)

then, our brother' jamie's speech, given in a bizarre but hilarious combination of cruella de ville hair, red horns and priestly gear.

a speech orientated around the selection of hundreds of photos, downsized from thousands.

(parties, friends, kissing and hand pointing)

with the addition of home videos, painstakingly collected, cropped and edited to show megan arriving as a bundled new born into our family, and her various quirky facial expressions and funny behaviour as a spiral-maned toddler.

(in one video i'm watching as she acts like a camel with a pink panther doll on her back. and laughing)

all these made me realize how much time has actually passed.

and how much i have forgotten, or chosen not to remember. solo jaunts across the seas have made me more aware and appreciative of my growing family though.

which i know my father felt as well, as he fondly recalled the days when megan was small enough to snorkel on her brothers' backs.

in his speech, which he struggled to read in the dark, previously-church interior.

and i'm glad, regardless of the few pitfalls of living away from home, that megan has had the opportunity to live life in the mountain city.

like we all did.

and even though i missed my flight on friday, and had to sacrifice some of my hard-earned half-day pay to upgrade to the next one, i am glad i was there.

to draw 'meg's 21st' on the banner and the papered tables.

to take photos against the stained glass window good/evil booth.

to wear a pink wig and a costume that no one recognized.

(jessica rabbit)

and to really appreciate a side of my special sister i am only just beginning to get to know.

the grown-up, almost professional physio side.

there the wild things are

2010-09-21T18:24:00.004+02:00

i am putting machu picchu together.

but it's taking a while.

so many of the pieces look the same.

and there are 1500 of them.

all part of the process of unintentionally revisiting a childhood obsession, after an unexpected visit to a toy store, on a rare visit to menlyn park shopping mall.

in hindsight, putting the frame together was the easiest part, even though i had to sift through all the pieces several times, looking for the few remaining flat-ends.

but i found them all, and now i've finished the sky.

but it's the green, mountain parts that are the challenge to build, just like they are to climb.

i didn't think much about doing the inca trail this time a year ago. then it just felt like something else on my mental travel checklist, something that i left la paz to be in cusco in time for.

like putting together over a thousand cardboard pieces, the initial phase was easy. going online, booking the trip, deciding that although the upfront costs were high, that it was worth it.

and it was, in many ways.

as i look at the picture on the puzzle box though, it all seems so faraway, so out of context. the crumbling rocks of the buildings, roofless, overlooked by the green, rocky sentinel of wayna picchu, it doesn't look like somewhere i could have been.

or somewhere where i submitted to being bitten by invisible gnats while lying in the shade, too exhausted from the climb up to the sun gate to fully appreciate the remains of a once-lost and overgrown mountain town.

it feels like an isolated experience, like it only happened inside my head.

similar to what i think the dressed-in-wolf-costume max must have felt like about his travel experiences in where the wild things are.

i didn't get to be a king, or pretend to be, but i did get to be an outsider too, in peru.

and i think it did grant me some kind of twisted authority, manifested in the royal treatment i received from the porters on the trail.

like when they gave me a bowl of warm water to wash my hands in before meals, and when they woke me up with early morning cocoa leaf tea.

or when they carried significantly heavier loads than me, in sandals, and i carried a daypack/camelbak, and wore salomon walking shoes.

for a while it felt like luxury, but after that it felt unnatural, almost exploitative.

unlike max, the characters in my travel experience didn't really expect much from me.

except maybe a tip, which they deserved.

especially after baking a cake for us in the middle of the jungle, in a pan.

that was all a year ago now, almost to the day, and i must say, i feel different looking at the 1000+ scattered pieces of picchu now.

when i looked at a picture of this place before, it seemed like a mystical, bizarre arrangement of stones, surrounded by imposing overgrown, pointy mountain towers.

now, when i look at the picture of wayna picchu on the puzzle box i wish i'd made the effort to climb it. at least then i would have an alternate view of the experience.

now, all i remember is the photo op angles, exhaustion and being bitten mercilessly by too-small-too-see insects, whose only traces were red swollen circles, with central black blood dots.

and when i see the mess of inexplicably related pieces on the table now, and simultaneously try to remember what it was like to be there while i try to fit it all together, i just can't imagine being able to fill my bedroom carpet wall-to-wall with puzzles like i did when i was a kid.

even though those ones were probably made of at least 80% less cardboard.

that dedication, and the amount of isolation seems weird to me, especially since i don't remember those solitary building experiences.

maybe max doesn't remember all his encounters with the furry wild things either later on in life. if i were him, i'm not sure that i'd want to.

even though we debated after the movie about whether the creatures were just monster-like representations of people in his own life (including him), it was still quite disturbing, all that anger, violence and loneliness.

i thought the undercurrent of the film was dark, violent and sad, not like my own adventures into other places.

but i think there were elements that were the same.

not that i didn't enjoy, or appreciate all those new experiences, but i think deep down i was actually trying to re-create things that i was missing.

i didn't build a fort out of branches, but i looked for people who wanted to stay in the same places.

i didn't have to be swallowed by anyone to escape someone else, but i definitely escaped from unfavourable situations.

and, unlike the creatures in the film, i did eat. a lot.

and didn't just mention it in passing.

interestingly enough though, i don't think i ever had a bad meal in peru. occasionally overpriced for sure, but nothing memorably unfamiliar, weird or bad tasting.

to be fair, dirty bird (KFC) does taste mostly the same all over the world, even though the menu and the names differ.

although many people warned me about the perils of foreign food and “peru poo”, i didn't even get to experience it. i didn't even find any strange objects in my food there, like staples.

i'd have to wait a year for that, until saturday night to be precise, to find one of those in my streetwise chicken burger.

2km away from my house.

at least over here, i know the language well enough to complain, or understand when someone complains for me.

here i also know which menu item to choose for replacement- the one that offers the most compensation for a distorted, crunchy staple.

the 3x more expensive boxmaster.

which i took down with enthusiasm, in the same way i devoured cerviche and lomo saltado.

but not guinea pig.

guinea pigs are too much of a domestic, squeaky pet to eat, for me.

but i guess it’s just a matter of mindset, one person’s domestic animal may be another’s wild thing worth eating.

just like the wild things felt about max when he first arrived in the forest.

so maybe our perception of anything untamed or edible is all just a matter of perspective.

and our concept of wild, strange and familiar is all in our heads.

they do

2010-09-14T16:03:00.000+02:00

everything about the morning before was surreal, at least to me.

especially waking up in the soft sponginess of white linen to the blue-ish glare of light through slatted blinds, and seeing the outside ceiling of murky clouds through the oversized windows of an oversized bathroom.

in an oversized house with oversized paintings and an oversized chessboard.

that served powdered packet-cappuccino.

even more unreal was the night before, as we lay like worsies [sausages] on the king sized bed, and i almost fell asleep, snuggled and lazy, with the cool freeze of refrigerated leaf-and-orange-segment-shaped eye pads over our lids.

which were also from a packet.

we lay, not sure how the next day would be, while the shiny-embellished, filmy-strapped, sweetheart-necklined, long-trained wedding dress hung safely in a melamine closet cupboard.

like our green and pink bridesmaid frocks in the other room.

set to match the colours of a special two-tone rose.

green and pink.

colours that would be held in bouquets as we rode in vintage jaguars to the church, and displayed in abundance with other flowers in pewter vases on the reception tables.

colours that even extended to the small, square, lemon-flavoured petit fours on the dessert table later, a noticeable contrast to the clean, slick black suits and cream cravats.

with white flower corsages.

and shiny metal rings, given in traditional fashion in a white marble-lined chapel, along with hand blessings, vow exchanges and ceremonial candle lighting.

i tried to make it down the aisle without falling, and i did, even though my sweaty soles kept slipping as the crowd turned in unison to look behind them, and i walked in before i was supposed to.

to the wrong beat.

distracted by the busy little crew of ring bearers in their suited get-ups, holding the small white ring-ribbon pillow, i tried not to make eye contact with the crowd- a haze of staring eyes, bright outfits and intense, tangible emotional energy.

instead, us four bridesmaids/groomsmen took to staring and laughing at each other once we’d taken our places in front of the altar. we/i tried to stay composed when the vows were said, and the tears were hard to hold behind lids.

especially when my new sister-in-law walked down the aisle, in a blur of white, back-door blaring light, and the congregation stood up with a crrrsh-aaash of combined effort to turn around.

again.

and it still didn’t feel real.

i realized that weddings, especially ones in a church, are so different when the smiling, dressed-up couple are people you care about.

it’s always a happy celebration though, especially with all the wine, dancing and cake-cutting that happens later.

but when it’s your brother that is getting married, and you see his face as your new sister walks into the church, it feels like something else.

something i don’t think i fully understand.

something like realizing that their relationship has shifted, that saying all those things to each other, sincerely, in front of all those people is actually an exceptional act of commitment.

despite my cynicism.

in between my efforts not to cry and ruin my makeup, and to stand upright in platform heels, i realized that in a matter of minutes, it had all changed.

they’d crossed the bridge.

they weren’t just ryan and suzanne anymore; they were mr. and mrs. martin.

in the years ahead they wouldn’t just be my older brother and his wife, they’d be a yet-to-be-born person’s parents.

and like many members of my extended family, and their friends, who all laughed and cried at the succession of emotive, hilarious and complimentary speeches; drank wine, danced, jumped into the pool, and wrote messages on the wishing tree, they had also made the decision to live their lives, with and for, someone else.

which i guess is what everyone wants, and wishes for, when they plan and work hard for hours, months, through tears.

looking for the perfect place, venue, flowers, food, photographers, guests, pastor, priest and outfit.

all to say in front of everyone, before the flowers and garter are thrown and a succession of photos taken, that they do.

i do go to the zoo

2010-09-06T19:14:00.007+02:00

there is a story in edition number five of lula magazine about kirsten dunst not wanting to go to the zoo.

called 'kiko doesn't go to the zoo'.

its a series of annotated drawings by simon pegg, which describes how kirsten, or ‘kiko’, is hungover after a party, where she was “weaving her way through revellers at a noisy bash, holding two glasses of fizzy stuff.”

she wakes up, croakily, and tells her friend lulu that she would rather go back to sleep instead.

in obscure watercolours and scratchy, black-lined sketches.

yesterday, unlike kiko, i was not hungover, and did want to go to the zoo. so we went, to the recently re-branded national zoological gardens in boom street, pretoria.

with my black cooler bag backpack, yellow and red vitamin water and takeaway beef sandwich and thai salad from woolworths.

and two castle lagers.

once we’d negotiated the parking touts, taxis and honking craziness outside the zoo, parked, and declined the offer of a car wash, we walked through the brick, H-shaped archway, and went straight to the aquarium to avoid the midday sun.

after we’d seen the komodo dragon in the reptile section, and watched a rhinoceros iguana defecate in its moated enclosure.

conversely, in the quiet, meditative inside of the aquarium, we were entranced by the variety of creatures floating behind the glass, like the long-horned cowfish, that swam up and down in it’s vertical tube.

from below it almost looked like a bright yellow, argentinian empanada, with fins.

there were seahorses too, with scaly, black, mini elephant-trunk like tails twirled around the branches of sea plants.

ragged-tooth sharks, platannas, piranhas and replayed porpoise background noises.

blind arabian fish, as well as sightless mexican cave fish, and one of animal planet’s weird creatures, the rare, half developed and dreadlock-gilled axolotl.

only visible by it’s eel-like tail, which was hidden behind a box-mess of underwater plants.

it was still hiding later, when we tried to see it again, so we decided to move on to the outside section, and eat our pre-bought snacks in the shade, by the sammy marks fountain.

a cast-iron water feature that used to stand in church square, before it was replaced by the bronze statue of suited-up paul kruger, his top hat, and four soldiers.

it was so hot that we contemplated swimming in its clear water, which was populated by slow-moving, circling koi.

but we walked on instead.

for five hours solid, and saw almost every animal in the zoo.

except the okapi, the forest giraffe I’d been hoping to see. it must have been hiding from the oppressive heat in its shady ‘night room’.

i did see a giraffe flicking out it’s freakishly long, twisting and squirming blueish tongue though, which looked like the tail end of a wriggling snake, trying to get out of its mouth.

we also watched as an elephant repeatedly butted the stub of its tusk into the bottom of a palm tree, sending ripple vibrations up into the tall grey trunk, ending in the shaking, ssh-ssh of the fronds.

there were indigenous animals, familiar from previous 4x4 seat sitings, and ones that i had no idea existed, like the takin, a goat-antelope referred to as the “bee-stung moose” which was mellow, relaxed and fat-facedly friendly looking.

i liked the scenery the most though, the surrounding rocky ridges and bushveld, and the range of indigenous and exotic trees.

an enclave of greenery in the city centre, literally.

less than a kilometre away from where i work.

i can actually see the zoo from my eighth floor office window, a green outline of bushveld koppie, behind the giant red block of the obstructive batho pele building.

i’ve looked out this window several times before, to watch the early morning sun filter through the hazy, hilly distance.

but I’d never thought of the animals that lived there until now.

animals like the amazon rainforest tapir, trying desperately to hide from the dry heat in its concrete room, a lonely, long-snouted pig like the one they caught with the spiky swing trap thing in apocalypto.

or the hyenas, pacing their enclosure, looking bewildered and trapped, but curious when a child threw water on them from the other side of the metal railings.

it is obviously sad to see many of these animals confined to a limited space, especially the lions, who i think are even more lazier than usual on their slopey, stone-stepped hill.

not that I have anything against zoos, they’re important for awareness and research, and are nothing new to humans.

according to pictures, on display near the elephants in the old 1902 building, there are records of zoos as far back as the late BC’s.

and at least the animals and birds in the pretoria branch of the NZG are well taken care of, even in their limited structures, and deco-style aviaries.

plus they’re not so confined that they can’t fling their snot on you, like the grunting, wobble-bodied hippos, which snorted and bellowed below us at the hippo lapa, while eating their evening grass.

the zoo is also not so sealed up that it prevents birds like mossies filtering into the cages, or the squawking hadedas from pooing a little bit on my face.

from the air.

so, after being shat/snotted on, and a bug got stuck in my hair, i didn’t feel too bad for the beasts as we left, just before closing time.

out past the brick, H-shape gateway, and across the mucky street to the parking lot next to the dilapidated, victorian-style house.

past the people jamming to blaring taxi speakers, holding bottles of beer and dancing, arms up, and smiling.

past the withered, skinny, leathery skinned lady who tried to sell us dinner mints in plastic packets, and told us about her predicament in what sounded like a british accent.

and then i felt sad again, that she was so lost, and forlorn, and possibly a long way from home.

similar to some of the animals that spend everyday behind glass and grid-fences, and perhaps only find a relative degree of comfort in their carers' attentions.

but unlike the poor, desperate-looking lady, at least they have the comparable warmth of their night rooms to escape to.

sun-daze

2010-08-30T17:03:00.048+02:00

today i sweated up some back moisture at my desk, wearing a thin stripy shirt.

it seems i didn't have to wait as long as i thought for the summer heat.

i even had a slight heat-headache yesterday after a sunday picnic session at the pretoria botanical gardens.

for park acoustics.

but that might have also had something to do with the wine, a green slush puppy tequila margarita, and my apparent allergy to nivea sunscreen.

so i'm glad hein insisted on getting out of the sun, where i was blissfully consuming a chicken and lime mayonnaise salad from woolworths.

and burning.

we soon relocated to a nearby tree though, and shared some shade with two girls with a hookah pipe, who soon left us to lie down and spill wine on the slippery checked blanket, without the full force of the sun.

the botanical gardens did seem like they needed more rain than sunshine though, as some of the palm trees were brown, flapping and lifeless at the edges of the scratchy, dry lawn.

not that the foliage wasn't leafy enough to offer shelter to scurrying mongoose and aggressively scampering, biting-each-other-on-the-arse dassies.

but if my garden is anything to go by, the springtime rain/greenery isn't far away. in just a week, from a walter sisulu botanical garden visit to a botanical-garden-in-my-own-city visit, the heat has increased so much that the oak tree leaves outside in the garden have started to grow.

exponentially.

i'd love to have a slow speed camera, documenting the unfolding of the oak leaves like outspread palms on the previously barren, barky branches. i always try catch first few shoots every year, but every year the tree beats me to it, and sprouts it's springtime virescence almost overnight.

despite the dryness, the scenery at the botanical gardens was still hospitable, with the pretty blue gun's acoustic strums a melodious background to our people-finding missions and takeaway-sandwich eating.

and sun dodging.

until mozambican 340ml took to the thatched stage, with their upbeat, jazzy and soulful rhythms. the lead singer even played a mouth organ, which i'd never seen before, which looked like a mini keyboard-thing attached to a white worm-like tube.

while we drank beers with crazy pull-tops, and green mini-margaritas.

the guitar riffs were slick, like the band members. just like i remember them from cape town, forever ago.

i realized i'd missed seeing them play live, years later, after having been able to see them regularly at places like the independent armchair in observatory before.

it reminded me of a time when i had absolutely no idea about who i was, and was still thrilled at the novelty of being able to go out as late as i wanted to, without sending sms's to parents, or setting off house alarms at 3am.

but as it does, time has passed, and until yesterday i'd forgotten about 340ml, and their catchy lyrics.

but interestingly enough, i think i like their music even more now.

and if the jumping, arm-flinging and enthusiastic lyric-shouting crowd in front of the thatched stage was anything to go by, the music-appreciative sect of pretoria does too.

me, i'm not

2010-08-23T19:17:00.000+02:00

on sunday afternoon we went to the walter sisulu botanical gardens.

in roodepoort.

to meet up with the rest of our extended family.

a total of 36 people, huddled around sporadic trees for shade from the almost-summer sun. children, grandmothers and second cousins.

several group photo attempts, and only one where everyone is looking at the camera.

there were choo-choo trains on wheels, a waterfall, crusty bread rolls and shaken soft-drink spray. all over my shirt.

makeshift wands were made from plastic bottle seals, so the little ones could blow bubbles from bottles which, shortsightedly, didn't have bubble-blowing wands of their own.

we had naps, lie-downs and walks to the restricted waterfall called witpoortjie, which is home to nesting eagles, and a polluted flow of white water.

family members ate soft serve ice-creams, with flake, from a VW hippie bus, painted with smiling faces and happy slogans.

i took photos of succulents in the rockery, botterbome and vygies, noticed coke lid-yellow weaver birds, hanging from their intricately woven, hive-shaped nests.

as we walked back, i watched as a little fairy kite flapped its glittered, plastic wings in the afternoon august winds. we could see it from the other side of the gardens, flip-flapping dangerously close to leafless, brazenly bare-branches.

as we expected, the fairy kite soon crash landed into the tangle of tree, which we later gathered from the glittery plastic ribbon remains, sparkly in the breeze. the only reminder of it's treetop demise.

an apt metaphor for ups and downs, life's phases, and unwelcome but necessary obstacles.

last year, i was like the shitty, un-recyclable plastic flying barbie-fairy. not tied to one place, and held down only by a slight string. unaware of the sharp, approaching branch thicket in the bottom right corner.

kite free

this year, i took a nose-dive straight into a stationary shrub. and i'm still stuck there, trying to find a way out, and probably destroying my fake, China-made, tinsel-shitty decoration in the process.

kite tree

i've struggled and strained, wishing i could get out. thinking that stationary means stuck. and that stuck means means i can't do the things i want to do.

but i had an awareness of family, change and growth yesterday that i hadn't had before.

for the first time in years i was surrounded by almost my entire directly-related family. and i realized that new generations happen, people change, and really do find happiness in stability, bubble-blowing and picnics.

so maybe being static isn't the worst thing to be.

for a while.

summertime waiting

2010-08-17T17:05:00.000+02:00

the afternoons are warmer these days, and i'm starting to hear the buzz of lawnmowers.

which means the approach of summertime.

almost.

although the morning's are still cold enough to keep me under the covers for longer than i'll admit.

the big oak tree in the garden hasn't begun to sprout it's tell tale green branch-buds yet either, but it should, soon enough.

in time to be leafy green for the upcoming nuptial reception, and coincide with the purple, pink and white floral spread that is starting to bloom in the flowerbeds.

full water bottles in the dirt have kept the dogs off, for now.

(why this actually works i'd love to know)

it's only a few weeks until the trees will be wrapped in white, and lights will swing daintily from the branches of the two exotic trees in my garden, the other being some kind of pine/ alternate loerie territory.

it's less than a week before the bridal shower though, or "classy bachelorette" as google search says.

the goings on of which is strictly secret, and something people don't like you to spoil.

(i won't do that again)

it's different now that i am organising it myself. with help of course.

and honestly, it's surreal. the event(s) we've spoken about/planned for months are happening in the next month. and the next few days.

the year i thought i had to figure it all out is picking up pace.

reaching 3/4 of the way.

the turquoise plastic countdown timers have silently been dismantled, the influx of foreign accents and flags filed to memory.

i've heard a saying, something like "life doesn't wait for you to make decisions", which is good, because i haven't been making any.

i blame the cold, and the hibernation of my brain behind warm layers of clogged sinuses.

but as i sit listening to the optimistic shhhh-chika-chika of summer-nostalgic garden sprinklers, and watch the yellow afternoon light catch the winter-weathered palm fronds outside my window, i'm excited that it's almost over.

the icy mornings, struggling to get up. the time between finishing a shower and drying yourself in an unheated bathroom.

the all-surrounding nose-blowing, coughs and spluttering sickness.

in a month or two i'll forget having to dress in layers, or clutch at my jacket/rub my legs at outdoor gig's, like friday night's skyline gig/cult feature film party at the open window.

with summer heat i'll be submerged in the slightly salty water, instead of feeling the freeze-cringe of dipping my toe in to test the temperature of the neglected swimming pool, which has been filtering quietly for months, the only splish-splash courtesy of a panting, dirty and ball-obsessed labrador.

at least then it will be warmer, so hopefully with that, and some poolside pink g&t's, decision crunch-time will be easier.

and sinusitis free.

uitgeskollie

2010-08-10T19:21:00.002+02:00

for 3 days i blew out black muddy snot into white toilet paper, and had matted, crusty hair.

dust-choked, dirty and sleep deprived we missioned, from stage to stage, squeezed through sitting, lethargic crowds on tippy toes, to find a shady spot.

to sit down, only to get up from the straw lined floor to mission. again.

trips to and from the car boot for booze. repeated press boop boop key clicks and dodging that same thorn bush at the entrance of the campsite.

sealed off by candy-cane plastic tape. easily crossed with a lift and duck.

at oppikoppi the red and white tape doesn't keep anyone away.

in fact, this year's festival didn't keep anyone away at all. it was the first time in sixteen years that pre-sale tickets had been sold out.

what started out as a small gathering of musos on a koki-walled hilltop bar has now become a full-on sponsored event.

noticeable by the repetitive sponsor-thanks by unknown people on the stage between sets.

and the black cell-c blimp that hovered over the fest like a lonely whale.

but in true 'koppi spirit it was eventually cut free, and while eating our makeshift breakfast, made using a sooty, bent cadac, we watched it wiggle and fly like a lost balloon over the hill and disappear.

it made me happy that the koppi anarchy i'd experienced before hadn't been diluted in the mass of 20000 people who managed to find shelter in a harsh, thorny bushveld with limited resources.

if trying to get into the fest on friday night, or the crowd surrounding a burning mattress on day 4 was anything to go by, i think it fuelled the insanity even more. as opposed to the 'koppi's i'd been to in previous years, sexy.crooked.teeth had more of a chaotic energy.

less kak praat in the campsites and more active listening.

and walking.

and dancing.

i actually got to see most of the bands i wanted to see this time. even though days of consistent drinking in the limpopo sun did make evening naps necessary.

naps that sometimes took too long.

unintentionally.

but i managed to make it out to some of the early am mania, when anyone with true party stamina keeps partying at the top bar or red bull stage, even though the main stages below are dark, dead and deserted, with only a mess of debris and a passed out couple on a couch visible in the yellow light of the hanging cylindrical tree lamps.

sponsored ones of course.

and one that looked like the moon from far away, a golden-yellowish orb in the spaces between the branches of the acacia trees.

in three days we walked the same route, up the dusty path, past intoxicated people and dirty cars, people dressed in flower outfits and in a suit that looked like hundreds of plastic orange post-its sewn together.

who everyone wanted a photo with.

there were people in pirate hats who were made fun of in the most amazing comedy show, presented by a man in tiny shorts and one in white pants with an oversized, inserted plastic penis-thing.

there was a vuil afrikaans rapper with a song i'd never heard before called "farmhouse breakfast" and surrounding visuals of modified porn and phallic images.

a cape town rap crew who thought they were in gauteng, but put on a tidy set, and even handed out free avocados.

there were extremes of heat, from sauna tent baking to ice-cold dew soaked tent freeze in minus degrees. while trying to sleep.

morning tea in stainless steel cups, with long life milk.

gin and tonic and beer decanted into plastic bottles.

a realization that every year is a different experience, that the more effort you put into trying to find people the less bands you will actually appreciate.

and this year i appreciated more bands than i can remember.

i even managed to catch the regular wedding dj's 80's/90's revival sunday night set.

something i've never made it to before.

so when i left, and sat, with three days of accumulated dirtiness, in the exit traffic, for four hours, i felt a vague sense of accomplishment.

after all, 'koppi has always had a reputation for being more of a test of endurance than other eco-friendly festivals in daisy country.

something i hope will never change.

new bed

2010-08-03T15:51:00.001+02:00

i didn't notice it for a long time, but my old bed was broken.

underneath a daily flick, fling out, smooth and tuck of a fitted bed sheet, the bulging, broken base was conked in on the bottom right hand side.

it didn't seem like a huge deal, it was more of an aesthetic problem, as the collapsed side faced the door, and faced me, every time i walked into my room.

there were days when it really bothered me, and i tried to think back as to when i could have busted the rest-assured, and quality assured, base of my double bed.

was it someone else? did someone do an exaggerated dive onto the bed, hear an unhappy conk-crunch and choose to ignore it?

was it me?

i'm sure i would have remembered it. and told someone about it. but due to either my denial, ignorance or a long-haul flight escape i've actually only remedied the situation now.

months since i first noticed the problem.

like many other perceived problems that i have.

like my broken bed they sit, quietly, covered or unnoticed for however long it takes for me to be proactive.

which often takes a while.

and will happen at about the same time that trying to blame someone else gets tired, or i get tired of thinking about it.

like many other problems, it wasn't that hard to solve either. yes, it may have required sleeping on an oversized bed base until the right one arrived, but i hardly noticed the difference.

so today, the right size is here. and the conked-in bulging side-sloping base is gone.

maybe it will get fixed and resold, but that's someone else's problem.

for now, i'll probably be sleeping better.

blindsided

2010-07-26T16:57:00.000+02:00

i’d never thought the space outside my gate could be so unsafe.

cars park there everyday, and don't leave until they have to. but on saturday a car was parked, next to the wall with the brass 965, and did not stay.

a slight liquid spill and discarded chappie wrappers on the concrete are now the only things visible in the space where the unmistakable mazda 323 used to be.

a few metres from the nocturnal security guard’s enclosed glass windowed box.

in half an hour, during an unexpected lapse of attention from a reflective cloaked, torch wielding guard, the 323 was silently removed.

despite it’s distinctive engine start.

four hours later, after dinner distractions and bridesmaid brainstorming, it could have been en route to anywhere.

disbelief. denial.

a saturday night session of spelling clarification with a night duty policewoman eating a twirl-whipped-white soft serve.

with flake.

anger.

trying to rationalize theft, loss and inconvenience, but failing.

it reminded me of all the effort i've made to avoid it.

i’ve hidden behind walls, wires and watchdogs, tied backpacks around my feet in buses, padlocked my possessions in lockers.

but when theft is intent, there is no stopping it, apparently. like the dark, sprinting silhouette of the thief i watched run off with my prized panasonic in peru, it comes out of nowhere, and moves fast.

i think one advantage of real-time theft is that you at least have some closure, some understanding of why or how it happened.

but unseen theft, or an unexpected mishap, always leaves me thinking, doubting, saturated in a cesspool of should have, would have, could have.

in my routinized existence, where my morning drive takes me past the same houses, the same brick buildings and leads me to the same church-side parking lot, i think i’ve become blissfully blinded to potential fuckups.

i click the same black mouse, log into the same email address and carry the same cooler bag backpack everyday up eight flights of mosaic tiled office block stairs.

i’ve come to expect a similarity in every day, a degree of safety, some guarantees.

but i guess there never really are any.

bird's the word

2010-07-19T16:20:00.001+02:00

if only humans were designed to endure the cold, without artificial heating.

that would mean i might have actually gone out this weekend, instead of avoiding outside.

despite my twitter stream being largely saturated with stories of european sunshine frolicking, i have been desperately trying to keep warm.

with a serious lack of know-how on effective winter dressing.

it’s like being in the bolivian desert again, except this time I have warmer bedding, and don’t have to sleep on a glorified cat cushion.

and unlike a certain dwelling in the bolivian outback, i have the use of a functioning toilet. that isn’t spattered with poo.

on saturday morning, when i would normally be bumbling around, finding clothes and braving the morning corridor chill before work, i lay in bed instead, looking out my window.

it's a very familiar site, and one that i’ve stared at many times before. but this time it was different, the winter freeze made everything seem sharper.

once i had put on my glasses of course.

the palm tree outside my bedroom window flailed in an early morning breeze, the leaves movings like sombre jazz fingers. the sky was icy blue, the early morning single digit degree freeze only held back by centimetres of window glass.

while i was staring, some birds, seemingly oblivious to the icy icy, continued their consistent territorial battle for perch space in the tree next door.

hadeda vs. loerie.

i could see the grey loeries fly in observant circles above, like mini-terradactyls. their distinctive “kwwweeeeh” almost prehistorically unmelodic.

the hadedas, with their perlemoen reflective sheen, battled to keep stationary, and blathered on with their guttral squawking, “aaaha aaaha aahha”. i could see they were trying to maintain their perch space, but I think the clumsy ibis couple eventually lost to the more agile, long-tailed loeries.

it made me realize how oblivious i usually am to these avian interactions, only really noticing other birds when i am about to drive over them. in the 'burbs, i have become immune to the prolific pigeons/doves and indian mynahs, it's like they don't actually even count as birds anymore.

like the ones that live in the roofs at UCT, they're often more like flying rodents.

which is not to say that they don't have some inherent purpose, apart from being carriers of disease. i'm sure, like other imported species, the mynahs were just happier here. and doves/pigeons, well, they seem content to blend in with the surrounds, only their "hoo-hoo-hoo-hoo-HOO-hoo" audible above the hiss of passing traffic.

in fact, i'm often unaware that these sky rats even exist, except when i notice the increasing twirls of purple drip-plop defecation on my white car. i'm told their crap-acid might eventually eat away at the paint, but if i wash it, it will all happen all over again.

there's no space in the garage. and it seems like too much of a vicious cycle of rinse-repeat to me.

the truth is birds don't care. and it's something that i respect them for. they have no concern for garden boundaries, the possible electric potential of power lines, or the potentially damaging acidic effects of their excrement.

they squawk, scream, whistle and cry, without consideration. some birds even exclusively lay their eggs in other birds nests so they don't have to raise their chicks themselves.

they're loud, selfish and don't obey the rules of the road.

they don't like to be caged, even though some will happily submit to confinement in exchange for certain benefits.

they make loud noises when they wake up early, and travel far distances with their own internal GPS.

they're not above scavenging, or stealing.

just like people.

but unlike me, who only managed to make it less than 5km from my home this weekend, they missioned, presumably further than me, in the cold.

and on saturday evening, while i was watching bear grills eat a skunk, and simultaneously eating a varsity bakery burger, they were still outside. huddling in their mangy nests.

but despite their annoying habits, and messy sphincter aim, i like them.

or maybe like the trashmen from minneapolis, who wrote the 1963 hit "surfin' bird", it's just easier to rant about birds than admit that i did almost nothing this weekend.

well, nothing that i'd usually share in this blog anyway.

house party epiphany

2010-07-12T16:32:00.000+02:00

i hadn't been to a house party in a long time.

at least until saturday night.

the bar we had watched the "losers' final" was disappointingly un-full, so the next best option was the party.

a friend of a friend of a friend's house.

just off the R21 highway.

a house a trampoline, and bowls of licorice all-sorts. a cooler box filled with sickly sweet alcohol mix, made with sweet-o.

a concentrate mix that comes in a suspiciously small bottle, something i'd compare to dave chapelle's experience of "grape drink".

even a tiny plastic cup, not big enough for beer pong, was enough to make me realize that despite a sporadic appreciation of cake, i don't really have a sweet tooth.

or maybe only a slight one, since i could take on a few fistfuls of all-sorts, conveniently placed in glass bowls throughout the interior brick-walled house.

for a while.

i couldn't resist the tiny shapes of marzipan-like squishiness. the round ones, the 3 or 5 level sandwich ones, and the rare ones that look like thimbles, coated in one shade of tightly packed hundreds and thousands.

they're the ones everyone always eats first. leaving all the un-coated, plain licorice twirls for last. or for whoever actually likes those ones.

it was like a kiddies party, although a slightly undercatered one in comparison to the MSG-fuelled, blood sugar spike binges i remember.

but our behaviour i imagine, besides the consequences, was almost the same.

people spilt on the floor, and danced in it. people sat on the trampoline, and almost broke it.

some consumed too much and felt sick.

there was entertainment, musical-chair-like music that never allowed for a full song.

soccer played on a foozball table, and someone with missing teeth.

conversations with people i almost knew at high school, most of which i enjoyed, but some that i found vaguely disturbing.

instead of talking about whatever we used to talk about, the conversations now revolve more around what we are doing. or not doing.

complaints of unemployment, or of being too busy.

sometimes the conversation even requires only one person and an audience. monologues that i'm sure are intended to show off intellectual aptitude, but don't really make any sense.

maybe we're all just children really, that all this discourse on "growing up" is really just a lie, a way of retaining some benchmark/control over the way people behave.

even professional footballers, so admired and idolised, still throw down balls in anger when things don't go their way, or cry when they lose.

behind the facade of success, education and even life experience, i think on some level we all just unsatisfied kids, throwing parties to distract ourselves from responsibility.

to give ourselves an opportunity to experience a supposed care-free life, with the help of substances in varying strengths, taken down with the proverbial spoon full of sugar, or preservatives.

i imagine that if we could remember all the silly playground squabbles, the jealously, the occasional lies, we'd think differently about our romanticised childhoods.

i think we do all the same things, we just learn how to do them better, and hope that eventually we're considered better at it than someone else.

i do hope that i have grown up in some ways though. things, after all have changed slightly.

i can go where i want to now, until late, and swear in front of my parents without the threat of a wooden spoon.

i'm now no longer dependent on the company of ellie, the once fluffy green elephant, the one i couldn't go anywhere without. the one i made my family search for on more than one occasion to end a desperate tantrum.

the only difference is that now, after indulging in colourful drinks and sweets, i have to get myself home.

park life

2010-07-06T20:53:00.001+02:00

to me, there's something special about city parks.

the enclosed green lungs of cities, allocated areas of contained nature in urban sprawl.

with benches.

places i've taken to sprawling out in, while drinking bottles of windhoek draught and eating handfuls of rubbery senties.

and feeding them to a maimed crowned plover, who bends down and stretches in a continuous struggle of forward moving one-legged squats.

the end of his/her stump like a charred mini marshmallow.

there are people with dogs that look like mangy little wolves, children on bikes and indie kids throwing leaves into the air and taking photos of them.

and in another park on the other side of pretoria, an old lady from the nearby retirement complex feeds similarly white plumed ducks over a mesh fence.

a fence with a scrawl of "i love you" made visible on the wire cross-hatching with white spray paint.

its an area of pretoria i've never been to.

something that has been happening a lot lately.

mainly because we've been trying to find obscure parks in the frills of the city outskirts, places not completely confined to the eastern suburbs.

like rietondale park, where i used to play hockey back in the day with skew teeth and pimples, a park now conveniently located near to toni's fully furnished pizza co.

or pieter human park in villeria, with its star-ish shaped pond, distinct lack of koi, and surrounding dry, hunchbacked mulberry trees, the branches dipping into the algae-soup of the water like bony withered fingers.

it's been like discovering other cities within my own, and realizing that having a common municipality doesn't guarantee any degree of commonality.

in a country so affected by skin colour segregation, i feel like i've overlooked other subtle societal divisions, entrenched by sandstone ridges, language and history.

before now, i've missed out on places with biker bars and train depots, differently themed street names and architecture.

before now, i'd never ventured along obscure dusty streets with book stores and rovos rail train repair centres, the locomotives lined up for restoration like massive steel dolls, named anthea, bianca and marjorie. bantam chickens with black bell-bottomed feet hiding and cooing under their driving wheels.

in these kinds of places i am even more keen to observe, lie down and take advantage of the winter sun, which is warm enough to burn my skin to a light red.

in the parks that we find past the limits of known roads, i can also listen to the creak-eek of swings with giggly children, and feel an overwhelming sense of nostalgia when watching that same elderly lady in pieter human park walk away, slightly hunched and hobbly.

while the protected yellow-billed waders, still ravenous for chunks of bread, squawk, chase and bite each other, and glossy hadedas wander at the fringes of the fence with their insistent crescent beaks.

all this made me think that loneliness is something that is felt on this side of town too.

or maybe feeding ducks has the same novelty towards the end of a life as at the beginning of one.

the mad ones

2010-06-28T12:42:00.001+02:00

last night i watched in bruges.

finally.

it had taken several conversations about it, and one failed attempt at PVR before i got it right.

but at some point, i did, and there it was, in black and yellow on the PVR playlist.

i knew that colin farrell was in it, and that was all.

and i'm glad.

i loved the dark, narrated intro, the old/modern medieval city setting, and the idea that a place can be fairytale-like to one person, and a literal version of hell to someone else.

i liked the scene in the park, the happy colours of the fairground playthings contrasted with the slick and simple black of a silencer.

but mostly, i liked the contrast between the irish hitmen, the big eared, big hearted stalwart versus the insecure, troubled amateur.

i enjoyed the fact that the big guy wanted to explore all the medieval aspects, from the churches to the canals, but the other didn't, because he was trapped in hell, in his own head.

i was intrigued by the blatantly criminal characters, and the realization that maybe life is only as engaging as the people in it.

and that sometimes, it's the most bizarre, psychotic, and flawed characters that are the most entertaining, and the ones that influence your experience of a place most.

like in a similarly medieval animation i watched religiously as a child.

the adventures of the gummi bears.

a family of american accented bears, addicted to juice, living underground in an antiquated anglo-themed landscape. with castles and a persistent evil man with a silly beard and purple dress.

who is followed insistently by the battered diminutive green ogre, toadwart, obsessed with serving his hook-nosed master.

he is a neurotic, dependent creature, but definitely the most amusing character in the show.

he too lives in his own version of hell, but instead of bruges it's drekmore, a strange, dark land of exploding puff balls and sabre-toothed rabbits.

like in bruges, the defining characters of the gummi bears series are the maligned ones, the gang of unsatisfied obsessives that keep threatening to upset the balance.

they're the ones who keep it interesting.

this is something i have come to realize often, especially considering the variety of people i met in the bars, hostels and streets of gringo-friendly south america.

my naivete often led to spending too much time with regrettably disturbed and annoying people.

but sadly, few as memorable as the ones in bruges.

i'm convinced i have yet to meet an irish hitman.

and i haven't seen a psychedelic dwarf dream sequence.

yet.

unveiled

2010-06-21T11:08:00.000+02:00

the other day i read an interview in dazed.

the june online print version.

it was not like other band interviews, which i struggle to read, with all the pretentious Q&A and inaccessible jargon.

this particular interview, with canadian thrash electro duo crystal castles, was more about their lack of friends and clothes, average housing and how recording eventually began after the guy found the girl in a toronto street, messed up on drugs and wearing an eye patch to cover an infection.

not exactly your typical band beginnings. which made me realize that maybe success is not always dependent on having a discernible public persona.

or maybe crystal castles just don't care. really.

they seem happy to live in obscurity when they aren't on tour, which is hardly ever.

they don't even own cellphones, apparently.

it was interesting to see beyond the veil for once, to realize that having a cult following doesn't guarantee any degree of happiness, or even vague semblance of normality.

(whatever that is)

it is like going to watch a world cup game live, like i did on friday at ellis park, and realizing that off-screen the field seems so much smaller.

from the stands the players are life-like figurines, running frantically under the moving eye of the mobile camera, a giant mechanical spider moving on an interconnected cabled web.

like at most live events, i was more concerned with getting bottles of plastic beer though, even if it was budweiser.

mainly because full attention on the game was impossible, thanks to the jumping slovenians around us, who jumped and sang, a lot, and weren't too pleased at my R30 star spangled cap.

i took to looking at the screens, and the thousands of people packed into the surrounding stands, like colourful cards neatly slotted into a circular shuffling machine.

with the honking, buzzing, and shouting making up a surrounding swarm of happy atmospheric noise.

it was fun.

and later that night, in a dark club called full moon in maroelana, i would be listening to another kind of atmospheric noise. this time with back drop visuals, keyboards, guitars and reverb.

a skyline on fire blew me away, i couldn't think of anything to compare it to. i had no frame of reference for the airy, reverberating sounds, the deep interpol-y like voice of the lead singer.

who let loose and danced on stage like he was caught in a straightjacket, happy stiff jamming and twisting while the other guy switched effortlessly from guitar to keyboard.

a keyboard that was altered by tape to say "be kind" instead of behringer.

(thanks hein)

it was a small crowd, but an appreciative one. i imagine it's a similar type of crowd crystal castles would have played to when they first started, although in comparison i'd say this crowd was infinitely more relaxed.

it was mantra pop, as they describe themselves, instead of thrash electro.

and like crystal castles, a skyline on fire is releasing a 2010 album too.

it's the type of music i think more people should hear. something that also might be appreciated by cult canadians.

either way, their sound, and the fact that they were part of the crowd like everyone else, was definitely appreciated by me.

fanfare

2010-06-14T13:28:00.000+02:00

boo-ooh-waaap-waaaap-waaaaaaaap-wap-wap-wap

screams. cheers. people getting abuse for standing in the way of the screen.

queues for beer, so long that soon it's time for kick-off, so no beer.

over 20 000 people sit, on fold-out chairs or cross-legged on the fine grass of the enclosed cricket field.

babies in beanies, flags, makarapas and of course, vuvuzelas.

friday afternoon at the supersport park fan fest, in centurion. the first bafana bafana game and the feeling of patriotism is contagious.

jz does his inspirational speech, and despite my inherent cynicism i feel moved.

people run, screaming in swarms to the screen when the first goal is scored. vuvuzelas chopping the air in a rhythmic beat, like colourful plastic axes.

it's really here, the world cup that everyone has been going on about/moaning about for years.

i remember when the blue fnb sponsored clock outside anton van wouw primary school on lynwood road said something like 400 days until kick off.

it almost felt like it was never actually going to happen. even though we knew that we'd endured the roadworks outside our house for a good reason.

more people, more traffic, more interest.

all in the name of 22 guys chasing a white ball around a field.

i had so much fun on friday, that we went to another fan fest on saturday. in rustenburg. a 2 hour drive from the city, near to the infamous sun/sin city, and the location of the royal bafokeng stadium.

it wasn't a local game, so it wasn't as packed, which was better. it meant we didn't have to queue to get our hands on cheap burgers, or a full polystyrene box spread of pap, wors, coleslaw, spinach and orange pampoen (pumpkin).

we had so much fun eating, and dancing to "tamatie sauce" with the ladies working in the food tents that we didn't even get to watching the second half of the usa vs. england game.

we had fun chanting "usa! usa!usa!" during the first half though, inspired partly by the american flag coloured cookout cap i was wearing, a souvenir from a time spent eating cheap deep fried cornbread (hush puppies) from a drive-thru takeout in north carolina.

honestly, i thought england would have given the usa a solid beating, but in the spirit of the first african world cup and "ke nako", things do change.

even if the usa goal wasn't spectacular, and did just slip through the english goalie's hands.

if i wasn't so preoccupied with food, beer and trying to kick a ball into an inflatable goal post, i might have noticed some other attempts at goal after that.

but i didn't.

it was more fun for me to just be a part of the experience. after all, the games are only 90 minutes long, but their effects last so much longer.

the general feeling of camaraderie, the willingness of anyone to help out with directions, the undercover cop on the street so overly concerned with our safety.

the thousands of plastic flags, the realization that even though fifa is a huge corporation bent on getting their money's worth, that there are social benefits to hosting a world scale event.

a german lady recently told me that the world cup in germany was the first time the country had stood proudly united, after decades of war, guilt, divisions and shame.

i think for south africa, it's very much the same.

the other side of town

2010-06-09T12:03:00.000+02:00

on the other side of town is a big tree.

it's so big that they have built a nature reserve around it. it's so old, 1000 years by carbon dating, that they have built a wooden boardwalk-thing around it. it's so prominent that they named an entire northern pretoria suburb after it.

wonderboom. the "wonder" tree. which apparently people used to live in, and which used to provide shelter to ox wagons, with 20 oxen up front.

but until saturday i had no idea it even existed.

for 24 years, the wonderboom remained hidden to me, on the other side of the magaliesberg, where an abandoned anglo-boer war fort remains on the ridge, dilapidated, like a mini military machu picchu.

the brick walls were deeply etched by graffiti, words that once said something like "koos", but now read something more like "doos".

charred, roofless, and almost eerie, this fort is nothing like the well maintained museum walls of fort klapperkop, on the eastern side of town.

apparently, there were four main forts in the pretoria area, which although they don't seem to have seen much gunfire, were a symbol of strength after the jameson raid.

well, at least two of them didn't. fort schanskop, in the south, and fort klapperkop are maintained, accessible, and well documented online. they have the honour of being declared national monuments.

the one at wonderboom lies protected by another national monument, the wonderboom, and is protected by the confines of a nature reserve, and the apies river. and although it's a fair walk up the hill to see it, still retains some kind of faded grandeur. you get the feeling it was somewhat important.

and that it would be an insane party venue.

but the location of the rogue fourth fort, fort daspoortrand, remains unclear. according to google maps it's on a farm near atteridgeville. if i's even still there.

the only pictures of the fort are accessible via a site called "boerevryheid". you need to sign in to see them. obviously.

so it still remains AWOL. but if i carry on exploring the city like i have been i'm sure it's only a matter of time before we discover its crumbling brick facade.

like the confined wonderboom fig tree, my awareness of my own hometown has been limited to a certain area, restricted by "town" limits and safety paranoia.

so driving down voortrekker road feels like driving into a different city. it reminds me a long commercial strip i drove through to get to venice beach, california. the same faded feel, pawn shops and car dealerships.

voortrekker road, like a trip into forgotten america, even has a roadhouse. casbah roadhouse, with its suitably rainbow/reggae coloured neon sign, large parking lot and waiters who did actually think we were foreign.

the surrounding suburbs are quiet, with front lawns and towering ng kerk spires on the corner, and old-school one-storey style houses, with rounded indoor stoeps.

on the nearby paul kruger street there is also maders. an afrikaner style butchery that's more of a museum, with a collection of vintage scales, typewriters, cameras and toy cars. in glass cases.

and a vast collection of old south african flags, and wall full of anglo-boer war photos.

generaals in top hats with waistbands of bullets around them, and smiles on their faces. men with guns hiding behind rocks, in helmets.

maders is a trip into the last 100 years plus, and a tribute to a less than flaunted, and less discussed, past.

and the best sausage rolls, ever. R8 a pop.

the presence of all these places, established and historically rich, had never crossed my mind.

for all the travelling i have done in the past few years, all the obscure bakeries i visited in peru, the street stalls i bought from in thailand, all those empanadas in argentina.

and i hadn't even driven 10km away from my house to eat a pie.

i'd travelled by planes, overnight buses and trains to see something new, when all i really had to do was get in my car and head northwards.

but maybe i wouldn't have felt the same way if i hadn't eaten those squishy, potato stew filled saltenas from that humble street side bakery in bolivia.

maybe i wouldn't have the same appreciation for new things if i hadn't experienced the insane rush of leaving my comfort zone, repeatedly and without an option on all those occasions.

who knows.

all i know is that i can't wait to find more hidden pretoria places.

and hopefully, that other fort.

someone else's life

2010-05-31T11:02:00.001+02:00

on saturday i visited one of my favourite stores, bellbottoms on pierneef street.

in the back of the store, behind a glass cupboard of old toy cars, KISS figurines and a toy that i think was supposed to look like a vagina, was a shelf of drawers. full of old liesegang slides.

there were shots of botanical gardens, ponds of water hyacinths obscured by out-of-focus willow branches. a family's holiday at the "zulu reserve", their boat trip, and their well travelled ford ranger.

there was a woman in a shift dress, with a pale blue hat that looked like a mess of feathers on the top of a ruffled parrot's head.

she was everywhere.

on the side of a pond feeding ducks and in a park feeding pigeons. inside a fenced off area stroking a "tame" cheetah. on the banisters edge of a massive dam wall.

the quintessential old school south african holiday. a similar pattern of behaviour that is probably recorded on small white squares in my grandfather's box of old slides.

south african travel circa late 60's to early 70's.

it made me realize that we often take local travel for granted, always thinking that something better and more interesting is at least a 10 hour plane ride away.

but these slides, although scratched, faded and discoloured, show the landscapes, beaches and vintage bathing suits that once characterized a typically south african trip.

maybe it was the lack of infrastructure, or television. but i can't help but think that political isolation made people appreciate local travel more.

i felt sad as i looked at more of the slides, the highlights of someone else's life relegated to the depths of an old dusty drawer, with the distinct smell of old wood.

maybe it's enough that i found them interesting. for R10 a shot i could convert them to digital format, post them to this blog, and share them with people again.

but to be honest, like the slides, most of my own memories lie forgotten in digital archives, never to be printed and placed carefully into photo album plastic sleeves.

perhaps memories out of context are more appealing because they don't carry the weight of emotions and experience.

they're like art works, open to interpretation and free of personal attachments.

and like the one slide, three seals on a grass bank not obviously close to any water, maybe they're just good for a laugh.

idioteque

2010-05-17T13:04:00.000+02:00

the road trip began in a mess of out-of-order robots, highway construction rubble, misleading yellow signs and enormous speeding trucks.

confusion, panic, GPS fail.

until we became free of the chaos on the city end of the N3, and found ourselves surrounded by tranquil grassland, the odd arrangement of trees on the hills creating beautiful through-the-car-window shots.

with brett's leica point-and-shoot. courtesy of nicole in the passenger seat.

encounters with speed cameras, pointed out by helpful GPS beeps. stops for m&m's, inside story and snickers. listening to radiohead's kid a in a red audi filled with bags, too many clothes, and a present wrapped in a duvet.

most of the journey was placid, for me anyway, watching the thatch grass lift, flap and wave along the hills.

hills once reserved for military vantage points, and i'm thinking, canons.

as we crossed over van reenen's pass, in perfect sunny weather (a first for me), the escarpment slowly folded down, aloes began to dot the road sides and the vegetation slowly shifted to lush, subtropical green.

and then we hit peak hour traffic.

but after eventually more chaos, swerving and tried patience, we saw the metallic neon haze of gateway shopping centre, umhlanga, and the sea.

and a newly established hooters on lighthouse road, opposite the newly refurbished oyster box hotel.

an interesting juxtaposition.

after getting settled in our marine terrace apartment, we reminisced about the misspent matric holiday we spent here in '03. when the red fox was still porky's, raffles was cloud 9, and there definitely wasn't a orange and brown owl/boob-themed "family restaurant" on the corner.

in '03 i hadn't learnt to have any consideration of the future beyond new years plans and making it to UCT on the right day in '04. i couldn't have imagined being in the same apartment almost seven years later, for our dear friend casey's wedding. to richard.

which took place at jex cottage near umvoti on 15 may, despite the rain. there was a moving ceremony underneath the trees in the surrounding forest, sandcastles, pinwheels, picnic baskets and braaied barracuda. penguin badges, an awesome photographic duo and a mean pink punch drunk from ribbon-wrapped jam jars.

but mostly, there was happiness. the widest bride smile and a gorgeous abigail betz/audrey hepburn style dress. music under the clear plastic marquis, dancing, and so many macaroons, cupcakes, petit fours, meringues that i felt suitably nauseous jamming barefoot on the dance floor.

in my mom's old halter neck red dress. fitted especially for the occasion.

sibling dance moves and silly shots of my face in a white chinese globe lantern. tanqueray, sea breeze and scrambling for coffee in recycled cardboard cups, after the sparklers on the meringues burnt down and the cake was cut.

three layered carrot with thick icing.

and as all weddings go it ended. so soon.

after a week of durban navigation and GPS missions, shop trawling, dinners and so much dessert, the build up to the day was done. the previous week of venue visiting and helping dress jam jars with badges and ribbons was over.

my pink painted nails, slowly chipping, are now the only reminder of a surprise afternoon bachelorette party at polished, where we ate maraschino cherry and custard cupcakes, drank champagne and laughed at nail polish names.

like "no spain no gain"; "do you know jacques?" and "who comes up with these names anyway?"

(for real)

idioteque by radiohead always makes me feel nostalgic.

but from now on, it will be for a road trip, a red-and-white wedding, my closest friends, and a week spent by the sea.

in the beginnings of highveld winter.

relapse

2010-05-10T11:24:00.001+02:00

on saturday i went back to high school, unintentionally.

well, it was close enough anyway. not my high school but a similarly early 1900's style one across the railroad tracks. the afrikaans boys school version.

for the infamous rugby game, where the english boys school tries to convince themselves that they are going to win, every year. and every year, except for a few exceptions, they lose.

not that anyone is really there to watch the game anyway, apart from those still in uniform and those that actually care. for most of the crowds gathered around the try-line or congregating under the few trees on the field's sideline, today is an annual social event.

where everyone, regardless of where they fitted in on the perceived school social hierarchy, feigns interest in each others lives. and drinks. all day.

like a true high school event most of the afternoon was spent trying to actually get our drinks past security.

who took their jobs very seriously. they even went as far as opening and emptying bottles of cider that a short guy called adrian had neatly scaled through the gaps in the metal fence, and were previously camouflaged in the grass.

until he asked for my help. he thought me sitting next to him would make the bottle-through-gate exchange less noticeable. i guess he didn't consider the pants i was wearing.

purple synthetic. flower print.

something i didn't think was that conspicuous before, i mean, they're comfortable.

"so you are the girl wearing the purple pajama pants" a friend said later, after i found him laughing at the other side of the field.

and this was only the first of the comments. some people were complementary, some laughed, out loud, openly. some also may have also have mentioned the words "free spirit", but i think by that stage i had been drinking hansa out of a vuvuzela, so i wasn't really paying that much attention.

to anything really.

it may have something to do with finishing a bottle of rose between three people behind the crowds, on the incline overlooking the field. or the several beers/ciders we drank while contemplating how to get the rest of our beers/ciders inside without anyone noticing.

security may have been tight, at normal points of entry. but the surrounding train track construction definitely opened a few more, especially for noticeably oversized bags of clinking glass.

this was the first year i remember anyone checking anyone's bags, for anything. more often that not i have watched this game at the rival school. a school, that on careful consideration, is about 10 times the size, and full of exotic pine tree forests and places to hide.

the afrikaans school might win the rugby every year, but they definitely lost out on land size. in a big way.

and even though security tried, the field was littered with bottles when the final whistle was blown, and most of the crowd moved on to their linguistically assigned alumni bar, for cold beer and drink specials.

an interesting venue, and probably the only bar in the world where having breasts doesn't help you get served. they did sell quartz over the counter though, which was great.

south american style drinking, all over again.

except this time i was talking to primary school friends, and at least a handful of people i've known from the age of 3. people i made out with in high school, and the ones my friends made out with too. people who still remember that your main ambition in life at the age of 15 was to be a drummer in a punk band.

embarrassing.

although, if i had fulfilled that dream i would at least have something to say when that question arises.

"so what are you up to now?"

i wish i could say i was studying, or that when i say i'm a writer that i could actually list the publications i "write" for.

but, instead, i bring in words like "recession", and vague answers like "i just haven't found what i'm looking for yet" to cushion the fact that to most people, "lady of leisure" really implies that i'm a lazy, clown-pants-pajama-wearing slob.

but i'm not, i promise.

i know that even though my phone died, i missed several calls, and lost my friends in the darkness of a dogbox rooftop electro party later, that i am responsible. that even though i may have tried try to sit on a band box behind the stage which looked like it had a cover, but didn't, that i have direction.

i know that even though i spent the whole of yesterday in agony, blaming steers and their oily fries, and missing out on the well stocked spread of a sunday family lunch, i have learnt that my alcohol tolerance extends to about roughly two beers.

i know that i have managed to deal with lack of sleep like an adult, even though i had to excuse myself from the lunch table, to go sleep, again.

in the same yellow-painted room as the one i was reluctant to leave every morning to catch the bus outside. the same room where wire moon-motif chimes still hang silently, a remnant of an early teen obsession with paintings of anthropomorphic solar bodies, feng shui and tie-dyed clothes with painted fairies and cats.

just because i'm in the same room, staring at the same curtains with the weirdly sperm shaped embroidery, and doing some of the same things, repeatedly, doesn't mean i'm still the same person.

it doesn't mean i'm relapsing into old high school habits of underachievement, i'm sure of it.

well, pretty sure.

egoli escape

2010-05-02T19:22:00.000+02:00

on friday night i drove 60km, from pretoria to johannesburg, to visit nicole.

at first, i had vague considerations of driving this far. after three months of cape town conditioning, the equivalent of driving to somerset west felt far. at night.

but after filling up at engen, and stocking up on a beef noodle wrap, iced coffee and lemon curd-filled cupcakes from woolworths, it only took glen lewis' les indiscretes playing from my one functional toyota tazz speaker to revive my enthusiasm.

i ended up staying the whole weekend.

in nicole's gorgeous art deco style apartment set against the rocky rand hill of houghton estate. from the road, the impressive facade is invisible behind brick walls, and the general commercial and vehicular distraction of louis botha avenue.

but once you take a few steps up the brick line driveway, the apartment block is hidden architectural splendour. to me. pot-plant lined corridors, surrounding greenery, moss covered concrete. vaguely reminiscent of paradiso perduto in alfonso cuaron's great expectations.

instead of going out drinking, we stayed in and talked. consistently. i even contributed my five cents to a discussion on photo shoot selection. nicole and her boyfriend, brett, are a photographic/stylist duo, and it was educational to witness the thought processes behind creating a visual story. something i have definitely taken for granted when flipping through magazines.

there was some wine, and several conversations. about nothing, and everything.

i have known nicole my entire life, but 7 years of almost continuous separation by landmass and oceans, highways and occupations have kept us from spending long periods of time together. brief stints of city sharing have been infrequent, as a result of my restlessness.

but this weekend, i camped out on her double blow-up mattress, made tea for myself in her kitchen, and washed her dishes. i attended her regular morning yoga class and took strain. we watched summer heights high and bjork's disturbing debut.

dancer in the dark.

leaving on saturday faded with the strength of my kundalini'ed-limbs, other plans in other places falling through as i fell asleep on her beige couch, the gigantic palm tree through the curved window like a giant umbrella to the drizzly sky.

i chose the comfort of goose down, cookies and a screen over other diarised adventures. it was weirdly hilarious australian satire and a factory worker's plight over other social interaction.

but somehow we managed to make it out on saturday night. to trabella. near wanderers. a busy pizza place. so busy that our table was inconveniently located next to the crockery/cutlery cupboard, the waiter's arms common intruders into our white-cloth space.

luckily we complained, and moved.

to the quieter area up the steps, and a few other patron's dismay.

(when i said sorry, my version of 'excuse me', to a lady nearby, in order to get by. she said thanks. obviously peturbed. we were not.)

more conversation over halloumi salad, two glasses of cafe culture and a rocket, papaya, pancetta and feta pizza later, i had a head full of pinotage and a tipsy encounter with the ever confusing pull/push door setup on leaving.

with take-away boxes of breakfasts to be.

our drive home was a circuit pathway of high walls, traffic lights and circles. at one point we noticed a well attended fair, through a fence. i caught just a glimpse of teenagers, fires and inflated bouncy things. my lethargic self was strangely urged to attend.

there was silver sun pickups, and inside head reminiscing on previous trips to the city. every visit a new comprehension of the maze of streets, the main arteries of the M1, jan smuts and william nicol slowly connecting me to a deeper understanding, and appreciation.

notorious for many things, jo'burg, egoli, the city of gold, is fascinating. to me. restaurants around a suburban street corners, architecture and a revival of inner city. there is history, space, trees and unlike cape town, parking.

but as with any city, it is only relative to the company you share, there.

and that for me, is something i will be going back for.

on the next N1 southbound escape.

pak 'n toon

2010-04-22T14:37:00.004+02:00

we reach the 8km marker. and take some photos. it's a challenge since my hands have become useless and white with cold. and slightly swollen.

having long nails is not a good idea on a 5 day hike.

my cousin chris and i had been walking for about 2 hours in the pouring rain, and wind, before the clay 8km sign. we thought we were only halfway, but thankfully the first day on the whale trail is only 15km, and not 18km as we expected.

we had started off in potberg at around 9am, after a briefing by the whale trail manager, lamla, who told us all the basics. she said the first day would take about 8 hours.

in the sunshine yes, and when you have time to appreciate the apparently awesome views, which we couldn't. but what i could appreciate was the the amazing variety of fynbos forest around me. massive king proteas, white proteas and pink disa plants.

(the nature course i completed recently has definitely made me more aware of the uniqueness of the cape mountain floral kingdom mkay)

chris is a landscape architect, so he was helpful in pointing out plants. he was also helpful in keeping me motivated in the persistent downpour. with only a handful of snack breaks, and trail mix (which ended up all over my face since i did not have full control of my fingers), we ended up at the first overnight hut, after only 4.5 hours.

fireplace, change of clothes, foil pouch tuna on a wrap. bliss. unfortunately my other cousin, debz, and her fiance kyle, had had to turn back, but soon enough we saw them roll in after the porters had dropped off our big black boxes.

for the record, paying extra for porterage on the whale trail is absolutely worth it. 15km in the rain with a full backpack = unimaginable.

after warming up, we built a fire and ate. and ate more. the indoor braai also doubled up as a shoe dryer, even though chris' new hi-tec soles shrank to about half the size. he spent the rest of the weekend packing pick 'n pay packets into his shoes.

onto day 2. better weather and a solid group effort to stay together. to make up for lost time debz and kyle headed off first. the rest of the crew, robyn, sean, debbie, ingrid, chris, evan, lee, liz, stuart and myself managed to keep together for a while. until i decided to go macro with my camera on the fynbos, and ended up doing the rest of the stretch on my own.

interesting. saw how the alien invasive port jackson is being slowly attacked by carbuncular wasp nests, and infinite varieties of limestone growing plants. on the downhill stretch the vegetation had shifted from mountain fynbos terrain to limestone soil.

the weathered rock had a holey-cheese/lunar appearence, and for a while i felt totally isolated in this weird moonscape, with burnt proteas (which kind of looked like microphones), blackened shrubs, and only a few orange-breasted sunbirds chirping noisily around me.

(yes, the appreciation for nature has now extended to birds too)

but finally, i smelt and heard the salty fizz of the ocean over the next hill. and after climbing down a pretty steep incline i made it across the rocky shore to the a-frame huts of noetsie, bypassing washed up redbait, which looked and smelled like old feet.

the noetsie a-frame huts are right on the sea, so we spent the afternoon on a blanket on the grass outside, watching greedy starlings steal food off the rocks, drinking wine, admiring the ocean and loving the fact that we had made it another 15km down the 5 day track.

that night i fell asleep to the sound of the sea. after a mean mushroom pasta cooked over the fire, and a few hours singing eighties tracks off key, a cappella. i'm surprised i could keep up actually. i was only born in '86, and had a huge generation gap to contend with the entire weekend. spandeau ballet, scalectrix, kate bush, say what?

day 3. time to pak 'n toon (pack a toe) along the coast. after watching a pod of dolphins broaching the waves, and doing mean tricks. unfortunately the whale trail is only home to breeding southern right whales from around june to september, but watching the dolphins surfing was substitute enough. for me.

so we set off, and climbed back up the steep hill. even though day three was only
10.5 km it was slightly more challenging, with undulating rocky slopes.

and caves.

one of which i tried to explore but couldn't, i was too scared. there was a weird little wooden hut in that massive grot at stilgat. eerie, dark and well positioned from the wind and weather. a perfect place for the cave-dwelling people who inhabited the coastline long before old jannie v.R joined the VOC.

i can imagine it must be an interesting life, living in a cave along the sea, especially in the beautiful de hoop nature reserve, where the approx. 60km whale trail is marked out with white painted feet. debz thinks she would have like to have been a cave-dweller, making shell necklaces and living off the sea.

by what we could tell, this protected stretch of coastline is ideal for oysters, mussels and fishing. some of the boys were tempted to throw a line into one of the gullies- 4 galjoen an hour with tag and release is the record, as opposed to other nearby fishermen who only catch 1 galjoen in 100 hours. insane.

after some more up and down climbing we eventually reached the memorial statue for a boy called daantjie who drowned off the rocks in 1937. sad. it was the last pile of rocks before the pristine white sand beach, a little walk away from our next cottage.

but no unpacking/resting was done before we had a swim in the sea. no lifeguards here, and a fairly strong rip current kept it interesting. debz got super dunked and almost crashed into kyle. me, being cautious, managed to avoid that, barely.

that afternoon was more of the same. eat eat eat. drink wine. eat more. it was our turn to cook that night so we chopped up and cooked up a huge vegetable/coconut curry. in between epic party stories and a spotted genet hiding in the bushes, which did not respond to thrown stones.

before bed we had some coffee on the dunes, with rusks, and looked up at the infinite number of stars. well, we tried to, but somewhere between leaving the cottage and trying to climb up the quicksand-like dune, the sky was blanketed in cloud. so we saw a few. and then it got cold. so we sank back down the dunes and fell asleep, to the sea, again.

day 4 was more up and down missions, and a fair amount of time walking on the sand. unfortunately lee had hurt her knee/hamstring/leg quite badly, so her and evan decided to leave instead of risking further injury on unstable sand. but minus 2 we carried on strong for the next 8km, stopping frequently to look at rock pools and lie in the sun, which had decided to make an appearence.

it was the best day. in the sunshine we explored the strange petrified rock formations and watched blowholes shoot out white foam from the rocks- the fine mist creating a short-lived rainbow. the last cottage did not have hot water, but it did have a brilliant view of a deep rocky bay, where we could see sets of waves crash, foam, and get drawn out again, keeping up the consistent flow of weathering.

the last sunset was magnificent. pinks, yellows, and the dark blue of shadowed clouds, colours reminiscent of a my little pony cartoon background, without the prolific rainbows.

the last night we drank and ate whatever was left over, and a homecooked lentil bolognese, which may have led to several flatulence jokes the next day while struggling to climb the first uphill. with only 7km to go before the end we dragged out every snack stop, and took a little longer at every rock pool.

i was sad that the 5 day mission to koppie alleen was over. i had gotten into such a rhythym of wake up, eat, walk, see amazing views, sleep. but on the drive back to potberg to fetch our cars i could recap on the beautiful landscape we had passed on the first day, and laughed when i saw two huge baboons wading through the long grass.

soon we were packing up, in the rain, and leaving julian's in bredasdorp, where we had stopped for a well deserved carbo-loaded lunch. the drive back didn't feel as long as before, mainly because this time i wasn't crushed up against the biggest cooler box in the world in the back canopy of the bakkie.

this time i had full reign of the cd frontloader.

and i rode shotgun.

carma

2010-03-30T10:29:00.001+02:00

friday 12 march. a highway turnoff. a BMW loaded with food and booze for a farm wedding. 5 people, including a bride and groom. a colorful cake precariously balanced on a wooden plank in the back seat.

my slow driving diligence (70km/h on the N2) didn't help me while taking the right turn off onto the R382.

"what the f@#$?"

SCREECH.BOOM.CRASH.SKID.CRASH.

alex shouting. wondering how all of a sudden i am flanked by a plastic bag thing, why the zip on my moonbag is broken, why my glasses are next to me. why ian can't really speak when i turn around and see him getting hauled out of the car.

a random guy sticks his head in the vehicle and sees alex's sealed mini-bottle of fish eagle in the passenger footwell. urges us to hide it.

"it's not open."

the cake. gone. two tiers survive while the rest lies in a colourful mess on the back seat. the sugar scarecrow couple for the top of the cake are saved.

i lie over the steering wheel. wondering how i couldn't have seen the white toyota speeding towards me. why i didn't just wait longer at the stop street.

richie, justin and danielle were behind us. they help unload what survived the impact from the car. the boot is soaked in melon juice and beer.

i have eventually managed to get out of the drivers seat, via the left passenger door. i climb out unscathed. shock numbing my disbelief.

a tow truck guy is asking me questions as i sob over the phone. the other guy in the white car gets towed away before the police arrive and ask me for my licence.

ian and laura get taken to the nearest hospital in the ambulance. everyone is asking me if i am ok.

"you know, someone could shoot you right now and you wouldn't feel it" says the ambulance man. "are you sure you don't want to get checked out?"

yes. right now i don't care about me.

the wedding was the next day.

thankfully i had a support system to fall back on, and insurance.

the BMW was gone, but the wedding went on, after the cake lady spent 8 hours redoing the cake, and ian and laura returned from hospital, slightly bruised, but ok.

thursday 11 march. a violent cloudburst at the farm. the wind gale force. we couldn't even open the back door.

we thought the worst when we couldn't see our tent at the end of the field.

but the tent is tundra-proof, and equipped to deal.

hopefully, i am too.

putrid shoe

2010-03-04T13:26:00.006+02:00

there is nothing that will put your life into perspective quite like cleaning your sneakers. after a weekend away. at a festival. where cleanliness is not common.

my not-so-black-anymore vans sneakers, with skull-lined inner fabric, lay at the bottom on my stairs for 3 days. caked with mud and looking more bent up than usual. which is saying a lot.

i was under the impression that a quick banging together would rid the shoes of their disdainful appearance. and most of the mud and festival dust. but taking the cleaning process a step further revealed the worst.

my sneakers were heinous.

some water, sunlight soap and a less than energetic scrub released the vile sole-living demons of my lower shoe. it smelt like my high school bathrooms. where sanitary bin cleaning day was not everyday.

gagging. but still cleaning.

need. shoes. to. wear.

must. bear. with. smell.

i gave up after a while, even though the saturated shoes belched out muddiness into my spattered bathtub. repeatedly. after several washes.

they are now on the balcony sunning themselves, while i contemplate the mess i got them (and myself) into last weekend.

gees

2010-03-01T19:32:00.003+02:00

two full days of sun, stage and some vodka.

an electro tent shaped like half a golf ball, an afrikaans rapper with a cap of diving board proportions.

an operatically trained singer in fitting pants, only outdone by chris chameleon's red tights.

handstands and attempts at breakdancing in the crowd, jagermeister shots in test tubes.

a huge dam, a river and an evening spent swimming and watching a simultaneously stunning sunset and moonrise on either sides of the river.

a lilo, a mangy pile of hair and a pool filled with people willing to share their beer, vodka and whale toys.

lost keys, which were then found, a lost sock, sunburn, hansa pilsener and hanging with some of the funniest people around.

just some of what went down at RAMfest, held in a little camping spot called nekkies, just past the 4km huguenot tunnel.

a definite rival to last year's koppi experience, i expect i will recover from the madness.

sometime in the next few days.

hopefully.

educated

2010-02-24T13:28:00.002+02:00

i have the past few days online. learning all i can.

i realize how little i know. and how much i am wanting to learn.

social media applications. so many. discipline. lacking.

but i am working on that.

but in after hours i went to see an education. it was that or bright star. my friend laylaa chose the former. and i am glad she did.

loved it. from the sixties fringe style to the gorgeous red and white dress, from the parisian sunset setting to the french woman gurgling on vinyl.

carey williams is impressive. rosamund pike is gorgeous, and entertainingly stupid. dominic cooper is hot, being english. and peter sarsgaard is believably english.

nostalgic inspiration.

contemplating khaki

2010-02-22T16:38:00.004+02:00

i have been in cape town for over a month now.

i have started to tell people that i am living here.

i am happy to be here. for now.

i have actively searched for formal employment options, including interviewing for various positions. these included a gig as a junior copywriter, a SEO writer/social media maintainer and an junior editorial position at a magazine.

i got the junior copywriter job, but i decided not to take it. the job pays the same amount as my half day job last year, and quite frankly, that is just not good enough for me.

so now, after a week of living in my godmother's cottage around the corner, i am back in my parents house in the quiet suburb of kenilworth, spending the better part of each day behind a screen. reading, writing, and losing track of time.

the reason i had to move out of my parent's house is because other people were staying here. they have gone now.

and i am back to being as unemployed as i was before i had to move out, except this time it does not worry me. i am very fortunate to be in a position of choice, and i have chosen something else.

i am going to be a tour guide.

my father has always had a distinct love for travel, and for showing people around. it has been a longtime dream of his to set up van schoor's tours, and it is happening.

a certain german friend will be assisting us with his tourism knowledge, and i will be writing, learning and maximizing my linguistic skills. i will also be developing van schoor's tours from the ground up. intense marketing and compliance with bureaucratic requirements included.

and i will write too. this is the year of jenna getting published. repeatedly.

so i am very excited about that.

but i need to go and do something about my laundry problem first.

domestic self-sufficiency. bliss.

unemployed but awesome?

2010-02-03T19:30:00.001+02:00

getting back from overseas is tough. no matter how long you have been away it seems.

i can’t imagine what it is like to return after over a year abroad.

you get used to things.

i got used to being stared at, getting lots of attention and hearing spanish. all the time.

now no one stares at me, I blend in unless I am laughing (ya’ll know I laugh loudly) and I don’t hear any spanish. or any foreign language for that matter.

unless I make the effort to speak to car guards in french.

(yes, car guards are something to get used to too)

i have decided I will speak to them, even if at this stage my french is really a confused mess of similarly sounding spanish words. i have decided to make that conscious effort whenever I hear that familiar french accent.

it has only been 3 days since I made this conscious decision. have already chatted and sang french children’s songs with pat the doorman at the new orange street hotel, spoke to multilingual kenilworth car guard guy and argued pleasantly with the security man at la med, who wouldn’t let me sit on the stairs.

for whatever reason.

people have a lot to say about these guys, how they are foreign and stealing local people’s jobs. and yes, this isn’t ideal.

but these guys are the ones waiting outside in the dark. alone. every night. in the hope that you will toss them some spare change.

i can’t help thinking that they must be lonely without many people around who can speak their language.

being home made me forget how that feels.

so yes, I don’t have formal employment now but I do have time.

to be in cape town, come up with marketing ideas for my dad’s tourism company and recover from a day spent not watching the horse races but getting free beer instead. from accountants.

unemployment status has now been changed to self- employed. or happily occupied.

for now.

sister tripping

2010-01-06T12:10:00.004+02:00

so megan arrived. somewhat early.

needless to say my anticipated "walking through the arrival gate surprised and happy face" did not go down.

it was more subdued meeting. but not less appreciated. by any means.

the slow adjustment to south africaness begun the minute she handed me my fifa world cup plastic band. a gift from jozi airport.

i could feel my accent getting stronger as i spoke. happily throwing out the casual afrikaans. while catching up on 3 months of gossip on the cab ride to our hostel in san telmo.

ostinatto.

not the best choice i will admit. but adequate. i knew the hood from my previous time in BA so decided to go with it. instead of the much talked about milhouse.

all this was exacerbated by meg's extreme culture shock reaction. i had taken for granted how much i was used to. including not being able to be understood/understand.

but as the days picked up pace we began to have the best time. as only sisters can. this included having to fend off undesirable argentinian men in our dorm with "no espana", navigating our way through the rainy streets and finding food to eat. which was definitely not a problem.

meg became an empanada fiend. like me. and we ate much steak.

found friends in two english sisters who were hilarious. and the crazy guy behind the hostel bar. it must be noted here that ostinatto's bar is a redeeming feature.

unfortunately however, despite our best laid plans to stay in BA to watch daddy yankee, we were tired of city traipsing. so took the ol' buquebus across the sea to colonia on the sunday. and had to wait in a queue for ages.

you think this is the wort part of the trip. it's not.

the trip didn't even begin for another 5 hours. it seems that although you may think your life is just an insignificant existence competing with millions, the truth is your death has the potential to cause catastrophic delay. if you die on transport.

which is what happened. an old lady on the boat from the other side of the muddy channel said her final farewell on the big boat en route. so we waited. for a long time. while the bureaucratic process of death took place.

we got free coffee though. except that if i'd known they were handing out free stuff i would have got into the queue sooner. the joys of incomprehensible intercom.

but it happened eventually. and we got to colonia fuelled by baguettes, strange spinach cheese quiche, empanadas and renditions of the buquebus theme tune.

and then we got ripped off by a taxi driver on the way to our hostel. uncool.

but we got to our hostel eventually. el viajero. and partied it up with two fellow pta peeps and american lonny. hit amnesia at 3am to much dancing after down hill rolling and conversing with a homeless guy with two dogs.

walked around colonia the next day. what a quaint cobbled place. got stuck in the lighthouse when a hoard of schoolchildren invaded. had to wait in the tiny stairwell at the command of a guy who looked exactly like michael jordan's assistant in space jam.

after eating the most disgusting empanada on earth (poo flavoured for sure) we ran to catch the bus to the elite beachside town of punta del este. where we stayed for 5 days. in the same hostel.

it was awesome. our day consisted of waking up to dulce de leche, bread and coffee at 9.30 am, meeting a wide variety of people, then spending time lying around the pool/beach with said variety of people.

said variety of people may also have included argentinian bikers.

but mostly it was an awesome aussie crew. jay, luke (pooti), kerrie and matt became our regular pool/beach chilling companions. with the addition of josh, jeremy, rhiannon, emma and our two saffa friends from colonia.

we stayed so long we saw people come and go. then you know.

caught buses all over the town. out of interest to see the coastline and out of necessity due to the fact that there was no ATM nearby. which meg and i discovered after a misspent morning spent bike cruiser riding for what seemed like eternity.

meggie got a cut from the constantly slipping chain and claimed unreadiness to travel. but it all worked out ok. once we figured out the bus route.

drank so many caipirinhas they ran out of lime and cachaca at the bar. which to be fair was too expensive. like most of punta.

but we enjoyed it so much we didn't even make it up to cabo polonia like jamie suggested. oh well.

but eventually it was time to leave, and go spend a weekend with raven in montevideo. which was great. and once again consisted of not doing very much. besides eating the most decadent pizza on earth, buying several surprise alfajores and going for walks on the beach.

we also ate a seafood dinner in a weird garden tent thing. pretty much swarming in mosquitoes. but fun.

after another weekend in the endearing MVD we then hit up buquebus to BA to get a bus up to iguazu falls. the journey went on without a hitch. yay.

rocked out on tigre iguazu up to the humid brazilian border and spent three days exploring the gigantic crashing waterfall features (from both sides) and spending more time lazing by the pool with our punta pal jay a.k.a singas. in that humidity the pool was a godsend. the absolute drawcard of the hostel inn. which was fun.

partied hard by the pool after the best argentinian asado ever. tried to samba next to tall women with nipple tassles and an unattainable jiggle.

and as hostels go we met some hilarious people on the first night. and some who were just insane.

also got subjected to a downpour the second night. which killed the pool party vibe. but set up a contrasting chill, which was nice. and refreshingly unhumid.

after our time spent exploring the waterfalls and after my impressive collection of 50+ mosquito bites we headed back on the overnight tigre to BA. for our last night.

which consisted of all night electro party creamfields and being the only people in the crowd who could sing along to tiesto. when we weren't busting out ridiculous dance moves of course. speed will do that to you. and no, it's not that. it's what they call their energy drink. seriously.

our last day was less than ideal, what with no sleep and dancing until 6am. but we pulled through, went shopping and ate lunch in palermo and stocked up on DDL, malbec and mate. and alfajores.

tired, over it and eager for home we eventually boarded our jozi bound flight from EZE.

the realization that this was the end of my journey did not really register in my sleep deprived neuron circuitry.

but it has as i write this.

a detailed breakdown of the trip to follow.

raven reconnect

2009-12-22T19:59:00.004+02:00

so 30 minutes after touch down in buenos aires i met up with miss jones at the obelisco. and her friend alex from missouri. after over 3 years.

yes. 3 years had past since our random yet surprisingly intellectual conversations in the dorm bathrooms. 3 years since my insistence on continuously writing inane comments on the whiteboard outside her room.

but it didn't take even 3 minutes to realize that nothing had changed. except raven's hair. which is actually curly. didn't know that.

so after our rendez vous on the main strip of 9 de julio we headed on to palermo. the location of our hostel and in my opinion the best suburb of buenos aires. that i have seen anyway.

we then left alex behind while we went shopping. every saturday there is a mini market thing at the plaza nearby. which i was to frequent several times in the short time i spent in BA. now that's saying something.

restaurants turn into clothing markets. people sell awesome clothes, headbands and bags. for cheap. and there are plenty of places around to find beer and snacks. which we did find. further down the street past the coolest sunglasses/seeing glasses store i have ever seen.

there we drank two bottles of isenbeck and caught up on the last three years. which took a while. but was extremely fun. for one i found out that raven had worked with another one of my favourite american friends, sibel, on the obama campaign in D.C.

interesting.

also learnt a lot about montevideo. where raven had been doing study abroad for the previous four months. which is just across the murky sea/river thing that separates argentina from uruguay. the proximity obviously being the key to our reconnection.

i heard all about the horse drawn garbage "trucks", the general expensiveness of the city, the nature of it's upper class, the fact that everyone owns a dog and several other random facts which escape me.

these were all to be confirmed the next day when we headed back to montevideo via the buquebus ferry. which i was to take again. and again. but more of that later.

but before the ferry there was a night out in palermo to be had. after a well loved argentinian asado. with chorizo. and random chilean guys who appreciated my take on santiago slang. or they were just laughing at me. either way.

the steak was a bit tough. but i reconfirmed my long lost relationship with quilmes so it didn't bother me too much. also met a saffa dude who had moved to brasil and grown up in salvador. and studied at ithaca. as with many previous encounters with the few relocated saffa's i have met, much time was spent justifying. which annoys me. so we went out to drink instead.

to an awesome outdoor club/restaurant (people are all about multifunctional locations in argentina) with wooden furniture and trees. the drinks were expensive. but i liked my mojito. and enjoyed the random encounters.

"where are you from?"

"something un-understandly spanish"

"generally surprise at being told that i'm south african"

the usual.

but soon i needed to go "home". and sleep off that lethal mojito. woke up to rain and the worst headache in the history of jenna hangovers. which means VERY BAD.

and then it was ferry time. fun. loved the baguettes in the food section. even though the lettuce could have been fresher.

eventually got to montevideo and spent the next four days doing absolutely nothing in raven's apartment. on the beachfront.

raven was busy with research on an essay so i was more than happy to take over her laptop and make up for lost time on facebook. repeatedly. and for hours on end.

occassionally we did step out for food, ice cream, beach time and non-committal sightseeing. most of them i had actually seen on my first night. which i almost forgot to tell you about.

all the doing nothing that week was actually the result of walking the ENTIRE city that sunday night. in a political "yay we won" celebration. uruguay has to be the most patriotic country in the world. even in the rain we were singing (well i was making noises) shouting and carrying flags to celebrate the election of their new president, pepe mujica.

or something like that. it was fun. and got to meet loads of raven's english speaking local friends. who had grown up in the states. and who were all very cool.

spent the last night in montevideo with two of them before i had to meet my sister back in BA later that week.

i didn't sleep much at all that night. too much freestyle rapping and getting involved in calling a guy up for a bottle of VAT 69 at three in the morning. which he promptly delivered on a pink bicycle.

i love south america.

the next day of ferry catching and buses was tough. so i consoled myself with another baguette. and the thought that i'd be catching up with my sister the next day.

more on that.

soon.

santiago slothlike

2009-12-18T16:31:00.003+02:00

so after my nap in the back seat of franky´s ride we decided to have a beer in town. and walk around. we didn´t end up drinking any beer but i did see a lot of downtown santiago.

full of your quintessential monuments and statues commemorating revolutionary leaders. in fact there were quite a few. learnt a lot of chile´s attempt at communism and the resulting military take over by pinochet. and the subsequent controversial outcomes.

which differ according to your perspective. as i learnt after taking a look at a photographic exhibition in one of the city´s museum/gallery spaces. interesting.

we also met up with mareli, a fellow saffa traveller and friend of franky perro´s, in her downtown apartment. very cool. even got to throw out some afrikaans. the building she lived in was pretty insane, like an oversized boarding school building with decor finishes and massive corridors. with a somewhat faint whiff of urine smell.

i realized as i sat on her couch that it was the first time i had been in an acutal home in a long time. it was nice. after 2 months plus of being accustomed to absolutely no privacy in hostels i definitely appreciated the quiet personal space. and the guacamole that franky made too. so good.

and on that note the food in chile is awesome. maccers even puts guacamole on their mcchicken burgers. oh yes. in fact there is pretty much guacamole on most things. which i appreciate.

so we ended up drinking with mareli and her neighbour for a while before heading back to the burbs to meet franky´s family. which was an interesting experience. i finally realized the extent of my spanish. which FYI does not extend to chilean social gatherings. that being said however i have never been made to feel more welcome.

i was constantly being offered food. and drinks. and more food.

i miss it.

after meeting up with the family we then hit up franky´s local spot, teclados, to meet up with some of his friends. who were all good looking. so different looking from the inca inspired physique i´d become used to.

they were pretty funny too.

and then we drank beer and long island ice teas. but not in cocktail form. in chile they get the spirits in a separate glass and then combine it with another glass of coca cola.

lethal.

woke up on franky´s couch the next morning with a suitable headache. and then slept more.

and then we drove to the beach. 2 hours away in a town called maitencillo. were i tried unsuccessfully to stand up on a surfboard. but i enjoyed it. even though it was SO COLD. might have to learn to do it properly when i get home.

chilled out at the beach that sunday. which was beautiful. then at sunset we headed back home. to sleep.

which i did a lot of.

so yes. relaxation was to be the prime priority of the next week in santiago. absolute domestic bliss. i was so well taken care of it was insane. and so good to spend time in a home. with a comfortable couch, TV, and the company of the awesome cancino family.

franky had to work so his sister, fabiola, and i hung out all the time. went shopping. watched inane programs on MTV. went to a literature class on neruda at her university. understood some words.

generally had the best time.

drank loads of tea. ate quesillo (cream cheese but better) ham, and bread. and amazing homecooked cuisine which i have definitely not appreciated enough before.

too good.

but soon it was time to meet up with NC raven in BA before heading to uruguay. so i had to leave the comfortable confines of my happy chilean slothness and catch a flight.

somewhat reluctantly. i was sad to go. i must say.

definitely going to have to go back to chile.

soon.

quito quiet

2009-12-02T16:31:00.003+02:00

so after our island excursion it was back to being a conspicuous tourist. more whistling and kissy noises.

to be fair we stayed in the most touristy area in town. the mariscal. which had some cool shops. so mom and i went shopping. again. and bought ilze earrings for her 30th birthday. and alpaca gloves. and more jewellery for meg. mom also bought some type of carved nut thing.

we ate out. all the time. once again satisfying our endless urge for potato soup at the nearby ecuadorian restaurant. where the waiter insisted on continuing a spanglish conversation.

i miss that soup.

we also celebrated mom's birthday with jay and bella at a restaurant called boco del lobo. wolf's mouth. not sure what that's about but the interior was colourful and the food good. jay and bella told us the story of how they met. a touching tale.

it was one of several restaurants that we were to frequent over the following four days. the losers that we were. spending most of our time sleeping or reading in our room. as we had managed to find two english bookstores on our street. it was fun though.

the other restaurant favourite was uncle ho's. an american run vietnamese getup with a graffiti portrait of ho chi min. they even lovingly printed flyers with the slogan "i <3 ho's". jamie, i've kept one for you. insane grapefruit salad. also had some warm cocktail that took a while to make. the name escapes me.

in between doing absolutely nothing we also went to the local botanical garden, which had a beautiful butterfly enclosure. nothing like butterfly world but definitely up on the insane colour stakes. ilze. you would have loved it.

we also did a city tour. quito was declared a UNESCO world heritage site some time ago. so we looked at, wait for it, more churches. one one them was a south american take on the notre dame. but instead of gargoyles there were turtles, iguanas and other animals. pretty cool.

another church had the addition of a saint's corpse. creepy.

after that we went to see the equator. although obviously there isn't much to see. besides a red line and the additional features they added to the museum to give it more credibility. at least to them. this included various amazon animals in formaldehyde. an amazon palm house. and a statue of a naked amazonian man with his winky tied back with string.

the museum also prides itself on its ability to demonstrate equator effects. still not entirely convinced but we now each have a certificate for being able to miraculously balance an egg on a nail on the equator line.

i think it has more to do with the shape of the egg. and the worn out nail top. but maybe that's just me.

we also walked n the equator line with our eyes closed. and watched the water spin around the plug on both sides. it seemed different. but i have been told before that this is a lie. i am now centrifugally confused.

either way they make money off it happily. and our guide was cool. we were also fortunate enough to admire some guinea pigs in some late 110 year old woman's hut. he called them lunch. they're still pets to me.

on our return we chatted to a lovely old lady who was distributing wheelchairs in ecuador in our hotel. she was from the saltspring islands off vancouver island in canada. never knew it existed. but it sounds lovely. full of exiled hippies and the like.

but eventually our time in quito reached its end and mom was due to head home. and me to santiago, chile, to visit franie and the cancino crew.

on the way over i was bumped up to business class for some reason. so i spent three hours in the vip lounge eating the free food and taking advantage of the high speed internet. oh yeah.

it made saying goodbye to mom easier. although it was still sad. but only a month until i was home.

after covert attempts to avoid taxi touts in upstairs airport bathrooms i met franky perro outside. and it was time to explore santiago city while he went to work.

i managed a few hours of hot dog eating, site seeing and watching pigeons getting outsmarted by little birds for crumbs before the travel tiredness hit me. and i had to go take a nap in his car.

eco living ecuador

2009-12-02T02:34:00.005+02:00

in the galapagos. the most bizarre collection of islands. all unique. even though we only saw 4. and swarming with tourists. mostly 20 years older than me.

but it was still awesome. a 360 shift from my previous backpacker existence. before it was bars, no sleep, buses, stale bread rolls and beer. in the galapagos it was early mornings. yacht trips. and deluxe cuisine.

bliss.

something i could never have afforded to do on my own. thanks mom.

saw the most bizarre animals. up close. the insane iguana population did not even flinch if you stood right next to them. the islands are so isolated that predation was never an issue. and therefore they have no fear of humans.

also saw birds. sea lions. baby sea lions. more birds. and snorkeled with sharks. and turtles. and then got on the boat to eat a two course meal. daily.

for four days.

in between exploring various volcanic islands. some with only lava remnants, tunnels and sand. others with pristine beaches. learnt more about how darwin actually got the idea for his origin of species theory. it all started when he examined the different species of finches on the island. who differed by the size of their beaks.

other evolutionary examples include the black marine iguana. who has a long tail and dives underwater to eat algae. the other iguanas lie under cactus trees waiting for the fruit to fall down. we even saw evolution in action (oxymoron?). an iguana that had actually climbed into a tree and was trying to whack down a juicy piece. apparently a rare sight.

i love iguanas. i want one.

and yes yes. all very targeted at an older age range but hey. i can appreciate.

we also had great company in jay and bella. an awesome couple from london in their thirties who we got on super well with. much like a foreign version of our dear russ and ilze.

having them on the trip was good value. even though everyone else on the trip was sweet too. weird being surrounded by "adults" again. but i enjoyed it. and drank many strong cocktails over dinner.

which was nice.

our group was also split by the spanish versus english linguistic curtain. but they were all very pleasant. even if one lady was in serious competition with her husband for facial hair. and he had a full beard.

our tour guides were fabulous too. even though their attempts at claiming to be younger were pitiful. the one also looked like ecuadorian richard gere.

they also all laughed at us when we saw what we thought were turtles in the sea. it looked like two. they kept saying something about "combination" "combination".

i was confused.

turned out they meant "COPULATION". which i only realized after they repeatedly said "SEXO".

yes. turtles multitask sex and sea swimming.

embarrassed much?

one boat dude also tried to push me off the boat at some point. think i was awkwardly trying to remove my flippers. or some such bent over "oh i'm sticking my arse out" angle activity.

funny.

basically it was the ideal mom and daughter getaway. eco hotel and everything. hammocks included. absolutely loved our room. we even got goodnight cookies.

i also happened to pick up an armistead maupin book at the front desk, having nothing else to read. that was an experience.

we also found a book written by some lady whose dad and uncles escaped nazi germany to colonise the galapagos. an interesting read considering then the main island, santa cruz, was almost totally barren except for the highland interior. they had to build everything from scratch. and they ate turtle lard.

now the main part of santa cruz is a right gringo trap. with the associated expensive tacky souvenir stores.

unfortunately though it came to an end. and we had to travel back to the barren balsa island to fly to our next destination.

the UNESCO approved ecuadorian capital. quito.

killing time cuenca

2009-11-30T19:16:00.007+02:00

and the beginning of a two week period with no hangovers.

it felt good (notice past tense). just time spent relaxing and exploring cities and bizarre volcanic islands with mom.

and getting well spoilt of course. more sushi (not free and not nearly as good unfortunately), restaurants and no lack of sleep. me gusta. a lot.

we did what we could in guayaquil, which included eating a seriously costly lunch. in american dollars. which ecuador has used in since dollarisation '99.

mom tried to eat something that looked like intestines with bananas in rice. we did discover mora that day though. blackberry juice. good.

mom and i were also later confronted with freely roaming iguanas in the park opposite. we thought one had escaped underneath the bars. we freaked out. a little. and then noticed it climbing up a tree.

and then we noticed the other twenty iguanas in the branches above us.

i loved them. but mom got scared. so we moved onto the malecon, or waterfront. where we noticed an obscene amount of tree debris floating in the silty river type thing.

basically we were just impatiently killing time before we left for the galapagos.

so we took a van to cuenca just for 2 days/1 night. 3 hours on winding andean mountain road. for me, it was a decent road by comparison to others i'd seen before. no dead donkeys this time. mom wasn't entirely comfortable, especially when our altitude ascension took us above cloud cover.

but we got there eventually, and passed through the beautiful cajas national park on the way. and then it was more gringo getting around with all the usual stares, attempts at communication and generally being taller than everyone.

but we had a good time. saw a panama hat factory place. where our guide had joker like scars around his mouth and i got to try on some metal hat fitting contraption. which was heavy.

so we bought some hats. one for each member of our family of course. in fact, they weren't panama hats at all. that is just what they came to be called after being exported through the panama canal.

their real name is. oh wait. i can't remember.

ask mom.

we also took a walking city tour with juan. and juan. juan 1 was cool and very informative. went to an awesome art museum with photo exhibitions, video installations and a whole room filled with crap. garbage. old toys and things. rearranged in the most interesting way. impressive.

i had forgotten that i acutally enjoy museums. depending.

also went wandering around ANOTHER market. but this one didn't induce dry retching. it was clean. and had a wide variety of different fruit. and women softly whacking kids with herbs and rolling eggs over their bodies.

it is meant to get rid of bad spirits.

or something.

we also visited a place where a french explorer, who was trying to locate the ecuator, was burnt to death for shagging the mayor's wife back in the day. some nicknames resulted. not one of them flattering.

all in all an interesting colonial city. with, you guessed it, an excessive number of churches. one was painted blue though which was a change.

cuenca was also where mom and i developed our insatiable addiction to locro de papas. thick potato soup with avocado and cheese. with the addition of fresh lemonade. we could kill a 5 litre jug between us.

we also booked our flight back to guayaquil in time for our island connection. mom was not eager to repeat previous 'death road' experience.

so after dealing with the slight obstacle of our flight being cancelled two hours before departure, we headed back to guayaquil.

with adequate time to be ripped off by a taxi driver on the way home, sleep, and catch our connection to the enchanted isles.

finally.

post maniacal chill

2009-11-26T02:47:00.009+02:00

i have had few experiences of genuine fear in my life. ranging from mild to debilitating. the 8 hour bus trip that took me over the ecuadorian border from peru hits the fear scale at about 6.

and what made it worse was that crossing the border meant a totally different kind of spanish. an accent i could not understand. at all. in peru i´d managed to pick up a few words. and was actually able to reply to simple direct questions.

on this trip i couldn´t grasp a single syllable. which may have been exacerbated by the extreme level of sleep deprivation i was experiencing. at least i had a bottle of strawberry flavoured drinking yoghurt and a fully charged ipod at my disposal. without these i don´t think i would have survived.

and the guy that sat next to me was really sweet. pity my partially functioning brain couldn´t do much in the way of maintaining, or initiating, any form of conversation.

nevertheless the journey continued. with various people trying to sell all manner of useless items. and food. a lot of it. some of which smelled really good. but considering the toilets on buses are often ´solo urinario´ i thought better of culinary experimentation.

more unsuccessful attempts at comprehension. and donating small amounts of water to the mother of the adorable toddler next to me. yeah. i had no idea what she was saying either.

the cross border bus journey also involved a lot of admin. and police checks. awesome. thankfully the peruvian officials were really helpful. they were even genuinely concerned at the state of my perfectly straight camera strap shaped neck graze.

courtesy of the peruvian thief who successfully relieved me of my camera on the beach the night before i left. and made sure it was painful.

the pain, more than the loss, angered me.

but it´s all good now.

and although the bus journey felt like forever, we eventually pulled into the high tec bus station of guayaquil. and i made my way to my mother. who was waiting for me in a decent hotel.

a definitive step up from the shed.

at least in terms of star ratings.

the next few days were relaxed. and essential to my current wellbeing. it was also great to catch up with mom. and get taken care of for a change. and although guayaquil was not the best place i´ve ever been it served its purpose.

the gateway to the galapagos.

but not before we went panama hat shopping.

man down mancora

2009-11-24T17:28:00.008+02:00

travelling is often a succession of mediocre successes. enjoyable moments. and slight twinges of regret. but sometimes you make such a great travelling move without thinking too much about it. and it´s awesome.

this happened on a monday morning in lima of all times. after a weekend of embarrassing moments, goodbyes and bad photos. i could have either gone to huaraz for two days. and then mancora for two days. which was a stupid plan really.

so i took the 3pm bus to mancora at the last minute. even though it was expensive. ran into mat at the bus station. heard stories about cusco that confirmed my bad experiences. then took a cruz del sur bus. basically like an airline with all the safety advertisments and promotional videos.

and badly translated subtitles.

sat next to the quietest guy ever. who spent the whole time doing doodles. turned out he was actually a graffiti artiste, so these doodles were presumably special.

i also happened to turn around at some point during the 16 hour bus ride and see a familiar face reading an extremely oversized novel. turns out it was claire. a girl i chatted with briefly with at a bar (surprise) in la paz. the fact that i remembered her name was impressive. even to me.

so already things were falling into place. we then got put into the same room at the loki as two other people from the bus. charlotte and no-speak-scribble guy. room 213. which just happened to be the room in which sierra was trying to get some sleep. she had been in mancora for a week and still hadn´t gotten very much of it.

which was no surprise. apart from a relatively chilled first day of chatting and chilling at the bar, the following three days were a mental succession of parties, very little sleep and very basic lodgings. which we christened ´the shed´.

basically, the loki lacked any resemblance of atmosphere. and a distinctly noticeable predominance of douchebag. so the four of us moved. to hospedaje el amanecer. for 3 soles a night each. ridiculous. that´s like 10 rand. and even though the beds were like concrete and the plug didn´t work after claire used her hair straightener, it was home.

the shed had no rival for pre-party atmosphere. pisco and inca kola pre-drinks and the best music. thanks to charlotte´s ipod and super cool playlists of course.

we also happened to take over both the sushi bar and the hula hula club in the short time i was there. on our second night we were already taking over the music selection, getting free sushi and basically dominating the mancora nightlife.

on my last night people were actually asking me about our ´part ownership´ at the hula bar. hilarious. maybe it had something to do with the fact that within an hour we could fill up the club. from empty to packed. just by dancing. we were unstoppable.

some of the best consecutive three days of my life. enhanced by some interesting people. including the relentless 14 year old jewellery seller, william a.k.a shellboy. who always had a way of appearing at inopportune times. too funny.

the guys who worked at the sushi bar were great too. the mancora madness would not have been the same without them. all that free food, pisco and dancing to reggaeton.

it was all too much fun. but saturday the 7th of november came around and it was time to leave peru. to meet my mom in guayaquil, ecuador.

i was a broken hungover tired person. but i survived the nightmare 8 hour bus journey that followed. somehow.

lima loki loco

2009-11-20T02:57:00.003+02:00

so we made it in time for the opening halloween bash. it was great to be one of the first people to arrive in the newly built loki gig in lima. new everything. a first. although we got a small dorm instead of the value one. but having our own private bathroom helped. until the toilet got blocked.

looking for a costume was an interesting exercise. although in the end we just settled for simple yet effective. disgusting neon 80s shirt plus my leopard print tights for james. backcombed crazy hair and matching sif 80s gear for katie. new cotton dress plus gold band = attempt at greek goddess for me.

well the greek goddess attempt lasted until we decided it was a good idea to drink pisco. and jagermeister. then i think i lasted 3 more hours. during which time there are a lot of less than flattering photos taken. including ones where i was smiling happily but blissfully unaware of a copius amount of food in my teeth.

we attacked that snack table ravenously. i remember the guacamole was delectable.

i went to bed before midnight.

only katie actually made it out. and joey. who ended up spending the night in another hostel after the guys she cabbed it with decided to go to the complete opposite end of town to where everyone else was going.

i was obviously not part of this. all i know is i woke up feeling like another not so successful halloween had passed. and that i needed to take advantage of the loki breakfasts. which i might add have always been awesome. despite other negative/positive loki experiences.

ann and syb didnt make it out either. die hard katie did well as usual. that kid has some other kind of party stamina. which i can only wish to have.

the next day i ate kfc. and then mcdonalds. which made me feel better for a little while. and since it was katie´s last night we all went out for a big dinner in barranco and went to visit our friends at the point hostel.

although "friends" may be a relative term as certain people had to be reminded who we were. after only a few days away. i guess working behind a bar in a hostel does take its toll.

the next morning katie left. which was slightly emotional. so james and i went to eat sushi on the miraflores main road. and then i had to say goodbye to him. that was slightly emotional too. then i made a last minute decision to catch the afternoon bus to mancora.

which proved to be an extremely good one.

huanchaco. not huancacho.

2009-11-19T21:28:00.002+02:00

because the latter means something rude in spanish. and even though i kept trying not to say it the second way i kept doing it. it was so hard not to.

i wouldn´t repeat it to anyone who does speak spanish.

either way, it´s a cool place. probably the most relaxed place i´ve been to on this trip. actually it definitely is. very laid back surf town, where pretty much every local we met taught surfing and rode on a skateboard.

me gusta.

they also take out these cool long pointy reed boats. can´t remember the name now, but they use them to fish i think. we considered going out on one. but we didn´t. we also considered surfing. but guess what. we didn´t do that either.

what we did do was sleep. a lot. and listen to james´ ipod. thanks to the absolute brilliance of my portable shox speaker. PNAU. empire of the sun. sneaky sound system. beautiful girls. my appreciation of australian music has increased.

we also ate a lot of cake. almost every corner had some kind of patisserie. lemon meringue. creme caramel. other unnamed cake varieties. huanchaco hedonism. that and we sat on the beach. all day. trying to swim but there were so many rocks it was pretty painful trying to wade out to a decent depth.

so we took to relaxing instead. and drinking trujillo beer and rum on the beach. mostly around sunset. and then finding more to eat. and then finding a bar along the beach front. since there weren´t too many we always managed to find the busiest. and by busy i mean 30 people.

one chacko bar had good cocktails. and sabes bar had four in a row. like thai beachside bars all over again.

but no fire dancers this time.

another great difference in the huanchaco party scene was a significant decrease in the gringo versus local ratio. which was definitely a good thing. especially considering katie´s less than desirable encounter with someone who may or may not have been called bob.

the locals on the other hand were super chilled out and spoke great english. so combined with my level of spnaish speaking it was a perfect communication combination.

the staff at casa suiza were particularly cool. definitely the most laid back hostel i´ve been to. room 16 was a good choice. and for some reason katie and james were always asleep at breakfast time. so with just me and my pastries i met an interesting mix of people. entertaining to say the least at that time of day.

unfortunately after two awesome nights of parties, late night skateboarding and hanging out with awesome peruvians it was time to head back to lima for halloween.

which was another part of the previous peruvian coastal visit plan. so another night bus. eventually. after sitting on the local bus that connected huanchaco with trujillo for over an hour. i kept noticing that we were going past the same landmarks, so was very pleased when the driver threw us out of the bus onto the sidewalk at the right place. along with our tonnage of luggage.

then more chinese. which we couldn´t finish. we then killed time on the streets of trujillo by buying junk food and watching james throw m&m´s into his mouth. from pretty high up. it was impressive.

i passed out the entire trip back. definitely didn´t drool on myself.

on return to the big city it was on to the loki. once again. to catch up with the crew for the opening party.

the prelude to katie bye bye

2009-11-17T21:18:00.003+02:00

so it was katie´s last week. and we had planned to hit up the coastal town of trujillo before she headed back to the rainy isle on november 2nd. we made this plan way back in bolivia. it was time to follow through.

and recruit a new crew member. the aforementioned james. gap year kid who´d recently been released from a long term tourist trip. which i believe he enjoyed.

so he joined us on yet another nightbus trip. but not before we partied it up with chris. an english kid who hadn´t left lima, or the hostel really, for over two months. he was entertaining for sure. which made up for the fact that they didn´t have any soft drinks that hadn´t been opened two weeks ago. i.e. horrible cocktails. this made me very angry for some reason. i even wrote in the complaints book.

oh and we also took a trip to downtown lima with some other cool people, ed and gorjana from melbourne. and we found two awesome irishman outside one of the churches. we found out later that they were actually trying to sleep on the stairs at the time.

so they all joined us to check out the monasteria san francisco, which like any other religious place is full of crosses, paintings and somewhat gory relief plaques. but this was a church with a difference. they found a cemetery underneath it a while ago. so it has an added attraction. a mass of skulls and bones in the catacombs below.

definitely an interesting twist. and pretty insane since someone acutally went to the effort to arrange the skulls and bones in a concentric pattern. strange. something like thousands of people were dug up. which i guess killed their dream of being buried peacefully underneath a church.

katie also insisted on buying a llama hat from the nearby market. so we spent a fair bit of time there. basically killing time before we were to meet up with our church tour guide for pisco sours. random. but interesting. the irish are friendly folk it seems.

i didn´t go for pisco sours again. memories of all the egg white cocktails in huacachina stopped me. but we had something else. which was suitably strong. then headed back to the hostel in a cab where the driver was in a cage.

another party at the point. i think we took a walk around the cliffs to miraflores too that day. which was beautiful. we had heard mixed reviews of lima, but this area was definitely upmarket. and very cool. i even got to play arcade games in the nearby mall. for once i finished the skateboarding game. well the first level anyway.

the next day we got ready to head to trujillo, but not before we ate some more chifa, which is the best value chinese you will ever have. soup and noodles you can´t even finish for like R15. we also stocked up at the supermarket we had become enamoured with after memories of supermarketless bolivia.

so later we got the bus. after giving fingerprints and being videotaped getting on the bus. promotional video? security?

we also decided to go straight to the nearby town of huanchaco instead, after irishman denis recommended a hostel there. casa suiza.

he also recommended we try to find someone cool who worked there.

but that´s a whole different story.

divertido

2009-11-17T21:01:00.003+02:00

it means fun in spanish. but it sort of resembles `diverted´, which is exactly what i have been from this blog. for oh i don´t know. two weeks?

wow. serious neglect. but rest assured it has all been very eventful. too eventful in fact.

after the concussion incident we made our way up the coast from ica to paracas. we were meant to go to pisco. but it was pretty destroyed. and scary. so we left and hit up the next beach town, paracas.

pisco, for your info, was hit by a big earthquake about two years ago. so basically the whole down is a mess of half built buildings. pretty pathetic really. reminded me of the unpaved streets of delhi. chaos included.

however. we found the little seaside spot, and after some serious negotiating (i.e. katie drawing smiley faces next to prices) we got a good deal in a little hotel. with tv. it was backpacker bliss. our own private bathroom and everything.

so after watching stardust we headed out on the small town for the local speciality. cerviche. which is basically sashimi soaked in lime juice with onions. i like it. we always ate about a kilogram of other seafood during the meal. from seafood rice to grilled fish. it was epic. but not as epic as the barney themed birthday party we walked past before we found the restaurant.

it looked super divertido to me at least.

the next day we made the most of what the town had to offer (basically nothing) and heading out on a speedboat to the islas de ballestas, otherwise known as the poor man´s galapagos. checked out a big nazca line thing called the candelabra on the way. then saw a load of birds, penguins, pelicans and sea lions. which was pretty cool.

and definitely honed of guano.

but it was a good day out. and good to be hanging with some of the bolivia crew.

having done absolutely everthing there was to do we decided to leave to lima. on bus peru. after being warned repeatedly that there was a high probability of being robbed. i finished marching powder, the book, on the way. which is for the record a very cool book. not extremely well written, but cool.

especially since i had been to la paz. but not san pedro prison. basically i had some background.

got to lima at some point (can´t remember) and headed to the point. a hostel in the somewhat bohemian area of barranco. somewhat exhausted i passed out early on our first night, but not before we met our soon to be travel partner aussie james.

it was a good thing i got some sleep. it was to be an interesting week.

concussion

2009-10-29T18:50:00.003+02:00

so our time in oasis calm paradise was cut short by a sandboarding accident. or more aptly a katie concussion. mental dizziness and two pretty deep gashes above her eyebrow. pretty scary stuff watching your friend tumble head first down the steepest sand dune. ever.

which i had just managed to survive. not without bruises and grazes though. basically you lie down on the sandboard and slide. it is believed that no one can do it standing up first time. i never tried. despite my recently exacerbated fear of heights i did it. you head super fast. but it´s fun. once you forget that you sprained two vertebrae when doing activities involving heights a year ago.

well at least it was fun until katie smashed up her head and couldn´t see straight for a while. the time spent in the peruvian clinic was interesting to say the least. if it wasn´t for our friend´s ann and syb´s awesome espagnol it would have been much more of a challenge. which i later discovered in lima.

no vast improvements on the spanish yet per se. but i am trying. people are starting to become suspicious of my time in south america versus ability to speak spanish ratio. most notably a peruvian surfer who spoke almost perfect english. i say it´s his fault.

but really i am trying. and right now i have taken on the role of ¨person who speaks spanish¨ in our current trio. it´s not a spoken rule, but a sort of assumed etiquette that anyone who can utter more than ´hola´or ´gracias´ has to take on the speaking duty. i´ve done okay so far. i think.

so other than espagnol issues and sandboard mishaps huacachina was a good time. good weather and poolside relaxing. and a night out on the oasis to celebrate an englishman´s birthday. which involved many cocktails called ´huaca fking chinas´. which are eggwhite cocktails. think how good that feels in the morning when coupled with a pounding head.

it was fun though, and once again irish people were involved. this always guarentees a general degree of festive behaviour. this time it was around a fire. under the desert sky. . if i hadn´t been taking shots of pisco all afternoon i may have been able to appreciate it for longer.

pisco, for those in the unknow, is a grape liquor hard tac that the peruvians make. and love. immensely. its pretty much like vodka but slightly more disgusting taken straight. to improve this, they mix with lime and sugar to make pisco sour, which is then mixed with heaps of egg white and served as the notorious pisco sours cocktail.

which tastes good at the time.

but when you wake up. and think of all that egg white.

ooooh.

not good.

the tasting was fun though as we got to try wine too, which tasted infinitely better. another interesting aspect of the tour was the bamboo poles they used to pour the tasting shots. kind of like a retarded long spoon with a slight hollow to pour out the drink. effective.

pisco is so huge in the ica slash huacachina area that once a year they have a miss pisco competition. she gets to ride around in a carriage. and the neighbouring bar turns into a ´piscotheca´. witty. judging by the faded photographs on the walls, it´s a good laugh.

which we did have in this little oasis place, which the prolific restaurant graffiti suggests. huacachina has clearly has seen it´s share of israeli tourists. i´m talking drawings of the flag and everything. i think many a friend has stayed a fair while in this place. which i could have done too.

and yes, despite the lonely planets somewhat dismissive review, it´s a good spot to hang out. i imagine in season this place is absolutely kicking.

either way. i enjoyed the laid back charm of this oasis hamlet. it definitely comes recommended.

but head injuries and a general antsiness pushed us on to lima. the city of ultimate mixed reviews.

arequip_AREQUIPA!

2009-10-22T19:10:00.004+02:00

or so the lady/man at the bus station shouts. very loudly. and often. as if people just aimlessly wander into bus terminals waiting for the next location scream to decide where to go.

although i must say it does help when you can´t see the destination on any of the bus boards.

but mostly it´s just really annoying.

but we got on our bus unscathed and eventually left the ancient inca capital to head for the white city of arequipa. becky had been in the sacred valley region for over 5 weeks. she definitely needed to leave.

the bus ride was one of the comfiest by far, considering how much time i would spend on the bus over the next few days. we watched the proposal on the bus with english subtitles. an experience. and i actually enjoyed the movie.

we got to the point hostel in the white city at 6am. on our arrival people were still up from the night before. and were eager to chat. but we went to sleep. in a room that previously housed the ping pong table.

the next five days consisted of a great deal of drinking. and card games. from shithead, higher or lower, a mean version of kings and presidents and assholes. every bored moment was filled up with cards, thanks to the awesome english trio. izzi, cherry and mark were extremely good value in the point hostel bar, aptly named ¨barequipa¨.

the barmen, ali and colby were cool guys too. and were always on hand to deliver another round of screwdrivers with super artificial orange juice. which i liked before. but just couldn´t stomach now. or ever again.

the staff were great too, and the reception dude guillermo and his little bro put on a great show for us on the first night, jamming out everything from nirvana to incubus on guitar. i sang along. and enjoyed the sesh very much.

even tried to rock out some of my moves on the white electric. but any vague resemblence of guitar skills have been dulled considerably after 6 weeks + of minimal brain function.

went out on the town too. to a club called deja vu. not the biggest fan of reggaetron but danced anyway. and got repeatedly sandwiched by marka and izzi in the club. which was pretty hilarious. drinks were expensive.

peru has been the most expensive place by far. although argentina was a while ago so i can´t really remember.

went on a huge mission to visit the colca canyon on monday with the english trio, and becky and bristolian matt, who i have met up with along the road since salta. he told some truly hilarious stories. good addition to the 6 people crew. especially since moral support proved essential when enduring days of dangerous death road style bus journeys to see big birds fly around for 10 minutes.

really enjoyed the colca canyon experience though. got to the lookout before the hoards of tourists, so enjoyed the serenity of it all for a good while.

we were the first to see the condor family rise and fly out of the thermal wind canyon. an impressive site for sure.

also had a laugh the night before when we stayed in family run joint called rumi wasi in the tiny town of chivay, after a long soak in the hot springs. a basic place with a resident alpaca pet. and the lady with the laugh.

hmmmhhmmmmhhmmmmhhmmmmhmmmm. very funny. sounded kind of like the slug receptionist in monsters inc. (movie line obsessed family. you know what i mean)

all in all arequipa was a good time. with good people. but once again it became the all familiar time for hugs and goodbyes and another overnight bus journey.

which, by the way, i spent gringo solo next to a peruvian man who kept ass bumping me went he turned onto his side. and snoring like a freight train when he did´nt.

was so tempted to pour some of my M&Ms down his gaping snore hole.

but managed to remain calm and not hit him with my large bottle of water. just nudged him a bit. and somehow got some sleep. until 5 am when i arrived in ica. 3 hours early.

so now i am in oasis calm huacachina. and it´s time to reunite with my previous partner in crime katie c at the hotel. which is fabulous.

looking forward to hearing all about what miss k has been getting up to. while i sip on a drink from the poolside bar.

bliss.

cusco crazy no coma

2009-10-22T18:40:00.004+02:00

so i thought the inca trail would be the ulitmate challenge on this trip. but it appears that opposed to hiking up and down ancient inca stairs, escaping from undesirable chatty freaks in loki cusco dorm rooms is even more of a challenge.

not that i am opposed to giving people the benefit of the doubt. in fact, i think that i really tried. but after the hundredth time (over two days) of being woken up to hear some inane story from the person in the bed above me, i just couldn´t take it anymore.

i mean i was ASLEEP. eyes closed. motionless. and everything. i think i might have even had the sheet over my head.

and still. they insisted on speaking to me.

the previous winner of the award for the most annoying person on earth has officially been relegated.

so. i made sure i got out of the cusco loki. very quickly. funny how i have had to make a quick loki exit before...

not that it isn´t a cool place. the food is fantastic (nachos= AMAZING), the staff really chilled out and friendly and the beds pretty comfy. granted you can actually get to sleep.

and the party vibe is definitely good too. had a great two nights out on the town with some kids (unannoying ones) from my dorm, including two aussie guys i partied with in la paz. so that was cool.

also met two irish girls from the city of cork who know my dear irish second half hennessy, and the rest of the 2008 thailand crew, dee and sarah.´

irish people. reliably awesome folk.

cusco has some cool clubs too, provided you like clubs that play exactly the same music. all good fun though, especially since you get free drinks handed out to you in the main square beforehand by the extremely eager club touts.

theý take touting seriously. they´ll even physically herd you into a club. even when you have no intention of entering.

however, with all good party vibes, there is a point where your mental wellbeing just suffers. and you have to move on. especially considering the previous weekend of intense physical overexertion.

if it wasnt for the reliably sane becky, i maight have got stuck there a lot longer. without even more sleep. and those who know me will know i don´t do without my sleep.

but she had a plan to head to arequipa.

so i got on that.

inca_pacitated

2009-10-15T18:26:00.004+02:00

people will tell you many things about the inca trail. the fact that it´s overrun with tourists everyday, that the paths aren´t well maintained and that it´s generally more expensive than it is worth.

none of the above were true for my experience of the famous gringo trek. the scenery was incredible, our guide was knowledgeable and hilarious and the food was unreal. four of the best days of my south america trip.

this probably had something to do with the fact that we started and ended our trip in a hotel, which after nearly 5 weeks of hostel time was pure bliss. to actually have the option of something other than a semi-stale bread roll for breakfast was just happiness.

our group was great too. super chilled out crew. mostly couples. and 8 norwegians. it took a while to break the ice what with the language barrier and all, but it only took a day before we were happily eating around the same table, complaining about mutual exhaustion and discussing the god and bad qualities of our guides. who were great actually.

the hike itself was killer at times. super steep uphills and knee straining downhills for hours on end. but it was all worth it at the end of the day when we sat down. and ate. a lot. for a four day trek the food was incredible. i´m talking pancakes, cakes, egg fried rice and so many other prime carbo loading dishes. the porters who carry all our stuff are truly amazing.

it´s a humbling experience watching a guy in sandals overtake you on the inca steps, with 25 kg on this back. and not just once.

while you carry a daypack.

needless to say our farewell was quite emotional. all these guys do is hike to feed their families. it really does put things into perspective. and makes you think twice about complaining. about anything.

and the highlight of the trip. dragging myself up the vertical steps to the sun gate to see machu picchu. which was covered in cloud. but as we approached the ruins from the other side the once sacred city became clear through the mist. pretty awesome sight. and an amazing sense of accomplishment, which was somewhat dulled by my insanely stiff calves.

if i had been able to walk properly i would have hiked wayna picchu, the opoosite mountain that overlooks the ruins. instead we had a guided tour in our exhausted delirium. and then we lay on the grass. and got massacred by the endemic gnats. still itching. puts mosquito bites to shame.

and yes, machu picchu is awesome. and surrounding jungle scenery even better.

cusco coma

2009-10-09T00:24:00.003+02:00

k so i got out of la paz quickly. maybe if i had actually left the loki at some point i could have avoided last week fridays cesspit of misery. but hindsight is no help. i had fun, but the damage was done. and severe. ish.

so 7am i was out of the door, in a cab, and heading on a bus cusco way. but not before i bought some crackers. and left them on the counter of the store. a lady had to say it three times in spanish. ¨you have left your biscuits at the counter¨. out of my mind, think i left several things behind. including my sleeping bag liner. which i carried throughout india, australia, thailand and ireland last year. and used only once.

i later found out that the bus we were on was less than pristine. all those long stops beside beautiful rivers were really just time out for the overheating machine. luckily i was dozing to a hypnotic looping playlist. which sets me to sleep everytime. boards of canada. good stuff.

border crossing took ages. helped along by disgustingly greasy sausage burger thing. awesome.

later, realizing that i had nowhere booked to stay, and that it was about 9pm at night, i decided to tag along with aussie matt to the southern comfort hostel. highly rated on hostelworld. good sign. even though it´s tucked behind some houses, a gate, and is slightly off the main square, it was ideal. which i discovered immediately.

quiet. secluded. only a slight amount of beer drinking going on. the perfect place for attempted recovery. met a cool american couple who recommended ecuador. it´s a distinct possibility after peru. saw a guy eating from a vat of soup. englishman jono. london. would find out much more about him on the monday when we spent the entire day in our dorm having an endless conversation.

the most interesting conversation i´ve had the entire trip. but it mainly just takes precedence because of its inordinate length. jono has a fluffy alpaca wool helmet hat. which has had its time. and is soon to have a successor.

but before then it was sunday. and i woke up hungry after a week of living on pilsener and eating nothing but the ubiquitous hostel bread rolls. decided to look for the aforementioned organic restaurant, but instead ran into 3 canadians on a street corner, who, after a friendly smile on my part, invited me to join them on a day trip to pisac. a little town 33km outside of cusco.

so i went of course. and it was an interesting afternoon for many reasons. one being the insane collection of so called ántique´inca artefacts. and daggers. and other weapons. of course there was the infinite variety of the same tourist crap you see everywhere too, and a little playground for guinea pigs. who get eaten.

ate a kebab with a potato on the end. may have been the reason for feeling less than ideal for the next two days. also tried cusquena beer. too sweet. have been spoilt with pilsener and andes in argentina. just haven´t found anything to top them yet. and i won´t for a few days. since i am now on the inca trail.

last day in cusco was admin. met up with canadian mike for mojitios. heard the most insane stories about colombia and the motorcycle gangs that throw gasoline into the sewers. where people live. apparently. other than than colombia is still on the maybe list. besides that i have heard good things.

right now in ollantaytambo. tourist trap of note. awaiting persistent knee torture from neverending flights of vertical stone inca stairs. for four days.

loki loves me

2009-10-07T00:12:00.003+02:00

and damage i did.

5 days of straight wake up and bartime, i was a mess. but not before i had some interesting experiences. loads of men with mohawks, baby guinesses and la paz pilsener.

so the mohawks. there are a handful of men at the loki in la paz. and they all have mohawks, in various degrees of legit. my inquest into this trend didn´t yield anything conclusive. its just something they have, and wear proudly. as any traveller wears their excessive bangle collection.

i have two so far, but i will get more.

the baby guinesses. an unexpectedly good drink, much like its creamy parent, the baby guiness is kahlua and baileys. a suitable mix with a kick. i like them a lot. one of the bartenders, grace, became so pro at them she was even offering to get behind the bar at a club to make it herself. but they did it well. they even used a spoon.

la paz pilsener. even though the label is excatly the same as the beer i´d been getting used to drinking, huari, no one knew what i meant when i asked for it. either way it was good beer.

stayed in the wild rover for the first two nights, and although it´s really a decent hostel, the rooms were like dark cave recesses, and the promise of a hairdryer and a hair straightener proved nothing more than broken ceramic tongs and a melted plastic mess which turned on at various times. by itself.

so i moved to the loki. where i found disco dean behind the bar with a smile and two girls from london town that we met in salta, lucy and becky. joey and katie left to do their jungle mission. i stayed. due to time constraints and a willingness to party that i no longer have. but will have again by next week.

when i hit the loki. in cusco.

but only after i climb the mean inca stairs to macchu picchu. tour starts tomorrow. i´m looking forward to it immensely.

serendipitous sucre

2009-10-06T23:41:00.006+02:00

so after the heights of silver mining potosi we took a cab to the capital city of sucre. a cab that took around two hours and went smoothly enough besides the driver almost killing and/or seriously injuring a handful of pedestrians.

after a long time of staring off into bolivian countryside to jose gonzalez, we eventually arrived in the whitewashed colonial bliss of sucre. beautiful buildings, exceptionally well manicured parks. parks so well manicured in fact that you can´t actually sit on the grass. slightly excessive in my mind. i wanted to lie down. couldn´t.

so we had to settle for the cafe mirador instead which is a pretty steep climb. next to a beautiful white monastery flanked by fondly familiar jacaranda trees. had some fresh juice which was a welcome change from my bolivian favourite huari. which i drank later anyway. the view over the city was awesome, and the conversation with the girls, morne and theo suitably obscene. and hilarious.

seriously, the grade of conversation just deteriorates when you travel. or maybe it´s just because everyone is just being really honest for a change.

our weekend in sucre was also highlighted by a trip to a restaurant called florin. which had insanely cheap cocktail happy hour specials. so we each had about four. and then hit the local gringo spot, joy ride. even though the tag line says ´no solo para gringos´, we totally dominated. although i did manage to befriend a local there, who lead us to the next spot, mitos.

mitos was a local club, but there was a handful of lost looking gringos loitering around the bar. i habla no espagnol but i managed to communicate via pointing at a beer and then at the bar. and singing along to songs in spanish as best i could. all you do is say corazon (heart). a lot. and you´re fine.

unfortunately after two nights of sleeping on a bed that was bent like 30 degrees on one side, i felt the need to head towards the notorious party metropolis of la paz. i´d been informed of the loki´s notoriety from several people. both from home and on the road. it was time to do the damage myself.

panting potosi

2009-09-30T22:41:00.007+02:00

the highest city of its kind in the world. apparently. not sure what ´kind´ of city that refers to? are there many other cities resembling a massive pile of unpainted bricks located next to a depleted mountain of silver? probably not. high altitude. cute colonial architecture on windy cobbled streets. excessive out of breathness.

motored here from uyuni for no particular reason other than the fact that i thought while i still had energy i shoudl keep moving. the energy lasted until 10pm when i passed out at the dinner table. a vaguely fancy restaurant. not attractive. ate some stew thing which consisted of a chicken wing in broth, a boiled egg and a plate of pasta. putting it all together was carnal.

stayed in a great hostel called the koala den which actually had functional internet. walked around town, pretty european medieval looking with signs hanging from the side walls. if you know what i mean. took a walk around the markets which sell literally everything. saw a pair of fake ray ban clubmasters but managed to curb my obsession.

almost vomited when i rounded the corner of the vegetable section and smelt the putrid stench of bloody animal carcasses, reminiscent of tarantinos movie hostel. which i watched yesterday btw. not ideal viewing. disturbing. never going to bratislava. ever.

went on a silver mine trip the next day. the city´s bread and butter. used to be the richest city in the world when the spanish went conquistador loco and enslaved pretty much everyone to haul silver out of the now very depleted moutain mines. our guide on the tour was insane. and although i have been in mines before i have never had to crawl in one. dusty.

it was pretty insane to be underground chewing cocoa leaves watching people at work. but i appreciated the experience. only 20% of what they dig up is vaguely usable. these people don´t work for the government but as part of co-ops. which basically means they earn nothing. they also don´t even process the silver in bolivia so no economic benefits there. not much consideration for safety masks when we were escorted around pools of cyanide which they use to process the ore.

at the end of the tour the guide blew up some dynamite which we had bought at the miners market. pretty dramatic what with him pulling of his shirt, sticking the bomb in his mouth. he tried to get everyone to pose with the imminent explosives. the bang was expected. but loud.

after ridding my throat of kilograms of mine dust and the best shower of my life we went exploring the city. chilled at the top of a really beautiful church for a while with englishman theo. ate lemon meringue from a super kitsch corner cafe. went out to a bar. did some drinking. didnt last long. especially after we ended up in a local whiskeria with two litre bottles of gold rum. a bar where locals were doing some crazy line dancing, oppposite sexes in a rows opposite.

the same south american drum beat. again.

the next day we took a cab to sucre. the white washed colonial style capital. more fun with spanglish.

salted

2009-09-28T14:56:00.004+02:00

so. i'm going to do my best to catch you up on the latest. although its two week's worth.

after mendoza it was on to salta. a town way up north in argentina. surrounded by deserty mountainous scenery. crazy rock formations. several of which are named after some part of the devil's body. went on a tour bus. not recommended. ´

i have accepted gringo status but resent being shuffled around to strict time schedules, refused time to climb up said rock formations and detest the fact that i was coerced into taking a photo with a chained up llama. i swear i could feel its incarcerated misery through its crusty fur. or hair. or whatever llamas have.

met some cool people at our hostel. had a good night out on the town which included very cheap tequila and awkward half spanglish conversations with locals. who i must say were good value. did some shopping. ate some mean local stew and empanadas. then at the flip of coin we decided to join nick and dean on a night bus across the bolivian border at 1am.

although nick may have been slightly annoyed at his newly formed following crew *which may have been worsened by the fact that we made fun of his wheely bag* but we all got on and bonded over the differences in our changed environment, which included women dressed in traditional gear who had no problem openly hocking and spewing out thick phlegm, basin negotiable. visa process went smoothly. very glad i decided to mission for that hand filled in stamp in BA.

from villazon, the border town, it was off to tupiza on a 2 hour bus journey which involved navigating somewhat uneven terrain and a few rivers. we arrived untouched, even though our kit got slightly wet. hit up some freshly squeezed orange juice for like R2 then made our way to valle hermosa, the hostel where our crew grew to include the lovely tara, whose ability to communicate in spanish was more than well appreciated over the following week.

with our crew at max capacity we decided to take the plunge and book the 4 day salt flats tour across the desolate bolivian landscape to uyuni. but not before we spent a day riding butch cassidy and the sundance kid style through the once again rock formation filled landscape. i cant say i enjoy horses much, but cantering high speed was pretty fun.

with 6 people being an ideal number we then set off last saturday with our guide alfredo. and an ipod auxiliary cable. which was the envy of the other groups who were subjected to the same tape. everyday. it should be noted that all south american music has the same beat. seriously.

the events of the following four days could never be summed up adequately on this page. but let's just say it was more than a laugh. disco dean's music mixes created jealously at every group stop. nick's guitar led to an evening of obscene impromptu jamming in the salt hotel. the lyrics just got out of hand. that's all i can say. there was rapping involved.

the accommodation created some interesting moments. questionable at times, especially considering the fact that most toilets need to be flushed manually. toilet paper cannot be thrown in the toilet. there is no handle spray thing like in thailand. dean believed he was going to pick up some disease through his feet. but we managed. even though it was bitterly cold and i had not surprisingly neglected to bring a big puffy jacket.

the scenery was absolutely unreal, and although i cursed having to get out of the jeep to see everything from geysers to different coloured lakes in the freezing cold, it was really all worth it. something i feel i feel i will only truly appreciate later. once it finally sinks in that i actually left home. by myself. and went travelling around south america.

the final day sunrise salt flats session was unbelievable. did a few cartwheels, got my hands salty and laughed with katie and nick when we shoved salt in dean's mouth. it's not normal salt. minerally. and disgusting. it's truly a surreal experience staring at the vast expanse of hexagonal white. not comparable to anything i've seen.

we also tried our hand at taking some perspective shots on the flat whiteness. its more difficult than it looks. although we did get a few good ones with the squeaky toys katie found in tupiza. they really should employ a slat flats photo consultant. prime candidate,the little mute kid in one of the many stopover points. she should really take advantage of her painfully continuous exposure to salt.

so after a day of nothing but salt. beer. some really bad del inca beer. and more salt, we arrived in the dusty dorp of uyuni. we napped. tried to recover. ate sub standard pizza. called home and went to a place called the 'extreme fun bar'.

definitely extreme. the epitome of gringo gimmicky. penis and boob shaped cups. shooter competitions and suitably hammered aussies who provided great entertainment. had some gross sweet beer called bock. partied with the crew sans dean but including the awesome sabrina and denis, joey, guillaume, ann and syb. looping playlist aside it was definitely an interesting evening. although none of us were convinced to try the 'llama sperm' shooter.

the next day was a 6 hour bus trip to potosi. no rest for me.

mendozage

2009-09-22T19:42:00.001+02:00

k so the updates are not happening as frequently as i had hoped. time, internet speed and the ability to focus on a screen have been lacking.

so, the news is going to be haphazard. to put it lightly.

so to backtrack, i left buenos aires on thursday the 10th of september and caught a bus to the argentine wineland city of mendoza. after a slight hitch at the bus station, profuse sweating and a ridiculous amount of miscommunication i eventually boarded my first class bus. i have since discovered that travelling in second class is perfectly adequate. and cheaper. the things you learn.

nevertheless the comfy ride was unexpectedly social when i gave the two american girls on the bus no choice but to share my company. they were really cool. and they gave me red wine. which i drank happily. out of the carton.

the usual admin crap followed arrival in mendoza, and i found the mendoza international hostel easily enough. i was then put into a dorm room on the other side of the hostel. which was cold. and i was alone. the next few hours may or may not have been filled with intense deliberation as to my solo status. but then i met englishman ed. and everything changed.

the most notable change was that instead of passing out in my cold hovel of a dormitory, i forced myself to be social at the hostel asado (braai/barbeque) on the friday night. i remember being deliriously tired. and then i drank some beer. met people. i later stumbled into the hostel at 6am.

needless to say the asado was epic. met the lovely katie and joey, who i am currently travelling with, and a number of other really fun, awesome people. i vaguely recall partying it up in a bar called wish that night. which i think we were thrown out of. apparently raucous party behaviour in argentina is "rare".

the next day i somehow managed to drag myself to an appropriately alcoholic day of wine tasting. which was really great. mendoza is well known for its endemic malbec. i am a fan. they also make white wine called torrentes. which is not bad. the tasting aslo involved lunch, by which i mean copius amounts of steak. it is true. the steak in argentian is insane.

after the wine tour, my plans to get some amount of sleep failed miserably. met up with the crew from the night before for dinner. more andes beer. the best beer ive had so far. ended up drinking and partying in the other hostel. got home at 6am. again.

thankfully, the following day allowed for recovery. for once. so we wandered around mendoza, which is really cool. the main plaza is pretty and a happy central social location. ate the most delicious orange chocolate ice cream, then ate lunch on the square thing. then lay out of the plaza lawns and watched a puppet show in spanish. which i still dont fully understand.

it was a perfect sunday, and although it would have been great to have stayed longer i decided to join katie and joey on their mission up north to salta for a gaucho festival that never happened. another turning point in my trip.

but more of that later.

gringo bingo

2009-09-10T21:30:00.002+02:00

alright, so this weird thing happens 4 days into an overseas trip, well according to me anyway. you´ve woken up in the same bed a few times, managed to navigate your way around town a little bit and you´ve gained confidence in your somewhat less than perfect spanish.

but then you´re walking down the street, thinking you´re all that and that you know where you´re going, even though you are so conspicuously foreign its insane. you feel a slight pressure in the area of your handbag but think nothing of it. until you check it later. in the safety of an electronic shop. and realize the super expensive earphones you bought on the plane (cause you left yours at home. doh) have disappeared. you then walk up to the nearest salesperson in said electronics shop and buy new ones. for cheaper.

is there anger coming across in this text? maybe not so much. because frankly i am just glad they didn´t take my ipod. which is still lying neatly where the headphones used to be. safely tucked away where all the other i important things i carry are. and its still got the 16 gigs of music i´m ready getting into. thanks to a certain music aficiando.

so the next step was to cut my losses, stop looking for the clothing shop i´d been meaning to check out, get into a cab and head back to gringo land.

besides this recent experience however, the trip has proved very productive. i got my bolivian tourist visa, despite the fact that the south african embassy here was certain i didn´t need one. they insisted. i objected. they were wrong. as i suspected. but they did give me the address. which helped. and which i walked for about 2 hours to find. this morning i discovered there is a direct subway route which stops right outside the bolivian consulate. what do you know.

so with that sorted, my other time has been focused on spending time with the people i have met in my room at the hostel, and some i met while checking the internet and hanging out in the reception area of said hostel. most people have been travelling for a while so they are well versed in where to go and all that. have picked up some tips, and have decided to follow the route suggested to me by joni and sean- thanks guys :)- and head down to bariloche via mendoza. which is wine country. and is surrounded by mountains. i expect good things.

i have also been drinking, suprise surprise. but nothing insane. i´m still trying to gauge the exact extent that i can push my gringoness while out partying. or maybe thats just a really bad euphemism for just not wanting to go out solo just yet. so mostly i have been chilling in nearby bars with some irish kids (love them) and drinking quilmes, kraken (local beers) and fernet y cola.

so yeah, fernet is this licorice type aperitif. something similar to jagermeister but not as herb concentrated. its pretty good. although the first time i drank it the lady behind the bar took it easy on me. but last night i ordered one at a pseudo english bar called gibraltar and it was literally the full on 90210 (90% fernet, 2 blocks of ice and 10% coke). it was pretty hard on the throat. feeling it today.

other than that i have been attempting to make my way around and engage with locals. sometimes its good. often its embarrassing. i have accepted the fact that most of the time i look like an absolute tool trying to rock out my pidgin espagnol. its really hilarious actually. i laugh at myself. all the time.

the people here have actually been extremely patient and helpful. like the middle aged man who took pity on me in what seemed to be a travel agent. i was looking for a place to take passport photos. the sales assistant was confused. this man then cottoned on to what i was asking and led me to a little place down the street and they helped me out. sweetheart. they even had this cheesy beeper that screamed "hello! and welcome!" in a dr. greenthumb intro type voice when you walked in. cute.

i also took a heinous bus tour. feel ashamed. i claim misinformation. i even met some saffas from centurion on the bus too nogal. it was quite cool though. in a way. i joined the irish, and we thought we´d be doing at least some walking. but all we did was drive and get things pointed out to us. besides giving me a sheltered view of the city, all it really did was make me feel like my muscles were atrophying. if thats a word. although we did laugh. especially when we walked into the wrong bus after stopping at yet another gringo shopping emporium.

other than that here are a few other hilarious things i have discovered in buenos aires so far, that i can think of. although the local say heunos aires. or something like that:

-lady, not young, dressed as red riding hood advertising a sex shop. the innuendos are just endless.
-sex shop called "buttman". the graphics on the windows were just. well. massive.
-a sign advertising "satan dealer" (band?)
-people stare at you. all the time. so much so that a guy almost tripped into oncoming traffic while checking our little gringo huddle.
-i cannot understand spoken spanish. although i think i am getting better. my conversation with the sweet lady in one of the millions of "kioskcos" was very pleasant. although i got only 50% of the conversation. at most.
-i need to go for spanish lessons.

and now as my fingers cramp up and i try to navigate my way around the international keyboard, i realize i should head upstairs and order a cab to take me to the bus station. safely.

look out for the next update on wine country kids.

BA da bing

2009-09-08T16:19:00.004+02:00

k. so if my USB camera cable worked, which it doesn't, i would be able to show you some snaps of the now rain drenched paris-like capital of argentina.

so for now text will have to do.

i landed in buenos aires still questioning the decision to travel solo. thankfully, however, i have a wonderfully social older brother, who just so happened to know someone who was on the same flight.

chances?

so with the help of the lovely pippa, we navigated our way from the aeropuerto, EZE, in a lion logo bus. despite my initial concerns, all went smoothly. even though we could, and can still, only communicate in very pidgin spanish.

nevertheless, we eventually made out way to join fellow saffa matt, who had been awaiting our arrival at the aryes portenos hostel in san telmo. adorned with kitch crusty paintings, the digs were suitable. and the receptionist friendly. even though at this time i was running on like 2am saffa time or something. so it really didn't matter.

the first evening in BA was spent re-visiting some of the places matt had been exploring for the first few days he had been here. this included a stroll down to la poesia, a cute wooden floored cafe reminiscent of parisian sidewalk cafes. or what you would imagine to be a french sidewalk cafe anyway.

navigating our way through the menu proved somewhat challenging, but i eventually settled on a hambuergesa or such like. my previous vegetarian consciousness cringed slightly at the huge hunk of grilled meat that arrived later on a baguette, or pan frances. but my taste buds indulged, and relished the meaty goodness.

the company kept was also extremely fun, and helpful to a night that would have otherwise been spent alone, confused, and wondering where i was. over the house brew, or cerveza casa rubida, and malbec wine, we geselsed (spoke- saffa slang). both went down a treat. and somehow i managed to stay awake while relating about all things saffa, including the usual rants about the difficulty of obtaining visas, rumours and factual accounts of life in london, and travelling escapades.

the next day, after a comfortable sleep under flimsy but adequate sheets, i awoke to the sound of rain. boo. but no matter. my cape storm jacket was at the ready and we were amped for some exploring before matt and pippa had to catch their flight to la paz in the afternoon.

after a breakfast of medialunas (croissants), coffee, and an uncomfortable silence in the breakfast room (due to previous unwanted encounters, which i cannot relate here) we set off to go check out the recoleta cemetery, where evita is buried. well when i say buried i men enclosed in a sealed marble vault, to ensure no further removals of her corpse.

after a walk past beautiful french style buildings in the rain, we hitched a cab ride with a friendly porteno (buenos aires inhabitant) to the cemetery, which is located in the upmarket suburb of recoleta, where louis vuitton and unknown to me spanish brands line the streets in their clear glass, glossy fabulousness.

after arrival at the cemetery, we began the arduous search for evitas grave. as anyone who has been here will know, its not that well signposted, being a cemetery and all. but eventually after repeated trips down the marble mausoleum facades we eventually found the flower studded grave. replete with metal tags bearing the famous evita's bust and vitues. which are all in spanish. so i don´t really know her claim to fame. but i am planning to look it up. sometime.

all in all, the cemetery is actually beautiful, with ornate architecured vaults. some so well taken care of that, when looking through the iron gates, look something like a fancy apartment building´s reception. however, there are also many decrepid and collapsed vaults, and some where you can acutally see the coffins.

freaky.

the cemetery is also inhabited by mangy cats, which if the colosseum is anything to go by, is not unusual for tourist traps and old buildings in foreign cities. perhaps they have nowhere else to go. or, perhaps, judging from the disgustingly dirty ginger cat sans schnoz, is an appropriate place to hang around while on death's doorstep. either way. i love kitties. but these one´s were pretty gross.

so eventually grave exploring got old, and we did some walking back via some of buenos aires' main streets, past the obelisco (big white phallic obelisk) and tourist traps on the main drag. matt and pippa soon had to get going, so after a confused attempt to get a lift to my new hostel in their cab, i got out. put on my pack and set off avenue piedras to find my new location. the hostel inn tango city.

although not easily viewed from the road (clearly, considering captain spanish in the cab's inability to drop me off anywhere near it) it is really a great hostel. very chilled vibe, loads of young foreigners and free internet. holler. of which i am making good use of now.

so today, the 8th of september, i have so far got up and sat down again. eaten bread with some crazy sweet condensed milk crap (dulce du leite- which is actually awesome) and sat staring at the screen of this PC. so now, as it approaches 12am, i feel the need to get on with my day. which includes much city street wandering, and hopefully a successful visit to the south african embassy to help me in getting a bolivian tourist visa. wish me luck.

oh yeah. and its still raining.

electro style today and yesterday

2009-07-13T15:10:00.001+02:00

yesterdays pupil on MySpace Music - Free Streaming MP3s, Pictures & Music Downloads

yesterdays pupil, another awesome music outfit from my favourite hometown, was the first band to play in the line up for the NYPC DJ set gig on saturday night at the alex.

personally i think his set was WAY more enjoyable than the NYPC DJ set. although that wasn't bad or anything. the guys turntabling were certainly having a great time, and people in the closed off area before the stage were more than happy to share their bottle of jack daniels. which i liked.

but back to yesterday's pupil praise. to set the scene: it was the beginning of the night. i hadn't really started drinking. but when he played i jammed hard. in high heels. coincidence- i think not.

i think it is a sign of the undeniably positive future of local music that everytime i see international bands i ALWAYS enjoy the local bands more.

every time.

giddy up new young pony

2009-07-10T19:54:00.001+02:00

NYPC on MySpace Music - Free Streaming MP3s, Pictures & Music Downloads

going to see the dj from this band tomorrow night at the alexander theatre in oh so downtown johannesburg.

indie electro, black and white tiled lobby, underground bar. i'm on it.

right as a black ghost

2009-07-10T19:35:00.001+02:00

Home

if you ever wondered what the rad song is that plays at the beginning of twilight when bella's plane takes off, wonder no further.

the song is called full moon by the black ghosts. really cool plunky, guitar sound with rad vocals.

their site is really cool too, all skellingtons, sheet ghosts and the like.

hot chippity chip

2009-07-07T18:46:00.001+02:00

Hot Chip on MySpace Music - Free Streaming MP3s, Pictures & Music Downloads

as usual when it comes to good music. i hear about it from someone random. then i stop seeing that person. so i forget to investigate thoroughly.

in this case however, i managed to scope out hot chip. a year after i heard about it from the hairy irish dude we played "mafia" with in koh tao.

its a cool game by the way. if you like mind games.

picking my indie nose

2009-07-06T19:14:00.001+02:00

ipickmynose: an indie, soul and oldies music blog » ipickmynose presents…the rural alberta advantage, okay and half-handed cloud @ bottom of the hill july 9

the song by okay on this song is super rad. the guy's voice is kind of scratchy but the guitar riff is so beautiful.

i WILL figure it out on my guitar. sometime soon.

check it out. "natural" by okay. folk is hot.

orchestra goes indie

2009-07-06T19:08:00.001+02:00

Hot New Band: Portland Cello Project | Spin Magazine Online

i really like when people take something cool, and make it even cooler by making classical music sound cooler with it.

combined in a guitary dreamy like song, the cellos are a welcome diversifyer.

i need to investigate this group furhter. apparently they also did a cover of b.spear's "toxic". now that i have to hear.

for pete's sake

2009-07-01T16:22:00.001+02:00

==== PETEMURRAY.com ====

check out the link to the king of love lost acoustic.

musical secrets

2009-07-01T16:17:00.003+02:00

on the topic of hidden musical tastes. i think i tried for a while to hide my love of sappy acoustic love songs.

which reminded me of a year ago memory of being on the sunshine coast with my friends orla and sarah. getting ready to go out on the lash in her apartment was accompanied by the i must say quite hot sounding voice of pete murray.

what can i say. his songs are catchy, in a dreamy love-lost-come-save-me-i'm-borken-hearted kind of way.

i remember also seeing that he was playing in wollongong a week after we departed down under. i remember wishing i could go.

go figure.

aaah...

2009-07-01T16:15:00.001+02:00

Iglu & Hartly on MySpace Music - Free Streaming MP3s, Pictures & Music Downloads

here is the link to their myspace page. if you dare :)

synth up your iglu

2009-07-01T16:14:00.001+02:00

i was once brutally made fun of for liking synth pop. so i denied it for a while. listening to the trip hop happy artificial sounds in secret. until i just didn't care anymore.

now my love of synth pop is out in the open, for all to see. i can't hide it anymore. especially after reading about iglu & hartley in plastique magazine a while ago.

i think their music would be well suited for a party, or cross country road trip.

just a happy mess of synthesized sounds, which makes me smile too.

blog envy

2009-06-24T08:54:00.002+02:00

it's official. i have blog envy. but really it's just absolute admiration for my best friend's blog.

siblingmine is an awesome array of up to date information, polaroid style photos and general quirkly fantabulousness of all that going on in my afficanced casey friend's life.

and if you're wondering what i get up to, its a good place to look too, as i happily make a regular appearence :)