So, with my wonderful knowledge of the Dutch language I thought understanding Afrikaans (apparently the main language in South Africa is not english…) would be easy. As usual I was so wrong, and the further I get away from the cities the less people speak English. Maybe I should of read this book before the trip:)
So what is Afrikaans?
As South Africa has been a mixing pot of cultures for the last 300 years, so is the language. The ingredients are:
1. Bastardised English grammar.
2. Old Skool Dutch language.
3. A pinch of local and foreign dialect and words.
Put this on a slow boil for about 200 years and allow all those pointless words Dutch words like om/er and many more to evaporate, then cut off the end of most words to keep life simple, because life is too short to use long words. Then leave to cool for 20-30years and allow to cure with a thick accent.
The result: Some nonsense I still need to get my head around before I get into the farmers country where they don’t speak English:).
Escaping Cape Town
Leaving Cape Town proved to be the same nightmare any big city usally is. I thought I’d been smart by putting a nice route in my GPS, but it turned out that the road I’d chosen along the water was a harbour road and closed to the public. What followed was an hour of trying several roads that all lead to the motorway. In the end I thought stuff it and followed the motorway for 20 minutes until the first exit outside of the city.
After that it was a nice ride to Stellenbosch and a warm welcome from the Leuvennink family, a day off with a day trip with Johann into the mountains around Stellenbosch. The day after was a beautiful and fairly easy climb up to Bainskloof pass. Then a spectacular 7km descent to the campsite, the site seemed very quiet, when I left the next day the warden said I didn’t have to pay because they where actually closed (€15 in the pocket….), yesterday I had a pleasant evening with Hoffie another great warmshowers host.
Getting fit
I promised myself to take it easy the first couple of weeks until I get fit again, I dont really have much choice, I’m usually buggered after 60-70km anyway. The roads are more busy than I’d like, but I wanted to take it easy on nice tarmac roads at first. I’ve had some great hosts this last week through warmshowers.org. But the days of nancy boy soft beds and warmshowers are over, I’ll be in Montagu tomorrow evening then from monday I’ll be hitting the trails and unmarked paths as I head through hills towards the black mountains and Oudtshoorn/Prince Albert. I doubt I’ll be able to get good maps for the area and my 1.2million scale map wont help much. Time for a little offroad adventure and camping wild:)
But first another night of too much beer and talking shite with backpackers at the Robertson backpackers (nice little place btw)
Keep the blogs coming, love ’em Shane!
if you’re heading towards Oudtshoorn, die Hel might be worth visiting;
Die Hel is an isolated valley in the Swartberg Mountains between Oudtshoorn and Prince Albert. Although the valley officially falls in the Fynbos vegetation biome, one could be forgiven for thinking they were in moist savannah when in the valley. This is due to the fact that, although the valley itself receives a rather-arid 200ml of rain a year, the surrounding mountains collect more than 1600ml of rain annually – all of which flows down into the valley. Accessible via only one (rather dangerous) 4×4-only road, the valley is very isolated, and is cut-off during the rainy season when the Gamka River comes down in flood. Once a remote farming community, the valley is now mostly owned by CapeNature and is a nature reserve.
cheers
Jos
Thanks for the tip Jos
Beautiful pictures! Sounds like the next segment of your trip is going to be a real adventure with no maps! Looking forward to hearing about it.
Nice pics, changed my naive impression on Africa, looks like Ireland.
Moenie warrie (Don’t worry)
You’re heading into Xhosa territory soon, so neither Afrikaans or English will be of little use.
Just as you get used to that, it will be Sesotho in Lesotho where the BaSotho people live (Got it?)
And then some more Afrikaans (with a an accent as flat as the Free State)
And then Setswana up north west, mixed with some Afrikaans and just the very tiniest bit of Engels.
Just when you think you have it waxed, you’ll hit the far northern cape and that’s more complex than the local geology. (In this region, I recommend that you mumble in Dutch, mouth half closed with a Newcastle accent) Should be clear as a dust storm.
Then Namibia (lots of Afrikaans) but this time with Prussian pre 1914 German, roasted on a mixture of Nama, Damara and Herero……(Here you should probably mumble in Dutch with whatever German accent you can muster). Or you could just stare vacantly over the beautiful country..
Oh, and then Botswana, where the Motswana live, speaking Setswana.
On second thoughts, just speak bicycle and keep smiling 😉
I’ll just stick with smiling and looking like a dumb tourist:)