While in Africa I wrote several stories with the intention of creating a book of short stories about my trip.
Rather than leave it as an unfinished book, here is part three in a blogging mini series…. “Shane’s shorts.“.
I wake up in my tent, it’s dark and I see the large silhouette through my outer tent of what I assume is a farmer. He shouts at me to get out of my tent. Half asleep I sluggishly try to climb out of my sleeping bag, it seems to take forever. All the time the farmer is getting more and more angry with me but I just can’t seem to move. It feels as if I’m in one of those dreams where I’m trying to run away from someone but not getting very far. Again the farmer shouts at me to get out of the tent. I unzip the inner tent door then the outer. Just as I poke my head out of the tent I hear movement above my head and the world goes dark.
I woke again in my tent in the darkness, heart racing, covered in sweat and looked quickly around for the silhouette only to find nothing, I’d obviously been dreaming again. I’d been in South Africa for three weeks now and still wasn’t comfortable with bush camping or wild camping as its often referred to by adventure cyclist. Wild camping is the art of finding a spot to camp, preferably in a remote area and unseen by locals. This is the favored means of camping by many long distance cyclists because its free, quiet and usually in the bush or wilderness with the best views. For many newcomers to wild camping like myself the nights are filled with strange shadows and scary noises.
These shadows and noises invariably meant restless nights thinking a stranger or animal was nearby, coming to do harm or disturb me. In the early months of the trip I would often prefer to sleep at a paid campsite, hotel or backpackers hostel and only bush camp when I had no other choice. By the time I’d spent a couple of months in the Kalahari and Namib deserts and the bush of Zambia and Zimbabwe wild camping had become second nature and was by then my accommodation of choice.
Sleeping under the stars under just my mesh inner tent which I called my five million star hotel. I could enjoy the cool night breeze and the sounds of the wildlife would play me a good night lullaby and most nights seeing a shooting star fly through the sky. Eventually wild camping would become the essence of life for me rather than staying at noisy campsites and hotels. The ability to wild camp a few nights a week would eventually dictate whether I liked a country/region more than the scenery or people.
The first weeks in South Africa had flown by. I’d escaped Cape Town within three days after the compulsory hike and cycle trip around Table Mountain. Though most people love Cape Town and I’m sure people who cycled down through Africa would really appreciate the luxuries a big cosmopolitan city offers. For me Cape Town was just another big noisy city that happened to have a pretty background.
Thanks to tips from one of my Warmshowers hosts I was able to cycle a lot of the early weeks on quiet dirt roads rather than the main R60/61 along the well know Garden route, my route crossing the Zwartberg mountain range several times.
In the weeks after meeting Johann I made my way to the Drakensberg region where I was able to rest for a few weeks, do a horse riding trip into Lesotho and hike the infamous and beautiful Giants cup trail for five days. Spending Christmas with local legend Steve Black and his family at the Khotso horse farm.
Johann
Warmshowers.org is a hospitality website for cyclists. It is a great system much like Couchsurfing where you allow a complete stranger to stay in your house for free. Hospitality websites like these really restore my faith in mankind and many of the people I’ve been hosted by or have hosted myself over the years have become great friends. One in particular is Johann.
I’d contacted Johann months earlier and received many tips and route suggestions from him in the run up to my trip. Johann has built himself a lovely open plan straw bail house in the charming sleepy village of Prince Albert and was luckily more hospitable than the surrounding arid Klein Karoo region.
Johann and I connected really quickly and spent two days talking about life and sharing our mutual passions of cycling, bicycle tinkering and military history. He had the quiet demeanor of someone that has had his fair share of life and all the crap it can throw at you, and had spent too much time in his workshop building Frankenstein.
Despite a messy divorce (when are they not..), not quite enough work and living on the edge of what is pretty much a desert eight months of the year he still has a positive and wise outlook on life. Sitting across the table from Johann sharing a pan of his infamous lentil soup I saw a lot of myself in him and enjoyed the company of a quiet man who was wise beyond his years. Sadly I was still only at the start of my journey so was still in a hurry, the ticking time bomb of a visa expiry date and Johann’s mentioning that they would start harvesting the next day was enough to move me on after only one rest day.
In the months that followed we had regular contact via email and he helped me out with route and logistic choices through South Africa and Namibia as well as a place to stay in Windhoek with his girlfriend who I later affectionately named the cat lady. Johann and another friend of mine Stijn provided enough ideas and tips during my preparation in Kimberly to be able to survive cycling in the Kalahari and Namib deserts during the summer, something most sensible cyclists would of course avoid.
As our relationship grew Johann become much more than just a friend to me but also a mentor and sounding board for some of my tougher decisions often making me listen to myself and make the right decision for myself when needed.
Thank you Johann for your friendship and wise words when I needed them most.
Thank you for the kind words, I’m flattered.
And thank you for naming Frank.
Pleasant surprise after three hours at the “Kerk van Zwarteberg”
I’m fairly sure I gave you instructions not to read this post 🙂 Hope your sunday prayers was with 25kg of baggage otherwise he won’t hear you ….
I thought the Sunday restriction was because of my strict Calvinist beliefs. I was gonna wait til Monday, I promise.
Oh hell, I forgot the Baggage of Penance, so I’ll just have to go again.