oh, george

friday - rollin':

we left at 9am instead of 8.30 as planned, and i spent the drive learning about cruise control and remembering how much i enjoy jelly tot power sours. and m&ms. also, ginger beer is definitely "the thirst quencher" because after a few sips it gets a bit painful. it was my first real drive in a year, it really took it out of me but between the four or five hours i did on friday and the other few on saturday, i feel as comfortable at high speeds as ever. and my mum's little gti does high speed very, very well.

lunch in swellendam was quaint and delicious, but took a bit long and we arrived at the safari just in time to be hurried to sign the idemnity form and jump onto the jeep. pg and i got put in the front, which i believe added a bit to the experience. we began with the elephants, then passed some young kudu and a couple of giraffes, then stopped in the lion enclosure when we found a lioness. there's nothing like staring at a lioness at rest 50m behind the vehicle, when you haven't a clue where all the others are lurking and you know that if she gets excited she can be in the back of the jeep within two seconds. literally.

we had an extremely close and somewhat frightening experience with a baby rhino who got curious - he may have been the cutest thing imaginable, but his mother was right behind him and the ranger wasn't the only one who was a little concerned that she'd get nervous. that horn looks really big from less than three metres.

we hunted for the cheetah and wildebeest unsuccessfully, so we were taken to the cages to see a couple of tame cheetahs who really are just giant kitties in need of a good belly rub. i wouldn't have ventured a hand through the fence, though :P

after a hunter's dry and an attempt to rest while my mum drove to the next rest stop, we picked up steers and i swallowed a rave burger (which is what they now call the basic burger) while my mother spilled my coffee all over us. it must have been a sign, because i'd forgotten to specify no milk and had barely sipped it before i had to go ask for a replacement cup. unfortunately, while the dairy-free version would have been better for me their cups weren't made for that kind of heat, so it dripped on me all the way to the rubbish bin at george's airport...

the sky and clouds and mountains and lakes around george while the sun was setting were all absolutely magnificent.

the directions to the guest house were all great except for the bit where they never specify left / right. we guessed correctly, though, but although that meant that we arrived just fine we were unnecessarily stressed by the constant uncertainty.

the guest house was nice enough, barring the separate beds and the stupid lock on the gate, and once we'd put down our belongings we were off to fancourt for hot chocolate to warm up and more than enough french fries to fill up.
the conversation ran from nutrition to epigenetics, which led us into a raging argument over scientific studies and the validity thereof. skepticism is a healthy and integral part of the scientific method. there may be a fair amount of presumption regarding what we know about the science of the very big and the very small, but that doesn't mean that everything is rubbish or as rubbish as statistics. only pharmaceutical research is really suspect, although even they seem to be beginning to get their act together now that they're taking a proper look at the placebo effect.

the fancourt road in the dark is long and not fun.

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friday night:

it was very cold and having to sleep in two separate beds made it even colder, even if the beds were pushed together. i had a strange dream when i went back to sleep earlier:
i was one of two emaciated africans struggling to find their way to a safe place. in order to enter a compound, we had to get past a giant creature, possibly an elephant. we eventually managed to convince the elephant to open one of the windows for us, but climbing in took an enormous effort. we were rewarded with the scrapings of whatever food the locals could help us out with. the relief was indescribable.

then i was an alien, searching through the massive compound that turned out to be a massive network of corridors and labs. on the top level i was sent on a mission but as i was becoming hungrier and hungrier as i progressed i began hunting for food as well. none of the hi-tech kitchens couldn't provide food that was suitable for me. in one kitchen, i found eric cartman making himself a sandwich and i did something unspeakable to him to force him to help me out.

on the way down from the top floor, i found myself in human form looking at artists constructing a huge installation for the day of remembrance / independence day. it was really impressive, and had something to do with perfect circles. it also had space for posters of missing children.

at least the shower's alright. it's now about 10am and we should be going soon.

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saturday:

the drive to plettenberg bay is a lot further than i anticipated. the sedgefield craft market was wonderful: hippies, a bacon, banana and maple syrup pancake FTW, customizable mini donuts are pure decadence-in-a-box, and the metal work is stunning. unfortunately it's as expensive as it is glorious, and we settled for a cute, hand-made clock that tells the time in south african. "now now", "just now", etc.

the N2 through knysna sucks.

we saw monkeyland, delaying our tour for good burgers and missing one group of annoying kiddies but gaining another. the guide was awesome; he's from cameroon, and is a vast storehouse of interesting information and not just about the monkeys. which were a lot of fun. i've decided that my girlfriend bears fascinating similarity to lemurs :P
we then visited the birds of eden, i with my hoodie up to protect my helix and pg with her scarf wrapped. they have a wonderful collection of birds (and a couple of cute monkeys), and the environment is really cool to walk through. the fact that it's natural is even cooler.

we stopped by the special monkey cages to visit the spider monkeys; both the amusingly overweight pair of macdonald's junkies and the aggressive little dude who clambered up to the fence to inspect us. we had no time for elephants or big cats, so we returned to the N2 for the long drive back into the sunlight. knysna sucked. it was empty and dead and the only thing that makes me happy about stopping there was finding zoo biscuits which i might otherwise have forgotten for my kibbutz cousin.

we found ourselves lost, not on the N2 anymore but somehow back in george, and closer to our guest house than we would've been otherwise. we stopped to pick up "dinner", including a small pizza - pg gave me shit about wanting to buy two small pizzas, and it was only later that she realized just how small they were...

after a long argument about her being too tired to go - she was feeling guilty about not coming with me - i made my way to fancourt. and got lost. no lights on the signs plus not being able to use brights with oncoming traffic made me think that i'd gone too far. i then travelled for what seemed like far too long, eventually turning around in vexation and going back. certain that i'd missed it by one stop, i turned in to the previous one only to discover that the road was unusable by less than a 4x4, so i slowly turned around and tried again. then i suddenly found myself back at the circle i'd started at, and spent the following two minutes chaining together various forms of a certain cuss word in frustration and anguish and exasperation while turning around and trying again. the next time i got it right - discovering, to my even greater dismay, that i'd gotten it right the first time and had simply given up too soon. i was pissed when my mom came to pick me up with her golf cart.

i sat with shadowslight's mum for a while, holding tight to my hot chocolate while explaining the issues of scientific enquiry and the fascinating reality behind god. i was well impressed that she didn't so much as blink twice, and what usually ends up in argument remained a comfortable conversation.

i had coffee with my mom and another friend of theirs, and eventually headed home. the way back was quick and painless, not including the second scrape of the wheels in one of the ditches (both times i hit it worse because i'd tried to avoid it), and i'm pretty sure the cd player's suffering from a loose connection.

pizza, bath and bed didn't pan out the way i'd have liked because the bath... well, the bath sucked. so after wasting all that water i had a shower instead. at least we learned about electric blankets :)

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this morning:

saying goodbye to our hosts was a little awkward this morning. we packed up and went to hand them the keys and money, and the guy stood there laughing disturbingly while his wife asked inappropriate questions. they're hardcore christians, and i'm pretty certain that our answering the marriage question in the negative didn't score us any points. we headed out, having become sinners in the eyes of our judges, and the way to fancourt was much, much easier in the light.

it's just about noon and my phone's beeping at me to let me know it's almost out of juice. we've just chatted away a good couple of hours - mostly because pg and i are being extra polite, i've been a lot more in the mood to read and do nothing than sit and chatter. having said that, the conversation was interesting: in particular, discovering that more rhinos were poached this weekend has brought to mind blood diamond. we need a blood ivory hollywood special to show rich idiots that expensive (and wildly ineffective) aphrodisiac isn't worth making those incredible, prehistoric creatures extinct.

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post-drive:

my body is stiff and sore, in particular my poor legs. we just did the drive in about four and a half hours plus lunch at the spur in riversdale; most of it was pleasure driving* and hitting the heavy rain towards the end only to come out into a gorgeous (and fleeting) sunset moment as we arrived home was amazing.

* it's much easier to relax when you're the second in a convoy. no thinking required.

pg was in a bit of a mood, but she provided all the munchies nonetheless. i think she's had enough holidaying for one vacation.

weird stuff: bird droppings. within a span of about two minutes (doing +-130kph, you do the math) through fairly uninteresting countryside with seemingly clear skies above, no less than five bird droppings hit the windshield, four of them properly grouped right in front of my eyes. if they were aiming, then that was some pretty impressive sharpshooting.

we listened to my mother's cds for a bit - some of them are really funky and suggest, fairly strongly, that the only reason that my mother doesn't like the music i listen to is precisely because i listen to it :/

too tired to do any more than drink and read. good weekend, all in all.