Chapter 5: Bushmanland
The first time I stayed over at the Augrabies Falls I shared my lunch with the granddaddy of all Chacma baboons. I’d been sitting on the stoep of the chalet catching up on notes from the road, sipping a beer and contemplating a brace of ham sandwiches waiting on the table inside. They had little cheese wedges shoved into them with a dash of Tabasco to give the meal more personality.
The falls were thundering away in the middle distance, the dassies were skittering about over the rocks and the flat lizards were catching some serious rays. The world was spinning away perfectly.
And then this fellow sauntered up to the chalet. I caught the movement out of the corner of my eye and sat there very quietly as he approached. He carried himself like a vacuum cleaner salesman who works out a lot in his spare time and has been around the block more than once. There was no fear in those amber eyes, just pure speculation. He sized me up, thought he could take me on with both arms amputated and his tail tied to a braai stand and simply walked inside.
No fuss, no bother. He came out with one of my sarmies clutched in his right hand. Found himself a good rock about five metres away, sat down and began nibbling thoughtfully. Suddenly he made a face, glared down at the sandwich and I thought uh oh, this is where he beats the living daylights out of the cook. But he turned out to be a bit of a gent, and simply flicked the Tabasco cheese off the bread and onto the ground, where a platoon of ants began to celebrate.
The baboon polished off the pirated food, looked up at the slightly outraged silent form that was me, blinked once and took off down the road. I rushed inside and claimed the other sandwich, which was lying there untouched. He’d taken what he thought to be his fair share – and no more. This Augrabies Chacma was nothing like his rude Cape Point counterparts, who will rob you blind given half a chance and bark at you to boot.
Some years later, Jules and I were driving up to Augrabies and the mountains of Bushmanland began doing some very tricksy things. One minute they were symmetrical and low on the horizon. Then they suddenly popped up huge, as if someone had inflated them. Then they rushed behind us and deflated again.
“Maybe they’re breathing in and out,” said Jules.
We arrived at Augrabies in the middle of a sand storm. Strong winds had sprung up, generating positive ions that turned us into negative, crabby travellers. We had temporarily forgotten that quote from Genesis back at the Eye of Kuruman, the one that urges you not to squabble with your road-partner.
The wind got us into such a tangle that we muddled about from chalet to chalet, parking in the wrong place about four times, our tempers fast overheating. Fear and loathing in Augrabies. We unpacked in bristling silence. Then I made a “peace drink” and calm returned to our universe.
Listen up, just in case you ever get the traveller’s blues. Don’t murder your companion. Instead, just make yourselves some instant coffee with a lot of condensed milk. We call it the Nama Super Latte, but you can call it whatever you like. It works like a charm. Suddenly you’re on a caffeine-and-sugar high and darting about the place like a grinning ferret.
In the late afternoon, just as the sun dropped down through the haze of dust, we walked over to the falls. The Gariep River took five million years to slice deeply through volcanic rock formations left over from the Great Gondwana Takeaway, during which Australia and Madagascar left Team Africa and formed their own very close corporations. The Nama call it Aukoerebis, the “noise-making place”, and the Khoikhoi, who used to live in these parts, avoided it like the plague. Many unfortunate souls, among them an old friend of mine, Savvas Georgiades, have fallen to their deaths off these rocks.
We had our own near-disaster at one of the vantage points. My shoes slipped on the rocks while I was trying to photograph the rushing water and for a moment I was dangling on the wire fence, my feet not finding purchase. I took my slippery shoes off and padded about on my bare feet, which worked better.
Taking photographs at Augrabies is a trip. At first, you get caught up in the majesty of moving water that rolls loudly over the rocks. Then the wide-angle beauty of the surrounding rock-scapes hits you. And then you see one of those fiesta-coloured flat lizards and you wonder: how close will he let me get? You step in cautiously, constantly focusing your lens. You’re eventually amazed when your lizard fills the frame and he has not skittered off in alarm. Augrabies lizards are cool. They stay put. They know tourists don’t want to eat them.
So there I was, scampering from lizard to dassie to waterfall to rocky gorge, when I heard an anxious gurgle behind me. Jules had inhaled a midge, and was choking on the bug. But it was nothing that the Heimlich manoeuvre and another cup of Nama Super Latte couldn’t cure.
They say the bottom of the Augrabies Gorge holds a treasure chest of diamonds – and a Great Snake. Every self-respecting major river in Africa needs its very own Great Snake, like the Zambezi, which is home to a character called Nyami Nyami. The huge Gariep Serpent has diamonds in its eye sockets and rules from Augrabies to the distant Richtersveld. Experts have seen real-life pythons of up to eight metres in length around here, and it’s a well-known fact that they swim like demons. But where do the reports of diamond-eyes come from? A late-night campfire and some Kakamas soetwyn, perhaps.
But we do know that the Augrabies is one of the world’s great waterfalls, that it drops down more than 150 metres to the gorge and that, amazingly, it was once privately owned, by a Mr Piet Nel. He sold it to the Union Government for £9 000 in 1910.
On the Dry Lands Journey of 2004, however, we arrived in perfect conditions, with high cirrus clouds cresting like milk streaks above us and diffusing the harsh light. I took a walk to the gorge opposite the falls and found a lone dassie meditating in the late afternoon, gazing over his fiefdom of rock, water and sky.
Back at the chalet, we held a bird party for starlings, weavers, sparrows and bulbuls. We laid out a feast of rusks, and they cheerfully tucked in. I kept a lookout for my Augrabies Chacma. In fact, I had prepared a sandwich for him – without cheese or Tabasco this time.
The next day we headed off to our favourite Bushmanland haunt, a cathedral-oasis (I’ll explain) called Pella, tucked away in the scrub desert about 30 klicks (kilometres) west of the town of Pofadder. Many people think Pofadder is named after South Africa’s famously lazy (but very poisonous) puffadder snake. In fact, the town gets its name from a local chief named Klaas Pofadder, a livestock rustler who lived and died (in a hail of bullets) at this spot. The place was called Theronsville but the name never stuck – so it reverted to Pofadder, in honour of the most dramatic event to have taken place here.
On the way, with Jules behind the wheel, I read her old journal entry from the spring of 1999, when we first came here:
“I can feel my bladder is full, but I know we’ll be in Pella soon, so I shut up, quietly cursing the corrugated road. I see donkeys under two date palms – you can tell we’re in the land of missionaries.
“By the time we arrive in Pella, my bladder is close to bursting. We drive through this hot, dusty little village and just before the church we see a small wooden sign that reads Kultuur Koffiekroeg. Then we’re at this incredible cathedral that was built more than 150 years ago, using a picture in an old encyclopaedia for reference, by a group of gifted amateurs.
“Three nuns emerge from the cathedral to greet us: Sisters Anne-Dorothy, Marie-Felicity, and Therese-Henriette, who assumes the role of guide for us. It’s Sunday afternoon, and the 86-year-old nun was probably looking forward to a nap. Now she has to play with tourists but she’s full of good cheer.
“I should ask her where the toilets are, but I get distracted again as we enter the cathedral, where it’s wonderfully cool compared to the still, baking air outside. We make an appointment to meet again at five that afternoon, when the light will be much softer for photographs. Chris wants to discuss camera angles with me, but I can’t concentrate. Have to find a loo or a secluded spot behind a tree.
“Sister Therese-Henriette tells me where the toilet is. I go off to one of the houses and find the toilet signs but Drat! All three doors are locked. And I can’t pee just anywhere, there are kids with big eyes all over the place. Then I see another gate, another house, another door and I just walk in. The place is filled with gospel music and delicious Sunday dinner aromas and chattering voices. Sister Anne-Dorothy finds me, gives me the toilet key and I rush back past a bemused Chris, who doesn’t know what’s going on here.
“I make it just in time. Utter bliss. But the saga is not over yet. As I flush, my sunglasses fall off my head and into the whirling bowl. All I can do is laugh. It’s all too silly …”
Shame. And there I was that day, thinking that my wife had just had a touch too much sunshine.
Anyway, we trooped off to our lodgings for the night at the Kultuur Koffiekroeg, a matjieshuis (literally “mat house” in the Nama tradition, and adopted by the old-time white farmers of Namaqualand) containing a king-sized bed covered in a jackal kaross and a potty behind a curtain. On a table next to the bed was a bunch of fresh flowers in an old enamel cup. All this for 50 bucks a night – what a bargain.
Jules set up her laptop inside the reed restaurant, kicked off her shoes and dug her feet deeply and happily into the soft Bushmanland sand. On the hessian walls were faded murals showing date palms and matjieshuise and a rough watercolour of Pella Cathedral.
We met the pretty Paula Simboya, the manager. She and owner Christina Jannetjies, who also goes by the name of Ouma Toekoes, were on the local tourism committee.
“Would you like to be our guests at the Miss and Mister Junior Pella competition later this afternoon?” she asked shyly. And why not, we replied.
So Jules and I attended the local beauty competition at the Pella Community Hall. We sat behind a raft of naughty teenage boys, who were eyeing some equally flirty teenage girls. An orange-peel fight erupted, followed by some melodramatic behind-the-hand whispering, accompanied by the noisy consumption of those rather devilish cheesy curls that come in jumbo plastic bags and stain the fingers an unforgettable saffron.
Sister Anne-Dorothy arrived and immediately rushed off to help some of the younger contestants prepare their outfits. The boys emerged from the back, strutting onto the raised stage in their slacks and checked shirts. Wild cheering ensued. Mothers faffed, backstage and frontstage, there was much sucking on flavoured ice in little bags and the applause was deafening. One by one, the girls each made an elegant turn onstage, their hairstyles wavy and large.
We had to leave the competition to make our appointment with Sister Therese-Henriette. She took us around the museum and showed us the Pella version of the Holy Grail – a beautifully embroidered Namaqua daisy immaculately sewn onto red vestments. It nestled there, like a precious golden jewel in a crimson bed of silk. The devout nuns of Pella belonged to the Order of St Francis de Sales who, incidentally, also happens to be the patron saint of journalists.
Sister Therese-Henriette, who grew up in Pofadder, was a veteran of hot religious places. In her 50-odd years as a Roman Catholic nun, she had served in Upington, Nodonsees, Onseepkans, Pofadder, Matjieskloof, Port Nolloth, Vergenoeg and Pella. She had also done two spells in Namibia, at Hyragabies and Keetmanshoop. And when she went home to Pofadder on leave, the devout nun would be astounded by all the material goods around her, as well as a little embarrassed when someone let bad language slip into the conversation.
“But there’s a lot of love in our lives here,” she smiled at Jules. “People think being a nun is like being in prison, but that’s wrong. We go out, we have fun.”
In the gloaming of a Sunday evening, Jules and I sat outside our matjieshuis with a modest single malt and water to hand. I found myself in a great mood. The light was rich, the people were hospitable and the whisky hit the spot.
A small, shy but triumphant procession arrived at our front door. Pushed to the front of the crowd was a little girl in a smart dress with a plastic tiara on her head and a sash proclaiming her Miss Junior Pella. She held onto her prizes: a packet of those cheesy curls, a banana and a small wrapped present. She sidled up to me and whispered, every inch the young beauty queen:
“Ek het gewen (I won)”.
“What’s your name?” I asked, scrabbling for the appropriate camera.
“Beulah,” she softly replied.
“And how old are you, Beulah?”
She held up her tiny hand and uncurled four fingers. This was indeed her day of glory, and there was a photographer on hand to record it. I did the honours, and Jules sat down with Beulah and the lovely little girl sailed through her first celebrity media interview. Everyone, including Beulah’s mom, Jacinta April, looked quite pleased by the proceedings.
After the proud little group left, I sat in the garden among the Madagascan periwinkles, the wild figs, the mother-in-law’s tongue and the Namaqua daisies, had another whisky and listened to the Pella soccer team making a raucous victory drive around the village, while the Games Tavern down the road pumped some kind of trance music out into the desert.
Later, Jules and I lay flat on the ground next to our hut and looked up in wonder at the starry canopy above Pella. Back in Jo’burg, the only stars we see are of the television soap opera variety.
And later, when we finally met Ouma Toekoes, she would say:
“I pray that they never put up street lights in Pella, because then we wouldn’t see the stars at night. I also pray that it will rain soon.”
Just before bedtime, I did brief battle with a noisy mosquito that refused to take Tabard for an answer and then I fell into a deep sleep and dreamt of the Pella Cinderella and her prize bag of cheesy curls …