Welcome to Coriolistic Anachronisms

Something just came up, tonight, which reminded me of the Little Prince; what’s essential might be temporarily invisible to the eyes but is always seen quite well with one’s heart. And this too: roses are proud flowers, self-aware and more critical of themselves then anybody could ever be. And then I noticed I hadn’t written yet about the following. Maybe I should’ve started with this post, when I came home over a week ago, since it mattered to me most. I’ve been very disorganized in the way I address my photos. I was also stalling because I waited for the inspiration on how to write about such an extraordinary thing without using the actual words for it, for very practical web reasons. The inspiration didn’t come. There’s a personal limit in blogging that one doesn’t feel equipped to push, and mine stands just beyond what I am currently doing and right before the scope of this post. So. Here are, without real words and framed by long pauses, sighs and smiles, a few rare pictures of a most amazing day. It was a lovely day of breaking the rules, of throwing preconceived ideas into the wind, of going back to the source, of shaving the unnecessary, of looking deep inside instead of out, of holding a single hand rather than many, of spending time with angels, of walking barefoot when shoes are in order, of wearing jeans because they feel good, of eating with bare fingers, of doing exactly what we wanted, of staring into the sunset while dreaming of sunrise, of not caring too much about what they think, of taking a last step down and a first up, of burning bridges and opening new doors, of taking chances and daring to jump with no ground in sight, of seeing an everlasting fog finally lifted, of understanding it all, of figuring out how simple life’s complexity is, of saying yes after so many no’s, of definitely accepting the truth as only currency, of taking a deep breath and arriving home, at last.

PS If one needs more details, it was also blogged about quite funnily over at 66 Square feet.

 

 

Picture a long, hypnotically desert stretch of dryness leading to Barrydale, Little Karoo. The landscape is arid and flattened by an immense sky, modest rolling hills only beginning in the far distance. Yellow is the predominant tint and colors are warm but washed out. You’re driving 120 km/h on a single lane road as is often the case in South Africa. Then, up ahead appears a white speck, which soon turns out to be a low lying house with bleached walls and a red sign painted unevenly on the side. As you get closer, you finally decipher the letters: they say « Ronnie’s Sex Shop. » Not having been warned, you’re left to ponder what on earth such a thing is doing out here.

There is no way to avoid a pit stop, curiosity has taken over. You pull over in the dusty parking lot and come to a stop between a Harley and a car with foreign plates. The remains of an old tractor look at you getting out of your vehicle and stretching, silently warning: « Look around and be gone, stranger, or you’ll end up like me. »

You turn around and stare at the marking on the wall, still trying to figure it out. To the left of the main house, a patio and a few tables and chairs with their umbrellas suddenly remind you of your thirst. No matter what else they sell here, there seem to be drinks and souvenirs, and that alone was worth the stop. But you can’t help finding out first what the deal is so you head to the entrance on the right, nodding to the bikers sipping their beer in the shade as you pass them.

You walk into a rather dark room and your eyes fight to adjust for a few seconds as you hesitate walking in any further, mindful of the surprises that might lay ahead. Then your vision adjusts and what was darkness turns into a peculiar semi-lit room with a bar at one end and a slightly brighter space opening opposite you. A man is standing behind the bar, gray beard and long poneytail. Wearing a black t-shirt, smoking thoughtfully, he looks like a biker himself. Is he Ronnie?

Having silently said hello to the man, you turn your attention back to the room, your eyebrows still arched in question marks. Hundreds of old bras and panties are hanging from the ceiling, collecting dust and spider webs. You notice more chairs and tables, a few magazines, a TV showing some big rugby game. Venturing now into the far room you are greeted by harsh yellow light shining through a narrow window. The walls are literally covered with thousands of quite neatly arranged graffiti and messages.

You whip your camera out of its bag like a cowboy his Colt. The very low light makes shooting difficult but such an eerie atmosphere is well worth the effort. « Ronnie » kindly accepts to pose, or rather not to, for a moody picture. So he keeps on doing what he was, staring into emptiness and blowing thick volutes of blue smoke at his bras.

A little investigation soon reveals that the « Sex » was a prank played one night on Ronnie by his pals. They painted the word next to his name and fled. Ronnie liked it. He kept it. Smart decision - it put him on the map and inside travel guide books.

You smile. Glad you stopped.

 

For reasons far out of one’s control, the paragliding side of this SA trip was rather thin. While the weather was mostly stunning, it was rarely flyable and we frankly had so much to do that choices had to be made. As a first attempt, we went on a short road trip to Porterville, north, the local cross-country Mecca.

The plan was to sleep in a... well, we’ll call it a bungalow, at the Beavarlac campground located by a water source behind the ridge where the flying is done. We arrived on site around noon on an extremely warm day. The wind had already picked up and was blowing a little too sideways for a first flight in years, so after watching a group of Swedes land in a vast field below while getting a site briefing from the local paragliding guru - who declared the conditions seldom improved in the evening - we hit the dirt road again and headed for the camp.

A bungalow is what we got. No toilet, but warm water, a refinement we never fully understood because the temperature was probably around 40 degrees Celsius. As the afternoon progressed and the air got cooler outside, our unit demonstrated remarkable insulation capabilities by retaining the heat inside to our great disgust.

We left on a short hike to the nearby river where a natural series of pools offered some pristine, even if a touch brown, water to refresh our burning skin in. Then I got the itch again and insisted we go check the wind at the launch site, just in case it had dropped. It hadn’t. So we drove on to the alternate take off, better exposed but very short. Just as we arrived, the wind was dying along with daylight. So much for the briefing.

I unpacked hurriedly and setup my glider on the small launch pad. By then the wind was just about calm. It had gone from strong to nothing in a few minutes. Marie took nervous snapshots as I attempted a series of reverse inflations, having no space to inflate with my back to the canopy and run. The sun had long been gone and we were approaching the end of civil daylight - a half hour after sunset - and the end of my luck. I decided to pack up rather than risk ending in the bushes. I’d come back in the morning.

But morning came and no flying was done. So we rescheduled for a few days later, as on our way to mythical Knysna we would drive through the town of Wilderness and its many flying opportunities.

We reached Wilderness in intermittent rain and went for a quick walk on the beach, then stayed for a night at the Cloud Base Paragliding lodge ran by Jan Minaar. The following day, after a late start - the conditions were taking their sweet time improving following some serious rain the day before - we finally drove up to the Map of Africa, Cloud Base’s dedicated site, perched right above the town and facing the ocean. It’s mostly a dynamic soaring site with a few thermals coming through from the town below; low ceiling and a mandatory call to the local ATC prior and after flying.

A few people were already airborne but barely managed to stay up. Jan gave me the ritual site briefing, explaining were to go and not to go, the location of the bottom LZ, top landing procedures, best lift areas, possible service thermals, etc. Then I set up and waited. One does a lot of waiting when paragliding, it’s part of the game. Finally, the wind seemed to pick up a little. I battled with my canopy for a while, not having flown in a few years and it took 3 or 4 reverse inflations to get it above my head symmetrical and stable. A quick visual inspection, I turned around, ran a few paces and was airborne. I waited until the glider had picked up speed and cleared the ground before sitting back into my harness, then took a dead turn on the brake lines, checked my vario and relaxed.

The soaring zone at the Map is rather narrow, limited to the right and the south by a final ridge sticking out all the way to the ocean before opening into a valley, and to the left and north by a gap some distance away between two bumps in the hill. The right boundary is turbulent and not to be challenged; the left one is open to exploration, conditions allowing.

I spent the first half hour scratching the slope and using every bit of lift I could sniff. The best deal was usually found over an exposed patch of rocks and being too low to circle in it, I used the typical 8-shape pattern to stay as close to the core as possible. An increasing number of gliders were taking off and airspace was getting crowded. Looking over one’s shoulder before turning was an absolute necessity not to run into an incoming wing.

Then things picked up a touch. I was gradually able to gain a few hundred meters and separate myself from the herd, pushing at times far over the road and away from the hill, and exploring the area to the left over town as long as sink wouldn’t set in.

Eventually, I got worried that my dear Marie was going to get bored. She was sitting on the grass, looking up at me, taking pictures and I flew by once or twice waving. When I decided to land I opted for a top landing, not wanting to force her to come and pick me up down at the beach. I started my U-shape approach but had to abort a few times because beginner pilots (assisted by someone) were taking off and I don’t like to stress a pilot by coming in from the side as he’s trying to concentrate.

Then I got my approach in all the way, made a small final turn into the wind, 10 meters above the grass, and suddenly, I completely spaced out. How does one top land again? Duh. I had done hairy top landings in Spain where the wind was so strong that braking at the last minute would send you over the top, so I kept my hands high, standing in my harness, and of course my Swing Arcus, happily flying, kept on doing so and I overshot the target.

So I circled and came around once more. Same result. I tried the reverse approach, coming in from the right ridge. Again. Nothing would work. I’d end up perfectly lined up, a few meters above the ground, but without braking to stall the glider, it just didn’t want to land. Eventually, impatient, I attempted one last approach from the right because the lift on the left was increasing so much it was hard not to gain height on the downwind leg. I came in tight, started my turn too late and all of a sudden, the glider was dropping to the slope, still almost completely downwind.

So that’s why they put so much padding underneath harnesses! I touched down hard, slid for a few feet, got up, collapsed the canopy, and felt very, very ashamed. A textbook example of what not to do when top landing, or even when landing at all. I guess one has to pay a price for only flying every 3 years.

I packed up my stuff, swearing under my breath and at the same time thrilled about the flight, and concluded I’d have to go flying more often - or not at all.

Time will tell.

 [All the great shots of me were taken by a very patient Marie.
It’s kind of cool, first time I’ve ever seen myself fly.
Look for orange pants and a blue and white glider. And a big smile.]

 

It was late afternoon. We packed up a picnic - Marie being the absolute queen and ruler of such things - hopped in the Kombi and hit the road, bound for Lion’s Head. We were not going to scale it, it was too late for that. We would do the easy thing: walk up the service road for a while, find a spot to sit down, and enjoy the sunset while we feasted.

Lion’s Head, a small pyramid-shaped hump located to the northwest of Table Mountain just against the sea, is a strange compromise in the tortured local clashing of geography and weather. When the southeaster (called by some the Cape Doctor) blows hard in the summer, coming from the other side of the high plateau, it has to find its way around the mighty obstacle. At that point, many thanks to Messrs. Bernoulli and Venturi, all kinds of very cool things happen: that’s how the table cloth forms - but more importantly, Lion’s Head might find itself completely protected from the wind, sitting in the wind shadow of the larger mountain.

We parked at the bottom of the dirt road under the absently-watchful eye of the police who seemed to be guarding the place. Then, leaving the city behind us, we walked up the path as the sun descended on the horizon, with Lion’s Head rising above our right shoulders and to the left, across the Kloof Nek, clouds rolling down the side of Table Mountain at a fascinating speed.

We didn’t have to go far. The best view was everywhere we looked but a bench conveniently helped us settle down facing the southeast where most of the action was, on the Table and the Twelve Apostles. Our outstanding picnic was unpacked and spread out on the bench. I think there was biltong, serrano ham, creamy brie and crackers, dried mangoes, and red wine. And I must be forgetting something critical... Snoek pate?

And we stared. And Abe clicked away, mounted on her tripod. And we ate. And we drank. A little bit. As Marie blogged back then, a lady patted her on the back on her way down, approving of the style. In French we’d say, il y avait de quoi se lécher les babines...

Then we realized we had completely forgotten to give anyone our ETA back to civilization and since people have been mugged not far from that spot - this is Cape Town after all - we hurried back down the dark road and called it a day. A beautiful day.

 

South Africa, in the mind of most people, is synonymous with game. Not poker. Not soccer. Game. As in big animals. No, not B’ush. Animals that are hunted down. And go on four legs. Oh, wait a minute, ok, maybe there are animals that go on two. Well, B’ush actually goes on all four when it comes to political games. But that’s not the kind of game I’m talking about. Or the kind of animal. My animals are much more human. And by game I meant the African kind. But it’s still hunting, and I despise it. Hunt B’ush down, yeah, but not animals. Any way. I digress. What I meant to say was this: even though South Africa equals lions and zebras in most peoples’ minds, very few have actually thought of... penguins! And yet, they are there, thriving, and we visited them!

The place is called Boulders Beach. It’s located to the south of Cape Town, on the western shore of False Bay and the eastern side of Cape Point. Driving past Muizenberg and the pretty fishing town of Kalk Bay, one reaches Simon’s Town. For some reason, a colony of African Penguins (used to be called Jackass Penguins, please don’t let me go back with this to my earlier ramblings about a certain animal...) recently elected residence there on a very short stretch of shoreline, merely a few hundred meters in all. The scenery is spectacular, reminding me of the Baths in Virgin Gorda with its giant boulders thrown into pristine turquoise water...

As always, tourism has gotten a hold of the place and a National Park has been established on the northern end of the area, with limited, paying access, informative displays, toilets and elevated boardwalks to prevent damage to the dunes (and the tourists) and leave the poor penguins alone. Hundreds of tourists are spat out daily by buses and the parking lot looks like that of a major shopping center. However, unknown to most visitors, the southern part of the colony has free access, is much, much prettier, and lets one wander freely on the beach around the penguins who don’t seem to mind human presence at all. So that’s where we headed after experiencing the crowds at the first stop.

And once we had been there, as Da Vinci said it of the sky, we longed to return. So we did. Low tide, high tide, the place was exceptionally beautiful, and surprisingly quiet. To get to the nicest spot, we left the main beach and its towels behind, walked around a few boulders, crouched and crawled through a narrow tunnel inside one, and emerged in a peculiar no-man’s land, a neutral zone where humans and penguins co-habit peacefully.

There, almost alone with the colony, we swam, sunbathed, photographed and relaxed in the company of the strange flightless aquatic birds. They really didn’t mind us, tolerating our close proximity very well and obviously not affected by the typical tourist-to-pet feeding pattern. Their personal space is strangely small; many a time, a penguin would walk straight up to me from 20 or 30 feet away, only to stop about 2 feet from me and wait patiently for me to yield sideways - which I would once I understood the rules - upon which it would resume its slow funky walk to wherever it were going.

Once in while, a school - or should I say a flock? Any way, a bunch - of them would come in from open water through the half submerged boulders, charging passed us for the beach, and they would jump out of the water and head up comically through a gully to a point where they would stop and face a rock to dry in the sun, head tilted sideways as if staring at the ground or the sky, or both...

I wondered for a while if penguins feed on lobster. To illustrate my question, I turned into one. Marie told me they have a big hole in the ozone layer down there, and if you mess with the suntan lotion, you get checkers and stripes. No kidding! The Caribbean son found its Waterloo. I didn’t burn, I fried. Que dis-je? I fried... I baked! So for a couple of weeks, I had red diagonal lines where I’d quit rubbing the gooey stuff before the shoulders. Oh well. They don’t know what a red neck is in Cape Town.

But really, what a magical place! Two days of pure fun. And I even learned the penguin posture. Oh, yeah, you already know, Marie was kind enough to post a picture of that...

...

 

N.B. The tone of this post might sound a bit frivolous, and that’s because it is. There are noble and very serious endeavors in life, such as supporting Amnesty International, abolishing Apartheid, encouraging the John Lennon fund for the protection of the African Beatle, and baking flan. And then there is sunbathing with penguins which is probably as frivolous as going on a road trip in a 4X4 without a shovel. But that’ll be fixed soon.

 

 

 

First, you must hire the best tour guide in town. I had. Then you should make sure that your guide has the picnic angle covered. She did. As always.

You’ll drive north for a while, out of Cape Town and around Table Bay to Blouberg, preferably at the friendly purr of an old Volkswagen Kombi. Parking there by the seaside as a hot afternoon reluctantly turns into dusk, you might be shocked – almost literally – by the incredible wind sweeping the coastline into your eyes and ears. As for Marie and I, a powerful southeaster, as nasty as they come, made our walk down the beach infinitely easier than the walk back up.

But you’ll stop, first, and stare at the mad ocean and beyond. Waves will be crashing onto the rocks at your feet or surfing gracefully into mile after mile of sandy beach towards the inside of the bay. The air will be filled with a familiar blend of sand and salt and your sunglasses will almost instantly be covered by a fine misty layer. The camera will shudder at the touch of the corrosive mix but could not be left holstered.

Because you see, right in front of you, across a lot of ocean, will stand a dark silhouette softly backlit by the drowning sun - no other than the mighty Table Mountain, with Cape Town’s lights already shimmering at its foot. It’s a stunning view, you know, a postcard classic, a shutter trigger, an instigator of sighs...

The light might not be perfect, a low cloud layer suddenly obscuring your horizon on the sun’s declining path. Given the wind’s unrelenting assault, you might even opt to have your picnic inside the car, staring at the magnificent view between two bites of snoek paté, a glass of red wine in your hand and your guide’s.

But be patient. Light is a funny, fleeting thing. It easily shies away, like a seahorse slowly turning its back to the lens, and yet I’ve seen it so many times born again from its ashes at the last minute, just before a final curtain falls on that day and the world flips over to the dark side.

That’s what happened to us. In many ways.

I wish you the same!

 

The edge of the Little Karoo, an arid semi-desert region northeast of Cape Town, is where one finds, not far from the small town of Prince Albert, Hell.

To go to Hell (Hel in Afrikaans), you must drive through a steeply climbing section of the stunning Swartberg mountain pass, some of it quite narrow and unpaved. But that’s nothing. You are still on a road from A to Z.

Somewhere around C or D, however, the civilized dirt road branches off to the right as a laconic sign warns you: Gamkaskloof - « Die Hel » – 50 km – 2 hours.

...

Well that would’ve been nice. Our intel’ said 2:30 hrs and up. And we knew our many photo stops were probably going to stretch that timing by half. Said intel’ also specified how to negotiate the last portion of the ride: « You get to the top of a steep, infinitely winding dirt road leading down through a series of hairpin bends to the bottom of the valley, 1000 meters below. You stop there and watch the entire length down for incoming traffic that you couldn’t meet head-on on the exposed and narrow road. Even if you see none, still wait 10 minutes just in case. Then you throw yourself in low gear, and may God be with you. » Boy, were we glad we had the 4X4 Turbo Landcruiser!

Die Hel, as one story goes, was not so called by its inhabitants – the isolated valley actually being a strangely lush and hospitable oasis thanks to the Gamka river that runs through it – but by the British tax collectors or stock inspectors who had to endure the voyage there and back.

Only access path to Hell, the 50 km long dirt road wanders endlessly between two high ridges and you find yourself wondering if you’ll ever get there, and if, when you do, it will still be there.

The valley of Hell itself, the Kloof, is 10 km long and narrow. After that, the road ends. There is nothing beyond. You must turn around or stay forever.

The first part of the trip was, as we would later agree, by far the most spectacular. There had been a bush fire in a not so distant past and tall charcoal-black flowers stood at eye level as far as those could see, silent guardians of a pointless secret, lifeless skeletons erected above a ground already re-fertilized and moving forward busily.

Then we discovered that enough water actually flowed down from the barren slopes above us into the flat plateau where our road cruised right and left, enticing an amazing vegetal cocktail to establish permanent residency. Marie was in pure botanical heaven, hell to come or not. Even I, from the height of my almost complete ignorance in the field, was fascinated.

Many pictures were taken, even more stops requested, and exclamation points left hanging in mid-air. Then the landscape got drier - and stretched to infinity. The path was bad, our maximum driving speed hovered around 25 km/h and too often, rocks and potholes had to be negotiated with an almost complete stop.

When we got to the top of the last challenge we looked down at the road for incoming enemy troops, saw nothing, considered waiting the recommended 10 minutes, didn’t, and dove in. Nobody came shooting up from a blind corner during the descent. Maybe they saw us come down and waited.

The drive through the long valley took forever. At first pretty and extremely green under its cover of lush trees, it soon got boring and incredibly rough. In places we could have sworn we were driving on a dry river bed, which in time became true because there had indeed been a flood. But we pushed on, lured by the promise of a wealth of historical information in some public house at the end of the road.

The house was closed. Next to it, a generator huffed and puffed loudly right where we would have had our picnic. Vanquished, we bailed and crossed the entire valley again to go eat by the entrance near a baboon-proof garbage can.

A few of the old houses remain in Die Hel; they have been renovated and are rented out as self-catering units to the braves who venture this far into nothingness and bring enough supplies along to survive a week. The houses still carry the family name of their last owner. It took me a while to understand: all of them, 10 or so, belonged to a Marais. They must have married each other for generations, without ever leaving the safety of the valley. Their gene pool would have been as dry as the moon. To this day, it is remembered that the locals were a little… strange.

On the way back, a beautiful distant storm slowly grew into a mighty giant in the north and inched its way towards us, finally reaching the road as we hurried down the final pass into Prince Albert. We had been to Hell and back; 120 km of dirt road in seven hours. That night, the wine tasted heavenly.

 

Very little remains to be said about the fascinating views of the Sahara one gets from the air. Here are more images, the RAW files having been processed with better tools this time. They are not all perfectly crisp but keep in mind that they were shot through a plane window in manual focus.

Still, our planet leaves me in awe.

 

Up at 4:30 am, I left home a little before 6:00 this morning, wearing a suit and trench coat (argh!), a briefcase at arm’s length (argh again) and my thoughts distant and sweet. A thick winter fog bank blanketed the desert dark streets and muffled the sound of my hurried footsteps.

My first stop, ritualistic and yet meaningless, was the coffee shop. Coffee, I had had already, and a very good one; an Italian espresso blend brought all the way back from South Africa and brewed in my little Bialetti stove top. But the coffee shop serves more than a needed drink, it serves as a launching pad for the day, a place warm and cozy where thoughts are gathered and spirits lifted, where a deep breath is taken when time cannot be.

Like the most daringly thin skyscraper, a day is built from the ground up and at 6:15 in an armchair, watching through a smoking coffee others sketching their day’s architecture – or failing to do so – I like to lay a few bricks of my own and dream of what will be.

Many pictures are coming this way. I’m sorting through hundreds of files, selecting and deleting as I go. It’s a complicated matter and emotions get in the way. Crappy shots are often kept for sentimental reasons. The pile stays high and later I have to get the machete out again and start over...

And that’s just the tip of the iceberg, a distraction, a hobby. The larger bricks, and the wilder dreams, I can’t even talk about. They lay in a dimension beyond decent blogging, classified Top-Secret and Eyes Only, and only when the wind of time has blown long and hard will I eventually add them to my daily chatter.

In the meantime, life is sweet and sour.

 

23:30 - Gate A3, OR Tambo International Airport, Johannesburg

Air France flight 997 is finishing boarding. The massive Boeing triple seven, first aircraft ever released with an initial ETOPS-180 rating*, is just about empty. I’ve once again scored an exit row seat with a full 2 meter legroom and 2 empty seats next to me. And I’m almost sure that the crying baby who just threw up on the mother in the center row will now be quiet for a few hours.

Almost a moth ago, I was flying into South Africa, same flight, same seat. So much has happened since then that I don’t really know where to begin. That was a typo, by the way, but I kept it because I was indeed like a moth, attracted by the brightest, warmest, prettiest light I had ever seen. The light didn’t burn me, though, and it forever keeps me warm and strong.

I will post – time allowing – a series of photo-based entries about the trip. They might not be chronological. They probably won’t be logical. They could be biased. They should be fun. Stay tuned.

But I’m bringing back four and a half DVD’s worth of RAW pictures, or something like 15+ Gigabytes of data. Most of that will be crap, as usual, and if I can salvage 20 or 30 good shots, I will be thrilled. But processing all this will take massive amounts of time, of which I have very little. Patience needed.

I’m afraid my pictures might not pay reality justice either. As always, our world is infinitely more subtle and so much more complex in its beauty than a camera could ever record it. And then, there were the people. I concentrated on scenery and landscapes, because that’s what I do best, but the memories of this trip will remain indissociable from the many faces and beautiful hearts that populated it.

And of course, at the heart of it all, is Marie. She has blogged extensively at 66 Square Feet – and will keep doing so – about our month down in South Africa. I don’t pretend to come even close. I’ll just try to complement her posts and maybe show a different angle. Because after all, no, I don’t always try to mimic penguins on a beach. Sometimes, I mimic ostriches too.

* Ok, maybe this was a little too technical. ETOPS stands for Extended Twin-engine Operation Performance Standards; it’s an ICAO rule that allows commercial twin-engine jets to follow routes that are further away then the basic « 60 minutes flying time with one engine down from a diversion airport ». ETOPS-180 means the aircraft is allowed to fly routes that go as far away as 3 hours flying time on one engine from the nearest diversion airport. It’s pretty darn cool.