Trip to South Africa with Ruth and Joe
September 11 - 27, 1999

Flew to Charlotte on Sept. 10 so we could leave at 6:30 am for our flight. Ruth also had purchased return tickets on another airline since US Airways may have had a strike the weekend we returned, which would make our standby passes worthless. Watched videos about  S. Africa in Charlotte, took a malaria tablet and went to bed early. Discussed travel options in case Miami flight was full. Miami was full as expected so we flew to Ft. Lauderdale, arriving about 10:30 am. Rented a car to get to Miami. Since we had an evening flight, we made good use of the day.  First we stopped at a Hollywood, FL state park and went to the beach.  Our first pictures for the home page Joe set up for our trip on the internet came from the Florida beach. We did a little shopping in Ft. Lauderdale like wrap-around sunglasses (which we wore out and left in Africa.)  Checked in three hours early to beat the crowd and had the option of taking the upper deck, which was available on this new B-747 jumbo jet S. African plane. It was a good trip over but long, nearly fourteen hours, because they had to detour around Hurricane Floyd.

Coming into Cape Town we could see the huge swells of the ocean, then the Cape Point and the famous Table Rock towering over the beautiful city.  Our good friend for 35 years whom I’ll call P.A. asked us to fly to Namibia where he would meet us. There were no seats on flights for two days. We booked into the beautiful Culliman Inn near the wharf and stayed on the fourteenth floor. I sacked out while they settled in and then we walked to the wharf which includes a fascinating mall. Multicultural people, Europeans, Asians, Africans and we three Americans were milling around. We bought postcards and ate at The Greek Fisherman. I ordered grilled squid and found it was grilled in the frying pan in almost deep fat. Ruth ordered the lobster platter which turned out to be the most magnificent seafood platter anyone of us had ever seen. Walking back we found that the mosquitoes come out at sunset.

The next morning was clear and sunny with a cool breeze. It is springtime. Took a taxi to the station where we went up Table Mountain in a rotary cable car - fabulous, unbelievable views of the city with the ocean behind it. We could have spent all day walking along the top of the flat mountain. There were exciting hikes, thousands of plants found nowhere else, and photographic spots everywhere. Back down we asked our taxi driver to let us out at the municipal Cape Town Botanical Park. That evening we had booked a sunset sailing trip around the harbor and into the ocean. There was a strong southeastern wind which made the boat lean but we were assured it would not capsize. They brought out blankets which protected us from the wind and splashing waves. The sunset view of the birds, ships, ocean and city is unforgettable.

Took a cab to the hotel from the wharf as the area outside the waterfront is unsafe after dark. Went to bed late and got up at 4:30 for the 6:30 flight to Windhoek, capital of Namibia where P.A. was to pick us up. I sat beside a dignified black pastor of the Dutch Reformed Church and we talked the whole way. Our flight was twenty minutes early; we were through customs and set to leave when he came. P.A. is a Catholic priest from Austria whom we have known since 1962 when he asked to be introduced to an American family. He was a seminarian then and has been a missionary in Africa since then. He is a not typical Austrian, a typical Catholic, or a typical missionary. He has had unbelievable adventures and tells stories non-stop. There have been more than a hundred times when he almost died. One of them was not when he was driving along with a nun and asked her to move over and drive as he was climbing out the window. She did as he climbed out, crawled across the top of the car and into the window on the other side.  Later his bishop sternly said,  “I want you to confirm or deny something. There is a rumor that you went out the window and across the car going fifty kilometers an hour.”   P.A. replied,  “That is certainly not true. It was  sixty kilometers an hour.”

Another story told of a time when he almost didn’t survive. He was mountain climbing in Austria and he always took chances. Suddenly, he found himself sliding down with no tree or rock within reach to break the fall. He looked down as he slid about a thousand feet and decided to pray. Since he couldn’t slow the descent, he prayed, “ Lord, accept me......gently.”  At that moment his hand felt a rock and he used all his might to grab it and stop.

P.A. met us with a rickety 1989 Ford station wagon, beat-up from driving over a hundred thousand miles too fast over bumpy paved or dirt roads.  With our luggage in, there was hardly room for us. Driving is on the left side as in England. We unloaded our luggage in the rooms he had arranged for us and headed to a wood-carving area in another town. First we went to an expensive area to look and then to an inexpensive one along the side of the road to buy. Woodcarvers were working in the background sitting on the ground under the trees holding the carving with their feet as they filed and cut. Some of the shops were sheltered and some were displayed on the ground. The pieces were carved by hand from blocks of hardwood and polished. P.A. spoke all the languages of the carvers and was having a good time. He bargained to get us better prices. Joe took pictures on his computer camera and amazed the workers when he showed them views of themselves.

This is desert land, about 5,000 feet high. The trees, bushes and stubble of grass are shades of yellow and brown but you can see leaves and blossoms coming out because it is almost spring. There has been no good rain for two years. Water is recycled in Windhoek. He told us not to drink it. Bottled water is one of the most expensive drinks to buy.  We learned to be very careful with water, especially in showers and toilet flushing. That night we ate at a lovely German restaurant, outside with candles under the stars. To our astonishment there were no mosquitoes. Joe ordered ostrich; Ruth and I split a zebra steak dinner.  We tasted everybody’s food as usual. The zebra steak was tender and juicy with a wonderful flavor. I was concerned about wildlife kills and found that restaurants use meat from wild animal farms which may be ten or twenty square miles large. Wild animal hunts for foreigners are arranged with a guide. Pictures are taken of the hunter with his kill; the animal is taken to the butcher.

The next morning Joe visited an Internet Cafe where he did some work and put our pictures on his internet page. Long drive ahead. Yellowed shrubs, grass and monkeybread trees  grow in dusty yellow sand. P.A suggested we call out the position of animals as if the vehicle itself represented a clock with 12:00 being straight ahead and 6:00 being back over the trunk. Look three o’clock (off to the right) -  mother baboon with two young ones. Soon we saw a whole baboon tribe crossing the road and going up the hill. P.A. said not to go close to baboons as they can be dangerous. They are always a nuisance. He has seen baboons jump on goats to ride them. They beat the goats with sticks.  Away from the baboons we stopped under a tree to eat the sandwiches we had bought. The tree even without real leaves gives protection from the sun and seems to create a light welcome  breeze. The air conditioner is out in our wagon; we have been driving on straight roads from horizon to horizon at 120 to 150 K,  about 80 to 100 miles an hour with windows down some because of the intense heat. Under the tree was not only human trash but also wild animal dung.  We see a farmhouse on one side of the road or other about every ten miles. You need a full tank and all your provisions with you.

After some hours we came to a village.  P.A. said as he turned toward it, “ This is a bastard town and I know it well. It’s not what you think.  The people proudly call themselves bastards which means ‘mixed-race.’” They had sort of concrete-block houses with electricity and running water three hours a day. (Under the old government they protested apartheid by refusing to pay water and electrical bills. Water and electricity were not cut off. Now with the new government they don’t want to pay either and have compromised by paying for a few hours of service a day.)

He recognized a woman coming out of a house and offered her a ride. He said,  “Rachel is such a good, kind capable person and she has a long walk home.”  I got out to take Rachel’s picture in front of her house.  She invited us in and offered to make coffee or tea. P.A. said  that something cool would be better. She made us a drink out of some orangy powder with water she saved from her three hours of running water. There is no chlorine in the water and I was uneasy about drinking it but didn’t want her to think that what she offered was not good enough. (Later I felt the effects but recovered.)  I offered her what I had in my pocketbook, peanut butter cheese crackers and raisins from America. Ruth did better, going to her suitcase in the car and bringing out beautiful gifts including special art supplies which she demonstrated. We could see Rachel was artistic and would enjoy them.  Later on we requested that the quilt the ladies of our church in Brevard made would be given to Rachel who could probably figure out how it was made and copy it. No one there had ever seen a quilt.

Joe drives very capably from here and also very fast. The dirt here is red and has iron in it. Later we come down from a mountainous area into white sand.   Trees are cluttered with small birdnests  or huge nests with families of small birds.  There are ostrich farms and some ostriches on their own. Can see the edge of the Kalahari desert, dark vegetation with no trees. Stayed overnight at a mission after eating a meal prepared for us and drinking water which we were assured was safe.  It was filtered.

After breakfast we headed toward the Fish River Canyon, the second largest canyon in the world. After a couple of hours, we turned off on a dirt road. After an hour or so, we stopped again to take pictures of desert flowers. Ruth discovered one of our tires was half flat. P.A. said he had bought two new front tires for our trip but the back tires were OK. We unloaded all of our luggage. He got out the spare tire and the jack. They worked with the jack to get the wagon up; then it collapsed and the wagon bounced down. The jack was kaput. This road had had almost no traffic but a car came and stopped. The fellow was in a rental car with a jack. The tire was soon changed but it was also flat.  Someone came along in a van with a compressor. The tire was pumped up and we had a discussion. I wanted to get back on a paved road. Others wanted to go on to the canyon, another hundred kilometers and we did.  When we arrived, the tire was flat down to the rim. We hadn’t felt it on the bumpy dirt road and had stopped periodically to check. The guy with the compressor was also there and pumped up the other tire for us. The canyon was large but there was only one place to look and almost no water in it, though in flood time it is something to behold. We started away from the canyon stopping every 15-20 minutes to look at the tires. We hit a very rough area of the road and had a blowout, exactly what I was hoping would not happen. (When natives are asked how far away something is, they say, “Very far and not far.” Then they are always right.)   P.A. said, “Wait here. I am going to run.”  We couldn’t stop him. He ran without water in the heat of the day. We stood there watching him until we could see only a white spot for his white shirt and a dark spot for his dark pants until those spots merged and faded into nothing. Ruth wandered along beside railroad tracks and found lots of pretty rose quartz stones. A car came and stopped to see what they could do;  they said they would give P.A. a lift.  Before they reached him, he was near the main highway. They drove him into town  where he found a phone and called for a wrecker. Eventually, he came with the wrecker. We were towed to town. P.A. had called a nearby mission and a priest friend came with two new tires. By now it is sunset and turns cold and windy.  We had been broken down with our luggage out on the dirt four times and this is the fifth. We and our luggage are covered with red dust. We went inside the hotel there to get out of the bitter cold and strong, whistling wind and later ate supper while they changed the tires and put another on as a spare.  We reached the border of Namibia and South Africa filling out complicated papers at each. They are both black-governed and it seems to be, “Why do something an easy way when you can do it a more complicated way.”   It was 11:00 pm then and 1:00 am when we reached the mission in Augrabies.

Took a tour of the mission and the one in the nearby town. The natives are light-skinned and small. I thought they must be mixed-race but they are Hottentots and Bushmen,  whom I had always assumed were dark-skinned.  Africa is so large;  it makes sense that southern African aborigines would be light-skinned the same as northern Europeans. They are all friendly, like to introduce themselves and shake hands. Around the outside of the compound houses are made of a sort of concrete block similar to the ones inside the compound. In Augrabies whole neighborhoods of houses are made with bamboo. We saw one being constructed. The bamboo stalks are cut beside the river and carried to the site. Most houses have one room but ambitious people can make them as large as they want. I wanted to go inside but didn’t ask. They use other available materials along with the bamboo including tin, wood and cardboard.

When the school on the compound let out for lunch, I tried to take a couple of pictures of the children. They crowded close around me. The children were happily talking, laughing and playing. Each one had a large sandwich of brown bread and an apple. I ran out of film and retreated to get some. When I returned,  the children ran up posing, “Take me, take picture of three,” three boys posed. When I lifted the camera, there were four and by the time I snapped, there were five. All the children were around, jostling for position. As I backed up,  more came around in front. “Take picture, thank you for taking picture.” They are such beautiful children. I snapped as many as I could. The children speak a little English but are taught to read and write Afrikaans in school. Many also speak Hottentot which has a clicking sound. The children ride a bus in shifts to get to school. We could hear them sing in class and see them exercise outside. They line up to go inside. The school was built and run by the mission until the new government took it over. They said they knew more about educating the children than the mission did. They took control but don’t pay the expenses of the school which the mission has a real struggle to pay.

P.A. drove a truck across the landscape looking for children more than thirty years ago. He could already communicate in Hottentot  and asked the parents to let him take their children to school. The children would stay for weeks at a time. Their education included training in manners.  He told me he never tried to make Catholics out of the children. He filled the back of his truck up with children over and over as he picked them up and returned them to their parents, sometimes driving hours across the desert.

The Hottentots are one step ahead of the Bushmen, living in a community of grass huts. These huts were ingeniously designed to be cool in the heat of the day and warm in the cold of the night. When it rains, the reeds swell up to keep the rain out. Twenty years ago as grass huts were being discarded in favor of houses, P.A. persuaded the government to preserve a village for a historical site. Recently, the new government destroyed that village not wanting to be reminded of the past.

Bushmen lived in grass huts, isolated in units of one extended family.  They could find water in this high desert land when no one else could and lived in perfect harmony with their environment. They also could save water. When it rained, they would fill ostrich eggs and seal them. They would bury the eggs and get them later. Baboons were better than Bushmen to find water. Sometimes the Bushmen would give the baboons salt which made them thirsty. The baboons would lead the Bushmen to water. A Westerner would die in the desert. We could never find water. The dried-up streams only have run-off rainwater. The last good rain was in 1991 - three inches.

My heart goes out to Bushmen women who may bear a child nearly every year;  most don’t survive. Mothers lick their babies to clean them as the animals do. We decided that must be the best for the children as the mother’s hands couldn’t be clean without water. They clean their older children’s noses and eyes with their tongues. There were no blankets or clothes except what they made from dried vegetation. The sun is blistering hot in the daytime; it drops below freezing at night. I imagined mothers holding their children for protection from the elements. We were told it was normal for Bushmen to beat their wives. Over Africa in the ‘90s 47% of the men regularly beat their wives.

In the mission shop natives are taught to do carpentry with wood scraps, electrical work with old parts, plumbing, etc. There are some machines; many salvaged items are stored for possible use. Outside is a windmill but it only pumps a couple of liters of water a day.

P.A. constantly tells stories. We are the only American tourists who have been there and we are astounded at his life stories. Once in the bush he found himself face to face with a lion. Usually, lions avoid people but this one was coming toward him. He stood tall, adopted a fierce expression and stared the lion in the eyes without blinking.  Faced off, they stared for an extended period of time;  P.A. said he held perfectly still and did not dare blink. Finally, the lion backed away with his tail between his legs. P.A. could breath again; he had won. He said another man had been attacked by a lion and stayed perfectly still as his arm was being eaten. They saw the lion kill him and no one did anything. P.A. decided if a lion attacked him he wouldn’t submit, but attack the lion. If he died, he would die fighting.

Another lion story is tamer. This time P.A. was in his vehicle. He stopped near six lions and cut off the motor. The lions stayed there.  P.A. tried something. He yawned. He opened his mouth as wide as he could and yawned as loud as he could. Then he waited. All six lions yawned. He repeated his yawn and so did they.

Ruth brought along a computer donated by a colleague and Joe brought some new software. Joe has been busy in his free time installing the software. He also did a surprise for Ruth, creating a “Made in Africa” birthday card for her birthday which came while we were there.  Ruth also brought along two suitcases full of clothes and toys such as hair clips and bows for girls,  crayons and colored paper,  little outfits for children,    T-shirts for adults. She organized everything and laid it out so that she would always have the right gifts available.  She had brought a large box of crayons and stickers for kindergarten classes.  She separated other crayons into groups composed of red, orange, green and blue with a ribbon tied around for individual children. Even a single pencil was a gift to make a child happy. 

Left for Augrabies Falls, the 6^th highest falls in the world. At the entrance there was a huge rose quartz stone. P.A. had found it some years earlier. Since it weighed over a ton, he got twelve men to help him bring it there. He has spent over 400 hours working free at the Falls to make improvements. They charge him the same entrance fee as everyone else, told him he can enter free only when he comes to work. Now he only goes to take guests.

The rock formation of the gorge is immense and beautiful but water is falling only from the Orange River, which is low now. In 1988 there was a flood with waterfalls everywhere. P.A. said he counted more than 90.  A dam on the Orange River now collects the excess water and releases it slowly. Otherwise there would be no water in the river now. Water is siphoned off into canals to irrigate farms and especially the vineyards.  Since the last real rain was in 1991, the falls were a disappointment. The Orange River has diamonds in it but it flows very swiftly. In some places, at the source and at the mouth, dredging is done.

On the way back we stopped in Kakamas for shopping and picture taking.  At another mission we met a ladies’ group. I gave greetings and best wishes from America and shook hands with each one.

In the late afternoon P.A. invited us to go back to the falls. This time we drove through the Augrabies National Park fording three tributaries of the Orange River. I was concerned the motor would stop and we would be washed downstream. We looked for giraffe, springbok and oryx; even at dusk none were found.  P.A. said there are many giraffe in the park but they are hard to see among the rocks. They feed from the ground as there are no trees. When their heads are down, they blend right in with the rocks. The mountains, rocks and river canyon were unbelievably beautiful. That made good memories for the day and we stopped over and over for pictures.

Late that night P.A. received a phone call requesting a visit to a very sick man and he asked Joe to drive him there. This was a young man who until recently had worked on the compound. He took along a kit which contained oil and holy water and gave the man the last rites. The next day we found out the man died in the afternoon.

Early Sunday morning African drums from somewhere off the compound began to beat slowly and then gradually the tempo picked up. Soon the drums had a compelling rhythm. We could see people gathering. Singing began which lasted all day. P.A. says it is a mixture of paganism and Christianity and they sometimes continue all night.

In the early morning P.A. had a church service on the compound. We went with him for a later service at a mission. As the only Americans who had come there we were the object of some attention. The whole service was in Afrikaans so we didn’t understand much. Even when I say Good Morning in Afrikaans everybody laughs. They all speak a little English and like to speak it. Americans never seem to speak foreign languages well. P.A. always speaks to people in their own language being conversant in around three dozen languages, European and tribal African.

After the sermon P.A. asked if the children would like to sing. The front two-thirds of  one side of the church was packed with school-aged children. Someone led “Telephone Jesus.”   They were animated and sang at the top of their lungs doing all the motions. None of these children had telephones and had probably never spoken on one. There are pay phones they had seen but who would they call if they had the money for it. The Telephone Jesus song is repetitious with a shouted “Hello” at intervals. The second verse goes,  “I want to speak to Jesus,” and the last one,  “Jesus, I love You.”   As they sang, “Jesus, I love You,” giving the universal hugging sign for Love,  my tears began to flow. I wanted these beautiful, trusting, happy children to have the very best.......  Maybe they do.

While Joe worked installing more computer software, Ruth and I took a walk. We found a farm across the road on both sides of the Orange River run by an elderly man and his sister, Kathleen. They are shy and explained the plants to us. They have many potted cacti plants with small rose quartz rocks in the pots. Not many come to buy. There is a large pile of rose quartz rocks on the ground for outside gardens. There is a large cistern half-full of murky water.  Many large beautiful trees are around. Their roots must reach the river water. Fields are ready for planting; irrigation is prepared. This is spring. Kathleen led us on walks on several occasions.  Ruth, being very adventurous, went with her through the thick bamboo to the river up to a small dam they had constructed and to trees where there were a lot of monkeys. Later, I saw a large monkey swinging through the trees, also a smaller one. They like being near the pecan trees. Vineyards are on this farm and on the other farms because of easy irrigation from the river.

That night electricity was off. We ate and retired by candlelight.  Water is scarce and sometimes there is no hot water. I showered and washed my hair a couple of times there in cold (very cold) water. Once when I washed my hair, it wouldn’t dry in the cold night air. Since it was late, I wrapped my hair in clothes to go to bed,  moved the clothes around my head whenever I woke up and found it was dry in the morning.  Since I wore a cotton hat all the time for protection against sun, dust and bugs, my hair looked good enough.

The next morning I took pictures of children in their classes. They love to shake hands. Sometimes I would have two or three hands in mine to shake as the children crowded around. That night we pack and P.A. prepares the vehicle for our safari the next day.

Since there is a five-hour arduous drive ahead, we ate breakfast at 4:00 am and left over an hour later taking overnight luggage. I didn’t think the landscape could get drier but the Kalahari desert is drier with the plants almost black. The earth is sometimes red, sometimes white.  P.A. made overnight arrangements about an hour outside the dirt road leading to the park about 8:00. We arrived at the Kalahari Gemsbok National Park about 9:30. Inside the park we saw a group of springbok. Soon we saw gnu, gemsbok or oryx antelope, wildebeest and steinbok. We saw a few jackals eating on something. A huge secretary bird performed for us posing, running on the ground and flying. There were a lot of ostriches but they are not native to Africa. We saw a lot of birds and small mammals but did not see the big predators, lions, cheetahs, leopards, jaguars etc. Sightings of the predators are recorded on a board in the Visitors’ Center. I think I saw a cheetah walking on the ridge and called out, “Nine o’clock.”   The car stopped and everyone looked left.  I watched it walk down the other side of the ridge. Someone else told us they saw a cheetah near there with springbok in the foreground. They sat there waiting for the attack but it never came. The cheetah went down the other side.

The park must be several hundred square kilometers. There are windmills every few miles to bring up water for the animals. The predators also get their moisture from their kill. The windmills couldn’t bring up much water and it seldom ran on the ground.

We are in Botswana and South Africa bordering Namibia.  The dunes are bright orange. There is heavy dust in the station wagon as we bounce along the dirt road. We eat dinner in the park at sundown but could not sleep there as they were full. We had to drive 70 kilometers outside the park where we had reservations to stay overnight.  When we arrived there no one was up. We turned off on a little road; down the road were several buildings. We found the doors unlocked with keys in them and decided those rooms were ours. We were relieved the rooms were clean; the toilet/shower building was also clean and we looked forward to showering off all that dust. The water was available but there were no towels. Rather than drip all the way up the sand path to our rooms, we went to bed dirty and slept soundly.

We had agreed to leave at 5:30 to arrive at the 6:30 opening time hoping to see the predators. At 5:00 am Ruth and I walked to the bathroom with flashlights. It was absolutely black outside from horizon to horizon.  The partial moon had set and the sky was amazingly black with white shining balls of stars. We were so awed by the sight we could hardly go on. Never in my life, even away from civilization, had I seen a sky like that.

Back in the park at daybreak we disappointingly saw no animals by the water holes. After eating so much dust the day before, we decided to take the short loop (several hours) rather than the longer one to get back to the compound in the afternoon. The scenery is beautiful with the same wildlife we had seen. There are camelthorn trees (acacia erioloba), red dunes with white sand on the desert floor, gnus walking back and forth, posing for pictures, large birds. We kept stopping for pictures.  P.A. became very sleepy, driving off the edge of the road. He asked Joe to drive but Joe was asleep. Ruth couldn’t  manipulate the stick shift.  I had driven earlier without gear shift difficulty and I was used to being on the left-hand side of the road by now. The dirt road was narrow and curvy but there was almost no traffic. As I took over, we were only about twenty miles to the entrance gate. We had taken as many pictures as we wanted and were ready to leave, thinking no lions were going to come into view. P.A. was asleep beside me in the front seat and Joe was asleep beside Ruth in the back. I was driving 20 - 25 miles per hour. A sign said 10 K to the entrance - wonderful. We crested a hill and saw a crossroad at the bottom. I lifted my foot from the gas pedal, put in the clutch and started to brake. Where was the brake?  It should be between the clutch and accelerator but my foot couldn’t find it. In the meantime we picked up speed. We sped down the short hill and were at the T of the crossroad. With my foot still not on the brake I had to do something. I made a fast left turn and realized I was about to turn over. I deliberately continued to turn left crashing straight through bushes beside the road and coming to a stop in the sandy field. Immediately, P.A. and Joe were wide awake and that ended my driving in Africa. P.A. and Ruth got out. I slid over to the passenger seat and Joe took the wheel.

Joe attempted to go back onto the road but the bottom of the car scraped. Ruth saw a place down the road. Joe was able to back up, turn and go forward onto the road then. A car saw us and stopped. We told them we were OK. There was something leaking from the car. They followed us to a gas station at the entrance. There motor damage was found; we couldn’t continue. It was about 11:30. P.A. told us to go get some lunch. He would join us later. He called a repair shop where they knew him in Uppington (about 90 miles from home at Augrabies) and they sent a tow truck to arrive between 3:00 and 4:00. He called the two sisters at the mission to come meet us in Uppington at 7:00. We waited until five;  two fellows came with a van to tow us. We loaded our luggage into the van and started off realizing this ride was at least more comfortable. The van had air conditioning. We drove an hour and wondered why they turned off the air-conditioning. We stopped at the area where we had spent the night. They got out and took our luggage out. P.A. was talking to them in Afrikaans. The alternator belt had broken. We had no power and the sun was going down.

P.A. decided to use his battery to go on as this battery was gone. We started out with P.A. driving knowing we couldn’t go far without use of the alternator. Now on a paved road we saw a sign of a police station 7 K down the road. We stopped at the cutoff on the road and P.A. ran there. He got permission to drive without headlights; at least we had a full moon and knowing a wrecker was on the way. P.A. took us merrily down the road at a pretty good clip. You could see an approaching car a couple of miles down the road. That gave him time to blink his lights, showing our presence. Soon, that power was gone and we pulled over to the side of the road. We all got out. The desert night was beautiful.  We were thankful for the full moon. We walked, listening to the night sounds of the desert  like the barking geckos. We found some old water, some juice, bread and cheese which we shared with the drivers and all consumed. Occasionally a car stopped. Each time we wondered if they planned to rob us. No problem.

After two hours we were rescued by a 4 x 4 which brought along a replacement alternator belt. That belt didn’t fit. They worked hard. Finally, the driver brought out a strap he planned to tow us with. When he connected the three vehicles, the front two vehicles  were three feet apart. We all got into his 4x4 except P.A. who insisted on driving the vehicle to steer and brake. Again we started out. After some time P.A. blinked his headlights and we stopped. He had power and the two vans were disconnected. He didn’t have lights but that didn’t seem important. We continued down the road until his power was gone, then the vans were again connected.  Eventually, off in the desert sky we could see light and soon we realized a town was ahead. It was Uppington and our towing portion of the journey was complete. It was 11:00 pm. The sisters were patiently waiting for us. We arrived back home at 2:00. The sisters invited us in for food as they had prepared dinner for us. We had firmly to insist we were too exhausted to be hungry needing sleep more than food. We went to bed dirty, too tired for a cold shower.

The next morning we discovered it was a holiday and three groups totaling about 200 people were coming for the weekend. P.A. was scurrying around making arrangements. They would be sleeping in the school. Late afternoon when he called to pick up the station wagon, they said it would be next week before they could work on it. We were stuck. P. A. tried every rental car agency within a hundred miles. Not one had a car because it was a holiday. It is a twelve-hour hard drive. No airports are around. There is bus transportation but the buses are very crowded and stop at every town; we have too much luggage to take when people are crowded and hanging on the sides. We didn’t know what to do. Finally, P.A. said that we would take the mission van which all along he had said we wouldn’t take because it was unreliable because of an earlier accident. The steering is bad because it can’t be aligned and the vibration is bad unless you drive very slowly. We’ll go until it breaks down. That seemed our only alternative.

All packed up we left about 9:00 with Joe driving. We went through Pofadder in the center of Bushmanland. P.A. told us to stop for lunch under the tree coming up, that that tree is the last one. We ate our sandwiches there thankful that we were moving toward Cape Town. That was surely the last tree in our sight. We progressed into even drier land with almost no bushes. The land was totally flat with dried grasses not knee high. Suddenly, we begin a slow 24 kilometer descent going through the mountains rich in warm colors. Soon there are spring flowers beside the road. Inside the fenced-in farms are sheep grazing on the flowers.  The descending drive to the town of Springbok was beautiful with an increasing amount of vegetation and more people. The flowers were so colorful we hated for the sheep to eat them. In Springbok we stopped at a cafe to see the displays and buy postcards. We were told there was a rare snow two weeks ago which brought out green growth on the mountains and  fields with all the flowers blooming. Our landscape became more beautiful. We forgot about the unreliable van, stopped for pictures of flowers and two magnificent oryx. We drove down through gorgeous mountains that a couple of times a year are covered with snow,  reminding ourselves that as you drive south, it gets colder. There are some trees, especially aloe trees. There is on a side road a loaded wagon pulled by six donkeys. Mines are pointed out to us. Granite is exported to Europe for tombstones. There are copper, lead and gypsum mines. The piles of black rocks everywhere are heavy with iron and almost unbreakable.

We overnighted at Father Sonntag’s mission; we had met him in Augrabies.  Seeing him was like meeting an old friend. The mission was comfortable with carpeted floors and lots of hot water; the food was wonderful. We enjoyed talking with the cooks. One had been a nurse but rheumatoid arthritis had made her lose her job. She had just taken up the hobby of batik painting. She had doilies and tote bags. Father Sonntag thought we might like to buy one. Ruth bought one of her tote bags and  I took all of the rest - eleven in all. Ruth suggested she autograph her work;  she was very pleased to do so and to have the sale. She is hoping to give her two children an education. We had brought along a bottle of wine (which had been planned for one of the times we came in so late), opened it after dinner, listened to the men tell stories of their experiences and relaxed knowing that if the van wouldn’t go in the morning, maybe Father Sonntag could some way bale us out.  P. A. called ahead to see if we could stay near Cape Town the next night, our last in Africa. Because of a cancellation, they had room for us.

It rained overnight, not unusual here but very welcome. This is an unsafe area. We wondered as we saw young boys throwing rocks at cars.  We had to pull our van inside the iron gates out of sight to load and unload. In Bushmanland we had been able to trust people and always felt safe. We had talked and laughed so much it was hard to say goodbye.

Out of desert country, rains are still always welcomed. We took the scenic drive toward Cape Town (since the van seemed to be doing the impossible) and stopped often for pictures. It continued to rain and clouds covered all the high mountains but each view seemed more lovely. We had one more mountain pass and as we descended, the flat plain below looked like a promised land, flowing with streams. Soon we turned onto an expressway for a faster drive into Cape Town. Sister Ursula had prepared a meal for us with flowers for Ruth’s birthday. She is gracious with a great sense of humor. The mission and training center contained a spacious garden which we walked through to go to our rooms. It is located directly across the street from the late princess Diana’s brother Earl Spencer’s mansion and a couple of blocks from Bishop Tutu’s mansion. The mission and training center was founded long before the multi-millionaires came to this area.

We had time to tour the famous Kirstenbosch Botanical Gardens before going to the airport. We walked around even in the rain, chilled to the bone; it was hard to leave. We had tea at the mission before loading the van for the ride to the airport. We again took the scenic way driving along the highway with the mountains on one side and the ocean on the other. We climbed the mountain for a view of Robbins Island where Mandela had been imprisoned. The view of Cape Town with the mountains and ocean are unforgettable. We missed our turn to the airport road and became mired in Cape Town traffic. P.A. is always late and wasn’t concerned. When it was mentioned that we could lose our seats and have to buy another ticket for $2,000 more each, he took off like a jack rabbit. Our trip to the airport was breakneck; we didn’t know if the van would break down or wreck into another car. When we reached the airport, we were on time. The fifteen-hour flight to Miami didn’t seem as long.  We caught the flight to Charlotte standby taking off one hour after we landed at 5:30 am, during which we cleared customs and immigrations and ran across the airport. I took the next flight to Asheville.

Wow, what a trip!

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