Today was an adventure.
Our last morning in Drakensberg is much like the others; relaxing and wonderful. The weather is perfect and breakfast is delicious. We check out at 9AM and head towards Dundee. Our goal today is to drive all the way across KwaZulu-Natal to the oldest game park in the country.
The drive down from the mountains is pretty, we look again at the farming settlements that dot the hillsides. Cows and goats leisurely clear the road as we approach. We cruise on through the city of Ladysmith, where the famous musical group “Ladysmith Black Mambazo” originated. They’re the ones you heard on Paul Simon’s Graceland during apartheid, and they went on to have many popular albums of their own in America.
We arrive in Dundee around 11:30, earlier than we expected. As we pull into town we come to a man directing traffic. He has a group of six or so others with him, apparently traffic officers-in-training. As we get up to the front of the queue, I recognize him as Ntkosa (n-tah-KOH-sah), the fellow who hosted the Dundee Voices of Joy reunion party back on April 1st. I smile and wave, and he returns the smile and raises a big thumbs-up as he directs me to go.
I know the locals — it’s like I’m at home here.
We pull into the same little plaza that I pulled into when I first arrived just over a month ago. The weather is warming up and Sophie only brought one pair of hiking shoes, so she’s looking to get some simple sandals. We take a peek in one of the clothing stores; it is much like the clothing section of any American department store. We find a pair of comfortable sandals that are pretty nice considering the 49 rand ($7) pricetag. We also buy a bottle of lotion.
Sophie notices that people are looking at her a little more than they do back home. Far east Asians are a rarity here; most people have probably not seen many, if any, in person. Kind of like me growing up in Norwood Massachusetts. But everyone is warm and polite as always.
As we check out I notice near the register a sign for a store-branded charge card. It is much like the membership pitch for any store-branded charge card, except the first listed perk is unusual: members get a substantial sum of money towards funerary costs of a husband or wife. Think about that for a moment.
We stop by the trailer and meet up with Alan, Donna, and Zenzo. Greetings and hugs all around. We have a spot of lunch, some curry stir-fry chicken that Donna whips up. Then we talk a bit about the best route for the next leg of our journey.
The straightest route, through a city called Vryheid (VRY-hide) isn’t a road that Donna and Alan have taken before, but the map indicates it is a paved secondary road, like many of the roads we use regularly. The route then cuts down through the heart of Zululand, and eventually leads to a small town called Hlabisa, which sits right on the edge of the game park. From there we would go through the gate, which is locked at 6PM sharp, and head to the Hilltop Hotel, which is inside the park. It should be a three hour drive and we’ve got five hours.
I try for the fourth time to call in reservations at the Hilltop, but they always put me on hold or tell me to call back later, and this time is no exception. We figure if we can’t find room there, we can hit one of the other places. There is a lot of lodging in and around the game park, and it is off peak season.
With our course plotted, we fill our water bottles, and head out. The gas is nearly full, so I don’t bother topping off. The drive is smooth sailing to Vryheid, and we mark our next destination, Hlabisa, on the map. We’ve got plenty of time before the gates close at 6PM.
After Vryheid the road climbs up into the mountains. The mountain area is densely forested; about the densest forest I’ve ever seen. The trees are all tall and terrifically straight, very unlike the African trees elsewhere. Soon we notice that they are distributed uniformly too, and as we zip past we can see that they are all planted in a perfect tight grid. I had heard something about this from one of the Hindu construction guys: South Africa wants to stop importing so much lumber, so they are cultivating their own. He had said that there are still many years before the trees are mature enough to make a significant supply.
Further into the mountains we encounter light rain and fog. The rain is coming in at just the right speed so that the intermittent wiper setting is too slow for good visibility, and the regular low speed setting is too fast and triggers a cringey scraping sound with each pass of the blades.
Then we get to a detour. The signs lead us to a small dirt road that runs alongside the main road, which is being re paved. Work crews are all around, working in the drizzle. The dirt road is not well graded and induces numbing vibrations through the car if we drive more than 50 kilometers per hour; which is half the speed we’d normally be driving.
But that’s okay, because the fog is getting thicker by the minute as we climb into the clouds. Visibility is down to ten or twenty meters in patches, so I wouldn’t want to drive more than 50 kilometers per hour anyways. The dirt roads go on and on, and the drive becomes fairly nerve wracking. I lean forward in my seat, peering through the fog, trying to avoid the worst of the potholes in the washboard road, and keeping an eye on time as well.
Because of the slow speed, we end up away from civilization for a good long time. Eventually, one of us has to pee. This time it’s Sophie.
There’s no hope of finding a rest stop, and I feel uncomfortable stopping by the side of the road for long. Though it’s extremely unlikely that anything bad would happen, I can’t get the phrase “rape capital of the world” out of my mind. There are workmen along most of the road, and even where there aren’t, a passing car might see us out on foot and stop to “help”. It’s unfortunate that what is probably a tiny, tiny percentage of lousy people can have such an influence over us.
Sophie thinks I’m being a bit overcautious, but I’m just going by what the more experienced folks have instructed me: don’t hang out on the side of the road. So I convince her to use a bottle. Luckily we have one with a wide opening, making the logistics a bit easier. It’s still a careful and uncomfortable maneuver, but with a little time she manages it.
With that crisis over, we revert to being mildly annoyed by the endless dirt road construction, and visibility hampering rain and fog. We’ve lost time, but we should still be able to make it to the park well before they close.
If it wasn’t for the detour and weather, we are pretty sure that this drive would be very beautiful, winding through the forested mountains as it does. But not today. The construction and weather continues on until we are just about at Hlabisa. Sophie is also starting to worry about the fuel situation, which I assure her is okay, but we agree we’ll stop at the next gas station.
When we find ourselves on pavement and in clearer air, we breath a sigh of relief and I say, “wow, that was about as bad a drive as it could be.”
If I was a superstitious man I would have knocked on wood at that point. Not that there was any wood available in the car. If I was a superstitious man I might have also noticed it was Friday the 13th.
So we get to Hlabisa. Or, more specifically, a traffic circle (roundabout, rotary, or what have you) that leads to Hlabisa. I know that Hlabisa is literally right on the border of the game park, so we’ve got maybe five kilometers tops to go. It’s almost 5PM, later than we expected, but fine. I follow the signs for Hlabisa, which indicate a first left off the traffic circle, and continue on. This was a mistake, I learn later. I should have gone straight through and we would have been home free.
We pass through Hlabisa. It’s more of a settlement than a town. Just some huts and block houses scattered along the road. There is a gas station with a filthy Shell sign hanging atop, but all the pumps have been removed and the building looks like it is more or less abandoned, though some folks are sitting on the front steps. I decide not to stop.
And the road becomes dirt again. We trundle along and appreciate as best we can the amazing scenery: dry plains, dirt roads, and a organic variety of housing that seems to have sprung up like shrubs in a higgledy-piggledy fashion. There are a fair number of people walking along the streets and in the fields. This seems a poorer area than most I’ve seen, lots of people don’t wear shoes, and there aren’t any of the nicer houses sprinkled in that I see in the poor areas around Dundee. This is the heart of Zululand.
There are couple forks in the road as we continue. There is still signage, but the map doesn’t have enough detail, so we stay on the most travelled path. I’ve seen the large “N” numbered roads, which I think means “national”, and done most of my driving on the “R” numbered roads, which I think means “regional”, but now I see “D” numbered roads, which I can only assume means “dirt”.
After we’ve gone about seven kilometers, I decide we must’ve taken a wrong turn and consider going back. I am a little nervous with our careful of valuables, driving through this land where the people have so little. Nobody appears threatening, but it’s hard to shake the imagery of all the news stories about theft and murder.
Sophie and I pull over and discuss for a moment, and look at the map. I try to keep it out of sight so that it’s not so obvious that we’re tourists. Now I realize this was a laughable gesture. I have a feeling that the locals could probably tell we were tourists anyways. From the way people look at us we might be the first non-black people to come through here in a year.
The map doesn’t have any detail at this level. It just shows a line going through Hlabisa and straight into the game park. The park is huge at almost 100,000 hectares. I’ll have to double check but it might be the size of Rhode Island. We were driving straight at it and were within a few kilometers, we know we were. How could we miss something that size? I wonder for a moment if this is the game park, and that the gate is somewhere up ahead. I have no idea how these things work. Neither does Sophie. Noting that there was nothing to speak of behind us, we agree that we’ll go on a little further and see what develops. Sophie is getting nervous about fuel, but I assure her we’ve got plenty. Still a half tank, which should take us several hundred kilometers, and we can’t have more than a few to go.
A few kilometers later things look much the same. No development to speak of, just small subsistence farms and increasingly sketchy dirt roads. We haven’t seen another car in a while, though people are still around. I decide we’ll ask someone. I pull over and roll down the window near a young lady.
“Hello, we’re trying to get to Hluhluwe-Imfolozi park? Is this the right way?”
Thats right: “Hluhluwe-Imfolozi”. I don’t know if my pronunciation was at all comprehensible to her. But she does say “Imfolozi?” and I say “yes”. She points ahead in the direction we’re driving. I thank her and we continue on. Is it possible for the roads to get worse? Of course it is; there are deep ruts and I have to carefully dodge them as we go. After several more kilometers, and no apparent change in the scenery, we realize we’re lost.
Lost! In Zululand!
Sorry, I just like the sound of that.
It’s getting a bit later than is comfortable, but it’s still light out. I am getting concerned, though, and I am going through things in my head. These are just country folk, and I hang out all the time in the country. They’re good people. I’m sure of it. Except I’m only 99% sure of it, and that 1% doubt starts getting me worried about what we’re going to do if we can’t find our way to the game park.
We keep driving aimlessly forward, and in a bit, a rather nice black pickup comes the other direction, and Sophie makes the wise suggestion to flag it down. I do, and an older, well dressed Zulu man wearing a baseball cap rolls down the window. I explain to him that we’re trying to get to the game park and he seems surprised, as though we are grievously off track. He starts giving us directions, but they are long and confusing, he asks us if we have a map. We do, and so he gets out of the truck and invites me to get out as well. Even though he seems like a nice guy, I have a slight worry about getting out of the car. It is amazing how much power little news stories about crime have over us; how they make us distrust each other. But I swallow this down and say aloud to Sophie, in case she was wondering “it’s alright.”
He spreads the map out on the hood and shows us roughly where we are. We basically took a left right before entering the park and have been driving more or less parallel to the perimeter. There is no entrance gate nearby, and the closest one is not the one on the west side that we were planning, but rather the northern gate, near the town of Hluhluwe.
He describes the route in detail: you go over the hill there, and then pass through a valley, then go over another hill, then through a river, then over another hill, and… and it goes on like that through several more rounds until eventually you get a paved road and the town of Hluhluwe and the northern gate.
I tell him I’m worried I won’t remember all this. He says that it’s just a matter of staying on the main road, and turning at three T junctions. He advises me to just ask people as I go along, and they should be able to keep directing me towards Hluhluwe. He asks again what time the gate closes, and I tell him it closes at six. He looks at his watch: it is 5:30. He shakes his head and smiles, then claps his hands in a take-off motion and says, “You’ve got to move!” I thank him, hop in the car, and we take off.
I drive along as fast as I can: we’re on a time crunch, but I have to avoid wrecking the car on a terrible pothole. Sophie and I are silent as I concentrate on driving. The car is skidding out as we race up the loose red soil and back down. And I’m thinking about our options.
Hluhluwe is just another small dot on the map, like Hlabisa. Having seen what little was there I’m no longer sure we’ll be able to find lodging in Hluhluwe. So we really have to get into the park before they close the gate at six, or we may have to sleep in our car. Or maybe we’d be better off to knock on a random door and ask if they’d be kind enough to let us stay the night. At this point these are realistic possibilities, since it is getting dark, and time is marching on. I haven’t checked if the cell phone works, but even if it did I wouldn’t know how to describe where we were.
I consider the risks of staying at a stranger’s house vs. staying in the car. I think the former would be safer. But in either case I worry that we might be robbed. And from what I hear, the normal course of action here for robbers to kill their victims.
On the brighter side, I do recognize that if we don’t get robbed and killed, staying at some random farmhouse would be a pretty great experience. But at the moment I’d rather not risk it. I’d rather get to the park. So I concentrate on that. Sophie is worried about gas, but we have just over a quarter tank left. It can’t be much further, can it?
It can: we go on and on, and the clock passes 5:50. We’d have to find the entrance in the next few minutes, and we haven’t even got to any pavement yet. I am holding out hope, even though it is looking bleak. And then as I swerve around an uphill curve a little too fast, I see a big rock at the last second. I’m not able to turn in time and there is a terrible bang in the front left wheel-well, followed by a distinct hissing sound.
My first instinct was to hope the hissing sound was my imagination, or something else, as the tire deflating couldn’t have possibly been that loud. But a moment later I notice the ride has become even rougher, and the car is leaning to the left. “I think we’ve got a flat,” I say, “I’m sorry, I did my best.”
I don’t know exactly how Sophie interpreted that statement, but what I meant was something like “I’m no longer in control of this situation. We may end up not getting out of here. I’m sorry, I did my best.”
And so I think this moment really sums up what I’ve been thinking about a lot since I got here. About how we are more dependent on our surroundings than we realize; about how we give ourselves a lot of credit for things things we really owe to the luck of where we were born and raised, and to the social structures around us. If you take a reasonably successful person like myself and strip me of my modern accouterments; my car, my cell phone, my money, all made useless; what am I? I’m just another soul in Zululand — even less well adapted than the others here for survival.
Perhaps that all sounds a bit dramatic, but give it a try sometime and let me know your thoughts.
I pull the car to a stop at the top of a rise, right at a T junction. I hop out and check the tire — it is dead flat. I look around; there is a little house with a fence to the left and the owner is in the yard looking at me. I call out, “which way to Hluhluwe?” and he points to the left. I call out “thanks” and open Sophie’s door.
“Okay, we have to get all the stuff out of the trunk so I can get to the spare,” I say. “Okay,” she says and hops out to help. I pop the hatch and say, “just throw them in the back seat”. I’m less than comfortable pulling all our goods out of the trunk; more goods than most anyone nearby owns. I want to make it quick. I start pulling out the bags and tossing them to Sophie, who tosses them into the back seat. There’s five in all: two backpacks of clothes, her camera bag, my computer bag, and my guitar. As we’re doing this I notice the fellow from the house has come out of his yard and is approaching.
I pull the spare and the jack out and head around to the flat tire. The fellow from the house is getting nearby, so I walk over and shake his hand. “Hi,” I say, “what’s your name?” He tells me, and I introduce myself, “I’m Jonathan, and this is my wife Sophia. Looks like we got a flat.” He seems friendly enough, and is probably just curious. Still, I make a mental note that I’ve got a tire iron in my left hand.
I turn back to the car and start taking the nuts off the wheel. The fellow from the house crouches down next to me and watches intently. I work s quickly as I can. When the nuts are off, I start playing with the jack. The fellow from the house tries to help a bit, holding the jack as I crank it.
The car goes up and I swap wheels. Then I notice another guy has come over to watch. I stand up and greet him similarly. He’s smiling, and missing his front teeth. A medium sized dog has come by too, I ask if it is his and he says yes. I don’t think either of them speak much English. They seem pretty interested in us. My guess is that this is a pretty out of the ordinary event for them.
I finish up the wheel and lower the car back down. The first fellow offers to carry the flat tire back to the trunk, but I thank him and carry it myself. I’m comfortable with these guys and we’re ready to roll now, so my worry goes back to where we are headed. I ask them for confirmation that we can get to Hluhluwe and he again indicates a left turn here. So we say goodbye and head off. The encounter has made me feel much less worried about the people here, now I’m just worried about where we’ll be sleeping.
I drive slower and more carefully now. We can’t risk another flat and it’s after six now so the park is closed anyways. I’m just hoping the city, if we ever get there, has some kind of lodging. The last of the sunlight disappears and we’re still on dirt roads. There are actually quite a few people walking along the side of the road, considering how few dwellings there are and that the sun has gone down. There are no other vehicles out, though.
Eventually we come to another T junction, where I believe we are supposed to take a right. Right after we take the turn, I see some headlights approaching. As they get closer I see that it is a police car coming the other direction. I’m thankful for a bit of luck, so I flag them down. I tell him we’re lost and ask if we’re heading the right way. He says we are. I ask if there’s someplace to stay in town, and he tells me I should go to the police department and they’ll help me out. He describes how to get there once we’re on the main road. If he thinks we should go to the police station to ask about lodging, I’m guessing there’s not much. But he heads off and we head on.
Even from this point, we drive for what seems like a very very long time. If the police hadn’t just told us to go this way, I’d have assumed we were off track again. But we stick to the road, and at long last, we see some lights on a distant hill that look like some kind of town. This gives us the first bit of real hope we’ve had in a long while, and soon we come to the last T junction, the one that puts us back on paved roads.
You can’t imagine how wonderful pavement seemed at this point. Comforting, like a snugly blanket, asphalt made me feel like things might be alright. I still worried that the town might be nothing more than a tiny settlement. I think that maybe we’ll end up sleeping in the police station.
The next sign of civilization is a “Wimpy’s In 5 kilometers” sign. Now we’re talking. No town with fast food can be all bad.
At this point I suddenly think to call Donna. So Sophie rings her up on the cell and tells her that we aren’t at the game park, that we got terribly lost, and that we’re now heading into Hluhluwe. There isn’t much Donna can do, but I think this is good so that if they do have to send a search party, they don’t start looking way down in Hlabisa. She does give us the phone number for the police, though, in case we get lost again. But I do think we’re going to be okay now.
A few moments later, we come across a hotel gate on the left and pull in. The contrast is surreal. We’re looking at the attractive facade of what appears to be a fine four star hotel. The kind with little spotlights in the shrubs to cast attractive light on the building. The entry way is marble and glass. We pull up and I run inside to check for vacancy. They have a room. I take it and run back out to inform Sophie we are all set.
We grab our bags and check in, and walk by a lovely collection of African artwork on the way to our classy little room. This is not at all what I was expecting to find at the end of today’s journey. It takes me a conscious effort to adjust. When we get into the room, we both breath a huge sigh of relief and our tension releases itself in laughter. I feel the muscles in my back letting go and I stretch and shake myself out.
We head downstairs to have some dinner. Like the place in Drakensberg, they have a pretty great dinner buffet included in the price of the room. As we eat we notice that the place is filled with what look like the white South African version of professional NASCAR men, wearing their team uniforms and all. It’s just so random and at odds with the previous several hours I have a hard time accepting it as reality. But eventually I do, and Sophie and I finish up dinner and head back to our room.
I text Donna right before we go to bed to let them know everything is fine.
Alan texts back “An adventure is a crisis with a good ending.”