TOUR OF AFRICA

How do I sum up an experience like this in one BLOG?  Well, here are some of my takeaways!

Argus is the largest bike race in the world.......close to 40,000 people take part, starting in about 48 waves.  Our wave (international riders) included Eddie Merckx.   Emily broke away early and turned in a great time.  Steve, Sam, Teenie and I were content to ride pretty hard, stop a lot and take it all in.  At times we a were in remote areas, at times it seemed like the Tour de France as crowds lined the road.   We climbed up Chapman Peak as the sea crashed against the rocks hundreds of feet below.   I don’t even know how we placed but it felt like it was a podium finish.  The word epic can be easily overused but not in this case.

We moved from Cape Town to Thula Thula Game Reserve, north of Durban for a 3 day bush adventure.  It was there, that with the help of Mnqobi Victor Ngwenya, our Tracker, I became a man at ripe age of 62.  Victor is a proud fella with a passion expressed continuously as he taught us about animals, plants, things African, and life in general.  Africans don’t tell you where they are from or what they ‘do’.  They tell you their tribe.   There are 9 and Victor is a Zulu.   Zulu surnames are usually animals and Ngwenya means crocodile.  Victor smiles broadly when he explains all this.  In fact, Victor smiles broadly most of the time. 

It was through the Bokdrolspoegkompetisie (buck poop spitting contest) that I achieved man hood.   On our first walkabout, Victor picked up a handful of impala (an antelope) dung.  He rubbed 8-10 pellets in his hands and told us that he would spit one over a line he drew in the trail.  Performing this feat he told us was a passage to manhood.  I ask if he was using slight of hand as he put a pellet on his tongue.  Bake said this was just like our watermelon seed spitting contests back home.  I said, “Not so much.”........and looked into Victor eyes as he said I just needed to trust him.  I did, and that morning in the Natal region of South Africa, I became a man.  

The day after I became a man, I was stung on the left shoulder by something from the bee/wasp family.   Quickly, Victor tore the leaves off a plant and told me to masticate them.  Bake said this could cause me told go blind.  I assured him a life history had only caused me to have to wear glasses.  After mastication, I rubbed the leaves on the wound.  I was better, fast. 

After Thula Thula, we went to Johannesburg and I learned that the journey to freedom for native Africans was long and costly.  I visited the only street in the world where two Noble Prize winners live.  I learned that a man abused all his life and imprisoned for 30 years could find love and forgiveness in his heart.  After years of bloodshed, peace could be achieved through forgiveness.  I think Nelson Mandela may be the greatest person of our time?

There was a famous African Singer, the late Lucky Dube.   Dube means Zebra in Zulu.  Victor told me that the lions love to eat Dubes (Zebras).  Sometimes, as a tracker, he sees this life and death drama play out.  When the Zebra gets away, they call him a Lucky Dube.  I guess the most important thing I learned in Africa is that I am a very, very, very Lucky Dube.  Lucky to get to go to South Africa, lucky to have Sam and my other travel mates as friends, lucky to have known Mnqobi Victor Ngwenya and lucky to have lived the life I have lived.

South Africa is a wonderful place.   Having Sam and her family as hosts made this a wonderful trip.   The way I look at things will be forever changed.