I made sure that I had a better idea of where I was going today. Just an old school basic drawn map, but enough to get me there. “There” being Hogsback. On the way I stopped off at Nanaga Farmstall, which used to be a thatched farmstall with the best pies ever. What a disappointment! They’ve turned it into a slick tourist spot with a restaurant… and the pies are truly awful. The coffee was needed though after a night of my snoring neighbour.
The roads to Grahamstown were a dream compared to the previous day of lost roads. I arrived at a town called Alice (Alice, Alice where tf is Alice, I hear you sing), just beyond Fort Beaufort, and I noticed something so strange. As I drove into the town the people looked poor, as they do in all of the little towns I drive through. Suddenly, like water flowing into a dry riverbed, this stream of very well-dressed, brim full of arrogance youngsters came sauntering down the road. I immediately thought this must be upper-Alice, but the houses looked like the same neglected old farmhouses as in lower-Alice. And then I rounded the corner and The University of Fort Hare appeared as a backdrop to the random fashionistas. Then it was back to the poor folk again. I wondered how the students could bear to live in such a barren and desolate town. I’m willing to bet though that there are some amazing and trendy spots in Alice that you will only know about if you live there and know the right people. Alice Underground.
I chose to stay at “Away with the Fairies” in Hogsback, because Inandre, my Sista, has fairies in her garden and I wanted to have a garden with fairies too. If only for two nights. It’s perfectly setup for backpackers and seems to be a launch place for the epic hikes in the region. I pitched my tent next to the forest. By now you know hey, “pitched” means throwing my tent in the air and having it land, perfectly setup. I wasn’t going to punish myself again, so I headed for the bar and the cosy fire to write my blog. There I encountered a group of hikers who had just finished a 6 day hike. Wow! They were high on the rush of achievement and camaraderie and I found myself drawn into their vortex of fun energy. I spent the evening chatting to a woman who I felt I knew from somewhere. She immediately got what I meant when I said I didn’t know why I was doing this roadtrip, and we laughed a lot about how us doing our BA Honours destroyed our ability to think in bullet points. A friend for the eve. Maybe we’ll meet again.
The women in the group started having fun dancing and one woman was teaching the others to dance salsa. It was mesmerising to watch her. One older guy in the bar was making comments to his friends that made my jaw drop. It was pre-HarveyWeinstein bullshit and I was amazed that anyone even thinks like that, let alone openly expresses those views. It was both racist and misogynistic. We were watching a beautiful, coloured woman btw. A blonde youngster sitting at his table couldn’t help herself and she spoke out loud what we were all thinking, when she said, “So beautiful”. Oh gosh! Mr Bigot went full house and made lewd comments insinuating that the youngster was then a lesbian for appreciating the sensuality of the dance movements. The youngster firmly shut him down by pointing out that one had nothing to do with the other. It made me realise that we have come a long way very quickly, that once mainstream narrow-mindedness is no longer the accepted norm. I like the new generation of free thinkers.
I had a good night’s sleep for the first time on my trip. No parties, storms or snoring. The fairies had my back.