To the land of the rising sun

Plane's are practical. But, transport by road is my preference; I want to visually - in fact with every single one of my senses - join the dots between my departure and arrival. I want to see, smell, hear, taste and feel my  journey.

I desire for my senses to jangle with life like raw nerve-ends that have just been severed by a blunt axe. It's for this same reason that wherever possible I prefer not to use the underground transport systems in the cities I travel to that have them. I want to see people in the real-time action of living their lives in their 'real life' environments. As opposed to watching them with their masks on while sitting or standing in steel and glass tubes. Going nowhere, with me, fast.

I left Joburg on a bus. It's only 239 km to 'home' on the almost dead straight trans-sub continental N4 toll route that connects Maputo, Mozambique in the East with Walvis Bay, Namibia in the West. Sunrise, sunset.

That relatively short journey eastwards, 'home', was made much wonderfully longer by memories. Countless memories. Mostly good. Some bad, but for good in the end. It's called life I believe.

I'd travelled this road a zillion times, mostly for work as a journalist and then as a newspaper owner (humblest sense); quite often for love; sometimes to escape my self-imposed isolation; other times to escape Joburg, Gauteng, people, squeaking and squealing like a bat outta hell desperately seeking the peace, quiet, solitude, books and sane-making garden of my sanctuary. I've travelled it at the craziest and most extreme times. I thrived on my nomadism, the illusion of freedom that was incorporated in it - smoke and mirrors. All smoke and mirrors.

Isn't life exactly that, the illusion of meaning that we desperately clutch and squeeze out of it, not at all dissimilar to the fragrant but fleeting and sweet juice, I raped this morning, out of the voluptuous ruby grapefruit I bought at Gardens Pick 'n Pay on Saturday.

Was fucking worth it.

[That pic was one of many over even more years that I've taken at Milly's on the N4 outside Machadodorp; its border post transience has always allured me.]

Welcome 'home' Charlie Boy. And for fuck's sake stop being so prissy about the words your pour into this always-empty pisspot; no-one (thankfully) gives a toss anyway.

Exploding eyes and escarpment edges

The first cold front of the winter arrived in Cape Town the night before I left. It rode into town like an unknown hooded outlaw galloping with gusto into a dry and dusty frontier town. A desperately-needed dump of moisture that soothed nerves and senses, that turned tar roads glassy, oily, as if they'd been sprayed by a massive can of hairspray. That left them reeking awesomely of, well, wetness. A most welcome and deep-reaching wetness.

That and the lurch in temperature were most welcome after the extreme and drought-ridden roasting of the still lingering (as it does in the deep south) Cape summer. Worldwide temperature highs for the first three months of 2016 smashed records by a long shot. Climate change. The slow turning up of the heat as the frogs in the pot sunbathe and turn a blind eye. Eyes that are close to exploding.

That was Friday, 18 March when the mercury, like a freezing penis and foreskin, shrunk into itself.

The next day I was gone, with a dramatically increased carbon footprint, on a flight to Johannesburg, then a bus to the land of the rising sun. Mpumalanga. To the very edge of the Middleveld to be exact. Where the days may be hot, at times brutal, sometimes humid, but where the nights are always cool. The mountain air always clean. The Milkyway always pristine.

I was going 'home', leaving behind the neat and prissy vineyards and fields of the Cape. Also the little Europe of Cape Town. For veld and acacia trees, red-rich soil country roads crisis-crossing a verdant landscape still luminous from the late-arriving rains.

Lebombo border post

Approaching the SA / Mozambique Lebombo border post: It's a dead-heavy heat that's lacquered across a mostly colourless, tinderbox-dry pan-flat landscape. It's a parched landscape desperate, and begging, for summer's rain.
As my eyes get bored with staring, they unfocus into a non-present moment. That's the direction of where Samora Machel's plane hit the ground in 1986.
Then, suddenly, the bleakness left over from winter is destroyed, and interspersed, by vast, wonderfully lumo-green banana plantations: for contrast's sake the luscious, flailing palms stand, ironically, soldier-stiff in rich-red loamy soil.
Komatipoort passes in a flash.
Then the wide-flat blue beauty of the Komati River, in less-of-a-flash, flowing fast and hard from last week's first, but faraway rains.
Passport's out.
"No smoking & alcohol allowed", and "no blasphemy", is inscribed on the inside of the luxury bus we're traveling in.
A fresh, strong wind's blowing aggressively from Maputo's direction; amidst this bleakness of the landscape - and the litter-strewn devastation of the no-man's land between borders - it's surreal to smell, and sense, the exotic Indian Ocean so close-by.
I'm also well aware, because it was during my life time, of the ghosts of the war that shredded Mozambique. Also an awareness of the loss of life, mostly always of the poor and downtrodden, and of the ghosts of land-mines (and body parts) this now fine road is built upon.
Nor should we ever forget the sublime 'wars' that the former SA apartheid regime inflicted upon its neighbours.

Sap rising

I left in the last light and arrived in the dark; a cloying bout of cabin fever salted by a bigger picture (and longer lasting) existential crisis, caused me to
drive the 22km - through a toll gate and past the neighboring town - to the Seattle Coffee shop at Millys on the N4 highway.
It's good to anonymously sit here with my cafe mocha watching the world go by, not unlike being in limbo at a busy border post.
The petrolport, perched on the side of the N4, is like sitting in a box, albeit with good coffee, of all-sorts.
People watching soothes me; I'm also reminded in the process that our lives are the manifestation of our choices; also that - in fact - there is no future, no past, just, just the present.
I'm about to return home and soak in the bath.
I left lamps on to fade-to-light the winter darkness, and my bedroom fireplace in should be roaring with warmth and firelight.
It's a freezing cold day, the worst - for me - of the winter.
But I'm looking forward to getting back into - relatively speaking - my 'routine', but also to tack in a new direction; the bay of my existence is altered, it's also time to sail out to sea...especially with the sap rising in the trunks of skeletal-bare trees - as spring is no longer that far away.

Milly's Restaurant on N4 Toll Route gutted by fire

Yesterday was a sad day... Milly's Restaurant, a well-known landmark on the
N4 Toll Route just outside Machadodorp (Entokozweni), was gutted by a fire
that started in one of its chimneys. According to the restaurant's manager
and owner, patrons and employees were safely evacuated. She said that it
took a short 15 minutes for everything to go up in flames.
I have spent many hours in this restaurant, either working or enjoying the
sunset over the water in my quiet time. I look forward to seeing the shape
and form of the phoenix that will surely rise from these ashes.
The Highlands Herald team uploaded the photos they took to their Facebook
page: www.facebook.com/hherald

Machadodorp

Machadodorp is the nearest town to Waterval Boven. Although a mere 13km away, one of the most expensive toll gates - the Machado Toll Plaza - divides the two towns and make them further apart than their actual geographic distance. Notwithstanding, the N4 toll route is an exceptional, world class highway that traverses the 600 or so kilometers between Johannesburg, Pretoria and Maputo in Mozambique.

Coffee break

It's been a day mostly spent on the road, stopping and starting, shaking people's hands, energizing myself for new conversations. Now I'm done. In every sense of the word. Time for a coffee break, then the last lap homewards.
A cafe mocha at Seattle, Millys on the N4, one of my favourite coffee joints in the region. Many hours have been spent here analyzing my life, other's actions, or merely resting like now.
It's a magnificent evening, the sky is blue, the sun's setting in all it's glory.

Almost home

By the time I reach Millys, pictured here, I know I'll be home within 15km. It's also the more intense beauty that drives home the point, no pun intended. And it's an ideal place to get decent coffee...at the Seattle coffee bar. It's also the best people watching opportunity for at least an hour in each direction, though in that anonymous border post/in-transient kind of way that I love so much.