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THE EPIC ADVENTURES OF RICHARD WISEMAN CONTINUED 2003
SOUTH AFRICA
I think I've worked out what I like about this country: - Everyones just a little crazy, a little over the edge, a little unstable. To give an example, the Brown Sugar Hostel in Joberg is a bizzarre mixture of doped up, bohemien, acid headed, coked up 'Fawlty Towers' meets 'Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas'. The hostel owner, Ian, could be straight out of 'Withnail and I'. On our second morning there, Ian comes down stairs in a bad mood because he had hurt his hand punching one of his workers in the face, he then proceeds to tell one of the backpackers staying there to "Fucking Bugger Off" - He then turns round to me and Woodhouse as if nothing has happened and wishes us a good morning.
I cannot not find one redeeming feature about Joberg, the place is a crime-ridden muggers paradise. Every house has huge walls or fences with a compilation of barbed/razor/electric wire (or combinations of all three) around the tops. All the windows and doors on the houses are barred and there's big signs up all over the houses reminding criminals that if they choose to try and break in to their properties then an armed response unit will be on them within two minutes and they are likely to be shot. - Nice! Areas like Hillbrow you don't even attempt to go in to even in the day, you lock your doors when driving through. You avoid this place avoid for fear of death at night, (even in a car). At least once every three days a backpacker will come back to the hostel saying they have been mugged, and that's in the nice areas too.
To be honest, it's sad that a city has got so bad, that all these all these security measures and no-go areas now exist. It was obviously once a beautiful and culturally rich city. The racism is sitting there right in your face, and it works both ways. Apphartide may have officially ended in SA in 1993, but the divide between whites and black is still incredibly huge. They are still divided in many ways, on the one hand you have huge fenced off communities consisting of purely rich white South Africans. Then, in contrast you have the slums and townships where a majority of the black poulations are living without clean water, electricity or gas; things we completely take for granted. It's easy to accuse White South Africans of being racist and believe me, they are. But you start to get an understanding behind this racism. I'm not justifying it, I'm just saying there are always two sides to every story. The innequality is grossly unfair, but things are slowly changing. 300 years of history cannot be changed over night, time will tell what happens here.
Pretoria
70ks up the road is Pretoria. It is like driving in to a completely different country. Gone is the constant fear and tension associated with Joberg. Alright, it's still not 100% safe, but neither is Brixton. All it takes is a bit of common sense and a constant scowl on you face. (I have now mastered scowlling down to a fine art!)
The drive in to Pretoria ended up as a comedy of errors. The minibus driver was a mulleted fuckwhit who bored me silly on the journey back from safari with how great his Global Positioning System (GPS) was. This "amazing peice of machinary" resulted in us having a three hour tour of not so nice parts of Joberg whilst he got completely lost. I was ready to punch the GPS's (and his) fucking lights out by the time we were out of Joberg. But before we actually got out of Joburg he went on a little personal crusade to find his wife's mobile phone (which incedently took us to three different hotels at different corners of the city and through Hillbrow - an area you don't don't go in to, let alone even fart in during the day- at night. Eventually we arrive in Pretoria (his home town) at 11pm, he's still using the fucking GPS for fuck sake! We get off at Pretoria Backpackers - to find that it was closed (despite booking in advance), mulleted fuckwhit has fucked off and we're stuck in the middle of a South African city late at night - Nice! Luckily a huge tour bus filled with German and Dutch 18-25 year olds turns up and offers us a lift to another hostel - we've struck pure gold!!!!! - Well we would have if me an Woodhouse weren't already taken - Dammit.
Botswana
Got a ride up in to and through Botswana with two Germans, Woodhouse has decided to get back to England so I'm on my own. I have never felt so much like the third wheel and never so glad to get away from two people as quick as possible. (I refer to the Germans, not Woodhouse of course) . After crossing the border we headed up to Francistown and spent an hour driving around in the dark trying to find this bloody campsite reccommended by the hostel owner in Pretoria. - We didn't find it. These Germans could speak good English so it puzzles me why they chose to ignore me and my protests, and the blatent obvious fact that we were heading in completely in the wrong direction away from the campsite. Eventually after driving off road for half an hour we found a place to make camp. The next day we arrive at the border to Zambia in good time and then proceed to spend two hours faffing about trying to find a place to exchange money (it's fucking Sunday fo christs sake!) and then trying to find the next campsite the hostel owner had recommended. Needless to say I lost all sense of humor and got them to drop me off at the border to make my own way in to Zambia.
Botswana is an expensive country for us lowly backpackers, unless you have a tent you are looking at forking out a minimum of $40-50 dollars for a night in a shithole brothel/hotel. The public transport is deplorable at best and just plain bloody awful at its worst. I wasn't sad to leave
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