Bill and Anna arrived much to the excitement of everyone. We picked them up at Cape Town airport and immediately took them over to get the vehicle Bill rented (or "hired" as they say here) for the time they were in South Africa. My sister Karie put it best when she said, "You mean the truck Bill is renting? The one that brews coffee?" Yes. A 1,000 Rand-per-day extravaganza, complete with not one but two roof top tents, two gas stoves, a battery operated refrigerator, cooking gear, sleeping bags, pillows, towels, and even a table and two chairs. This was one major off road vehicle. We named the animal "Cecil John Rhodes," after a famous explorer in these parts (Rhodes Scholarship, Rhodesia) to keep in line with the habit of naming vehicles we seem to have adopted while being here. Bill and Anna appropriately renamed him "Red Rhodey" for short. "Hey Bill, why such a big and expensive vehicle?" "I'm already spending umpteen thousand dollars to get here. Might as well throw a few hundred more on the credit card and ride in style." Yeah. That about sums up Bill's philosophy. Drop a few on the credit card and call it good. Right after we picked up Red Rhodey, we needed to stop for gas to fill up the huge tank. In South Africa you have to pay cash at the gas pump--no Shell cards, Visa, or the like. As you can imagine, every gas station has an ATM. So we stopped for gas and Bill told the guy (all gas stations are full service in South Africa) to fill 'er up. Bill and I went over to the ATM and he whipped out a handful of cards: some bankcards, some credit cards, some who-knows-what cards. After trying 2 or 3 cards he finally found one the machine would accept and spit out cash. Bill sort of lives on the same money plan we do: play the "float" game when paying bills and hope when you put the money card in the machine you hear the ATM's dispensing gears sorting out the cash. We've had plenty of times when we received the slip that says "insufficient funds" or "unable to accept transaction" or "do not pass go" or whatever and have left the ATM feeling rejected and somewhat abused. I suppose this comes from having a job that doesn't pay that much. So, Bill and I sat and listened for that magic cash-dispensing-sound that only a bill-paying floater can truly appreciate. When he finally struck gold on one of his cards we both breathed a sigh of relief. Doesn't matter that it was the Visa that charges 22% for cash advances. Hey, it was cash to feed Red Rhodey and keep Bill and Anna alive for the next week. They stayed with us at the Strand Pavilion for the remainder of the week, where we were able to swim, laugh, and drink lots of that excellent South African wine. The day after they arrived, Katilee, Kara, and I took Bill and Anna to Robben Island--the prison where Nelson Mandela and other "political" prisoners were held during the Apartheid reign. Robben Island is situated a few kilometers in the bay across from Cape Town, sort of like Alcatraz in relation to San Francisco. It is the one place I wanted to visit on this trip to Cape Town--I even bought a book about it and read it prior to visiting the island. This is pretty good for me considering it takes me a summer or two to read a book. Don't ask me why. I have 2 months off in the summer. So why does it take me so long to read a book? Just one of those slow readers, unlike my daughter Kara who can polish off a book within a couple of hours. So, finishing a book within a week was quite a feat for me, which means it must have been a high priority. Robben Island has a sordid history, mostly used as a place for depositing the unwanted, such as criminals, tribal chiefs, lepers, and the mentally insane. Once the prison was constructed it became a bastion for furthering the advancement of the Apartheid government. I wrote earlier about the governor of PE being a Robben Island inhabitant, as were many of the political leaders of modern day South Africa. Many of the remaining inmates serve as tour guides for the prison, including the guide we had. He lived for 20 years cooped up 17 hours a day in a cell the size of a typical U.S. home bathroom. No beds, no mats, no blankets. Just concrete floor and a bucket for a toilet. Nelson Mandela lived this way just a few cells down the hall from our tour guide's cell. That was in the B sector, where they housed the most "dangerous" political prisoners. I find this ironic considering how peaceful Nelson Mandela seems to be. The life they lived on the island prison would drive anyone mad, especially since the prison took special action to make sure there was plenty of emotional abuse to spread around. Our tour guide said that the "censor" room would censor all mail and even rewrite some letters and forge the prisoners' wives' signatures. The letters would then read something to the extent "I can't live this way anymore so I am divorcing you." Since all the incoming and outgoing mail was censored, there was no way for the prisoner to know the truth. It was powerful for me to be there and I'm glad both Kara and Katilee were able to be there also. It was also great to see the abundance of penguins on the island and the seals in the Cape Town harbor.

The real reason why Bill rented Red Rhodey was for the weekend "off road" camping experience that capped off our Cape Town trip. The plan was for Stanley (with roof top tent), Livingstone (with roof top tent), and Red Rhodey (with two rooftop tents) to cart the 12 of us (De Jagers, us, and Bill and Anna) back to PE taking as many off road routes as possible. A real need to have a real man's vehicle. Andre had done a wonderful job of sketching out a plan that included camping at the bottom of Gamkaskloof, better known as "Die Hel" or "The Hell," and a 2-day drive through the Baviaanskloof, which means "baboon ravine," situated within the Baviaanskloofberga, which means "baboon ravine mountains." All dirt "roads," requiring the use of a 4-wheel drive vehicle with a rooftop tent. Just before we left the road where we would enter into the Swartberg pass (on the way to The Hell), Livingstone blew his clutch. Well, technically, I blew the clutch while trying to pass a truck on a hill. Bam. Gone. Right in the middle of the Karoo, which is a desolate area sort of like Wyoming. Nothing for miles. We hooked Livingstone up to Red Rhodey and dragged him to the next "town," where there happened to be an auto repair shop. Andre had driven ahead and checked out where the best place was for us to drag Livingstone and he settled on "Karoo Motors." Mind you, this is in the middle of a dustbowl in the middle of the Karoo. As we pulled into Karoo Motors, I noticed not one car parked outside. Not a good sign. It's a pretty well known fact in the U.S. that you take your broken vehicle to the shop that has the most broken cars scattered outside the shop. A place like that is where the locals bring their cars, which means it must be good. The chief mechanic came out, grease from head to toe, with a bad shave job. Sort of like he was trying to grow a goatee around the base of his neck, near his shirt line, rather than on his chin. Andre reassured us that the people living in this part of South Africa were good people and would work hard to do what needed to be done. In the end, it turned out that they did a good job on Livingstone, even to the extent of making sure the new clutch was ordered from a Land Rover shop near Cape Town. So there we were; sitting in the dustbowl parking lot of Karoo Motors with the sun quickly coming to a setting point. What were the options? (1) Find some motel and wait it out until Livingstone was fixed. (2) Tow Livingstone to a bigger town (about 2-hours away) and forgo the Gamkaskloof camping. (3) Grab what we need, kiss Livingstone goodbye, pile into Red Rhodey and Stanley and continue on our way. Much to Andre's delight (who had been looking forward to this camping trip for quite some time), we opted for number three. We piled into the other two trucks and off we went. Okay, so we were short a vehicle, an entire tent, and all the stuff we had in Livingstone that we brought especially for this camping adventure. But hey, nothing we could do about it at Karoo Motors. I guess all the "car breaking down" I experienced both as a kid and as an adult paid off. I have become quite resilient when it comes to having a car break down at 5:00 p.m. on a Friday in the middle of nowhere. Might as well start building some of that resilience in the kids so when their cars break down 20 or so years from now they'll be able to just pile in somewhere else and keep on going. The only real bummer for me was that I wasn't able to drive Livingstone down the passes on which we traveled over the next 2 days. I, too, had spent months looking forward to testing both Livingstone and my driving skills on these passes. Although the trip was fun and exciting, not to have driven took away a piece of the adventure for me. When a man bonds with his truck, it's hard to leave it behind.

I understand why they call it "The Hell." It is a ravine located about 40 kilometers off the Swartberg (which means "black mountain") pass, which takes 2 hours to drive to. The road to The Hell is winding and teeters on the insane as it twists its way through the mountains and eventually ends at a beautiful ravine. The last 5 kilometers of this drive is literally switchbacks that are not much wider then a single vehicle with a drop off of 500 meters. One slip and it's all over. Absolutely no room for error. We arrived at this last pass after dark, and so had to drive down to the bottom using our headlights. Red Rhodey was jammed with seven of us (Bill driving, Kathy and three kids in back, and Jack on my lap in front) and I must admit Bill did a fine job in keeping us alive. There aren't too many I would trust to drive that road, but Bill is on the list. We spent the night in the rooftop tents, which was a great adventure especially since inhabitants of the area include baboons, leopards, and a few varieties of venomous snakes. I love the concept of a rooftop tent and want to get one when we return to the U.S. I'll need to get a vehicle to go under the roof top tent, as our minivan can barely keep the sliding door on and we left the Oldsmobile dead in the snow. I want to get a Land Rover when we get back. Maybe I can borrow Bill's wad of credit cards to help purchase it. In the morning we drove to the end of The Hell, where the park ranger lives. Gamkaskloof is actually a provincial park and so there is a ranger at the end of the trail. The area actually was first settled by a group of Trek Boers--the Dutch descended farmers who trekked across the country once the Brits came in and took over (ever heard of the Anglo-Boer War?)--who created an enclosed community and lived there for many years. Before the road was built it was nearly impossible to get over the pass into their community. The ranger had a great display of pictures and artifacts depicting the history of these settlers. He also had a variety of jams and dried fruit he and his wife made and sold to visitors. We could tell that he didn't get a lot of visitors as he made us coffee and even brought out his plastic jug of homemade brew--some sort of moonshine made with some type of fruit growing on his trees. It was 70% alcohol. A slug of that kept the leopards and snakes at bay.

Our second day consisted of more dirt and off road driving, passing through what must be the ostrich farm center of South Africa. We even stopped and bought a couple of ostrich eggs to eat on the trip. Each ostrich egg is equal to about 24 chicken eggs. We ate one the next morning and it was actually quite good. Tasted like chicken. We spent the night once again in our rooftop tents in a camp area in the Baviaanskloof. Another great adventure for all. The last day of this camping trip was spent driving through the beautiful Baviaanskloof, where we saw troops of baboons and a lot of kudu. We were unable to see neither any buffalo nor any leopards, although they are in abundance in the Baviaanskloof. We were again greeted by some treacherous mountain pass driving that matched the road to The Hell. This time it was during the daylight so it wasn't all that bad. Plus, Bill had bonded with Red Rhodey and was feeling pretty good. Even though I lost the opportunity to drive Livingstone, we did have great family bonding packed in with Bill and Anna. All in all, dit was helse lekker! (it was a helluva nice trip!)
Sunset over Table Mountain
Cape Town view from Robben Island
Our Robben Island guide
Nelson Mandela's cell
Hill we hiked with Bill and Anna
Swartberg Pass
Baboons!
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