The year 2012 brought me to the architecture of Frank Lloyd
Wright, it brought me the chance to see the last rock band i’d ever wanted to
see still performing, it brought me a rapid Tough One and an unsettled mind. It
brought thoughts of where i’m going and where i’ve been but it brought me too
to a hike i’ve only experienced through the epic imagery and words of the Klotz
and langeman Patley. Now it was my turn. the pinnacle of hikes, the much
feared, but necessary, Great Otter trail.
My life is complete.
With the blood draining from my head, desiccating my brain
on scouring and finding my wallet ID-less at the Kulula check-in counter at the
airport, I thought it was over. Rapidly I, with my fingers shaking trying to
dial as in a horror movie, managed to get my mom on the dog n bone and had her
wade through my condom filled bed side table to photograph my old school ID
document and with such relief, our plane engaged, banked, and thrust its jet
engines. We had made passage to George.
The
Otter Trail hugs the serrated coast line of the Eastern Cape, just nearly knicking
the West. The launching pad, the Tsitsikama Forest. The end, Nature’s Valley. The
trail’s elevation dips and rises as a healthy heart beat. The boil and wart
plagued forest floor, knobbed in protruding tree roots and stumps best
negotiated by a hobbit, a brown wizard, carpets our path. The forest canopy thick
dense like grandmas hair-net, protecting us from the orange-juice sun beam. The
heavy branches casting snake-like shadows on tangible surfaces, our guide ropes.
The pebble beaches twisting ankles, looking a greyed charcoal bbq, pixellate
our views. The trail throws us into Tolkein’s dense mystical forest, looping us out on to the continents edge.
A landscape for an adventure, for a big budget flik.
The terrain
inflicts drama. Our thighs trying to bust out of our skin, our muscles
inflating at every step. Blood zipping to body parts most needy of nutrient. With
the strength required to kick start a Boeing we negotiated the course whilst sucking
on the teet’s of our Camelbaks. The
salted sweat dissolving the pigment of our shirts. The crusted salt caking our
faces. As we stand staring down the line of the trail, the smooth palette of greens
and wooded browns don’t reveal the grainy grinding structure we’re to endure.
The
trail demands its hikers are self sufficient. Loaded with hammers and gu’s, chunky
fruit packs kilos of meat, chunked tuna and Nandos convenient packs concealed
we are sustained...just. Backpacks grafted to our skeletons, as a horticulturalist
only knows. Our socks, shirts and backpacks an extension of our form, an
exoskeleton of necessity. The weight is gravitous.
Each
day the softness of the forest is torn to reveal the rugged cragginess of the
coastal rock. The sea coursing it’s way through the rocky, craggy crust,
panelling it into shape. The Otter’s trail is cut by veinous streams of cola tonic infused tint. The rivers colliding at the seas mouth each tearing at one another as lovers grappling to merge. Light-pulsing blue and cool cola, a pantoned cocktail. The power of the two forces tearing and tugging us, treading, flailing. Fighting nature’s current we emerge, dripping excited by adventure. The crossing of the Bloukrans, a daunting challenge.
Plunging waterfalls. Deep ponds. The water lilies, the pads, nature’s geometry.
Our legs shredded by the fynbos, revealing a sweet scent, as tickley as a banky of Mary Jane, it’s blessed with pigment only an HDtv could reveal. Purples and yellows, reds and blues, the colours of our yogic breathing splashed upon the landscape.
After
gruelling, unrelenting days our wooded cabins gave respite. Cold showers
pricked our energies, refreshed our spirits. Rest couldn’t come sooner. We
giggled and we exposed ourselves. We were lads being lads. The memory stick of
city bullshit had been downloaded and disposed of seawards . The gluttony of
suburbia dissipated in the smoke of the heated fire warming our blistered
souls. We hike ‘cos it returns us to our
senses, to what’s important, to the basics and to an appreciation of a sculpted
world.
The
trail caught me off guard, it was more aching than anticipated. It didn’t give
us slack. It crushed my cartilage, exposed my weakness. It left my spirit
wounded, it challenged me. I felt I achieved.
...and
Dan, Stermer, Big Al and Darwin walk off the stage to huge applause having
picked up a coveted Oscar for best performance in a lead role in a Drama....
My
Life is Complete
