Flight of the Bearded Vulture (a really rare occurrence)
“Oh look!” Stephen yells. We look in different directions
wondering what has caused his excitement. In a few seconds, a huge majestic
bird with a wingspan of almost 3 metres swoops low over us, and glides off into
the distance.
As we rise from our instinctive ducking motion, he explains that
the bearded vulture (a protected species) is almost extinct, and to see one in
actual free flight is a very rare occurrence. As if it hears Stephen’s
comments, the beautiful bird makes a return flight looking down at us, and
finally disappears down a steep ravine.
Very interesting! It all happens so fast I can only manage one
camera shot. The memory of it is firmly etched in my mind’s eye.
We say our goodbyes to our host family, and head out to Sani Top
Chalet (the highest restaurant/pub on the African continent at 2,900 metres
above sea level). There we have lunch consisting of potatoes and boerewors
(sausage), washed down with piping hot (that’s right, piping hot) sweet red
wine called “gluwhein” which warms every part of our innards. As we finish off
lunch, the weather decides to change tack. From a very sunny, breezy
disposition, the clouds begin to roll over the mountain plain thick and fast,
until, we are enveloped and forced to drive with our head lights on full beam,
and even then find it difficult to make out the road on the way back down. You
can actually reach out and scoop up cloud with your hands, we are that high up.
Something strange begins to happen.
My travel mates and I find it difficult to keep our eyes open as
we drop off into extended moments of dozing against our will. Only Stephen
stays alert, he’s used to the phenomenon. It has something to do with the low
levels of oxygen on the mountains, and our bodies having to adjust by partly
shutting down.
We eventually arrive at Underberg, where Ken asks “Sooo, how did
it go?” with a smirk on his face.
We look at each other and admit reluctantly that it is not a
trip you want to make regularly. He sympathises, and reminds us he took his
decision a while ago.
I get back to my hotel at 9:30pm, after dropping off my
co-travelers. After dinner, as I start to doze in front of the TV, I think I
hear someone yelling down the corridor of my floor “Pepe, Pepe!”. I stick my
head out the door in curiosity and at the same time consider asking whoever it
is to be quiet. My eyes are met by Ronaldo’s as he strides briskly by trying to
catch up with his team mate Pepe down the corridor. He gives me a brief nod of
his head as if to say sorry. I am caught between my initial intentions and being
briefly star struck (I must admit), after all he’s to be one of the stars of
the next day’s match; Portugal v. Brazil. I can’t wait.
Shopping Delights –
Durban’s Malls
Ahead of the evening’s matches I will watch on the two large LCD
screens in my suite, I decide to explore Durban’s shopping delights.
Before leaving the hotel I pop downstairs to the restaurant for
some breakfast. I spot a very familiar looking face at the table opposite mine.
He takes me back years to when I was at Igbobi College in the late 60s/early
70s, watching him on TV, terrorising defences at will while playing for
Portugal. This opportunity is mine to miss. I get up from my table and walk
over, introduce myself and ask to take a picture with him. He smiles and
instructs one of his companions to do my bidding. It’s a good picture, actually
a gem. However, I am a little displeased with how pudgy my face looks, maybe
because I had already started to fill it with a darn good breakfast. Vanity! I
have opened the floodgates. Eusebio does not get another morsel to his mouth,
as a line of admirers begins to build.
I visit both the Pavilion and the Gateway Theatre of Shopping.
They are super! Our Palms Shopping Mall in Lekki seems to
represent only the entrances to these behemoths laid out on several floors,
with chances you would get lost not a few times without a guide. What don’t you
get, high profile fashion outlets, art bazaars, sports equipment shops with the
ubiquitous vuvuzelas serving as props, flower holders, flag bearers, you name it
– WOZA 2010 is commercially alive and well, simply a bee hive of activity with
the ever present vuvuzela providing the appropriate bee swarm background noise.
Soccer fans all over.
I pick up a few things on the trot, and quickly head back to the
hotel for a nap, and recuperation from the previous day’s visit to the southern
Drakensberg mountians (Lesotho). My limbs still report an ache or two here and
there.
Here’s Cape Town
I arrive at the Cape after an almost 2 hour flight from Durban,
to unusually sunny and warm weather. Cape Town is beautiful, sophisticated and
charming. This perfect picture is blighted however by ghetto scenes below as we
descend into Cape Town International Airport (CTI). These are scenes
reminiscent of Alexandra (in Johannesburg). I had visited the sprawling
wasteland (ghetto) in the late 1980s when as Country Manager for Reuters
Nigeria and Ghana, I had visited the Reuters Africa Head Office. An adventurous
Reuters journalist (black South African) took me,
against management’s advice, to Alexandra on a day the police
were carrying out a violent raid. For going with him without complaint, he
labeled me a true African. To be true, my heart was in my mouth during the
whole unforgettable episode which included gunshots fired and teargas.
As we swoop in to land at CTI, fabled Table Mountain looks
glorious in the brilliant sunshine as the University of Cape Town cradles at
its feet. I take so many shots of it from the air, and a fair number on the way
to my hotel – Southern Sun Cape.
Nice hotel, grand lobby, friendly staff, and situated right in
the city centre about 6 kilometres from Green Point Stadium. I’m told my room
is on the 30th floor. A bellboy sees me up to my room; I stagger back a step
when he pulls the blinds; there sit Table Mountain and Lion’s Head, in my face,
up close and personal! For the next four days the view from my hotel window
presents me with the different faces of Table Mountain – reflections in dawn’s
early light, reflections in bronze sunsets, reflections in night’s spot beams,
reflections in thick cloud cover and rain and wait for it, reflections under a
rainbow. Awesome! My camera doesn’t know what to do with itself!! Below my
window at ground level the CocaCola FIFA FANFEST grounds lie sprawling. On
match days the place quickly fills up with soccer fans unable to make the Green
Point Stadium.
They are entertained with the live match, watched on huge
screens. Post match entertainment includes live bands and DJs burning all kinds
of music, some from well known Nigerian artists including D’Banj, Asa and
P-Square. Sometimes the music keeps me up late at night all part of the WOZA
2010 raison d’etre.
Irresistible Table
Mountain
My business in Cape Town is to watch Match 56 (Spain v.
Portugal), but the day before the already sold out match, I push it to the back
of my mind, and obey nature’s call and Table Mountain’s irresistible
invitation. I bundle up in warm clothing despite the deceptively warm weather
at ground level, and armed with my trusted camera which is yet to cool from the
previous day’s shot taking, and its constant companion – a set of binoculars, I
take a car out to the cable car station at the foot of the mountain.
The waiting line is unusually short today. We clamber on board
the circular cable car, receive last minute instructions to stand clear of the
windows. The car floor rotates 3600 on its trip up and down, giving everyone
the same views all round (very thoughtful). The 10 minute ride up is filled
with banter about the fear of heights, and the various treatment s for
overcoming it; everyone’s entitled to a shot at making easy money. Midway, the
twin car on the other set of cables is making its way past us on its downward
journey. We wave at each other briefly.
1,085 metres high, we arrive at the top. It is indeed relatively
flat and easy to walk around. The more interesting parts are the precipices
where the voids simply fall away from you. You see the city laid out beneath,
major landmarks like Green Point Stadium and the railway/bus terminals are easily
picked out. Off the Western Cape Coast lies Robben Island, where Madiba was for
the greater part of his time in prison under the apartheid government. What a
pity I don’t have enough time to get out there this visit. I must do so the
next time.
The views all around are magnificent, all you hear is the wind
in your ear, sometimes rising to a howl as it gets trapped by the mountain
face, buffeting you and encouraging you to get a firm foot grip as you step
closer to the edge. A young 18 year old German lad (Hans) gives some of us a
fright as he steps away from the railed (protected) walk area onto a precipice
from which is a sheer drop to the bottom of the mountain.
Hans is taking camera shots of Lion’s Head. He reminds me of the
kind of courage that the European voyagers must have shown, to get on wooden
ships and spend many a month at sea “discovering and conquering” distant lands
such as this, relying on nothing but the wind, yes, the wind.
He beckons to some of us to come over. No way! I holler back
that I’ll meet him halfway along the precipice. We strike a deal. I have
fleeting thoughts of the family I have left back at home. Nothing ventured,
nothing gained. He offers to take some shots of me with my camera when we meet
in the middle, everyone else looking on in dismay at the two clowns, one young,
the other old, well fairly so.
On the way back to catch the cable car down, I stumble on two
plaques set in cement. They say all a man needs to consider when in the
presence of such a wonder of nature.
With my afternoon free I decide to visit Canal Walk, one of Cape
Town’s newest shopping mall’s.
It certainly doesn’t look like a mall from the outside. Again,
it’s another sprawling shopping paradise set on several acres and floors
complete with fast food arcades etc. South Africa’s investment in shopping
malls must be huge, and they always seem to be crowded and busy.
Cape Town’s Mercurial
Weather
Sunny Cape Town suddenly turns wet, cold, windy and dank, as the
Cape of Good Hope sends wicked dark clouds northwards. Lion’s Head and Table
Mountain disappear into the heavy clouds in that order, and FANFEST Cape Town
empties in double quick time. The event makes the evening news, and the
organisers have to give reassurances on fans’ safety.
I take one look at the weather and decide that investing in a raincoat
before the match would not be a bad idea. I take the opportunity to visit the
Clock Tower at the V & A Waterfront Shopping Centre and besides a few gifts
and some art by James Yates (one of South Artists world renowned painters) I
buy a lightweight plastic raincoat which remains in its wrappings till this day
– the weather sorts itself out later on in the day.
