Karoo Drive
Posted: 2/21/2005 11:30 PM (Permalink)
The N2 highway snakes its way along the Indian coast through an area known as the Garden Route. Here the warm, moist winds from the ocean flow on shore and encounter the Great Escarpment; the Swartberg and Langeberg mountain ranges. The mountains wring out the winds, giving the Garden Route its name, but leave precious little moisture for the high plains beyond. This area is the Great Karoo; A Xhosa word meaning “land of thirst”, and this was the route by which our return journey began.
Of course when we drove through the Karoo, it rained like the world was going to end. Wave after wave of downpours. Our destination was oasis town of Graaff-Reinert. (the G is pronounced much like the Germans say “ch” as in J. S. Bach).
Getting there from Mthatha was like a biblical epic. In addition to Noah’s flood, we sliced up a tire on the less than perfect roads coming out of Mthatha. I’m still kicking myself for not getting any pictures of myself changing a flat tire out in the middle of nowhere. I talked earlier about how one of the things I noticed about driving on the left side of the road is that I had a tendency to drift to the left. That’s sort of what happened. There were a series of oncoming cars, and I went over a little too far. There was no shoulder to speak of; just a sharp edge on the road and the tire punctured along the sidewall.
As I finished up the tire change, I got out my water bottle to wash my hands and accidentally dumped almost the entire thing out. Great! Heading into the dessert in the middle of summer with no spare tire and without water.
But then there was all that rain.
Another disaster was narrowly averted when a large hare ran out in front of the car. I managed to miss it and avoid destroying another tire. Later I had to swerve again to miss hitting a tortoise in the road. By the time we made it to Graaff-Reinert in the afternoon, I was ready for a nap. Check out the size of our room at the Karoopark Guesthouse.
You could hold an aerobics class in there! No naps yet though. I first went to the Supa-Quick to get the tire fixed. It turned out that the tire was not fixable, but I was able to get a slightly used replacement tire for about US$40 (including labor). Wow! Did I mention that the dollar is really pretty strong in South Africa these days? The dude that sold me the tire thought he recognized my last name from an American television program. He was kind of disappointed to find out that I’d never seen Third Rock from the Sun. I guess I wasn’t representin’ my country too good.
To finish off the biblical theme, in the evening we were treated to what was easily the most perfect rainbow I’ve ever seen. A full primary and secondary from horizon to horizon. Absolutely unbroken. It’s hard to take pictures of rainbows though, especially with my camera, so no photos.