The Long Walk To Lajuma

Madrid-Cairo-Johannesburg (28-29^th April)

There I was again, in the international departure area of Barajas airport, waiting for my plane to Cairo which, of course, had a slight delay. After so many years travelling in low cost companies, I felt like a luxury to receive a meal during the flight and to have a blanket and a pillow and the possibility to watch a movie and to listen some Egyptian music. I liked to hear some Arabic again, even if the only word I understood was “shocran”, but I had the impression that Egyptian Arabic must be easier to understand than Moroccan Arabic, it sounds more open.

In the plane, the distance to the destination and the local hour was shown, and I don’t know exactly why, but It was supposed to be one hour more than in Spain so, my flight which was supposed to reach Cairo at 20:30 was going to do it at 21:30 and the boarding time for the next one was at 22:10. So, little bit stressed, I enjoyed the vision of the Egyptian capital during the night and to cross the Nile.

Then, once landed, I ran to the gate of the next plane, just to find out that the time in my previous plane was wrong and I still had one hour before queuing. I was glad to hear Arabic again, it felt like home; a home in which I don’t understand most of what it’s going on but that feels comfortable.

Finally, I went inside the second plane, not as comfortable as the first one, but again with meal (2 dinners!), blanket and pillow. I did my best to sleep, since I had hired a tour the day after, but I think that I only managed to sleep for 4-5 hours; while crossing Africa in the middle of the night.

Before 6 we were waken up with the lights and had some breakfast (such a difference with low cost companies!). The sunrise was quite slow; I guess is something normal close to the tropics, but it was my first time down the Equator.

When we landed I had a kind of zombie-state-of-mind, so I don’t remember very well how I reached the luggage bands, but I was glad to see that my two bags had made the same trip. I was worried about that, so I made sure that the stuff was divided in both packs, so I had a little bit of everything if one was lost.

After changing some money, I called to the hostel so they could collect me.

Johannesburg (29^th April)

A couple of minutes after my call, a tall skinny black man came to pick me up. And as a welcome-to-South-Africa song, the Adele’s “Someone like you” sounded on the radio. My lasts fellows in Morocco had a funny time watching me suffering with this song in the car when we were coming back from Erg Chebbi and it was hilarious that it was my “welcome” song…past can be behind, but it’s always with you.

The man was nice and was giving me some conversation during the short way to the hostel. Good news that after one month of Spanish my English wasn’t much worse than when I left Morocco and the South African accent wasn’t as difficult as I thought it would be, based on “District 9”.

The hostel reminded me to a British B&B, as “clean” as those, but with tropical garden and safari-like decoration.

Shortly after, the guide of the tour came to collected me to the hostel and we went towards Johannesburg, that was like 25km away from there. During the way, the guide and his colleague were speaking in something that I thought it must be that mix of English with some other language; because I was able to understand some word each few minutes, but in general I was lost.

Once in town, we collected a Slovenian couple in their thirties, the colleague of the guide left and we began the tour…which was mostly by car, something that I didn’t expected. He firstly drove us around the most dangerous neighbourhood in Johannesburg, Hillbrow, which is just in the middle of the city; so I was glad to follow my mother’s advice and do not have gone alone around the city in my zombie-state-of-mind, because I surely had end up there with my teletubbie appearance, robbed and who knows what else. According to the guide, that single neighbourhood raised the crime statistics of all the country…and that everything was the fault of the Nigerians, who were professional criminals…No matter the country you go or where the immigrants come from, locals will always blame them!

Then was the turn of the Constitutional Hill. Once it hosted the Old Fort, a prison where many, such as Mandela and Gandhi passed long tough times, but now is the site of the Constitutional Court, where human right issues are discussed in the 11 official languages of the country. It was built partially with the remains of the Old Fort, as a symbol that they could build a much better future with the ashes of the past.

Afterwards the guide stop for a while in front of the Africa Museum (hopefully I'll be back there somehow), and the he took as to the "Top of Africa" which is the Carlton Tower, a 50 floors building which is the tallest of the continent (sorry, Kilimanjaro, humans are always that egocentric!).

That was all that the guide wanted to show us from the city; it was time to go to Soweto, no without a little stop in the world cup stadium...(hate F%&cking soccer...)

Soweto (South Western Township) is now a 4 million lively city next to Johannesburg, were rich mansions stay not too far from slums. It's famous because it was the home of Desmond Tutu and Nelson Mandela, who lived in Orlando West street ( the only street in which two Nobel prizes have live in) and because of the Soweto uprising(Soweto Blues-Miriam Makeba), which began with the high-school students protesting because of the introduction of the Afrikaans as teaching language, followed by the police shooting and killing some of them, including the 13-old boy Hector Pieterson, whose name was given to the uprising museum that is now in the city.

I had to admit that I slept a few minutes in the car while driving through Soweto, I was extremely tired; but I enjoyed to see Mandela's house and see that also S.African students do volunteering for gaining experience ( Western are not the only stupids that work for free!! Yeah!!! Mal de muchos, consuelo de tontos...)

After having a look to Hector Pieterson museum, we had lunch there in a typical "restaurant" that scared to the Eslovenian couple. I had the chance to taste the pap, a porridge made out of ground maize, similar to the Ugali in East Africa, I guess.

The tour came to the end (too short in my opinion), and the guide drove the couple to the airport and me to the hostel. He was really shocked that I was going to work for free, and in a dangerous environment. I tried to explain him that now there is so many people in Europe with the same degree and kind of master that you don't go too far without experience...but I don't really believe what I was saying, it's just that I don't know what to do; if I stayed in Spain I would have to work in something that I would hate with my entire guts and only I were one of those lucky 40% of young people that have a 700€/month work. I'll have to do it soon...but let me dream as much as possible.

Once in the hostel I collapsed and honoured that tradition that everybody thinks is so Spanish but I think that it's quite spread, the siesta. I was so tired that I didn’t bothered to have dinner or anything, I just remind one of the owners of the hostel that I would need a taxi the day after and they gave me the bus ticket that the Leader had sent to me.

Johannesburg-Louis Trichardt (Makhado)-Lajuma (30th April)

I woke up unwilling and took me sometime to get up and get everything ready before going down to have a light breakfast surrounded by quiet international backpackers.

The taxi driver came 10 minutes late and so we arrive to the Park Station. The bus was due in 15 minutos, but the driver was nice and showed me the way running with one of my bags.

The passengers were pretty much a small picture of S.Africa population, with a majority of black people, some white and one of Asian origin.

More than six hours took us to cross the provinces of Gauteng and Limpopo, passing through Pretoria, Mokopane and Polokwane, before reaching Louis Tritchardt...half an hour late.

Once there, I got out of the coach and said to myself "cool, the Leader is not here, what now?" but while I was collecting my luggage, a tall white middle age man asked me if I were me. Let's call him the Afrikaner man (I might change names later on, I'm still a little bit confuse, there is too much people here!). He help me with the luggage and we went to the jeep were some others were waiting; one of the volunteers working with predators (an English girl, I'll give her a name later, most are English, I'm gonna need to know the town!); the Geordie (she is from Newcastle and this is the adjective I found, I may ask her...), who is a master student, and her boyfriend.

The Afrikaner man drop me at the Pick'n'Pay, the supermarket of the town, so I could buy food for the week. There, another volunteer, a young English girl who has already spent 7 months here as a part of her degree, came to help me by orders of the Leader.

When I finished it was time to go, finally, to Lajuma, which was 46km away; but 1h and a half in time due to the 7 last km, which are through the mountain and driving in a sand path quite uneven.

By the time we arrived it was dark; and the Barn, my new home, was waiting form me to have dinner and sleep...not without wondering if I should be worried about the 5 spiders that surrounded my bed or if they were harmless...