More South Africa

Once the truck tour ended and the bro fled home, I decided it was high time I actually did a bit of independent travelling. The fact that hundreds of people were doing practically the exact same route at the same time is totally irrelevant.

I took a luxury overnight bus (it seems the luxury part comes from the fact that it only broke down once over the course of the trip) from Cape Town to what's known as the Wild Cost, which is sandwiched between some other coasts with various pleasant touristy names like Hibiscus, or Dolphin or Puppy Dog or Happy Meal; the coast names seems to change every 500 meters or so.

Apart from the rugged and undeveloped beaches, the main "wild" thing is the ganja that pretty much permeates the whole area. There is so much of it that the funky, hippy, spiritual crystal stores don't even bother with the ever-present incense to hide the smell of what they're smoking out back, and just burn weed upfront. I think it's actually cheaper than incense here.

Unlike the beaches near Cape Town where the water is cold enough to cause one's testicles to rise up into one's throat - which is a self-preservation reflex triggered by the mere thought of having to go into the water - the waters here a luxuriously warm. But with warm water, also comes many a menace from the sea, which I unfortunately experienced first hand.

While wading through the water, I felt in sharp pain over the front of my ankle and then the pain spread around in a thin line as if a tentacle was wrapped around my leg. Using my advanced powers of
deductive reasoning and examining all the evidence around me, I came to the very exacting conclusion that there was some kind of stingy tentacly thingy wrapped around my leg. I deduced that the only things with stinging tentacles apart from mutant octopus-electric eel hybrids were jellyfish and space aliens; but everyone knows that space aliens can't survive in water without their bio-domes on.

Having come to the realisation that I've been stung by a jelly fish, I quietly went up to shore to wait for the pain to pass. The next person was also stung, but he totally did not have the same level of self control I had, because he went on and on whining and screaming about how it stung and burned. To be fair, he was only about 7 years old, but still. Suck it up, man!

One thing about backpacking is that apart from meeting some interesting people, you meet lots and lots of boring people who look and act in exactly the same manner as everyone else. Unless of course, you're accepted into these inner circles, then all the dreds and similar Celtic tattoos are really cool.

Of course, I wasn't accepted in, but it got me to thinking that with people whose collective IQ could be counted on one hand, if it were multiplied a hundred fold, I could use this to my advantage. I decided I should start a cult and my every wish will be a command to these lemming people. The problem is, I'm too lazy to do all the ground work to start a cult from scratch; you know, with printing all the flyers
and standing in on street corners heckling people; getting the remaining Beatles to come stay at my secluded ranch; buying firearms; etc. So I decided to take a lesson from nature and mimic an already well-known organisation to lure people in.

After some thought, I decided to could start the Jojoba Witnesses, whereby I would profess that salvation could be attained through the delicate, wash, rinse, repeat mantra that would also give shiny, healthy looking hair. Of course, being follicly challenged myself, I'd be more of a "Do as I say, not as I do" type of Fearless Leader.

I must apologize that last couple of paragraphs...but in my defence, it was a long, long ride into Mozambique, and I'm pretty sure the diesel fumes were pumped directly into the bus. But now I'm here, and armed with a Portuguese vocabulary which consists solely of "bacalhao" and "obrigado". At best, I'll never go hungry, and at worst people will think I'm a rather courteous foreigner with a fish fetish.