Are We There Yet?

by David Smiedt

  Also prominent were a handful of bars with broad decks overlooking the sea. Their doors were plastered with flyers offering discount drinks to anyone who showed up in a bikini. Unadorned and honest, they were the kind of place where a request for a Cosmopolitan would not see you loudly ridiculed but politely directed down the road to a newsagent.

  It was around seven-thirty in the morning when I rolled into town and Jbay was still rubbing the sleep from its eyes. The only shop that was open was a bakery. With a steaming coffee in one hand and a buttery croissant in the other, I meandered down to the beach for breakfast.

  Here I was greeted by salt-tanged air, a crushed-glass sea and the splendid isolation that comes with being up early in a town where the majority of inhabitants go hard every night. I could have been in Byron Bay, Curl Curl or Lennox Head, and for the first time since leaving Australia I felt a pang of homesickness.

  Eventually lone surfers and trios in faded boardies drifted onto the sand, took a moment to assess the break, splashed some water on their faces as if anointing themselves and paddled out. Most had dropped their belongings on the beach in piles, barely bothering to conceal the car keys, wallets and mobile phones that protruded from beneath sun-bleached towels. Port Elizabeth, where people were routinely butchered for any one of these items, felt like another planet.

  After an hour, most of the surfers emerged as the tide began to recede. Those for whom this daily communion was a private affair were mainly men and women in their thirties, although a couple of decades of sun damage made accurately gauging their ages something of a challenge. Those in trios or foursomes were primarily men of the extensively pierced and tattooed variety for whom this activity offered a competitive outlet. The bigger groups were grommets and grommettes who wriggled out of their rashies and threw their school uniforms over still-wet bathers before tucking boards under their arms to dash off in the direction of a distant bell. With the waves cleared of surfers, a five-strong pod of bottle-nosed dolphins decided to ride the swell. With the waves backlit, they formed a crisply silhouetted quintet surfing in perfect parallel.

  By the time I got back to the main street, shops were open and populated by perpetually peeling locals whose skin bore the strap marks that come with swimming every day in the same bathing suit. I could only imagine the daily torment that life held for the lone Goth – there’s always one – at Jeffreys Bay High.

  I found a coffee shop where a freckled backpacker in a backless dress didn’t respond to my request for a short black as if I’d just scraped the bottom of the politically incorrect barrel but presented me with a dark and pungent brew.

  One of the questions I am most often asked when people find out I am a migrant is whether I would ever return to South Africa. JBay invalidated my well-rehearsed answer – “Yes, but not to live”. It was the quintessence of coastal idyll. Reluctant to leave, I revived the sulky walk that characterised much of my childhood on my way to the car.

  The nearby resort towns of Saint Francis and Cape Saint Francis almost eclipsed JBay for beauty with three kilometres of sparkling beachfront and thatched whitewashed holiday homes perched along dozens of canals dredged from a lagoon on the Kromme River. The marina was occupied by a fleet of yachts that would require the GDP of a Third World nation in annual upkeep, and the local tourist brochures displayed an inordinate fondness for the words “exclusive”, “discerning” and “US currency accepted”. As undeniably picturesque as it was, Cape Saint Francis struck me as the type of ritzy locale into which bloated magnates would roll with their mistresses du jour. Ask a barman for a Cosmopolitan here and he’d most likely sneer that the drink was “soooo twentieth century”.

  I tracked west to the Garden Route, a heavily touristed coastal plain whose stunning pulchritude has been only marginally dimmed by decades of ill-conceived development. The coastal scrub which cocooned Jeffreys Bay gave way to dark cool forests. I had reached the Tsitsikama, a beguiling world unto itself bordered by inhospitable blue peaks from whose feet ancient rainforests run to a craggy shale coastline battered by the tempestuous Indian Ocean. The ancient Khoisan people called the area Sietsikama (The Place of Clear Water). It was a particularly apt name as the rainforest traverses seven rivers. On their steep course to the sea, these have produced idiosyncratic erosion patterns resulting in dozens of skinny waterfalls that crash into icy pools and plummeting ravines whose rock faces interlock like teeth on a zip. The Tsitsikama is also home to rivers rendered mahogany by tannins in the surrounding foliage.

  Keen to get among it, I pulled into the first signposted car park and within minutes was surrounded by ferns the size of traffic lights. The Tsitsikama works its alchemy on two scales: massive and minute.

  Reaching heights in excess of fifty metres and frequently measuring a metre in circumference, the outeniqua yellow-wood trees are just one of numerous gargantuan species that ascend from the forest floor. These lofty characters are matched in height by the scores of stinkwood (named after the odour the cut wood emits), kalander and assegai trees that form the upper reaches of the forest.

  Frequently dripping with old man’s beard lichens, their scale only becomes apparent up close. After reaching the end of an elevated walkway trail to the imaginatively named Big Tree, I was confronted by an object taller than a five-storey office block. Its girth equated to eight humans huddled in a group.

  On a macro level, the Tsitsikama is even more mesmeric. Agog at the dimensions of my surroundings, I took a seat on a bench thoughtfully fashioned from a collapsed stinkwood trunk and swiftly became entranced in the details I had missed. The floor was a blanket of undulating seven week’s fern randomly illuminated by the droplets of sunlight that pierced the canopy. Booties of lime-green moss clung to the roots of thousand-year-old trees beneath tangles of witchhazel, milkwood and forest elder. Wild pomegranates and tiny buttery-yellow flowers sprung from overhanging boughs, and traces of native gardenia scented the breeze.

  A flicker of movement shattered my meditative calm. Aside from bush buck, bush pigs, porcupine, honey badgers and caracals, leopards still pad their way through the soft undergrowth and would have no trouble sneaking up on a daydreaming tourist. Instead, two metres in front of me was the strangest, most beautiful bird I had ever seen. Of the 220 species found in the Tsitsikama, 35 are endemic and this was one of them. The Knysna Lourie is an opalescent olive green and has a head shaped like a mohawk haircut, the tip of which looks as if it has been dipped in coconut cream.

  Human voices soon began to rip through the forest as tourists toting video cameras and children made their way along the boardwalk. Grateful for my ninety minutes of isolation in the forest, I returned to the car. Turning back for a last glimpse, the forests appeared big enough to accommodate the groups now piling out of coaches in the car park. They seemed to be subsumed by the green depths and eventually became shadows trekking along the trail.

  Having been unencumbered by the presence of large groups of tourists throughout my journey, it was a rude shock to see the service station beside the graceful arch of the Storms River Bridge clogged with buses, tantrum-chucking toddlers and spouses wearing that unmistakable “I told you we should have gone to Club Med” glare. I couldn’t have agreed with them more.

  By the time I reached the Tsitsikama National Coastal Park down the road, I begrudgingly acknowledged that as many people as possible should get to experience such natural majesty. The gateway to its eighty-kilometre canvas of seascapes is the park’s visitor centre. A modest collection of log cabins set against sloped foothills. It was populated by bronzed holiday-makers still damp from a dip, retirees on deckchairs dozing by the water’s edge and groups of excited hikers setting off on one of the dozens of trails that radiate into the bush.

  I naturally opted for the least taxing on offer: a concrete pathway that hugged the shore until reaching a suspension bridge over the mouth of the Storms River. Were I condemned man, I would have foregone my last meal for the opportunity to complete this
walk.

  The path descended to a beach where a lone swimmer was floating on her back in water whose crystalline purity is more often associated with a full-time pool boy and enormous amounts of chlorine. Perhaps twenty metres from her bobbed a Cape clawless otter, equally at home in salt and fresh water.

  As the path climbed into the forest again, the embankments to the left of it became a collage of boulders and ferns sparked with filigree flowers of hot-coals red, purple and apricot. Each turn brought with it a postcard of steel-blue sea and salt-misted crags framed by an artfully placed bough. All set to a soundtrack provided by breakers on rock.

  Being a rather gangly type, I tend to clip along at a moderate pace and thought nothing of overtaking a middle-aged posse of European tourists. However, by the time I reached the suspension bridge spanning the river mouth, I had only managed to zip by a third of the group.

  Halfway across, on some unspoken signal, they simultaneously burst into an oompa song they had all apparently been taught as children. Call me old-fashioned, but crowds of chanting Teutons can still make your average Semite a little edgy. However, with overtaking on a suspension bridge about as realistic a notion as making acid wash elegant, I had no choice but to smile and just keep on walking. Two verses and three choruses later we reached solid ground. All the while I, too, was singing quietly. “Germans to the left of me, Germans to the right. Here I am, stuck in the middle a Jew.”

  My overnight destination of Plettenberg Bay was an hour away on one of those cliff-hugging roads out of a film where a glamorous couple in a roadster collapse into cap-toothed giggles as the buxom blonde passenger’s Hermes headscarf blows off her peroxided head and into the blue depths. Christened Bahia Formosa (Beautiful Bay) by Portuguese explorers, it is a slab of ocean-lapped temptation sheltered by the natural breakwater of the Robberg, Outeniqua and Tsitsikama mountain ranges. Overlooked by the lush Peak Formosa it’s the undisputed playground of South Africa’s rich and famous.

  Once a well-kept secret, Plett, as it is known, became an alternative destination for Johannesburgers who found Cape Town too crowded and Capetonians who felt the same way. The attraction is understandable. Here, a pair of spurs, bisected by a lagoon, overlook two camel crescents of beach lapped at by an aquamarine surf. Between the beaches lies a rocky outcrop upon which sits the world’s most hideous hotel.

  My family had holidayed at the Beacon Island when I was eleven and it was still much as I experienced it. Incongruous, ludicrously expensive and devoid of warmth. The speckle of houses I remembered on the ridges were now suburbs.

  Even two decades ago, Plett had a Millionaires’ Row. Today it’s more like Billionairesville. From behind hibiscuses on the hillside, homes bear testament to almost three decades of the architectural whimsy that only the obscenely wealthy can indulge in. Casa de Bad Taste butted up against faux Tuscan, while white-cube minimalism only accentuated the ugliness of the myriad glass and chrome octagons perched here and there like futuristic garbage bins.

  On the other side of the hill, however, the locals lived in pastel weatherboard cottages, neat bungalows with blossoming unfenced gardens and surfboards on the lawn. Dads just home from work walked hand in hand with excited kids towards the beach; a woman tossed a Frisbee to a Labrador-cross on a sandy oval, and in the molten light of a late afternoon, I became swiftly, irretrievably and unstintingly enamoured of the place.

  I checked into a hotel on the main street which offered “disabled facilities in public areas” and sure enough they were. My infatuation remained undented as I found myself peering into the window of a real-estate agent. It was at this point that depression set in. For the mortgage I was paying on an innercity semi in Sydney, I could pick up an ocean-view double-storey home in Plett and have enough dosh left over to get the hell out of town every December when the tourists arrive.

  The downer was, however, fleeting. As it would be when you find a open-decked restaurant set high against a knoll where the waiter’s opening line is, “Welcome to happy hour”. A seafood and daiquiri frenzy for one ensued as I watched the sun melt into the horizon in pinks softer than a butterfly kiss.

  I had planned to laze on the beach for most of the next day before heading to the same restaurant for a second round of indulgence, but I awoke to murky skies that didn’t so much threaten rain but imply it. It was the kind of day that screamed theme park, so I made a beeline for Monkey Land. These types of establishments are notoriously soft targets and I was – rather shamefully in hindsight – taking no small measure of glee from the prospect of dispensing copious amounts of withering scorn on the place. I imagined the Primate Palace where one could buy sugary concoctions identified by torturous puns such as Orangeutang and Limeur, while for the grown-ups there would be a creamy cocktail named International Vervet. Instead, I found the world’s only free-range sanctuary for primates rescued from caged existences as pets, circus animals and laboratory experiment subjects.

  Monkey Land is set over twelve hectares of indigenous forest that has been fenced only at the borders and nestles under a net canopy strung high above the trees. It is home to 15 species and over 200 individuals.

  I joined a tour group led by a Steve Irwin type dressed in khaki and radiating infectious enthusiasm. The first creatures we encountered were a pair of Madagascan lemurs. Black and white in the panda fashion, they were exquisitely long-limbed and wore a perpetual expression of faint concern. They are the only animals in the world with two tongues, which of course makes it rather difficult to understand what they are saying.

  A rustle in the canopy above us saw a pair of gibbons descending like dive-bombers to a raised platform the size of a breakfast tray which was piled with fruit. Although the park is a contrived ecosystem, the rangers do what they can to minimise human contact. Hand-feeding is verboten and the speedy orange tamarinds who loitered around the cafe to scavenge biscuits from unwary visitors were frequently sent shrieking into the bush as a staff member with a spray gun aimed a jet of water in their direction.

  Gibbons are the undisputed aerial masters of the primate world. Not only can they swing between trees at around thirty kilometres an hour, they can also clear gaps of thirty metres with ease. And unlike humans, they have one lifelong partnership.

  As we followed a trail through the forest and across the longest single-span rope bridge in the southern hemisphere, I got the distinct feeling that we were being cased by hidden eyes. A piercing shriek from the rear of our group followed as a woman’s sunglasses were snatched off the top of her head by a capuchin monkey apparently overcome by the need to accessorise. They are so named because the cowl-shaped colouring around their heads resembles the hoods worn by the Capuchin friars.

  According to our guide, these sneaky bastards are the Mensa members of the animal kingdom. Adopting the tone of one of those insufferable parents who feel compelled to tell you of their child’s every academic, sporting or questionably adorable achievement, he rolled out a list of attributes that I’m embarrassed to say I did not believe until I confirmed them through various websites.

  For a start, the capuchins are those little buggers frequently seen beside organ-grinders. Why? Because they can be trained to dance, clap and solicit donations quicker than practically any other species on the planet. With the exception, perhaps, of backpackers.

  Capuchins apparently make a fine fist of assisting the disabled and can be trained to turn on lights and memorise up to ten phone numbers. They can also be taught to administer injections and have mastered the art of basic communication with humans through a card system. On one occasion when a paraplegic visitor came to Monkey Land, a capuchin handed him a card that read, “Don’t worry, Superman, your secret’s safe with me”. Actually, he gave him a red piece of cardboard signifying a recognition of illness.

  In the wild, capuchins are equally canny. For example, they rub the bark of the hard pear tree on their skin as it contains cyanide – a mosquito repellent. They also have a thing for scorpion sash
imi and instead of being stung in the pursuit of lunch use weapons such as sticks or stones to break their bones.

  I enjoyed my Monkey Land experience more than I thought I would and made a point of dropping a note into the suggestion box urging them to rethink the name – I believe the words “it intimates a third-rate carnival” were used.

  Turned out, however, Monkey Land was merely a bracing appetiser to the day’s main course. Heading west towards the town of Knysna, I drove through forests once home to multitudes of elephants. As incongruous as the combination of rainforest and pachyderm may seem, by retreating deep into the thick clusters of yellow-woods and stinkwoods the area’s elephants prolonged their survival far more effectively than their plains-dwelling counterparts.

  Even up until the 1980s rumours persisted that a few ageing cows still wandered the fern-covered floor. But as their habitats diminished along with the prospect of procreation, these proud stragglers died lonely deaths. In the lobby of the Knysna Elephant Park is a grainy photograph of the last wild elephant in the local forest. She looks proud yet mournful. Today a quartet saved from a cull in a northern game park have been introduced into the habi tat and the rainforest once again shakes to the occasional rumble of a behemoth hitting its stride.

  As commendable as such initiatives are, it’s like treating cancer with a band aid. The manner in which South Africa has treated these animals is a disgrace and the elephant park’s museum made for a sickening enlightenment. In 1913, when authorities may have been excused on the grounds of naivety for seeing elephants as an inextinguishable resource in South Africa, the United States imported 200 tonnes of ivory just for piano keys. That’s 5000 dead elephants. According to a display at the museum, the slaughter continued unabated until at least 1998. In July of that year, American conservationist Craig Van Note wrote of South Africa that “ as a CITES [an organisation that binds nations to wildlife conservation by treaty] member which projects the image of a conservation-minded model for Africa, it is in reality one of the biggest wildlife outlaws in the world”.