Kalahari

I had to change to a different hotel that weekend, and I thought, why not save some money of Standard Bank? Why not check out from the current hotel on Friday and not check into the other hotel not until Sunday? So where am I going to spend the weekend? How about Kalahari? There is a colleague (Arindam) who is ready to join me. So be the plan.
Fine Friday morning. I check out from the hotel and move all my stuff into the car and head to office. After a series of meetings, Arindam and I start for the city of Upington (on the edge of Kalahari desert, but on the shores of Orange river). The GPS shows an arrival time of 2 AM for 796 km. But no toll roads for the whole stretch. That’s not a good sign. The roads could be bad. Let’s find out!
After taking a few motorways and exits, we reach N14, which goes from Johannesburg to I don’t know where. But I know that it goes through Kalahari green area (the southernmost part of Kalahari where there is lot of vegetation, thanks to Orange river). The road is a 2 lane road just like our Indian highways, but is very well marked with no-ovetake zones and turns indicated clearly. Moreover, the speed limit is 120 kmph and where you need to reduce speed (at curves, or when the road goes through towns), there are too many road signs that you can’t miss. And no road bumps, obviously.
But within a few tens of kilometers, we were greeted with a signal. The next 5 km were one-way, as one part of the road was still being built. While cars and HUGE trucks waited on one side, workers from the other side would let the other side traffic to go through. It was well managed. But the arrival time shown in the GPS was only increasing. And it was getting dark too.
After 5 such stretches, we were literally flying (cruising at 180 kmph). The road had sparse traffic, and I was sure that there would be no cops, as it was quite dark already. After a short stop for loading the car tank and emptying our tanks, we continued through the straight roads. We could see head lamps of vehicles from far, and by the time we would pass that vehicle, at least 10 minutes would have passed. If I consider my speed as 150 kmph and the opposite cars as 100 kmph (I am sure I am underestimating here), the relative speed of 250 kmph would take me 10 minutes to cross the car. So you can imagine how straight the road is. And the road got only straighter, as we approached our destination. Thanks to constant overspeeding, we realized that we would reach our destination by 11 PM. And the car was quite stable at around 170 kmph. The only problem was of having to stop for refueling frequently.
When we were cruising at about 175 kmph near a town called Kuruman, a Mercedes Benz C class simply overtook us and disappeared. It was the first car to overtake us when we were driving (not counting the times when we slowed down to look around for fuel stations). We tried to catch up with him, but could not. At Kuruman, he went straight while we had to take a turn. So he won :-D.
Arindam had booked a room in Upington and when we reached the place, I really liked it. The lady greeted us warmly and showed us the room. It was SHOCKING! A beautiful room with a small kitchen and an attached bathroom. And PINK ROSE PETALS SPREAD ON THE BED. WHAT THE ****!!!! Because Arindam had just told her “two adults” she had assumed a couple would be visiting them. And thank heavens, there was a single bed besides the decorated double bed, and I immediately went and sat on it, to show her that we aren’t what she thought we are :-D
We didn’t wait for long to hit the beds, and next thing I remember is checking the time. it was 7 AM. It was very cold in the morning. After freshening up quickly, we had the breakfast that the lady served us. It was quite delicious. Bacon, fried eggs, toast, butter, jam, mushrooms, cheese and orange juice. Bed and breakfast for 360 Rands for two. Quite inexpensive.
We started the car soon after breakfast and discovered that the GPS wasn’t programmed to take us to our next destination, Twee Rivieren (two rivers in Afrikaans). That is the entrance to Kgalagadi Transfrontier Park which spans across South Africa, Botswana and Namibia.
The landlady offered us to guide us to the road from Upington. There are a lot of intersections and she said we would not be able to figure out without her help. She drove for about 5 km in front of us and got us to the road we had to take. After thanking her, we started the next leg of our road trip, through the Kalahari desert. Now we could see the beauty of the desert. Hardly any trees, but a lot of dry grass on both sides of the road. Some shrubs here and there. Once in a while, a lone tree. And some small windmills. I am not very sure why they are there. It was exactly like the way you see it in the film “The Gods Must Be Crazy”. The sky was clear, without a hint of a cloud. The weather was pleasant. There were birds on the road, feasting on the flesh of the small animals killed by speeding vehicles. And one of those birds hit my windshield and crapped a truckload on it. As I was doing 160 kmph easily, I don’t think the bird survived. Fortunately, the windshield took the impact without cracking. I was careful enough to look for animals on the road and managed to escape without their blood on my hands all the time. But the birds weren’t so fortunate. I saw another bird just coming swooping towards my car from the left and then I didn’t see it. I would see it only a day later. You will read about it when I reach that section.
The fuel level was going down and there was no village in sight. When the fuel level had reached the red mark, we came across a village called Askham. When we took the turn, we were greeted with a rough road. After some 300 meters, there was sand and no road. Luckily it wasn’t for a long stretch and then there was asphalt road. There were kids playing on the road wearing South African national football team’s uniforms. Even in the remotest of the South African villages, there still was so much spirit in them!
From the Kgalagadi entrance in Twee Rivieren, we could either drive to Namibia or Botswana (by taking necessary permits) or just roam around the park for a few hours. We chose to drive around the park. The roads we went on had some vegetation and some small ponds of water. There were wildebeests, bisons and springboks. But no predators. After driving for a while, we got bored, and decided to get out of the park. Arindam was driving during this time. Unfortunately, we drove over a small rock that bent the wheel rim enough to drain the air from the tubeless tyre. We drove it with a punctured tyre on the mud road for some 20 km to the park entry point and got it fixed by the mechanic there. And we had beer while he did his work. People there wondered what made us drive the car all the way with a punctured tyre and damage it. I had one reply to them all, “rented car”.
Our next destination was a falls called Augrabies. This place is actually some 150 km from Twee Rivieren. But this shortest route is through Namibia. We had to come down south all the way to Upington (250 km) and then go west for another 100 km. We took nearly 3 hours to cover this distance, including a long break. Here Arindam had booked a room for us in a hotel. This place was nice too, and had a pub and a restaurant.
I hit the pub the moment we landed there, and soon Arindam too joined me. By the time we left the pub at 10.30 or so, I had downed six beers, two shots of Jägermeister and a bunch of snails in butter and garlic. There was only one bed in the room, so I slept on the sofa. Bad idea, because I had no blanket, and it was quite cold. I woke up somewhere in the middle of the night with a splitting headache. So I slept on the bed. It was quite comforting, but I didn’t get sleep for a quite a while, thanks to the headache.
The headache hadn’t gone down even a bit till morning. I tried drinking black tea and that prompted all my stomach contents to come out. I felt much better and we headed to the restaurant for breakfast. Half way through the breakfast, I had to barf again :-D. Then we checked out of the hotel and headed to Augrabies Falls and National Park. At the entrance there, the guard stopped the car, bent in front of it, and removed some feathers from the car’s grille. Then he removed the whole dead bird.
At the falls, I had to pay 88 rands to enter because I am here on business visa. Arindam had to pay only 22, as he is on work permit. But it is better than India where all foreigners are charged in dollars.
The falls was beautiful. Somewhat like Mekedatu near Bangalore, but well maintained. There were a lot of rabbit like animals called dassies around, basking in the sun. They are so lucky. They do nothing but eat the grass, crap, bask and sometimes mate. Some unlucky ones end up as food for eagles though.
After Augrabies, it was time to head to Johannesburg. My headache hadn’t gone yet, so I had some orange juice there and we left from Augrabies at 11.10 am. The arrival time showed by the GPS was 11 PM for a distance of 916 km. We continued at moderate speeds up to Upington, because it was broad daylight, and there could be cops (Upington seemed like a well developed city). After Upington, we continued our journey through the desert, overspeeding all the time. On the way, some oncoming vehicles blinked their head lights. Although my headlights are always switched on when I drive, it was unlikely that it was bothering them. So there is only one explanation, they are warning me of something hideous waiting for us on the way. What could that be? A speed trap, obviously. So we drove at just about 120 to 125 kmph and after some 30 km, we found a cop hiding under a tree with a speed gun. He had hid his BMW quite well behind the bushes. First of all it is so hard to find a bush around there, and it is nearly impossible to find a bush to hide the car and a tree for his own shade, and yet the cop had managed. And he was at least 30 km away from any nearest town!
After the cop disappeared in my rear view mirrors, it was time to fly again. And on the way, we saw a Volvo S80 pulling onto the road. After a while, he overtook us and he probably was doing 180 kmph. My blood boiled. Damn, just the 2nd guy to overtake me and that too in a car that’s at least twice as powerful as mine. Who cares? I started trailing him. Obviously, I didn’t go closer to him than 200 meters, so I could not see where he was headed to (a clue from his car registration) or the engine he had in his car. And then all of a sudden, two cops appeared in from of him and stopped him. Whew, missed by a whisker. They didn’t bother to stop me, and I braked hard to get below 120 kmph and continued we continued our journey. And after a while, the same Volvo guy overtook us again. But this time I didn’t try to provoke him. But he ran out of luck in a different way this time. He had to stop at a signal at road work, and behind him were a Tata Indica, then a big truck and then me. He surely was frustrated because he came out of the car, looked around, spoke to the workers and came and sat in the car. The moment the signal opened, he overtook the cars in front of him by going over the under-construction side of the road and disappeared. I didn’t bother to chase him, although I did go on the under-construction road to overtake the truck in front of me. These trucks are so irritating. They slowly cruise on the road (at around 100 to 120 kmph) and block all vehicles.
At the next signal, it was green when I reached and so I could continue without stopping. And there was the Volvo guy in front of us. He probably was stuck at that signal for a while. And he would not give up overspeeding. I didn’t bother much to trail him. But the road went through a town and he had to slow down, and so did I. the last I saw him was when he pulled into a fuel station.
As we went further, cops stopped us and told me that I was doing 135 kmph in 80 kmph zone. That’s quite unlikely because when I saw the 80 kmph sign, I had slowed down to 100 kmph. He had no proof because what was being shown in the radar was the speed of the car behind us (which was also overspeeding). But he said we have to pay a fine and all that. Saw my passport, and asked how much a fine of 1000 rands would be in rupees. I said 6000 Rs. He himself said that is huge, and asked where I work here and all. When I said Standard Bank, he told me to drive carefully and let me go. Whew! This is the second time a cop was letting me go without having to pay up. I guess I won’t be lucky next time.
We never saw the Volvo again. It was unlikely that he took a different route, because there weren’t any. May be he passed us by when we were speaking to the cop. If that happened, I am sure he had the last laugh.
We entered Johannesburg at around 8, and reached Arindam’s house at 9. After dropping him, I went to my new hotel, checked in, and hit the bed by 10. The distance of about 2200 km in 2.5 days had really drained me. I still am drained, and it is Monday afternoon already.
And most of the South Africans here who I tell about my weekend, tell me that they have never been to wherever I went!!!!