Tuesday, 24 February 1987: A Day of Memorable Landscapes

 9:30 PM, Hotel Walter, Bergville, Natal Province, South Africa

This morning, I climbed about 20 feet up the side of some sort of communications tower on a hillside overlooking Pietermaritzburg in order to get above the tall weeds for some panoramic shots of the city.  Then, I turned facing the northwest toward the Drakensburg with its 10,000 foot peaks, the roof of southern Africa. 

 

After leaving Pietermaritzburg this morning, I made my first stop at Howick Falls where the Umgeni River plunges more than 100 meters over resistant cliffs of volcanic dolerite. 


My drive today from Pietermaritzburg to Bergville included a couple of rewarding side trips into the Drakensburg Mountains.

 

I drove 30 kms west into the “Berg” through the valley of the Mlambonja River with Zulu huts slinging to the verdant hillsides.  It seemed like just about every time I’d stop to take a landscape shot, a bunch of little African kids would come running up to the car.  I knew they wanted money and kept driving off in search of more solitude.  Probably 5 or 10 cents each would have satisfied them, but I have a built-in resistance to beggers.  OK, so they figure they deserve a few pennies for candy from white intruders like me, but I don’t like dealing with begging.  On the other hand, I enjoy smiling and waving at all these little squirts when I drive past them.  I suspect that many whites zoom past without even noticing them.  I’m in no hurry and enjoy trading smiles with them.

 

Thatch-roof rondovals near Draycott, Natal.

Cathedral Peak (9,856 feet or 3004 meters) is on the right side of the photo.

 

Tonight I’m staying in Bergville, a resort and agricultural center for northwestern Natal.  According to the woman who manages the hotel (she studied geography at Rhodes University in Grahamstown which I visited last July), they practice double cropping here:  wheat in the winter and maize (corn) in the summer.  Tomorrow, I’m off to Royal Natal National Park, supposedly the most spectacular part of the Drakensburg.  Then east through Zululand before returning to Durban on Friday. 

 

Driving into a storm on my way to Bergville.  The rain became very intense and I was concerned that my little Mazda might skid off the road.

 

I closed this letter to my 69-year-old father in Florida by asking how his new romance with Leila was going.  After my mother died six years ago, he wound up in a short and very psychologically bad marriage which has taken him a while to recover from.  I hope Leila is better for him than that last nasty witch.  I tell him that I have found male/female relationships to be about as stable as an elephant on water skis.        

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