Hiking (2002)

A few days ago I had an almost English weather experience, which will illustrate to you why I have grown to hate hiking.

We were in the Drakensberg mountains, and I was convinced to do a 30km hike to the top of The Amphitheatre (or the "roof of africa"). It is a natural rock amphitheatre 1000m wide and 3000m high, and is widely reckoned to be one of the most spectacular views in the world. Also, from the top of this go the Tugela Falls, the 2nd highest waterfall in the world, falling for 1000m. So I thought that the effort of this 7hr hard work climb would be worth it.

So we leave at 7am the next morning in the beautiful warm sunshine, shorts and t-shirt, it's early but all is good. There are 4 of us and we take a local guide with us who knows the way. 1 hour in and we are already knackered, and have done some seriously hairy bits and are pretty glad to be alive. One bit was a sheer cliff 3m wide over a drop of a few hundred metres (ie certain death), and all there was was a 1 inch wide shelf of rock to step your feet on to get across. What's worse there was a small stream running down the rock, and it was slippery with algae. Getting across that boy was a teeny bit stressful, let me tell you. Anyway, what happened then? A cloud comes down on us, doesn't it. Absoultely freezing, wet, and reducing visibility to about 5m.

The guide reckons that it is low, so by the time we get to the top we should be above it. So we carry on, and finally 2hrs later we get to the most spectacular view in the world, and what can we see? All of two things: Jack and Shit. Not even close to funny. We stand on the edge of what looks like a cliff, and I ask the guide how high up the cliff is. He throws a huge boulder off to demonstrate, it doesn't land for 9 seconds, DAMN that's high. We can HEAR the waterfall so we go looking for it. We find it but as suspected can't see anything. Which led to the next fun bit.

By now we are all freezing, soaked, knackered, and not happy, so we decide to head back. Only the fog is so thick that the guide gets lost. After 3hrs walking we have passed the same waterfall 5 times. We finally find an emergency hut 10 metres away that we didn't even know was there. Outside it was a handmade gravestone for an 18 year old girl who had gone up 5 years ago and died of cold, which was reassuring. Finally one of the guys we were with remembers that he has a compass and we manage to navagate our way back to the edge again, and the final bit of fun.

The final bit of fun was a 60m chain ladder going off the edge of a cliff. Not nice at any time, but especially not when you are cold, tired, weak and wet, and your hands are numb. I go and decide to look down, I look to my right and we are HIGH. I look to my left and immediately regret it, the cloud briefly chooses that moment to clear and I see a 3km drop straight down waiting for me if I decide to let go and fall left. Anyway, that all turned out OK and we just about make it down before nightfall.

The next day no-one could walk properly because of our muscles being all mashed up from the effort and cold. And oh look, the mountain is perfectly clear with amazing visibility.

I hate hiking.

Camping (2002)

I tell you, we had a strange experience the other night. We stayed at this place called Coffee Bay, which is famous for its copius quantities of dope being grown there. You can get an arm of it (literally a bag the size of your arm) for five paaaaaand! Also there are lots of tribes and legends all around there, we were pretty much the only white people there. Anyway so we are hanging around in the bar in this smokey atmosphere, and have a little of their special cake. Some local tribe comes in and does a crazy dance and song around the fire to ward off evil spirits or something, all very cool. But it turned out that they had no rooms left, so we'd have to camp outside. By this time it is about 11 and we are knackered from the day's excursions, so we retire to our tent.

The next thing I know, I am woken to the banging of what sounds like hundreds of drums, and I can see through the tent that it is pretty light outside, in fact it is a full moon. I think "damn, no sleep tonight" as I remember that they have full moon celebrations around here. But I can't be bothered to go check it out as it sounds like it's a fair walk away and anyway I might get sacraficed and put in a giant cooking pot or something, so I try to go back to sleep. The next thing I know, right next to my head I hear this seriously solid, heavy THUMP of something landing on the grass. I mean it sounds like someone has dropped a safe right next to my head. What the hell was that? Then I hear a few more heavy thuds, followed by this loud breathing. I open my eyes and see this huge shadow of some sort of BEAST right outside the tent, I mean this thing is massive, like 8 foot high and on 4 legs! Agh!

Remember at this point that I am still under the influence, and those tribal drums are still going on, and there are all these legends of devils and monsters and stuff that all the local people try to ward off. So I am lying there bricking it, afraid to move or even breathe in case this thing eats me or something. Then Una rolls over and makes some comment like "Jonah you smelly boy, have you farted?". Now that she mentioned it, there was a pretty appalling smell in the tent, but I was pretty sure that I hadn't literally soiled my pants so I was like "shut up". Then some more footsteps outside, I tell you if this thing steps on my head through the thin canvas of this tent then I am dead, and it is right outside. Una looks scared stiff all of a sudden, and we QUIETLY curl up in the middle of the tent and lie there without moving or making a sound and hope it goes away, and doesn't trample us decide to eat us. After what seems like an eternity, several more footsteps, brushing past and touching the tent a couple of times, and some more breathing, the thing finally leaves and we hear some splashing as it crosses a nearby stream. We are still paranoid that it might come back though so we try to go to sleep in the same positions without moving.

The next morning we wake up, totally stiff. We look at each other and were like "what the hell was that last night?", it all seemed to surreal now that it was morning. What's more, the awful smell that woke Una up originally has not gone away. I tentatively unzip the tent and discover a MASSIVE pile of poo right outside of our tent door, surrounded by horse hoofprints. Weak.

White Poo Theory (2002)

(Jones et al, 2002)

The mystery

For the last few years, everyone wondered where the white poo had gone that used to foul the streets of the 80's. This had everyone stumped, and only vague and unconvincing suggestions about a change in diet could be put forward.



The revelation

Then, last year, upon mentioning this mystery to a friend of mine, he claimed to have an answer. His granny used to have "white poo spray", spray that you bought in the shops to spray on dog poo to stop it from smelling and smearing all over your shoes.

The theory

This led to the current theory on white poo, which is that when the generation of grannies who bought white poo spray died out, the poo was no longer sprayed. This explains why you no longer see white poo. Also the shops would stop selling the spray due to a massive drop in demand.

This theory put a lot of people's minds to rest, and has held up nicely to the test of time, with no noted contradictions.

New evidence

UNTIL LAST WEEK.

Last week I stopped to camp at a tiny unexplored, uninhabited island in the Okavango delta in Botswana. Accessable only by a slim, wooden dug-out canoe known as a 'mokoro', and navigated by a native guide. No other human life on there at all apart from me, a couple of others with me, and the guide. As sunset approached we decided to go on a walk to find some wildlife, and pretty soon we saw some antelope, and also some elephant and lion tracks. But I had found something far more sinister to occupy my attention. WHITE POO. HOW IS THIS POSSIBLE???

Re-evaluation

The only plausible explanation is this.

At the end of the 80's, the government realised that white poo was unfashionable and had to go. Instead of the near impossible task of paying for hundreds more street cleaners to remove the white poo, they opted for a more brutal and direct alternative, remove the grannies. All of the grannies were gathered one night and, with all of the stocks of white poo spray, were shipped out to Botswana to remote and uninhabited islands around the delta. Here they remain to this day, still spraying any fresh animal poo they can find.

Doodles #5

Doodles #4

Doodles #3

Doodles #2

Doodles #1