My Big Fat African Road Trip, Part 1: A slice of Afrikana

Today’s missive from day 1 of our African adventure has the surreal nature that only road trips deliver. We left Pretoria and passed through the old Western Transvaal on magnificent roads. Smooth, excellent tar and beautiful scenery.

The wealth generated by the mighty Bafokeng nation was evident, especially in the areas from Marikana through the Rustenburg area. Here the right-hand side of the road is dominated by massive massive mine dumps that one could safely assume are lifeless, wildly toxic and slightly radioactive and evidence of man’s plunder of the riches of the richest seams of platinum, gold and other precious metals. The left-hand side of the road is miles of neat little blokkies housing, each house with its obligatory satellite dish looking like little white dartboards on the side. No massive squatter camps here. Only neat suburbs interspersed with the South African mall every few kilometres.

No crap here. Only progress and the massive delivery of the spoils of capitalism to the vast labour pool used by the mines. This is the evidence of the power of the Royal Bafokeng nation. The rest of South Africa would do well to follow their example. All the towns were neat and clean and the roads pristine and well maintained. 

This then made way for the beautiful bushveld of the far western (old) Transvaal. The world of Herman Charles Bosman. Here we stopped at Groot Marico at the sole restaurant in town. Wag ‘n bietjie. Here it got a bit surreal. Mark in the support bakkie drove into a dusty overgrown parking lot and stopped unexpectedly. I was right behind him and was a little slow, caught unawares. 

I braked suddenly and stuck out my foot. A combination of the top-heaviness caused by having my magnificent wife on the back (although it has to be said that top heaviness in her case is a normally extremely attractive thing) and my dead leg from 300km of riding caused the bike to stagger just those 5 degrees too much. My leg, which was numb, gently folded, and the two of us found ourselves lying on our sides with a vast BMW still running between us. In front of a small group of alarmed-looking boers arriving for Tuesday lunch, Rickey Louw’s and Coke. Thank goodness for protective clothing and crash bars. An embarrassing and slightly inauspicious start to our visit. After lifting the bike with everyone’s help we settled in for a cold beer in this slice of Afrikana. 

Large boers accompanied by bottle-blond stout wives arrived at regular intervals in a horde of white double-cab bakkies. Some were with the obligatory nymphet daughters with quivering lips and tresses of blond hair looking around hopefully for potential mates. They all sat at a U-shaped bar sponsored by KWV (unsurprisingly) in the blast of free-standing large air conditioners, drinking brandy and Coke for the men and ciders for the ladies.

Four TVs on the wall showed sport, with the Proteas game dominating. The interior was classic dark with sleeper wood furniture. Afrikaans humour dominated everywhere. And friendliness, with one and all greeting the strange visitors warmly. The signs on the loo reading “mielie meal and koekmeel”. Don’t eat here. But the beer was great and the slice of social life priceless.

Oddities en route. (Photo: Supplied)