Posted under Africa & South Africa
The Garden Route: first stop – Wilderness National Park. As we exited the N2 into the tiny town of Wilderness, we were immediately awed by our surroundings. The town was set against a steep rock cliff with posh-looking cabins and B&Bs sprinkled at the base and a few more grandiose cabins at the top. There was one main street with a handful of restaurants, a gas station, a market and an internet café that was already closed for the day by early afternoon.
Our hostel, Fairy Knowe Backpackers was nestled in a thick patch of forest on the edge of the Wilderness National Park. Our room was on the second floor of a quaint little cottage with a steep, narrow handcrafted staircase that, surprisingly, didn’t cause any backpackers to plummet to their deaths during our stay. The room was clean and spacious with noticeably fresh, thick white sheets on the bed. There were two shared bathrooms, one upstairs and one downstairs, which always seemed to be inconveniently occupied, a kitchenette, and several tables and chairs on the wraparound covered patio.
The highlight of our short stay in Wilderness (not counting the absolutely divine escargot appetizer, swimming in butter and fresh garlic and smothered in bacon and melted cheese, which we had for dinner the first night) was a canoe trip on the Touw River inside the national park with a hike to a waterfall.
We arrived at the canoe lodge around ten a.m. with a quiet tension already brewing between us – the kind that inevitably develops when you’ve been with the same person twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week, for a long time without allowing yourselves that much-needed personal space. I, being the more introverted of the two of us, recognize the need in myself and can almost always attribute my blue moods to a need for some time alone.
It takes effort and discipline to maintain balance. I always used to think that my constantly overcommitted work and community action schedule kept me from maintaining that coveted level of emotional and spiritual balance but I realize now that, even without those activities, there will always be potential distractions that I must manage in order to find time for reflection and prayer. Lately, it is only when I sit down to write in my journal, a time when Aaron knows not to disturb me, that I take the time to reach within myself and evaluate my discovery. I have always found writing to be therapeutic. I lack the discipline, however, to push aside all of my distractions and quarantine myself for even thirty minutes each day. I was reminded of the importance of this practice when Aaron and I accompanied Father Michael on an Orthodox mission trip to Mexico. The purpose of the trip was to build a house for a family. We stayed for a week on the property of an Orthodox orphanage for boys. Every morning during that week, the priests, missionaries and orphanage residents would gather in the church for morning prayers. We would then scatter about, find a quiet spot, and take thirty minutes of silence before breakfast. During that time, some people read Scripture or wrote in their journals while others just sat and collected their thoughts. That week, I vowed to make the practice of daily reflection a part of my crazy real life schedule but failed miserably. Still, I haven’t given up. It is a lifestyle change and it requires patience. In the meantime, we’ll try to take quiet moments when we can. But anyway, back to the canoes…
We had called ahead to reserve a canoe so the check-in time was relatively painless and, before we knew it, we were pushing off into the brown water of the Touw River. The first stretch was upstream to a spot where we would bank the canoe and begin the hike. We had been forewarned that excessive flooding had pulled down some trees and scattered debris over the trail but it was still passable. As we approached the first pass where the river diverged, the current grew stronger while the pass became shallow and rocky. We paddled fiercely but erratically and, after four failed attempts, we banked on a sandbar in the middle of the river. The tension in the canoe was rising fast, fueled by the desperation of our frantic and fruitless physical exertion. I sat in the front while Aaron took up the rear but there might as well have been a brick wall between us for as misaligned as our spirits were. With no hope of paddling over the pass, we had to pick up the canoe and portage over the sandbar. Thankfully, each end had a handle but the canoe was heavy and awkward and, with our level of teamwork taking a swift nosedive, the albatross banged clumsily into our legs, causing us to curse and snap at each other. There was even one brief embarrassing moment, when we got the canoe back into the water, where I wanted to turn around and forget the whole canoe experience while Aaron was determined to press on so we were each furiously working our paddles to turn the canoe in opposite directions. If anyone saw us in that moment, before I decided that it was pointless to continue, we must have looked utterly ridiculous!
As we righted ourselves and continued upriver, I turned to my husband and suggested that we try paddling in unison – he agreed. As Aaron called out the strokes – “Two left. Three right. Two left.” – two things happened. We began to move smoothly and swiftly through the water and the tension in the canoe began to dissipate, replaced by the camaraderie of two teammates with a common purpose. Suddenly, we began to notice the beauty of our surroundings: a winding, narrow river cutting through lush wooded mountains. Many parts of the river were shallow and we found ourselves paddling against gravel, rocks and sandbars, though we only had to portage one more time. If this was the depth after heavy rains, we wondered how the river was even passable with normal rains. The upriver stretch was a challenge and, as we rounded the last bend and spotted several banked canoes, marking the entrance to the hiking trail, we were breathlessly jubilated.
We quickly changed into our hiking shoes, pulled our backpack out of the watertight bucket, and set out on the trail. We walked for about an hour through dense forest along the river. The terrain was varied, which made the hike all the more interesting. There were sections of straight, flat trail, dimly lit by the little sunlight that pervaded through the thick mass of green tree branches overhead. There were boulders to climb, bridges to cross, steep inclines and makeshift ladders for sharp declines. The trail was surprisingly well-intact in spite of the excessive rainfall, though there were scattered obstacles of fallen trees and overgrown brush, which required us to bushwhack off the trail a bit. By the time we reached the waterfall – a cluster of large, smooth boulders with water spilling into a succession of pools – we were famished. We climbed over a few rocks to a flat area about halfway up, pulled out the lunch that we’d packed, and made our picnic in the afternoon sun. We had been told that people swim in the pool at the bottom – that the murky brown tint was caused by tannins rather than pollution – but nevertheless, brown water just looks uninviting and we were perfectly content climbing around on the rocks and soaking up the sun.
The canoe ride downriver was effortless in comparison to the upriver stretch. The current seemed so much gentler as it carried us over the shallow sections and small rapids that we’d struggled over earlier. As we pulled the canoe onto the bank near the canoe lodge and collected our belongings, we were both quietly relieved. We drove back to Fairy Knowe and stayed in for the evening, socializing with other travelers and relaxing after our exciting day. The canoe trip was a fulfilling adventure accompanied by an apparently much-needed reminder that it is always better to work as a team than to exhibit snide, snotty behavior and paddle in opposite directions.
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