Wednesday morning, I kept Africa time in mind when the rental car wasn't delivered at
9:30am, as we'd arranged (and confirmed). I tried to act casual at breakfast, admiring Susie craft another picture-journal masterpiece with her tin of colored pencils. Soon, though, I was pacing The Backpack between our room, triple-checking my bags, and the cafe -- glaring into the quiet parking lot. Finally, I couldn't take it anymore and called the rental agency. "Not to worry, there was a mix up about the drop-off address. You've been given a free upgrade." Phew! Less than ten minutes later, our teensy-tiny, bright-red, stick-shift-on-the-wrong-side Ford Fiesta appeared.At first, it didn't look like all of our luggage was going to fit inside the trunk, which was crucial. Much like San Francisco, it's recommended to leave nothing in the car that's visible from the outside because break-ins are quite common. Susie asked what our upgrade was exactly, since we already knew we'd gotten the smallest, least fancy car that still had air conditioning. "CD player," the delivery man answered simply.
Doh! We totally forgot to pack driving music!
By the time we finished up the paperwork and solved the puzzle of jamming our luggage into the trunk, Hannah arrived in Foxy. Immediately, she presented us with "Santa Barbara to South Africa: the SusieRita Driving CD," plus the red, beaded wire flower we'd been admiring on Foxy's dash all week. Susie volunteered to drive (there was really no choice due to my obvious paralyzing fear of wrong side of the road city driving), and we followed Hannah onto the highway.
Soon, we arrived at the Montebello Design Center, a beautiful artists' studio/showroom
community set up in a series of old farm buildings. This is where we could find some those amazing Mielie handbags, like Hannah carries, and other ethically produced/sold Southern African crafts. This place was so still and beautiful, situated below a series of enormous pine trees so high you could barely see the tops. We strolled around, shopping, checking out artists at work in their potting studios and the forge. This place even had a little organic Farm Store! I was so excited to see bulk grains and organic fruits for sale (don't forget: it's the little things). Susie picked up some intensely gingery ginger cookies for the road.
All too soon, it was time for Foxy-Hannah lead us to the N2 highway and we were off into the wild: all by ourselves. The N2 heading east out of Cape Town (the same route we took to Stellenbosch two days prior) leads you along the edges of Khayelitsha, the largest township in Cape Town. It is vast, a definitive reminder of the extremes between the haves and the have-nots in South Africa. Check out what the wonderful Hannah and her network of creative-thinking, eco-minded, world-changing friends have organized to do for one woman and her family (and this is just their first project): MakeDesign. 
OK, so we're on the N2 for about an hour. We're groovin' along to our tunes, getting comfortable with the whole wrong side of the road business when BLAM!!! A rock cracks into the windshield in front of me. If there had been any time to think, I'm sure my life would have flashed before my eyes. Following our lady-like shrieks, both of us held our breath, shoulders crunched up into our ears, until eventually coming back in to our bodies. The first words out of our collective mouth, "There goes the damned deposit!"At the recommendation of our Cape Town friends, we stopped for lunch in a little town called Swellendam, a town with one main drag and a few stop signs. We settled on a restaurant with outdoor seating and enjoyed the first in a series of toasted cheese sandwiches with tomato on "brown bread" meals accompanied by fake gerber daisies on the tables. Although we were only there for a moment, it was an eventful stop in its own way. First, I managed to lock myself in the bathroom for a panicky five
minutes and nearly had to climb out of a window in which my hips surely would have gotten lodged. Luckily, my last ditch effort of shaking the daylights out of the lock set me free. Second, a small group of kids walked by while we were waiting for the check. They seemed quite interested in us, so we waved enthusiastically. The last boy in the line wasn't willing to take his eyes off of us for one second and proceeded to smack himself right into a pole. I was glad to know I'm not the only one who does that.Back into the rental car, who by now we had named Tchomie (an Afrikaaner word for pal/friend that we picked up the other night at Ganesh) -- no more stops until we reached our destination in a little town on the Indian Ocean called Wilderness. One of the main things we learned about personal safety as unaccompanied female tourists in South Africa was never to be driving around in unknown territory after dark. So, imagine our relief upon pulling into The Fairy-Knowe Backpacker at dusk. We welcomed the sight of hippies around the campfire and several adorable dogs trotting about. Unfortunately, the hostess had, merely hours before, decided to give up our reserved room to her brother because we had neglected to confirm our reservation.
Ahem. I mentioned before my attention to detail and unadulterated love for planning ahead. As I recalled, I had in fact confirmed our reservation the week prior via email. Even though the hostess did find said email on her computer, she took advantage of her inane and unclear policy of confirming within three days of the reservation (honestly, who ever heard of such a thing?!), she was at liberty to give away our room.
Whatever.
This is one of those times in life where I was in charge of what we were going to do next, seeing as all of our lodging was planned entirely by me. But, by now, it was rapidly approaching total darkness outside and this woman obviously wasn't going out of her way to give us a place to stay at her establishment.
Whatever.
Still, she assured us she could find us an alternative that was "just as nice." She pulled out a tiny, red backpacker guidebook that I remembered being told by Hannah was the most reliable one around. With a giant leap of faith, we grumpily returned to Tchomie and followed the driving directions back into town, then up a hill out of town, and hesitantly crept down a couple of long dirt roads until we arrived at the Asante Caravan and Camping. It was pretty much dark by the time we arrived and Susie was clearly not thrilled with the situation. In my mind, I absolutely had to make it OK for her, which somehow gave me a whole new relationship with my tendency to need to "stick to the plan, man."
With our guard way up, we were met by Janus, the bare-footed, dread-locked owner of Asante who was playing pool with his staff when we arrived. Immediately, his demeanor and appearance set me at ease because he reminded me so much of my oldest brother. I was now going with the flow, but he hadn't managed to soothe Susie's nerves. Janus lead us down a path to his "only vacant caravan" for the night, sharing with us his praise of the beauty/safety of the area and future plans for his property. (just in case you didn't click the link, a caravan backpacker might sound all magical and delightful, but caravan is just a fancy word for old, small camper without a toilet)
Have I stressed the fact that this place was in the WILDERNESS? not just IN Wilderness? Seeing as we had no other options for the evening, we brought in the bare necessities from Tchomie and headed back into town for another pizza dinner (who knew there was so much incredibly yummy pizza to be had in SA?). It took some doing, but, by the end of the $11 dollar meal (drinks included!), I had convinced Miss Susie that this snafu would be a great story once we were back home. Shortly after this picture was taken, she returned to her usual smiling self and drove us back up the hill to Asante.
It was an adventure staying in the caravan. The bathroom was about twenty yards from our caravan and locating the outdoor lights wasn't really possible in the dark. The caravan had that sort of thirty-years old stale smell about it and our "beds" were smaller than the average sofa. But, we slept and that's all we really were there to do.
I fell asleep congratulating myself for my ability to go with the flow of a botched reservation and figured that Africa time might not be such a foreign concept after all.
