For our trip to Namibia, Marius, hence forth know as Jack, borrowed an annoying and often times confused GPS from a friend in Bloemfontein. This pompous navigator we christened Rufus and I became Jane.
In addition to the GPS, his essentials and about 30kilos of body casting material, Jack also brought a pile of camping equipment and a huge roll of bubble wrap. Jack travels light. I brought a map, some clothes, a video camera and a thermos for coffee, which I still haven’t returned to its owner. The debate over which navigational tool actually proved to be most useful is still hotly contested; but the bubble wrap is not. The bubble wrap was damn handy – but that bit of the story comes later.
We headed out of town at about 4am and had made our first of many wrong turns by 5:30am. We were so caught up in conversation and enthusiasm by the adventure awaiting us, and the prospect of meeting the San soldiers still living at Omega that I didn’t even open the map and Jack forgot to turn of Rufus. We just drove.
We finally had the sense to stop at a petrol station outside of Christiana and Jack punched in our destination. As soon as Rufus register our location he proclaimed, with the disdain of a persnickety Headmaster scolding his feeble-minded students, “Off rout.”
Jack immediately took umbrage, “ We know that! That’s why we turned this bloody thing on.” I just shrugged, “Sorry man, it’s early.”
By the time we backtracked 40kilometers, stopped for cigarettes and chewing gum, and got back on rout, the sun was up and shining brightly. We found ourselves on a picturesque tree lined road that ran through farming country: bucolic Africa at its best. Out trip was made at the end of June so it was still winter then, but the fields to either side of us were already touched with the sweet, gentle green of Lucerne just come of age. We turned up my friend Dené Theron’s CD, 1,000 Cups of Tea, rolled the windows down, and sat back to enjoy the excited yet contented feeling of finally being on our way. Then a cranky voice bleated out at us from Rufus’ side of the dashboard, “You are over the speed limit. You are Over the speed limit.”
“What?” Jack looked shocked, “But there’s no one on the road but us!”
“Come on Rufus…” I chimed in. But Rufus wasn’t budging, “You are over the speed limit. You are over –“
“I know, damn it,” Jack interrupted. “I’m slowing down now.”
“You are over the speed limit.” Rufus was on a roll now and I swear his tone got nastier with each condemnation. “You are-“
“Oh shut up Rufus!” I nearly shouted. “Jack, can’t you turn him off?”
“I would but I don’t know this road, I’m afraid we’ll get lost again,” he said sheepishly.
“Ah hell, well then lets turn the music up.”
“Yea, let’s do that,” Jack grinned, and gave Rufus the finger.
No comments:
Post a Comment